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Note to Readers
They enjoyed being in control; they always had. Even back in the early days, alone and struggling to make ends meet, a day-to-day world nothing if not hopeless and bleak, they’d dreamed of being in a position when they would finally be in control.
Slowly but surely, they had worked relentlessly toward reaching that goal, moving from stepping-stone to small stepping-stone until finally, finally arriving at a place of authority. When they finally controlled people who didn’t even realize they were being controlled.
I am that good, they thought with a self-congratulating smile.
And this, this, they thought, looking at the email draft on their laptop, was going to be the ultimate achievement, the crowning glory. Because when this email went out and at long last set this greatest plan in motion, they were going to be in control of not just a person or a small group of people but of a large, thriving company.
An entire, billion-dollar company.
It would be, they thought with a smug, self-satisfied smile, like going from presiding over a tiny cottage in the forest to ruling over a giant kingdom.
My giant kingdom.
Oh, there would be a figurehead to front the company, but they would be the one who told that figurehead what to do, what to think. They would be the one in charge of everything.
As it should be. After all, who better to control all those employees? Who was more deserving to reap all those rewards?
They laughed to themselves.
“Why, me of course. I’m the most deserving person I know,” they announced to the surrounding darkness of the small office where they presently oversaw the organization they had created and molded out of nothing.
Taking a deep breath, they pulled back their shoulders and focused on the task at hand. The shadowy figure reread the words that had been typed and then retyped so many times since this idea had begun to take its final shape.
This
