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Description
The door to the Governor's office in City Hall opened violently as several people streamed through it carrying cameras and microphones. "Mr. Rayer," the man in front called.

The Governor of San Alejandro, Alvin Rayer, turned his gaze from the window, which faced south overlooking the several hundred people marching straight toward City Hall on Grecian Avenue, to the camera crew. "Good, you're here," he said, wiping panicked sweat from his face. "Let's do this quickly."

"Of course," the cameraman replied, opening a tripod.

"Sir," said a man in a suit with a gun at his side, who had entered behind the camera crew. "The chopper's waiting. We should leave right now!"

"I'm doing this broadcast, Rice," Governor Rayer said, grabbing his suit jacket from the chair behind the desk in the middle of the office. "The city's under attack and people must be warned."

"We don't have enough people here to fend them off!" Rice urged. "The police frequencies, the Guards, nobody's responding! We need to leave immediately!"

"Rolling in 5," the cameraman said as the Governor sat down at the desk and a microphone was placed in front of him.

"Sir!" Rice shouted. "We-"

"And...go," the cameraman cut in, pointing to the Governor as a light came on on the camera.

Every television in San Alejandro suddenly and abruptly cut out, the signal replaced with the Governor's emergency broadcast.

"Fellow residents of San Alejandro," the image of the Governor began, still visibly and audibly panicked. "This is not a test. The city is under attack. Until notified otherwise, do not go outside your homes. Shut your windows and lock your-"

There was a sound of a muffled explosion and distant gunfire, interrupting the speech for a second or two as the Governor closed his eyes and took a breath, his face red with fear. "Lock your doors," he said weakly. "Don't open the door for anyone."

Rice's voice broke in from off-screen. "Sir, we have to leave now! They're inside the building!"

Governor Rayer stood up, looking toward Rice and nodding before much closer gunfire was heard. At the sound Rayer froze in place, his face turning white.

"Get back!" Rice's voice shouted, as the gunfire continued to get louder. "Get back, sir!" Another gunshot was heard, seemingly only a few feet away, then a series of loud thuds, then footsteps. Rayer held up his hands as if to shield himself. "No!" he screamed, before two more shots were fired.

The image of the Governor was hit once in the chest and once on the side of the forehead. He fell backwards out of shot, behind the desk.

The camera jittered from the cameraman trying to get away before a new disembodied voice said "Don't stop the broadcast."

The camera shakily centered back onto the desk. The signal was fairly quiet and still for a few seconds before a pale, wiry man walked into shot from the right.

He had very light, almost bleached straight hair that fell around his head past his ears. His face and arms were bony and very light-skinned, accentuated by the bright white hooded jacket and corduroy jeans he was wearing. Around his neck was a thin silver rosary. Oddest of all were his eyes, which were heterochromatic; one was dark brown, but the other was a startling light blue, almost a sky blue. The camera, as it focused on him, readjusted the brightness of the image, causing the rest of the room to apparently darken ominously as he sat down.

"Stop pointing that at me," the cameraman could be heard saying fearfully. "I'll do what you say."

The bright image of the man behind the desk looked over toward the right side of the camera and nodded.

"Fine," the disembodied voice said, producing a series of clicking sounds as he put his gun away.

The man at the desk looked back at the camera and smiled. "Now then," he began, in a calm, even voice. "My name is Shiner, and I have just saved this city."

~

After a loud metallic wrenching sound, a shaft of light fell onto a rusty steel ladder leading downward onto a gray, water-slick walkway above a slowly flowing stream of dark liquid. At the top of the ladder, a manhole cover slid noisily away, sending more light down the ladder.

Hangman and Liz peered down the hole into the passage. Liz covered her nose and grimaced. "Ugh," she said. "Goddamn sewers."

Hangman laughed. "After you," he said, smiling at her.

Liz sighed. "Yeah, thanks," she muttered, as she turned around and cautiously placed her foot on the top rung of the ladder.

"Mm-hm," Hangman grunted, as he watched her climb down the ladder.

