World:

- In the future every part of society has been privatised and governments around the world have all collapsed.

- The distribution of guns in Chicago is restricted so everyone uses melee weapons, the main character uses a sword.

- Schools are expensive and teach primarily business.

- Money is officially called the International Standard Monetary Denomination but people call it Bucks. It’s better to have a single currency that everyone can agree on rather than each company have their own. A big conglomerate tries to force their own regulated currency on people?

- Ambulance services in Chicago are non existent, if you need to go to the hospital you have to go there yourself.

- The companies of the past were not “militant” enough to cope with this new free world and were either assaulted or acquired into submission.

- Religion is mostly outdated. Many businesses in the past tried to leverage it for profit but made people more cynical. Churches/mosques/temples were quickly bought out once there was no government protection.

- People still have buying power, so if a company that caters to them does something super shitty then popular opinion can go against them

- Labour unions are seen like they are nowadays, as a corrupt remnant of government. The common belief is that unions eventually get too many concessions and end up screwing other workers out of jobs.

- Businesses may have investigatory wings that track down the killers or muggers of their employees. This is a selling point for many potential employees. Maybe have a story where an employee from one company gets in a fight with an employee from another company.

- In terms of white collar crime like copyright infringement, the companies will generally be very gentlemanly about it both for political reasons and for fear of retribution, but it still does happen from time to time.

- Land rights are self-regulating. All of the big companies and groups agree on who owns what and what transactions happen but maybe a big enough company can just squat on some land. War breaks out between two entities because of that.

- One company tries to become a megacorp like East India Companies

- Nobody knows who actually regulates the Bucks

World — Flavor:

- Interrupt chapters with advertisements for in-story products

- Nothing really gets set on fire because everything is concrete

- Ads in the apartments

- Streets in Chicago are so wire thin and crammed with people that cars are obsolete

- Whenever a year is about to be read out or said or displayed, something happens to make it unclear. Like the TV starts acting up when the year is said.

- Year: WARNING — UNABLE TO DISPLAY, DATA CORRUPTED

- If the protagonist is in a dark or unfamiliar area have the page background black and the text white

- CROSSOVER THE STORIES AS FREQUENTLY AS POSSIBLE IN SUBTLE WAYS.

Lines:

- “There are so many companies with values containing so many 0’s it’s impossible to keep track. LIST COMPANIES AND WHAT THEY DO HERE”

- “Even the military-industrial complex came crashing down. No government means nothing sold means the only customers are companies that would use those weapons to do a little hostile takeover.”

- “You want to buy a HOUSE!? Maybe try New London it’s a couple thousand kilometres down the road.”

- Mettelcorps respects your right to responsible freedom of speech. You may express yourself as you wish, so long as your expression does not harm the company’s public image. Here are some ways you can express yourself in a fun and respectful manner!

- Before your video: AD 1 OF 12

Book 1 — Stories from EARTH, LLC.:

- A collection of short stories like The Last Wish but centred on different characters.

- Stories all connect in some way with the Chicago riots and potentially cross over with the potential novel potentially

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Stories:

- Mix up the formats, could be first or third person

- Start with a no context TV report about the Chicago riots?

- Story of guy who wants to start a rebellion, gets shut down pree quick, stops after he gets captured and pick story up later

• Follow guy from the start of his morning routine:

  • “This is your good morning alarm…” the voice said, a voice that is like if jazz could speak < THAT BUT WORDED BETTER “…the time is 9 AM” “…shit, how many times did I hit snooze.”

  • Auto curtains open, goes to fridge/vending machine and the wrong breakfast option “Your account has been debted: twelve bucks thirty. Have a good day!” “Oh shit, cancel, CANCEL.” “There are no refunds for changes of mind. Have a good day!” Starts hitting the machine.

  • Shoves food into his cakehole and leaves apartment building on the bajillionth floor.

