Hellboy666’s office was different to say the least. She had half expected a fan homage to Hellboy, the comic book character turned film franchise starring Ron Perlman in the early aughts versions and newer versions with the guy from Stranger Things, who seemed to be in everything after playing a dumpy, washed-out cop in the homage to every 80s movie. But it seemed Hellboy666 had nothing to do with the comic book character of the same name.
In fact, what she saw didn’t really resemble an office at all, more like a party in the background of a rap video. There were coolers full of beer, wine, and other beverages. Beautiful people dressed in nothing but skimpy swimsuits caroused with each other, danced, and enjoyed the bass thumping from the speakers while the DJ scratched the next track.
It was a giant rooftop pool deck where very little work seemed to be happening despite the laptop here or the tablet there. While some people had their nose in an electronic device, most noses were buried in more carnal pleasures of life.
A beefy man ran off the diving board and jumped in the pool while others hooted and cheered him on. The personal assistant pushed her cart of sushi into the madness, and a man with biceps the size of a small dog stopped Maxi from going any farther.
“You're not invited to this meeting,” he said.
“If this is a meeting, then what are his parties like? I bet they're boring. Too many spreadsheets.” Maxi tried to slip past him, but he moved in front of her, along with another thick-necked man who probably bench-pressed cars for leisure.
“Come on, boys,” Maxi said. “Do you really think he cares about the list? What’s one more attractive woman in a bathing suit going to cause any disruption?”
“You’re not wearing a bathing suit,” the man said, pointing out her yellow shirt.
“It’s what’s underneath that counts,” she said with a coy smile.
“Is there something wrong?” asked an approaching businessman with shades, white sunscreen covering his nose, a suit jacket that did little to conceal his highly sculpted abs, and festive Hawaiian-themed swim trunks on the bottom half.
“Sorry, boss,” the goon said, and straightened up like he had been caught smoking weed on the job, “She wasn’t on the invite.”
“She is now,” he said, after pressing a button on his phone. Maxi’s glasses displayed a connection request on the social media part of the Company app. She accepted and the guards parted to let her through. The boss guy motioned for her to follow, and she trotted next to him as they made their way to the bar.
“They are sticklers for protocol, but that’s also what makes them the best,” he said over his shoulder.
“You’re Hellboy666,” Maxi said. “If you’re him, who’s that guy?”
The Hellboy666 she had seen on all the social media posts was currently raiding the sushi cart the personal assistant had brought and doing Jell-O shots with a crowd of wasted professionals.
“That’s my body double.”
“He doesn’t look a thing like you.”
“Exactly,” the man said. “When you are a high-profile Auditor like myself, you make a lot of enemies.”
“So, what, you hired that guy to take a bullet for you?”
“You can be resurrected from bullets. Now, I’m sure you didn’t come here to ask about my safety procedures.” He ordered two pineapple juices from the bar, and the bartender served them in cocktail glasses complete with umbrella and pineapple wedge.
Hellboy666 held his drink up to some of the partygoers, who hooted their appreciation, then asked Maxi to follow him once more. They made their way to a more private section of the rooftop deck where some sunbathing chairs were overlooking the city below.
While they weren’t on the highest tower in the city, they were up there. It looked like a different location from what she now knew to be the Company's main building in the financial district. The view of the city was picturesque, worthy of being a travel ad. He sat down next to a laptop that was on a lock screen and sipped his drink. He motioned Maxi to sit, then said, “Now, what can I do for Henry Breakwaters’ daughter?”
“You knew my dad?”
“All the Power Twelve know each other.”
“My dad was one of the Power Twelve?” That was news to her. She had grown up with a simple life. There was no jet-setting, or private mansions on tropical islands, but her parents also didn’t seem to struggle for money. They were never at risk for homelessness or seemed stretched too thin. In fact, for living in a household having a parent with a “gambling addiction”, their money flow always seemed fine.
Maxi was coming to terms with the fact that she had fabricated the story when she saw her mother and father struggling. All the risky behavior that kept her father out of the house for weeks on end was this job. Now she was doing the exact same thing, though without a child who needed her. Good enough reason for her to never have kids. Being a parent was something she had never wanted to do, and now felt more justified for avoiding that situation altogether.
“When your father died,” Hellboy666 said, “that was the biggest shake up to the Power Twelve in Company history. Not only did your mom buy out her contract with the death benefit, but your uncle took the opportunity to fill the spot he had vacated.”
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“What Tier was my mom?”
“1.1”
This was news to her. Why hadn’t her uncle, or her mom for that matter, let her know that both of her parents were in the Power Twelve? It seemed like she could have been asking her mom for advice rather than doing all this snooping around. Tara’s enemies would most likely set their sights on Maxi.
“I’m not surprised they didn’t tell you,” the man said, as if reading her thoughts. “When you’ve been an Auditor as long as me, you can tell when someone is lying, surprised, in shock. The right fact at the right time, and people will spill their entire embezzling scheme to you. But I’m not here to dig up your family secrets. I’m here because I liked your dad. Your mom was always an odd duck, and I wouldn’t say we got along, but your dad, I understood. You see, he was throwing all his credits into good causes. Just like you. I heard about your office fund to buy out contracts of less fortunate employees. That’s all well and good now, but when you get up here, it’s going to make people nervous.”
“What? Helping people out?” Maxi said.
