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Roman sighed and leaned against the refrigerator. “Point is, I have an organized operation here in Atreya. A number of highly-skilled people work under me. And while I might be able to take advantage of the chaos that Abolish’s plans will bring, it would only hurt my business in the long run.”

‘And Roman grew up in Atreya, so he has a soft spot for it.’

“Yeah, I guess I do.”

‘He was an orphan, too.’

“Well, I don’t see how that’s relevant...”

‘Lived on the streets for a long time, he did. It’s a real rags-to-riches story.’

“Voreese, what the hell? They don’t care about any of that.”

‘Well, they should! Our previous allies obviously didn’t care, and look at what dicks they turned out to be!’

“We knew they were dicks when we aligned with them.”

‘Yeah, but we didn’t know how much! They were mega-dicks!’

“You’ll have to forgive Voreese,” said Roman. “She tends to hold grudges. Not that I disagree with her on this one.”

Mehlsanz floated behind Helen. ‘What should our next move be? We’ve been run out of the capital. And it doesn’t seem like we have the power to take Sescoria back.’

Voreese nodded. ‘And we definitely don’t have the power to keep Sescoria. Even if we killed the ones already there, more might show up like Gerald said.’

“Then we require more power,” said Helen. “Where might we find it?”

A brief silence fell.

Roman’s expression soured. “Can anyone think of something that isn’t the Vanguard?”

Helen looked over everyone. “I am not sure I understand what this Vanguard group is. They protect people from Abolish, no?”

“They do, yeah. And if we go to them for help, they’ll probably give it. But afterwards, they won’t just send us on our merry way. They’ll want our support, too.”

“That only seems fair,” said Helen.