Central City

June 28th, 1876

Bob Stockton always came back home by steamboat. He was wealthy enough now to afford a private coach or his own car on the train. But coming in by river was how he'd first arrived here nearly fifty years ago. Central City was a far cry from the little frontier town he remembered all those years ago. It was so new back then that several of the log cabins in town were built with green wood.

Stockton stood on the deck of the steamboat, cigar firm in his mouth, and watched the city appear around the river bend. The city in front of him now was a vast metropolis with buildings as high as six stories stretched out across its expanse. A thick layer of smog rose above those buildings. To some that was a sign of urban sprawl and decay and pollution, but to Bob it was the price for progress. Industry and the wealth that came for it led to more expansion and growth. That was what America was all about.

"Senator Stockton."

Stockton turned around and saw a Marshall Holm standing on the deck with notepad and pencil at the ready. Like Stockton, Holm was on the way back home to Central City after spending the winter and spring in Washington. Also like Stockton, Holm and his paper worked for the Combination. Stockton scowled and blew smoke from his mouth.

"I told you, Marshall, I'm not talking about the convention until it gets--"

Holm cut him off as he shoved a piece of paper into his hands.

"This was sent to me over the wire when we stopped to refuel in Jeff City. Words coming out of the frontier. There's been a big battle out near someplace called Little Big Horn. You're chairman of the Senate's Committee of Indian Affairs, Senator, and I wonder if you'd like to comment."

Stockton read the bulletin. His face grew redder and redder the more he read. When he was done, he ripped the paper in two and tossed the scraps out of his hands.

"Fucking Custer!"

Stockton spat his cigar stub out of his mouth and watched it fly overboard into the water. These next few weeks were crucial to furthering Stockton's political goals, there was no room for error. And now some goddamn long-haired moron had fucked him over! How hard was it to kill a bunch of Indians? They were almost as easy to kill as the fucking buffalo. As the chairman of that Senate committee he stood to come under fire for lack of oversight on Custer's activities.

"My statement is this, Marshall: This does nothing but delay the inevitable. Like when the unruly child tries to ward off punishment from their father. They do nothing but ensure the punishment will be twofold. The committee on Indian Affairs will do whatever it takes to see that 7th Cavalry and Colonel Custer are avenged, and their murderers are brought to justice toot sweet. America will not forget the brave sacrifice of the 7th and the cowardice of the savage."

"Dynamite stuff, Senator."

Holm hurried away while Stockton brooded over the news. The plan that he and A.J. laid out for the coming convention did not include Stockton having to defend the actions of the now deceased George Custer. If he wanted to emerge from the convention as the party's compromise candidate, a man who could carry the party standard and win the White House, he needed to be as far from controversy as possible. The task was still feasible, the convention taking place here in Central City meant that A.J. had the power to put anyone he wanted on the ticket, but they would have to play things very carefully from here on out.

"Five minutes," one of the sailors announced from the steamboat's top deck. "We'll be in Central City in five minutes."

Stockton found another cigar in his coat pocket and lit it up. His original plan was to go home and rest, but that was now amended in light of the recent news. He had to head into the city and find A.J. as soon as possible. If he knew A.J. like he thought he did, after thirty-six years as partners in law and politics Bob knew him pretty damn well, then he would have already heard the news and would be ready with a plan for how to proceed forward.

June 28, 1876

The sky was grey tonight, same as it had been every night of the month. No clouds, just grey. A light fog gave an even more dismal feel to the already exhausted atmosphere. No one's eyes looked up, feet dragged, and mouths stayed shut. It was quiet, here, at her old home. The bustle of the day had already tapered away, the children gone to dinner, the parents going about their business still in the automatic way that parents must. Not one person noticed her, sitting there on the steps of a group home, gazing down the road towards better circumstances.

Olivia had just watched her boyfriend of three months die. This one had been quite nice- a senator, newly elected, fresh and ready to make some waves. But he didn't know how to deal with the waves of the sea, it would seem. They had left on a nice little fishing trip together, and she had made her way back, alone, in the tears of a woman afraid to be caught. He was probably still floating out there, bloated and grey and sad, like the sky.

It was almost time to leave, though. A week had passed since the man's funeral, where she had played the public part of a grieving loved one. Page two read, "The Unlucky Lover", a headline reused several times now, whenever such tragedies struck Olivia's intended.

