By All Accounts
My trustees are unhappy. But then, that's no surprise. They always find something they want to complain about.
Unfortunately, this time they have a case. They are sat around the long table that forms the centrepiece of my boardroom here in the Los Angeles office of Worthington Industries, and they all hold copies of the memos and ledgers that my accountant has had copied for them. The nearest one, a balding man in his late thirties called Ted Corrigan, who runs the shipping firm I bought from him last year, stands up and throws his copy of the ledger back in my face. I do my best to look unworried – Ted throws these kinds of hissy fits a lot these days. This is just par for the course, unfortunately.
"Look at this!" he snarls. "Look at these third-quarter losses! Our shares were down to less than a dollar!"
"Yes," I say, steepling my fingers and sitting back in my soft leather chair, "but that was hardly my fault. Bastion seized control of all our domestic holdings, as I recall. We only just got them all back. We were surviving on overseas investment alone – and most of that was my own money. What you seem so eager to forget, Ted, is that people like you were screaming for the blood of people like me and were carving up mutant business all over America and the rest of the world. Might I remind you that the only reason you still have a job is because of me?" Ted glares at me. I know he hates the fact that I, a "stinking
mutie", am giving him a paycheque when I could just as easily have fired him. I have no doubt that he would just as easily have stuck a shiv in my ribs as look at me while Bastion's fascists were pulling this country apart. Now that Bastion is in pieces, I can feel a whole lot more secure.
Corrigan sits down again, his face as red as Kool-Aid. The rest of my trustees look embarrassed and shift uneasily in their chairs as he stares holes in me. I take it in my stride – when you've gone ten rounds with En Sabah Nur or Magneto, this sort of thing is a cakewalk.
"Now, then," I say, opening my copy of the documents and thumbing through the pages until I come to the status of Worthington Industries charitable donations. I give regularly to homeless shelters in the Bronx and elsewhere in New York, and I try to make sure that AIDS and Legacy Virus charities are high on the list too – but I also give large amounts of money to mutant shelters and pro-mutant civilian organisations (of which there aren't many, but one of the most prominent is One Humanity, which operates out of San Francisco). I take a cursory look at the list, but I don't see as many listings as I have done before. I look up at my accountant, David, and say, "Why is this list reduced?"
"With respect, Mr Worthington, the company's funds aren't as numerous or as secure as they were before Operation: Zero Tolerance. There's no way we can possibly maintain our donations wit any kind of confidence until our domestic situation has stabilised." I shake my head.
"That's impossible. We should be able to keep up our commitments. I've checked the figures myself."
"I'm sorry, Mr Worthington, but the markets are still unpredictable, and your own… personal status… is still a big deciding factor for potential investors at the present time." Ah. So that's what he means.
"Are you telling me that we're losing out on serious investors because they know I'm a mutant?"
"That is an element, yes." David looks distinctly uncomfortable, and I don't blame him. He's known me for years, and for all of that time he's known what I am, so this is painful for him too. "But there are other elements to be considered, Mr Worthington – the current economic recession is a big deciding factor, too. People just don't want to take risks at this point in time. I would therefore suggest keeping at least a moderate amount of capital shored up in savings bonds as a reserve in case the worst does happen. Need I remind you about what happened to our stock when the Asian financial situation collapsed?"
"No, David. Thank you." He makes a good point. When the "Asian Tigers" stalled, they almost brought the West down with them. I can still remember the panic on Wall Street as the Dow Jones index staggered through the day like a blind man, with the FTSE index not far behind it. Worthington Industries isn't quite on Bill Gates' level, true, but we're still a major player on the world's economic scene, and to see our fortunes fluctuate so dangerously is not a pleasant experience.
"We need to figure out a strategy to get ourselves out of this situation," says the woman to my right, a long-time employee of mine called Sara Rogers, as she leans forward in her chair to plant her elbows on the table. Sara is one of the more liberal members of my board – she was a hippie in the Sixties, and has lots of connections with the mutant underground – and has a very good idea of how to see both sides of an argument. She also has a keen eye for finding a path through even the roughest patches that Worthington Industries has gone through, which helps a great deal in times like these. "I think that a few careful investments here and there could more or less patch the leaks. Buying shares in Microsoft or Nintendo is probably a short-term fix, but it would be a start. With the current boom in technology- and information-related industries, we should be able to get ourselves back on a decent, equal footing."
"Where do we go from there, though?" says Frank Gibney, one of my high-level executives. "We need to plan longer than the next financial quarter if we're going to dig ourselves completely out of this hole."
"We could expand our data processing operations, as well," Sara says with confidence. "I think most people would be willing to have our software in their filing systems. Like I said, people are buying more and more technology these days. If we can find a way to tap into that market we'd have an established customer base and a fairly lucrative capital flow."
I take a sip of the water in the glass by my right hand and set it back down on the table's opaque surface. "I agree with Sara. We need a sustainable, dependable source of revenue, and at the moment, information technology seems to be the one to go for. The market's good, from what I can see, and we should find a way into it so that we can benefit too. I want project proposals on my desk by tomorrow morning. Try and make them interesting, huh, people?" There is a light smattering of laughter, and then I dismiss them, except for one.
"Ted?" I say, calling him back. "Sit down for a second. I want to talk to you privately." He looks at me sullenly, and sits back down in his leather chair, folding his arms and doing his best to look uncooperative.
"Yes, Mr Worthington?" he says pointedly. I ignore the intended insult and spread my arms wide.
"I'm sorry I did what I did to you just now, Ted, but you didn't give me much of a choice. I don't like being treated like a second class citizen because of what I am. Especially since I pay your wages."
Ted's face bleaches. He can tell I'm angry, and it scares him. It's probably equal parts the fact that I'm his boss and that I'm a mutant that does it, but it's impressive to watch nonetheless. "I'm sorry, sir. It won't happen again," he says, meekly. I sit back in my own chair and fold my arms.
"See that it doesn't, Ted. You do too good a job for me to have to let you go." He leaves, his shoulders sagging in defeat, but I know that he'll be back to his usual stubborn, pig-headed self by the next board meeting. People like him are impossible to change.
And that, I think, is a shame.