Oliver walked into the armory.

"D'khara, have you heard when the auditor will be arriving? I have my-- oh! He's here!"

"Yes, I'm quite here." Pearce was fruitlessly scrubbing at his hands with an oily rag while watching D'khara dig hopelessly through piles of old paperwork in the desk drawers. "Quite-- uh. What are you?"

"Oh! My apologies! My name is Oliver Gutshell, and I am Riotfish's Lead Strategist. I'm also a field operative, at need."

"No, I mean," Pearce gestured at Oliver's commanding height, "what are you?"

Oliver bowed gracefully.

"Wood Orc. Originally of the Biter clan, now an employee of Riotfish, Incorporated, at your service."

"I see. Does this organization hire any normal people?"

Stung, Oliver deflected.

"Perhaps you'd like to review our strategy and planning policies?"

"I doubt it. But I suppose I should." Still scrubbing at his hands, he followed Oliver out into the rec area, where they came across Little Timmy.

"Ah, here's a 'normal' employee now. Mr. Pearce, this is Little Timmy, our demolitions expert."

Little Timmy slouched into the rec room wearing threadbare jeans, blown-out sneakers and a ratty band t-shirt that looked as though it had a coffee stain over its entirety.

"Oh hey, it's the captain corper. Here to wreck our business?"

"I can hardly imagine what more I could do than what I already see."

"Yeah, anyway, I made lunch."

"Wonderful!" Oliver exclaimed. "Mr. Pearce, did you want to break for something to eat?"

"I'd really rather just get this over with."

"Ah. Little Timmy, would you be willing to bring lunch to us in the war room?"

Little Timmy managed to combine an eyeroll and a snort into a concentrated expulsion of disdain that expressed more contempt in a single moment than most people are able to express in an entire lifetime.

"Whatever," he said, wandering off.

Oliver ushered Stewart Pearce into the war room. It was dimly lit, as always, so that the projection table could be seen clearly. Oliver strode in, graciously offered Pearce a seat and turned to see that the projection table was completely empty. A frozen spike of panic speared his gut.

Mrs. Meade wandered out of the darkness.

"Oh, Mr. Oliver, I tidied up that table for you. It had all kinds of files and mess on it, so I cleared them away."

"Cleared... my files?"

"Oh, yes. Any little thing to help my boys!" She smiled a genuine, dim little smile and wandered out of the war room.

Hot, uncomfortable pinpricks of sweat beaded on Oliver's forehead.

"Ehehehe, that Mrs. Meade, she's so sweet. Give me just a moment to get my files together."

"By all means. Take your time. I've clearly got nothing better to do today." Pearce said flatly.

With an awkward, insincere grin, Oliver began pulling up categories and folders, trying desperately to find the files he'd so carefully organized earlier.

Most of the files were in the proper folders, but some were missing, or in the wrong folder, and all of them had been rearranged. Panicking, Oliver tried to re-organize them, but the dense weight of Pearce's unfriendly glare grew with every second.

"Perhaps you'll find your files with the armory's records," Pearce suggested acidly.

Oliver gave a false chuckle that sounded awful even to his own ears, and decided that his files were close enough to organized for him to present.

"The Strategy and Planning Policies and Procedures of Riotfish, Inc.," he began woodenly, then sputtered to a stop, looking for the file with the bullet points. After a moment, he found it, and began again. "It is founded on three guiding principles: agility, surprise, and--" he paused again to shuffle files. "Agility. No! Flexibility. I hope today to demonstrate--" another pause, "the founding principles of-- no! The interaction of the founding principles to create a cohesive planning strategy, uh, that is, for the strategy-- strategic planning." Sweating, he found his thread in the correct file again.

Ah, there it was. He recognized this part of the presentation.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Planning for each operation," he continued, calming down a little, "is performed by the owner, David Fleer and myself as the Lead Strategist. Initial research and data gathering leads to a rough outline, as seen here."

Oliver smoothly slid a diagram across the table, and it stopped perfectly in front of Pearce.

"As you can see, we take all the data into our system, synthesizing and refining the information as the planning proceeds. Once we've agreed on a general approach, we finalize the plan, and submit it to each employee of Riotfish, Inc. to accept or reject. Per standard mercenary policy, all jobs are strictly voluntary, and refusal of a job does not affect any employee's consideration for future jobs. Furthermore, we have a number of employee benefits in the event of a tragedy--"

"Lunch!" Little Timmy yelled, kicking the door open. Oliver gave a startled squeak.

Little Timmy threw a pan of food onto the projection table. It landed perfectly flat with a bang, and something sloshed out onto the table.

"Pizza," Little Timmy said. "Eat up."

Oliver fell silent at the interruption. He looked at Pearce, whose face had achieved a state of terminal disapproval, and thus was physically incapable of expressing displeasure any more intensely than it was right now.

Little Timmy wheeled and slammed the door on his way out. Oliver examined the pizza. Pale clumps and islands of half-melted cheese floated on a layer of steaming silty mush in a roundly bloated, seeping crust. The smell, while not explicitly unpleasant, was an offputting admixture of salty, musty, and sweet.

