3.c.xi
“Ah, Miss
Adams. I was hoping to see you again,”
the bossman said, glaring at Business Woman.
His chest was pinned against his desk and his arm was barred behind his
back by Corporate Man.
He gave a low,
almost inaudible, chuckle and held his stare for a long moment. Then, with an air of smug righteousness, he
said, “You’re fired. Now get out of my
office. I’ve got business to attend to.”
Senior
Executive took a step forward, leaned toward the bossman and whispered, “Yes,
that’s all well and good, but Miss Adams is actually Business Woman, and she’s
with us.”
Showing no
sign of shock or revelation or even embarrassment, the bossman said, “Business
Woman, huh. In the future, Miss Adams,
it would serve you well to include such information on your personnel sheet.”
“Would it?”
said Business Woman, not really fighting off the urge to grin.
“I know I would have avoided much inconvenience
had you been forthright,” he replied.
“I’ll keep
that in mind,” she said. “Now, shall we get down to business?”
“Let’s,” said
the bossman, retaining his overconfident glare.
Corporate Man
released the arm bar and shoved the bossman into the office chair. The bossman winced but did not clutch his
side. Corporate Man held the vibrating,
greed-filled ray gun to the bossman’s chin and said, “This little device, which
we’ll call our corporate analyst, has reported that you are the top executive
of this establishment. We know, however,
that you are not the head of the empire.
Our reports indicate that you are one or four limbs in the Incorporated
Business Corporation Incorporated enterprise, merely an arm or a leg. Where’s the head?”
The bossman
shrugged, “Your information is not only incorrect, it is confidential.”
“If it’s
incorrect, there would be no reason to assert that it is, likewise,
confidential,” said Senior Executive.
“Yes,” said
the bossman. Then he sat, motionless.
Business Woman
slapped him and, almost as an afterthought, she said, “I personally scouted the
west and south side branches and, as you know, I infiltrated this north side
location whereby I ascertained the location of the east side facility. We’ve pinpointed the four corners. All signs indicate a central office. Where is it?”
“I would
assume that your ‘corporate analyst’ would be able to advise you of the central
office location,” said the bossman, gesturing flippantly to the greed-filled
ray gun. “Provided that the assumption
of the existence of a central office is conceded to.”
“This is
pointless,” said Business Woman. “We’ll
never get anything out of him. I once
listened to this prick pull crap like this on a conference call for an entire
afternoon.”
“Then why
can’t we use that corporate analyst gun thing to find it?” Franklin Buck asked.
“We could, but
the process would take a long time and lead us through an endless succession of
greedy companies and people until we were close enough to the central figure
head for it to lock on to that signal through all the greedy corporate
interference,” said Corporate Man.
Senior
Executive tapped Corporate Man on the shoulder and signaled him into a huddle
with himself and Business Woman. In a
hushed tone he said, “We need to get some financial records. There’s going to be an ass-load of paperwork
flowing from this place to that.
Invoices, expenses, shipping records, something will point us there.”
“But won’t we
need data from all the other branches to find the intersecting location?”
Business Woman asked.
“Yeah, we’ll
have to go break into one of the other three, access their files, and from
there–”
“Uh guys,”
said Franklin Buck, “this may seem stupid, but what about this?” He was pointing to a framed, poster-sized
map, hanging on the wall. “Here’s us, right?” he said, tapping the map. Then he grabbed a black marker from the
bossman’s desk and circled the location.
“Hey! You can’t vandalize company property!” the
bossman shouted.
They all
ignored his protests.
“Now,” said
Franklin Buck, “circle the locations of the other branches.”
He handed the
marker to Business Woman and while she circled the locations on the map,
Franklin Buck removed an oversized calendar from the wall. He returned to the map and used the calendar
like a straight edge, drawing a black line connecting the north and south
locations. Then he did the same for the
east and west branches.
“There. The lines intersect at… Jacob
Center Franklin
said and turned to face the others. No
one said anything. Then, after a
painfully long moment, they all turned toward the bossman as if his expression
might reveal something.
Finally, the
bossman spoke, “Are you currently seeking gainful employment? Because we could always use a good man. Of course we’ll have to garnish your first
paycheck to pay for the map vandalism, but the–”
“No freaking
way,” Business Woman said. “Can’t be
that simple.”
“Yeah, how
stupid can these corporate types really be?” asked Senior Executive.
They all
paused again and looked at each other, and then at the bossman. He was busy digging out a form from a set of
files in his desk drawer.
“Of course,
you’ll need to fill out this application.
Is your resume up to date? Oh, and references. We’ll need references,” said the
bossman. He glanced back and forth
between the others in the room, eyeing them with suspicion. “It would probably be best if your references
did not include the names of those in our company at present.”
