The venue had been prepared for two candidates.
The Meridian Hall sat adjacent to Hero Tower on the city's northern edge — a civic building that had been repurposed for Association events back when the faction system launched and nobody had thought to build anything purpose-built since. It was large enough to feel significant and old enough to feel established: vaulted ceilings with exposed steel beams that had been painted white at some point and left alone since, a main floor that seated six hundred with room to spare, and a stage at the far end that was permanently elevated three steps above the floor on a platform of dark polished stone. The walls ran floor to ceiling in Association white and silver, broken by tall rectangular windows that looked out over the city to the south and Hero Tower's hill to the north. By evening, both views were impressive. Someone in the Association's event team always remembered to keep the lights low enough that the windows stayed visible.
Tonight, the banners along the walls ran Azure blue on the left and Crimson red on the right. Two campaign colours. Two candidate display boards flanking the stage entrance. Two sets of literature at the welcome tables near the main doors — Takeshi's blue-bordered materials stacked with the precision of an established operation, Devlin's red-edged packets arranged with the slightly aggressive energy of a team that wanted you to notice them.
Hannah noted this the moment she walked in — not as a failure of logistics, exactly, but as a failure of imagination. The Hero Association's event team had built the evening around the race they understood.
Two.
Sol had been invited as a licensed hero. Because he was one. Because the Annual Address went out to every licensed hero in New Kong above mid-tier ranking, which was standard procedure, which had been standard procedure for eleven years, which nobody in the Association's event team had thought to cross-reference against the candidate list when they sent the invitations.
Hannah's division had noticed. Three weeks ago. She'd raised it with Enoch, who had raised it with the Association's events coordinator, who had confirmed that the invitation had already been accepted and that revoking it from a licensed hero on no grounds other than political inconvenience would generate exactly the kind of press coverage everyone wanted to avoid.
So Sol was coming. In his gold and white suit. With no approved remarks, no Gipson Brand talking point document, no briefing, no media handler, no team behind him whatsoever. He had accepted the invitation the same day it arrived and had apparently spent no further time thinking about it.
Hannah had spent considerably more time thinking about it.
"Devlin's press area is cramped," Enoch said quietly, falling into step beside her as she moved through the main hall toward the stage. "His campaign manager already flagged it twice. I've arranged an extension — gave them the space the florist was using."
"Good. What about the speaker order?"
"Takeshi goes first, Devlin second. Standard incumbent-then-challenger sequencing." A pause. "Sol's team — and I use that term generously, since his team consists of one scheduling assistant who confirmed attendance via text — requested last position."
"And we gave it to them?"
"We had no reason not to. Frankly, I wasn't certain how to refuse a licensed hero who'd been formally invited."
Hannah glanced at him. Enoch's expression was its usual composed neutrality, but she'd worked with him long enough to read the frequency underneath it. He was amused. Not unkindly — just the specific amusement of someone watching a situation develop that could not have been planned for.
"Where is he now?" she asked.
Enoch consulted his tablet. "According to Charlotte's perimeter report — near the east refreshment station. Apparently in conversation with one of the venue's maintenance staff."
Hannah didn't break her stride. "For how long?"
"About twenty minutes."
She looked across the hall.
The east refreshment station ran along the far wall beneath one of the tall windows, the city visible in the dark glass beyond it. Trays of drinks, a small gathering of early arrivals in formal attire — and Sol. He was easy to find. Six foot one in a deep gold bodysuit with white geometric panelling across the chest and forearms, the gold catching the hall's overhead lighting in the particular way Valentina's materials team had optimised for without telling him. He stood about a head taller than most of the people near him, broad-shouldered, with the build of someone who had done physical work long before he'd had a reason to train for it. His face was fully visible — strong jaw, dark eyes, black hair kept short. He wasn't handsome in the constructed way of the heroes Hannah's division usually worked with, the ones whose images had been shaped and lit and presented at specific angles over years of careful management. He looked like someone who had never spent a moment managing his own appearance, which, in the context of a room full of people who had spent considerable time managing theirs, was its own kind of striking.
He was leaning slightly against the refreshment table with a glass of water, listening to a man in venue coveralls with the focused attention of someone who was genuinely interested in what the man in coveralls had to say.
The maintenance worker was talking with the comfortable ease of a person who had not yet realised they were talking to someone currently polling at thirty-one percent.
"He's going to be a problem tonight," Hannah said.
"I don't think he's trying to be," Enoch said.
"That's what makes him a problem."
She pulled her attention away and continued toward the stage where Valentina's team had finished the visual branding. The stage itself was clean — Association colours of white and silver, three podiums arranged in a slight arc, the Association's emblem prominent above. Not partisan. Technically neutral.
The third podium had appeared between the morning walkthrough and the afternoon setup. Nobody had made a decision about it out loud. It had simply become necessary.