  • Coworker calls: “Guy, where the hell are you? I’ve been doing the work of two men over here.” “Shit I know, sorry I’m getting there as fast as I can.” “I’ve had the manager ask three times where you are, tell me when you’re at the door and I’ll distract them.”

  • Get out of building and bam, first description of Chicago

  • Getting on the cramped tube from the fucking massive apartment building to work at SoftSolutions

• SoftSolutions = Technically an independent entity but actually a wing of another company

• Welcome to the History Hotline! The only place where knowledge meets fun as our professional history buffs take you on a journey through mankind. Your calls may be monitored to help us educate better. Calls start at two International Standard Monetary Denominations and then point five International Standard Monetary Denominations every fifteen minutes.

• Work which is boring, tedious, monotonous, dull, lifeless, trite, mundane writing of code. Do something weird to show how boring everything is until he gets interrupted by female coworker friend for lunch.

• Guy is talking with female coworker on lunch break, guy is talking about how evil the companies are and how much he hates their influence and grr grumble grumble

• Girl: “Mhm” “What does that mean?” “Well, why bother? I have a job, you have a job, if we keep at it we could get promotions in, like, a year. I don’t see why this is such a big deal for you” “Because…this isn’t what people should do. People should be free to do what they want and have a government to let them.” “Do you know any history? Those governments only got more and more corrupt, only passing laws that gave away more control to these companies. Now, at least, they keep each other in line. Where is this coming from anyway?”

• They get back to work, almost immediately Guy notices an annoyed manager on the phone and snatching glances at Guy. He gets up and walks over to Guy and asks if he could please come to his office.

• “Guy, I don’t like to see my employees upset. I wanna make sure everyone’s having a good time at their jobs. Is there anything on your mind?” Guy starts internally freaking the fuck out and wondering if he was heard in the break room. “You just seem a bit off today.”

• “Nope, nothing. I’m just tired is all. I appreciate your concern, though” Manager gives him a glare through his warm, welcoming moustache. “Well, feel free to come to me if you’ve got concerns about anything and…yeah,” he said, gesturing to the door.

• More coding and a few suspicious happenings start happening in the office. Glimpses of security fellows looking at Guy and talking on their radios.

• Clock out time, people start flooding out and a man waiting says to guy “Excuse me Guy, can you please come talk with me for a second.” More freaking out by Guy.

• “I’m going to need you to report to the FarmTech Employee Motivation Centre immediately. We will provide you with an escort and you will have a hotel room provided.” “Do I have a choice?” “I’m sorry, you should have been more open with your boss.”

- Hostile takeover happens when all execs but one are employed by a rival company. Story follows single exec as all board members agree to acquisition. Besides him.

• Presented in third person

• As per the company charter, all executive positions are permanent. The founder of the company was hella paranoid about being fired from his own company

• Employees are referred to by their employee number in order to ensure the privacy of them and to stop them being harassed for information.

• William (Will)

  • A mess who’s just barely holding himself together
  • Took over for his father as Chief Investigations Officer (CIO) and was terribly unequipped to do it.
  • CIO in a company without a recorded case of fraud in 30 years makes it basically a busywork role. Dot some i’s and cross some t’s every day
  • Is competent at his job now as it’s been 10 years but is miserable and only stays because of the money and that he has nothing else to do.
  • Kind of a hypocrite, he complains about the lack of any meaningful work he does but at the same time delegates everything to his staff.

• Takes place over several days

• Start story in his office, staring at the clock and doing not much else

• Assistant/secretary comes in and they talk about interesting shit. Will is keeping track of the time and this is shown in the narrations which interrupts to say the time.

  • Time for the monthly employee wellness check, despite being a member of the board and none of the other members having to do it Will has to anyway.
  • At the last minute the assistant starts to bring up an employee’s concern about a closed account but gets interrupted when the meeting starts. Just before she goes on about it the time is read out in the narration and Will shuts her down.

• “Says something disagreeable” (in narration) “yeah fuck you too”

• Dude takes a drink before entering the board room. This drink was initially for good luck when he first started, and now it’s a routine.

