Location : Senator Ghirnot’s office, Capital District of CLAN.
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Ghirnot sat in his chair, staring at a large screen before him. He had received a message from one of his confidants regarding a potentially disturbing development.
“Chaliza!” Ghirnot yelled without moving from his chair.
Chaliza, busy with something, was startled by the loud holler.
“What the Zumt!” he mumbled as he fumbled out of his chair.
“Yes sir, coming over,” he shouted back. Why the Zumt does he have to shout. I am hardly ten feet away from him.
“Listen, Chaliza, there has been a problem. A few transactions from the incident were supposedly touched by someone recently.” Ghirnot enunciated the word event deliberately. Chaliza understood. He simply nodded.
“Do you suspect anyone in particular, sir?” Chaliza asked.
“Yes. Has to be Marxzib. But I suspect he has ears here, right under our arses,” Ghirnot replied, getting up from his chair. “Why don’t you call in Kixmado. I want to speak with him.”
“Copy that.” Pretty soon, Kixmado stood before Ghirnot, patiently waiting for him to speak. Ghirnot, it seemed, was in no hurry.
“Excuse me, senator,” Kixmado said, “You called me. Please let me know how I can help?”
“Help?” Ghirnot made a tut-tut sound. “How can a mole help me, Kixmado? The only way you can help me would be if you confessed to snooping around here for Zxea.”
Kixmado was shaken to his core. He did not expect such a direct assault.
“That is outrageous! How dare you question my integrity, Ghirnot?” Kixmado gathered himself quickly and responded with gusto.
“It’s senator, Kixmado,” Chaliza interrupted, “Senator Ghirnot. We should not forget common courtesy now, shall we?”
“Courtesy? Are you both out of your minds?!” Kixmado shouted back.
Ghirnot was a little taken aback by this fire in Kixmado. He realized he had approached this the wrong way.
“Listen, Kixmado,” he said, “Let us talk facts here. It was brought to my attention recently that someone from my office has been leaking information to Marxzib.” He paused and got up from his chair. He slowly moved close to Kixmado, almost too close to intimidate him, looking directly into his eyes. “I need you to come clean on this. Do you get what I am saying?”
Kixmado looked down at Ghirnot, leaning into him. His face became furrowed, and his upper body grew stiff as though he was readying himself to take Ghirnot head-on. Kixmado’s military training was coming in handy here. When under pressure, come back stronger.
“I am warning you, Ghirnot, back the Zumt up. I will wring your neck sideways with my bare hands.”
Ghirnot was a bull, forever ready to fight, but this scared him a little. He kept looking at Kixmado without losing the intensity of his stare, but he also backed up a step.
Chaliza looked on this with his jaw open. A mundane transaction had turned ugly rather quickly. He realized he needed to intervene.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He managed to speak as he moved closer to the two. “Let us all take a breath here.” He then squeezed Kixmado’s shoulder, “There was no reason for you to raise your voice, buddy. You need not worry if you are innocent, ok. All we are saying is come clean on this.”
Then he looked at his boss, “Sir, please. You need to back up a little. You are scaring the fellow.”
Ghirnot looked at Chaliza. When did he grow a pair? But he knew Chaliza was right. All conglomerate workers were protected by solid workplace laws. They had their fierce unions backing them up, come what may. Intimidating and threatening a conglomerate employee was, in fact, a felony if proved in a court of law.
“I do not need to explain such ridiculous allegations, Chaliza. If you have evidence against me, feel free to approach the CEC. Otherwise, we are done here. You two are wasting my time.”
The CEC, or the Conglomerate Employees’ Court, was a legal body for managing all things related to employee disputes. It was a procedural monster known for moving utterly slowly.
Chaliza raised one eyebrow, “Listen, Kixmado, we still haven’t heard you deny the allegation. Don’t you think it is a little, umm, telling?”
Kixmado realized his neck was getting wet from behind. But he needed to put up a strong show.
“Haaa! I wouldn’t even bother, Chaliza. Your boss is being ridiculous. Whatever charade you two got going here-” Kixmado paused, clenching his jaw, “I don’t give a Zumt. But believe me, I will sue your arses if you try to squeeze me further.”
Ghirnot sneered at him. “Your defiance proves you are guilty. I wanted you to man up and confess it. Now get the Zumt out of here before I throw you out to the legals.”
“Do you what you gotta do, and I will return the favor, Ghirnot.” Kixmado shot his finger in the air before storming out of the room.
“That did not go well, Sir. What do you want me to do?” Chaliza looked at Ghirnot.
He did not respond. Instead, he walked over the bar, and filled a large drink of the finest Zimian whiskey for himself. For a minute or so, he kept blabbering about the whiskey’s color, taste, and aroma. Chaliza scratched his head. He could not understand half of the things Ghirnot had said.
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Then, as if something had occurred to him, Ghirnot looked at Chaliza and said, “How long has this fellow worked for us?”
“About a year now, sir.” Chaliza replied.
“Have you ever seen him come this strong at anyone in the staff?”
“No senator, never. Gets along with everyone. No complaints until now.”
“Hmmm.” Ghirnot put his drink down. “I wonder where his bravado comes from. Something must have happened recently.”
“Umm. I don’t know, senator. What do you mean?” Chaliza felt a tightness around his cheeks as he struggled to understand what his boss was on about. Ghirnot paused again for a couple of minutes. He kept looking though the deep brown layers of the whiskey in his glass. “He knows I am going down.”
“Wh-what?”
“Yes. They have something on me. Those BASTARDS!” Ghirnot snapped with anger. He flung the glass of whiskey with a sideways smack. The clanking sound of the glass made him even more furious. He started throwing things around as his hands found them.
Chaliza ducked down, suspecting a flurry of missiles to come swooshing in any random direction now.
“Please, please, senator, calm down,” Chaliza shouted as he hid under a desk. “We can find out what’s happening. Please calm down!”
But Ghirnot was not in a state to listen to anybody.
By the time Ghirnot cooled down, his office resembled a war zone. Chaliza had slipped out quietly, fearing for his life.
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Anant Dhavale
Copyright © Anant Dhavale
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental147Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzYQV59oxNJ
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