A little boy came up to her, the first person to notice the woman all day. She did not fit in this world, in her pantsuit, and pearls. But this little boy saw the familiar spirit hiding behind the persona she had created, and offered all he could in his smile. Olivia- always fond of children, not that she ever wanted any of the things- smiled back, and produced from her purse some shiny coins. His eyes lit up, as she placed the trifle of money into his outreached palm. Only a child could be happy at the gain of so little, such a temporary thing as money.

Olivia stood, resigned to return to her new home, after the kid ran off. Rather than calling a carriage or escort of any sort, she had walked here- and she would walk back. The town was not too far, and she preferred those nice, solitary journeys.

An hour passed, and she found herself in town. Hands in her pockets, and eyes gazing upwards, she received sparse condolences from the few who recognized her face or noticed the black dress she wore. Enough time had passed that Trevor was old news, but not enough that the people had yet forgotten completely. She would have to wait a few more days before moving on to the next.

Her thoughts turned from schemes for the future to panic for the present, as a man hurried past her, knocking her backwards with a quick shove of his shoulder. Caught off guard, Olivia toppled, falling a bit before barely catching herself on the sidewalk; her palms were skinned, dripping a little bit of blood. And her purse was gone from them, snatched without warning.

Olivia stood, her skirts making that task a bit difficult, as no one offered any aid. She watched, regretfully, as the man who stole her purse disappeared into an alley down the road. Running after the thief would seem foolish, and warrant violence. However, she could not return to her residence without retrieving that purse. Contemplating for a moment, Olivia began to walk in the direction of the offender, the blood from her hands sinking subtly into the pitch black fabric of her mourning dress.

"Saloon City"
Central City

"This makes four, Dan."

Danny Shea looked down at the dead woman's body. She was slashed across the throat and left for dead in the muddy back alley behind Uncle Ace's Brothel. Standing behind him was Bobby Coughlin, Danny's partner on the beat. Danny squatted down beside the body and touched the dead woman's cheek. Cold to the touch. He didn't expect anything less than that. It was a quarter past ten in the morning so it was likely she'd been dead for hours before she was found by someone who actually reported it to Bobby.

"You talk to Uncle Ace?" Danny asked as he stood back up.

"'I pay! I pay! I know no girl! I pay protection!'," Bobby replied in a mock of the old Chinaman. "That's all the fucker had to say."

Danny nodded and began to search for his notebook among the folds of his patrolman uniform. He found it and flipped to a page in the middle. Four dead women in the last two weeks. It wasn't unusual for Saloon City to have that many dead bodies in that short amount of time, but those were casualties from drunken fights and card games that went sideways. Four dead women had been found dumped in back alleys with their throats slashed by a blade that the coroner described as 'big as hell.' The woman at Danny's feet was the second Oriental, the other two dead women were Negro and Jewish respectively. The girl in the mud was dressed like a whore, just like the previous three.

"I grabbed a kid and told him to run back to the station house and tell them we caught a dead body out on the beat," said Bobby. "Not like it's gonna do any fucking good. This girl is dead where it don't matter, Dan. Now if she were a white girl from the east side they'd have the fucking US Cavalry riding through--"

He kept talking about something, but Danny didn't hear him. His thoughts were on the dead girls he'd seen over the past few weeks. Bobby was spot on with his assessment. All four of the dead girls were whores, all four were ethnic, and all four of them were people nobody gave a shit about. Danny and Bobby gave report after report to Sergeant O'Riley and Captain Williams, but they would just shrug and file it away as an unsolved case. They never got the detectives from downtown involved and they couldn't really give a shit. Nobody would ever miss four dead whores.

But Danny wasn't the average person, and he sure as hell wasn't the average flatfoot. He was the rare beat cop that had political juice at his disposal if he wished. Captain Thomas Shea, commanding officer of the CCPD's Southern District, was his father. While Danny tried to stay as apolitical as possible, Tommy Shea was the very definition of a political animal. It was a testament to his ability to play the game that he was the highest ranking Irishman on the CCPD. There was very little doubt that by 1890, Danny's dad would be chief of police.

"You gonna be alright if I leave?" Danny asked his partner.

Bobby shrugged and grinned. "Got a hot date?"

"Not exactly," Danny said as he tucked his notebook back into his pocket. "I'm going to see my old man. He might be interested in this, but I gotta hear his mouth as a trade off. The only thing he likes more than playing politics is giving me lectures."

