The Council in Exile
In a back room above Narco City's biggest bank, Siru, Marcus and Vivek must buy nine Council votes for Heliopoly's founding charter before a hired lounge singer finishes her set — and a bomb wired under the table decides the count instead.
Vivek drags Siru and Marcus into a dinner with the men and women who will one day run Heliopoly — Mayor Helio and his eight Council members — none of whom have ever set foot off Earth, all of whom want a piece of a city that doesn't exist yet. Lawful Bridge access needs their signatures on a charter, but every vote has a price, and Umbrax's Adolf Weber is already in the room collecting on old debts. When Los Lobos wires the private room to burn rather than let outsiders control the new city's law, the heroes have to keep the vote count moving while quietly hunting for a detonator, using a hired lounge act's last song as cover to defuse it. The charter passes — seven votes secured — but two Council members walk out unbought, and the fine print Weber insisted on is already signed into Heliopoly's law before anyone reads it twice.