Annalise checked her equipment before heading to the gates: a SIG-Sauer P220 handgun, fully loaded, with a couple of spare clips of ammo, two cigarette lighters, both sparking a flame the instant they were clicked, and the all-purpose combat knife with the broad, 11 inch blade. Probably she wouldn’t need them, but better to have something you don’t need then need it and not have it, her old commanding sergeant had always said. With that in mind she picked up the chain whip she’d recently started practising with and looped it through her belt: no harm in taking it with her.

She scowled as Cassandra’s words echoed in her mind: people. Heavily armed, in procession of vehicles, hostile and tricky. Her time on the force, short as it has been, had taught her that there were always some people who would turn on others and take what they had, but still… “Fuckin’ traitors,” she muttered as she jogged to the gate. 

At the gate, she returned Comet’s smile with a faint smile of her own; she liked the deceptively slight young woman. She nodded without speaking at her words, taking her place in Big Blue. She glanced around at the others in the van: DaVinci, Hax (what was he doing coming out on a run?) and Reaper, scrambling in just ahead of her.

She grinned as she overheard Hax’s comment about a sword, and Reaper’s response.  She knew he creeped some people out, with his powers coming from death and all, but she quite liked him – he was a medic, former army guy (you could always tell) and clung to his ethical code like he was a fricking samurai or something. 

She was unable to supress a small laugh as Hax mentioned his ‘electronic garbage’. “Yeah, right; and while you’re supervising the lifting of the panels, me and Reaper’ll be keeping the bad guys off ya with our inelegant guns.” She said. “Jus’ in case they don’t feel like duelling today.” Her tone was light, teasing rather than mocking.

----

Nick gave the last of the new knives a wipe with a heavy cloth, polishing the blade to a respectable shine, and turned his attention to the small scrap of metal on the table in front of him, brushing it with a light fingertip touch. it was the work of an instant to change the scrap into a figure, the lean legs and narrow but powerful body, long, curving neck and head lowered not in submission but in challenge. The spiral horn completed the figure. He studied it for a moment, absently reducing the sharpness of the horn so it was less likely to cause injury, and added a bit more of a flowing windswept look to the mane and tail.

He made sure it could stand before giving a nod of satisfaction and buffing it to a shine with the heavy cloth he'd used on the knife. Little Alice loved unicorns, and when she'd told him yesterday she was going to be eight today, nearly all grown up - well, he thought she'd be grateful for the present. [i]God knows, it's not like she'll be getting much else,[/i] he thought.

"All Council Associates to the Assembly Room. Operations conference to begin in ten minutes." He stood up, pulling on his jacket and dropping the small figure into the pocket. He'd give Alice her present after the meeting.

***

As one of the supers generally thought of as more useful in the Citadel than out of it, he remained in the meeting room after the others had been given their orders. A troubled expression, not exactly a frown but not far off, settled on his face as Cassandra and Pariah spoke of the problems with the normal population, the district leaders stirring things up. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard before: the occasional civilian telling him that [i]‘Fletcher said-,'[/i] or  [i]‘I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, but Cunningham was talking to the others yesterday, and-,’[/i]  All murmurs, nothing more, nothing definite, but combine that with the uneasy feeling he sometimes got of eyes on his back when he was chatting to the people, and he could see all too clearly what they were talking about. 

But what to do? That was the $64,000 question, wasn’t it? How to take action without it playing in the hands of the trouble-makers; any attempt to clamp down on them would act as a spur to their complaints: [i]we’re living in a meta human dictatorship! We need to stand up for our rights, not be ordered around by a bunch of freaks![/i]  He didn’t think many people would follow them, but even one or two was enough, and if blood was spilled… well, whatever happened, it wouldn’t be pretty.

Bringing forward the elections wasn’t an option either – if one of the district leaders got in, it would be a disaster – they’d try and change the order of things, run the Citadel as they saw fit, and that’d probably mean the mythics would be dumped outside, with the metas being sent to join them if they objected (never mind that without them the Citadel wouldn’t last – most leaders suffered from chronic short-sightedness). If a moderate leader was elected and kept things running as they were they’d be accused of being a puppet of the metas.

“I know it sounds damn stupid to suggest a charm offensive, but it might work,” he offered quietly. He leaned back in his seat, folding his arms behind his head. “Get some of the more presentable metas out and mixing with the people more – we’re still seen as ‘other’ – if we seem more familiar, they’ll be a bit more comfortable around us. Some of ‘Dozer’s team, maybe, to show them it’s possible to work with metas.” He gave a sort of shrug, elbows tilting up towards the ceiling. “I’ve heard a few people complaining about leaders causing trouble – I can have a quiet word with the people I trust, ask them to keep an ear to the ground.” He straightened up. “The last thing we can do is confront this directly.”