"...And hereby let me call this meeting of the shareholders to order. I don't think we have that many emotions to pass, but we need to hold this for the accountability of the transitional systems authority as well as to make sure that the public is informed of what's going on."

  Janet's voice was clear and practiced.

  "As far as the matter of return on investment, there is no change and we emplore out shareholders to give as much as possible so that we can secure a future. It's important that we stay within the realm of the law as well as staying within the realm of what's possible. And if we start cordoning off more of Manhattan, then maybe we'll be able to finish that 2nd avenue Subway. But it all starts here, with us all.."

  Bagel tuned it out. He was well aware that nobody was going to show up for this one. He hadn't expected much and he had been delivered less.

  Why was it that humans didn't show up to the meetings of the companies they held stock in? Was it because they were too busy trying to fight against mobs that were spawning all over? Or was it because they had better things to do?

  All of his friends had things to do. Or at least they said they did. And that meant that he was going to be able to take care of his master plan. If Noah was paying attention to what he was doing, they couldn't stop him. And if they couldn't stop him? Then it was as good as them giving him carte blanche to take care of what he needed to take care of.

  Once Janet was done with her two motions, they opened up for public commentary. He didn't even have to put some goons out. People were too busy with their own individual lives to come and comment on this. Bagel shrugged.

  "I think we're going to close open comments right now. We're going to go by the majority opinion for this next operation and the usage of the city's investment. We are opening up the floor of a comment and we're going to give it our due diligence." Janet paws for the longest five seconds of Bagels life. "Seeing as we don't have any new motions Mr. Chairman, would you like to adjourn?"

  Bagel had practiced his line. "Motion to adjourn."

  And just like that, he got his mandate. It was so much easier to pass these motions on established shareholder meetings. All he had to do was make sure that the next location of the shareholder meeting wasn't advertising a newsletter and when no one showed up he could just shove through whatever he wanted.

  It felt powerful.

  And now he wanted to do anything he could to preserve that.

  ---

  "I'm sorry. The rent's going to be what it's going to be. We need the money and after we've got all Manhattan then we can renegotiate. It's really only two credits. Just kill a mob or have somebody else kill a mob for you," Gladys said.

  "I'm not a deck bearer though." The woman looked down. She clearly had been through the worst of it.

  "We have a special fund for people like you," Gladys said. "You can expect that you'll have to do something, but it's only two credits. A lunch year costs one credit. You can't figure out a way to make two credits for a month?"

  Gladys was standing by the grill once again. Everyone that wanted a place wanted it for cheap. And they couldn't really make it much cheaper than it was. It wasn't even like they were asking for much. Vega was ready to start giving away cards for free just to get people out there and killing mobs. But now they would have to venture at least four blocks from the building unless they were going to the arena.

  The arena itself was fraught. If she gave this woman a starter deck then she would disappear. Potentially she might never return. Cards had an intrinsic value because you could summon something temporarily that could do lasting harm or violence. There was no non-lethal damage from a summon or mob.

  It was clear that if there was a designer behind these cards, they were definitely thinking about killing people primarily. Everything else was a secondary thing. Lethality itself had a meaning.

  " Looked. I've got a lot of cards here and I can give you a temporary deck but you have to repay us. Not everybody is able to make doo out on the streets by themselves but you can do it. I can see it. You should have to explain to us what you going to be doing with it. You can always go work for the turtleback adventurers guild. They know what they're doing."

  "I'm not even from here. I'm from the upper East Side..."

  Gladys knew that there was another adventurous guild forming up there though she had he had visited. The upper East Side was between them and Spanish Harlem. It was a bunch of Rich old folk that thought that they could be adventurers that were now trying to get it on.

  They regularly came down to buy buy gear from the turtleback adventurers guild.

  Gladys hadn't had too many interactions with them either positive or negative but she knew had the upper East Side worked. All those up formerly upper class people were now having to make their way without their old money connections. Some were thriving among others clearly had never worked a day in their life, like this woman.

  Glad I didn't feel too bad. She clearly been sold to build goods when she was young and was still trying to collect it.

