Stratas of Fusion 2 – Inside Politics

Horace did his best to look imposing.

It was an easy job. He was tall, covered in scars from an eventful life, bald, and the grim stare came naturally to him. Most of his life had been spent using that stare to make other Abyssals of power wonder whether he was worth messing with. A plan that had worked often enough that he had been capable of holding a small fiefdom inside what was now firmly Fusion’s territory.

The arrival of John Newman had changed everything for the better for Horace. The constant struggle to protect what few people he could and to guarantee a life worth living on the magical side of things had been replaced with simple political worries. They were dull compared to the excitement of personal work, but he much preferred the boredom over adding more scars to himself.

Initially he had been sceptical about things. Whether it was this outspoken scepticism that had gotten him appointed to the House of Exceptionals, he could not say. The people he had protected were not numerous enough to have pushed him through. Maybe it was just the stare. He was told that strong-looking men had better chances to be picked for such a job.

Horace had simply rolled with it. He had also rolled with the president personally approaching him with a request. A request that had been to, if possible, convince the western small guilds to join Fusion peacefully. A job that, to his own surprise, Horace had excelled at. Pacificia had joined Fusion without a drop of blood shed.

Since then, he had somehow managed to become a nexus point of importance.

He was seated between the Wrath and the Crowning Party in this current emergency gathering of Parliament. The semicircular chamber was built around a regular podium, which stood before the ornate, layered stand that the members of the executive usually sat at.

Few of the ministers were present. President, chancellor and finance minister had all three moved out of the country. A statement that was not entirely true, with at least one body of the Gamer around enough to have joined the defences of the Red Light district. Still, the three most important members of the executive were not around and so many other members of cabinet had decided that it was not their place to show either.

Importantly, however, the minister of defence had shown up. He was a bald man with deep brown skin and even darker eyes. He wore the uniform of Fusion’s troops, having been part of the armed forces until shortly after the Iron Domain affair had concluded. Apparently he had been meant to take the role of a general and might yet still do that. It was public knowledge that Momo cycled through new ministers with decreasing regularity.

It was difficult to find good people for the job, Horace respected that.

As the current company readily proved.

“It is… to be understood that the… issues we are having now could be prevented if our society… frowned upon **** use more intensely.” The speaker licked his lips and turned to the next page. In the brief moment between the motion of his hands and the reading of the next line, the man glimpsed up at the wider chamber. It was not long enough to have really seen anything. “None of the current… issues… would be had if the Bae Circle did not exist.”

The current speaker, a member of the far right Project Shield party, was an utterly mediocre one. He had little of interest to say and did not say it in an interesting manner. The one that followed, this time from the centre-left Economists party, was not much better.

“The issue that we have… as I see it!” He had spikes at the weirdest moments of his sentences. “Is that we… all! Suffer from a lack of certainty. This is born not from any… Economic freedoms! No, it is the protection provided by the executive being… lacklustre!”

Horace could not suppress his yawn any longer. His eyes wandered over the empty rows of benches above. The parliament was built like a theatre, with plenty of seats from which the curious public could watch their politicians work. An offer few, besides journalists and lobbyists, ever made much note of, but it was the gesture that counted.

By the time that Horace’s eyes had wandered back to the speaker, he realized he was being stared at. Apparently, his yawn had been a bit louder than he had anticipated. He still had a number of bad habits from the time he had been a successful warlord. It was easy to be brash when one was a big fish in a small pond. Now he wasn’t even among the top 10 strongest people in the chamber of 100.

All the same, they all looked at him.

“Do you wish to say something, colleague?” the current speaker asked.

It was an important phrase. The institution of parliament had existed for over a year now and a few traditions about how things were run had been established. By request of the president, they attempted not to formalize too much. A system too rigid lost the dynamism required to deal with unexpected situations adequately.

Specifically, this phrase ceded the podium, if someone wanted to bring up a point.

Horace nodded, then rose to his feet. “I would like to say something, yes,” he confirmed and walked forward. The speaker stepped aside, an annoyed glint in his eye. He must have hoped that Horace would make a fool of himself.