When she got to the bottom of the ladder, Liz reached into her hip pocket and pulled out a small metal flashlight, turning it on as Hangman climbed down. She pointed the light at the wall next to the ladder, illuminating "S49" in red painted letters, before directing it down both ways in the sewer tunnel, revealing junctions about a hundred yards away in both directions.

"Good," Liz said, as Hangman's shoes hit the walkway. "We're at S49. Our old records are still accurate."

"Thought so," Hangman replied, pulling out his own flashlight. "I'll head right, then?"

Liz nodded. "I'll take the left. You can get to the rally from here, right?"

"Easy. See you there." Hangman turned and started to jog down the passage to right of the ladder.

Liz turned around and covered her nose. "Onward, girl," she muttered to herself as she started down the other passage, flashlight pointed ahead.

~

"The man who, until a moment ago, held this office as his own, Alvin Rayer, was a menace to the society we all idealize. He was a corporeal symbol of a system that relies upon perceived inequality. What New Halogen gives to you today is the end of that system and, in its place, the birth of the ideal it held back. I am therefore before you on the eve of this birth to explain what you are about to witness."

Shiner folded his hands on the desk and leaned forward.

"First of all," he continued, "I realize many of you are afraid at this moment of what is going on, and I don't blame you. I'd be terrified. But I tell you now-you have nothing to fear from us. We are not oppressors. We are not thugs. We are just the opposite. We have done what we have done in service of all the people of this city. Our issue is with the way of thinking that prohibits true moral equality, along with any who insist upon remaining as agents of it in the face of our progress.

"Second, know that in the course of an average human's daily life in this city, nothing noticeable will have changed between the old and the new systems. Emergency services, public transport, the courts and so on will not be shut off. Policing, for the next week or so, will be conducted by trained New Halogen agents; any surrendered police officers are hereby invited back to their positions and after a brief retraining will be free to return to duty. Know that we are not trying to take anything away. All that we have aimed for today is to, metaphorically, perform a hard reset on San Alejandro's government.

"Please, come outside. Do not be frightened by our patrols; they are only there to protect and aid you. If any grievance arises, do not hesitate to report it to one of them as if they were police officers. I repeat: so long as we have nothing to fear from you, you have nothing to fear from us. I urge you. Go to your jobs, open your businesses, walk your dogs around the neighborhood. You are perfectly safe."

Shiner smiled warmly and genuinely. "We're only looking out for you."

~

Liz paused near a ladder and pointed her light at the wall next to her, showing red letters spelling out "S17." She exhaled with relief and leaned on the damp, cold wall to rest.

After a few seconds, the silence was interrupted sharply by a distant sound of metal falling onto concrete.

Liz's head snapped upward, startled. She held her breath for a second, listening to the silence. Faintly, she heard footsteps and low voices from the left passage of a junction in the tunnel about thirty yards ahead of her. Still silent, she saw a light moving on the wall opposite Liz's tunnel.

As quietly as possible, Liz reached to her side and opened a holster on her belt, taking from it a compact, silenced machine pistol. Holding it against her unlit flashlight in front of her, she slowly started to walk toward the junction. As she approached it, she could hear the footsteps coming closer from around the corner, the light still moving on the wall.

As she reached the corner, she put her back against the cold wall and waited for the footsteps to get closer. She could clearly make out, now, three distinct sets of footsteps. Her heart started to beat quickly as she tried to work out if she could take out three people at once.

Taking a breath, she turned her light on and whirled around the corner just as the steps were a few feet away, pointing it instinctively into the faces of the three people in front of her to blind them. "Don't move!" she shouted, as loud as possible.

All three men covered their eyes as she shouted. Immediately as they recovered they put up their hands. "Don't shoot!" the man on the left cried, straining to look despite the light in his eye.

"Who are you?" Liz shouted. "Are you New Halogen?"

"Liz?" asked the man to the right, squinting through the light. "Liz Harris, is that you?"

Liz was taken aback momentarily. "How-" she began, before the answer clicked in her mind. "You're police," she said, lowering her light and putting her weapon back in its holster. "Scared the shit out of me."

"You're not the only one," the cop in the middle remarked. "Hey...sorry about your brother."

Liz looked at him and nodded solemnly. "Thanks," she said. "How'd you get here? I thought they were taking the police as prisoners."