  The game had changed. Now a woman who could have lasted in high society for years and years, had clearly been driven to the brink.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  She was exactly the kind of woman that would never have given Gladys a chance in the old world. And now Gladys had to make the decision whether to give her a chance. Gladys checked her system and found that she had enough credits to buy out and he started deck for the woman.

  That would be acceptable.

  There were so many pizza rat cards that she could just donate a full one with or without the special item. For this one? She would use her own money for this. Perhaps she would come and pay her back, perhaps not.

  That just wasn't enough money for her to worry about. Plus you had way too many pizza rack cards of our own. She'd even slip in an Omega rat or two. The evolved version would do wonders for the woman if she so chose. It meant that she was going to have to specialize in electric but that was acceptable.

  It was tragic how many people have died during the first two months, but the humans were holding on everyone that couldn't hack it. The first month or two? Those people were gone. Now everyone was well aware of the threat.

  "You understand that they're going to kill you if they get a challenge right? You've got to pick a good perk or two and you might survive. And you have to have to do as much as you can to get experience. We're heading to the place where we can buy a half a city block everyday."

  "That's good right?" The woman accepted the cards.

  "It's good and it's bad because you know what's going to happen? You won't have a chance to make that up. We've got an arena just south of where the United Nations was. Where we bring people in."

  Gladys explained the arena setup they had and the woman seemed intrigued. Rather than being discouraged, she actually went and Gladys gave her directions.

  Whatever the pigeons had? Or the squirrels? She would see it through. So long as people were willing to go and soak up credits through the little controlled method that the Turtle Bay adventurers guild had cooked up, they might be all right.

  ---

  "Thanks for inviting me out here guys. I feel like we need to talk about meatball because I don't see her a lot," Ashley said.

  Kate was loudly cutting her steak and savoring each bite as Raul and his family washed on. If Ashley didn't know better, she would have thought that Kate was trying to make it a spectacle. But she knew better and the woman was just hungry. And it was a beautiful thing when a strong busty woman ate food in front of you. Ashley got to enjoy watching her girlfriend eat and it felt so visceral she wished she'd known that she was going to enjoy it so much.

  Perhaps then she wouldn't have thought about it.

  ---

  "I think we need to have a little chat. You and I; we need to identify what we're doing next and we need to be on the same page."

  "This is very true. What did you have in mind?"

  " If we have the time then I think that what we need to do is codify what we're doing next and then what our end state is. Are we going to be an elected Cat Republic inside of a larger human world? Or are we going to strike it out on our own? I think that depends on how much land we grab..."

  In the end there was a fundamental disagreement they had. But they will want to get more land and Copernicus wanted to consolidate power.

  " But you understand that the more that we consolidate our power into these little con claves the more difficult it's going to be to strike out further. There's safety in our numbers and I think that's one of the lessons of the system wanted to impart to us. I don't like it but I think that's what it wants us to do," Bagel said. " There's a reason why dungeons are driven by multiple users in many or all cases."

  The humans are put together and then explain it to him. They had started off with a certain thing in mind and now it expanded. Whoever had made this up had wanted people to come in as groups. It was the only way that this would work. So many of the dungeons required a group or a team working together. And many of them acquired a team of about 10. The average was six to eight though.

  Groups of that size meant that they needed some sort of support and that was what big was here to provide.

  " I get what you're trying to do. But we need to figure out a way to feed more people and we're not going to be able to do that on this island. We have to start expanding no matter what and even if we have hundreds of boxes of food that says it means somebody that's..."

  "We need to build a little community here. No matter what's going on with the TSA and the buying up of land. We had to have a community here and that's why I'm thinking that we need to get more cats on board."

  Bagel lent her enough cat jokes. He just wished that he'd get more cats to stick around once they become deck bearers.

  He just needed more people to buy into his store and to figure out a way to get more product out. Once you follow those loopholes then he could solve that and the quicker that happened, the easier it would be for him to get this argument across. Copernicus was too conservative about what he wanted to do. And a time that big bullhead built his half pink throne.

  Copernicus had a need to be more adventurous. There was no forcing fudge for this. He would just have to figure out a way or make one.