After morning reveille and a couple of hours of cultivation towards Circuit 2B, lunch time finally arrived. And this wasn’t just any sort of lunch - this was a lunch in the city, as Coleridge continually explained while Isaac and Reed sat next to him on the elevated rail to another part of the city.

“It’s no big deal,” Coleridge said, a pitiable sort of smugness radiating from his voice. “The higher-ups told me to take you guys out to lunch today. You know, really shoot the shit and all that, see if you two are still up to no good or if you’ve reformed your ways. I’m kind of like your judge and jury. I won’t say executioner, because executioner? I barely know her!”

He laughed hard at his own joke, and Isaac at least had the decency to make an exaggerated sort of exhale through his nose. Reed wasn’t paying attention whatsoever, and Isaac didn’t blame her; their eyes regularly drifted to the view through the windows of the train car. Not too far in the distance, over rows and rows of three story brick buildings that transitioned into taller and taller steel structures, a sizable gap formed in the otherwise-impressive skyline. The skyscraper that served as the headquarters for the Bank of Arcadia once stood here, a monolith of metal and wealth, until the beam from Polyphemus cleaved it in half with just one blow. It collapsed in on itself, taking several blocks of downtown Narragansett with it. Cranes and scaffolding rose around these damaged buildings, even at the base of the fallen skyscraper itself, which was due to be rebuilt as quickly as possible. Like a phoenix from the ashes - that was the message from the junta.

But then the train hit a bend and Coleridge kept rambling and the visible (or perhaps, technically, invisible) signs of Isaac’s past battles disappeared from view, but not quite from memory. But that’s how it usually was, so he did the usual routine of mindless games - counting the number of windows on the train, the number of signs, the number of Naval agents on board. A Naval Police officer taking two cadets under watch wasn’t simply a matter of lunch; something deeper was going on, and even if Coleridge didn’t realize it, everyone else certainly did. A few seats away, a man shifted in his seat, his fedora shielding his eyes. Another woman nearby read a newspaper. A third man at the far end of the train idly smoked a cigarette. Any of them, perhaps even all of them, were either agents for the Cultivator Marines, the Naval Police, Naval Intelligence, or even the Combined Fleet.

Yet when the train arrived at the station, Coleridge led them down the stairs to an avenue without a care in the world. He listed off the possible meals at the restaurant - and this certainly got Reed’s attention - but his voice was soon drowned out by a large crowd at a nearby plaza. The group of three tried their best to circle around it, but the crowd was enormous, spilling into the adjacent walkways and sidewalks, slowing down the trio, turning them into a captive audience to the men and women addressing the crowd.

The speakers stood on large concrete steps to a large concrete building that identified itself as a major post office for Narragansett. The people in the crowd cheered and waved cloth banners, most of them featuring three vertical stripes going blue-white-blue, almost the same as the Arcadian flag except for the symbol in the middle: a fist clenching a raised sword. Even larger versions of the banners swung above the speakers on the stairs.

Isaac frowned. The Knights of Greater Arcadia.

“My fellow Arcadians,” the largest speaker began in a booming voice. Isaac couldn’t sense it - the speaker didn’t need cultivation to amplify his voice, or even a microphone. He wore a dark trenchcoat, his dark hair cut close to the scalp, and regularly raised his fist as he spoke. “We are just a few weeks out from the new year. This nation faces the crossroads of destiny - do we live on our knees, or die standing?”

“Die standing!” the crowd roared, the banners fluttering and swaying in the breeze. Coleridge, to his credit, rolled his eyes and tried to jostle his way through the crowd, but it was slow-going through such a large mass of people.

“There’s only so much to go around in this world!” the speaker proclaimed. “Jobs are drying up, both here in the factories and in the farms of the outer regions. Do we get any relief? No! Government funds are spent on rebuilding fallen skyscrapers, the fat cats of Narragansett lining their own pockets at our expense! And worst of all, they spend more money on the Atalantans and the Elysians and the Lawrencites than their own native sons and daughters! You know why? Because all of them are concentrated in the city, close to the government, while we’re spread out! They don’t worry about the distant cries of the farmers!”

The man spread his arms wide. “Not anymore! Their own policies have forced us here, into their city, and they still wish to ignore us. No longer! The Knights of Greater Arcadia stand for a belief in ourselves and belief in our ultimate destiny.” He emphasized each point with a chop of an arm. “The specter of Restorationism threatens us! Unbridled big business threatens us! Hostile nations surround us! We must be strong, otherwise, the Arcadian brotherhood will perish, drowned in a sea of revolutionaries and merchants and those who, simply put, are not us, and will never be us!”

The crowd roared and cheered and stamped their feet and called for the Knights to save them. Isaac shook his head, because he could name a whole lot of Atalantans who were just as brave as any Arcadian. But Restorationism did threaten the country, junta cartels did control the economy, and Zhanghai just signed a weapons treaty with Elysia the other day…

Once again, Isaac was up against a faction that made some legitimate points and some that weren’t. Isaac wanted to make a world that addressed those points, as did the Knights, but while Isaac could only look upon his vague idea of “freedom” with dismay, unsure of how to expand upon it, the ultranationalists had already put forth their plan and received cheers for it.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Chief Amien has issued orders in the name of Governor Pulaski the Third, bless his name, for over a decade now,” the speaker continued. “Let our beloved governor, the man who represents the Skyfather in this mortal realm, take the reins of government once more! Let him return to his rightful rule!”

