Juan Lucendez raised his index finger to speak, but before he could say anything, his mouth opened widely. Closing it several times, Juan finally thought he was O.K. when he let out a very loud sneeze.
"AHHH CHOOOO"
"Excuse me hermanos." Said Juan, putting away his handkerchief and preparing to speak. Taking some whiskey to clear his sinuses, he gulped greedily, thanking Gentle for the drink.
"Now, Gentle. Good to see your still alive and kicking...." Silence came as the unintentional pun floated across the room.
"Oh, errrr, I mean. Good to see you."
"Right."
"About the TT. We have intelligence that they have been blockading Artifact trade whenever they can. Now, how do you think they can afford those ships of their's? Girlscout cookies? They are incredibly deep into the smuggling trade and do it almost as often as the Brotherhood. The point here is that they've started to realize the TT can make more money if it has exclusive rights to the trade."
"Now, I don't mind the average Corsair getting a ship of his own and making a living for himself. That's just natural. But actually blocking the trade from others brings us one step closer to the corrupt House corporations that corner the market to line their own wallets. But, instead of destroying these brothers, I agree. We need to help them come into the fold."
"Also, about the true Independents. These are the brothers that stay on top of the daily news and try with all their strength to bring glory to the Corsair people, and glory to themselves. Most regular Independents wouldn't bother with any of our factions in the slightest, mostly because we don't have any kind of punishment for not joining. Which is fine, but if they don't know our allegiances, nor do they have the courtesy to follow orders in a heated fight. I don't see why we should tolerate their presence one second longer than we have to."
"Therefore, I call the only one who actually bothered to try and listen in on this conversation, and give his opinion before this Council." Juan yelled his last sentence, startling the others and making them look around themselves in confusion.
"I picked up some sort of attempt to access the Council logs and retrieve our records of this session. The Hacker tool, that whoever this person is, used is somewhat old roughly by 12 or 13 years. Our potential hacker is much older than this, but I believe he has earned his right to speak before the Council, any disagree?"
"The thirteen saloons that had lined the one street of Seney had not left a trace. The foundations of the Mansion House hotel stuck up above the ground. The stone was chipped and split by the fire. It was all that was left of the town of Seney. Even the surface had been burned off the ground.
Nick looked at the burned-over stretch of hillside, where he had expected to find the scattered houses of the town and then walked down the railroad track to the bridge over the river. The river was there."