The representative of the Melting Pot state in the House of Exceptionals grabbed the edges of the podium and gathered his thoughts. His eyes lingered on the empty chair he had left behind. Its position between the Wrath and Crowning Party was deliberate to the ****, for he had common cause with both. An interesting position that he had initially held and that had caused the two parties to gradually meld with time. Yet another accidental way he had become important.

“Ladies and gentlemen of Parliament,” he began. “I find all of this appalling. Rather than talk about a specific solution or the mobilization of troops, my colleagues across several parties have found it in themselves to debate issues they already had an opinion on. You are not letting a crisis go to waste, I see that, and I find it detestable.”

Grumbles around the room were easily ignored.

“We have heard from the right wing of the room that they are owed a realm closer to their perfect vision of a society, free of all the things that they think no one should engage in. To that I say that you restrict the access to dangers from children, not from citizens you serve. If you wish to assure no one ever takes any ****, be a role model, not a wall.”

Louder grumbles this time, some even shouted. Horace mustered his best grim stare and shut them up.

“From the left wing of the room we have heard a constant stream of entitlements. You demand to be protected by the man that gave you the structures to defend yourself, who has already made your life infinitely safer than it was before.” Horace gestured between the right and the left of the room. “You two make good bedfellows. One wishes to treat others like children, the other wishes to be treated like children.”

More and more discontent in the chamber, but Horace did not care. He had wanted to say this for a while.

“Since you have deemed to advertise your views in your speeches, I shall do the same: if you want to be the most prosperous realm there could be, expand the military and put a crown on the head of the man that made all of this possible – or at least do not whine to him about your own inadequacies.”

The jeers were overpowered by the drumming feat in the middle of the chamber. The Wrath and Crowning Party were usually not in the majority, but the emergency session had only pulled in the always present and the militaristic of the bunch. Courtesy of that, most of the room was on Horace’s side in this.

“Safety comes from ****. So much **** that no one would dare to violate it. In this matter, we have the **** of our president’s golem body on our side. That is as much **** as we can expect to be given.” Horace turned to the defence minister for a moment, to exchange a nod. “In the interest of making this swift, I propose simply that we allow the full mobilization of the military until Hypercrush is caught.”

“That seems excessive,” one of the people threw in.

Horace shook his head. “It is the only proper response. Of course, we would not be in this situation had some people just listened.”

“Soldiers may die.”

“And civilians might live,” Horace stated firmly. “I shall personally lead the armed forces if that is what is required.”

“It is not,” the defence minister spoke. “As our esteemed colleague already said, time is of the essence. I request that you move to the vote now.”

There were some final grumbles, but Emrik stepped forwards to begin the process all the same. The Speaker of Commons had been quiet, but that was a regular occurrence. Horace did not like the man very much. He had a tendency of getting his way without lifting a finger. No doubt this was also the case here. In the release of Hypercrush from custody, they had seen eye to eye.

The vote passed 73 against 27. Horace did not know what those 27 were thinking and neither did he care. There was only so much empathy he could spare when it came to making sure Fusion lasted.

He never wanted to go back to wondering if he would wake up the next morning.

The gathering dissolved afterwards. Journalists waited in the adjacent corridors. Horace ignored their questions with the skill of a seasoned politician. Even though he did it, acting as if people asking him questions did not exist still felt weird.

He continued to walk, hanging onto his thoughts. Things were getting more complicated within Fusion’s system the more John Newman obliged the calls that everyone should be heard. He respected the attempt for it all, but it felt as if every new month brought in three more layers of confirmation required to act. This was sometimes because of actual legislation drafted. Most of the time, however, it was that different interest groups were competing and a set of them had to be convinced to get anything done. Usually, that involved watering down the thing that needed to be done.

It worked for now, but Horace did not believe in the longtime stability of democracy. He respected that others did. He considered them misguided and had read his share of books on the topic over the past year. He also did not think militant action was necessary. As far as Horace was concerned, he was in keeping with reality, which meant reality would inevitably make the arguments for him.

“Where to?” his driver asked, once he had gotten in the back of the car.

“The Bae Circle,” Horace stated.

Even if his help was not necessary, he would still give it.