S5, E3 | The Winds of Change Ring No Bells to Warn

“It’s fuckin’ bullshit!” a rowdy gentleman calls out from within the crowd of equally-perturbed drinkers, the claim he makes earning a round of applause and similar cheer. “Of course it’s bullshit, but continuing to shout about that does nothing” Margot replies, identifying the vigour behind the man’s chorus-earning declaration and trying her best to sympathise with it.

“Well what do you expect us to do then?” a second man calls out, his thick, Australian accent making the mouth it comes from easily identifiable, “we’re being sworn at everywhere we go! I went to the store the other day and someone spat in my wife’s face!” Though appalled by the remark, the crowd struggle to find much more than a dismissive attitude to take toward it, having become desensitised to the reality that is their constant beratement too much to react how others would.

“Threatening to fight people that bad mouth you isn’t going to keep them from bad mouthing you- it’ll just lead to more fights” Margot retorts, standing at the front of a bar a small group of calm women and men occupy the rear side of. “That’s not going to end well for them” a woman calls out from within the barfront, the handle to a half-empty pitcher carried in her fist.

“And if you think it’ll change the way they shit-talk us, I promise that it won’t end well for us either” Margot responds, trying and struggling- ironically enough- to keep the peace. “Then what are we going to do!?” the man whose exclamation provoked such an irate reaction from the crowd he’s joined alongside wonders aloud, “we’re targets to everyone! We can’t live without being attacked and harassed! You don’t just expect us to sit down and take it, do you!?”

“I don’t see what other choice you have!” a voice calls out from the very back of the tavern, catching the ears of the crowd and the leaders they speak to at once, earning their shifted focus. “There’s no amount of good P.R that you can conjure up to clean up the way the peacekeepers- or anyone associated with them- are perceived by the public” Chevy continues, stepping out from the purposefully-hidden entrance he’d initially used to discover the bar long ago.

Without uttering a word, Carly steps off her barside seat and hurries to the man she’s gone nearly a year presuming dead, rushing into his arms and squeezing him tight with a hug. “Chevy? You’re-” Margot mutters aloud to a hushed sea of patrons, unsure of what to say other than offering the warning of what dangers may reside beyond the walls of the tavern, “-you’re probably best off not being here... Or anywhere in the republic, for that matter.”

“It won’t be a republic for much longer if Julia and Wade are still in charge” Chevy rebukes, speaking matters beyond the knowledge of those that surround the room. “Listen, I’d love to stay around and catch up for hours on end, but I’m just as aware of the dangers that my being here brings and I don’t want to waste time” the man continues, patting the woman that hugs him on the shoulder and gently letting her step aside, allowing him the freedom of speaking to the group’s now-leader.

“I gave you all my word once upon a time that I wouldn’t sell you out to Jaime, and now I need you all to give me your word that you’ll say nothing about my- or anyone else- being here right now” Chevy explains, trying to cut down to the brass tax of his surprising arrival before the time to do so elapses. “I’m only here because I need to be and I think that what’s about to be said is within all of your own best interests” the man clarifies, waiting a beat before continuing.

“No matter what you say- whether it’s a yes or a no- I’ll be on my way and won’t tell anyone about what’s discussed here, alright?” Chevy questions aloud, looking out to the crowd of silent agreement that befalls him, providing him with the respectful acknowledgement and trust that he’d once bestowed them with.

“What is it?” Margot questions, crossing her arms reluctantly whilst remaining fully aware of the dangers that are poised by this sudden drop-in, “what did you come to say?” Hesitant at first, the man hangs his head and lets out a sigh at first, holding off on a reply for a few seconds. “It’s actually not something that I- myself- can say” Chevy responds, lifting his eyes back up to the woman before cautiously looking out to the audience, pressing his lips together anxiously before moving aside.

“Oh hell no” a man near the front of the crowd murmurs whilst rolling his eyes, angrily slamming his open palm against the top of the table he sits at. Appearing from around the corner, Jaime enters the room with raised palms to the crowd that now react to her with the same subdued disgust that the majority of the republic views them with. Pressing the tip of her tongue against the corner of her mouth, the deposed chancellor sits with her thoughts quietly and lets the hushed unrest settle.

