Apocalypse Fortress

Jack didn't care much for waiting, as would seemingly be evident by his sour expression while he sat impatiently in the office's waiting room. The cause for the man's unpleasant mood, however, stemmed from the assignment that he was given on very short notice.

"Ms. Parker will see you now." The secretary said in a cheery voice, much to Jack's discomfort. Following behind her, he couldn't help but stare as the secretary's huge behind swayed back and forth, the tight miniskirt leaving little to the imagination. She knew that he was staring, but didn't do anything about it as she walked him into the boss's office.

A loud cough drew his attention to the women sitting behind a simple yet practical desk, the name Natasha Parker was stenciled onto a metal nameplate in front of her. Trying to cover up his embarrassment, Jack stepped forward to introduce himself, sticking his arm forward. "Hello Ms. Parker, my name is Jackson Grandville. I am here on behalf of Firma"

Natasha grasped his outstretched hand, giving a firm handshake. "Hello Mr. Grandville," she said,"and I'm Natasha," she gestured down to her nameplate,"as you may have guessed. Please, have a seat."

'They need to replace these chairs' He thought after sitting down and trying to get comfortable only to find that he couldn't. The businessman would have been peeved to know that this was on purpose so as to try and keep meetings as short as possible. Natasha couldn't stand office work.

As Natasha watched him try, and fail, to get comfortable, she decided to get this meeting started. "So, what it the reason for this visit? I'm guessing that Amazon didn't send you over here just for an amiable chit chat."

Her not so pleasant tone suggested that Natasha wasn't one for, as she liked to call it, amiable chit chats, a fact that Jack was all too ready to accept. "Ah... yes. Well, to get to the point, our company seeks to buy some of your inventions, blueprints, and/or creations."

This request didn't faze her, if her unchanged expression was any indication. Ms. Parker turned to her computer, typed in a few keys, and started cl.i.c.k.i.n.g and scrolling for a while. Seeing as she seemed to be ignoring him, Jack took a page from her book, coughing lightly to get her attention.

Natasha stopped doing whatever she was doing on the computer long enough to ask if he needed something to drink before going right back to her screen.

Jack didn't know what to make of this. What was she trying to do, annoy him on purpose? She didn't even ask why he would want to buy from her, she just up and ignored him. "Ms. Parker, would you be willing to agree to this arrangement?"

Looking up from her computer again, she gave a beautiful smile, practically lighting up the room. Jack was so caught up in her gorgeous face that he almost didn't hear her next words. "Mr. Grandville, I'm sure that before coming here you would have done your research on this company, enough to know that we are already selling blueprints to another."

Jack hadn't known this, to which he could only blame on his boss for giving him so little time to prepare. To others, it would seem that Jack's boss, Mr. Fishur, was just incompetent, if looking at just this one occurrence. They wouldn't know how cunning he actually was. If Fishur had given him so little time, it meant that he was desperate. He needed to get to Highlander Electronic Appliances before everyone else.

"The fact of the matter is that I'm not looking to sell my inventions to anyone at the moment." At this, Jack basically knew that this was a lost cause, but going back to Mr. Fishur with nothing to show for it was out of the question. Never mind losing vacation time, he just might lose his life!

"Ms. Parker, no need to be so hasty, we only want to create an arrangement wher..." Before he could finish, he was interrupted by the opening of the door behind him. Standing there, holding the door open with a smirk on her face, was the secretary. "I must ask you to leave Mr. Grandville, or do I have to call security?"

Faced with the prospect of tangling with those burly guards he had seen at the front of the building, Jack gave little fuss and left. Now he only needed to report to his boss what happened and pray to Aunt Jemima that he would get out in one piece.

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Sitting back in her chair, Tes blew out a long sigh. That Mr. Grandville had been the fifth person this week to approach her buying blueprints. The reason she didn't agree to any of them wasn't really that she wanted only to sell to Amazon, it was because of who was behind each company.

It was quiet simple, really, to look up what those companies were, and she learned that they all were under the thumb of one powerful person or another. One of them was even a Russian politician of all things. It was bad enough that she was selling to one corrupted company, she didn't want to sell to any more.

Sitting back in her chair, she couldn't help but frown. Why were all of these powerful people suddenly trying to get to her?

Thinking back to what she had been doing since the start of her company, realization hit her. "Oh my god, I've been such an idiot!" she exclaimed, smacking her hand against her head.

Of course all these powerful people would be approaching her. To them, she, a complete nobody, came out out of nowhere and started revealing all of these super advanced technologies. She obviously had to have a major backing, though they would never have guessed that this 'major backing' was her system.

Before this, everyone was waiting to see how this 'little company' would fit in with the power structure, but as soon as the first person came calling to try and create a connection, they all did.

This was what she thought was happening right now, and although it wasn't as correct as she thought it was, it was close enough.

Now all she needed to do was try and create a position for herself in the cl.u.s.terf.u.c.k that is politics, with all the subterfuge and double faces that came with it. Luckily for her, she had a major advantage over everyone when it came to this; she had a system for the apocalypse.