Abaddon, Inc.

Seven years. Seven years I toiled with this company. I put my whole life into it. Working nights, weekends, and frequent seventy two hour stretches with no breaks, all for the brass ring; all for the big payoff.

Indeed I could look back at the last seven years of my life and see myself behind a desk at the office. Almost as if I took all those years and crumpled them up like an old post it, then threw them away.

I was certain when we started that I would be retiring by the time I was forty. Now look at me. Here I am at forty and too broke to even file for bankruptcy. The irony makes me laugh on the outside and weep like a little girl on the inside.

But let me back up a little bit. I own a video game company with two other men. Both are English and have been in the industry a long time. Twenty years a piece. They are both my age. My background is as an animator and artist. I originally met them when we were all working for a different company in Lake Tahoe. Everything was going smooth when the company we were working for decided to close down the Tahoe office and relocate everyone Orange County in California. I, for one, loved Tahoe, but as an animator there were not a lot of prospects in the area.

As fate would have it, Malcom and Reggie had both just come from L.A. and had no interest in returning. Malcom was quite a brilliant programmer, selling his first game as a teenager back in England. He had made a name for himself in the industry in the 90’s, first as a hot shot programmer then as a producer and finally ended up on the board of one of the largest media companies around. He left to run his own business for a while and got bought out by the company we both worked for. He was enjoying being a programmer again. Reggie’s background was in business development. He had spent two decades growing small companies into major players in the industry by bringing in top notch accounts.

Both of these English lads were completely and utterly mad. I, being a native of Berkeley California, found the madness charming. We’d work long hours together and drink until we passed out.

None of us wanting to leave Tahoe, we started our own video game company when the one we all worked for packed up and left for Orange County. We built it from scratch, Malcom building and handling the code team, myself building and managing the art team, and Reggie bringing in accounts for us to work on.

The first year was wonderful. We completed projects on time and had fun. The last six years, however have been rough going to say the least. Three failed projects and an investor who pulled out has left our company decimated. We are faced with having to lay off our entire staff of twenty people and filing bankruptcy.

I wake up nightly in cold sweats. I haven’t been paid in 4 months and with a family of four to support, I’m out of money and out of options. I tried to file bankruptcy, but learned that I am in such a miserable financial state that bankruptcy is not even a viable option. It would cost a thousand dollars I do not have. The new bankruptcy laws of 2005 make it impossible for me to file.

I can’t take my family to the street.

For the past six months Malcom and Reggie have been bringing in potential investors to bridge the financial gap to our next project. We had one group, after showing them the project, hail us as exactly what they were looking for. They even told us the money would be in our account as sure as the sun would rise. The sun rose, but they never put in the money. Gradually the three of us put everything we could muster into the company to keep it going. We all re-mortgaged our homes. I even sold everything I had of value at auction.

Yet, here we were. Individually we had no money left, yet we each had families to support. The company was finally completely and hopelessly broke. We owed one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the bank and at any time they could close us down because we were in default; begging the bankers each week to give us more time. Our employees had not been paid in two months. Most of them, looking for other work, stayed on because they had no where else to go. Then there was the other seven hundred thousand we owed other investors. Folding this company would indeed be ugly. Courts of law would be involved and lawyers.

Each week Malcom and Reggie would bring in another group of investors. We dressed up the office, got the employees who showed up that day to look busy, and tried to talk these multi millionaires into giving us a crumb to complete our project and get it on the shelf. Always we met with the same response. The project is incredible. It looks like a fantastic investment, but we need to wait six months and study our position better.

Frustration on a scale that is hard to measure is what we met with time and again.

With each pitch to each new investor Malcom and Reggie were charming and always joking and laughing; always looking for any angle to get money into the company.

When all hope was just about lost, one morning, Reggie came into the office excited and laughing.

“Would you like to kiss my feet now or later boys! I got us an investor! I set up a meeting for tomorrow morning; he is flying in from Los Angeles”

Malcom and I sat up from our depression. We spoke in unison, having the same question on our minds.

“Who?”

“Your gonna love this. He is a billionaire from L.A.; made a fortune in the feature film business and now he wants to expand to the video game industry! His main company is called Abaddon Incorporated, they have all kinds of subsidiaries. I just got off the phone with his assistant, a Mr. Apollyon. I explained the whole situation to him. We have this incredible property we are sitting on and we just need funding for six to eight months to complete it. He said his boss would be interested in seeing us and is looking for an investment exactly like this one right now. He said that one million would be too small. This guy only invests ten million and up!

