E-UNIT: The Blue Angels of Death.

V O L U M E . S E V E N - P H A N T O M S . A N D . P R E D A T O R S

The office itself was surprisingly restrained, clean white walls, warm wooden floors, none of the color obsession she'd applied to the rest of the city. A large display showed live feeds from across Theria. The left wall held embedded shelving behind glass doors, filled with history books about the city written by humans over the centuries. The Elysium flag hung behind her, deep red with the Eta symbol, and the windows beside it looked out over the capital she'd been quietly redesigning one sidewalk at a time.

Her hat was off. Her tone was completely different from the one she used around Reaper. "Obsidian. Tell me you're not routing another batch of incoming robots to Theria."

Obsidian shifted in the video feed. "The other cities don't have the capacity. Automa is at sixty percent completion because of Shelly's charming four-hour workday legislation. I came within reach of a civil dispute when I tried to raise it back to six hours, so I need options."

"I understand the problem." Xidia touched the edge of her desk, a habit when she was thinking through something with no good answer. "We are expanding faster than the numbers suggest, but faster isn't fast enough. I have a new program running, three robots assigned per job, accelerating the steel frame work on the new towers significantly. But even with that, receiving thousands of incoming residents per week is asking for something the city can't currently give."

Obsidian pressed a hand to his forehead and began massaging it. "Even Behemoth won't hand Frostholm over until he confirms the last human has been cleared. I understand his reasoning, individuals left behind tend to cause incidents. But in the meantime—" He looked at the ceiling. "Shelly. Why do you exist."

Xidia pressed her hand to her mouth to cover the laugh. "I do appreciate your frustration. It reminds me I'm not suffering alone."

Obsidian leaned forward, eyes dimming. "What happened to the quiet, flustered mayor I spoke to in the metro station? All I see now is a hornless demon creature who draws energy from other people's catastrophes."

"Calling women demons is not a quality I associate with a Prime Minister." She raised an eyebrow. "And I'm actively trying to help you. I can contact the other mayors directly and ask them to absorb part of the incoming batch. That's the best available option right now."

"You are genuinely the only functioning person in this administration." Obsidian's shoulders came down. "The other mayors have stopped taking my calls. One of them has me saved in his contacts as 'NOISY-MACHINE.' I am the Prime Minister of Elysium. I will be having a conversation with Lord Reaper about some basic governance standards."

Xidia went red. It happened before she could stop it. "That… sounds productive."

Obsidian's eyes dimmed further. "His name alone. That's all it took."

"It's not like that." She covered her face. "I simply admire him. He's a thoughtful leader, he refused to let the backup server problem accumulate on my desk and ordered the Zoí-Center built. We're still working out the scale issue, so we're designing the building with future expansion capability built in."

"We," Obsidian said. He paused for exactly long enough to make the pause meaningful.

"I didn't mean—"

"When is the wedding?"

"Stop!" She covered her audio sensors. "My system will generate the mental image now and I cannot undo that. I am reporting this entire call to Lord Reaper. This line is registered under Elysium telecommunications law."

Obsidian laughed briefly. "The old saying holds, women understand the law better than the people who write it. I need to go. The incoming robot problem isn't going to wait for me to finish being embarrassed on your behalf."

Two knocks came at the blurry glass door. A pair of orange eyes shone through the frosted panel.

"Good timing, I have work too. Keep me updated." She closed the call.

"You may come in, Chrome. I've been expecting you."

The door opened. Chrome entered fixing his tie, crossed to the white guest sofa below the live feed display, and sat with both arms extended across the back of it. "Thank you for having me." He looked at her directly. "Updates on my end, but first, your side. Did it go as intended?"

Xidia checked the digital clock floating at the edge of her desk. "I did my best. I flush easily around him, which makes consistency difficult, but he seemed to accept the narrative. He believed the construction delay without questioning it. I don't enjoy lying to him."

"It wasn't a lie."

"Pardon?"

"The workers are moving slowly. Shelly's legislation did that." Chrome looked up at the TV above him. "She is a persistent problem. Putting her in the lab was not sufficient containment, she'll grow bored, migrate back toward the castle, and start making political decisions that will take years to undo."

"Lord Reaper tolerates her remarkably well." Xidia leaned back. "She rejected my proposal for wider arterial roads because, and I am quoting directly, I had looked at her brother in a way she didn't approve of."

"He has limited options with her." Chrome stood and began moving through the room. "She is his creator. His mother in some functional sense. Somehow also his sister." He reached the shelving and pulled out a volume. Metromania: The Story of the Success of the Failure. He turned it over. "Remarkable." He set it back. "I dislike removing capable people. But she generates too much heat to hold onto."

"That particular phrase does not land the way you intend it to." Xidia smiled. "Her output is technically heatless, pure energy in fire form, as Behemoth explained it."

Chrome pressed two fingers to his forehead. "Speaking with you is genuinely pleasant by comparison. Every conversation with Shelly reads like a transcript from someone who has decided that being intelligible is optional." He crossed back to the center of the room. "I will do what I can to make her influence on governance as brief as possible."

"Obsidian said something very similar." Xidia straightened. "Practically speaking, when does this produce results? And Lord Reaper, he went down on the lab floor. Is he alright?"

"He is." Chrome rested both hands on the edge of her desk, his voice carrying something that might, in a different register, have been relief. "And he is not pleased. I have not seen him this angry before. Whatever consequence he decides on for Shelly, it will likely exceed the Kasparian assignment significantly."

"I've been curious how that went."

"She developed a defensive framework so effective that the Remidican Republic came to Lord Reaper asking for a peace agreement." Chrome exhaled through his vents at length. "I hate her, I respect her, and I am genuinely astonished by her. All at once, at all times." He looked at Xidia. "Don't become too visible in this. I'll continue working the back end." He moved toward the door. "You'll have an office beside Lord Reaper before long." A pause. "And perhaps legs."

"You're envious because I float."

"I have a strong attachment to my legs." Chrome left.

Xidia shook her head slowly and opened a photograph on her desk screen, Reaper, one she'd saved from a city archive.

"An office beside you." She looked at it for a moment. "That would be the best thing this world has managed to produce so far. My king."

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