A Man of Honor.

Chapter 31: Grand Opening of the Moonstone Club.

"His name was Rico, He wore a diamond, He was escorted to his chair, he saw Lola dancing there, And when she finished, he called her over, But Rico went a bit to far, Tony sailed across the bar, And then the punches flew and chairs were smashed in two, There was blood and a single gunshot, But just who shot who?, At the copa, Copacabana, The hottest spot north of Havana, At the copa, Copacabana, Music and passion were always the fashion, At the copa, she lost her love." ~ Copacabana song 1978 Written by Barry Manilow, Jack Feldman, Bruce Sussman.

Everybody was talking about the Atlas military coming to Vale. Every day the Vytal Festival drew closer and closer and the sudden appearance of General Ironwood's fleet outside everyone's homes was rather difficult to ignore. And ever more alarming than the heavily armed airships above our heads were the heavily armed soldiers patrolling the streets with rifles and full combat gear.

Already it was making trouble for the business. I remember turning on the news to see the General himself talking up how his forces would provide safety and security to the streets of Vale for the Vytal Festival. Believe me that if any of those news reporters had bothered to actually go out onto the streets they'd understand how nervous everyone was having them walking around our streets looking like they were ready to fight a war.

They weren't badges, those soldiers didn't have the ability to make arrests or stop crimes or obtain warrants like normal cops do. They didn't have any of the authority a cop would have, but they certainly had a bad habit of sticking their fucking noses where they didn't belong and getting away with just a slap on the wrist.

In a manner that couldn't be considered coincidence those jackbooted thugs took to patrolling most of our territory and the neighborhoods of Little Mistal and frequenting our establishments. A lot of these soldiers had pay that they were willing to throw around to drink or go to clubs but it wasn't an uptick in profit we were looking for.

Tony for example had one group of Atlas soldiers try sneaking into the back of his restaurant where he had a stash of some stolen SDC tech he was going to be selling off. They didn't find anything because one of the waiters and associates stopped him. But it got a little violent and Tony's busboy was slapped with an assault charge and denied bail while the soldier got away scot free claiming he was just trying to look for a bathroom and ended up getting harassed.

That led to a warrant being filed and the police looking through the restaurant. Thankfully Tony had people move the stuff beforehand but incidents like this happening put everyone on edge. When you got people carrying rifles coming into your establisments not giving a fuck who you work for it gets bad. So Roman called a sit down to ease everyone's tensions.

Sitting at a table inside the office space of the Duster Security Union courtesy of Tony I was getting an ear full of all the incidents that had occured in just the last couple of days since I got back. I sat close to Neo as we waited for Roman to arrive. I couldn't help but feel that too many eyes were glancing my way to take notice that a mere soldier such as myself was going to be sitting right next to Roman. I had originally tried standing with a lot of the other lower lever made guys but Neo wouldn't let me stand with them. I was Roman's man so I sat with Roman.

"They fucking stopped my trucks!" Paulie told the room. "They noticed a few of my guys stopping to offload them and they started asking questions! It's ridiculous! My guys swear they were motioning them with their rifles but of course the badges are believing those bastards! They weren't even breaking the law! They were just delivering flour to a bakery I own but they demanded to inspect the cargo! Thankfully there was nothing suspicious for them to find."

I too had faced some difficulties with this development. My bootleg DVD sales had taken a hit because the stands that were out in the street were being harassed by the soldiers. Some had apparently bought some of my bootleg disks but others had called the police for trafficking copyrighted goods. Thankfully the cops in Little Mistral were on the take and knew that those stands belonged to me and Toshi so they had stalled however they could but even bribes couldn't stop them from investigating. Not with the Atlas military breathing down their necks. So the stands were gone for the moment and I had to get Russel to talk to a few more store owners into selling them for me to make up for the lost profits.