Strained Relations - The Morganite Succession

By Alinestra Covelia, with input from Buster's Uncle



In the aftermath of the 10-10-10 attacks, the news that CEO Morgan was inaccessible was bad enough. Worse was yet to come: on the second day, it surfaced that his will was inaccessible too.

A frenetic search quickly uncovered the relevant file in an encoded data node the day after the attacks, but the Morgan clan seemed oddly reticent about its contents. Something convulsed the supreme First Family of Morgan Industries, and they weren't telling what.

Nnamdi Atanwe was the first to figure it out. On the second day, security forces took a considerable number of junior family members into custody for questioning. A quick call to a few friends in the security detail told him all he needed to know: the family needed to cooperate in order to crack the password to Morgan's will, and the last members to be contacted wanted a higher share in return for their passcodes. After talks got nowhere, the seniors lost their patience and began applying police pressure on their younger family members. The weakness of their legal theory - obstruction of justice - seemed to bother nobody amid the chaos. With its CEO and other major officers lost in the Meet wreckage, the corporation drifted rudderless as numerous lieutenants jostled for captaincy.

Atanwe noted that only a handful of Morgans were released on the third day. The remainder must have been tough bastards indeed to continue withholding their codes. He decided it was time to act.

The proposed shareholder vote seemed well-intentioned enough on the face of it. The Morgan family was still embroiled in the search for its scion's will and testament - the corporation needed new leadership. Atanwe contacted Godswill Tsefeye in Research and Andre Morgan-Reilly in Holographics, and hammered together the language to change the board. After hours of holopode conferences with other concerned stakeholders, Atanwe proposed a shareholder vote: to appoint an interim board of directors, replacing the Morgan family scions until such time as their family had stabilized the issue of the will.

Tsefeye was skeptical. "The employees and workers don't care to have another oligarchy in place of the old nepotism," he said. The employees and workers individually held the smallest numbers of shares, but if the calculations were to be believed, enough of them had accumulated bonuses for good work over the past decade to make them a serious voting bloc.

Atanwe reassured him. "Make the language plain and simple," he said. "This is not an ouster. We need stability and calm - new leadership until the family sorts out its problems. Every hour of chaos that goes by destroys shareholder wealth. They'll understand that."

Tsefeye was still doubtful. "How will you convince them? Most of them don't look like the types who read the fine print in contracts."

Atanwe smiled. "We'll try to get Reilly on board."

Andre Morgan-Reilly had never had much love for the Morgan family. He'd married into their clan, but the woman he'd married seemed happy enough to keep her two romantic companions from before, and furthermore to use his hard-earned profits for the Holographics division to feed and clothe them. The divorce had been mercifully quiet, but Morgan-Reilly had nurtured a not-so-quiet dislike of the clan ever after. It didn't help that he was still their employee either.

"I like it," he said bluntly. "Hit them while they're down."

Atanwe made a placating gesture. "We are not looking to remove them permanently just because of the emergency," he said. "This is strictly temporary."

Morgan-Reilly grimaced. "Ten years they've been feeding off the backs of the workers they employ," he muttered. "Now their Great Sun is dead and you see the vermin crawling about looking for any leaf to hide under. People are pissed, Atanwe. People are ready for an overthrow, and all they need is a nudge from the media."

Atanwe sighed. "And what happens when they get tired of us, in three weeks' time?" he asked wearily. "You can't go toppling your board as if they're dictators. We must follow the corporate articles. Otherwise, we have anarchy. You need to make them see - our only goal here is to stabilize the board and resume business as usual under interim leadership."

"Define 'interim'," said Morgan-Reilly.

"Say, until the next shareholder standard vote," Atanwe said.

The other man was silent for a moment. This lent itself to interesting possibilities. What the shareholders vote in today as an emergency measure might - with adequate cultivation - hold for reaffirmation next year. If they were happy with the work in between.

"Before I commit myself, I need to know for sure that Morgans aren't coming back," he said at last. "It's true I can usually make the media say what I need them to, but if they bounce back and look around for heads to lop, they'll know who called the shots."

Atanwe nodded. "I'm still checking up all my leads. I think they're still looking for the will, and I think it requires complete consensus before they can resolve the situation."

Morgan-Reilly broke into a broad, vindictive grin. "Well, you should be just fine then. I'll be standing by."

Atanwe sat back and pondered. If the family needed every last passcode to unify itself again, what would happen if one of the codes was forever buried?

He plumbed through the newsfeeds from the past two months, and found the name he was looking for - one hand already reaching for the holopode controls.

* ~ * ~ *

Director Chukwumba sat shivering in the darkness, trying to ignore the increasing nausea. They had bundled him into this isolation cell with the final words "You hold the key to your own release" and sealed the door.

The cell was comfortable enough - no sharp edges, no hard surfaces without adequate padding, and the temperature was even balmy warm. But his shivering had nothing to do with the heat. A man of his age tended to carry ailments and imperfections of the body, such as the need for dialysis.

Additionally, a man of his age might forget minor details - such as the passcode needed to unlock the Morgan will.

He sat back, mouth open and breathing shallow, as his family outside engaged their corporate civil war in earnest.

* ~ * ~ *

The security men hailed the residence once. Then again. When no response was forthcoming, they broke open the door and swarmed into the apartment.