"No, they let us go," the right cop said. "They just took our police gear, uniforms, guns, armor, then they sent us home."

"Think they can keep us from fighting back just by taking our weapons," the left cop said.

"Yeah, and we're not gonna stand for it," the middle cop said. "We're headed to the rally point to help out you Guards."

"Well...great," Liz said, smiling. "We're gonna need all the help we can get." She nodded her head to the side. "C'mon, S9's not too far away."

~

"Now, as for those who will resist this progress," Shiner continued, his smile leaving his face, "know that there is no stopping what has been started here. Fight all you want; we will fight back, and we will be victorious. We will be victorious not because we have the majority, though we have the majority, nor because we are stronger, though we are stronger. We will instead be victorious in the end because time will show the world that we were right to start this transformation, and you will be remembered as the rigid cynics that stood in the way of progress.

"The patrolling agents of New Halogen shall henceforth be treated, in terms of the law and in the eyes of the people, as police officers. Any assault against them is grounds for immediate arrest and, when necessary, use of force in self-defense or in defense of a civilian. Anyone who considers resisting our ideal should remember this fact.

"Finally, speaking directly to the organization known as the Guards of St. Alex, if there are any of you left who are watching this broadcast, know that every one of you is currently an enemy of New Halogen. We know you are the ones who will undoubtedly orchestrate the resistance to our transformation, and we are not willing to let you roam free. Our patrols are combing the city looking for you, and when we find you, we will not hesitate to chase you down and remove you from our ideal.

"However, if any of you, or any who have aligned themselves with you, wish to avoid getting hurt or killed fighting for a misguided cause, feel free to turn yourselves in; you will have the choice of joining the ranks of New Halogen or being sent to the mainland, unhurt and healthy. It's your choice-accept us and protect the ideal of peace and equality, reject us and live out your life in happiness elsewhere, or resist us and die."

Shiner smiled warmly again. "I do hope this was informative," he said, softly, leaning back. "More broadcasts will come shortly. Until then..." He stood up, put his hand on his heart and bowed his head just as the broadcast cut out.

Description
The door to the Governor's office in City Hall opened violently as several people streamed through it carrying cameras and microphones. "Mr. Rayer," the man in front called.

The Governor of San Alejandro, Alvin Rayer, turned his gaze from the window, which faced south overlooking the several hundred people marching straight toward City Hall on Grecian Avenue, to the camera crew. "Good, you're here," he said, wiping panicked sweat from his face. "Let's do this quickly."

"Of course," the cameraman replied, opening a tripod.

"Sir," said a man in a suit with a gun at his side, who had entered behind the camera crew. "The chopper's waiting. We should leave right now!"

"I'm doing this broadcast, Rice," Governor Rayer said, grabbing his suit jacket from the chair behind the desk in the middle of the office. "The city's under attack and people must be warned."

"We don't have enough people here to fend them off!" Rice urged. "The police frequencies, the Guards, nobody's responding! We need to leave immediately!"

"Rolling in 5," the cameraman said as the Governor sat down at the desk and a microphone was placed in front of him.

"Sir!" Rice shouted. "We-"

"And...go," the cameraman cut in, pointing to the Governor as a light came on on the camera.

Every television in San Alejandro suddenly and abruptly cut out, the signal replaced with the Governor's emergency broadcast.

"Fellow residents of San Alejandro," the image of the Governor began, still visibly and audibly panicked. "This is not a test. The city is under attack. Until notified otherwise, do not go outside your homes. Shut your windows and lock your-"

There was a sound of a muffled explosion and distant gunfire, interrupting the speech for a second or two as the Governor closed his eyes and took a breath, his face red with fear. "Lock your doors," he said weakly. "Don't open the door for anyone."

Rice's voice broke in from off-screen. "Sir, we have to leave now! They're inside the building!"

Governor Rayer stood up, looking toward Rice and nodding before much closer gunfire was heard. At the sound Rayer froze in place, his face turning white.

"Get back!" Rice's voice shouted, as the gunfire continued to get louder. "Get back, sir!" Another gunshot was heard, seemingly only a few feet away, then a series of loud thuds, then footsteps. Rayer held up his hands as if to shield himself. "No!" he screamed, before two more shots were fired.

