The next day brought something even worse than monsters: politics.

I would have liked nothing better than to take the day off. We were back home. There were plenty of kids around, and many had actually gotten enough Points that they could safely play with my kids! With friends I could trust to trade childcare with, I could have taken a few hours off to read a book. Oooh, or maybe nap without someone’s foot on my stomach.

But no, we needed to hold an election to try to hold our splintering community together, and we needed to do it today. First, because tomorrow would bring another monster, which might make gatherings more difficult, and second because Major Fitzgerald had apparently finished “assessing the area.” He’d wanted to start implementing changes, many of which fell only tenuously under the purview of security… and most people felt he didn’t have the authority to be in charge of security anyway. Colonel Zwerinski had passed along word asking us to accept him, which might have worked if we were soldiers under his command, but we weren’t. We’d accepted Colonel Zwerinski’s leadership, not the US Army’s.

Getting a mayor would help, a lot. Major Fitzgerald had apparently justified his “leadership” under martial law, but he’d been dropped off by Airman Stevens. She hadn’t brought over the platoon of soldiers he’d need to actually enforce anything like that. Basically, he had as much power as the people in our neighborhood were willing to give him.

Fitzgerald had said he’d honor local leadership on civil matters, so having a local leader would take a lot of the power out of his hands. Plus, the election process itself would help people feel empowered. A lot of the objection to Major Fitzgerald wasn’t related to the guy himself - none of us knew him well - but because people wanted to have a say in who they followed. As long as the election process seemed trustworthy and not corrupt, most people would respect the winner’s authority, even if the person who won wasn’t the candidate they personally preferred.

So, here we were, in the midafternoon, well past the day’s Deadline. Rams had been killed, and a throng was filing into the slowly-expanding Fort Autumn. Helen had raised a little circular platform to just over the height of the Shop roof for candidates to stand on to speak. The plan was to give each person a chance to talk and answer a few questions, and then hold a vote, hopefully before the tightly-packed audience got heatstroke. People had brought umbrellas and we’d strung up tarps to serve as awnings, and people were using Abilities - Fog, Darkness, Freeze - as frequently as they could. There were at least some clouds today, but the heat was still awful. It was September now, wasn’t it? So we just had another few weeks of scorchers to get through before the blessed relief of the fall.

To compensate for the slapdash nature of the election, the first mayor’s term would only last six months, and would pass to a person of the mayor’s choice for the remainder of their term in the event of their untimely death. (That last bit had been my suggestion; I didn’t want anyone to see a benefit in bumping off our mayor or letting them die.)

A 30-foot ladder had been leaned against the side of Helen’s platform, and I climbed up. I wasn’t going to run for mayor, but enough people had told me they’d be voting for me that I felt the need to officially not run. Plus, speaking publicly would give me the opportunity to throw my weight behind George.

I joined six others on the platform: Tammy, who was acting as host and organizer, George, Carlos, Alexandra, an ex-airforce pilot named Ryan Baker, and a teenage candidate for the anti-government faction named Sadie Mills. In the audience below, Irving and Pointy were situated on opposite sides: they’d be able to hear us easily and echo our words, acting as loudspeakers to allow more of the crowd to hear us.

I mean, they wouldn’t be able to echo my words, but…

As soon as Tammy got done introducing us, Sadie stepped forward. “We don’t need the military and we don’t need a government! What has either done for us, anyway? We’ve got the Shop, we’ve got the Fort. We don’t need anything else!”

She went on for a while in this vein. I saw a few people nodding, but most people bore looks of disbelief. Personally, I had to assume Sadie had come to the area recently, after we’d weathered the Dragons’ onslaught. She just sounded naïve. Yeah, the government hadn’t helped us, but that’s why we were making our own!

As she finally wound down her impassioned screed, Ryan Baker lifted a hand. “Do y’all mind if I go next? I feel a need to rebut that.”

His speech was equally tedious. In short: Ryan was here as a patriot. If people wanted a mayor who’d do all they could to work with the military and save America, he was your man.

More people seemed moved by his words… but even in Alabama, most people’s patriotism had been tempered by a month of death and disaster with little sign of US leadership. I saw a woman with an American-flag ballcap shading her face looking up at Ryan with pursed lips and doubt in her eyes. I could almost see her thoughts on her face: “Save America? When’s America gonna save me, huh?” She was far from alone in her doubt, even if Ryan was getting plenty of applause and cheers.

As he stepped back, I took a deep breath. The AIs wouldn’t be able to amplify my words, so whoever heard me would do it based on my lungpower alone.

“Many of you know me-” I was startled by a wave of cheers, and had to pause my prepared lines for a moment to let them die down. “I’m Meghan Moretti. I own the Shop here, and I helped lead the defense when it was attacked recently. I was also one of the people who helped come up with the plan to use our Points Siphon to help the community.”

There were more cheers at this, and a voice I didn’t recognize hollered, “My grandpa’s growing food for y’all because of her!” a shout which elicited both laughter and more cheers from the crowd.

I blushed, but held up my hands. “I don’t think I’m the right person to take over as mayor. I’ve got three kids relying on me, and my husband was out of town when the Maffiyir started. They take a lot of focus, and the mayor job would take a lot of focus too. It's not fair to any of you if I try to do both things at once. I’m dropping out of the race. If you would have supported me as mayor, I’d like to ask you to spend your vote on George Turner. He’s a smart, moral, man who helped rescue the hostages from Cotton Acres, he’s been one of the ones helping organize all the outreach we’ve done and the use of the Points Siphon, and he’s my good friend besides.”

