It happened a day faster than Bisterne had predicted.

No hearings, no additional review, nothing at all.

Such was the magic of power.

When the will from the very top intervened, all rules automatically made way.

Then, the floodgates of funding swung open.

Meanwhile, Daniel Sanders hadn’t been idle in Washington.

He made good on his promise.

The leader of the Progressives leveraged his decades of prestige within the National Union and the Left-wing Camp, personally calling the pension fund managers of the major unions.

"This is an order, and also a request," Sanders said over the phone. "We need this money to prove our path is the right one. Buying Pittsburgh’s bonds is buying our own future."

The effect was instantaneous.

Less than two hours after the bond sale opened, the entire five-hundred-million-dollar offering was snapped up.

The National Auto Workers, the Teacher’s Union, and a few large family funds focused on green energy scooped up the entire issue of bonds that Wall Street rating agencies had deemed "junk."

「On the morning of the sixth day.」

Ethan pushed open the door to the Mayor’s Office.

Clutching a thin bank deposit confirmation slip, he walked to the desk and placed the paper in front of Leo.

"It’s here."

Ethan’s voice was a little dry.

"Five hundred million US Dollars."

He took a deep breath, looked Leo in the eye, and repeated, as if for confirmation.

"The full amount is in."

Leo looked at the long string of numbers.

He felt no ecstasy, no excitement.

This money was earned by dancing on the edge of a cliff. It was bought with countless lies, deals, and threats.

’Mr. President,’ Leo thought, ’we have our ammunition now.’

’Excellent.’ The voice in his head was Roosevelt’s, calm and powerful. ’Now, we are going to fire this ammunition. Is that stage ready?’

Leo turned his head and looked out the window.

In the distance, on the banks of the Monongahela River, the once-desolate land reserved for the Inland Port had been transformed.

This place had originally been an industrial wasteland abandoned for twenty years. Weeds grew wild, rubble was strewn everywhere, and only a few rusty railway tracks snaked through the dirt like dead serpents.

But over the past ten-plus days, a change that could only be called miraculous had taken place here.

Hundreds of heavy trucks moved in and out day and night, their roars shattering the silence of the river valley.

Thousands of tons of gravel filled and compacted the muddy ground.

Tons of steel scaffolding were used to construct a massive stage, large enough to hold several hundred people.

Most striking of all were the twenty giant crawler cranes.

They had been urgently dispatched from the warehouses of the Morganfield Industrial Group.

These steel behemoths stood tall on the riverbank, their sky-high booms pointing toward the heavens.

And at the foot of the cranes were stacked several hundred shipping containers painted in vibrant colors.

Red, blue, and green.

These containers were not mere decorations. They represented trade, they represented commerce, and they represented the city’s yearning to reconnect with the world.

This was a totem built of steel, money, and power.

It was demonstrating a kind of power to everyone—a power capable of reshaping the land and turning the tide of fate.

「2:00 PM on the day of the campaign speech.」

Hundreds of union members from Western Pennsylvania, dressed in matching work clothes and wearing hard hats, filled the newly leveled plaza.

Among them were dockworkers from Pittsburgh, steelworkers from Allegheny County, and miners who had traveled from more distant coal country.

They held up signs, their faces filled with anticipation.

Dozens of media broadcast vans were parked outside the barricades, their cameras and long lenses aimed at the enormous stage.

All the lights were focused on the center of the stage.

The music began.

It was Bruce Springsteen’s "Born in the U.S.A."

The raw rock music echoed through the river valley, pounding against everyone’s eardrums.

Into this atmosphere, thick with testosterone and the spirit of industry, walked John Murphy.

He wore a dark blue work jacket over a white shirt with an open collar. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing forearms that were a bit slack but still strong.

The river wind had messed up his hair a bit, but this only made him look more authentic—more like a foreman who had just walked off the factory floor than a high-and-mighty politician.

Murphy walked to the podium.

He placed both hands on the edges of the podium, leaned forward, and let his gaze sweep over the nearly thousand faces below.

The noise gradually subsided.

Murphy began to speak.

His voice, carried by the sound system, spread throughout the entire river valley.

"Last night, I didn’t sleep in a hotel."

Murphy’s first sentence grabbed everyone’s attention.

"I went to a neighborhood in Etna and sat down at the Smith family’s somewhat wobbly kitchen table."

"Old Smith is a welder. He worked at an auto parts factory for thirty years. His hands are deformed from holding a welding torch for so long, and his knuckles are swollen."

"His wife, Mary, is a cashier at Walmart and stands on her feet for eight hours a day."

"We drank instant coffee and talked for a long time."

Murphy paused, his expression softening.

"And what do you suppose we talked about?"

"We didn’t talk about the headlines from Washington. We didn’t talk about the debt ceiling or geopolitics that the politicians are always arguing about on TV."

"All that stuff is a world away from that kitchen table."

"The Smiths pulled out their electricity bill from last month. The number on it made them frown."