Its Just Business

Nap Time

By the time they'd made it back to their room, John's excited demeanor had waned, and he collapsed onto his bed in exhaustion. Will decided to let the poor guy sleep. It'd been a long day for the both of them. Thankfully, he hadn't had as rough of a morning as John had. So he tried to suppress a smile as John began to snore softly. That Mr. McCallister was an... interesting guy, to say the least.

No- wait- Jonathan McCallister was a bad guy, Will reminded himself, best not to let this Stockholm syndrome muddle his thoughts. He gently chastised himself for letting this man get between him and the money, and turned from the bed, setting out to wander the halls and get lost in his thoughts.

He eventually found himself in what seemed to be a conference room of sorts, and the lights clicked on as he walked in, looking around in his perfected manner of disinterested curiosity and subconsciously taking in every minute detail of the room. The seat at the head of the table was creased and worn, parts of the leather upholstery seemed split in parts, and it looked well loved. The table, in comparison, looked pristine, as if it had come straight off the factory floor- or, this was an upscale place, they'd probably bought it handcrafted. The surface shone in the midday sunlight that was desperately trying to push through the drawn curtains, and upon closer inspection, Will couldn't find a single scratch or even a sign that the table had seen any use at all. Will couldn't quite understand why, but it unnerved him, nobody kept their things looking this nice- and the chair, it seemed so out of place in the-

Footsteps. Will froze, his hand still on the glossy tabletop. Do something, his brain yelled at him, but he kept his eyes off the door, gently lifted his hand, and rubbed his sweater against the table to hopefully remove his fingerprints. They were getting closer, he thought, as he heard footsteps getting louder, closer and closer. And then, all at once, the door- which hadn't shut, but was more or less closed- flew open, and Caldwell marched in with his lackeys, passing by Will completely, and sitting in the worn chair at the head of the table. The others sat in the four chairs closest to Caldwell, and everyone seemed to be waiting tensely for Caldwell to speak.

David Caldwell didn't speak so much as yell. Will wondered if it was just a misfortunate side effect of hearing his own voice echo back at him through the stadium all day, but got the feeling that this was his typical tone when the lackeys didn't even flinch. They'd closed the door behind them, no escape that way. He'd just have to wait it out, he thought, sitting on the ground. One of the lackey's eyes flicked in his direction when he landed on the hardwood with a quiet thud, but he quickly returned his attention to the man at the head of the table.

"Zeke!" Caldwell barked at one of the men, who immediately put his phone away. "Please," there was a note of desperation in David's voice, "tell me that you ordered everything for tomorrow. We can't afford for anything to go wrong now."

"Y-yes sir," Zeke looked like a big, burly man, one of the guards that had been flanking Caldwell earlier, Will recognised, but his voice fit more of a prepubescent teen, nasally and high. Will almost felt bad for the kid. "I got everything, even the-"

"Ah-" Caldwell stopped him, his eyes flicking to where Will sat, unseen, on the floor. "lets keep the details to ourselves just a few moments longer, shall we?" Zeke nodded, and Caldwell smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. Unnerving, Will thought, sitting stock still on the ground, hardly daring to breathe. "What about you, Charlie? Any news on the..." Another glance at him. "Thing?"

"Yessir," the man diagonal from Zeke spoke up, clearing his throat. "I worked everything out with the bank, and they're willing to subsidize us within reason."

"Good, good," Another no-eyes smile. It made Will want to look away. "Now I'm sure you all know that this isn't the real reason I called you all here. What's more pressing than a couple of online orders or a bank loan is your performance today.

"What about it, boss?"

"I don't know," There was finally emotion in Caldwell's eyes, but it didn't look good, "The fact that you weren't able to do a single thing that I asked of you?" The beings of seemingly pure muscle managed to shrink like children being lectured by their parents. "I request just a few simple things- simple," he repeated the word, "things. And somehow you fuck each and every one up. Like Tom- what on Earth was your performance during that scavenger hunt!? Its like you practically gave them everything they needed! Do you all not remember our goal here?"

"Work hard, play harder" the four repeated in unison.

"No not that-" If Caldwell's head could explode, now would be the time. His face was almost purple, and Will could count the bulging veins. "Nevermind," Caldwell said, his eyes flicking in Will's direction again, "We'll discuss this again, if you all can't figure your shit out by tomorrow."

They flowed out of the room, Caldwell leading the parade. It was only when the last lackey- the only one other than Caldwell who seemed to see through his invisibility spell- had gone that Will finally exhaled and let his guard down. Gingerly, he got up off the ground, and the motion-sensored lights came back on. He quickly left the room before Caldwell and his goons could return and made his way back to the room, where he must have woken John up by slamming the door. Something was definitely up, and his moral disagreement with the weirdly emotional businessman had flown out the window as he quickly explained to the still groggy and understandably standoffish man what had happened in the room, cryptic language and all.