Bobby laughed. "You sure you wouldn't rather trade places with mama-san down on the ground?"

Danny looked down at the dead girl one last time. Number four. If Danny couldn't get his father to help, they might be finding Number five in a back alley soon.

"I'll survive."

Westside

“They say another girl got cut up.” said a man, leaning to his neighbor at the bar. The sounds of rowdy banter and the out-of-tune chorus of drunken singing filled the bawdy east-side tavern. The waning light outside was filtered dimly through windows covered so thick in soot they were nearer to being as opaque as the cold brick walls around them. The tall cavernous hall of the tavern provided sumptuous space, but did little to dull the echo of the rowdy chatter of a fresh wave of factory and stockyard workers come off of their shifts.

“I heard, some one said she got her gut pulled clean open like some sorta pig.” the man's partner shouted, “Friend of a friend said his cousin found her stuffed in some alley down in saloon city one morning before the cats found her. A whole bloody mess.”

“Saloon City, at the time? Your friend-of-a-friend has some fucking sand.”

“That's what I say.” cackled the other, and he rose a dirty pint of frothy larger and chugged. His friend did like-wise. And with belated laughs they gave a late cheer to the skewered whores of Saloon City.

Sitting close enough to have heard the exchange, a thin sprightly young man sat at the bar with his hands wrapped around his glass. He looked down into his thick amber beer as he listened into the conversation. He bit contemplatively at his lower lip, the bristles of his beard brushing against his lips as he mulled over this piece of information.

“I don't suppose this is being investigated?” he asked with feigned ignorance. In the harsh orange light cast from candles, and the lime-green from oil lanterns his blue eyes shone a pale faded color. He had to raise an otherwise soft and subdued voice over the loud racket as if he were nearly yelling himself. He fought to restrain his accent, but the soft Germanic inflection that was so natural to him none the less came off his tongue at full tilt.

The closer of the two gentlemen turned to him and laughed, rolling his eyes. “Fuck no.” he bemoaned, “They're not going to investigate a shitty whore's death on that side of town.” the man's tone of voice suggested he believed the man at the bar some bum who had come in from the east on the trains. But the young man simply nodded and pulled out a note-pad from his pocket as the other turned back to his own conversation partner.

With a narrow piece of hard charcoal he wrote onto his pad, “Saloon City, whore murdered in alley.”

With an indignant grumble, he lifted his glass and downed the remainder of his glass. Slapping down onto the rough wooden counter, carved away with idle knives he placed a few single dollar notes and put the glass down on top of them. Pushing them away he put his notebook into his pocket and stepped away, leaving the glass and dollar bills for the bartender - tab and tip – and headed for the door.

Outside, the evening streets were much quieter. Though the shouts and sounds of the stockyards were an ever present background noise, they were not a cacophonous storm. The streets too were thick with men as shifts changed with the announcement of distant steam whistles. After slaving their days away in the hot and sweaty factories, tired fathers and sons would be on their way home or to the sorts of bars that the young man had just left.

The air outside, although cold was acrid with the choking smell of burning coal and wood and hot steam. A thousand smells of butchered meat and rendered flesh poured from the stockyards were discarded cuttings lay in open heeps in unclosed train cars to be disposed of or tossed into the river, or sent to be burned. The smell was putrid, but he knew it the unfortunate smells of the future to come.

“Edward!” a voice shouted from the alleys between warehouses. Stopping, Edward Mayer looked up and turned. Jogging out from the shadows a small scrawny man came out into the street light. “You're thinking.” he said as he joined Edward Mayer down the street.

“I am, Seamus.” he said. Seamus was a young immigrant from Scotland or thereabout, he thought he had said from Galloway but that was some time ago. All the same, he was a short and scrawny man with a wild head of fiery red hair he kept under a gray knit cap.

“Well, what'cha thinkin'?” he asked him.

“That another person from the south end can be murdered and it's unlikely it'll ever be resolved.” Mayer grumbled.

“Oh, you thinkin' 'bout the whore job.” Seamus said with a smile, “Bound to happen that, none ya do about it.”

Edward gave a dismissive grunt. Seamus continued: “Well if it's the line of work you get into then there's risks, ya' know. The sorts that come with husbands who get in a pissy mood ifin' they can't get their cocks up. I had a cousin like that once, got mad at his wife his pecker wasn't rising to full mast and one day beat his wife in frustration, broken her till she were half dead.”

