The Ministry For Communication Oversight

Building A, Floor 52, Conference Room 3

“Gentlemen, as the majority shareholder of this government company I have called you all in here,” Frontman began.

“You own 30%, that’s not really a majority,” Ben said.

“Hey Ben, fuck you, I own more shares than anyone here so I’m in the majority.” The shareholders began doing the maths in their heads, “Okay, fine, thank you all for coming. What I really called you in here for is to freak you out.” Most of the people there furrowed their brows, either from the news they were expecting or from frustration at the theatrics of this clown.

“Young tech startup investors, and older white guys who basically got lucky at the start of their lives and have been failing upwards for the rest of it…”

“Could you just skip the preamble? I’ve got shit to do,” said one of the older white guys who basically got lucky at the start of their lives and etc etc.

Frontman paced back and forth at the front of the room. “There is a crisis plaguing this great company. Many thought that allowing people to own shares of a public company would erode its independence. And they were wrong…” He whipped around and pointed forward, at nobody in particular, “UNTIL NOW!”

He paused, expecting there to be a symphony of shocked voices, but he was instead met with silence. He cleared his throat and continued, “I have been checking the stock prices, and comparing them to our own company valuation analyses. It seems that our company has been artificially over-valued.” NOW the rabble began. Voices flew in every direction, some confusedly talked amongst themselves, others screamed at him for not knowing what he was talking about.

This continued for a few moments until all eyes were drawn to the man tapping on the table with his knuckle. “Hey guys, I’m Todd, I’m a new investor.”

“Nice to hear your life’s story,” Frontman interrupted, “Anybody in this room could be the one who’s —”

“What I was GOING to say,” Todd interrupted back, “Is how do you know that the stock price is being manipulated?”

Frontman sighed, he was going to have to explain this to the millionaire babyface. He flung his arm behind him, pointing at an up until now quiet and anonymous figure. He wore glasses and sat in a suit with one leg draped over the other. “This is how I know; You see him? You’d better study him well because he’s the one who’s gonna put one, or several of you, in prison.”

The board members studied this shadowy figure as Frontman studied each of their faces, looking for the fear in any of them. No such luck.

“Me and him have been doing an analysis of the stock prices for the better part of a year,” Frontman looked at his inscrutable face, “Well, more he did the work and I waited for him to finish, but it IS me who is presenting the findings here in front of you right now!”

“How can we trust this rando?” Ben asked, antsy to break for lunch.

“Are you talking about my guy?” he asked, hunching over his chair to stare daggers at Ben and shooting a finger at his guy, “This is a man who knows his damn numbers. All of them, money, percentages, everything. He takes one look at you, and he can see EXACTLY what your weight is, down to the milligram. That’s how good with numbers he is.”

“I don’t know exactly how that…what is this guy’s name anyway?” Todd asked, fuming.

“As far as you’re concerned, it’s numbers man. Because he’s the numbers man. And he has figured out the issue with our stocks: they’re priced too high”

After Frontman finished, there was a deafening silence. Instead of arguing, the members of the board were finally taking on board what Frontman was saying: All of the shareholders were at this table, the one manipulating things was sitting at this table.

“Now that I have your attention for once, I think that—”

“Why is this a problem?” Asked one of the more ‘tenured’ members of the shareholder table.

“Explain yourself, old person,” Frontman demanded.

“Well, correct me if I’m wrong but if the stock price is higher, manipulated or not we get richer, right?”

Frontman mentally ticked this guy off his list of suspects. If he was the guy, he wouldn’t be this obvious about it. This greedy moron was Frontman’s only buoy in this sea of corporate meddling.

“These stocks are a rubber band. You can stretch it as far as you want, but it’s gotta snap back in equal measure. Tell me, who do YOU think did it?”

“Frontman, I’m not gonna…” the man started, before letting that seed take root in his head. He looked at the rest of the table, squinting at them until he ended on Todd. He ever so slowly, as older businessmen do, raised his finger and pointed it at Todd, “You have been checking the stocks on your computer an awful lot lately.”

“Me!?” Todd shouted, “You’re going to accuse me? Who were the executives that ran this department so far into the ground they needed to make it go public?”

“Don’t you talk to me like that. You kids don’t know the half of what happened back then. What kind of dire straights we were in, and would be, if we didn’t do that.”

Frontman sat down and leaned back as everyone else piled on. Let chaos happen, burn down the men’s trust in each other, and from the ashes an answer would emerge.

Many long minutes later and there still hadn’t been an end to this outrage. People were still arguing and their allotted time in the conference room was starting to run out. Frontman leaned to his right and saw the next group in the hall impatiently checking their watches and waiting for their turn.

“Guys!” Frontman shouted, getting lost in the storm of words.

“GUYS!” he shouted again. Still nothing. He calmly rose from his chair, picked it up and flung it as hard as he could at the window. It bounced off bringing little flecks of window with it until it rested on the other side of the room.

“We need to make a decision on who’s at fault here, because there is no way I can get you all here again.”

Every member looked at each other, as if they had a secret that they knew and Frontman didn’t. Then Todd stood up and said, “So we all agree it’s Frontman?” Everyone in the room nodded. “Cool, let’s break for lunch.”

Everyone stood up together and chattered as they filed out of the conference room. Frontman stood in shock for a few seconds before shouting, “Wait, what the hell is going on?”

“Who cares? Your rubber band thing is probably bullshit and the stock is just going up on its own. Next time call us in here for something less dramatic,” he said before slamming the door behind him.

The next group for the conference room jiggled the door handle but it had locked behind the last person to leave. As one of them knocked on the door, Frontman turned to numbers guy and asked, “Who do you think it was, Netyu?”

“It doesn’t matter, the stock price is already well past the point of no return,” He responded.

So…” he began, “How long until that rubber band snaps back?”

“I give it about a month.”

“Then sell my stocks in a month less one day, Alright?”

“No problem,” he said, dutifully jotting it down in his laptop.