Mason and the others returned to the room, where the giant was waiting for them.
"I only have three demands of you," Curze said. "First, everyone must obey the laws of the Midnight Phantoms: no injuring, no killing, no cannibalism, and no rape. Anyone who injures will be injured in return; all others will be put to death."
"Second, continue the work you've always done and keep the factory running, but your rest time will be extended by one hour."
"Third, send your children to the Midnight Phantoms."
The foremen looked at one another in confusion. The first two rules, they had no objections to.
Injuring, killing, cannibalism, and rape had always been privileges of the gangs anyway, things they never had access to.
As for work, they were already used to it. And Curze was even allowing them an extra hour of rest each day, that sounded almost benevolent!
But the third condition… they couldn't understand it.
"Milord," Mason asked nervously, "may I ask what you want with our children?"
"They need to be educated," Curze replied. "If they can come to understand and follow law and justice, they will have the chance to join us. You may refuse; I will not force you."
What he needed were warriors who understood justice and were willing to sacrifice for it, not children forced to pick up weapons.
The latter would corrupt his foundation, erode his walls.
The foremen exchanged uncertain looks. The Midnight Phantoms didn't seem quite like the other gangs… but what exactly was different?
The Phantoms were more generous, yes, but was that really all?
They couldn't tell. They didn't understand. And because they didn't understand, they hesitated to send their children.
But Curze wasn't worried.
The Underhive was never short of orphans, and the Lower Hive had even more.
For just a bite of food, plenty of people would willingly join the Midnight Phantoms.
…
Curze removed all the munitions from the warehouse. These weapons had originally been meant as a tax payment to the nobles above, but now they would be sent down to the Underhive to fuel Leon's purge.
Batch after batch of weapons were sent down by elevator. In return, the Underhive sent up batches of its children.
They were the followers of justice. They would bring new order to the Lower Hive.
Curze steadily eradicated every gang stronghold within his territory. The Midnight Phantoms occupied those sites and factory blocks, expanding their reach step by step.
When word spread that the Midnight Phantoms would provide free food for all children, tens of thousands of orphans flocked to their outposts each day.
They might not have understood the Phantoms' justice, but they certainly didn't want to go hungry anymore.
The Phantoms had already looted all the gangs' stashes; they had enough corpse-starch to keep the orphans fed.
"No one is born lowly, and your lives don't have to be so miserable." Facing tens of thousands of young, expectant eyes, Phily fumbled nervously with the loudspeaker. "It's the nobles who take away the fruits of your labor. For generations, they've drained the people of the lower levels. We must overthrow them!"
Phily was anxious; this was her first time teaching so many.
The children listened carefully, partly because the Phantoms had filled their stomachs, but also because they couldn't really grasp the meaning.
Even the teacher didn't fully understand, how could the students?
Phily was distressed. She was just a student herself! She was willing to sacrifice for the Phantoms, but could she really explain what justice was?
She couldn't. She could only clumsily explain her own interpretation, imperfectly repeating Caelan's lessons.
Still, some things the children could understand, like the Phantoms giving them food, so that they would one day overthrow the rule of the nobles.
"But what can we do?" one asked.
"We're just children," another said fearfully.
"Why fight the nobles? I heard they eat a child every day!"
"And I heard they have tanks!"
"What's a tank?"
"A tank is a weapon that can kill us all at once!"
The children grew restless, fear spreading among them. Even they understood that rebelling against gangs was one thing, rebelling against nobles was another entirely.
"I'm a child too!" Phily shouted angrily. "My comrades are all children, some even younger than you! But haven't we been fighting all this time?"
The children fell silent. They hadn't been convinced, just cowed, afraid that if they made Phily angry, they'd lose their food.
"I'll take it from here." Caelan reached out and patted Phily's head.
"I'm sorry, Teacher Caelan." Phily was on the verge of tears.
"It's all right, you've done your best." Caelan patted her again and motioned for her to sit in the front row with the others.
Caelan: "Let me tell you two stories."
"Up in the Spire, there were two nobles about to go to war, one named Richard, the other Henry. They gathered their armies and conscripted more soldiers. But they lacked weapons, so they sent orders down through the gangs, forcing the factories to produce more."
"The gangs gave the workers a death order: work 24 hours a day, and deliver the quota on time. Hundreds of thousands of workers died at their posts. In the end, they produced hundreds of thousands of lasguns. But the gangs, obsessed with speed, ignored the workers' warnings. Some of those guns were missing critical parts and had hidden defects."
"These defective guns should have been scrapped, but the gangs counted them anyway. And then the war began."
"Unfortunately, one of Richard's captains was issued a defective lasgun. His orders were to hold a lift and keep the enemy from breaking through."
"To inspire his troops, the captain decided to fire the first shot himself. But when the enemy charged, the moment he pulled the trigger, the lasgun exploded in his hands, killing him instantly."
"With their captain dead, morale collapsed. The lift fell, Henry's forces surged through, widened the breach, and eventually won the battle. The high noble Richard, to avoid humiliation at Henry's hands, killed himself in his palace."
"Now tell me, what made Richard lose that war?"
The orphans were uneducated, but not stupid.
"It was the workers," one child answered.
"Exactly, the very same lowly workers in the Lower Hive, the ones the nobles look down on."
"But… we still can't beat the nobles," a child whispered.
"Why not?" Caelan asked. "There are tens of billions in the Lower Hive. If we unite, how could the nobles' few million possibly resist us?"
"They have tanks!" another child cried.
Phily turned around and snapped back loudly: "They don't have tanks! Tanks are made in the Lower Hive, just like lasguns, food, medicine, clothes, power, everything comes from us!"
The child fell silent.