Filler
The Peasant Delivery
Okay, Malesh, let me do this thing," Kniya grumbled. He slammed his hand on his call bell, ordering his junior accountant into the room.
A terrified Kavilson accountant quickly arrived. Kniya aggressively shoved the check into his chest.
"Take this piece of paper," Kniya ordered flatly. "Bring the Central Bank representative up to my office immediately. He needs to physically authenticate this 100 million credit check. If it bounces, or if it is a scam, I give you full permission to legally shoot the Managing Director of Malesh Energy."
Ten minutes later, a highly nervous federal bank official was escorted into the executive suite, carrying a heavy iron lockbox and a thick ledger. He placed the check on the desk, pulling out a jeweler's loupe to manually inspect the intricate corporate watermarks and the specialized ink of Malesh's signature.
The banker then used Kniya's private telegraph machine to send a secure, coded wire directly to the offshore banking reserve. After a tense, five-minute wait, the telegraph clicked back with the official ledger confirmation.
"The liquid assets are confirmed, sir," the bank official announced nervously, pulling out a heavy brass stamp and marking the check with a secure wax seal. "The draft is completely authentic."
"Perfect," Kniya smirked, tossing the official a silver coin. "Now go down to the vault and cash it out. Bring me my physical money."
Fifteen minutes later, the highly exhausted, low-level Kavilson Steel employee trudged back into the executive suite, hauling a massive, incredibly heavy sack over his shoulder.
Instead of carrying a sleek, metallic security briefcase, the employee was lugging the 100 million credits inside a dirty, oversized, canvas cloth bag that looked like it belonged on a potato farm.
With a loud grunt, the employee hoisted the heavy cloth sack and literally threw it onto Kniya's mahogany desk.
THUD.
The top of the cheap cloth bag violently ripped open. Stacks of high-denomination bills spilled everywhere, burying Kniya's keyboard and scattering across the tea-stained floor.
Kniya's jaw literally unhinged.
"What the actual fuck are you doing?!" Kniya shrieked, completely losing his mind as he stared at the peasant sack on his multi-million credit desk. "Do you think this is just a useless sheet of paper that you threw?! You just dumped all my cash at my desk like a fucking medieval farmer! Some of the cash even fell on the ground, you idiot!"
The employee stepped back, looking terrified.
"Bro, what the fuck?!" Kniya continued to roar, standing up. "Do you not even have the basic corporate common sense to use a secure, aluminum briefcase?!"
"Sir," the employee stammered nervously. "I... I don't have the personal money to buy a premium security suitcase. They are very expensive."
Kniya stopped screaming. He looked at the employee. Then he looked at the massive pile of 100 million credits sitting on his desk. His absolute disgust for poverty completely overrode his anger.
"Oh, fucking poor people in my company," Kniya groaned, aggressively shaking his head in pity. "It physically hurts me to look at you. Just... here is some money."
Kniya reached into the massive pile on his desk, grabbed two thick stacks of bills totaling exactly one million credits, and aggressively shoved them directly into the terrified employee's hands.
"Have a nice tea," Kniya ordered bluntly. "And just get a fucking proper suitcase next time I order you to transport my wealth, you idiot! Now get out of my sight!"
The employee stared at the million credits in his hands, completely shell-shocked by the insane tip, before sprinting out of the room to go buy a briefcase.
Kniya sighed, brushing some loose hundreds off his suit jacket. He looked over at Malesh, who was watching the entire chaotic exchange with a blank, deadpan expression.
"Okay, I legally got the cash," Kniya announced, pulling a heavy, silver key fob out of his pocket and tossing it through the air. "So yeah, let me give you the key. Here is the key to the armored SUV. Try not to blow it up this time."
The Ground Floor Handover
Malesh stood in the heavy, wrought-iron executive lift as the steam-powered gears rapidly lowered him eighty-five floors down to the Kavilson Steel ground-level parking garage. He held the heavy silver key fob Kniya had just thrown at him, his deadpan expression radiating absolute, unfiltered misery.
He was a trillionaire energy tycoon. He controlled the global crude oil market. And now, because he threw a 'Stone' instead of 'Scissors,' he was acting as a corporate tour guide for a new hire.
CLANK.
The heavy iron doors of the lift slid open into the sprawling, dimly lit, industrial VIP garage. Sitting perfectly in the center of the polished concrete floor was Kniya's brand-new armored SUV. It was an absolute masterpiece of industrial engineering—painted in a sleek, terrifying matte black, fitted with reinforced glass thick enough to stop an artillery shell, and sporting heavy, treaded tires.
Standing nervously next to the passenger door was the newly hired Production Head. She was dressed in a sharp, professional high-school-style uniform—the standard formal attire of their bizarre corporate era—holding a heavy leather clipboard stacked with parchment tight against her chest.
Malesh walked toward her, his face completely devoid of any welcoming human emotion.
The employee immediately straightened her posture, visibly intimidated by the presence of the legendary corporate warlord. She extended her hand formally.