“And?” Edward asked.

“Well they're still together and I imagine he's still that pissed.”

Edward scoffed, “And how do you know this?”

“Shit, heard me sisters talkin' 'bout it when we were still in the old country. Actually, on the boat over too. I guess they got inspired when they saw some man lookin' there way. Had to do what was right and socked that man in the face till his jaw was broke fer it.”

“And why you do that?”

“Man's got his honor, yah? Part o' that is stickin' up for your women kin so they don't get too fucked.”

“So, what if that girl murdered in the alley was your sister?”asked Edward, stopping briefly at a corner.

“Fuck that supposed to mean?” Seamus asked, stunned, “'Caus she ain't 'cuz my sisters are in Cincinnati married to a dentist and a barber respectively.”

“No, I'm asking what if it were.”

“I don't see the point in asking still, cuz she wasn't. I think you're over-thinking the whore bit. I know you're going through on of your phases so let's just stop it before it goes over. Maybe you can pick up on planning a riot again.”

“Maybe.” sighed Edward.

Central City

Black skirts swirling around her feet in a colossal mess of fabric, Olivia walked in the direction of her thief. Not in a hurry, nor at leisure, she grasped the front of her skirts to hold them out of the way of her feet. She pushed herself forward, annoyed now, having passed her preferred destination several blocks back.

After several minutes of trying not to run, she slowed. The thief was out of eyeshot now, the alley he had hidden inside empty. However, others were huddled together in the area. Taking a step backward, Olivia noticed the building beside the alleyway, and the establishment's purpose. About six of its resident whores stood, shivering and shocked. None spoke, their eyes and minds filled with terror and sadness, the sort that Olivia could recognize in anyone. That horror which pervades the heart, of seeing a friend perish.

The oldest seemed in a better state of mind than the others. Still clutching her shawl with blistered, pale fingers, eyes wide and lips trembling, she was able to stand straight, supporting two of the other girls. They could not have been older than twenty- the youngest, barely fourteen. Olivia felt for her purse, and at the realization that she could not help, became increasingly irritated. Still, though it was not much, she sought some way to aid the girls.

Approaching the cluster cautiously, Olivia knelt by the youngest. Brushing the matted hair from the girl's eyes, she offered a sympathetic smile, and a hand. The girl stared, not knowing who the stranger was. Olivia reached up, and took off her own scarf- it was not doing much good as a fashion accessory, anyways- and wrapped it over the girl's shoulders. Standing again, she kept walking. She needed to know what caused their distress.

A few men were talking- two distinct voices, in low tones, just soft enough that she could not understand the conversation. Straining to hear, Olivia crept forward with caution and curiosity filling her head with outlandish suggestions. She rounded the corner, unsure of what to expect. There was no warning when she saw the blood.

She had seen blood before, every woman has, she more than most, but never in such a decidedly messy manner. The girl's face, petrified in such an awful expression, her throat sunken and split, her eyes staring into an empty sky, added up to an incredible image of horror. This was like nothing she had seen before. She had heard the rumors, the stories of a butcher on the streets, warnings to the women who walked in the night. She had dismissed these as idle fantasies of sick minds, yet had entertained the thought in her own human way. But in her mind, the scene she had imagined had been much less... intimate.

Olivia let out a shriek, on impulse, hands shooting upwards to cover her scream. It was short, but enough to draw attention. She stumbled backwards a few steps, trying not to let the shock take over her senses completely. She could not even see the officers. The only thing she could focus on was the blood, the intensity of its blackness, like a painting of the darkest of minds. She hoped never to meet the artist.

This girl was too young to die so horribly.

It took a moment before she could spare a few words, to address the officers. She gained her composure back again, and straightened her posture. Her hands still trembled, so she gripped her skirts, keeping them clear of the pool of blood. Eyes fixed on the girl, she whispered, "Why would anyone do this?"

City Hall

Bob Stockon sat in the mayor's chair with his feet hiked up on the mayor's desk. In front of him was the Central City Citizen , the daily paper that served as the Combination's official rag. Francis Rhodes, Central City mayor, obliged the seeming affront to his office. The reason for the fealty was because Rhodes knew this office and desk was his only because Stockton and A.J. Patterson saw fit to bestow it on him.

