The Soft Zhonghua cigarette between his fingers had burned down to the filter.
"How many have you smoked?"
Wang Zhong's voice came from behind him.
The low hum of his Power Armour's servos sounded especially clear in the enclosed space.
Oil-Guy did not turn around. He pressed the cigarette butt into a portable ashtray. "Seven."
"I remember you haven't modified your lungs yet. Smoke that much and you might have problems."
Tax Brother walked over with a grin and draped a thick arm around Oil-Guy's shoulders. "Is that rosy little heart of yours about to leap out of your throat?"
Oil-Guy finally turned around.
"More than eight hundred thousand people watching in person." Oil-Guy's voice was a little dry.
"Back in the real world, we'd need six months of rehearsals to hold a concert for ten thousand people. Now we're supposed to livestream the trial of more than two hundred people and announce new policies—"
He paused and looked out at the dark sea of people beyond the window. "And these aren't spectators. This is the fu—
"ture of ninety-eight million people."
"A single sentence from us might decide whether they spend the next few decades struggling in a cesspit or finally see a little light."
Holy Blood put down his speech.
He walked over to Oil-Guy and patted the chief technical officer's mechanical arm. "Remember Workshop No. 7?"
"When we first arrived, we didn't even have a decent weapon. Alru's lackeys killed two of our brothers, and we didn't dare make a move."
"I remember."
Oil-Guy nodded.
"Back then, there were only five thousand of us, facing an entire planet's machinery of oppression."
Holy Blood looked through the glass at the sallow, emaciated hive residents in their ragged work clothes on the square. "Now we have gene-seed, Power Armour,