I was walking my normal route down People's Victory Street to Work is Good Avenue. His car was in the same position as always. That was good as the special app I had would do what was needed only in an exceedingly small GPS area. Crossing the street, I briefly brought my phone down as I passed the custom license plate cover on the car. I kept it down for a moment while walking away as well.

The custom cover was very unique in that he changed it every day. His old covers would go to various important people throughout the nation where they would often hand them out to their various sycophants and toadies. Obviously, I am not a fan but for the official record I am deeply a fan and if I owned a vehicle, I would have sought out one officially. But walking played a number of roles for me, so I walked, which allowed me to take a much more detailed picture than what they thought I was.

The file said it was a bitmap and I often was seen saving it as a jpg before I uploaded it to my blog site. Handy site that blog site. In truth it was a photo and a short video.

Today was no different than usual as I reached my workplace. Officially I was in foreign public relations. Unofficially I was a facilitator.

The blog was great for both of those and for my other role in life. I was also an insurrectionist. My family raised me as such in secret, my grandparents having survived the various purges somehow despite having always been opposed to those who seized power. Honestly, they got lucky.

I entered the front door like I always do with a wave and a hello to the pretty receptionist as well as grabbing my copy of the national newspaper.

I reached my office and sat down at my rather bleak-looking desk. Oh, it was sturdy, but it also was just a series of chunks of wood barely cut into the right shape with some drawers that mostly fit. The good stuff goes out for export after all.

My company allowed me two hours to review the news, to update my blog, and to do memos to those who needed them and the likes electronically. Which meant two memos a day on simple things so that no auditor would find anything worth worrying about nor that would make our business seem anything anyone would have any grievances with.

The other six hours were listed as 'purchasing, research, development, training, public relations, and/or paperwork. The company let me set the agenda for those six hours so long as it would pass an audit and so long as I conducted my primary role as a facilitator.

A facilitator is a secret position inside all the companies that handled the elites who would come calling and prevent the elite from declaring an irregularity or, arguably far worse, a questionable act.

Fun note the position of a facilitator is highly desired as it is seen as a way to potentially enter the ranks of the elite or at least be brought into an elite's inner circle. Thus, those who are not facilitators often try to act one to get the position or at least into the eye of a chosen elite.

Which leads me to today's event where one of those elites will be having lunch in our executive cafeteria. I made sure my special package was in my wool jacket's interior pocket. It was of course but making sure is something I needed to do. That this package would have gotten me robbed if people knew was beside the point, it had to be done personally.

But lunch was some hours off, first I needed to get to my blog. Officially my blog was to help the reputation of my company, in that it had three parts, company products, my “arts and crafts” section, and a section about the elites. Oh, it was not publicly about the elites, but it was about the elites.

The trick is every elite has an angle, a thing they want. They publicly might say they want more energy efficiency, but they really wanted money. Or they might say they were worried about workers' rights when in truth they wanted art. Sometimes it was a culinary experience, others it was a partner for their bed at the hotel.

I blogged about their needs and how to satisfy them. That is how I got this position at this company.

Now you cannot just go out and say “xyz elite wants money”. Do that and you would suddenly be an agitator and if lucky you would be hung from the top of a building where they would leave your body for a week to be an example.

No, you had to be covert about it. But not too covert. Today I was posting about the new license plate cover and about Richard the Energy Directors visit yesterday.

I typed 'Richard, our beloved Energy Director, came to tour our campus and make sure we were being rigorous in our energy efficiency. '

Note to you... Always play with their public persona first.

'Richard would tolerate no errors on his watch. His timely inspection was just after, yet another set of improvements added hours to our power efficiency. He of course had only needed a few minutes to see we were keeping up with our plan incremental changes. This was the second time he had visited our fair facility and with just a few seconds' notice of his inspection given in advance. He was very satisfied with us and said so when he completed his tour. '

The real truth is I secured a rather old Rolex watch, a high quality one, and then after his surprise of a visit I not so secretly dropped it in his pocket when only he and I could see. Then, per the instructions I had from an associate at M. Keller Ltd, I asked him where his traditional watch was as we entered the room with his staged media.

He of course smiled and made a comment that he had put it in his pocket, pulled the watch I gave him out and put it on, while also making comments about how pleased he was with our efforts.

This. This is what I get paid to do.

The license plate cover was merely a picture for now, my followers, those who also checked my arts and crafts area, knew I would follow up from home with commentary about it.

But now I needed to put out some images for work, so I could provide the cover story that I helped their PR internationally. We had no new products coming out and I never mix elites with this section, so I had to work with an old standby... I wrote some fake thank you letters.

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By the time I was done it was 10:45 and our newest elite visit was thirty minutes away. Or so the schedule said. Since he was known to visit over breakfast, lunch, or dinner only he was pretty easy to prepare for. Fortunately, the package was still secure. It was a little costly, but the company paid for it via an expense account. Every expense I put into it was under Misc. Operational Expenses. Only expenses dealing with the elites could go in there and I personally had to hand off the receipts to the Chief Accounting Officer of the company. So, there was where I was going just before arriving to the cafeteria.

I walked over to the elevator and pushed the up button. The guard at the desk knew I was allowed and that of the people not on the upper floors I was allowed free access since I very much so did not abuse it.

I was currently in the back of the quite large and mostly empty lobby. Between me and the front were some bushes so our executives could avoid the eyes of those beneath them. The guard sat behind a desk immediately next to the elevator and his job was to enforce the no unauthorized access.

