Kreider is a hardholder, one who holds a place and the people living in it, whose seat is a terminus of a vast surviving subway network, home to three to four hundred people.
| Type | Character |
| Role | Hardholder |
| Seat | A subway terminus |
| Spanish entry | Kreider |
Description
Besides the terminus, Kreider has “a business here”, premises of his own distinct from the station; when a larger operation was planned, its starting point was to be his station. He is one hardholder among several: powerful, not unique. The terminus is a bottleneck of the network, and whoever holds it charges for passage.
He rules through two means. The first is his gang of fifteen (“my half gang of 15, I still have a small gang”), which acts as a coordinated unit and is made up of yakuza and samurai figures. After a fight, eight yakuza warriors remain.
The second is barter, the currency of the system, exchangeable for services or goods. With it Kreider pays Larkin so that a train driver answers to him rather than to the official driver; in Torreluces, control of a line is not inherited with the post but bought from whoever drives the machine. His business is where barter comes in.
He was once a millionaire (“you were a millionaire”); the hardhold appears to be what remained of that fortune.
He used to ride in the “rich folks’” car with his gang. When he “sort of turned 40” he said: «Varta, nunca va a faltar» (“Varta will never run out”).
Current state
Kreider is bedridden, recovering from serious wounds, with “perhaps weeks” of recovery ahead, or days. In the account of the fight he is mentioned alongside Shibuya.
Open questions
- His face, clothing and weapons are not described.
- What wounded him, and who; how he lost his fortune and came to hold the hardhold.
- Whether “half gang of 15” and “small gang” are the same unit or two levels.
- What distinguishes the station, the terminus and the business.
- Which operation was to start at his station, and whether it still stands.
- What links him to Shibuya.
- What “Varta” is and what will never run out: an oath, a saying or a ritual.