The image of the Governor was hit once in the chest and once on the side of the forehead. He fell backwards out of shot, behind the desk.

The camera jittered from the cameraman trying to get away before a new disembodied voice said "Don't stop the broadcast."

The camera shakily centered back onto the desk. The signal was fairly quiet and still for a few seconds before a pale, wiry man walked into shot from the right.

He had very light, almost bleached straight hair that fell around his head past his ears. His face and arms were bony and very light-skinned, accentuated by the bright white hooded jacket and corduroy jeans he was wearing. Around his neck was a thin silver rosary. Oddest of all were his eyes, which were heterochromatic; one was dark brown, but the other was a startling light blue, almost a sky blue. The camera, as it focused on him, readjusted the brightness of the image, causing the rest of the room to apparently darken ominously as he sat down.

"Stop pointing that at me," the cameraman could be heard saying fearfully. "I'll do what you say."

The bright image of the man behind the desk looked over toward the right side of the camera and nodded.

"Fine," the disembodied voice said, producing a series of clicking sounds as he put his gun away.

The man at the desk looked back at the camera and smiled. "Now then," he began, in a calm, even voice. "My name is Shiner, and I have just saved this city."

~

After a loud metallic wrenching sound, a shaft of light fell onto a rusty steel ladder leading downward onto a gray, water-slick walkway above a slowly flowing stream of dark liquid. At the top of the ladder, a manhole cover slid noisily away, sending more light down the ladder.

Hangman and Liz peered down the hole into the passage. Liz covered her nose and grimaced. "Ugh," she said. "Goddamn sewers."

Hangman laughed. "After you," he said, smiling at her.

Liz sighed. "Yeah, thanks," she muttered, as she turned around and cautiously placed her foot on the top rung of the ladder.

"Mm-hm," Hangman grunted, as he watched her climb down the ladder.

When she got to the bottom of the ladder, Liz reached into her hip pocket and pulled out a small metal flashlight, turning it on as Hangman climbed down. She pointed the light at the wall next to the ladder, illuminating "S49" in red painted letters, before directing it down both ways in the sewer tunnel, revealing junctions about a hundred yards away in both directions.

"Good," Liz said, as Hangman's shoes hit the walkway. "We're at S49. Our old records are still accurate."

"Thought so," Hangman replied, pulling out his own flashlight. "I'll head right, then?"

Liz nodded. "I'll take the left. You can get to the rally from here, right?"

"Easy. See you there." Hangman turned and started to jog down the passage to right of the ladder.

Liz turned around and covered her nose. "Onward, girl," she muttered to herself as she started down the other passage, flashlight pointed ahead.

~

"The man who, until a moment ago, held this office as his own, Alvin Rayer, was a menace to the society we all idealize. He was a corporeal symbol of a system that relies upon perceived inequality. What New Halogen gives to you today is the end of that system and, in its place, the birth of the ideal it held back. I am therefore before you on the eve of this birth to explain what you are about to witness."

Shiner folded his hands on the desk and leaned forward.

"First of all," he continued, "I realize many of you are afraid at this moment of what is going on, and I don't blame you. I'd be terrified. But I tell you now-you have nothing to fear from us. We are not oppressors. We are not thugs. We are just the opposite. We have done what we have done in service of all the people of this city. Our issue is with the way of thinking that prohibits true moral equality, along with any who insist upon remaining as agents of it in the face of our progress.

"Second, know that in the course of an average human's daily life in this city, nothing noticeable will have changed between the old and the new systems. Emergency services, public transport, the courts and so on will not be shut off. Policing, for the next week or so, will be conducted by trained New Halogen agents; any surrendered police officers are hereby invited back to their positions and after a brief retraining will be free to return to duty. Know that we are not trying to take anything away. All that we have aimed for today is to, metaphorically, perform a hard reset on San Alejandro's government.

"Please, come outside. Do not be frightened by our patrols; they are only there to protect and aid you. If any grievance arises, do not hesitate to report it to one of them as if they were police officers. I repeat: so long as we have nothing to fear from you, you have nothing to fear from us. I urge you. Go to your jobs, open your businesses, walk your dogs around the neighborhood. You are perfectly safe."

