Chaotic Clusterfuck 42 (Patreon)

Chaotic Clusterfuck

Chapter 42

-VB-

Roy Christener thought that he had done a good job for the city so far.

As he saw it, the job of the mayor wasn’t to direct the city and its people to do something. Perhaps a mayor of a different city might do so, but the people of Brockton Bay were … energetic to say the least. They had enough energy to fight anyone and everyone, even when they lived in the muck and poison. 

To be a good mayor of Brockton Bay, one didn’t dictate terms but offered options to its people. No, a good mayor of Brockton Bay brought people together and helped them make connections. And if they ran into any problem, then they approached him and he got to decide whether or not their plans were good or bad for the city. 

That’s how he got Alan Marris to help the city while helping himself. 

A lot of people thought Marris was taking advantage of the city, but Roy didn’t see it that way. 

In fact, the profits Marris earned came back to support the city at least two fold! 

See, Marris wasn’t one of those high end finance CEOs who worked with only short term profit in mind. The man saw that there was more to life than a couple million dollars right in front of them, and moved to establish business after business to expand his business empire. 

And the city had a lot of niches that needed to be filled after the decades of mismanagement before him. 

The new port, the new water treatment… hell, there was even a new recycling plant and refinery at the northern edge of the city! 

Work was flowing into the city at a rate unseen before. It made him wonder if he was seeing a new renaissance for Brockton Bay, and it might have been him, Roy Christener, who made it happen. 

Such thoughts made his stomach giddy with delight. 

And that was the general mood he was in despite PRT interference time and time again… until today. 

“What?” he hissed as he stared across the table. 

Sitting at the dinner table with his children (all three of them) and his wife was his in-laws.

To both Pamala and Rory, the man sitting across from them was just Uncle Charles. 

But to Roy Christener who met him in the backrooms, this was Charles Rockefeller, the latest of the Rockefellers to have good sense, good money, and a cold, calculating mind. 

“”I am thinking about investing into your city,” he repeated with a smile. “Specifically, those new business your friend is setting up. Marris, I believe?”

“Charles, you don’t want to mess with Marris,” he warned the one of three Rockefellers who were in his age bracket. 

“What makes you think I’ll be anything but polite with them, Roy? Give me some credit,” Charles chuckled. He then glanced at Rory. “Say, Rory, what is Marris like? You’ve met him before, right? At charities, balls, events… elsewhere.”

It was an open secret among the Christeners and the Rockefellers that Rory was Triumph. In fact, Charles had been one of the first to congratulate Roy and Rory mere days after Triumph was accepted into the Protectorate. 

No one in Roy’s family had told him about Rory’s new power.

Rockefellers had deep pockets, and Charles had a deeper pocket than most Rockefellers. 

Before Roy could interject, Adriana, his wife, spoke up first. 

“Brother, I would leave Marris alone if I were you. He already rejected your offers of investment, I assume?” 

Charles paused before glancing at her. “Yes.”

“Then just call it a loss and move on. You don’t want to mess with Marris. This, I promise you.”

Her words made Charles pause more contemplatively. Why wouldn’t he? She was the Prophet of the Rockefellers. The one whose predictions always came true not because she had some pre-cog power (they checked) but simply because she was that good. 

“... Really. You’re telling me to back off on my future investment?”

The man looked like he wanted to say “prey” instead.

“That investment might come around and bite you instead,” she replied. “Even the family’s private army won’t be enough to stop Marris if he really wants you dead, brother.”

“... Truly?”

“Truly.”

Rory looked uneasy. “I… I know a few things the director and Armsmaster didn’t want to put in the reports.”

That got all three of the older adults - yes, including Roy himself - to look at his eldest son. 

“Oh, do tell, Rory,” Charles smiled. “I’ll make sure to pay you handsomely for that.”

“Please don’t,” Rory grimaced. “It’s just … conjecture. Yes, just a conjecture. I don’t know anything and I’m not a member of the PRT or the Protectorate.”

“Of course, of course.”

Rory looked around and took a deep breath in.

“The last suspected number of parahumans working for Marris is over a hundred, and the newer members are stronger than the older ones.”

