by Simon Archer
“There is no bonus. Obviously, if there was, the bonus would go to the firm, not just to me. His accusations are ridiculous!” Floyd was visibly becoming irate.
“We thought you might respond that way. So, please focus your attention on the other projector screen,” Brody instructed. Reina adjusted herself in her seat so that she faced the screen. She started projecting evidentiary images onto it, as Ellie had done by the fire pit. She used her voice as a speaker, like Ellie did as well. The partners sat back in their seats, and I watched as their mouths slowly fell open more and more in disbelief. Each and every one of not just Floyd’s illegal and immoral actions were shown, but those of the board of directors as well. When Reina’s video story approached the part that would show his intent to withhold information from Omnicorp so that he could get a second bonus, Floyd flew up out of his seat.
“This ratty bitch made this stuff up!” he screamed. He lunged at Reina. I was out of my seat before he could reach her. I caught him by the neck with my hand and slammed him to the floor on his back. While that stunned him, the moment he got his bearings, he started swinging on me.
“You can’t do this! This is all bullshit! Ask Omnicorp! They’ll tell you it’s all fake!” He kept screaming. I continued to hold him down, keeping my face out of his arms’ reach.
“You might want to calm down just a tad,” I seethed at him sarcastically. “You are not doing yourself any favors by working on getting an assault charge,” I tried to reason with him. As much as I wanted to knock his pompous ass out, I knew this was not the place for that. Getting myself in trouble was not on the docket for today. Instead, I simply kept applying pressure to his neck to keep them on the ground while Brody continued.
“As you can see, Mrs. Heller, Mr. Glenn, your partner is putting you and your firm at risk both by his actions and his associations,” Brody went on as more images streamed from Reina to the screen. “And, as for the lawsuit, I would like to show you something.” Brody reached down and set his briefcase on the table. He opened it up and told out two duplicate files. He slid them across the table to Floyd’s partners. They each took one and opened it up.
“What is this?” Mr. Glenn asked, speaking for the first time since he entered the room.
“That is the agreement saying that my clients will not sell cat girls with Omnicorp saliva in them. Instead, they will replace it with their own formulation. As you can see, the two products are significantly different, and therefore Omnicorp’s patent does not apply to the new formula. That being said, there is no need to discuss nano-glass sales. Anyone who would like access to the healing saliva can go directly to Vice Grip Solutions to make arrangements.”
Brody slowly closed his briefcase, folded his hands, and rested them on top of it while the partners looked over the files. I glanced up at the Board of Directors on the big screen. They had muted their microphones and were speaking to one another frantically. Floyd continued to try to fight me off him. I almost wanted to give him points for persistence, even though he was no match for me. The images Reina had been streaming came to an end, and the projection stopped. She blinked and slowly turned to look down at the floor to Floyd. They locked eyes, and she very slowly started shaking her head like she was disappointed in a bratty child.
“Mr. Woodin,” Mrs. Heller said after a couple of minutes. “Please know that you will be receiving a letter from our offices, showing that we will no longer be representing Omnicorp in this case.” She and Mr. Glenn stood up and walked to the door. Mrs. Heller glanced back at Floyd struggling on the floor and then looked at Brody once again. “You should also expect there to only be two names on this office door the next time we see each other.”
The two of them walked out of the room and let the door close behind them. Moments later, two uniformed police officers came in and took hold of Floyd.
Once they had him secured, I went over to check on Reina and saw that she was all right. As I began to walk back to my chair, I glanced up at the board of directors to see them being arrested as well. I had suggested to Brody that he use his contacts to ensure that the evidence we had was distributed through the proper channels, at the proper times, to make certain no criminals walked away from this meeting.
When Floyd had been taken away, and the Omnicorp Board of Directors had been detained, I leaned across the table and cut the video feed. The five of us sat back in and took a collective deep breath. Charlie put a hand on my shoulder and his other hand on Leah and looked from one to the other. He started slowly, nodding his head. I joined him while Leah smiled.
“We are done,” he said quietly. “I can’t believe we are done.”
“We are, indeed, finally done!” I added with a great deal more enthusiasm. “Omnicorp is out!” Leah jumped to her feet and so did Kennedi. The two of them started bouncing around and squealing with joy. Then both of them gave Brody a huge hug and went over to celebrate with Reina. Charlie and I sat back and enjoyed the show.
