City of Fire and Ink

The Final 9

There's a saying in Pardahna. Gangs will fade, weather will pass, but light rails are here to stay. I'd always found it to be true. No matter what was going on with the city, the light rails arrived on time, left on time, and never missed a station. Statistically speaking, they had to make a mistake at some point, but it was so rare that it was almost unheard of.

I'd had only five instances when my light rail fucked up on me. Some when I was growing up, once when I was in university, drunk with my friends when the light rail passed our stop, forcing us to trudge back a mile, hungover and exhausted to get back to our dorm. The fifth time was today, because today was the House of Cards.

The pre celebrations had been going on for days and the entire city was backed up. Entrance to the House of Cards was limited to the Consulate, and the highest ranking members of Lourdes and Nostras. The rest of Pardahna would be clustered around their screens, following the event in real time.

The House of Cards was bigger than any public trial, any fancy party, even any concert. People of all gangs came together to celebrate the bravery of the Houses and the chance that things could change for the better. Restaurants let diners eat for free, workers were given the days off. Stores offered discounts in the name of celebration. Everyone was kinder to each other, using bright smiles and homemade food to disguise the jitteriness of their nerves. Everything would upend itself in a few days and there was nothing to do but hope that fate was on your side.

Even though the city was paralyzed with fear, there was also an undercurrent of excitement. Performers and artists used this time to put on events. Pleasure houses partnered with dancers and singers to create jaw dropping, exquisite exhibitions of our city's best and brightest. Pardahna came alive in color and sound, taste and light. Everywhere you looked, there was a new delight to be found, and none were more anticipated than the concerts.

Pardahna was a musical city down to it's bones and therefore no great change could occur without a concert. A few decades ago, the consulate ruled it into law that before any House of Cards, the city must celebrate with fourteen days of music and festival. Hundreds of concerts had been going on all over the city, but none was more anticipated than Ecstasy.

Ecstasy was the biggest concert of the entire year. The most famous musicians from all over Pardahna performed their hit music, acoustic ballads sharing the stage with pop hits, metal, and songs from every language the people could offer. I got tickets for Razu's set on a Wednesday and it completely rocked my world. In between gang preparations, I was out around the city, doing my part as a Lourdes Ambassador and dancing the night away. Ecstasy was a celebration of life, of the joy and talent that our city had to offer. No one knew what could happen after a House of Cards so it was our city's last hurrah, just in case.

The House of Cards, in true gang tradition, was a show of combat, marking the formal transition of city wide leadership from one gang to another. It could only be called when there were two gangs remaining, a feat that was nearly impossible in itself. The head of one gang would formally challenge the other and they would fight to the death in an arena.

The name came from the old Pardahnan tradition of weighted cards. Legend has it that when the city was being built, disputes would be settled over a game of cards. The first Nostra won control of the legislature by weighing the suit of the Nostras heavier than that of the other playing cards. After the first House of Cards, when Red Genesis won the battle and subsequently their right to become an autonomous organization to obtain weapons and human assets, they began weighting the cards in favor of their suit.

The tradition is that whichever House is in power is the weighted suit. Omma taught me to guess the age of a deck of cards based only on its weight. Experienced card players can predict exactly how many of each suit are in part of the deck just by holding it.