Chapter 5: Meeting
Lachelle obeyed Mrs. Yamamoto. The Brobdingnagian reached for her necklace. She lifted it over her neck and off her body. Holding it steady as she could, she lowered it down to the courtyard.
Once the necklace’s ‘centerpiece’ of a little office near touched the courtyard below Himari, in turn, started opening the thing. The Gulliverian hit a few buttons and entered a code on the computer bolted to the side of her pendant office. The glass-like material covering it popped open like a door, and she stepped out onto the courtyard ground.
She turned to all the Gulliverian-inch-high Lilliputians, clasped her hands over her waist, and bowed slightly.
“Greetings everyone, I am Himari Yamamoto, and I will be your Acquisition Coordinator for today.”
Himari waited for them to greet her back, but instead they just stared dumbstruck at her. That was to be expected.
Then, she noticed a couple of the executives staring at her shoes. That wasn’t too out of the usual either, given that it was the only part of her body they could hope to stand tall over. But, when she looked down, she noticed the trembling, sunglasses wearing man standing down there.
“Ah.”, was all she said as she leaned down and pinched him up. He tried to reach for his sidearm, but she wiggled those manicured fingers of hers to shake his body. The sidearm fell right to the ground.
“Seems you missed one, Lachelle.”, she said aloud. Her eyes were on him, but all deduced she was talking to the Brobdingnagian.
That was all she said before she, as politely as possible, opened her mouth, plopped him in, then swallowed.
--==--==--==--
Mr. Gonzalez and the rest of his executives felt almost too curious to do anything when the pendant came down. A well dressed Gulliverian woman, clad in dark blue professional attire, stepped out of the necklace where she seemed to have been working. They saw a to-scale computer embedded in the wall of that pendant room, alongside a chair with buckles that came undone the moment she typed something on a keypad.
The steps of her ivory-colored flats boomed out onto the concrete of the courtyard. As a Gulliverian, she stood a bit under 500 feet to them. That was far, far less than a Brobdingnagian, but still plenty enough to make them feel small and, of course, be a great danger.
She turned not to Mr. Gonzalez, but to all of them for an introduction. The CEO was about to chime up with a slew of questions, but she seemed to have been distracted by the security guard.
The poor guard, who had survived the Brobdingnagian earlier, got pinched right up. A lurching sensation wracked him as he flew by the pantyhose clad legs, past a dark blue skirt and then past a matching jacket laid neatly over a white blouse. Once at the gigantic woman’s face, he hadn’t even a second to take in that pony-tailed Gulliverian's pretty facial features before she opened wide and devoured him.
Though it wouldn’t be the case with her Brobdingnagian companion and a Lilliputian, Himari’s size difference with the guard meant she felt him squirming down her throat. Her throat, in turn, actually had to work a bit to squeeze the inch-tall man, covered in saliva and esophageal slime, down to her gut.
Slimy flesh greeted him inside Himari’s stomach. That came alongside an atmosphere so torrid and acrid it was a wonder he could breath without his lungs melting. He figured if he lived long enough in there, that could happen. At the time he had other things to worry about.
He plopped down not into watery fluids so much as gooey mush. A sensation like giant worms hit his arms and he flailed those limbs of his trying to get it off and away. Once most of it fell off his body, he pulled out his phone to see what was going on with its light.
Worms it wasn’t, but rather big Gulliverian scale noodles. They wrapped about his limbs much as a boa constrictor would or some especially slimy, thick jungle vines. All his work getting some of them off went to naught as that stomach churned and he was thrust into the pile of whatever noodle dish Himari had for lunch. The smells of the meal were many, but all were overpowered by the acidic air of the Gulliverian gut.
With a scream of despair, his phone fell into those churning waters and the light fizzled out. He couldn’t make out whatever else she ate, but it felt far mushier to the unwilling touch than the noodles. Each churn bounced him around.
