It’s a volatile situation, and you spend almost a year just watching it churn. The old lady knows the hoodoo racket inside and out, and leaves you to play the drugs and people angle however you want, though you never shake the feeling that she’s waiting for you to do something significant before she gives you the thumbs up or down. You play conservatively for that first year, tiptapping here and there against the other colors and letting them push you back and forth as they can. You take a couple of their convoys, because they all but fell into your lap, but mostly you work the status quo.

You strike a deal with the Blues, where they’ll help you run the Greens into the ground in exchange for killing the trade in their area. It’s an unpopular deal on your side – the trade in the warehouses is a huge part of your income – but you’re big enough now that anyone who kicks gets pinned back pretty thoroughly, and it goes through. It takes you a week to sweep all the Greens into the river; after that you’ve got the city to yourself.