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Chapter Four: Advertising

Derrick Christner stared down at the bill in front of him. The product of six years of revisions. This document had been first drafted when he’d been tossing the idea of running for Mayor around, and even that draft was a massive revision of a still earlier one. All told, some form of this document had sat on the desk of at least three Mayors, and all of them had turned it down for one reason or another. 

“Very well,” he said, shakily. “Let’s do it.” 

“Mayor if you’d ju- wait what?” Daniel Hebert paused as if he hadn’t heard correctly. Considering how many times the man had been rejected, his surprise was not at all surprising. 

“I said, let’s do it. Let’s give it a shot,” Derrick said softly, grimacing as he did. 

This would plunge the city into even further debt. Clearing the boat graveyard was good, moral work, for sure, and recycling the metal might actually provide some small short term profit. Reviving the Ferry? The pointless creation of a prize target for the gangs. No one would use it, and it would ruin his career. But better that… 

He grit his teeth as he tried to hold back his temper. It took a few moments but he managed to calm himself and loose a sigh. He would be fine for quite some time, and giving up his political career wouldn’t be the end of the world. Hell, who knew? The ferry plan might really work, though he doubted it. 

“Th-thank you sir!” Daniel exclaimed, clearly completely unaware that Derrick would be agreeing to his proposal today. To be honest, Derrick had stopped looking months ago. Seeing the hiring manager of the dockworkers’ union tweaking his proposal time and time again had become old long ago. The idea was flawed at its core, because people did not feel safe on the water. 

It didn’t matter that Leviathan was just as likely to attack Honolulu as Brockton. No one wanted to sail. So revitalizing the docks was doomed to fail. The ferry was a tourist trap as much as a transportation hub. If it worked and the gangs didn’t wreck it in the first two days of operation… What would it accomplish?

It would feed the dockworkers. All six or seven thousand of them. The docks wouldn’t revitalize, and the sea trade wouldn’t burgeon like he thought it would. Instead the city would have sunk thousands into clearing the bay, only for the rest of the city to fall when they couldn’t afford to upkeep the damn boardwalk, which was the only reason any money even came to the town. 

‘But what do I know, I’m only the mayor,’ 

He had no choice though. It was this, or that little bitch would expose his son. This imbecile’s daughter, had somehow found out about Triumph. Worse still, she agreed with her father about the damn Ferry program. And he had no idea how she’d found out that he’d bought his son’s powers. 

She’d summoned him this evening. Some sort of gathering. And he, a fully grown man, the god damn mayor of a city with over three hundred thousand residents… had to come at the beck and call of a fucking teenager. 

And he would, because he loved his son. He was coming to regret buying the powers though. They were more trouble than they were worth.