“You’d rather Scion have killed every last one of us, unpowered and powered alike?” Ashley asked. “It took every last bit of strength we had, including the assistance we had to barter for, you insipid dolt.”

“Easy,” I said, even as my heart rate tripled. Damn it.

“I’ll let your outburst pass without comment,” Gary said. “Even if we accepted the amnesty, we have to limit it to not punishing people for crimes committed on Earth Bet. That’s it. It doesn’t mean we can’t look at what she’s doing as a politician and wonder just what it is she’s doing behind the scenes, knowing how she’s operated in the past. Is she making threats? Is she using her power to hold people hostage? Is she killing people who get in her way?”

“Is she?” Tristan asked.

“It would explain a lot of things,” Gary said.

“Can you clarify what those things are?” Tristan pressed.

“How easy it was for her. How people never seemed to be in her way for very long. How she always seemed to have funds.”

I could have imagined a less seasoned politician stumbling when pressed for details. It was a thing my mom had done when I was a kid that I’d picked up and done myself until friends in early high school told me to quit it. ‘Name one instance’. It worked great to shut down arguments until someone answered and you were quibbling over whether the instance counted. My mom had been surgical with when it was applied, picking instances where she knew it would frustrate any arguments. Tristan wasn’t surgical.

I jumped in with, “Jeanne Wynn was a candidate because she invested heavily into things on this side of the portal. She planned, and that’s why she’s so well set up.”

“With illicit money.”

“I don’t like it either, but in retrospect? A lot of the important buildings and infrastructure we’re using now are because she thought the world might end, and she planned around it, investing. She was right, and we’re all better off for her planning. I’d rather she did what she did than us not have the community centers, power, trade deals, concrete, prefab building parts, and food that we have.”

“If she knew about the end of the world then why didn’t she stop it?” Gary asked.

“Do you really think she knew about Scion and didn’t stop it?” Tristan asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. “At this point you just sound like a sore loser. Things were bad with the Endbringers and other incidents. People everywhere were thinking about their options, prepping for disaster. She was just smart about it.”

Thank you, Tristan.