From a prompt by
“Thanks for coming in, everyone,” Denny announced, “I know it’s Saturday morning, and many of you have families, but we need to get onto this yesterday.”
I look around at the others; faces with sleep in their eyes. A 7am meeting on a Saturday morning would do this. It would also create the seething anger and resentment I could see on Javier’s face. He was always one to hold back his words, but who needed to talk when he was this easy to read. I can’t lie. There had been whispered discussions in the past that he would be the first to lose it completely. How, we couldn’t pin down. When? Perhaps this morning, by the looks of it.
“As you know,” said Denny as he pushed the button to reveal his first AI-generated slide, “our business interests have been hit very hard by both the pandemic, and the subsequent failures at a political leadership level, especially since the recent regime change.”
He looked up, expecting nods of agreement at his words. I couldn’t speak for the others, as my morning stares were directed at the table.
“In order for us to…”
“Excuse me,” Susan piped up, “but couldn’t we have done this first thing on Monday morning? My daughter has a gymnastics competition at ten, and I’d really like to be there.”
“In order for us to capitalise,” Denny continued, pretending as if Susan had never spoken at all, “we must make great haste, and I have a plan.”
Denny changed to his next slide, which just contained the word Plan, although, having been written by AI, it was spelt PhLan.
“We will now open from 6am every morning,” he said, “in order to capitalise on the early morning ice-cream market. Starting tomorrow.”
“Sunday?” I asked.
“Sunday,” he confirmed.
An audible grunt emanate from Javier.
“No,” said Susan as she stood, “that won’t be happening. I have church, then I’m going to my mother’s.”
“But,” proclaimed Denny, “as a Salesforce Manager at Ice Cream Trucks Incorporated, you have signed a contract agreeing to do as I see fit. I am the Manager of the Managers. I have made a powerpoint.”
The punch caused Denny to fall back into the monitor showing his slideshow. The surprise of the move led to him voiding his bowels involuntarily.
“Now I can go to my daughter’s gymnastics,” proclaimed Susan, as she stepped over Denny’s now prone body and walked out of the garage.
I looked at Javier. He was looking down at Denny, then up at the door Susan left from. The look on his face was a combination of surprise and gratefulness.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” he said, “both the punch and Denny’s plan for world domination of the early morning winter ice cream market.”
We both agreed that Denny was a terrible person who had just delivered a terrible plan.
“I’ll tell you this for free,” I added as we left the garage, “it doesn’t smell good.”