Chapter 81: Hidden Agendas
Norris and Bradford, two influential figures within the Alliance and Revival City, had completely lost their composure at this moment.
“Damn Mondok! Insisting on a hardline approach! His death is no loss, but what do we do now? The army is gone, the city is sealed off, and we are now all fish on the chopping board!” Bradford, with disheveled hair, looked both crazed and terrified.
However, as he spoke, he couldn’t help but sneak glances at Norris across from him.
Hearing Bradford’s words, the elderly Norris remained silent. Beneath his thick white hair and beard, his expression—formed by his eyebrows and lips—was one of deep gloom.
Bradford gritted his teeth and continued to complain: “What do we do now? Is there any way out? Did you see the photos? Did you see the videos? That Gu Hang! He was just floating in the air! He executed Mondok in public! Damn it, why did we never know that Gu Hang was such a powerful psyker?!”
After speaking, he looked at Norris again.
The old man still said nothing.
Bradford pressed on: “Those Star Warriors! The Battle Nuns! Weren’t they supposed to be fake?! They kill fully armed soldiers as if slaughtering chickens, and destroying our tanks is as easy as opening a can! How could we dare to go to war with such enemies? Damn it! Mondok, that brute, misled us and has ruined us!”
“And those soldiers! How dare they? Every month, every year, so much of the budget was spent on those soldiers, giving them a life far better than when they were treated like livestock, giving them higher status. And how do they repay us? At the moment when they were most needed, they did not dare to fight to the death but surrendered instead! That Gu Hang claims to be the ruler, the commander of the army, nonsense! Why don’t those soldiers use their brains and think? Has Gu Hang ever paid them a single coin?”
Bradford, the business tycoon, displayed no finesse, ranting incoherently, criticizing Mondok, then Gu Hang, then back to Mondok, and finally the ordinary soldiers.
He finally managed to annoy Norris.
“Enough, put away your hysterical act and stop pretending in front of me,” Norris said. “You want to know what I will do next? I can tell you, no problem. Revival City has become our prison, and we are all doomed prisoners. But even if I tell you, will you really dare to follow me?”
Bradford immediately abandoned his previous facade of collapse, replaced with a different demeanor, and said: “Why wouldn’t I dare? The corps is finished, Mondok is dead. Now, in this entire city, only you, Lord Norris, have real power. You have people under you; open the armory, and there are guns and cannons. Everyone in this city who doesn’t want to return to the Governor’s rule will rally around you!”
“Hmph,” Norris snorted coldly.
After Mondok’s death and the Alliance Corps’ surrender, the political nature of Revival City had changed.
Who couldn’t see that the Alliance had already shifted power?
If, in the past, they could rely on the Alliance Corps and the military potential represented by the populations inside and outside Revival City to resist the Governor, that possibility was now completely gone.
With the four gates sealed and the army having defected, they couldn’t even leave the city, let alone stage a comeback.
What remained was figuring out how to survive.
Their lives and deaths now depended entirely on the Governor’s whims.
In their view, although the Governor had not yet entered the city, waiting until he did to make a decision might already be too late.
At this moment, their choices were indeed limited.
It boiled down to fleeing or kneeling.
Escaping from Revival City in its current state was not easy; as for kneeling before the Governor, doing so improperly might still cost them their lives.
Friends who once collaborated closely were now full of mutual deceit.
For example, Norris could see through Bradford’s act of appearing collapsed and praising him; it was clearly insincere. Bradford was trying to incite him to arm the industrial workers and resist to the end, but if Norris actually did that, Bradford would probably be the first to sell him out.
Of course, Norris’s claim of having a plan and knowing what to do was equally false.
He would indeed arm the workers and turn the factories into military strongholds, but not to resist. Instead, it was to concentrate actual power within the city into his hands, increasing his bargaining chips so that when he eventually kneeled before the Governor, he could do so with more leverage.
The organized population, weapons, equipment, and production materials within the factories—all of these would belong to Norris. The Governor would see his value and keep him for future use!
As for Bradford?
A man who had relied on connections and channels to conduct trade in the past—he could fend for himself.
…
After his brief conversation with old Norris, Bradford’s expression was quite grim.
He felt that Norris had seen through his intentions and had not fallen for the bait.
Damn it! Without an obvious scapegoat to draw the Governor’s attention, how was he supposed to escape?
That’s right, Bradford wanted to flee.
Bradford did not want to stay and become a lapdog—nor did he have the credentials to be one like Norris.
On the contrary, his years as a channel merchant had built a wide network of contacts, giving him many other places to go once he left Revival City. Even if life wouldn’t be as good as before, it was better than staying.
As long as he could escape.
Relying on Norris was now out of the question. Bradford didn’t believe Norris’s words, nor did he believe that Norris would truly oppose the Governor.
On the contrary, he suspected that Norris was simply looking for a way to make his own surrender seem more valuable to gain better terms from Gu Hang—in fact, Bradford himself might end up being used by Norris as a bargaining chip to add weight to his surrender.
But to Bradford, such a notion was not worth considering.
Survival was uncertain; the Governor had already struck with the force of thunder. No matter how gracefully one knelt, it couldn’t compare to being dead.
Vacating positions and sweeping the upper echelons clean would allow the Governor to paint more freely on a blank canvas.
Moreover, even if one survived, the city’s future would be dictated by the Governor. The Alliance Council would certainly no longer wield the power it once had, and its very existence was questionable.
Norris was surely doomed, but the infuriating part was, if you’re going to be doomed, why not do it more spectacularly and give me a better chance to escape?
After much deliberation, Bradford clenched his teeth, deciding he could wait no longer.
If he waited any further, the Governor could enter the city at any moment, and the great purge could begin at any time. Waiting any longer would mean even less chance to escape.
He made up his mind.