Pittsburgh City Hall, the Mayor's Office.
The night was deep. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city lights appeared hazy and fragmented through the curtain of rain.
Leo Wallace stood before the window. On the desk behind him, the latest intelligence briefings were piled high.
Capitol Hill in Washington was in chaos. Lobbyists from the energy and pharmaceutical giants were at each other's throats.
Media headlines were filled with news of a power outage at a Pfizer lab and the crash of United Health's data center.
This should have been his proudest moment.
He, a young Mayor from Pittsburgh, had single-handedly made the arrogant elites of Washington and the titans of capital dance on his chessboard.
He had successfully instigated a civil war between the two major factions—energy and pharmaceuticals—and diverted the crisis.
But he didn't feel the slightest bit of satisfaction.
Instead, a heavy, suffocating sense of oppression was slowly drowning him like a rising tide.
