Themes: ambition, status, wealth, fascism
Having a complicated relationship with your parents is quite normal at Elliot's age. However, it gets much worse when your parent is someone seen as the hero of La Cage, the only actual doctor operating in the old hospital and someone allegedly so humble that they don't even charge a reasonable price for their services.
Elliot is close to finishing their own medical degree, but their visits home are getting more and more fraught. They are bothered by the humble poverty that their parent is forcing them into and by the squalor and hopelessness all around. Elliot wants to live a good life and to find out what is what, and they are way past done with both the old doctor and the corrupt, impotent regime. They are an avid member of the Iron Cadence.
Everybody who lives in La Cage is mostly poor and desperate. The families and professionals living in Apartment Blocks are the ones who really try to keep some semblance of normality in their lives. The Block B consists mostly of tradesmen and people of other desirable professions. People with no exceptional wealth or status, but the ones who are good and honest at their job and are beneficial to the La Cage. Educated, but not burgeois - teacher, nurse, students, social worker or people jilted from Block A. They mostly want to stay far from the troubles and extreme ideologies (to a small degree of success) but are willing to help each other as much as they can - like a big family.
Some young people of Revachol felt lost in life. Nothing made sense and they saw everything around them going to shit. Slowly, they realized what was causing this - the foreigners, bringing in drugs and crime, and the liberals that love them so much. Then, a solution hit them - fascism! The Iron Cadence is formed out of fascists (although the less radical of them prefer being called Traditionalists) of varying degrees. Not necessarily racist fascists, but quite often that. Joined together by a sense of the world being wrong and wanting to put it to right, by staying in SUPREME HEALTH, having SUPREME LEADERSHIP, and basking in SUPREME FRIENDSHIP.
Everyone knows HealthiLife: the vitamins aren’t cheap, but what is your health worth? That’s the question its sales cadre asks as they go door to door, promising health in a little pill. Some swear by it but those who signed up to sell it only curse the day they did, somehow never able to get out from under the debt.
But now there’s a new game in town: Elixir! Health in a vial, treating all manner of ailments and slotting neatly into the HealthiLife product line. The cynical might say it’ll be just as useless as HealthiLife (and the foolish and cynical might say it will get you just as sick), but nothing sells like hope.
When the two managers go head to head, however, and secrets about the organizations are brought to light, who will come out on top – and who will get trampled beneath their feet?