= Dire is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onwards =

Though some remain seated, the majority of the tavern-based peacekeepers rise from their chairs and slowly descend upon the room’s farthest point, making their shared disdain for the woman they see before them clear with the disgusted visage they wear. “How’s everything been since I left, boys and girls?” Jaime questions aloud, genuinely wanting to know the answer, though she presents the question with a less-than-affable tone.

“Chevy, what is she doing here?” Carly quickly interjects, taking one full step away from the man whilst glueing her eyes onto the woman who’d threatened her with execution just a year prior. “I know that neither side here likes the other, but I wouldn’t have brought her here if I didn’t think she had something important to say” Chevy responds, his voice loud enough to reach all ears within the room, “we’ve been hiding out in Lancaster. It’s not hard to figure out how people take to Julia.”

“How long were you in Lancaster?” Margot inquires, an eyebrow raised as she remains standing near the bar’s modest counter. “For a good number of months. They came in and sniffed us out not too long ago” Chevy answers, standing closer to the deposed chancellor than he does to anyone else. “We heard Julia reabsorbed the town into the republic” Jaime adds in, paying no mind or consideration for the various judgemental stares that are directed her way, “sounds like they’re making progress.”

“Progress toward what?” Margot questions back, a straight and unabashed reflection carried in her voice whilst her mind focuses on the various open-ends the visiting voices fail to tie up on their lonesome. “Progress toward expanding the NDP’s reach past the point of needing Julia’s government” Jaime responds, stepping away from her friends’ side to drag a chair away from the corner of the room, taking a casual seat upon it as if she weren’t the public’s ‘enemy number one.’

“If you want us to cooperate and not give the whole town a ring about their former chancellor, you ought to start leaving us more context to work with” Margot interjects, taking a few brief steps away from the serving table and drawing closer to the woman. “The two of you came here for something and I’m not sure what that is, but I’m not a very patient woman” the group’s apparent leader proclaims, “so quit dancing around the point and give me a reason not to turn the two of you in.”

“Because I already proved to everyone here that I could be trusted” Chevy responds, offering his side of the explanation at first before being cut off by the supposed leader. “And then you ran off with Jaime the moment shit hit the fan for her” Margot replies, widened eyes paid to his direction, “you being truthful to your word is the only reason we haven’t already blown the horn on this” she says whilst turning to look back at Jaime, “now I want her to give me a reason to keep off it.”

“Because you’re all being used” the republic’s former fore-woman responds, kicking one leg over the other whilst both hands tuck into the pockets of a moto jacket, “you’ve been being used since Julia put you to work at the hospital, and you’ll be used until she sets sail for Hawai’i.”

Though the hostility and tension remains, a faint, yet noticeable hush comes over the room as the members of the united front look to each other, uncertain of whether or not they’d heard the one-time chancellor correctly. Sharing this confusion, Margot looks to Carly with squinted eyes whilst the younger woman peers in a similar way.

“Keep talking” the new leader of the peacekeepers commands, taking her eyes away from the young woman remaining close to Chevy’s side in favour of her once-loathed opposition. “Gladly” Jaime replies as her shoulders shrug, eyes wandering to a random and unimportant corner of the room as she funnels through her thoughts.

“When I was chancellor, Julia fed me with a strategy to keep the public at odds with each other. After the trouble we’d gone through trying to rebuild the republic after the city that’d come before it had fallen, it didn’t sound like a bad way to keep power in my corner” Jaime confesses, paying little concern for the way her confession will be received by the public which she sits before.

“So I let her- and Blake apparently- continue to give or withhold your rations. However, she had ideas of her own. While I thought you were behind things like painting the town hall in pig’s blood or hacking into the republic’s radio broadcasts, she knew you weren’t” the woman carries on, “so- to me- you were all just a group of uncivilised chaos-makers trying to get back at me for Ryan, or whatever it is that you hate about me, and I was whatever Julia painted me out as behind the scenes.”

“Bullshit” Margot replies through gritted teeth, holding great distaste for the proclamation being made from the woman that sits before her. “I wanted her to start giving you back the rations because Wade- the guy in charge of the NDF- wanted me to get the civil unrest under control” Jaime explains, continuing to speak freely as if the confrontation sparked by the group’s leader seconds prior means nothing, “I wanted her to supply directly from the republic’s food source instead of her own.”