But Rhodes wasn't on Stockton's mind at the moment. The man was off in chambers doing something with the city council. Stockton couldn't remember what exactly, he just knew it wasn't important. He made a beeline for City Hall after going home and seeing his family. He couldn't visit the Social Club even if he went through the back door. During Stockton's first congressional run it was decided that he and A.J. could never be seen in a place where the public could see them together. That meant that Stockton hadn't visited the Combination's headquarters in nearly sixteen years. So instead, he sent word to A.J. that he was here in the mayor's office waiting.

"Sorry about that, senator," Rhodes said as he came into the office. "Just some minor municipal business that you don't need to concern yourself with."

"Oh but I do," Stockton said as he took his feet off the desk and folded the paper. "I need to concern myself with every facet of city life, Mr. Mayor. I represent this city as much as you do, sir. Whatever goes on here is as much my concern as it is yours."

Rhodes gave an uneasy smile. "I figured you would be more concerned with the statehouse, Senator. Wood and the opposition are lining up rather quickly."

Stockton scowled. Michael Wood. Governor Michael Wood. The son of a bitch had been elected four years earlier as a reform candidate, vowing to clean up the state's politics. So far it was easier said than done for him, but now he had a slate of reform candidates poised to try and take the statehouse away from the Combination. If Wood's party took the statehouse, that meant the end of Stockton's senatorial career. It was the Combination's legislators that put him in office and kept him there. While most politicians had to win one campaign for reelection, Stockton found that he had to manage and win several campaigns to stay in the Senate.

All that may be moot after the convention. Who cared about the statehouse if he was focused on a national race? What did it matter to him if Wood got the senator he wanted? A senator is just one of seventy-six. What Stockton was after would put him as first among equals. But still... he couldn't resist the urge to have a little fun.

"Wood's up for reelection," he said nonchalantly. "Rumor I hear is that his plan is to win re-election and then resign if his party wins the legislature back and have himself take my senate seat."

"Low down and dirty," Rhodes said with a shake of his head and his best attempt at false concern. "Is the Combination running someone against him yet?"

"We want to, but A.J. doesn't have a candidate in mind." He paused and looked at Rhodes. "But I do."

"What?... Me?"

Rhodes was many things, but an actor he was not. Stockton stood up and walked around the desk, wrapping one arm around Rhodes' shoulder. While the mayor was several inches taller and twenty pounds heavier, Stockton was able to manipulate him around the room as the two men walked in lockstep during his monologue.

"Yes, Francis, you. You've been mayor for six years now. Six years experience running a city as big as this one trumps even Wood's two years as governor. He was just a state senator before that, he has no real experience. Not like you do. You have executive experience running the fourth biggest city this side of the Mississippi. After this town, the state is easy. I want you as the Combination's man come election day. Governor Francis Rhodes. And think about where you could go from there? Ever since Lincoln, the party has been starting to think of the west as an emerging political base it needs to tap. A two-term governor running for president in '84 could be just what they need. Did I say Governor Francis Rhodes? How about President Francis Rhodes?"

Rhodes stood ramrod straight and looked at Stockton with a wide smile.

"Senator... I'm honored by your words... do you think I could?"

"I know so," Stockton said with a wide smile. "Before we talk further, can you find out if A.J. ever arrived?"

"I sure can."

Stockton held back his laughter as he watched Rhodes bound out the office like a schoolboy. The odds of him beating Wood were unlikely, even with the Combination's full weight behind him. Wood had an iron-grip on the rural parts of the state where the Combination's reach couldn't quite be felt. Even if Rhodes took the city and the areas around it with the machine's usual 90% turnout, Wood's power base in the country would equal that and make it a deadlock. Then it would come down to the non-partisan voters. Comparing the two men, Wood would almost certainly win those votes.

It would be close, and that was all Stockton wanted to achieve. Hard for Wood to engineer a statehouse coup when he had his own tight race to run. He had no faith in a Governor Rhodes or even, god help us all, a President Rhodes. But a viable threat to Wood's job would make it all that much easier for Stockton and A.J. to get the Combination's state legislators back in office.

“There is a fine line between, and simple human indecency, Earl.” Mayer protested as he paced the room.

The apartment that Mayer rented sat on the edge of that thread-bare fine line between the residential districts and the factories and slaughter houses of west-side. It was the kind of home that depending on the direction of the wind the smells of freshly baked bread and even if a fantasy the even more distant ghostly smells of the flowering fruit-trees of the city's east-side upper-class neighborhoods. But when the wind blew the other direction as it so often seemed to do it brought to the air the sulfuric and carbon air of industry and slaughter. The entire five-story apartment structure was a brown-brick building stained a thick black and gray as if it straddled the very precipice that dropped to Hell itself.

