Got: Origins and Oranges

[Got]

Part one:

Thursday, 12.30pm

The rain trickled down the office window. Although it wasn’t really fair to call it an office, it was more a massive boardroom. It wasn’t particularly fair to call it a window either, more a giant wall of glass, quietly observing Paragon City from its looming position atop a towering sky scraper - the corporate headquarters of Genetic & Organic Technologies.

If one were to scale to the top of this building and peer through that window and in to the boardroom they would find a sight resembling the Last Supper. Grant Richards, the CEO of GOT was sat at a rather large and expensive looking table with an almost pensive look on his prematurely aged face. Various corporate directors flanked him on either side, all extremely powerful men in their own right, however, to a man such as Richards ultimately inconsequential, and they knew it. Each of them somewhat aggressively gripped in roaring debate with others around the table.

“Shut up,” came a suddenly overwhelming voice, “Shut up!”

Silence reigned in the room, all that remained was the piercing patter of the rain on the window and the faint hum of the random flickering lights overhead.

“We’re going ahead with it.” came the voice again, identifiable this time, considering the subdued noise, as Richards’. Grant Richards was not a large man, but he was incredibly assertive. He could command intimidation on to the most steadfast people. His elevated at GOT only magnified this further.

“But…” started one of the directors, momentarily stopped by one of his colleagues kicking him under the table.

“What’s that?” Mr Richards sarcastically sneered.

“Well, all I’m saying is that this is going to result in us losing a gross amount of money. If the FDA don’t approve the drug then we’re all sunk.”

All eyes in the room glared at their feet. Except Richards’ whose were burning in to this unfortunate employee’s brain.

“You raise an excellent point, Gerry, thank you.” There was an immense sense of confusion in the room. Mr Richards generally did not generally take to well to objections, not too well at all.

“Your small mind obviously can’t see the plethora of potential markets open to us, regardless if we pass the regulatory tests or not.” he informed him, followed with an extremely hollow smile. Pressing his intercom, “Send a, um, a basket of muffins, yes that’ll do nicely, to Mr Gilmore’s house, would you, Martha? For his positively spectacular contribution to today’s meeting.” he announced loudly, drawing attention to highly sarcastic tone. “Now gentleman, I’m going to assume there are no other issues to be raised with my plans going ahead, and so I ask you all to please vacate my office. I have some business to attend to.”

Richards collected his papers together to the sound of the company’s directors’ pathetic march out of the room. As the last man left and the door was closed over he shuffled the papers in to a brown folder, clearly marked GRO and tapped it with his palm contentedly. Excellent, he thought as he slipped the file in to one of his expansive drawers.

“Rouse me at five, Martha, dear. I have to re-charge my batteries. You know what to do with those muffins.” Richards sat down in his executive leather chair and closed his eyes, he shut-off immediately.

The contents of that questionable file were extremely sensitive to GOT. It contained the solution to the growing rate of obesity in this country, and indeed the world. Not only that, it eliminated any need for exercise, it took the “work” out of “workout”. What this file held was the formula and testing procedures of GRO.

“A pill a day for two weeks will shed the fat right off, replacing it with the muscles you’ve always struggled for.”

The tagline was not what one would call eloquent but it was composed solely for fatty Joe & co out there and said all it had to - lose fat/gain muscle/don’t even have to leave your seat. It could turn the couch potato in to an amateur athlete in only two weeks. This is why GOT prized the project so highly, if it worked (which preliminary testing promised it would) it was a sure fire money spinner. The western world’s obesity problem could be cured with a tiny, little pill. Or, to be realistic, a tiny, little, extortionately priced little pill. GOT knew that they could set their own price, reasonable or not, and it would still sell faster than they could make them. In short, it could earn anyone involved in the manufacturing of them an obscene amount of money in an extremely short amount of time. However, there was a massive “but”. The FDA, the body for regulating commercially available medication such as these pills hadn’t tested, let alone approved this seemingly miraculous drug for sale yet. And, considering their turbulent relationship with GOT, likely never would. This is the reason the majority of the corporation’s directors were in absolute opposition of the project going ahead and losing millions of dollars of their own money, albeit silently, fearing any repercussions Grant Richards would impose on those voicing opinions.

The way Richards ran his operation resulted in them amounting to nothing more than pathetic puppets, peons to his iron fist, retaining their board positions for purely aesthetic reasons. GOT was Grant Richards and no-one would contest that, even if they could.


Thursday, 5.45pm

Mr Richards’ office was still silent and had been since the board meeting. Silence was efficient, he could often be heard saying, and that’s the way he liked it.

*click* “Time to get up, Mr Richards, Sir.” Martha, his secretary buzzed.

There was a pause. A silent one, of course.

“Thank you kindly, Martha.” he politely replied, opening his eyes.

“Pleasant nap?”

“Certainly was. I dreamt of muffins, Martha, dreamt of muffins.” Richards commented delightfully.

“Glad to hear it, Sir.” She paused, “Speaking of that, you may want to turn on the Channel 8 news.”

Richards gazed down at the button riddled pad on the arm of his chair and without hesitation and, like judge’s hammer, his finger slammed down on one. A faint whirring began, closely followed by a large television unfolding from the office ceiling. Everything in his office was huge, much larger than it fundamentally had to be. But Grant Richards viewed himself as a man of massive stature and so following that mentality everything in his life must reflect that; his TV, his office, his car, his home, his women (although no-one could recall the last time he had been seen with one of them).

The television flicked on instantaneously.

[An affluent suburb of Paragon City has been quite literally rocked today by an explosion, thought to have been caused by a gas leak, resulting in the destruction of a house in one of the richest neighbourhoods in the area.“ rang the brain-gratingly annoying voice of the female newscaster, “The homeowner, named as one Gerald Gilmore, an esteemed employee of GOT, was known to have been inside at the time the accident occurred. He died instantly. A 72 year old woman was also caught in the blast while strolling with her dog. Doctors say she is in a serious condition, however, her pet is thought to have not been so lucky. The well being of the dog described by one witness as “a sorry, scattered state”.

The Paragon City Fire Department have issued a statement labelling the accident an “unfortunate mishap” and assured us it could have been prevented had they received more state funding. While a counsellor waives these claims as “ridiculous”, stating “the only way similar accidents can be prevented is if the city outlaws donuts in fire stations.” The fire department is allegedly considering a strike in retaliation to counsellor Kelly’s comments.

In other news a local man has, apparently hilariously to his peers, lodged his head in…]

The television flicked off as instantaneously as it had come on, at Mr Richards‘ pleasure.

“Hah! Muffins indeed. Excellent!” he chuckled, relaxing in to his chair.

“Terribly patronising, that man.”

This was why it was sensible to keep reservations quiet around Grant Richards. Not only was he cold and calculating, he was utterly indifferent and ultimately dangerous. “Look out for number one.” wasn’t his mentality, it was more “There is no-one but number one.” He had no good graces, you could only fall out of indifference in to his bad graces. His only two cares in the world were profit margins and himself. He had no friends, no known family, again it was a matter of efficiency. Richards could see no purpose in either of these, no possible benefit they could bring. They were a waste of time, energy and, most importantly, money. This, despite what you may think, wasn’t a sad or lacking life for him, in fact quite the opposite. He thrived on being an egotistical, self-centred and overly focused individual. Richards and his business had a relationship much like a hero and crime: neither of them were anything without each other. And he loved it that way.