The members of the Red Dragon Triad all lived in the same brick building so they could better keep an eye on one another and also build familial those bonds necessary for the modern crime syndicate to reach its true potential. They weren’t just any criminal outfit - they treated each other as brothers and sisters, fathers and sons. There were still a lot of utopian ideas political commissars like Haneda and Babs needed to teach them, but fortunately, they already knew the bonds of family. The future Kallipolos would be one giant family-state, with Caesar as the patriarch, his ruling class as his loyal elders, and the masses below them transformed from unruly children into well-adjusted adults.

The process was already in motion. Standing in the back of a large truck, Babs felt the tough wooden boards on her hands as she passed down crate after crate of luxury goods. This deep in the ghetto, the products Haneda, Babs, and their associates all handed out would’ve been worth more than the entire rundown district combined. Yet the little group gave it away freely. An old woman, helped along by two friends, gave a toothy smile as she received her luxury. So did a teenager in a ratty scally cap with a club leg. So did a young girl in ragged hand-me-downs walking on crutches. So did every poor unfortunate soul that lived in the Neponset ghetto. The luxury they all received free of charge today? Nothing more than an apple.

It’s a funny thing, the way economics works. The majority of agricultural land in Arcadia was now in the hands of the military oligarchy running the country. To protect their profit margins, the country threw up tariffs on things (well, things that Zhanghai allowed them to throw tariffs up on) like imported apples. With that limited supply of fruit, where would the military sell it? To the richest areas of Arcadia. That meant the only time the ghetto dwellers ever saw fruit was in propaganda posters and billboards rather than in their hands. Now apply the same kind of thinking to anything the military had their hands on and you got a country in crisis.

The sight of all those happy people put Babs in a great mood. The mood continued all the way home. Unlike the Red Dragons, Haneda and Babs lived in a small hideout on the outskirts of Neponset. It was the richer side of the ghetto - they could afford fruit a few times a year - but still the ghetto nonetheless. On the third floor of an otherwise-unassuming building, Haneda had built a small dojo. Straw mats covered the floor and old swords hung from the walls.

Standing in her white gi across from him, Babs bowed, then looked at Haneda with a smirk. Caesar had a point about violence - the crashing of body against body, will against will was perhaps the pinnacle of the human experience. Survival was the great driving force behind change and evolution; to put her entire person on the line sent electrifying chills through Babs that made her tighten her fists and a smile on her face.

When Haneda returned her bow, the match began. He had more than a decade of experience and dozens of pounds on her, but the body was only as useful as the mind directing it. Babs thought she had a pretty damn good mind (and body too, thank you very much) but Haneda was her mentor, after all. She almost had him today - a feint to her left followed by a sudden roundhouse kick from the right - but Haneda merely accepted the kick to his stomach and caught her leg. He pressed her, forcing her to the ground. With one leg in the crook of his arm and his foot keeping the ankle on Babs' other pinned to the ground, he only needed to apply some light pressure for Babs to feel pain rushing up her leg.

Game, set, match. When he let go, Babs gritted her teeth and rubbed her ankle. She did have a slight victory today - Haneda currently caught his breath since Babs’ powerful kick took the wind out of him.

“When am I gonna learn cultivation?” Babs asked again. “If I could shoot kung fu lasers out of my hands, I could take you down for sure.”

“You know Caesar’s policy on cultivators,” Haneda reminded her. “Not until you’ve been promoted beyond deputy commissar.”

Babs - currently the deputy commissar attached to the Red Dragons, of course - frowned and crossed her arms. “Then how come you’re not a cultivator?”

Haneda turned over an empty fruit crate and sat on it, letting out a sigh. “Because cultivation does not equal wisdom. It does not equal respect. It does not equal power. I have no need of it.”

“But Viola Reed destroyed Quinsigamond with just a pair of spoons. That’s power to me.”

“Viola Reed would not be a hero if she merely destroyed her opponents,” he said. “She’s a hero because she had the ability to move the hearts of the masses. And you don’t need cultivation for that. You only need to act on the injustices you see. Merely possessing the ability to cultivate doesn’t give you the ability to create justice. Only your inner willpower can.”

Babs stewed on his words. “I see what you mean. But could Viola have won Arcadia’s independence if she wasn’t a cultivator in the first place?”

“She possessed great combat ability, no doubt. But she rallied the forces of the Reeds, Cartwrights, the Sect Hidden in the Mountains, and the great commoner armies of her own accord. Her leadership ability was separate from her fighting talent. And, even with her cultivation, she died in battle. Had she survived, Arthur Reed might not have taken advantage of the spirit of her rebellion and got us into the mess we find ourselves in today.”

Haneda rose from his crate. “But enough talk. It’s about time for dinner. I’ll chop the meat, you cut the vegetables.”

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The happy feeling that began this morning only grew exponentially while cooking, carrying Babs into the night. In high spirits, she dragged Haneda out of the home to go to her favorite place in town - Old Bob’s Dance Hall. Haneda liked to spend his nights reading old novels; not so with Babs. She needed movement, she needed energy, she needed action, and she could find it all at the dance hall, rubbing elbows with factory workers and seamstresses, hopping and skipping in tune to the latest jazz standards. Women with blue streaks in their hair, inspired by the young Queen of Atalanta, danced with each other, their fellows, or even men they just met and now planned on going home with that night. Babs wasn’t really about all that, but it would be nice, at least, to dance with somebody. Unfortunately, her status as a commissar gave her a lot of acquaintances and not a whole lot of friends.