Using all his strength, he pulled himself free of the digestive mash to pound at Himari’s stomach, desperate to get out. His fists, red with irritation from all the acids, slid off the mucus-lined walls of the gut. Still, he pounded until the walls pounded back alongside some words of the Gulliverian he was too angry and desperate to make out.
From that, he fell. And from there, a churn coated him in stomach slurry once more. He struggled to get back up to repeat himself with less strength behind it.
--==--==--==--
“Mmmm, bit active in there.” said Himari. She gently patted her stomach, fingers drumming at the area with her business garbs softening the effect. She felt his flurry of activity cease for a moment, so it must’ve worked, but he went back to pounding away.
It was pleasant, but she was professional and tried not to take too much visible enjoyment out of it. She then noticed all the executives still watching.
“My apologies, but there will be no use for your security at our meeting.”
“Meeting?!?”, said Mr. Gonzalez. “Meeting!!! You ate him alive!”
Himari moved her hand to her ear and made out his words just barely.
“Yes, I did. I’m sure you Lilliputians know well the history of your kind being devoured. And, yes, a meeting. Now, I can hear you, barely, without aid, but would you all mind putting on your headsets? I’m sure you have some. Turn the code to 256, it’s the only one our staff hasn’t blocked, and even then you’ll only be able to communicate with us.”
“Your staff? You mean you were responsible for the power outage?!”, shouted Mr. Gonzalez.
“Mr. Gonzalez, please, your headsets. I will have to insist on them before I field any questions.”, said a smiling Himari.
Mr. Gonzalez begrudgingly donned his headset and the rest of the executives followed. They heard her voice over it a bit less boomy. Of course, Himari and her staff could hear them clearly now too. In particular, Lachelle could. The headsets helped the bigger sized people hear the smaller more than the other way around.
“Test, test.” said Himari.
“I can hear you!”, said Mr. Gonzalez. “We can all hear you, now tell us what’s going on!”
Politely smiling, Himari began.
“Well, as I said, I’m here on as an Acquisition Coordinator on behalf of Oshie Corporation.”
“Acquisition Coordinator, what are you talking about? That Brobdingnagian is with you, isn’t she?”
Himari kept talking, one hand folded above the other single-ring-wearing one by her waist. She smiled a tad wider, her tone professional--as always--in contrast to Mr. Gonzalez’s indignant shouting.
“Yes, she is an Acquisition Specialist. And yes, I’m the Acquisition Coordinator here. My job right now is to help facilitate the acquisition of the ‘Lilliadventures Inc.’ business. I believe you are the CEO, Mr. Gonzalez, is that not correct?”
“No that’s not-I mean, yes I’m Mister Gonzalez, but we never sold the company.”
Himari smiled.
“Ah, but you recently put stock in the company for sale on Brobdingnagian markets. Oshie Corporation has brought up enough to have majority share, more than 99% actually. That means you are now owned by us.”
“What!”, said Mr. Gonzalez. He stepped forward, a tad closer to those looming ivory flats. Himari simply watched, that small, professional smile on her face.
“That’s impossible! Those stocks had no voting rights. They only paid dividends, you don’t ‘own’ 99% of the company, your employer would just get 99% of that value. You have to be mistaken, my business is mine!”
Himari bowed her head just a tad.
“Non-voting shares are illegal and invalid under Brobdingnagian laws. All the shares you issued were instead converted to actual ownership shares. Oshie Corporation, my employer, has enough to take command of your entire company. The shares you own are essentially a rounding error in comparison.”
Mr. Gonzalez was livid.
“That’s not, that can’t be true! My lawyers would’ve told me!”
“Your lawyers were probably only familiar with Lilliputian laws, and to be fair this one is rather esoteric. You have to know what to look for, at least that’s what our company's lawyers say on the matter. The mistake you made was actually quite common.”, said Himari.
“No, no that can’t be.” Mr. Gonzalez was stunned. His mind was wracked trying to process how he just gave up his entire company. He deflated before the smiling Himari. Her facial expression was near the same, but the slight increase to her smile, and a twinkle in her eyes, seemed to hint she took a quiet enjoyment out of delivering this news.
