3.a.ix
He stood in
the shadows, his body stoic and rigid, silhouetted against the lights of the
city outside the tall triangular window at the end of the expansive room on the
top floor of the towering building. His
building. Dark and ominous. It wasn’t the tallest of the skyscrapers in
the city. Not officially. If underground floors were counted, however,
it would dwarf all others.
Word of The
Greed’s recent encounter with Corporate Man had reached him and, had there been
anyone in the room with him at the time, they may have seen a flash of white in
the darkness as he smiled.
He moved to a
console that jutted from the wall. It
activated in response to his proximity.
All of the buttons and lights and screens glowed a deep, evil red.
It was time.
He fingered a
black toggle switch that stood in a red, illuminated circle. The clacking sound it made was deep and
echoed throughout the room. The amount
of money he had paid to get that sound just right was staggering. Large red letters flashed across a man-sized
display screen.
ALERT. ALERT.
ALERT.
And then
smaller letters appeared beneath.
The
Crash. Confirmed.
Mr.
Outsource. Confirmed.
Professor
Inflation. Confirmed.
Before long
they would all confirm. He moved away
from the console to an imposing, black office-chair. It looked like some sort gigantic, wicked
beetle, mounted not like a hunting trophy, but like an insect specimen skewered
on a sharp needle. He sat, wriggled into
the chair’s squishy interior, stroked his luscious moustache, and tugged at the
tuft beneath his bottom lip.
The Big Bossman
was pleased.