Oliver experimentally picked up a slice. Most of the toppings poured off of the floppy crust back into the pan, which was probably a blessing.

"Ah, yes well." Oliver looked at the food dubiously. "I don't suppose it would do to reject his offering before trying it. Hm." In a fit of unwarranted optimism he said, "Well it's pizza. How bad could it be?" and popped the whole slice into his mouth.

The short answer was... bad. So incredibly bad. It tasted like your grandmother's sofa looked.

Trying not to make eye contact with Pearce while simultaneously trying not to make tongue contact with the food, Oliver bravely chewed the pizza apart enough that he could force it down. Eyes watering, veins standing out, he emptied his mouth with a mighty gulp.

Once clear, he gasped for air, and took a moment to compose himself.

"Well," he said. "That's-- not as bad as I was expecting. Almost pleasant, in an, um, odd way. Um." He paused while the toxic aftertaste slowly faded. "Yes, we're trying to encourage Little Timmy's culinary endeavors. Mr. Pearce? Would you care for some?"

Pearce's face was as still as the heat death of the universe.

"No. Thank you."

Trying to ignore the lingering aftertaste, Oliver picked back up where he'd left off in his presentation.

"Now Mr. Pearce, if I can draw your attention to these diagrams here, I can show you how we organize our staff in the field and logistically prepare for each contract."

Oliver nattered on in this vein for a while. He was in the midst of a particularly fascinating bit of organizational procedure, when his midsection interrupted the proceedings with an ominous gurgle.

"My apologies," Oliver said, his face paling.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm... fine?" Oliver gritted, shifting uncomfortably in his oversized chair. "I just need a moment."

"Mr. Gutshell, as interesting as this all is, I think I'd like to speak to Mr. Fleer. Crediture's interest in Riotfish is primarily financial, and none of this is relevant if the financials aren't healthy. Could I speak with him now, please?"

Oliver nodded tightly.

"Yes. I'll take you to his office."

----------------------------------------

The sun lanced through the gaps of the blinds covering the sole window in Fleer's office, stabbing his eyelid.

Blearily, he creaked that eye open, winced as the shaft of light pierced his vision, and lifted his head from his desk. A loose sheet of paper came up with him, stuck to his face.

He blinked, wondering briefly why he'd fallen asleep at his desk, then memory rushed back in.

He bolted upright, scanning through his spreadsheets in a panic. He didn't feel great about them, but with a little verbal finesse, he was pretty sure he could talk his way around the sketchier areas of the books. It all depended on how much of a stickler this auditor Pearce was.

These auditors had a rep for being uptight and inflexible, but that was probably just an ugly sterotype.

It was probably fine.

He glanced at the clock. Eleven o'clock. No telling when the auditor would be by. He should probably check on what the rest of the Riotfish had managed last night.

He shuffled toward his office door, and was about to grab the knob when it knocked at him. A thin disapproving voice floated through.

"Mr. Fleer? I'm ready to look at the finances now."

A fresh rush of panic surged through him.

"Just a minute!" he called. He threw his jacket on, and attempted to flatten his hair with his hands. He didn't have a mirror in his office, so he checked his reflection in his darkened monitor.

Even in the imperfect reflection he looked like he'd slept the night on his desk.

He scrubbed a hand through his hair, unable to disrupt it any further, and decided to just bull forward. He had the numbers, and he had his patter, who cared what he looked like?

He threw open the door to greet Pearce, who stood ramrod-straight and glared disapprovingly down at him through the bottoms of his spectacles.

"Mr. Pearce! I'm so pleased to have you here today."

Pearce recoiled slightly.

"I'm... sure," Pearce said. "David Fleer, I presume?"

"Yes, yes, that's correct. Please, come on in. Have a seat."

Fleer ushered Pearce to one of the orange plastic chairs facing Fleer's desk.

"Did you have a good trip in?"

"Right up until I arrived at your facility, yes. Can we get on with it?"

Fleer gave an uncertain grin.

"Ah, certainly. So Mr. Pearce, is there anything specifically you'd like to start with?"

"Let's start at a high level, and calculate your firm's debt service coverage ratio. We'll validate the numbers as we go. I assume you have your net operating income available?"

"Of course, right here." Fleer pulled up some of his spreadsheets and began to go through them with Pearce.

They sifted through the numbers for fifteen minutes, with Pearce slowly relaxing as he fell into the routine of examining Fleer's spreadsheets, picking apart the numbers, and making notes on his datapad. After a rocky start to the morning, he was finally in his wheelhouse.

The quiet chatter and tapping of the audit was interrupted by a heavy, primal groan that vibrated Fleer's office. Fleer's head came up.

"What was that?"

The two men waited a few seconds, listening intently, then went back to work.

The deep groan sounded again.

"Is everything all right, Mr. Fleer?"

"Maybe I'd better check on things. I think--"

A sudden, sharper groan interrupted him, laced through with an ominous rumbling. Fleer recognized the sound.

"Oh no."