Arc 1, Thread 1: Red Ink (Kendal)
Senator Kendal Raines has had a long, long day, and it's only getting worse.
His old political mentor, Senator Gavin Carden, once defined a politician as a "man skilled in working with cities". He emphasized taking good looks at the big picture, eschewing hot-button politics in favor of 'holistic treatments for the Body Politic'. That may be why he only won about half of his elections. Nobody ever said Senator Carden was easy to understand. But he knew his constituency and had a great reputation.
Senator Carden was also one of the first assassinated by Abyssal hit squads.
It's one of those Holistic Days, that's to be sure. Demonic agitation in the Underdecks, an accident in the Forge levels that left a couple hundred of Leaden-Blooded dead, a union strike... fire after fire needing putting out, and to top it all off, a meeting with one of his least favorite peers on the Last Refuge. The demon politician Mxotichtlatl: an Anuhles spider-demon, elected to represent a section of the Last Refuge populated mostly by humans (66%?) but with an extremely active demonic population that somehow outvoted the rest of the constituency.
Senator Mxotichtlatl shares the same subcommittee as Kendal, the Subcommittee on Safety. It's a prestigious posting, encompassing everything from industrial accidents to internal policing of the mixed neighborhoods of the Last Refuge. Mxotichtlatl favors fixing a lot of this by outright segregation, a popular sentiment among the more empowered beings on the Last Refuge. It's not popular among the humans, who often feel like they'll soon be left in the dust. Mxotichtlatl also believes that since it already happens it's practically a fait accompli and should be made official policy. He and Kendal have already clashed several times- not necessarily because they disagree on anything, but because he's openly disdainful of baseline human contribution to the Last Refuge's continued survival. In his view, Kendal and people like him are simply a hindrance to the ship's daily operation. It's a step away from calling for genocide.
So it's a bit weird that Senator Mxotichtlatl has requested a one-on-one meeting to hash out a revision of Subsection 3.2§10.A, a bit of minor arcana in the safety code that can be accurately summed up as 'power tools are capable of causing injury'. It's a very odd thing to meet about, especially face to... uh... mandibled face. In politician parlance, it may mean he wants to make a deal, but about what? Right now their subcommittee has been humming along just fine, with the big votes (like neighborhood segregation) effectively tabled until the creation of some new layer of political power called the Admiralty Board.
His secretary has left Kendal a can of Raid sitting atop a pile of forms as a pointed joke at Senator Mxotichtlatl's expense. Knowing the bloodthirsty, murderous nature of the anuhles, he may actually need the thing. At least the meeting will be in his office, so he doesn't have to worry about the other kind of bugs.
One of his aides shoots him a quick chat text. "Sen. M. 15 min away".