“No, upending the system. Every billionaire out there doesn’t want the system to change. Sure, they parade their changes that disrupted the system and made them rich all day long, but they don’t want anyone else to do it, so they throttle the competition and keep themselves at the top. You think big tech companies remain in power because they have the best product? They use unsavory tactics to stay where they are.”
“I don’t see what this has to do with the Power Twelve.”
“The Power Twelve are no different than any monarch or dictatorship. Nobles schemed and plotted against each other to clinch their power. CEOs of big companies do the same, ostensibly in the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation, when it’s really nothing more than power grabs, plots, and scheming. The Power Twelve are no different.”
“Thus, your body double,” Maxi said.
“You’re catching on. But your father was different. He gave away most of the money he made. In fact, it was always an argument between Tara and him. They fought most about money.”
That part Maxi knew was true. She didn’t know how many times she heard her mom screaming at her dad about throwing their money away. Maxi had always assumed it was the gambling problem, but now it seemed there was more to the story.
“What did my dad do with his fortune?”
“Mostly philanthropic causes. He’d give money to medical research, commissioned clean drinking water in Africa, donated to inner city youth programs. It was all laundered through shell companies and the kind of financial mazes that make me so good at my job. He didn’t want credit for any of it, so he enlisted me to hide his financials, which is probably why Tara won’t have any good things to say about me. But it was simply because your dad wanted to leave the world a better place.”
“What did he do for the employees?”
“Plenty. That’s why the families of employees who perma-die in the line of duty are so well taken care of. That didn’t exist before him. Ironic that your mom benefited from it.”
“I still don’t see why that’s dangerous.”
“If you were the one to be cashing out player accounts, then you would understand. Look, if you were sitting on piles of money, and someone came along with a big, new, radical social idea, would you want them spending your money on it?”
“I guess it depends on the idea,” Maxi said.
“And that’s why you’re dangerous. If your wealth depends on things staying the way that they are, then any change is going to disrupt that equation, so you invest money in keeping the status quo, spread rumors why change is bad, keep people thinking they can have it all, like you. Sell them the dream, but keep it all for yourself.”
“Is that what you are doing here?” Maxi nodded to the party that was still going strong not far from where they were sitting.
“I have to maintain appearances. If people think you are a fool, they have loose lips around you. Loose lips is how I get my job done. No one likes an audit, especially people at the top, because they always have something to hide. The more I look like an idiot, the better I am at my job. Your father never understood that concept. The more effort he put into being a regular guy who just got lucky, the more people noticed him. The more they noticed him, the more they feared him because he was a disruptor.”
“Are you saying my father was murdered?” Maxi said a little too loudly, and Hellboy glanced around, even though no one was within ear shot.
“I’m just saying your father had ideas, and those ideas would cost people money, maybe some prestige, or even power.”
“Like what?”
Hellboy lowered his voice to something barely audible. “He wanted to do away with the ranking system. Make everyone earn based on their actual work efforts.”
“What do you mean? Isn’t that what we have?”
The man chuckled. “Idealistic and naive, just like your father,” he said. “When you get in the higher ranks, you use your credits to make more credits. Who’s the Generalist boss these days?”
“Ted...I dunno, forgot his last name.”
“That twerp? He was a low-level paper pusher when I first chose to be an Auditor, but that’s beside the point. Ted doesn’t have to make money doing quests, he just buys them, hands them out to all of you and makes commission when you complete them.”
“But I don’t see any shared rewards in the…”
“Sharing is only when you invite others on the quest. When you create a quest in the system, there are service fees based on the award. A 50-credit quest not only has a service fee attached, but also the money for the person completing the task. I give a 50-credit reward, but I pay 65. The Company keeps some of that 15, Ted gets another chunk, the Branch a piece, Janitorial even has a cut for cleaning up the mess. The point is that when I’m high enough level, I can buy quests, assign them to players, and get a reward. When I’m even higher, I can have people do that for me, then people to manage those people.”
“So what? The whole Company is a pyramid scheme?”
“No, there are just incentives that pay credits. You experienced it yourself – you invented a technique that took down a raid boss, then you got some of the rewards each time a person used it. I’m saying when you get to my level, your money is just making money for you. There is a certain point where I don’t need to work anymore, the system just keeps throwing cash my way.”
“And my father wanted to change that?”
“He just wanted a system that was more fair that didn’t reward someone based on the wealth they had, but on the effort they put into their job.”
“They killed him for it?”
“I’m not saying anyone killed him. I merely said that all the Power Twelve had reasons to fear the change he represented, and you throwing around money into buying out contracts is that same kind of change.”
“So, what? You're saying that I should become some rich asshole who’s more concerned with partying all the time than helping people out?” Maxi said.
“No, I’m just saying you need to be more subtle in your approach.”
“What’s your excuse?” Maxi abruptly asked.
“My what?”
“Why didn’t you damage the raid boss as much as you could?”
“I had a medical waiver,” the man said defensively. “I can send you my doctor’s file if you don’t believe me. But you’ll notice that I ignored my doctor’s orders during the last raid before you figured out how to beat the boss. Check the battle logs of my team. You’ll see I did my part. Your problem is you can’t see past the Power Twelve. Ask yourself – who stands to gain the most if this world falls?”
With that, he excused himself, and Maxi decided she was going to have conversations with both her uncle and her mom. This whole getting-only-half-the-story thing was going to have to stop.