“I know you don’t want to believe it, but Jaime’s telling you the truth” Chevy interrupts, spotting the rising tensions before they have the chance to grow beyond control. “Wade’s whole plan since coming into the republic was to eventually re-integrate it into the old United States. What remains of the old government is apparently still functioning out of Pearl Harbor in Hawai’i” Jaime adds on, “I wasn’t very fond of the idea to say the least, but Julia is a very different story.”

“I’m still calling bullshit” Margot doubles down, carrying the same weighted hatred that she’d tried to subdue when the former chancellor began speaking, “the only reason you’re here is because you’re desperate.”

“Yup” Jaime replies, vehemently nodding with a callous smile as she steps forward, “I’m here because- in what’s probably a short amount of time now that Lancaster’s back in the NDF’s hands- Julia will set sail for an island in the middle of the pacific and never return.”

“Jaime wants to take down Julia before she has a chance to leave and Wade before he has a chance to take over with the NDF completely” Chevy clarifies, trying to offer a voice that provokes less vigour than the woman’s own. “And you think we’d help you with that?” Margot questions, visibly surprised that either of the guest’s would assume any different, “we helped put Julia in that chair and we’re at least in a fine standing with the NDF. Why would we want to help you?”

“Because nothing’s changed since I’ve been ousted. The quality of life has taken a dip, you’re all still social pariahs from what Chevy and I could overhear, and nothing about that is ever going to change” Jaime responds, stepping forward to close the distance between herself and the group’s leader. 

“For what it’s worth, I’ve come to realise that the only reason Ryan went after Jordan was because Julia put him up to do so. She wanted him dead so she could squirm her way into my good graces” the former chancellor doubles down, continuing to speak amongst a lulled crowd, “and, sadly, that bitch got exactly what she wanted. She took advantage of every opening I left her, she put you all to war with the promise of getting rid of me, and now history is repeating itself.”

“Wait, how?” Chevy questions aloud, curious to the rationale behind the woman’s declaration, unsure of the meaning behind the most-recent remark. “Because the whole point of pitting the peacekeepers against the others was so they’d fight each other instead of the actual people in charge... Just like before the catalyst happened” Jaime answers, turning to look the man in the eyes before redirecting her stare toward the group’s leader, “only now- it’s the peacekeepers against me.”

“Do you really expect me to believe you?” the woman in her mid-thirties and at the helm of the largest political opposition group in the republic questions aloud, “how are any of us supposed to believe a word that comes out of your mouth?”

“Because Clark would believe Kayla and I” Chevy answers, re-earning the eyes of both the group’s leader and his well-wanted friend, “and I believe Jaime.”

“Clark also despised Jaime” Margot replies, watching the man’s finger lift into the air from a place of correction. “But he always made it clear that the point was never to kill Jaime since whoever replaced her would likely just keep the cycle repeating” Chevy responds, a recollection that the hate-filled group reluctantly remember all too well, “whether it’s intolerance toward you, or painting you out like the second coming of the devil, or simply withholding government aid- it’d just repeat.”

“Then how are any of us supposed to believe that this isn’t just another ploy to get Jaime back in power?” Margot reiterates, discarding one concern in favour of the next, only for her answer to come from the lips of the figure herself. “Because I’ll never be able to fully go back to being chancellor” Jaime confesses with a slight amount of disappointment, “I may have some supporters suppressing themselves, but Wade would never let someone that lost power take it back on his watch.”

“And like Jaime said, it’ll only be a matter of time before the NDF re-absorbs the republic into whatever new version of the old United States they have planned again” Chevy retorts, allowing his friend to reclaim the conversation’s centre once more. “The bottom line is that I’ll never be able to retake the republic. At this rate, what matters is that Julia and Wade need to go, and I need your help getting close enough to them.”

“Well you’re not getting it” Margot concludes, keeping the spirit of hostility alive and thriving as she refuses the deposed leader of the assistance she came for. “I don’t know what you think we want, but taking Julia and Wade out of the equation is not it” she reassures, a firm finger held toward the direction in which the pair had entered through.

“No, what you want is something that you can’t have” Jaime corrects, both eyebrows lifted as he hands pull free from the jacket she wears, passing each other as their arms cross. “You want the people of this republic to look at you differently. You want them to stop treating you like dirt, but the issue is that it’ll never happen” the exiled survivor reiterates, “Julia’s not going to change the narrative that I’m partially responsible for creating.”

