"That would be acceptable," I say, because the slogan seems appropriately commemorative of today's victory. "Though I would suggest perhaps ordering one for each member of the surviving staff. It will build unit cohesion."
This time, Cypress does smile, a quick flash of expression that transforms her tired face into something unexpectedly luminous. "Alright," she says, and she straightens her spine, squares her shoulders, meets my eyes with a directness that I find deeply satisfying. "Alright, Knox Bloodaxe, Warchief of the Bloodaxe Clan. You've got yourself a First Mate. But I have conditions."
"Name them."
"First, I need access to all financial records immediately. If I'm going to help you run this company, I need to know exactly what we're working with." She holds up a second finger. "Second, I get final say on any hiring or firing decisions in the administrative departments. I know who's actually pulling their weight around here and who's been coasting on nepotism." A third finger joins the first two. "And third, you have to promise not to literally break down any more doors. The facilities budget is already stretched thin enough without adding structural repairs."
I consider her terms carefully, because a Warchief who does not honor negotiations is a Warchief who will soon find himself without allies. The first two conditions are reasonable, even advantageous, as they will allow her to deploy her strategic capabilities more effectively. The third is... problematic, as breaking down doors is one of my preferred methods of establishing dominance, but I recognize that some adaptation may be necessary when operating in human corporate environments.
"Agreed," I say finally, "with the modification that I reserve the right to break down doors in cases of genuine emergency or when dealing with particularly offensive incompetence."
Cypress considers this for a moment, then nods. "I can work with that. But I get to define what constitutes 'particularly offensive incompetence.'"
"Acceptable." I extend my hand, and after a moment's hesitation, she takes it. Her fingers are small and cool against my palm, delicate bones that I could crush without effort, and I am suddenly very aware of the necessity of careful pressure control. I shake once, firmly but gently, and release before I can do any damage. "Welcome to the Bloodaxe Clan, First Mate Evans. Your first assignment begins immediately."
I turn to survey the rest of the conference room, cataloging the human assets with a general's eye for deployment potential. The tall male with the receding hairline appears to have stopped crying, which is promising. The female in the corner has managed to extract her colleague from the decorative plant arrangement, which demonstrates useful problem-solving capabilities. The others are still somewhat shell-shocked, but that is to be expected. Conquered territories always require a period of adjustment.
"All of you," I announce, at command volume, "will report to First Mate Evans for reassignment within the hour. Those who demonstrate competence and loyalty will be retained with improved compensation. Those who do not will be liquidated." I pause, then add, because Cypress is making a face that suggests I have said something concerning, "From the payroll. I am fully aware that human corporate law frowns upon physical dismemberment in the workplace. I merely appreciate the tactical impact of the dual meaning."
"Right," Cypress says, and there is definitely amusement in her now, though she is attempting to hide it behind aprofessional expression. "It is a highly effective financial term. Though maybe we can workshop your delivery a little bit before the all-hands meeting."
"Noted." I gesture toward the door, or rather, toward the doorframe where the door used to be before I introduced it to my boot. "Show me to the accounting records. I wish to assess the full scope of what I have conquered."
What I have conquered, as it turns out, is a disaster of such magnificent proportions that I am momentarily rendered speechless. We stand in what Cypress identifies as the "financial records room," though "room" seems a generous term for what is essentially a converted supply closet stuffed with filing cabinets that appear to have been organized by a blindfolded badger with a grudge against alphabetical order. Papers spill from every surface, sticky notes in various stages of decay plaster the walls like the remnants of a siege, and there is a smell in the air that suggests something has died and been left to decompose beneath one of the many, many stacks of unsorted documentation.
"It's not usually this bad," Cypress says, though her tone suggests she is lying for the sake of morale. "Gerald was supposed to digitize everything last quarter, but he got distracted by some kind of farming simulation game and..." She trails off, gesturing helplessly at the chaos surrounding us.
I extract a folder that is labeled, inexplicably, "MISC 2019-2023 (MAYBE)." Inside, I find expense reports mixed with tax documents mixed with what appears to be someone's personal medical records mixed with a takeout menu from a restaurant that, based on the faded quality of the paper, has been out of business for at least five years.
"This is an insult."
Cypress winces. "Yeah, it's pretty bad."
"Pretty bad." I turn to face her fully, and I can feel my tusks aching with the effort of not grinding them together in fury. "First Mate Evans, I have seen battlefield medic tents with better organizational systems than this. I have seen orc encampments after three days of victory celebrations that were more orderly than this. I have seen..." I pause, searching for an adequate comparison. "I have seen the aftermath of a troll negotiation that was more comprehensible than whatever filing methodology has been applied to these records."
"In their defense," Cypress says, though she does not sound particularly defensive, "the previous management didn't really prioritize administrative infrastructure. They were more focused on... well, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure what they were focused on. Looking busy during board meetings, mostly."
I pull open another drawer, then another, each one revealing new depths of bureaucratic chaos. Ledgers with entries that have been crossed out and rewritten so many times they are essentially illegible. Spreadsheets printed on paper and then annotated by hand with corrections that contradict each other from page to page. A folder labeled "IMPORTANT - DO NOT LOSE" that contains nothing but a single dried-out pen and a receipt for office supplies from 2017.
"The tax documentation," I growl, flipping through a stack of papers that appears to be quarterly reports from three different years shuffled together with no apparent logic. "Where is the tax documentation?"
Cypress moves to a cabinet in the corner and pulls out a box that has been sealed with approximately seventeen layers of packing tape. "This is everything from the last audit," she says, setting it on the one clear surface in the room, which happens to be the top of another filing cabinet. "I've been trying to get Gerald to sort through it for the past eight months, but..."
"The mobile games," I finish grimly.
"The mobile games," she confirms.
I begin cutting through the tape with one claw, slicing through the layers of adhesive with the same precision I would apply to filleting an enemy's defenses. Inside, the documentation is, if anything, worse than what I have already seen. Tax forms are incomplete. Deduction records are missing entirely. There are calculations in the margins that appear to have been done by someone with only a passing familiarity with basic arithmetic, and several entries list expenses that I am fairly certain are not legitimate business costs under any interpretation of the regulatory code.
"This figure here," I say, pointing to a number that has been circled several times in red ink. "This is the total claimed for the infrastructure depreciation exemption, yes?"
Cypress leans in to look, and I am momentarily distracted by the proximity, by the smell of her hair which is something floral beneath the general staleness of the records room, by the way her shoulder brushes against my arm as she peers at the document. "That's what it looks like," she says, frowning. "But that can't be right. That exemption caps out at fifteen percent of qualified assets, and based on the asset documentation I've seen, this number is way too high."
"Agreed." I pull out my phone and begin running calculations, muttering the figures under my breath as I work through the arithmetic. "If the total qualified assets are approximately four point seven million, and the exemption rate is fifteen percent, then the maximum allowable deduction would be..." I pause, double-checking my mental math. "Approximately seven hundred and five thousand. This claim is for one point two million, which would require qualified assets of eight million, which based on the depreciation schedules I have reviewed is not possible unless they have been significantly underreporting in previous years."
Cypress is quiet for a moment."That's... not quite right. The exemption rate is fifteen percent, yes, but it's fifteen percent of the depreciated value, not the original asset value. You have to calculate the accumulated depreciation first and then apply the percentage to the remaining book value."
I blink, processing this correction. She is right. Of course she is right. The depreciation adjustment is a basic element of the calculation, and I had overlooked it in my eagerness to identify the discrepancy. It is a minor error, the kind of mistake that happens when one is processing new information too quickly, but it is still an error, and I am not accustomed to having my calculations corrected.
