The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 589

Chapter 589: 589 | The Kids From the Dome [CASTLE BONUS]

"Six Heroes," Cole said, in the same flat register. "Three days of mourning. The rankings updated on schedule. The industry has never once stopped, and that has never once been because the industry was brave." He shifted his weight off the left side, which was the only concession he made to having a chest full of staples. "I’m not arguing against Crane. I’m arguing against the framing. We are not holding the Invitational to prove courage. We are holding it because the calendar is load-bearing, and when you remove a load-bearing element, the students are the ones standing underneath."

"Then we hold it," Grant said. "With his framing, not hers. No offense, Crane."

"Constant offense, Grant, but continue."

"Kids need something to point at." He turned his cup in a circle on the table. "Right now every single one of them is pointing at the dome. You give a seventeen year old ten weeks and a hard date and a thing to train for, and the pointing changes direction. That’s not optics. That’s just how people work."

Sable spoke for the first time in twenty minutes, and the room quieted for it, because she spent her words like they were rationed.

"Hold it. Move the perimeter out four hundred meters. Credential in waves. No walk-ins."

Garrison looked at her. "That’s a forty percent staffing increase on gate control."

"Then hire forty percent more gate control." She took a drink of water. "You have the budget. You’ve had it since March. You didn’t spend it because nobody had died yet."

Garrison’s jaw worked. He did not argue. Imara noticed, and filed that too, because she had been noticing Garrison and Sable for three years and had learned exactly nothing.

Ashby drank his tea and let it sit a moment.

"The Invitational proceeds," he said. "Second week of December, as scheduled. Garrison, you’ll have the expanded credential protocol and whatever staffing it requires. Isabelle, you’ll handle the media frame, and I want to see it before the Commission does." He set the cup down. "Which brings us to the thing everyone in this room has been thinking about for forty minutes while pretending to think about tarps."

Imara’s chest went tight.

"The Tuesday and Thursday rotations," Eli said gently, and of course it was Eli, of course he was the one who would say it out loud so nobody else had to. "First-year agency placements. They were supposed to begin the week of the Crucible."

"They were," Ashby said.

"And 1-A’s paperwork is already through," Isabelle added. "I saw the packets last Thursday. Crestline, Halcyon, Meridian’s support division, two placements at the Lang Agency. Sixteen of twenty confirmed."

Imara set her good hand flat on the table.

"And 1-B," she said.

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