• A much lower employee calls with info, last call was his birthday a few years ago, Will is initially sceptical and tells him to go through the proper channels. Really wants to hang up when he finds out the employee got his number through not legit means. He starts listening when the employee talks about a suspicious cancellation of an account. A light turns on inside Will, one that hasn’t been on in at least ten years. Will goes down to basement warehouse with mountains of paper records and one secure disconnected computer for the digitised records.

• “Alright I’ll come down there” “Oh shit, really? Great, see you there”

• Needs to enter his code to get down to the security basement, hesitates because it’s been so long since he’s needed to enter it.

• The employee pops his head around one of the racks of paper records and beckons Will over

• “What’s your name?” “I’m employee number two five-” “No, screw the protocol, what’s your NAME?” “William” “…seriously?”

• inVestigate has just cancelled its most lucrative account with its rival.

• Over the course of days learn:

  • Account was cancelled by the CFO

  • Memo passed around to the other board members about a “plan”

  • Was emailed to every board member separately from the same source

    • Doubt cast on whether they are responding to these emails or it’s just a bunch of spam

  • As a last resort Will and William ask questions from a board member, partially to get information and partially to rattle the people who are in on it.

  • …

  • The board members vote on the merger without Will and it gets put through

  • Will gets dejected,

  • This gives Will the power to activate the security and

• Guy gets bricked by riot the instant he gets out of the building

- Private investigator is hired and the person he eventually tracks down is an exec/high level company man.

• Wife has disappeared and husband wants private investigator to track her down

• “You know I also do hitman services, in case someone has kidnapped her,” “No, not yet. I just want to know where she is right now.”

• Both men stay in close contact.

• Drunk, gun waving executive invites the characters into his office after a prolonged waiting period “Swords, bats, nails on the ends of sticks, this is all so uncivilised. Look at this gun, one squeeze and you’ll see nothin’ forever, much more dignified.”

- Company guys realise how mired in bureaucracy their jobs are when they think “wait, who actually runs this company?” Turns out there hasn’t been an executive in charge for years and everyone has just kinda been doing their own thing.

• Money comes into payroll, they distribute it, managers send memos to each other but were granted autonomy from the previous execs so they were able to keep going.

• Complaint about not getting a bigger budget

• “Janice, call the CTO, see if we can set an appointment.” “It doesn’t seem like I can get in touch with his assistant.” “Okay…try the CFO, maybe he can drop a line to the CTO or something.” “Nope, same thing.” “Run through the whole executive staff, see if anyone is in.”

• A group of middle managers start investigating and find out the last executive died four years ago and nobody noticed.

• More light-hearted than previous stories

• Big debate on whether they should be the new upper management, political shenanigans occur, one manager promotes their subordinates as a manager in an attempt to show they have managers working under them

• Eventually they rip the company apart and another business just kinda moves in.

• “Why isn’t [MANAGER] or [MANAGER] in today?” says an employee

• Guards come in and say “Alright this space must be vacated in order for Technologue inc to move in.”

- Going back to the first story about Guy. Entire story is about Guy talking to the dude trying to convince him about the goodness of this world.

• Guy complains about being held against his will, and how that motherfucker of a boss sold him out.
• Ron convinces him that he had chosen to go here by not being honest with his boss. His boss didn’t “sell him out” but called out of genuine concern.
• “I’m not here to torture you or detain you or some other 1984 shit.” “Right, you’re just holding me here against my will.” “In this five star hotel with free room service? Yeah, I’m getting a real Orwellian vibe here.” “I want to be in my own apartment with my own free will.” “You are here by choice, not because we forced you to. When we learn that you, an employee of this company, are making serious motions towards starting some kind of rebel group against us, what the hell are we supposed to do? You do realise how insane it would be if we just ignored you and let you do what you want, right?”
• Eventually get Guy to stay at the hotel of his own free will.
• The interviewer is genuinely trying to convince Guy that they don’t spy on employees?

Someone who actually participates in the riots