Someone else chimed up with a question. It was the old buzzard of an executive: Mr. Smith.
“Wait, but if you own the company, why are you in the city? Why are you here? Why not just send messengers to tell us how you want the company run?”
“Because we are here to acquire the company as an asset. We have no interest in letting you continue managing yourselves, even with our input. We’re here to collect your company’s assets, not to set up shop, so to speak.”
“Our assets?”
“Yes, the building in particular, but also the employees.”
“For what purpose?!?”, said Mr. Gonzalez, snapping back into it. “Are you gonna liquidate my building? Melt it down to scrap? Pick my company apart?”
“I’m just an employee of Oshie Corporation. I help handle the acquisition, whatever happens after isn’t always something I’m privy to, nor could I disclose it, per-se, if I were. I’m just making sure the building is retrieved in one-piece, and this courtyard as intact as possible. I can promise we’re trying for that, at least.”
“Wait, retrieved? And you mentioned my employees, you’re kidnapping us?”
“Kidnapping? Oh no no, you don’t understand Mr. Gonzalez. Your Oshie Corporation property now. You are owned. My employer, Oshie Corporation, can’t kidnap something it already owns. In particular, Ms. Oshie herself owns you, indirectly, since she has all the shares of her own company--unlike you.”
“I-I... that is why you’re here then. That Brobdingnagian of yours killed hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, to get here and kidnap us?”
“No, retrieve.”
“You know what I mean you bitch! This can’t be legal.”
He was waving his arms to shout now. His fist pounded at the sky. He took a step closer to Himari, and she followed suit. Her foot lifted and she took a ginger step forward. That foot of hers slammed down just a few Gulliverian inches away from Mr. Gonzalez. He tumbled onto his behind, and all the executives farther back stumbled at the least.
“An astute observation”, she began, taking just one more ground-vibrating step closer. “It is indeed illegal by Lilliputian laws, Mr. Gonzalez. However, the lands of Brobdingnag have no such laws.”
“You smug...” Mr. Gonzalez stood back up and brushed off his suit pants. His gel-inundated hair didn’t need fixing, at least.
“The Lilliputian government won’t tolerate this.”
“Our governments have something of an agreement. The peace-treaty between our nations had some non-public stipulations. You must understand that your kind was negotiating with people thousands of times their size. That sort of leverage wasn’t something our country would ignore, and Oshie Corporation was just one of the many Brobdingnagian businesses lobbying our government administration for special provisions.”
“’Our governments’, what do you mean ‘our governments’. You’re a Gulliverian, not a Brobdingnagian.”
“I choose my words carefully. You may find this hard to believe, but I’m a full-fledged Brobdingnagian citizen.”
“So you’re nothing but a dirty traitor? A corporate prostitute. A cold-hearted bi-”
“Hey!”, said a new voice. It roared over the Lilliputians with a gale of humid air. They had to press their feet to the courtyard ground to stay standing. Their headsets also relaid the word, a good deal clearer and less bone-rocking.
Lachelle had spoken for the first time since the meeting started, but soon as she did Himari raised an arm and waved it, then spoke herself.
“Thank you, but it’s quite alright.” She said. Her own face stayed smiling at Mr. Gonzalez.
“This isn’t the first time someone has lashed out at me for simply stating the facts of a situation. Just remain on standby for now.”, Himari said, continuing the thought.
The Gulliverian business woman lowered her arm back to its professional and polite place. She then continued speaking.
“Though it’s true I don’t have as many protections as an actual Brobdingnagian human, I certainly enjoy more than you or any Gulliverian citizen. Oshie Corporation is an equal opportunity employer, and they treat me very well. I see no shame in working for a company, under a government, that offers me the most benefits. Surely as a business man you can understand?”