Inside, the place was a ransacked mess. The security officers hesitated, then went in, pistols low. Inside the solarium, they found him, sitting shoeless and tie askew around his neck, staring into the middle distance.

"Mister Nwora Nwabudike," they said.

He made a waving gesture of dismissal.

"You are Nwora Nwabudike?" they asked.

He bit his lip and turned away. The guard sergeant nodded, and went forward with the scanner.

"I am taking you into custody, Director, under the powers given to me by the corporate charter. As per the requirements of the shareholder vote, we are to remove you from the indicia of office and to confiscate corporate equipment from your possession."

Nwora held out a hand. The sergeant scanned it, then nodded.

"I'm sorry, Mister Nwora," he said gently. He brought out the restrainers and deftly locked Nwora's hands with them.

"Help yourself to whatever's left," the civilian said gamely. "She took everything already."

"Who did?" asked the sergeant sharply, but Nwora would say no more.

The sergeant synchronized reports remotely, noting that none had resisted with force so far. There was only one more house left to go. 

* ~ * ~ *

Chinwemma came in with another tumbler of whisky.

"Flora told me they got Nwora as well. Just in the last hour," she said. "His apartment was torn apart like a chestnut."

Arinze took the tumbler from her and downed it unsteadily, his statesmanly features blurring already from the alcohol.

"Nwora was weak," he said. "They won't get me that easily."

Chinwemma looked up at him. Arinze was a tall, lean man - the sort that her friends used to nickname "the plainsmen". It ran in his family, too. His cousin, Chukwumba, had the same lean shanks and lanky reach. Legend had it that the flat muscles and sprawling arms could propel a spear through still air and two consecutive shields of ironwood.

Chinwemma watched her husband loosen his tie and load a shredder pistol. Around them, other young men did likewise - retainers or majority investors or cronies, all facing certain arrest and imprisonment. Some had clear guilt on their consciences: they had misappropriated corporate funds, or taken their knowledge to gain unfair advantages, or placed themselves in positions of conflicted interest and personal gain. Others were simply the victims of guilt by association: brothers by marriage, sporting friends, trusting investors and drinking buddies. Even poor Chukwumba, she thought - even though he alone of the Directors set a high standard for frugality and honesty.

"Do you have another?" asked a young man, waving a glass at her. She stifled her distaste for his soaked breath and took it from him graciously.

"Of course," she said. Then, raising her voice, "Anything for the last real men among the Director's group."

This raised a few ragged cheers among the crowd, and a few more proffered tumblers. She brought the drinks into the dining hall and had started filling them when the intercom came to life.

"Director Arinze Morgan, this is the Security Police, with a warrant for your arrest. Open your premises and come peacefully."

She hurried out with the drinks. The men were scrambling now, taking up positions behind pillars, ducking around upturned desks and tables, peeking up across chairs.

Chinwemma turned to the intercom. A young man was standing there, his hand on the mute button.

"What do I tell them?" he asked.

Chinwemma looked at the gathered men and smiled. She held up a glass of the whisky - vintage stuff, taken from Earthside - and arched an eyebrow.

"Come get him yourself, neh?" she suggested defiantly. The men cheered as she brought the bottle among them. They drank it down and settled as the young man at the intercom passed on the message.

She was well-ensconced in the back room by the time the shredder fire broke out.

* ~ * ~ *

In a Morganite shareholder vote, especially one brought about in reaction to a share price plummet after the decapitation of the corporate officer chain, there is rarely the luxury of time. Agendas are sparse, details are few, and more usually than not, the sense of aggrieved indignation by voting shareholders carries the day.

On the third day, at a prearranged time, key voting blocs sympathetic to Nnamdi Atanwe, Godswill Tsefeye, and Andre Morgan-Reilly convened a special emergency vote removing the board of directors and installing a new interim board. In many ways, the vote was purely symbolic - many former directors were now in hiding or already in custody to answer to their family's demands for passcodes. More remarkable still, several Morgan family associates switched sides and voted for the measure - most notably Chinwemma Morgan, a recent addition to the family by marriage. Her vote against the ruling family gave considerable support for the interim leadership's cause.

Arinze Morgan had died resisting arrest, which largely locked the will of Nwabudike Morgan. There might be challenges and court-mandated overrides, to be sure, but lawsuits were lengthy affairs and the corporation would be long out of Morganite share ownership by the time the sluggish courts reached a verdict. As the fractured family clan recovered from the loss of their patriarch's personal fortune, they sought to regain the good graces of the public in the aftermath. Chinwemma's exoneration in the public eye would likely help them rehabilitate in the new corporate order. Her success, two weeks after the raids, in securing the former directors' releases from solitary confinement to house arrest also added to her reputation as an honest peacemaker.

When the triumvirs of the new board were seated, they found themselves joined by a shrewd aging housewife, armed with the still-formidable combined proxies of the remaining Morgan family. Chinwemma garnered just enough general shareholder support from both sides of the aisle to to make it stick. With the interim board divided behind the new CEO Morgan, the year to come promised to be an interesting one.

A news reporter asked about her motivation in freeing potential rivals to the family empire, during a spot on primetime Morgan-Reilly broadcasting. Her response was simple.

"We are all Morganites today," she said. "And our CEO would have wanted it thus." 