Slum Enterprise - Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

Murphy finished his guard shift and walked by Lee’s tent and saw the body of Scott cross legged speaking in a whisper. He sat down on his mat and rested. His knees and ankles were sore pacing back and forth at the barbwired fence gate. 

“What are they doing?” He thought. “I need a smoke.”

He lit up a cigarette and pulled a full lung of smoke. He positioned his lips so when he blew out the body of smoke would be forced upwards. His habit had picked up to over a pack a day, this was starting to show negative effects, he was begging to get out of breath walking up stairs. Murphy sat back in silence trying to decipher what Scott and Lee were talking about while he enjoyed the cigarette.

Murphy was getting close to retirement, by his calculations he had 8 years left before he could retire comfortably. This was the grey area of life, he still had to work hard so he wouldn't get laid off but was already exhausted with 30 years in. The kids were already in their 20s and the divorce had made him extremely depressed. Now, he lives alone in a 4 bedroom 3 bathroom house in a 3rd ring suburb. He drives a big pickup truck he doesn't tow anything with that gets 10 mpg on the highway. 

Sometimes on the route he would pass rocky gravel roads and say to himself that he truck could handle that no problem but would never turn down the road because he had just gotten a car wash. 

“Im going to finish this wonder cig and go over and ask what they're talking about… I stood for 4 fucking hours today keeping this place safe,” Murphy concludes. He stands up and arrives at Lee’s tent.

“Hey, what are you guys being so secretive about?” Murphy asked. 

Lee and Scott broke concentration on the secret plan and turned their heads to find Murphy staring at them with a cigarette butt hanging from his lips. Murphy blew out smoke and coughed. He didn't want to seem pushy about this but he was so bored and closing time was approaching. He waited for them to answer.

After nothing was said Murphy added, “Please guys, why do you always have sticks up your ass, nothing happens around here, what can possibly be so under wraps?”

“Do you really want in?” Scott finally said. “Once I tell you there's no going back.”

“Sounds like fun, lay it on me,” Murphy smiled and walked in the tent and sat down at the far end of the tent so he could stretch his legs out. “When you are ready, Scott.”

“Alright, understand this, what I'm about to tell you is strictly confidential. HR SWAT or anybody outside of this direct department can't know.” Scott whispered intensely. Scott had been serious which shocked Murphy awake, his ears perked up. He shook his head up and down and his double chin jiggled. Lee hoped he wouldn't be a liability, nonetheless Murphy was another body for the cause.

“Like I was saying, we have today and tomorrow to set this all up. Friday afternoon is when we hit Sales and Marketing. We can't wait, every hour they intrench and establish better protection, soon nothing will be able to come 50 ft of its borders.” Scott looked at Lee and Murphy simultaneously with wide eyes. “430pm, right before the weekend, when the office is most empty.”

A lot of employees would duck out early on Fridays to get a head start on the weekend. Sales and marketing especially because they had a strange culture focused on employee bonding and extracurricular events outside of work. Every friday they would drive as fast as they could to the local bar and drink themselves silly. Sometimes the directors would come and grace their presence and join in on the fun and hit on entry level women sales accountants. 

“Lee, like I said, I'm asking a lot from you here, you are spearheading the mission.” Scott said.

“Whats my part?” Murphy interjected.

“Just wait, I'll get there.” Scott snapped. “We need to schedule a meeting with the VP. I bet you're wondering how the hell a man in your title and department would ever be allowed to meet with the VP of sales. First we need to start lower, think small. Start by scheduling a meeting with one of the sales managers. The story we bring forth has to be urgent and convincing or he wont even bat an eye… what do sales and marketing want?” Scott waited for an answer from the two of them, and they started back with dumb expressions. Lee answered.

“Leads, new customers, old customers satisfaction surveys, contracts etc. But, we can't offer any of that.”

“Oh yes we can, Don’t the labs see all the products? We know what fails and what passes. We go on to explain that we found out some critical problem that's going to affect a contract, the biggest contract Green Earth Solutions has. Farm and Construction Corp makes up 33% of all the fiscal year sales. They have been buying products for the last 50 years. It's the most protected contract, only the top sales folk can manage it. We’ll say that the lab was working on quality assurance testing for some of the highest volume products before the office transition. We can say it had been failing the tests. In conclusion, since every product was failing every test specification, the manufacturing plants have been shipping defective parts for at least the past 6 months. It took engineering too long to catch the issues at the manufacturing line. Customers, if they haven't already will start calling asking for warranty claims due to defected parts shipped by Green Earth Solutions"

“What can we say if they ask about engineering and manufacturing?" Murphy said.