“The media will have a field day on this!”, said Mr. Gonzalez. He had quickly recovered from the thoom of the Brobdingnagian's voice. A single word served as a potent reminder of her immense strength. “Oshie Corporation has slaughtered millions this day, that won’t go unnoticed, Mrs. Yamamoto.”
Himari giggled.
“The media won’t even know of this. There’s no connection signals to upload videos with. Almost every offline camera is already powered down by the elite tech team in my Brobdingnagian associate’s bracelet. The few cameras they couldn’t get to, without any sort of connectivity to start with, will be found by the team of lawyers currently assessing the city for property values.”
Gonzalez was too angry to speak. The executives behind him were horrified, color fading from many a Lilliputian face.
Himari continued.
“Of course, even if we miss some, there are upload filters on every major video site to stop word from getting out. The official story will be a series of unfortunate gas-line explosions, total accident or, if the damage is too ‘undeniable’, a one-off Brobdingnagian lone-wolf causing a ruckus. Perhaps some tipsy college student from Brobdingnagian lands wandered over here? I’m sure you’ve heard of similar stories before, did you really believe them?”
She laughed again.
“I suppose that can happen for real now and then, but for the most part it was us, or companies just like us, taking what’s ours. Do you understand now, Mr. Gonzalez?”
Mr. Gonzalez just stood at Himari like an animal in headlights. He still couldn't find any words. His blood felt hot, throbbing through every vein in his body. Anger truly paralyzed him.
Then, something took him out of it. A rhythmic sound of air being cut by blades. A chugging roar of a motor. It was the helicopters! He turned to face the air-hanger building where they came from. A good four Lilliputian transport crafts were flying over: more than enough for him and all the executives.
Himari watched them as well. Her eyebrows raised for a moment, but otherwise she just stood there. They landed about 50ft or so away from the executives.
“Ha!”, shouted Mr. Gonzalez. “Well we’re not gonna be part of this. We’re leaving. I can’t stop you from taking over my building or whatever it is, but I’m not about to stay here and get swiped away.”
Mr. Gonzalez started moving to the helicopters. His executives were already running over.
Himari said nothing. She just took a couple steps forward and stepped right atop the closest helicopter. Right before the executives boarded it, the entire vehicle exploded beneath her shoe.
“You won’t be going anywhere. As I said before...”
Himari lifted her other leg and stomped out the next closest helicopter.
“You are all Oshie Corporation property now, and will be coming with me.”
The other two helicopters got the memo that this wouldn’t work, and they took off. One executive fell off after trying to grab onto the low hanging bars of the air-craft to ride. That ended up being for the best, as the Gulliverian woman snatched the thing out of the sky.
Himari held the third helicopter in hand. Its blades were bent like the broken wings of a fly. With a smile on her face, she clenched her fingers and flattened it.
The last helicopter tried to fly right by her, but she startled everyone with the loud sound of a clap. That and a twist of her palms was all it took to crush it right out of the sky. It fell to the ground, by her feet, and she snuffed out the inferno of a wreck with a twist of her right flat.
“There we go. Like I said, you are coming with us. In fact, I need to ask you a few questions first. But, just to be safe.”
Himari placed a hand on her ear just to make sure her headset, which was already on, picked up her words like it should.
“Lachelle, you can destroy the air-hanger.”
“Yes Ma’am.”, said Lachelle. The words stunned the Lilliputians once more, but the following sight truly took their breath away.
Lachelle leaned forward and moved her finger over the air-hanger building, which stood thousands of feet away from the towering skyscraper of an HQ structure. All the executives watched, stunned as always, as that enormous dark pillar of a finger plunged down like a mountain in its own right.
The air-hanger barely had time to break. It just flattened really, deflated, beneath a finger’s tip. The hand withdrew and the only thing left was dust and rubble.
Himari gave them a few moments to take that in, just a few, before she chimed up.
“Now then, Mr. Gonzalez, I have some questions for you.”
She took one step closer to the CEO. He fell off his feet once again.