Part 3

This thread is not dead! Now that the holidays are over (and Mass Effect has been beaten), updates should come regularly! Hopefully...

The phone was ringing. I thrashed around in the darkness, trying to locate it. This was made more difficult by the fact that the bed seemed far larger than I remembered it. Finally I managed to wake up enough to crawl over to the side of the bed and answer it.

: Sir, your car is ready.

: "Wha? Huh...um...what?"

I am not at my most articulate after I first wake up.

: I said your car is ready, sir. I shall wait outside until you are ready to go.

I sat on the too-large-to-be-mine bed, trying to make sense of what was going on. The events of the last few days slowly came back to me; the road trip, getting lost, getting drunk and winding up as mayor of a town, and then having to play the part while waiting to ditch the place. None of that explained how I had managed to find myself in what appeared to be a large master bedroom and why my car was ready.
I stumbled over to a window and opened the curtains. The view was rather stunning; the river flowed slowly by underneath my window, and the heavy forests on the far bank were only broken in one place by a road. Wherever I was, it was a fairly large building, and appeared to be on an island.

I poked around the bedroom some more. The closet had several suits, all of which appeared to be my size. I found this...disturbing. The phone rang again, causing me to jump. It was the same guy as before.

: Sir, your car is still ready. Should I tell the city council you will be late?

: Right, I'll be right down. I just need to shower, get dressed, eat something, and figure out where the hell I am and how I got here. In no particular order.



Three hours later I had explored the house. It was quite the mansion. From what I could see the mansion was alone on the island except for a water pump and three wind turbines. All the time I was looking around, a car was sitting outside. I put on one of the suits in the closet and made my way outside. The driver was asleep, so I rapped on the windows. He was not happy.



The drive into the city was a lot longer than I expected. The mansion was pretty far outside of town. I was dropped off at the City Name City Hall. It was my third day in town.

Deryl was waiting in the mayor's...in my office when I got there.

: Enjoying the new mansion?

: I would probably enjoy it a lot more if I had known I was going to wake up there instead of being surprised. How did they move me there? Where did it come from? That road and bridge looks new and I can't remember seeing it on the maps before.

: I know. But that's not all that's weird. Remember that land we designated for zoning yesterday? I checked it out this morning. Completely filled up with houses. Houses that weren't there yesterday.

: That's...interesting. When did you get here? Did you wake up in a strange new mansion too?

: No, I woke up in the vice-mayor's house. Which could be better known as the vice-mayor's shack.

We walked into the council chambers. The council was all there already, which made sense since I was three hours late. They did not look too pleased. I was going to need a plan, another stall tactic. Something mayory to keep them busy while I figured out what was going on.

Ok goons, here's where we need some goals. Now that regular updates are going to be coming again, we need some short-term and some long-term goals. We need more residential zones, so we could focus on that. Which direction should we expand in? Or we could go another route. Build up city infrastructure before opening us up to a new resident rush. That power plant is going to need to be replaced soon too. Here's a picture of the city as it stands now. Money is somewhat tight, but the budget is balanced so we don't need to worry about debt. For now, anyway.