“Mayer, I think you're being rather emotional and distracted by the whole affair.” Earl's voice said, in a low gruff tone. Earl was the man that Mayer split an apartment with, as well as Earl's wife. The apartment was more in his name than Mayer's, but an amiable and intellectual relationship between the two meant both parties were comfortable in splitting the small three-room quarters.

Earl himself was a bear of a man with arms the thickness of full-grown oaks. A thick heavy moustache and mutton chops with the consistency of steel wool defined his otherwise lumpy round face. His nose had been broken in fights and at work, and the dark skin of his face was burned with hot metal and stained with caked blood. In old times he had been a cowboy on ranches further west, but in the years between then and now the old cowboy had learned to settle down when he married and eventually drifted back east to Central City to seek employment, which he found in the long hours of the stockyard.

“I wouldn't be so... But... Fuck.” he grumbled, pacing the living room.

The apartment was sparsely furnished, due in most part to neither men having much time to furnish it. To that effect what it contained were the bare necessities of living: a range, a lumpy brown couch and matching chairs, and a Persian rug so worn before it had been picked up it was almost a large sheet of sandpaper. On a coffee table in the center of the room and on top of a cabinet two oil lanterns burned with an eerie yellow-green lime-light.

“If you're so bothered by it, perhaps you should leave town and settle back down into the country.” Earl suggested dryly, taking a long drag at a hand rolled cigarette. His knuckles were deeply stained by his use of tobacco.

“I couldn't do that.” Mayer groaned, “Now when I know what people go through. The simple indecencies. Besides, one way or another this will catch up to the country. I'd be simply running from it is all.

“I hear about my parent's stories from the old-country, and I read and I see and I hear and I can't help but imagine that what my ma and pa left behind is going to slither up from the darkness of the old world and bed down in America.”

“Well if you're afraid of what's happening over in 'urope coming around here, then why keep talking like you do?

“Edward, I've seen you at work, talking to guys when you get the chance about these concerns of yours. And we all agree. You just need to get your ass into gear friend and do something about it.”

Edward nodded, and combed his fingers through his hair. “I know.” he said.

“Listen,” Earl said with a wet grunt, “I've been keeping my ears out as you have and I've been hearin' things. And it turns out there's going to be a party convention in town coming up soon. If you want to start something, then starting it then will be your best bet.”

He brushed the air with his hand, painting long thin strokes of cigarette smoke through the murky air. “I know you got the sand in you to do greater things. But if you're gonna be a soldier for the beaten down as you claim you to be then you can't let this sort of thing go.”

“What would you recommend?” Edward asked.

Earl shrugged, “Up to you.” he said with a narrow grin, “But talk as you do, you might be able to turn it into something better and greater.”

Edward looked out towards the window. There was not much to see beyond it because of the haze that enveloped the glass. But what Earl said was true, he knew it that much. He was a man of all talk and listening. He was in a way building a case like a lawyer against the city and the ruling class, one of moral wrong-doings as well as legal; but one he would never take to court, to act on. “Union strike.” he said to himself.

He looked to Earl, he nodded. “Maybe you can get in contact with the Knights of Labor?” he suggested.

“No.” said Edward, to Earl's shock, “The Knights aren't so forward thinking. They'll go only half-way. But if I want anything to happen it should go all the way.”

Earl sat silent, puffing on his cigarette. “The only way to move ahead, and to cut off the head of the serpent is to not make simple concessions to protect the ruling class. It has to be ended, to be finished before it can be born.”

“What you're talking is full scale revolution!” Earl protested.

“Would that be wrong?” Edward mused, turning from the window to his friend, “After all, this country wasn't built by getting concessions from the English to make a partly independent nation. It had to shoot and fight for total independence so as to build a nation that was – or should have been – a society of equals; as they set out to write.

“You and I know it's not quiet perfect, but social progress isn't an easy fight. More than just fair wages, shorter hours, and safer conditions those who labor need to have the same control of their production as they do their country. The Knights won't help us there. They're a middle-ground, but as an ally they'll go so far before they back off.”

“Well when you're ready to go George Washington say the word.” Earl said with false interest.