22
Three months had passed since I’d watched Kennedi and Leah do a victory dance around a conference room. Today I was watching them dance around in a decorated parking lot. A removable dance floor had been set up for the UsForThem Open House Cat Girl Adoption Event. It sat almost directly in front of the pawnshop where I found Kennedi. Rosie, Reina, Krysta, and Macy were out dancing as well. Bev, Theo, Charlie, Clint, and I relaxed at a nearby table and watched the girls. Ellie was catering the event, so she was off tending to the food. It was nearing the end of the evening, and the crowd was starting to thin.
Reina ran over from the dance floor, sat on Clint’s lap, gave him a quick kiss, and ran back. He was absolutely smitten with her. Once we had made him a partner with VGS, he restructured his schedule so that he would not have to travel as much anymore. He then proceeded to fill out the adoption papers for Reina. He had surprised her with them earlier that day, on stage, in front of a crowd full of people. That was the second time I saw a cat girl cry.
Bev was flipping through a small notebook she had in front of her and smiling. Not long ago, she and Ellie had the notion to offer cooking classes. They made an announcement at the event to gauge if there would be much interest. The result was an entire notebook full of names and contact information for them to reach out to when they started offering the classes.
“What are you going to do with all your time while I am teaching people how to cook?” she asked Theo playfully.
“I’m going to buy Chera a playmate!” Theo retorted, feigning indignation. Chera was Bev’s new horse. However, since the day she had brought Chera home, Theo had barely left her side. He was absolutely in love with the horse. He had talked for a couple of months about getting her a companion horse so that when he wasn’t around, she wouldn’t get lonely. All that time I spent helping Theo build the corral for Bev, it turned out he spent more time in it than she did.
“Did you hear Reina’s first day is going to be next week,” Clint asked me, snapping me out of my own head.
“I did! Is she excited?” Macy had been training Reina to be a VGS store manager, and next week, she would finally take the floor alone for a day. She and Macy had grown extremely close, and Reina turned out to be a very devoted employee. Macy what’s excited about the possibility because she wanted to free up some time to help more with the foundation.
“She spends hours giggling about it! I would say she is excited! I think she feels like it is a first step forward after all the business with Floyd and Omnicorp,” Clint explained to me.
“Well, forward is the only way for her to go! Did she see the story? After several members of the Board of Directors were arrested for their direct involvement in illegal activities, the remaining members quietly shut the company down completely. She has nothing to worry about from them!” I never got tired of hearing myself say that Omnicorp was gone for good.
“She did see it. I think it is just a personal development thing or something. The girl is more self-reflective than anybody I ha
ve ever met!” Clint laughed. “She was trying to get Rosie to meditate with her the other day!”
“I bet Rosie wasn’t having any of that!” Charlie chimed in. “Doesn’t seem like her style at all!” He let out a laugh.
“Besides, that would take time away from her product development, and there is nothing that cat girl likes more than product development! She already has the cold container cups in production!” Once Rosie had seen the ‘temperature bowl’ as she referred to it, she dreamed up an entire line of glassware, stemware, plate ware, and even cookware. She debuted her cold-retaining mugs there at the event. The limited amount she had made sold out in less than thirty minutes.
“The only thing that gets her away from product development is Kennedi!” I told Charlie. Kennedi and Rosie were constantly together whenever one or the other of them was not working. Kennedi would spend time at the manufacturing plant with Rosie on the days she was not at the studio, and vice versa. The two of them were always giggling, and it never looked like they took anything seriously, but in reality, they had created some amazing products together.
“Speaking of product development,” I began to tell Charlie. “The new packaging for the stand-alone saliva distribution arrived yesterday!”
“Yes! It looks great!”
It was one of the proudest accomplishments any of us had achieved, and we all had a part to play in making it happen. The medical industry would finally have access to a stable, unencumbered form of healing saliva that had a shelf life of two years instead of two days. I remembered back to the day I decided to make an impact doing something that would help people became my mission.
I looked around the table that I was sitting at and out across the event and smiled inside. I had gone from a beat-up old car, five-thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry, and no direction, to the impactful, goal-oriented business owner I’d always dreamed of being. Each of the people I’d met along the way contributed to my success, even the evil ones. The people I was with that day, however, were family.
And the entire adventure started right there in that parking lot.
About the Author
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