Charlotte materialised at Hannah's left shoulder. "Security sweep is done. Venue is clear. King has the south perimeter. Miguel and Liam are on the main entrance. Toby's got a position in the upper level with sightlines to the stage and the floor."
"Press?"
"Credentialled and corralled. Seventeen cameras from six outlets. Sol's presence got three of them to upgrade their crews — they brought better equipment than originally planned."
Of course they did. Hannah looked at the stage. King was visible at the end of the hall, back to the wall, watching the entrance. Not looking at anything in particular. Looking at everything.
---
The hall filled steadily over the following hour. Heroes in various states of their public presentation — some in costume, most in formal wear, a few in the specific middle ground of people who owned neither and had assembled something that gestured toward both. The overhead lights gave the white and silver walls a warm cast that the event team had clearly worked on. Association staff moved through the crowd in their standard uniforms. Sponsors and their representatives arrived in expensive suits with lanyards identifying affiliations that were, for the most part, less independent than they appeared. Press angled for position along the designated perimeter. Public attendees who had won the limited lottery tickets moved through it all with the particular energy of people who intended to remember every detail of tonight.
Hannah moved through it managing several things simultaneously. Devlin's campaign manager found her within minutes of arriving.
Rafe Morrow was thirty-six, compact and quick-moving, with the groomed appearance of someone who had decided his look was an asset and maintained it accordingly. He had sharp eyes that were always slightly ahead of whatever he was saying out loud, and the specific energy of a person who treated every conversation as a negotiation he intended to win. He talked at Hannah for four minutes about the press area before she redirected him to the extension Enoch had arranged, at which point he pivoted immediately to three other concerns delivered in rapid succession before she excused herself.
Takeshi's senior coordinator, a woman named Ren Ashida, stopped her briefly near the stage steps — composed, mid-forties, with the economy of movement of someone who had managed high-pressure events for a long time and saw no reason to perform urgency about it. Two points of clarification on the program order. Done and gone before the conversation accumulated any weight.
A Vertex Corp representative who had been emailing Marcus for three days about a sponsorship visibility question was intercepted by Enoch before he reached Hannah at all.
She was at the press coordination desk reviewing camera placements when she became aware that the room's energy had shifted.
Not dramatically. Not the way it shifted when something went wrong. More like a slow, quiet reorientation — the way a room full of people gradually, collectively, without discussing it, begins to face the same direction.
She looked up.
Sol had moved from the refreshment station to the open floor. He wasn't doing anything notable — just crossing the room toward the seating area near the stage. But he was in costume in a room where the light was good, and the gold caught it, and he was the size he was and carried himself the way he did.
She watched a woman with a Hero Association lanyard touch her colleague's arm and tip her chin toward him. Watched two press photographers reposition without being told to. Watched a cluster of lower-ranked heroes — young, early twenties, the lottery ticket holders trying not to look overwhelmed — track him with the expression of people who had decided something mattered.
He stopped when a small girl in the public seating area held out a program. He crouched to her level, took it, signed it with a pen someone produced, handed it back, said something that made her laugh. Fifteen seconds. He didn't look at the cameras that had rotated toward him. He didn't register that they had.
Hannah went back to the press placements. Made a note on her tablet. Said nothing.
---
The program opened on schedule. The Association's administrative chair, a man named Orlan Fitch — silver-haired, measured, the walking embodiment of institutional continuity — gave a fifteen-minute address covering annual metrics, operational updates, and a statement about the upcoming election that was careful to the point of meaning almost nothing. The crowd was politely attentive. The cameras found other things to focus on.
Takeshi spoke next.
Six years as Chairman had given him a particular ease with a room this size — not warmth, exactly, but the comfort of a man who had done this many times and trusted the process. He spoke about continuity, about the Association's structural stability, about the work of the past year and the work ahead. He was good. Polished in the way that long practice produced. His approved remarks ran two minutes under time, which was itself a kind of professionalism — knowing exactly what to leave out.
The room applauded. Genuine, respectful, not especially energised.
Devlin was different. He came to the podium with the physical presence of someone who had trained for exactly this — forward lean, voice pitched to carry even without the microphone, the cadenced delivery of someone who'd spent three months perfecting the illusion of spontaneity. His remarks on passion over bureaucracy landed the way they were designed to. The younger section of the room responded. Two camera operators zoomed in. Rafe Morrow, visible at the press area's edge, looked satisfied in the careful way of someone not letting themselves look too satisfied yet.
Hannah tracked the room's response on her tablet — real-time engagement metrics from the social feeds. Devlin's remarks were generating good numbers. Not extraordinary, but solid. Takeshi's had already peaked and begun declining.
She looked at the stage. Sol stood to one side, not at his podium yet, hands loose at his sides. He was watching Devlin with what appeared to be genuine interest — not sizing him up, not performing patience. Just listening.
---
When he walked to the podium the room did the thing it had done when he crossed the floor. That quiet collective reorientation. The cameras found their angles. The press photographers stopped rotating.
