The air in the courtyard of Lakeport Properties Ltd., previously thick with the sulfurous heat of an impending riot, suddenly felt lighter. It was as if a physical weight had been lifted from the shoulders of the gathered men. The laborers stood in stunned silence, their eyes darting between Ambrose Ward and the black screen of his smartphone. To them, the Provincial Capitol Building was a fortress of marble and secrets, yet this young man had just pierced its walls with a single call.
The implications were staggering. Victor Sinclair felt a cold sweat prickling his scalp. In the rigid hierarchy of the Midlands, a verbal directive from Governor Donovan Bell was not just a suggestion; it was a thunderbolt. It bypassed the typical months of stonewalling, the endless passing the buck between
