Chap 1
The rage was difficult to contain. Marvin Sh'ranya felt blind sided. His teeth was literally grinding itself into powder as he tried in vain to reconcile what the CEO told him just the night before, and what he watched on the news just now. Then, begin the incessant beepings. His teletab was inundated with messages. Unsurprisingly, everyone in Morgan Industries want to get a hold of him now.
"Boss, what the heck happened? I thought we snatched the bid! Why did the CEO award the contract to Aston? What do I say now to the shareholders?", asked, via a teletab text, the exasperated M'lexia. She is Marvin's public relation manager, and it looks like she's going to be pulling all nighters for the next several days as she tries to calm the freaked out shareholders. That's not a job that anyone on Alpha Centauri wants right now. But considering how well paid she is, Marvin felt little sympathy for her. She was repeatedly told upon being brought onto the team that she would have to handle a situation like this one day.
However, anger has not possessed every single centimeter of Marvin's emotional and mental space yet. Reason is still there, and its telling Marvin right now that M'lexia needs to know what is going on, otherwise she can't explain what everyone in Morgan Industries is dying to know. The thing is, even Marvin himself doesn't know what happened. What could have possibly transpired in the preceding 18 hours to cause this about face? At dinner last night, in front of the chairmen of Morgan Industries' most powerful conglomerates, CEO N'wabudike Morgan made a congratulatory toast to Marvin, and announced that the the contract to mine and harvest the helium plain, which encompassed 3,200 square miles of land immediately to the north of Morgan Industries, is going to Marvin. Even before the CEO told him of the decision, Marvin knew, or at least he thought he knew, that he was very likely to win. He wouldn't have received the invitation to last night's get together and dine with the capitalist aristocrats of Morgan Industries if he lost the bidding war to Aston. But this morning, everything changed and Marvin couldn't for the life of him figure out why.
Another text just popped onto his teletab screen and interrupted Marvin's rumination. "Marv, call me. WE NEED TO TALK NOW!". That was from Jovenson Nataire, an investment banking analyst with the prestigious Morganite Pentacles Group.
Marvin sighed in resignation, then pressed the call button to reach Nataire. He can ignore M'lexia for now, but not Nataire.
"You bas***d! You have just destroyed my whole career!", Nataire's must have screaming through a megaphone speaker as soon as he picked up Marvin's call, "I am not the laughing stock of the entire Morg Pent yet only because everyone here is trying to figure out how to recover from the loss and has no time to joke. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED!?" Marvin's whole office room was reverberating with Nataire's acoustic barrage.
The unleashed torrent of rage was followed by a brief silence. Hearing no answer to his inquisition, Nataire continued. "Mab says that you don't even care if you get the bid or not!"
"That's nonsense", Marvin replied. His voice was flat, and without any emotion.
"Why would it be nonsense?", Nataire projecting a little less loudly now, "The term of the contract is pretty clear. As of a week ago, you have already made 3.5 million Morgdollars, and you will keep that no matter what the outcome of the bid is, but everyone else is screwed! You are the only winner here!"
"3.5 isn't going to cover even five percent of liquidated damage that the court will certainly tell me to pay up to the shareholders. Remember, per the term of the contract, I, and not just my corporation, am personally liable and on the hook here"
"You think we are stupid? Mab said that you have already wired your ill gotten gains back to Gaia. Yes, we know about that!", Nataire said with a hint of satisfaction, "Unless you are charged under criminal law, and Mab can't see any legal ground for the guys at Investment Compliance Enforcer to do that, you walk away a very rich man! Now, don't insult my intelligence by telling me that you are willing to wire all that money back to your bank account in Morgan Industries. That's BS".
Nataire is obviously right, but Marvin, the Gaia transplant who moved to Morgan Industries as a university student 15 years ago, doesn't want to stay on that subject. Or more accurately speaking, he doesn't see the point. "You wanted me to call because you want to give me moral lecture, or because you want to know what happened?"
"So what the hell happened?", Nataire repeated the question, "I thought Magudai was on Team Marvin".
Marvin's eyebrows raised. Yes, Magudai is on Team Marvin, or at least the 63 years old financier was supposed to be. Nataire obviously knew something Marvin didn't know. Curiosity tempted Marvin to probe further about about Magudai, but he stopped himself before giving away that he is completely clueless about Magudai's role in the failed bid. Anyways, Marvin had other ways to find out what happened.
"I was just as surprised as you were. I am meeting him later. You want to find out what happened, you wait until I finish talking to him. Marv out". Of course, that's a lie. Marvin had no meeting planned with Magudai today.
"Ask him why the preferred shares promised to Morg Pent has been rescinded! Without us, the mining project wouldn't...", Nataire got disconnected by Marvin, who just couldn't care right now. Its true that Morganite Pentacles Group pulled the strings behind the scene to get law passed which would lift the ban on mining in the helium plain. For that, Morganite Pentacles Group was guaranteed discount price if they choose to buy into preferred shares of the mining project. However, Morganite Pentacles Group drove a hard bargain against Marvin to extract that discount. Some would even call it borderline extortion. Marvin certainly saw it that way, so he's not feeling particularly sorry for Nataire, who led the entire negotiation.
And now Marvin needs to figure out what happened and what magick Magudai casted which can change the mind of the CEO, the most powerful person in the Morgan Industries.
6 new categories and 72 new items added to the shop!
