Meanwhile, in Brisbane’s financial district…

The building at Five Riverside Plaza was widely regarded as the city’s tallest and least sensible structure. Towering over the rest of the CBD, its upper reaches lost in clouds, the building boasted the most insanely exclusive floorspace in the city because it actually only had 5 floors, all jockeying for position somewhere near the top.

Nathan Blevvers, CEO of GrunkCorp Holdings Inc, edged closer to the floor-to-ceiling glass panels of his penthouse office. He was so high above the sprawling cityscape of Brisbane that it sometimes gave him a nosebleed just to look out the window, and if he was being perfectly honest, he hated heights, hated tall buildings and would have marvelled at the supreme irony that he had ended up working in an office where the ground was a half-hour elevator ride away, if only he had known the meaning of the word irony.

However, one thing Nathan Blevvers did know intimately was the fact that 98% of business was about appearances, and for this reason he forced himself to appear comfortable in his insanely high office every day, because his vast empire would crumble within minutes if he didn’t.

“Your morning meeting will begin in a few minutes Mr Blevvers,” a voice said from behind the CEO, interrupting his thoughts. He turned to regard the blank countenance of his Aide de Camp, a man he only knew as Spiteful Warren.

That was another thing, Blevvers thought, as he made his way to his huge mahogany desk, what the hell is an Aide de Camp? Along with the word ‘irony’, Aide de Camp was a term the CEO had never encountered before he had suddenly discovered he absolutely needed to have one. And that was only because that bastard Bernie Smathers, CEO of Cashcow Unlimited Limited, had sneeringly mentioned that he had an Aide de Camp one afternoon over a friendly game of golf, forcing Blevvers to say, “Really? Only just now? I’ve had one for ages.” Then he’d stomped back into his headquarters and ordered his receptionist to talk to someone who had Google to look up what the phrase meant and then to get him one, or maybe even a couple of them, if that would be better.

The very next day Spiteful Warren had shown up for work.

Nathan Blevvers stood before the wall of screens through which he conducted his morning meetings. Very soon Divisional Heads from all over the world would be online simultaneously, each framed by his or her own screen, each with a peppy couple of paragraphs to read about how amazing everything was running in their little part of the GrunkCorp empire. Of course, 80% of these reports were outright lies, while the remaining 20% were usually slightly more subtle lies. This was particularly the case given that Blevvers was in the process of having 5 of the 12 Divisional Heads replaced for incompetence, and another one assassinated for having an annoying, snuffly laugh. But this was simply another of those ever-present business realities — no-one ever told the truth. And if, by accident, anyone ever did tell the truth, you were so used to the lies that you would simply ignore the truth as being utterly implausible.

There was a polite little cough from behind the CEO. A little cough that had been meticulously gauged to impart a maximum payload of smug derision, while offering as little concrete offensiveness as possible.

“Ahahaha,” said Spiteful Warren, “Sir is having his little jest. I’m certain Sir is aware that he is standing in front of the wall of portraits of the GrunkCorp board members, and that his video conferencing screens are, in fact, over here.”

Blevvers frowned at the wall to which his Aide de Camp was gesturing, and then back at the wall in front of which he had been standing. “How the hell do you tell the difference?” he asked.

“Well, aha ahahahaha,” said Spiteful Warren, “Sir will perhaps recognise that the pictures on this wall are moving.”

Blevvers chewed obsessively on his lower lip, his left eye beginning to twitch in a meaningfully psychotic way. He rearranged his tie, checked his cufflinks, and then sidled over to the other wall, doing his best to ignore the sardonic smile on his assistant’s face.

Approximately 48 times a day Nathan Blevvers fantasised about sacking his Aide de Camp. Sometimes, in these fantasies, he slapped the neat little man first. In others, he somehow managed to open the windows and shoved his assistant out, yelling “You’re fired!” as he fell away from view, presumably hitting the ground a number of minutes later. In each of the fantasies the horrid little man broke down, begged for forgiveness and mercy, but was of course denied these things because that was the kind of guy Nathan Blevvers liked to pretend he still was. Cold and vicious. Ruthless and dynamic.  Not-afraid-of-the-sarcastic-little-man and not-utterly-terrified-of-thinly-veiled-criticism. Yes, in his fantasies he was all of those things and more.

The reality was that he was no longer the master of his own destiny, forget about the destinies of the thousands of employees that worked, directly or indirectly, for GrunkCorp Holdings. At least, when it came to his Aide de Camp he wasn’t.

He’d once speculatively typed the man’s name into his gleaming desktop computer, to see if an intranet search might at least turn up the little bastard’s surname. The computer had told him that it had zero results for the search, and 4 minutes later Spiteful Warren himself and bustled efficiently into his office, packed up his computer, and wheeled it out, telling the CEO that it needed an urgent upgrade.

And that was the last time he had seen his PC.

Even though he was something of a technical moron, Blevvers soon discovered that he missed his computer. In particular, he had looked forward to the occasional times when one of his employees would mistakenly include his name on the CC list of the latest funny email making the rounds, and he’d giggle at the usually topical shenanigans that Dilbert and Dogbert were getting up to in their comicstrip version of corporate hell, and then he’d sack everyone who had ever sent or received the email and have them escorted off the premises by very large guards.

Good times, he ruminated.

Another grating cough brought him back to the present, and it was time for the hookup.

Nathan Blevvers, CEO of GrunkCorp Holdings, gazed at the cold, passionless faces of his Division Heads and said, “Okay, shoot.”

There was a muffled sound from the speakers attached to monitor six, and the Division Head of the European offices of the company suddenly slumped over at his desk and then slowly fell to the floor. A ninja-clad face leaned in from the side of the screen and said, “The one with the snuffly laugh has been terminated.”

“Excellent,” said Nathan Blevvers with his first smile of the day, “now Division Head Pacifica, tell me what you know about the fires that burned down the Jojo-a-rama offices and warehouses.”