The crowd went wild again. The trio had almost made their way through the audience now, but Isaac’s stomach churned, because that’s when he saw the State Police officers sifting through the crowd. They dressed in their usual black suits and fedoras, which simply blended in with the mass of humanity, but you just knew - the way they walked, the way they were silent, the way they radiated authority. When Isaac first arrived in Narragansett months ago, the State Police broke up a Restorationist rally that very night. Isaac tensed up, his heart beating faster, because he and Reed and Coleridge were still caught in the crowd, and things were about to get violent.

Except they didn’t. The Staties took up positions in the crowd but did nothing, even as the speaker blasted the ruling junta. Isaac could only feel puzzled.

Are they sympathizers? Or is something else going on entirely?

He couldn’t tell, but things were about to come to a head. The trio finally made it through the crowd, arriving on the far end of the plaza, but the speaker’s next words made them pause and stare back at the concrete steps.

Several Knights carried a large framed photograph onto the steps. The photograph had been colorized by a cultivator and depicted the proud, ambitious face of Henry Spinelli in his dress blues. His dark blue uniform stretched tightly across his wide frame, his golden hair spilled down in a mullet from beneath his blue naval cap, and his eyes looked sharp and piercing, all against the background of the Arcadian flag. A true-blooded, hot-blooded, native-born son of Arcadia.

The speaker let the crowd die down from its wild applause. “Henry Spinelli recognized that our country was being led astray. He did not sit idly. He took action! The Navy, home to smugglers and secrets and ill-gotten wealth, was ruled by the very fat cats we oppose. So he took action. He wished to strike a blow, decapitate them in one fell swoop, for he is a simple soldier, a simple patriot, who loves Arcadia. The government calls the love of country a crime.”

The crowd booed and hissed at this apparent injustice.

Coleridge, meanwhile, adjusted his cap and frowned. “I don’t think he’s all that special or nothing.” For once, Isaac had to agree with him.

“Henry currently awaits trial,” the speaker said, building up to his final conclusion. “Let us show how we appreciate and applaud his resolve. If patriotism is a crime, then we of the Knights are criminals of the highest order. Let us show you how much we believe in Henry Spinelli and the future we desire for our country.”

Murmurs ran through the crowd as the speaker and everyone else on the steps consolidated and lined up next to each other. In unison, as banners fluttered above them, they paired up. One person held up a plank of wood to the other, who then retrieved a knife from their coat. Isaac watched with growing revulsion as the knife-wielders placed their opposite hand on the board and extended a pinky.

“We are not cultivators,” the speaker proclaimed. “My name is Munroe McCoy, and this is the future for Arcadia I desire.”

Coleridge yelped as a dozen knives cut through a dozen pinkies. The crowd screamed, went wild, applauded, couples kissed, others hyperventilated, all of them in a rushing frenzy. McCoy recovered fast and raised his bloodied knife above his head, reminiscent of the raised sword on the flags in the crowd.

“For a Greater Arcadia!”

At this point, the State Police starting moving. Nothing crazy - no firing into the crowd, no tossing bodies. But Rddhi flickered as the officers started telling the people to disperse, an armored car conveniently rolling out of an alleyway adjacent to the plaza for extra firepower. This might have sent the crowd into hysterics, but McCoy remained quiet, a stoic look on his face. If he gave the order, the crowd would’ve went berserk, but he acknowledged the situation and sent his own followers to restore order and get everyone home.

And with the situation slowly defusing, Isaac and Reed went to follow Coleridge, only to realize he had already dashed off. With a shake of the head and nowhere else to go, the two followed a street away from the plaza, away from the disintegrating crowd, until all they heard was the noise of traffic that moved with utter obliviousness to the ultranationalist rally just a couple streets away. Isaac found Coleridge waiting outside the restaurant, looking at the menu posted to the window.

“Some day, huh?” Coleridge said with a shrug that tried and failed to cover up his nerves. “There’s a lot of Knights in the Naval Police, even a lot in your Cultivator Marines, but I never cared for them. Just a bunch of nuts who say they want Pulaski to rule, but they really just want to make Henry the dictator. And for what? What does Henry know about dictating? The Knights say things that get the people going. They’re good at exposing problems. But the solutions are plain ol' stupid.”

A van pulled into a little alleyway adjacent to the restaurant, presumably heading for a loading dock to make a delivery. Isaac found himself looking at the hedonistic officer in front of him with a new light.

“You really don’t like the Knights?” Isaac asked.

Coleridge vigorously shook his head. “Don’t care for all the blame placed on the Atalantans and what-not. And replacing a military dictatorship with a Henry dictatorship doesn’t solve nothing, either. Naval Police has its own factions - those who belong to the Knights, and those who don’t like ‘em. My father’s a great man. He’s the biggest critic of the Knights in the Naval Police.”

Isaac pondered that. Coleridge’s dad opposes the Knights, which means he opposes Henry Spinelli and probably Acting Commandant Spinelli as well. So why wouldn’t the Spinellis put one of their own men to watch Reed and I?

It wasn't a question he could answer at the moment, nor would hr find the answer for a long while. Right as Coleridge regaled the duo with tales of the food inside, right as Reed licked her lips at the thought of eating, the van parked in the alleyway exploded, as did several more lining the adjacent avenue, sending up a huge cloud of orange and red and heat and knocking Isaac down to the cold concrete of the sidewalk.