Director of Operations

Ara Satoshi, Vice President of Operations for Goshi Corporation, placed a Dreamtab under his tongue, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. It was the newest thing, his people assured him. Made from Sikolo Powder, but much more refined. More the sort of thing someone in his position could indulge in without looking like a drug fiend.

A few months ago he would never have considered something like this, but working with that woman Rain and the inscrutable Executor could drive anyone to self-destruction. Once or twice he'd considered suicide, but that filthy little Zipsum (Tricks? oh who cares) had suggested Sikolo powder and he thought... why not?

Frequently in the afternoons he could be found just like he was now. Leaning back in his plush office chair, eyes closed, away in another world.

It made no sense. Well, of course it didn't make sense while he was on a Dreamtab. But even sober... what the hell was Blade thinking? When Satoshi first heard the plans for the war he was one hundred percent on board. Okay, first he'd been miffed that everyone else in the company seemed to know about it before him - and how on Karia had Blade kept it a secret for so long? The whole damn operation was so complicated that it must have been almost a decade in the making. All over the continent there were agents and double agents, bribed officials, plants, moles, spies and what have you. None of them knew anything more than their part of the operation. Hell, none of them knew about the damn operation. They thought they were working for Blade on private matters and then boom - Goshi owns the world.

So when Satoshi found out that a war was coming in a month or two he was both shocked and excited. This would mean Goshi control of the chain of distribution and the elimination of competition. He immediately assumed that Goshi would take over the other Blackrock mines including the two largest ones in Ithica and Thalosh. Satoshi had expected his department to triple or even quadruple in size, something he welcomed with glee.

Blade had let him think that, too. Never once had the Executor given a hint that Goshi wasn't interested in the other mines. Why the fuck not? We are a mining corporation are we not?

Whoa... even with his eyes closed Ara Satoshi was getting dizzy. Thinking too fast on Dreamtab is a bad idea. Breathe you fat sonofabitch, breathe. Schools of neon koy were swimming across his dreamscape. Their tales swished leaving trails of rainbow light. He was so entranced he did not hear the ventilation duct above his head being slowly unscrewed and removed.

Heh heh. Satoshi started to chuckle. A deep belly chuckle. The look on Rain's face, like a puckery fish, when she heard about the "disturbance" in Stardown. Ah, he would pay a lot of money to have a giant photograph of that face on his office wall.

Two days ago, for no apparent reason, the disLocators had just stopped working in the vicinity of Stardown. Pop. One minute they worked, the next, nada. Teleportation had only existed for about a year, no more, but to hear the cursing coming from every office in the Goshi Tower you'd think it was a First Mind given right to be able to plant 1,000 Hei-Shi up anyone's ass from 500 kilometers at a moment's notice. "How dare they..." "Are they stupid? They know that Katashi Blade will eat them alive..." "How could they possibly..."

Frankly, Satoshi mused, it was probably time for some kind of hiccup. It isn't good karma for everything to go too smoothly.

Two lithe bodies dropped silently out of the ventilation shaft behind Ara Satoshi, and crept closer to the director's chair.

Blade would no doubt respond quite harshly - it almost made Satoshi feel a twinge of empathy for the citizens of Stardown, but it was hard to feel anything but impish delight on Dreamtab. The soonest an army could be mustered and marched overland to Stardown would be a week or more away, though. In the meantime, anyone with a reason to hate Goshi would be making their way to the city hoping to muster a resistance. It was likely to be entertaining, even though it would end badly for the resisters, one way or another.

His chair suddenly wheeled around and his eyes snapped open. The room twisted in disgusting ways, making it hard for him to see, but he could identify two youngish figures before him.

"Good afternoon director," the one on the right said to him, when he grinned he had absolutely enormous choppers - like a cow or something.

"Hello, to you as well. I'm having a private moment if you don't mind," he said amiably.

The same one responded, "So sorry to interrupt, but we had an appointment."

Satoshi didn't remember making any appointments for today. In his head his calendar just looked like a random collection of purple dots. Completely unintelligible. "Nope, no appointments in the afternoons," he leaned forward with his best serious look, "It's my Dreamtab time." Oops. Shouldn't have said that.

The weird wavy looking figures gave each other a look then the talkative one said, "We know. That's why Blade told us to tell you that 'you should be grateful Sikolo Powder is a good anaesthetic.'"

Suddenly, or he supposed it was suddenly, but everything appeared to be happening in very slow motion, the one who did the speaking drew a line in the air with his finger, which was a childish sort of thing to do, except it caused his stomach to split open like a grapefruit. Rainbow colored confetti poured out.

"Would you look at that?" he mused, reaching down and picking up handfuls of confetti.

The other figure, the one on the left, made some funny gestures and slithering blue serpents rose up out of the mess, hissing in his face, and coiling themselves slowly around his neck. A tad uncomfortable, he thought. The coils wound tighter and tighter and a distant part of his mind nonchalantly informed him that it was probably going to kill him.

Oh. Good.

The junior undersecretary who found him in his chair two hours later was put on medical leave due to 'mental trauma'. She committed suicide shortly thereafter.