While Zane and the girls haggled with the ranchers from Winnemucca regarding the trade of weapons and armor for their livestock. The representatives of Elysium were busy discussing matters with the City Council of New Reno.
Each of the members present on the City Council belonged to one of the four "Families" that had formed out of the thousands of survivors within the settlement. These so-called families were similar to the concept of "guilds" or "clans" that were commonly found in MMORPGs.
But in reality, they acted more like the Mafia insofar that each family owned a section of the settlement of New Reno, where they extorted the people who resided within their turf. Or at least those who were not a member of the Family themselves.