[Teaser] Westminster Palace

[Narrator]

With a loud thunk Lord Calvert drops the roughly shoebox-sized metal housing onto the table. The only other person in the room is Lady Hewitt, so the effect isn’t quite as dramatic as the gesture might be in a larger meeting or in the House of Lords proper, but this particular matter is best discussed in smaller circles. On some level he feels it doesn’t deserve too much attention, much less of the public kind.

“These have been springing up on traffic light poles all over Lambeth. I’d love to tell you what they do, but as you can see…” he gestures at the hollowed out piece of equipment.

“And this is worthy of the dramatics why exactly?”

“Isn’t it obvious? The city is under attack! It’s that Minamida woman and her so-called outreach program. She’s pushing her influence through loopholes and obscure case-law to take control of the borough and whether or not it’s for her own gain or to hand it over to the Muties, are we really just supposed to sit idly by?”

Lady Hewitt steeples her fingers and looks at the admittedly futuristic-looking casing. “We certainly can’t allow unknown technology to be put up around the city. For all we know this thing can tap into the security cameras, cellphone data.” she says, nodding.

“It’s worse than that. Solar panels have been springing up like weeds. All legal and cleared but it made me look into utilities and revenue from power and water is down almost 70% and 50% respectively. How in the bloody hell is she getting water to people? Waste is down 20% too, Tesco is reporting an almost 15% loss in grocery sales in the area.”

“Some might say those are all good things.” Lady Hewitt points out. “It’d certainly be a bad look to publicly oppose what is going on there.”

“I know! That’s what makes this so infuriating. But we can’t just let anybody decide that they want to take over utilities like that. There’s processes for this, contracts with the city that promise certain exclusivities. And of course the principle of the thing. She’s threatening to make us look terrible all while growing and empowering more of her little mutant army.”

“It does seem like there’s a case to be made for a threat of domestic terrorism, considering. You could argue many of the people working with her on this are armed and dangerous at all times.”

“Precisely. It’s only a matter of time until this comes to a head. She’s basically establishing her own little sovereignty right here in our city. They’re trying to displace us, this is just how it starts!” Lord Calvert bursts out, slapping his hand flat on the conference table.

“That’s all well and good but what do you reckon we should do about it? What can we do about it? Send around contractors to undo her work? Send the coppers to stamp out her community gardens? That’d be a terrible look, now wouldn’t it?”

Lord Calvert sighs. “That it would. And I already tried pruning her latest idea.” he goes on, gesturing at the dismantled box on the table. “Had city workers tear those down last week. Not only did they say the inner workings crumbled into silvery powder the moment they detached or opened them, the next day 18 of the 34 they took down were back already!”

“And that,” Lord Calvert goes on, “Is why I would recommend utilizing the asset.”

“Which is why you came to me specifically. My contacts with MI6. You do realize what you’re suggesting? We might be rightfully concerned about Minamida’s motivations but we know for a fact that the asset is a malicious agent.”

“That maybe the case but consider this. The asset is predictable and sure, it might cause some damage, but we pull it back and repair what problems it caused, done. Minamida is quickly becoming something we can’t excise so easily. The more she ingrains herself into Lambeth the more people will be dependent on her. The asset’s not going to cause long-term infrastructural deficits if we have to put a stop to it.”

“I’ll talk to them. I know they’re at least aware of the situation and certain people aren't too happy about it either.” Lady Hewitt agrees, picking up the empty casing and idly inspecting it. "Are you willing to take the fall for this if it goes sideways?"

"Heavens no! Are you insane?"

"I just want to make sure you know what you're proposing. It's easy enough to appear uninvolved but if you put a leash on the asset it'll know and you do not want it to retaliate. Your image and career would be the least of your worries in a worst case scenario."

"Come on, you're telling me MI6 hasn't figured out how to control a--" Lord Calvert cuts himself off as a moment of misplaced sympathy passes over his face, only to be replaced with cold determination. "They know what they're doing and in the meantime I'll garner more support. If this works who knows, maybe we can drum up the backing for their little section."