I gestured to George and stepped back to climb down the ladder after I’d introduced him. The applause he got was less enthusiastic than the cheers I’d received, but I still heard a few whistles. I think a lot of people had been startled to learn that I hadn’t wanted the mayorship. I hadn’t had the kids with me for most of my more public actions, so many people probably hadn’t realized that I wasn’t free to take up this responsibility.

George did a pretty good job with his speech, I thought. He didn’t seem terribly confident, but he seemed honest and genuine, and he talked a lot about his desire to get us organized and eliminate inefficiencies to try to make all of our lives better. He came off as a very reasonable and moderate candidate.

Following George’s calm and practical speech, Carlos didn’t have much of a chance. He spouted mostly the same arguments he’d made weeks before at the playground: I’m a gamer, I have lots of Points, I know what I’m doing, I can help us min-max our combat prowess. I won’t say no one took him seriously - a lot of people seemed to take him very seriously, especially among the strongest and most combat-oriented people in the audience - but he was talking to thousands of people. Most people just wanted to stay alive, not rock the DPS meters or top some non-existent leaderboard.

I was pretty sure a lot of kids would vote for Carlos, but I didn’t think aggressive kids and elite combatants would give him a big enough chunk of the electorate to beat George.

The only person left was Alexandra. She’d put fresh paint on her nails, I could tell. They were still hot-pink, but I think she’d glued some little gems or sequins to them too. They caught the sunlight and occasionally produced blinding little flashes. Like everyone else, she was wearing a helmet and a protective vest, but under that she was wearing a professional pantsuit, the sort a businesswoman might have worn a month before.

I had no idea why she thought people would vote for her, or what her plan was, but even I had to admit she was… memorable.

She didn’t bother to step forward, instead flicking her fingers as she used her Telekinesis to lift a large banner in the air behind herself, a sheet of butcher paper emblazoned with a very neat sign that read: “VOTE ALEXANDRA: Vote for what matters.”

As the crowd took this in, Alexandra herself started talking, in her trademark mildly abrasive way. “So, we have heard from many people today. The military is good, the military is bad. We need organization. We need Points. I say: who cares?”

There was a rumble of mild confusion as the crowd reacted to her words, but Alexandra steamrolled right over it.

“All of these things do not matter much. We must make the right decisions as a group, yes, yes, but no matter who is elected we will not kick the army from Fort Autumn nor become a group of soldiers. We will need to get Points, yes, but this cannot be the most important thing. Organization, I agree with, but… what is the goal of the organization?”

She paused, dramatically, before flinging her arms wide. “I will tell you. I have goals. I have plans! Short-term plans and long-term ones. If you elect me as mayor, my goal for the first month is universal access to sanitary products.”

I felt a chill come over me. I glanced around. Yep. The audience was probably close to 70% female. The candidates, except for Alexandra and Anarchist Sadie, were all men. This issue… Alexandra was right. I had another month before I ran through my stockpile, but a lot of people were probably struggling already.

Ryan, the poor damn fool, was so obtuse he didn’t even know what she was saying. “Soap? We’re not running short on soap. We’ll need to figure that out eventually, but we’ve got soap enough to last for months.”

Boom! There Ryan went, a casualty of the most intimate type of friendly fire. There was laughter and even jeering from the audience, and the ex-pilot glanced out in confusion.

For her own part, Alexandra was gracious, with just the faintest hint of pity creasing her brows. “No, not soap. Sanitary products! Pads and tampons are running low. Only a fraction of people have menstrual cups, and even they often struggle to get them sanitized.”

Carlos cut in. “I’m not saying that isn’t important, but… we’re being attacked by monsters, Alexandra. We have real life-and-death matters to worry about. Aren’t those more important than a little mess?”

She smiled at him brightly. “Ah! So, you would not mind sleeping in a blood-soaked bed or sitting in a chair covered in menstrual blood?”

Carlos’s face distorted, a clear enough answer even without a verbal response, and Alexandra continued mercilessly. “Or are you perhaps saying this is not a major problem, as long as everyone experiencing it keeps it from affecting you? As long as they ruin their remaining clothing and bedding and avoid public areas one week in four?”

“I wasn’t saying-”

Alexandra didn’t let him talk. “This is a real issue that needs a real solution! The first thing I would try is gathering sewing machines and getting them running with Animate Machinery. I would like to make reusable pads. Cleaning them will be difficult, but perhaps we can create a system for drop-off and pickup system and hire Cleansers as a community. If hiring Cleansers is not feasible, we may need to empower a Cleansing specialist with the Points Siphon. This issue is just one of many of the serious civil issues we need a mayor’s help to address. Childcare! Babysitting! Breastmilk! Cure Disease and Healing Touch have solved many ongoing health issues, but not all. There is a woman on Viridian whose prosthetic foot was smashed by a ram. She needs a replacement to become mobile again, but how can she organize that? We must come together on these issues as a community.”

She hadn’t won over everyone, but I could tell that a lot of the crowd was with her. Then, the finishing stroke arrived: atop the platform, Sadie waved a hand. “I withdraw. I’m voting for Alexandra. If we gotta have a government, I’m all for the one that'll get me more pads.”

By the time a vote was taken, it was almost a formality.

George got the second-most votes, with 20%. Carlos and Ryan each clocked in with around 12% of the vote.

With over 50% of the total… all hail Mayor Alexandra.