"Hello, sir," she greeted, her voice professional but slightly trembling. "I am Silvisa Vangard, the new Production Head for Steel Operations. It is incredibly nice to meet you, sir."
Malesh stopped exactly three feet away from her. He didn't shake her hand. He just stared at her with his dark, perfectly robotic eyes.
"Yeah. Hello," Malesh stated flatly, his voice sounding like a highly depressed, broken phonograph. "So, for my introduction, I would say that I am a joker. Yes. Let's go and joke."
Silvisa blinked, completely baffled. "Excuse me, sir?"
WHACK!
Before Silvisa could even process the incredibly awkward introduction, a fist violently punched Malesh directly in the shoulder from the side.
Malesh stumbled sideways, his deadpan composure shattering in pure astonishment as he whipped his head around.
Standing right beside him, panting slightly and aggressively adjusting his tailored suit jacket, was Kniya.
"How the fuck are you here?!" Malesh demanded, genuinely shocked. "I literally just took the fastest steam-lift down from the eighty-fifth floor! You were still counting your cash!"
"I took my private, highly classified emergency gravity-chute!" Kniya yelled, pointing a furious finger right in Malesh's face. "Because I knew you were going to fuck this up!"
Kniya aggressively stepped into Malesh's personal space, completely ignoring the terrified new hire standing right next to them.
"Malesh, I told you that your specific corporate task was to teach her the job! Not to joke around like a completely uneducated idiot!" Kniya lectured loudly, his voice echoing off the concrete garage walls. "Do it seriously, Malesh! Otherwise, you will absolutely not get the car next time! Remember this thing! And also, I will officially restrict you from my executive office! I will change the heavy brass locks so you can never come up there to use my air conditioning or sit on my leather sofa ever again!"
Malesh rubbed his punched shoulder, letting out a long, incredibly tired sigh.
"Okay, okay," Malesh groaned, completely exhausted by Kniya's insane micro-management. "Your threats are legally noted. Go away."
Kniya gave him one last terrifying glare, then turned to Silvisa, flashed a brilliant, highly fake capitalist smile, and sprinted back toward a hidden doorway to climb eighty-five flights of stairs.
Malesh turned back to Silvisa, who was currently staring at them like she had just joined an asylum instead of a steel conglomerate.
"Okay," Malesh deadpanned, completely dropping the 'joker' routine. "So, my fucking name is Malesh. And frankly, I don't need to know anything more about you. Your background is irrelevant to me. So yeah. Get in the vehicle. Let's continue."
The Environmental Small Talk
Malesh unlocked the heavy armored SUV. He climbed into the driver's seat while Silvisa nervously climbed into the passenger side, pulling her heavy canvas seatbelt tight.
Malesh aggressively slammed his foot on the accelerator. The massive steam-combustion engine roared to life, and the heavy vehicle tore out of the VIP garage, violently merging onto the busy, coal-choked cobblestone streets of the Seistain Hub.
The atmosphere inside the SUV was suffocatingly tense. Malesh kept his eyes locked perfectly on the road, his face a mask of stone-cold silence.
Silvisa sat rigidly in her seat, clutching her leather clipboard. Because she was sitting right next to the Managing Director of an allied corporate empire, she was terrified to speak. But the absolute, deadpan silence was driving her crazy. She desperately felt the need to break the ice and build a good corporate rapport.
"Uh... sir," Silvisa started cautiously. "Your jokes back there in the garage... they were actually very good."
Malesh didn't say a word. He didn't even blink.
Silvisa swallowed hard, trying to pivot to the safest, most universal conversation topic in human history. She looked out the thick reinforced window.
"Well," Silvisa smiled awkwardly. "Today's weather is really good, isn't it?"
Malesh gripped the leather steering wheel. His highly analytical, ruthlessly logical brain immediately began to short-circuit.
He looked out the windshield. The sky above the Seistain industrial sector was currently a thick, toxic shade of dark grey. The air was literally choked with raw coal smoke, heavy manufacturing smog, and a faint, highly unnatural yellowish tint from the chemical plants. It looked like an apocalyptic wasteland.
This weather is absolute shit, Malesh thought in his mind, his internal monologue screaming with pure judgment. It is literally full of shit. The air quality is statistically lethal. How does she even think that this weather is good? If you call this highly toxic, polluted corporate nightmare 'good,' then you might as well call physical shit good too. Her baseline for atmospheric observation is profoundly flawed.
Malesh took a slow, deep breath, trying to suppress his urge to violently lecture her on environmental statistics.
He forced his mouth to open, delivering the most awkward, deeply tired response possible.
"Yeah," Malesh muttered, his voice sounding like he was physically exhausted by the conversation. "The weather is good, I think so... kind of. Not very much good."
Silvisa blinked, completely unsure of how to respond to that incredibly weak endorsement of the sky.
"And yeah, whatever," Malesh quickly added, completely shutting down any further small talk. "We do not have to discuss about the weather. We have to discuss about the work. I am going to teach you the pure production logic."