“Then what would agreeing to help you do for us?” Margot questions, grilling the woman whose presence alone irritates her, “if we ousted Julia and Wade, what would we be getting out of it?”

“Like I said, you’d be helping me put this cycle to rest” Jaime responds, not wasting a moment before answering the question asked of her, “without a leader, the republic falls. Whoever sticks around will be left there to rebuild what’s left of it. And only then will you be able to live your lives as something other than what Julia and I convinced the public you were.”

“If you think we’re going to help you burn the republic to the ground, you’ve lost your mind beyond what even you can imagine” Margot retorts, watching Jaime’s head bow in disappointment before continuing, “now I’ll give the two of you one last chance to turn around and leave without a pair of cuffs around your wrists.”

Accepting her failure, Jaime lifts her hands in surrender before slowly turning back to the man that she’d entered with, his face carrying an equal dejection to her own. “Come on, Chevy” the woman concedes, stepping past the man on her journey to the backroom’s exit before a sudden thought pops into her mind, prompting her to turn back out of curiosity, “do you believe me? Do you believe what I’m telling you about Julia?”

Scoffing at the inquiry, Margot widens her eyes and continues to smile, “not at all” she replies, an answer that brings another grin over the face of the republic’s deposed sovereign. “Well just do me a favour and ask her yourself then” Jaime concludes, stepping back the way she came whilst adding emphasis to her plea, “as far as governance is concerned, I’m sure she’s no different than me. And if she’s used you to get what she wanted before, I’m sure she’d have no problem using you again.”

Her face souring, Margot turns her back to the exiting pair as Carly ventures onward, trying to pay the man departing words that she never had the opportunity to offer him before. “Chevy, I-” the younger woman begins to remark, only to be cut off by a folded piece of paper that he extends at his side.

“That’s the address of the home Kayla and I are staying at with the Morris’” Chevy informs, watching the woman’s eyes wander up toward his own. “Why can’t you two stay here with us?” Carly questions aloud, only to be met with the vehement shake of a refusing head for her troubles. “They took Kayla and I in on the same night they deposed Jaime” the man admits, tucking the folded note into the girls’ hand, “Julia ordered her guard to kill us, but Kennedy got to us in the nick of time.”

“What?” Carly questions back, her struggle to process what’s been shared becoming clear to those that still occupy the tavern and watch on. “Julia knows we’re associated with Jaime, and she wants us dead just as much as she wants Jaime gotten rid of. Nowhere is safe for Kayla and I here- that’s why we left with the Morris’ instead of coming back here” Chevy carries on, still needing to depart with the deposed chancellor, “if anyone in here changes their mind- that’s where you’ll find us.”

Patting the woman’s folded hands, Chevy gives her a nudge on the shoulder before pulling away, retreating to reunite with his friend and leave the republic behind for a second time.

|

“Good evening, chancellor” an on-duty nurse remarks, paying an off-hand greeting to the woman who owns the hospital that she works in. “Good evening” Julia replies, passing the woman whilst walking in the opposite direction, intentions set on making it to one room in particular with the bottle of red wine that is carried in her hand.

Not too far behind her, a woman follows the trail that the building’s owner blazes, following her around various corners and dipping into long stretches of walkway not too long after the republic’s leader. With no mind paid to the figure pursuing her, the chancellor continues her journey through the large building alone, entering territory that gradually becomes less occupied the further she travels through it.

Eventually reaching metaphorical uncharted waters, Julia dips her head through the opening of a tarp that spreads from one side of a wall to the other, making it clear that the corridor is not one meant to be traipsed through. Regardless, the once-doctor carries into the underbelly of the hospital itself, entering a stretch of hallway no different to the one that she had just entered from.

With a look of pleasure in her face, the chancellor reaches for one door in particular and opens it, stepping into an office space no different to any other from the perspective of her shadow, who catches up to the republic’s leader right as the door closes completely.

On her own, Julia stares forward into an office that had spent the better part of the last year gradually falling into smithereens, becoming victim to the elements that no other office in this wing of the hospital seems to have experienced. “I would’ve thought this place would look worse all this time later” the chancellor mutters aloud, her eyes taking to the blood splatters that stain the portion of wall that sits beside a shattered window.

