Chapter 4: Pain in the arse

Welcome to the year 2010, a future where corporate mogul's have set themselves above governments and above the law. Into this future we find Richard Whipstaff the fifth who is what the English would call "a right bastard" he is also the chairman, CEO and largest stock holder of the R'Sup corporation. Richard is 45, married, with two children as well as several mistresses. R'Sup is a multi-national mega corp that sells food to rich countries and guns to poor ones. It also pays poor people next to nothing to harvest drugs which it sells to rich kids for a huge profit.

Richard sat in his office looking out over London and dreaming of the past Whipstaffs who had founded the company and made it what it was today. They operated in easier times and did not have the problems he faced today in keeping the company profitable. He turned back to the report on his desk and again shook his head as profits for current financial year were only up nine percent over last year. He slammed the report on his desk he had wanted at least 12 and maybe 15 to keep investors happy.

What the world needs is a good war or plague, thought Richard, both of which are good for profits. Well if money won't come in I'll have to stop it going out and with that Richard activated the personel file for his company and started searching for people to make redundant. A round of staff layoffs will get everyone's productivity up.

Richard only perused the files relating to middle management, IT analysts and R & D scientists. No point upsetting the pleb workers at the bottom that would only bring in the unions and end up costing money. The same with upper managment and directors who were too expensive to pay out and too costly to replace, plus they knew where the dirt was spread.

Richard had last run this exercise three years ago and had seen a big jump in profits so he believed it would work again. Some of the names recalled memories of the last cuts as workers promised anything to hold on to their jobs.

"Ah yes, Fisk" mused Richard as the next file opened.

Richard wondered if Fisk was still married to that firey red head who had been fucked by several of the old men on the directors board just to help her husband keep his job. Why these middle management people over committed themselves and ended up in debt with houses, cars and expensive schools for their kids. This just left them open to being expolited by those who knew how. Richard laughed at the memory but closed the file on Fisk with a note "not this year, check on wife".

He scanned several more files and made notes for his department heads to follow up when he came to a R&D scientist named Killmore. Odd name for a man who researched bio weapons and their delivery systems. Richard read the file for a second time as he was sure he was overlooking something. He stared at the wall for several minutes when it hit him. The good professor had a daughter and that daughter was a lawyer and that lawyer had cost the corporation millions after she led a protest that shut down a new processing development just to save some frogs. Richard also noted the professor had not produced any viable product for the corporation in nearly two years.

An evil thought entered Richard's brain and caused him to grin with smugness. Well professor if you want to keep working here then you will have to get your daughter here to be fucked over by me the way she fucked over the corporation for her precious frogs. Richard sent off a memo for the professor to present himself here at the weeks end and satisfied with his days work Richard left his office for his private club and lunch.

The professor arrived for his interview with Whipstaff still puzzeled as to why he had been singled out from his team. Richard greeted the professor precisely at 10:00 AM as per the request and ushered him into his office. Richard had the morning paper open to display a photo of the professors daughter as she left court yesterday after succusfully bringing in an injunction against another project designed to provide jobs and make things easier for the every day man as well as a large profit for his corporation.

After offering the professor a seat Richard began to tell the good professor that his position within the company was not quite secure as funding was going to be cut due to the costs involved in certain projects that did not get a start.

"It costs a lot to get an idea to production stage and if the project gets delayed well money has to come from elsewhere." Richard explained.