He stood at the podium for a moment without speaking.
Not for effect. He was just settling. Finding where he was.
"I'm Woo Son," he said. "Most of you probably know me as Sol. I've never really thought of them as different things."
His voice was even. Not performing warmth. Just warm.
"I grew up in the Reclaimed Zone. My mother had a food stall on the eastern platform market — the one near the third bridge. If any of you have been to the Reclaimed Zone, which some of you have and some of you haven't, you'll know that the eastern platform market is the kind of place that gets described in civic reports as a developing commercial district and in reality is twelve stalls and a noodle cart and the best fish my mother ever made." A pause. "She'd want me to clarify that. The fish was very good."
A laugh moved through the room. Not the polite response to a prepared joke. The kind that comes when something lands without warning.
"I started heroing there at twenty-six. Unlicensed, which I should probably have more complicated feelings about than I do." He looked at the room levelly. "The reason I started — I don't know how to talk about this without just saying it plainly, so I'll say it plainly. My daughter was four years old. A licensed hero was on scene. He made a decision about who to help first. That decision took eleven seconds. My daughter has not walked since."
The room went very quiet.
"I don't tell that story to say he was a bad person. I don't know if he was a bad person. I tell it because it was the moment I understood that the system is working and the system is working for everyone are different sentences. We've been saying the first one when we mean the second one for a long time. I think we should stop."
Hannah was watching the tablet. The social metrics had stopped their normal fluctuation. The line was climbing steadily.
"I covered the gap between patrols in my district for four years. Two to three in the morning, every night, because response times in the Reclaimed Zone spike in that window and nobody had fixed it. Not because they couldn't — because the Reclaimed Zone wasn't where the priority was." He wasn't raising his voice. He didn't need to. "I'm not telling you that to sound heroic. I'm telling you that to explain what I think this job actually is. It's showing up. That's it. Knowing where the gap is and being in it."
He looked out at the room. Not performing the look. Just looking.
"I'm running because I think the Hero Association should be run by someone who knows where the gaps are. I might be wrong that I'm that person. You'll decide." A beat. "But wherever I end up, I'm going to keep showing up. That part isn't contingent on the election."
He stepped back from the podium. Not looking for the response. The response came anyway — not unanimous, nothing real ever was, but weighted. The kind of applause that comes from people who had been waiting for something and had just heard it arrive.
Hannah looked at the metrics one more time.
Then she set the tablet face-down on the desk.
She'd seen enough numbers for tonight.
---
Across the hall, King had watched the speech from his position at the south wall. The room's shift in attention made his job momentarily easier — fewer people moving, fewer variables. He used the stillness efficiently.
He had noted Sol when he entered. Sol was notable in the specific way people were notable when they moved through a space without managing how they moved through it. No calculation in the body language. No awareness of the room's gaze. Just a person in a room.
He watched the speech without expression. He wasn't evaluating the politics. He was watching the crowd's response, watching the room's edges, and watching Hannah from approximately thirty metres, which was all his job.
She set the tablet down. He noticed.
He didn't know what it meant. He returned his attention to the perimeter, the entrance, the press area, and the things that were his to watch.
---
After: press moved toward Sol in a body. His scheduling assistant — a young man named Dae-ho with the expression of someone discovering in real time that his job had changed scope significantly — tried to establish order and didn't entirely succeed. Sol answered questions the same way he'd spoken at the podium. Directly. Without apparent concern for how the answers landed. He didn't say anything that would become a headline problem. He also wasn't managing himself to avoid headline problems. He was just answering.
Devlin's team had clustered near the stage. Rafe Morrow was on his phone, hand over his mouth, talking fast. Ren Ashida, Takeshi's coordinator, looked at her tablet with the professional stillness of someone absorbing information she'd hoped would be different.
Enoch appeared at Hannah's elbow. "Preliminary read?"
"You've seen the metrics."
"I was asking what you thought."
She looked at Sol across the hall — still surrounded by press, still answering, the maintenance worker from earlier now visible at the crowd's edge watching with uncomplicated pride.
"I think we have a problem we didn't have yesterday," Hannah said, "and it's going to get significantly larger, and there's no clean solution to it." She picked up her tablet. "And I think Rafe Morrow is going to call me before I get home."
"Almost certainly," Enoch agreed.
"Make sure his call goes to voicemail. I'll deal with him in the morning."
She moved toward the exit. Charlotte fell in beside her. King repositioned to follow, his presence a constant in her peripheral that she'd stopped consciously registering weeks ago.
Outside, the city was warm and loud with its usual evening noise. The Annual Address had gone exactly as planned for two of the three candidates. For the third, there had been no plan to go according to.
Hannah thought about the patrol gap. Eleven minutes, every night. He'd just covered it.
She thought about what it said about a system that had needed him to.
The car was waiting. She got in, the door closed, and the city continued as it always did while she opened her tablet and started reviewing what the rest of the week required.
---
TO BE CONTINUED