Revelations

Description

The Board of a corporation are looking to make a merger. We meet PETER – the kindly CEO, everybody\'s friend; EVA – hard as nails CFO; and RAJ – idealistic young CTO. Raj, has found an ethical company which will enhance their green credentials, an almost perfect partner. Even so, Eva insists that they still take an already scheduled meeting with the Cavalier Partnership… Three executives file into the boardroom – grey-haired, white, expensive suits – and with them comes Death, complete with scythe – everyone conveniently ignores him. They make their pitch. The first represents their agriculture division, he plans for a massive famine that will cause the price of the crops their land can grow to spike. The second is from the pharmaceutical division and he tells how they’re ready to provide vaccines for the pestilence that will follow the famine, naturally at vastly inflated prices. The third represents defence – they will arm all sides of the civil wars that follow. Aghast, the Board nervously ask about the guy with the scythe. Death explodes into biblical pronouncements of doom, but is told to pipe down by his colleagues – it\'s not the 14th century. Death apologises. Peter rejects their appalling proposal out of hand. Then the visitors show him their tender offer…Once the strange delegation have gone, Peter bemoans the situation. Raj assumes that they’re obviously going to form alliance with the company he’d suggested. Sadly, his boss points out, that is now pretty much impossible. The Cavalier Partnership offer is so high that there’s no way that their shareholders would reject it. Can’t they bury the offer? That would be illegal, he’s reminded. Even though they’re all going to become insanely wealthy as a result of this, Raj’s boss sympathises with his ethical qualms. Raj sits in the boardroom as the others leave, taking in the full horror of the situation, before a thought strikes him and he calls after them “Hang on a minute, how wealthy?”

Biblical Connection

The story is based on Revelations 6, in which the seals are broken to unleash the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The idea was born from a realization that the horsemen equate closely to the divisions of a modern conglomerate: Agriculture for Famine, Pharmaceuticals for Pestilence, and Defence for War (Death doesn\'t quite work and so remains a wild card). Indeed, Famine engages in price gouging —\"A measure of wheat for a penny”—which fits well with corporate behaviour. This sparked the thought that the horsemen could be used in a satirical discussion of the Climate Crisis, and the part that corporations play in thwarting attempts to prevent a very real apocalypse. In my story, an well intentioned board looking for a green merger partner unwittingly take a meeting with the horsemen, who present as corporate executives, all except Death, who appears in his classical form (everyone turns a blind eye to the inconvenient presence in the board-room). They offer the board the chance to profiteer from the apocalypse. Sadly, the duty to report the horsemen’s generous offer to the shareholders leaves the board with little choice. The road to hell—or at least the apocalypse—is paved with good intentions.