Chapter 2
(In which things go from bad to worse, but hope endures.)
When Seto entered the KC tower, there was a staticky feeling of electricity in the air, along with the scent of ozone and the faint, metallic tang of something that might be blood. So, a typical Tuesday since Yami Mutou had started working for Kaiba Corp.
As usual Seto did his level best to pretend that whatever impending apocalypse Yami was engendering was only happening to other people, and made a determined beeline for his office. He also tried to pretend he didn't notice that the shadows of the potted plants - which, for some inexplicable reason, had recently infested the corridors of his formerly sleek and ultra-modern office tower - were shifting in ways that defied the laws of physics as generally understood by everyone who wasn't the Pharaoh. If one looked closely enough (which Seto didn't), they were, in fact, playing a game of tag as they circled the large terra cotta planters.
Instead of lamenting his latest loss of sanity (and wondering why, if the universe insisted on putting planters in his hallways they couldn't at least be chrome), Seto kept his eyes on the prize: the doors to his office, beyond which lay a small, polished steel and black granite table tucked into an unobtrusive corner, and on which rested the holy grail of his work-day mornings.
The Deluxe Coffeenator 3000.
Mere feet from the office doors, something dark, sleek, and slithery peeked out at him from the fronds of the dwarf palm framing one side of the corridor just before it widened into the outer reception area where his secretary's desk was parked.
"I can't see you," Seto informed the thing flatly, while staring directly at it. "In fact, you don't exist. So, go away."
The shadow thing stuck out its tongue (or the shadowy equivalent thereof), blew him a raspberry, and vanished back into the inexplicable greenery.
With as much dignity as he could muster, Seto flung himself at the doors to his office. Fortunately for the state of his face, they were unlocked and flew open when he crashed into them. He hurried over to the coffee-maker in the corner-
-and gaped in stunned horror at the empty polished surface of the black granite table top. The black granite table top which was totally devoid of all aspects of the blessed art of coffee creation, most especially his custom coffee-maker.
He stuck one hand out and flailed it through the empty space where his extremely expensive Coffeenator 3000 was supposed to reside. It continued to fail to be there.
Cautiously, he crept closer and placed his hand flat on the cool, slick surface of the granite. When coffee and/or the maker thereof remained stubbornly absent, he pressed both hands to the table top, bit back a whimper, and forced his sluggish, under-caffeinated brain to process the situation.
On any ordinary day, when Seto entered his office he expected to find one of the following conditions:
a) There was coffee. (This was the ideal state.)
b) Failing that, there was at least the potential for coffee, in the form of a ridiculously expensive coffee making machine, plus all the associated paraphernalia (including but not limited to: an assortment of gourmet coffee beans, deluxe electric grinders for said beans, gold filters, and triple-filtered imported spring water from some unpronounceable place in Switzerland).
Therefore, logically, at this very minute he should either be in the presence of a freshly brewed pot of the elixir of life or the necessary accoutrements for achieving said state.
Unfortunately, logic had gone out the window the same day Yami Mutou had come in the door. So, the situation which actually confronted Seto was both the lack of (a) coffee or (b) coffee in potentia. Which added up to (c) Yami (AKA He Who Lived to Make Seto's Life Miserable).
Seto gave one last, despondent look at his coffee-less coffee corner before spinning on his heel and stalking back out of his (completely devoid of coffee) office. As he strode past his secretary's (coffee-free) desk, he growled, "Hold all my calls. I've got to go murder my VP of Discord."
"Shall I let Mr. Mutou know you're coming, sir?" she asked, without even batting an eye at either the threat of homicide against an officer of the company or the facetious title her boss had just applied to said potential murder victim.
An inarticulate growl was the only response Seto could force through his clenched teeth. His molars creaked under the strain.
"Very good, sir."
It occurred to Seto as he stepped back into the (java-less) elevator for the ride down to Yami's floor that either R&D had finally gotten around to replacing his secretary with an android or his employees were disturbingly accustomed to the weirdness that passed for office culture at Kaiba Corp HQ.
He was still wondering whether he should be worried about that as the elevator doors began gliding shut. Just before the they closed, the hallway Shadow popped its head up and waved cheekily at him from its potted palm.