The unbearable tension of the past few days had vanished from the Federation that morning. Though capitalist exploitation had dulled people's emotions, smiles still appeared on quite a few faces.
Supplies of basic necessities had stabilized, and the prices of some essential goods had even fallen slightly.
For those damned capitalists, that was practically unheard of.
Not only that, but after news of the Federation's overwhelming victory arrived, even the online atmosphere, where people constantly challenged each other to real-life fights, improved considerably. Never mind whether either of them would actually show up, whether the security forces, the Peacekeeping Forces, or whatever other forces would intervene, or whether someone with cyberpsychosis would suddenly appear and slaughter everyone. First, they had to get their verbal kicks in: I'll be waiting at number twenty-seven on this street this afternoon. Do you dare come?
The Federation's people also quietly lifted the ban on the words "District 25." Of course, they added the Avalon system to the mix: comments containing "District 25" that spoke favorably of the Federation were all made public, while those disparaging the Federation were visible only to their authors.
At least they could still see their own comments instead of getting arrested outright. That counted as a good outcome.
"All I can say is, those price hikes a few days ago were ridiculous. Coffee went up a full thirty percent. When I saw how expensive it had gotten, I started wondering whether I should just give up coffee for the rest of my life. Switching to energy drinks wouldn't be bad either. Never thought the price would drop right back down these past two days."
"Seriously? Let me tell you, every shop I went to that raised its prices said their ingredients had gotten more expensive, so their prices had