“You’ve got the obvious moulding, but other than that and a wet floor from the rain- it’s not too bad in here” the woman continues to speak to herself, rounding the desk that remains exactly as it was left at the time of her brother’s murder before kicking the chair away from where it was left.

“You know, if the people that sold us this building knew how durable it was- we probably wouldn’t have gotten as good of a deal as we did” Julia continues, speaking as if her brother’s spirit were sharing her presence within the room’s haunted confines. Though she’s too entranced within the conversation she shares with herself, the chancellor’s company is soon split inside the office by the woman that had pursued her, slowly and quietly opening the door from the outside.

Ducking below the desk and obstructing her view of the room’s front in the process, Julia slides open one of the desk’s drawers before securing her bottle of alcohol within it, slowly getting used to the stench that is the buildup of moisture and water damage the workspace has accumulated. Without thinking that she has any reason for concern, the chancellor gently lets the bottle come to a rest in one of the cabinets before sliding it shut, leaving it in place for future indulgence.

“Are you planning to reintroduce prohibition?” Margot suddenly inquires, watching Julia jump back at the sound of her voice, startled by the surprising appearance of someone she hadn’t expected. “What the hell are you doing here!?” the chancellor shouts, visibly angered once she’s recollected her wits.

“I needed to talk to you, but Blake said you were busy with other matters” Margot replies, speaking as if her story were one anybody else would’ve made the decisions that’d leave them capable of saying the same. “I know you don’t really go anywhere other than the city hall and the hospital, so-” the leader of the peacekeepers continues, only to be interrupted by the still-irritated leader.

“So you decided you were going to follow me!?” Julia retorts, her voice continuing to echo throughout the room as she yells, “you realise that’s a crime, right!?”

“Well when you walk through the halls of a place you don’t work at anymore with a bottle of wine in your hand, it’s a little odd” Margot responds, the conclusion her chancellor had made prompting her to start growing snippy, “I could always argue it looked like I had a reason to be concerned.”

“What the hell do you want!?” Julia barks suddenly, having grown tired with the aimless discourse and, instead, desiring to know the reason behind her solace being disturbed, “what was so important that you needed to follow me like a fucking creep?”

Growing more offended the longer the conversation wages onward, Margot stares into the widened eyes of the republic’s chancellor before parting her lips to speak, only for them to close as second thoughts fill her head. Though she had been anticipating a remark of some sort, Julia takes the continued silence as a prompt to bow her head and regain her composure, trying to alleviate the anger that she’d brought upon the room before a word could even be uttered.

“If you’re here about the lower hours of the peacekeepers, there hasn’t been any change in how much staff is needed” the chancellor concludes, believing their interaction to be nothing more than an attempt to continue their discourse from the day prior. “People are a resource just like any other. I’m sure it’s tough being scoffed at all day for being associated with the peacekeepers, but I can’t just have everyone shuffled somewhere they’re not needed” Julia continues, “shit needs to get done.”

“This has nothing to do with the hours you’re giving us” Margot responds, shaking her head before attempting to speak further, only for yet another moment of hesitation to come over her as the chancellor carries on. “Then what is this about?” Julia questions, her eagerness to end the conversation that shouldn’t even be occurring at the moment, one that the leader of the peacekeepers takes easy notice of, the offence she’d taken almost appearing more like a lack of respect.

Retreating from her initial intentions, the leader of the political adversaries slips a piece of paper into her back pocket, keeping it concealed from the eyes of the woman she speaks to. “I was just looking for some advice, I guess” Margot explains, bringing the chancellor down from the pillar of worry she’d erected for herself to stand upon, “the group is sort of split between people that say we should deal with the harassment and people that say we shouldn’t. I don’t know who’s right.”

“Well, the people who say you should deal with it are right” Julia answers with ease, not taking more than two seconds to consider the conflicted sides, the haste in which such a response were provided surprising the peacekeeper spokeswoman. “Really? Wh- what makes you say that so quickly?” Margot questions, not having anticipated the reply to come with such swift motivation.

“Because fighting is what you’ve been doing for years now. It’s the thing that made them hate you in the first place” Julia confesses, speaking the harsh truth she believes her affable acquaintance to not desire hearing, but to be in need of it. “Starting trouble with them will only hurt everyone involved. It’ll make me look bad, it’ll make the peacekeepers look bad, and it’ll cause more problems than what you’ve already got” the chancellor continues, trying to appear courteous.