It wasn’t the first time Babs dragged Haneda to Old Bob’s. She knew the routine already - he’d take a spot at the end of the bar, sip a lone beer the entire night, and speak with the old man himself about the Arcadian baseball league while Babs mingled with the crowd. But not tonight. When the usual routine began, Babs purposely waited at the edge of the dance floor, making it clear that Haneda should join her. He gave her perplexed looks until Old Bob reached over from behind the counter and gestured at him to join her.

In the darkness of the dance floor, Haneda in his black suit blended right in. As the latest jazz hit picked up, he gave Babs an amused, tired sort of expression and put an arm on her shoulder and on the small of her back.

“The hell?” she asked incredulously. “What kind of dancing is this?”

He gave her an equally incredulous look. “This is how I learned to dance.”

Babs raised an eyebrow. “What, like some kind of ballroom?” When he could only nod, she laughed and separated herself. “That’s not dancing’s done today. Dancing isn’t formal. Dancing’s just dancing. It’s the best.”

“What are the moves?” Haneda asked.

“You just move along to the beat.” Babs couldn’t understand how somebody couldn’t simply see that as the most natural thing in the world. The tempo of the jazz standard kicked up a gear, the keys of the piano clicked and clanged to the time of the saxophone, and Babs simply swung her hands in front of her face, her auburn hair shaking around and falling about. The movement continued into her shoulders, into her legs, into the mass of people around them.

To his credit, Haneda tried his best. He loosened up just a little bit, doing a casual bit of movement, scooching his legs across the floor. By the end of the night, he had slightly undone his tie to move around a bit more freely, and Babs considered that a major success. But if, one day, she could just dance with somebody who understood the world the way she understood it, if somebody could experience the dance floor and jazz the same way she did, then she’d want to just keep dancing with that person forever.

But still - Haneda had fun. On the walk home, he tried to hide it by keeping the fedora tight around his head, the shadows blocking his eyes, but from the slight swing in his step - Babs knew it. There wasn’t any reason for that happy feeling to stop. She had been happy all day - how many people could say something like that?

Babs woke up the next morning with that same feeling. The giddiness and general excitement lasted all day until she held the opera mask and machine pistol in her hands. Even while wearing gloves, she could still feel the cold steel on her palms. The autumn drizzle outside the car windows contributed to the subdued mood as well, as did the stranger sitting in the car with her. Haneda sat in the front passenger seat while an unknown Restorationist foot soldier kept a hand on the wheel. Despite the severity of the situation, he talked endlessly about a date he had tomorrow. Despite it all, he felt giddy. Probably because he wasn’t doing the shooting.

The location didn’t help either. They weren’t in the Neponset ghetto anymore. The restaurant they currently staked out could be found in a chic street somewhere in western Narragansett. Men and women walked around in fur collars - that kind of wealth, that kind of street. Inside the restaurant, Oyabun Ling of the Red Dragons was meeting with a representative from another triad. Breaking bread, renewing old ties, trying to form an alliance against the growing Restorationist power, that kind of deal. A few muscular triads remained on guard outside the front of the restaurant, with the car just carefully parked outside of their notice.

“You gotta try it with an August Storm pill,” the driver continued. “You know what I mean? Chicks dig it, man-”

“Enough,” Haneda cut in. He held his own submachine gun with a calm grip. Babs, meanwhile, had chewed through half a pack of gum. The regular street noises - people talking, cars honking, rain drizzling - drifted through the car, occupying the silence left by the abrupt end of the driver’s ramblings. But the background ambience was enough to settle Babs’ nerves right as Haneda nodded at the driver.

The change was instantaneous. The driver, previously just some goofy annoyance, narrowed his eyes and peeled the car out of its parking spot towards the front of the restaurant. Ling, flanked by two of his lieutenants, approached their waiting car. His other lieutenant, who decided drugs would be the way to go after all, remained behind them, conveniently placed next to the other triad representative who had just recently signed an oath of loyalty and bill of service for drug trafficking with Caesar as well.

Under the bright lights, the driver pulled the car up to the restaurant. The opera mask now on her face, Babs could only see through the thin slits. But she had practiced this maneuver enough times to do it blind-folded. The safety was off, the clip was in, her finger gave the trigger a light squeeze. The machine pistol kicked back in recoil, but she had trained with the weapon enough for it to feel natural in her hands, like nothing more than a light breeze.

The bullets poured out of her window. It also shattered the lungs of Ling as they tore through his suit. Haneda added to the cacophony when his own gun opened up. Crimson surged through a lieutenant as he activated a shield of Rddhi over the wounded Ling, but Haneda simply lowered his aim toward the man’s feet. When he and the shield crumpled, Haneda joined Babs in gunning down the old oyabun.

When her gun clicked empty, she switched to a second one rather than reloading. Babs provided the farewell - another set of rounds into the corpses at the front of the restaurant as the driver peeled off. She could see the grin of the traitorous lieutenant through the restaurant window and wondered what it felt like.