Democracy vs Corporatocracy

Chapter Thirty Seven: New Boston

The people in the North Village were anxiously waiting for the return of their Chief High Councilor and the brave soldiers who followed him into a dangerous mission to expose corrupt Corpos, when they saw the cars and buses return to the village. They had driven past the main checkpoint and parked by the main square in front of the Old North Church. That was when they saw Chief High Councilor Marcus Libertad exit the one in front and applauded their return. They had of course witnessed the whole thing on their televisions, but would be glad to hear it from the people who undertook this mission. The League had procured many televisions in the abandoned houses throughout Boston and had reactivated a radio station so that they could watch the Global News Network. Of course Codes had encrypted the signal so it could not be traced, that much was certain. As the soldiers got out of the cars, people rushed over to congratulate them on a successful mission. High Councilor of Health, Rachel Medicus, ran over to Marcus and said "We saw the whole thing on tv! Great job guys". Marcus smiled and said "Just doing our jobs and those jobs are overthrowing the Corpos!" The citizens applauded him, but then heard Mary ask "What about that little sister o yours?" They all turned silent and looked at Marcus, who then said "Here she is". Julia stepped out of the car and everyone turned their eyes on her. Julia looked around and asked "How many people live here?" Marcus answered with "Just over seven thousand". Julia was shocked and asked "How did you recruit that many?" Marcus answered with "We went up to families that lived in tents and convinced them to join us". High Councilor of Resource Management and Settlement Development Samuel then appeared from out of the crowd and upon seeing Julia, he immediately said "Ah, I take it this would be Julia?" Marcus looked at him and said "Yes, do you have the papers in order?" Samuel nodded and said "They're all in order". Julia looked at Sam and asked "What papers?" Sam answered with "We need to get you registered in our files". Julia understood and said "I guess it makes sense, since we are our own nation". Marcus agreed and said "Indeed, which is why the U.S Government has no jurisdiction here whatsoever". Marcus then looked at the New Bostonians and said "People of Boston, which I'm hoping to rename New Boston, now that we've dealt with Barry Brothering, it's time to address a problem of ours". High Councilor of Military Operations, Ryan Armis, stepped forward and asked "What's this here problem?" Marcus answered in a worried tone "Our stealth devices may be able to hide our vehicles, but they can't hide this city. As we develop Boston more and reactivate power in different parts of the city, there will be a higher chance of us being found out. It won't be long before the activity in Boston is visible from space, so we must find a solution". 

That was when Codes and his strike team that had hacked the Privacy Violators stepped out of the Equality Engine with a strange device that was covered in a large cloth. Codes said aloud "Luckily we have that solution". They all turned to them, as the two soldiers placed the device on the ground and removed the cloth. Everyone then saw the device was circular, was the size of three wheel chairs stacked on top of each other and had some small satellite dishes on top. Marcus walked over to it, realised what they had done and asked "What did you steal?" Codes answered in an optimistic tone "This right here is Project Plain Sight, a device MegaCorp has been working on for a while". Marcus raised his eyebrow and asked "What does it do?" Matthew said excitedly "It creates a shield around a selected area and makes it look like something else from outside said shield". Mrs Honeyton and her two daughters then appeared from out of the crowd. Hanako looked at the device and asked "So it can make Boston invisible?" Matthew looked and Hanako and said in a hopeful manner "It can make it look like Boston is still abandoned. It will seem like no one is in Boston and we'll be able to bring in as many people as we like". Everyone immediately applauded this as Hanako hugged Matthew and and said "Nice work you guys!" Matthew blushed and said "Uh, thanks Hanako". Matthew then timidly said "You wanna go out sometime?" Hanako was silent for a moment, but then smiled and said "Sure thing". Marcus was impressed and asked "You guys have just given us a huge advantage here, but can we power it?" Lucas placed the duffle bag he had been holding on the ground and opened it to reveal the power cells inside. Lucas held one up and said "Each one is enough for six months, no more than that. So we shouldn't turn on the device until we reach a certain population". Julia thought for a moment and asked "How many do we have anyways?" Codes answered with "There are enough for seventeen years and six months, no more than that". Marcus thought for a moment and said "We'll have to procure more power cells, we'll turn it once we have it set up". One of the soldiers handed the file about it to Marcus and said "Good thing the instructions are in the file". Marcus read the file, saw how the device hides heat signatures and said "MegaCorp will be looking for us, I think we should turn it on immediately". Mummers of approval and disapproval were heard throughout the crowd. Yumiko put her hand up and asked "Maybe we should vote?" The High Council agreed with her and Marcus said "We'll get the old voting machine set up, the vote will take place in one hour".

One hour later, a voting machine had been set up in front of the green horse statue and the citizens were all in an orderly assembly. The voting machine had been found inside of City hall and Codes had done his best to repair it. Marcus stood next to it with the rest of the High Council and said "If you wish for Project Plain Sight to be activated right now, press the green button with a tick. If you wish for Project Plain Sight to be activated once we have a population of 20,000 however, press the red button with the X". The High Council then passed their votes. Marcus, Eivor and Ryan all voted yes, but Sam and Rachel both voted X. When Marcus asked them why, they said "We think that we should wait a while, that's all". Over the next hour, all 7421 citizens casted their votes. It was a 75.88% landslide tick. The total results were 5631-1790. After the results were confirmed, Marcus proudly said "The people have spoken, the device will be activated as soon as possible". Those who voted yes applauded, those who voted no simply accepted that the majority had voted yes. Codes then came over to Marcus and said "By the way, when we found the power cells, I got all the files about it off the computer and into this flash drive". He handed the flashdrive to Marcus, who then asked "What did you find?" Codes answered with "Turns out the head of Project Ultimate Power was going to use the power cells to create a new type of dirty bomb and sell it to a rogue Chinese General, so that he could take over the government in a coup and declare war on the Democratic Asian Coalition". Marcus was honestly not surprised and said "I'll review the evidence on a computer and then send it to the Chinese government via Jim and Sons". With that, the Freedom Democracy League had won great victories. Barry Brothering and Marcus's 'parents' were on their way to prison, numerous Corpo plots had been stopped and best of all, MegaCorp's reputation was now in ruins! This truly was a great victory for the League and they were none too happy to celebrate it. Julia had of course been liberated by the F.D.L and would now live a good life in New Boston. Julia would obviously be living with Marcus and be going to the same school as Matthew, Lucas, Hanako and Yumiko. She would later see them as friends, but first she would have to meet them at the activation of Project Plain Sight five days from then.