“Well, what do you suggest I do?” Margot inquires, watching the doctor-turned-politician take a seat upon an empty space left behind on her brother’s desk. “I’ve got two sides that hate each other and there’s nothing that I can do about it” the group’s leader proclaims, recalling the words spoken by the woman whose remarks refuse to leave her mind, “I’m just worried that, if I do nothing to stop it, they’ll eventually start turning against me in unison.”

“And you need my help with that?” Julia questions, puzzled by the inquiry that feels too familiar to just dismissively take note of and set aside. “Well, we got the job done against Jaime. You were close to her while she was chancellor, right?” Margot inquires, her motivations upon entering the room having changed- adjusting to the intentions she now sets forth with, “there’s got to be something there I can learn from, right? Something to keep them off my back and at least on each other’s?”

“Well, sure. But aside from keeping them fat and happy, I’m not sure you’re in a position to do much” Julia replies, yet to take notice the slightly-widened eyes that come over the woman devoted to ‘keeping the peace’, “I’d just keep your head on a swivel and try to get them all to see the sense in playing nice.”

“Fat and happy?” Margot asks simply, watching the chancellor’s head nod as she repeats the three words. “Yup. Fat and-” Julia replies, her bobbing head soon growing stiff and motionless, the brow over her left eye lifting slightly as she pauses. As if surrendering herself to a recollection that brings sense upon their conversation and sheds light upon the words they’d shared amongst each other, the woman refuses to follow through with her reply in favour of grander curiosities.

“Who have you been talking to?” Julia softly wonders aloud, looking into the stoic face of the peacekeeper’s leader as it refuses to budge from its prior stance, mouth partially agape to prepare for a line of speech that fails to come before the question is raised. Presenting the chancellor with the face of a woman discovered for what she’s hiding, Margot looks away and struggles with the conflicting thoughts that surface upon her head.

“I-” she murmurs, struggling to speak as she finds herself entranced by a sudden lack of trust for the woman she’d rewritten the republic’s future with the assistance of. Remaining silent as she rummages through her flurry of thoughts, Margot finds herself incapable of simply reaching into her back pocket and giving up the chancellor she’d spent so long working with the group she now leads to get rid of- a part of her conscience not willing to write off Jaime’s warnings as desperate mumble.

“There’s just been some talk amongst the peacekeepers that you might be using us” Margot confesses, covering her tracks and spilling guts of redirection to the chancellor. “It’s probably just someone from the dissatisfied side trying to spew hateful rationale to provoke the other half into thinking of everything as hopeless, but the chatter has-”

“What are they saying?” Julia inquires, cutting the leader off before asking the question seated so close to the tip of her tongue that it threatens to fall off. Letting free a sigh, Margot stares at the ground and swipes her hair back as it falls from over her shoulders, the locks being returned to their place running down her back.

“They’re saying you said a lot of stuff to people about keeping everyone ‘fat and happy’ so they’d cooperate. It’s a lot of chatter about how you were just using us to get Jaime out of power before moving onto whatever benefitted you” Margot continues to explain, trying to mutter nonsense in hopes that the chancellor’s ear will catch to something she deems worth biting into, “again, it’s probably just the side that’s pissed off. I get it and I don’t blame them. It’s just hard to dismiss.”

Though her eyes are normally just wider than most others, the resting rigidity of the chancellor’s ice queen stare toward the peacekeeper leader proves enough to send a chill down the woman’s hair-strewn neck. Without uttering a word, Julia remains seated and silent within thought long enough for time to seem as though it had stopped. Finally parting her lips, the woman’s unchanged demeanour remains in slightly of the slightly-warmed tone taken in her voice.

“Please leave, Margot” Julia requests, remaining seated with one hand pressing against the centre of her brother’s desk for support. Both feigning and holding true disappointment in the discussion’s end, the forewoman of the peacekeepers hangs her head and turns away, pressing her lips together before stepping through the door and politely closing it.

Sitting with thoughts of her own, the chancellor’s face sours further as it takes toward the open window near the room’s rear, nostrils flaring and lids remaining as parted as they usually do. “Bullshit” Julia whispers to herself, hearing a gentle breeze pass the windows by and move throughout the republic’s air, which appears to be on track to grow colder throughout the week.

== Dire ==