That made the room freeze.

“Over a hundred?” Charles asked slowly. 

“Yes,” Roy hissed. “That man has connections like no one else or he’s breeding capes like it’s no one’s business. If you mess with him, then you’re messing with over a hundred capes who can thrash your average Protectrate branch leader. It’ll just take a squad of them to put someone like Armsmaster and Myrddin six foot under.”

“Besides,” Adriana drawled. “Messing with him is messing with our prosperity, brother. You wouldn’t harm your family, would you?”

Charles sighed and raised his arms in surrender. “Fine, fine. Jesus, where can a man find a good investment opportunity?” he grumbled. 

Roy let out a sigh of relief. 

That was one disaster averted. 

Sometimes, being a good mayor of Brockton Bay was preventing people from meeting further. Sometimes, there were people who didn’t take no for an answer, and such people needed to be kept away from each other. 

---

Outside of the house after dinner, Charles lit up a cigarette and took in a deep breath. 

The lanky and tall man, if always very well dressed, thought about what he’d learned. When he came to visit the Christeners, he expected to find good advice or support. Instead, they stood vehemently opposed to his potential acquisition of Marris’s assets … and they had a good reason to try to stop him. 

He knew that he was all too like the Founder, as some among the family called him. Great-Grandpa, others said. 

And he knew like they all did that great-grandpa didn’t get to where he did without a lot of nonconsensual violence. Hell, that’s how he, Charles Rockefeller, became a big name among the big name that was his family. 

He thought that he might be able to move in and take some of the new up and coming businesses from this Alan Marris… but nope. 

Adriana’s words and warnings could not be ignored. 

And over a hundred capes? That’s absurd. 

Absurd … yet it might explain why the man was doing so well. If someone had just a quarter of capes Marris was purported to have and put them to work, then that alone would generate a magnificent profit. 

“You’re still tempted.”

He glanced over his shoulder and saw Adriana. 

“... I might be,” he admitted while scratching his cleanly shaven chin and met Adriana’s void-like black eyes. 

“I said my piece already,” she replied. “I certainly won’t like it, though, if you decide to go against my warning.”

“Oh? Why is that?” he asked with a croon. “Is this city your territory?”

“It is my family’s city,” she hummed noncommittally, though Charles knew better than to believe her outward body language. “My husband’s put a lot of work into it. I will be cross if that work is ruined because someone refused to heed my advice.”

“Ah, but that’s what advices are, no? Advices, not orders.”

She glared at him while holding herself to the prim and proper stance he’d seen way too many times during his childhood and adolescence. 

“Charles.”

He shivered. 

“Yeah, sis?”

“I have eight other brothers and sisters. I won’t shed too many tears if you decide to be stubborn.”

“... Geez. You really don’t want me to muck about, huh?”

She sneered. It wasn’t directed at him, though. “This city has too many problems already. One more wouldn’t change too many things but you’ll make me get emotionally involved and I don’t like that.”

“Aw, so you do care!” 

-VB-

“Oh, that Charles was your brother-in-law?” I asked. 

It was a routine meeting between the mayor and I.

“Yes,” he hummed. “I was told that he had an interest in your company, and you refused him? I’m not here to encourage you to accept his offer, just curious about how that came about.”

“Oh, that,” I laughed. “I’m just greedy. What’s mine and no one’s going to have a say in it. That’s it.”

“Oh, so it wasn’t a business tactic at all? Like reject it the first time so they come back with a better offer?”

“Nope,” I shook my head before taking a bite of the perfectly grilled and seasoned atlantic salmon. “Just me not wanting to give up anything at this point.” Then I paused. “But if you want me to, then I can offer to sell some stock in the company. You have been very helpful to me, after all.”

“Oh, no, you don’t have to,” he laughed. “I just wanted to know what made my usually unflappable and cold brother-in-law so frustrated.”

I chuckled. “Ah, yes. I do tend to have that effect on people.” I didn’t get what he was so mirthful about, but hey, I must have done something right. 

I may have been more terse than usual when I rejected his investment offer because he interrupted me when I was having fun exploring new positions with Emma, Zoe, and Anne, but all’s that ends well.