Chapter 26 - 25 — The Price of Power I
**POV: Jace**
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They were already in the plaza when my car pulled up.
Police barricades ran the whole width of the frontage, and behind them the crowd went back four or five deep, with the signs held up over the heads at the front.
**NO POWERS ON HUMAN STREETS.**
**PLAYERS BELONG INSIDE THE GATES.**
**BAN THEM BEFORE THEY RULE US.**
Bureau security had a corridor open from the kerb to the doors, and they walked every registered Player through it the same way, at the same pace, without looking at the barricades.
Somebody shouted something at the woman four steps ahead of me about what her kind had done to her own city.
She did not turn around, and neither did I, and we both went through the doors.
The people out there are not stupid, and they are not making it up.
Forty years ago the Second Gigantomachy ended, and it started because a group of Players worked out that ordinary law is a thing you consent to.
They took what they wanted out of cities, held territory, and beat back the governments that came to stop them.
Other Players put it down. That part is true and it is in every school curriculum in the region.
What people actually remember is the middle of it, when whole armies went out against individuals and came back smaller.
That is what those signs are about. Not the Players who fought for them, but the arithmetic underneath, which is that a man with an Ability is not answerable to a street full of people who do not have one.
Afterwards, the Concordia Accords put ten Regional Unions where the countries used to be, and the Concordia Council sits above all ten of them for anything that crosses their borders. Trade, Gate regulation, and currency.
One of the first things the Council did was end every surviving national currency and put the Concord in its place, and it has been the only money in all ten regions since.
C 1 buys almost nothing. A meal costs somewhere between C 8 and C 15 depending on where you are standing. An ordinary worker takes home around C 3,000 in a month, and out of that comes rent and food and everything else.
I mention it because of what happened at the appraisal desk.
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The appraiser tipped my space bag out onto a reinforced table and counted the whole lot in front of me, out loud, one at a time.
"Twelve worker stones. Fixed Bureau rate on Yellow-grade worker crystals is three hundred each."
He swept them into a tray.
"Three soldier stones, eight hundred each. Those are also fixed."
Then he picked up the Matriarch’s stone with both hands and put it on the reader, and it lit the underside of his chin orange.
"Eighteen thousand. Purity is good. It would have been more if you had opened the abdomen first instead of going in through the head."
"I’ll remember."
> **[Twelve Myrmekes Worker Stones: C 3,600]**
>
> **[Three Myrmekes Soldier Stones: C 2,400]**
>
> **[Myrmekes Matriarch Mana Stone: C 18,000]**
>
> **[Mana Stone Total: C 24,000]**
Mana stones have fixed Bureau prices, so nobody haggles over them and nobody gets cheated on them either. Twenty-four thousand, straight through.
Then he unwrapped the sword.
He spent a long time on that one, running mana into the grip and watching the segments pull together, and letting it go and watching them loosen again.
"Thirty-two thousand at appraisal. Auction would probably beat it, because segmented carapace weapons are fashionable this year and there are people who collect Matriarch material specifically."
"How long is an auction?"
"Three weeks, maybe four. And the number is not guaranteed."
"And the Bureau’s offer?"
"Ninety percent, today. Twenty-eight thousand eight hundred, into your account before you leave the building."
I do not use swords. I was never going to use that sword, and holding it for a month to chase a few thousand more meant a month of not having the money and not having the Gate time either.
"Take it."
> **[PSB PURCHASE COMPLETED]**
>
> **[Myrmekes Mana Stones: C 24,000]**
>
> **[Gilded Fang: C 28,800]**
>
> **[Total Payment: C 52,800]**
Fifty-two thousand eight hundred Concord, for one afternoon in a hole in the ground.
An ordinary worker makes that in about a year and a half.
I have never in my life had to think about rent, and I still sat there for a second looking at the figure, because it explained something I had never properly understood before.
Every year, people who awakened three months ago walk into Gates they have no business being inside, and everyone acts surprised when the Bureau has to notify a family.
They are not being reckless for no reason. They are looking at eighteen months of wages sitting in a tunnel, and they are doing the arithmetic that says one bad afternoon is worth it.
I had done the same arithmetic that morning. The only difference was that I had a permit, an SSS Ability, and a father who could afford to bury me.
---
They took me down a floor afterwards, to a larger room where the other four were already sitting.
Bria nodded. Idris raised two fingers off the table. Nia said hello, and Tomas said something about my hair being on fire the last time he saw me, which was not accurate but was close enough.
Nobody asked where I had been for the last eight days.
Nobody asked what my Gate had been, or how it had gone, or whether I was clearing again next week. It had been three weeks since the mine and we had spoken to each other exactly not at all.
The official came in and did not try to make us into a group.
"Manticore materials. The examination is complete and the appraisal is final, so I will read it and then you will decide what happens to it."
> **[Manticore Mana Stone: C 300,000]**
>
> **[Venom Sac and Intact Stinger: C 120,000]**
>
> **[Twelve Usable Tail Spines at C 8,000 each: C 96,000]**
>
> **[Hide, Claws and Remaining Usable Material: C 84,000]**
>
> **[Total Appraised Value: C 600,000]**
Nobody said anything for a moment.
Tomas made a noise like he had been hit in the stomach.
"You can send the lot to auction," the official said. "Orange boss material draws serious bidders, and the stone alone would probably clear its appraisal. It would also take four to six weeks, and the final figure is not guaranteed."
"Or?" Bria said.
"Or the Bureau purchases at ninety percent today."