“Good point, we can say that the engineering department knew about the critical failures but they were too scared to act. They wanted to wait until the first reports of failures came in before action would be taken, then the top brass would spin the narrative saying it was only a recent hiccup in the product lines and that they would investigate and sort it all out. Since the labs are shut down, new testing can't be completed to see if the product has been fixed.” Scott finished. Then, the three heard a voice form behind the cardboard box wall on Lee’s left. It was Stan chiming in.

“It's still not fool proof, let me help, you're missing something…” Stan said. He punched a hole in the wall so his voice would carry better. Lee, Scott and Murphy stared at Stan through the hole.

“The sales manager will not trust a word you say unless you add this…then he would have to report to the sales VP right away. My outside contacts reported that the slums are here to stay. With that, to keep cash flow from stopping, the bank built 2 years of product for all the customers. My warehouse guys said all the global locations are filled to the brim. You’ll say that 33% of the product bank builds are defective. Engineering failed to catch it in time during the bank build initiative. The reason why the labs knows this is because the influx of testing that happened this past year, you all remember, we were fucking fighting fires left and right trying to get data through, it all had to validated before it could be stored back at the warehouses. The sales guys use our data to convince new customers to sign new contracts. We saw that it was failing and reported to engineering but they never reported out. Just think, 33% of the bank build is screwed. All this could snowball and bankrupt the company ending the Slum.”

“Holy shit,” Lee said. “So it's not just our biggest customer, it's a third of our customers.”

“You owe me a box of trinkets for my collection.” Stan said.

“No problem Stan,” Scott responded.

Stan disappeared from the hole and then it was closed by a sheet of cardboard. Stan was gone and getting ready for the long sleep in the hoarder paradise. He had stopped going home on account of wife issues. He had been sleeping in the office full time for weeks.

Lee, Stan and Murphy felt like the plan was coming together, they all looked at each other and nodded their heads in approval

“Tommorrow, Lee are you listening? Tomorrow you will go to the sales and marketing zone and scour the fence. Try to get a sales cog's attention, be careful of HR SWAT, they’ll likely question you why you're so far from your zone. If and when you get someone's attention, ask for a sales manager, say that important information is to be discussed. Hopefully they take the bait and they let you in. Get in a manager tent and go through the motions as I said. If he buys it, I'm sure the manager will piss his pants.” Scott paused and took a drink of water from the canteen that was clipped to his pants.

“Murphy, you're going with Lee for backup support.”

“What?” Murphy looked surprised.

“Make sure Lee doesn't get ganged up on, you hang back and report to me if Lee is compromised.”

“The manager should escalate it to the VP and then the VP will need to hear from you, the information will be too critical to have him not invite you to discuss the matter in person. You need to mention that you can only meet Friday afternoon. You need to have that meeting with the VP inside his hot tent.”

“Then, stall as long as possible, go through the story slowly, the more stalling the more time the lab teams will have breaking in and reaching you inside that hot tent. Once in we hogtie the motherfucker and go on our merry way.” Scott reached behind his back and pulled up his shirt and grabbed something that was lodged deep in his belt. 

Lee and Murphy saw a big hunk of silver metal that shined in the low light. It looked powerful and dangerous, a system that held someone's life in the palm of the beholder. It was a Colt 1911.

“How the hell did you get that past the guards?” Murphy questioned.

“Thats easy, just tuck it in the right places.” Scott concluded. 

Lee stared at the gun while Scott waved it around while he talked, for all he knew, this was the only projectile weapon on campus. Now they may have the upper hand, a real shot at getting to the CEO with this thing.

“Lee, when you can't stall any longer pull this thing and tell the VP to stay put or you'll blast him.” Scott handed him the gun, it was heavy with the full clip of 9mm.

“Me and the boys will be waiting outside the fences surrounding the zone. Our goal is take out the HR SWAT, break down the gate and clean up the scragalers and get to you lee. We need to find the computers right away to smash them, don't worry about pocket screens, the HR SWAT will call it anyway. The VP and us will go back to the shipping docks and hold up. The CEO should send a messenger to discuss trading terms.”

“It's all boarded up,” Murphy added.

“Well, we'll just have to break in.” Scott smiled.

The three desperadoes looked at one another. Scott then stashed the gun in one of Lee's cooking pots and put a bunch of paper and rags over it. Lee didn't say anything and thought, “If this all worked, what was he going to find out.”