The initial gathering the night Alpha had gone to Viper had not at all been a run-of-the-mill meeting.
Viper had never been more serious, sending Alpha to rouse the Council of Three Rings with demanding aggression well past curfew. She meant for them to do nothing more than sit and play witness to her absolute unbridled fury over the entire matter. You couldn't convince her it was not well earned, for an insult or denial dealt to the man she claimed as her pair--her other half, here in the world after the end--was an insult or denial dealt to her personally. No one, not a single soul, wanted to be on the receiving end of her anger.
The last unfortunate fool to cross Viper had died in agony, his throat savagely ripped out by her very own teeth. He expired gurgling and choking on his own blood on the pristine floors of the council room while her chosen officials watched on in uncomfortable states of unreset--some in wordless horror and others morbid fascination. She daintily wiped her bloodied lips and carried on speaking of her hopes for medical advances, humanitarian allowances, and expansions of infrastructure.
That man had been the chosen Keeper of the Peace before Sir was elected into the position, and had made the grave mistake of insulting her racial background. Even in death the deadly Superior Elect would not allow him peace. He lay in a pool of his own blood and excrement until the virus reanimated his corpse, reigniting the electrical activity of his brain, and he was promptly hauled off to the Pit to be put to service entertaining the well thought of denizens of the mid-ring.
After he was beheaded by the inmates there, she placed his still animated severed head carefully upon a pike just through the bottom of his jaw, delighting in the ability to gaze upon him amongst his peers. Every loud-mouthed, holier-than-thou, misogynistic or racist imbecile who had crossed her before him mounted and gurgling at her every time she passed the outer gates of the Stadium leading to the Pit during her morning jog.
The midnight calling was just that. A moment to invoke terror and promises of pain and great suffering to anyone who thought to take matters of trespassers through her territory into their own hands. She used the gathering to vent her displeasure, and only that. She didn't give a damn who thought they knew better.
It was brief, and ballistic, and everyone was enormously relieved when she tired of their presences and stormed off leaving Alpha to relay her demands. He dismissed the council to recess having no such authority amongst them for a briefing, or to give orders, concluding they should return the following day once Viper was no longer simmering in her rage. They avoided her detection for the remainder of that day, and when they rendezvoused at long last to speak on their progressions in the city and hear her directions moving forward they did so with prompt obedience.
Ghost was the first to arrive.
He was the youngest man who sat on the council at merely twenty-five years of age, but his value had been proven ten times over. The meek Asian man's intelligence was second only to the Doctor. A heavily armed diesel locomotive pulled through Brunswick only once every six months or so, coming along the Western Railroad, if they were lucky. Their timing was sporadic to deter raiders and bandits, and one year, they hadn't come through at all. Coal and fuel were precious commodities, but someone out on the West Coast was making off well by it.
They were fortunate if there was anything left on the train when it finally reached the East Coast. It was Ghost who utilized this saving grace to revive the local power plant and pave the way for electricity in the city. It took a massive amount of goods to trade with the Engineer to sparsely power the city for one more year... but these were not things that the most privileged denizens need worry over... thanks to Ghost.
When the half functional power plant left them wanting, Ghost established the solar panel network so that the denizens of the Core need not rely on the faulty grid. The power plant required precious resources, and so rolling blackouts were more than common among the mid and outer rings. Solar energy however had ample availability to the elite, and what Ghost did not know of the technology, he learned with ease. His influence was invaluable, and irreplaceable.
War was not far behind him. A tall, muscular, dark-skinned man of African-American origin, War was a force to be reckoned with in and of himself. He was one of very few survivors of Viper's original group who had traveled with her from Atlanta and as such was fiercely loyal and protective of the Superior Elect. Like many of the men these days, War might have been fifty, perhaps even older. It was difficult to tell for certain. He ate clean, he had no vices, and he kept himself in shape.
He was a conventionally handsome man by all standards, his deep brown skin did not have many wrinkles or an overly worn appearance to betray his age. His dark hair was always styled in a neatly buzzed fade complimented by immaculately maintained edges of his beard and goatee with only minor speckles of snowy hairs here and there. He stood impatient and alert at the door of the chambers as the council members slowly trickled in, his toned arms crossed over his broad chest.
Sir was the next to be prompt in his attendance, as was Justice. Both men were aging into their fifties, and both were Caucasian men of unassuming appearances with neatly groomed graying hair and stern expressions. Both were native to the area. Their families had come from money, born and bred here on the Georgia coast. They were ironclad and set in their ways, but all the same, they were not so rigid and unyielding as to not recognize real power.
The option of swearing loyalty to Viper was easy when faced with the utter horrors the original clan of Hunters were deposed with. Since both elder gentlemen very much preferred their heads attached to their bodies, they swore their allegiance to the deadly Viper with only the condition that they maintained their stations and influence.
They were never Hunters, to begin with. Sir was the city's greatest proprietor owning several prime locations for business, including most of the drinking establishments and a posh Inn on the waterfront of the He later took duty as the resident Keeper of the Peace, once granted amnesty. Justice also boasted land and property, but unlike Sir, he had played a role in the shifting tides of power standing as first a juror when the defeated Hunter clan were tried and sentenced.
Inevitably; the position of Judge had been given to him by overwhelming support during their recent election. He secured loyalty to the cause from the remaining Hunters beyond Craven's inner circle, following the fall of the violent dictatorship that plagued his city beforehand. Neither man had any qualms adhering to her new world order. Viper had led a bloody revolt that only brought prosperity after the carnage.
Coyote was soon to tail them into the room. A Native American woman in her late thirties, Coyote was both gruff and standoffish, but overall very much responsible for much of the massive growth of the city... especially during the late migration nearly four years back as the tides shifted in the favor of the survivors following Viper's coup. With the fall of the original cannibalistic Hunter party, they saw many newcomers flooding across the bridge in hopes of salvation and sanctuary.
This was all in spite of the Three Rings of Hell sending out vicious broadcasts and notices of their occupied territory to any communities still existing in the southeastern United States. They wanted no visitors. They were prepared to defend their territory with blood and bullets. And all the same... the poor, the desperate, and the desolate flowed to the city by the sea like moths to the flame.
Coyote's efforts had been what put up the walls, and recovered and enhanced crumbling infrastructure. She guided rebuilding of apartments, and re-paved streets, slowly repairing the city from the tattered remains the original Hunter clan had left it in following the violent coup that might as well have been a full on war.
