Corporate Man is called in to investigate reports of vile, unethical business practices at Great American Business Company. What he finds there just might destroy him (except we all know the ending to The Tragic Death of Corporate Man so it should be fairly obvious that it can't really destroy him, though it can come close).

Enslaved by the Bonus Whores is an all new Corporate Man Adventure Serial. Chapters will post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

After nearly a decade of imprisonment, Corporate Man returns to find the economy in ruins and his deadliest enemies in control of all but a fraction of society's wealth. He embarks upon a quest to set right the wrongs of the business world; a task that will ultimately destroy him.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Chapter 112


The Tragic Death of Corporate Man
a hero for capitalism;
champion of the working class

by Tom Landaluce


Section 4:
Collision Looming in the Corporate Ladder Lobby.

4.a.
It was called Jacob Center for reasons lost to reams of misfiled or boxed up paperwork, changes in management, alterations to corporate strategy, and/or heavily over-calculated positions of denial. 
At the center was a structure one might call dark, sleek, ominous, foreboding, and whatever fashionable terms of power and dominance happened to be in vogue at the time of description.  Yet its design was unassuming enough to be casually overlooked or forgotten whenever a list was made of noteworthy architecture in the downtown area or when one was desperately searching for the home base of the very paradigm of evil corporations, Incorporated Business Corporate Incorporated.
The Jacob Center Tower stood fifty-two stories high, and it was capped by a large pyramid which comprised the entirety of the fifty-second floor.  Curiously absent, along with the traditionally omitted thirteenth floor, were those of the twenty-six and thirty-ninth.  The facade of the building was smooth, paneled glass with solid black corner walls and no apparent ledges or overhangs.  The only significantly unique element in its appearance were three, wide, windowless bands, the same black as the corner structures, which broke the building’s height into four separate sections like a stack of blocks.
As with most buildings, the tower had its own share of rumors and urban myths hanging about it.  Most of these were circulated by the janitorial staff, however, and were ignored by the predominantly white-collar population that frequented the inner corridors.  Not surprisingly, most of these rumors revolved around the buildings architectural oddities; the aforementioned absent floors being a large draw.  The three dark bands that wrapped its exterior were another area of interest.  Curiously, those bands began, respectively, above floors twelve, twenty-five, and thirty-eight, and terminated below floors fourteen, twenty-seven, and forty leading those nosey custodial types to suspect the secret existence of floors thirteen, twenty-six, and thirty-nine.  The bands were, in height, comparable to that of three standard floors. 
What was going on in all of that space?
Another feature that was of some concern to our inquisitive cleaning crew was that of the building’s corners.  Being solid black, they outlined the building, but they were not merely paneled facades, they had depth.  The front corner of the tower housed the executive elevator; used only by big wigs, head honchos, or various branch managers of the four corner locations of Incorporated Business Corporation Incorporated.  The opposite corner also contained an elevator.  The service elevator.  None of this was unusual, but the remaining two pillar-like corners of the building boasted no usage whatsoever
One would suspect that elevators for the staff or outside visitors would occupy these remaining areas, but a central bank of elevators located beyond the front lobby served this purpose. 
It was a commonly held belief among the janitorial staff that these two, apparently unused, columns were fit with hidden doors which led to secret entrances for the suspiciously absent floors thirteen, twenty-six, and thirty-nine.  It should also be mentioned that one noticed, should one be paying attention, a strange sensation when riding the staff elevators which occurred between floors twelve and fourteen, twenty-five and twenty-seven, and thirty-eight and forty.  No, it didn’t take longer for the elevator pass between these floors, but there was a sense of falling, or accelerated lift when in these zones.
As for the pyramid crowning the ominous, though often overlooked, structure of the Jacob Center Tower…  No one spoke of it.  Those that dared had the unfortunate habit of disappearing.