Going upstairs was always a risk. The people up there had dreams that they were minor elites in their own right and they loved to play games. So, the obvious answer was to not attach yourself to any but be a cog in the machine that was our company. Thus, I always gave a perfunctory hello and goodbye and kept answers short and to the point. I also turned down any and all offers from up there of any sort in the politest manner possible while trying to make it clear I wasn't prepared for such stuff. It usually worked and the few times it did not I let an Elite in while I took a day off 'to recover'. Amazingly that usually worked real wonders inside the company, and I think they now thought of me as a bureaucrat with my own personal fief set up with no desire to leave it.

I stepped into the cherry wood lined elevator onto the posh silk carpet and pushed button two. There was a third button, but the top floor was for the President, the CEO, and two vice presidents only. It also required a physical key to access.

Getting out I saw the office of the CAO and set about to walk there at my usual slow gait I adopted when upstairs. They might think it was for other reasons but really it was so I could try to overhear conversations and maybe see a form or two that might reveal something from outside the company.

My receipt was for a decent amount. You could not just get this stuff for the prices they had in my grandparents' day. Inflation, more inflation, hyperinflation, and lack of trust by other nations meant if we bought it then it was at a premium. Though really that was true of most things these days, which is why despite a lot of resources our prices were high. Well, that and taxes, regulations, laws, ordinances, fines, fees and penalties. That said working for one of the 'authorized' corporations allowed a certain amount of leeway against much of that. Business came first because the government found they needed business to survive. That said the elites were actually first then the businesses. People often were dead last in those considerations.

I reached his door having seen nothing worth my time on this trip. Sad but expected. I knocked once on his frame to get his attention and he called me in by waving at me through his glass door. I walked in while reaching into my shirt pocket.

“This is for Mr. Edwards visit at lunch today” I told him, my eyes not making contact with him but staying on his hands.

“Odd, Carl said he had Mr. Edwards today and submitted his receipt this morning”

My stomach did some flip flops, in fact it may have gurgled by the way he suddenly shifted but I was too caught up to realize. “Carl?” This was a disaster; Carl was a blatant amateur who did not pay attention to nuances. He preferred an open play without looking for the special methods the elites preferred. Bribery was ok so long as it was done in a way that did not seem to be bribery to the average prole. “Can you call him to here, stop him by chance?” I asked, feeling a little woozy.

“The Director is here now; he came a little early at the prompting of Carl”

I admit that I may have slammed the door a bit hard as I ran out it. The elevator was not going to be fast enough but if I took the stairs, I might get sweaty and that also would be a problem. I had to be patient and collect my thoughts.

Fortunately, it was on this floor still, the value of not much traffic to the upper offices. Standing inside it felt like the longest trip ever but the doorbell went ding and the doors did open.

I forced myself to walk at a standard pace, if the elite had his people out it would be a problem to be seen moving at speed. I would just have to try to fix the error as well as I could when I arrived.

Passing one of our guards and two of his guards I entered the cafeteria to see Carl hand our elite a stack of money. I also noticed the table had plates but no silverware as of yet. The Director looked at the money and shoved it back into the hands of Carl.

“What is the meaning of this! Guards this man is trying to bribe me, arrest this malcontent!” The screaming the director did was probably for show since he probably felt it was an effort to entrap him.

I calmly walked over to the place setting for the Director and pulled out my package. I felt the eyes of the Director turn on me. I almost started sweating due to the pressure. I carefully laid out, in proper order, a full set of gold silverware with silver decorations inlaid in the gold. The whole set was quite tastefully done and quite well expensive. Additionally, it had taken nearly two weeks to get this set made from the gold and silver I had ordered since it had very precise specifications on how it was to be made.

“Mr. Director, I apologize for that cretin, and we will move to strike him from our operation, I hope this has not spoiled your appetite as we have a most delicious lunch prepared”

I kept my eyes down but I could still get a decent read on his body language. He was leaning a little forward and I was sure he was looking at his table setting.

“I understand that some think they can blackmail anyone, I still am surprised that some think the Director of Ethics would be susceptible to bribery, I will not hold this against you or order an inquiry. In fact, no need for an audit as well since this man seems to have been alone in his efforts here.”

I felt so relieved at that, an inquiry would have meant many jobs lost and replaced with those removed having no real futures before them except as basic labor. The removal of even an audit meant no one but Carl was going to get any punishment from this. I even dared look up as I moved away from the table to watch Carl get cuffed and quite literally dragged away by some of the guards.

I stood against a nearby wall for the entirety of the lunch which saw the CEO and the President both come down and provide talking points about their efforts to stamp out corruption and provide profuse apologies for Carl who obviously might even be an insurgent or foreign spy.

Carl was going to have a very bleak future at the questioning camp and with his eventual execution I thought to myself. The crime he committed was more of “being an idiot desperate for a promotion” than anything else.

The luncheon finished and as per his norm the Director carefully cleaned each utensil then discreetly placed them in his pockets.

Another successful visit by an Elite without them doing harm to the company.

Interestingly enough that watched the Director grab the stack of money as well. I made sure not to make any attention towards the act. But then the Director departed as well as his extensive guard detail.

With no food eaten, I was on duty ready to attend after all, I went and grabbed a sandwich from a platter. Normally the executives were the only ones to eat food in this cafeteria, but I clearly had saved them from a big hit, and this is the way I could wave away any talk of rewards or other gratuitous acts.

I started eating the sandwich as I walked down to the elevator going up again, I would need to make sure our Chief Accounting Officer was accepting my receipt.

After the short trip up and confirming that indeed there was no problem with my paperwork I decided to go home early. It would be a great way to act as if I was dissatisfied with today's events and it would give me more time to do things I needed to do.