Leighton

The agents did not look particularly friendly, but then it was not their job to be. The IRS employed them for their efficiency and skill of interrogation and auditing; friendliness was simply not a talent they had ever cultivated or found necessary to cultivate. Their cold image was accentuated by their clothing, which were dark suits with monochrome ties. They meant business.

Timothy Leighton on the other hand was the exact opposite of the stern agents. He was a people person, possessing a personality designed to quickly smooth over and gloss potential social rough spots with great effectiveness by the use of the smile, handshake, and offer of a drink.

Leaning casually against the green marble top of the wet bar in the office, he looked at the two gentlemen and smiled.

"Would either of you care for a scotch or anything?"
"Not particularly, Mr. Leighton. We're here to discuss matters of business."
"Alright. Fair enough."

Not to be put off by their demeanor, Timothy swirled his Long Island Iced Tea and took a solid drink. This was going to be a good trick, he thought to himself, but it wasn't the first time he'd faced trouble down. He had the edge. He had charisma.

As Chief Operating Officer for Largo Studios, Timothy had been a thorn in the side of governmental policymakers for at least 5 years. Back at the Point, he reminisced, he would have called them tools. They were people who made rules for the sake of making rules regardless of whether or not they made sense, and they were one lot that Timothy did not abide then, and certainly as a Chief Operating Officer of a major international production firm would not abide now.

Timothy strolled across the crushed gray carpet to his desk, a large walnut affair cluttered with errant papers, a terribly up to date and expensive computer and the remains of the day's lunch; an empty bag of cheese Combos. He shuffled the papers in a manner that made them seem relevant, which they weren't.

He had the upper hand.

"Please, take a seat guys."

The agents obligingly sat down in the leather seats across from his desk, manipulating their briefcases.

"Mr. Leighton, we've had some troubles making numbers meet in your latest filing with the Internal Revenue Service…"

"Well, what seems to be the trouble?" Timothy grinned.

The first agent coughed in preparation for what he had to say next.

"Well, apparently Largo Studios has failed to file taxes on some of it's subsidiary estates. The problem is, if this really is the case, the studio owes the IRS, uh.. Approximately 45 million dollars."

Timothy rocked back in his chair a little nervously. The leather squeaked against the Armani suit as he squirmed a bit. Where had the money gone? Hadn't that ratty attorney of his, McNealy, cleared this mess up?

"Well, y'know we've got our accountants working on it right now, and boy they're a good bunch of guys. Should be done and worked out, uh… Sometime next fiscal quarter."

"Our records show that progress on that timeline will be quite unsatisfactory."

Leighton slid the optical mouse effortlessly over to the instant messenger buddy list. McNealy's screen name was active. He double clicked it.

EvilMango - 'Sup yo? Theres some unfriendly IRS doods in my office here…
AutoResponse from ShArkY1172 - I am not available because I am playing a computer game that takes up the whole screen
EvilMango - Dammit, I know you're there…
EvilMango - Ashan!

Ashan didn't respond. He was not, as the message said, playing a computer game. He was having a cyber-affair with a random teenage girl in Sandusky Ohio, cheating on his wife of 10 years. The last thing on his mind was the financial burdens of Largo Studios. For one thing, they'd already paid him.

One of the agents leaned forward somewhat angrily. He was cross at being ignored - most heads of corporations shook in their boots when the IRS came to play ball; this one surfed the net and attempted to pretend that there weren't agents in his office.

The choice for the agents was clear, really. They'd come to the office with a destructive goal in mind, and it was up to Mr. Leighton to prove himself worthy of salvation, if there was in fact some to be offered. He had failed to do so, and rather miserably at that. It was time to drop the bombshell they had come into the office carrying.

"Mr. Leighton, we contacted your company about this nearly a year ago and frankly we are quite disappointed with your response, or should I say lack thereof. I'm afraid we're going to have to take action and liquidate your assets."

Timothy did not comprehend what the angry men wanted, how they'd gotten into his office, why they were so angry, nor why they refused free drinks. It made no sense and they were boring him, now. Surreptitiously he maneuvered the mouse on his computer to connect to the internet. What was on Penny Arcade, he wondered.

"You realize we're going to have to take the company."

They definitely had the upper hand.