Shiner smiled warmly and genuinely. "We're only looking out for you."

~

Liz paused near a ladder and pointed her light at the wall next to her, showing red letters spelling out "S17." She exhaled with relief and leaned on the damp, cold wall to rest.

After a few seconds, the silence was interrupted sharply by a distant sound of metal falling onto concrete.

Liz's head snapped upward, startled. She held her breath for a second, listening to the silence. Faintly, she heard footsteps and low voices from the left passage of a junction in the tunnel about thirty yards ahead of her. Still silent, she saw a light moving on the wall opposite Liz's tunnel.

As quietly as possible, Liz reached to her side and opened a holster on her belt, taking from it a compact, silenced machine pistol. Holding it against her unlit flashlight in front of her, she slowly started to walk toward the junction. As she approached it, she could hear the footsteps coming closer from around the corner, the light still moving on the wall.

As she reached the corner, she put her back against the cold wall and waited for the footsteps to get closer. She could clearly make out, now, three distinct sets of footsteps. Her heart started to beat quickly as she tried to work out if she could take out three people at once.

Taking a breath, she turned her light on and whirled around the corner just as the steps were a few feet away, pointing it instinctively into the faces of the three people in front of her to blind them. "Don't move!" she shouted, as loud as possible.

All three men covered their eyes as she shouted. Immediately as they recovered they put up their hands. "Don't shoot!" the man on the left cried, straining to look despite the light in his eye.

"Who are you?" Liz shouted. "Are you New Halogen?"

"Liz?" asked the man to the right, squinting through the light. "Liz Harris, is that you?"

Liz was taken aback momentarily. "How-" she began, before the answer clicked in her mind. "You're police," she said, lowering her light and putting her weapon back in its holster. "Scared the shit out of me."

"You're not the only one," the cop in the middle remarked. "Hey...sorry about your brother."

Liz looked at him and nodded solemnly. "Thanks," she said. "How'd you get here? I thought they were taking the police as prisoners."

"No, they let us go," the right cop said. "They just took our police gear, uniforms, guns, armor, then they sent us home."

"Think they can keep us from fighting back just by taking our weapons," the left cop said.

"Yeah, and we're not gonna stand for it," the middle cop said. "We're headed to the rally point to help out you Guards."

"Well...great," Liz said, smiling. "We're gonna need all the help we can get." She nodded her head to the side. "C'mon, S9's not too far away."

~

"Now, as for those who will resist this progress," Shiner continued, his smile leaving his face, "know that there is no stopping what has been started here. Fight all you want; we will fight back, and we will be victorious. We will be victorious not because we have the majority, though we have the majority, nor because we are stronger, though we are stronger. We will instead be victorious in the end because time will show the world that we were right to start this transformation, and you will be remembered as the rigid cynics that stood in the way of progress.

"The patrolling agents of New Halogen shall henceforth be treated, in terms of the law and in the eyes of the people, as police officers. Any assault against them is grounds for immediate arrest and, when necessary, use of force in self-defense or in defense of a civilian. Anyone who considers resisting our ideal should remember this fact.

"Finally, speaking directly to the organization known as the Guards of St. Alex, if there are any of you left who are watching this broadcast, know that every one of you is currently an enemy of New Halogen. We know you are the ones who will undoubtedly orchestrate the resistance to our transformation, and we are not willing to let you roam free. Our patrols are combing the city looking for you, and when we find you, we will not hesitate to chase you down and remove you from our ideal.

"However, if any of you, or any who have aligned themselves with you, wish to avoid getting hurt or killed fighting for a misguided cause, feel free to turn yourselves in; you will have the choice of joining the ranks of New Halogen or being sent to the mainland, unhurt and healthy. It's your choice-accept us and protect the ideal of peace and equality, reject us and live out your life in happiness elsewhere, or resist us and die."

Shiner smiled warmly again. "I do hope this was informative," he said, softly, leaning back. "More broadcasts will come shortly. Until then..." He stood up, put his hand on his heart and bowed his head just as the broadcast cut out.