Twenty-six feet and four inches above the head of the last dragon in line, behind eleven-inch fireproof, bulletproof glass, Felix Cel’Ruschk stood, arms cryptically folded over his expansive chest, his face betraying nothing as he watched the barely controlled chaos below.

“Somebody gets too rowdy down there it’s gonna get ugly,” someone behind him said. “Tasers aren’t enough.”

The colonel’s contempt bled through his words like an inkstain.

Felix shook his head. “No guns.”

There was a pause as all considered this, a judgment call made without hesitation from the guy whose job it was to make such calls. You could hear the youngster guarding the door whistling through his nose.

“Then you might have to talk to them.”

Felix sighed and walked out of the room, feeling the low, thudding beginning of a headache in his temple. He would smoke, then he would do it. He would talk to them. In the end, it’s exactly what the men upstairs had brought him here to do. Who better?

After all, his father was one of them.