“We’re on our way boys!”

Malcom was smiling, “well done”!

Now call me crazy, but I remembered hearing the words Abaddon and Apollyon in college. I must be mistaken, but I thought Apollyon was the name of a character from the bible known as “the destroyer”; Satan; the angel of hell. What a strange name. I had to ask the next logical question.

“So, what is this guy’s name? Are they both coming?”

“Yes”, Reggie replied through an enormous smile. “Uh, the assistant’s name is Damien Apollyon and his boss is a mister…uh”, Reggie looked down at his notepad, “a mister Lucifer Beelzebub.

Malcom burst out laughing, “so is this guy a nutter or what”.

“I don’t care if he calls himself Redeye McAnus as long as his money’s green”, Reggie said. “I’m telling ya, you couldn’t make this shit up”.

Being raised a catholic, I grew slightly disturbed. Just who were we dealing with anyway?

“Guys, do you know what Apollyon means?”

Malcom spoke up instantly, “sure, Apollyon is the name of “the destroyer”, he waved his hands in the air pretending to be frightened, “the angel from the bottomless pit”. The real funny bit is that Abaddon is Hell, right. These chaps better have some real cash. It aught to be a laugh anyway”.

Reggie broke in, “oh they have cash. And I intend to get a piece of that I can tell you. They better count their fingers after I shake their hands”.

I spent the ride home in a state of disbelief. Here I am, middle aged, a family to support, don’t know where my next dollar is coming from, haven’t paid the mortgage in almost ninety days, and my last hope from financial ruin lies in a film producer named Lucifer Beelzebub.

I had terrible dreams that night. I dreamt I was running nude through a shopping mall with a person right at my heals chasing me. I couldn’t see them but I knew they were bad. I ran as fast as I could, terrified. I ran full speed into a Starbucks coffee and straight to the register. Before the person chasing me could arrive, the barista handed me a venti latte and when I looked inside demons were dancing around a bon fire in the center of the cup. I felt an arm on my shoulder, the person chasing me, and turned to see who it was. That is when I woke up from the dream. I was shouting and in a cold sweat. I woke up the whole house.

The stress was starting to get to me.

I felt like I had not slept a wink when I woke the next morning. I showered to get the sleep out of my eyes and drove to work trying to prepare for yet another presentation; yet another potential “millionaire savior”.

We were scheduled to pick them up from the Reno airport at ten in the morning. We waited in the car outside the airport and Reggie got them on the phone after they disembarked from the plane.

“They’re going to meet us right out front boys”, Reggie said to us. “Be on your best behavior, this is it. I told them what car we have and where we are”.

About then I noticed two curious individuals. Both men were in jet black suits with red ties. Here, in the dead of summer, probably ninety eight degrees outside, they were both wearing overcoats as well. One man was about six foot four with black hair and black sunglasses, probably about thirty years old. He wore a black cape about his overcoat. He pushed the other much older man, who was in a wheelchair. This one had silver hair, and black sunglasses, and wore and oxygen mask and also a black hat, like a fedora, that cast a shadow over his eyes.

“I think those are our nutters now boys”, Reggie laughed.

“Overcoats? What the hell…is that a cape?”, Malcom chuckled.

As this odd duo came out of the airport exit and began to cross the roads to where we were parked several odd happenings took place. First, the man above them on the ladder washing the windows lost his balance and fell right as they walked by. As they crossed the road one a car was rear ended by another and then another car plowed into that one. As they got to the first island between the drop off and pick up roads, two men began having a fist fight and a woman tripped on the curb and fell face first into the road, causing another car to swerve to miss her and drive right into a cement wall used to keep the two roads separated. The men then took a left and waved to us when they saw the car. Just after that, one of the smaller jets coming in for a landing which we could see right behind the men, started to tip violently. As the plane went behind the main building a huge explosion rang out and we could see the remnants of a small mushroom cloud rise above the building in the distance.

I will say, all three of us were a bit stunned. With Malcom at the wheel and Reggie sitting next to him, and me in the back, we all gave each other a look, mine more distressed then my partners. Malcom and Reggie then looked at each other and shrugged then opened their doors to greet our new potential investors.

“Well you boys certainly know how to make an entrance”, Reggie started. “What do you do for an encore, blow fire from your belly buttons?”, then both he and Malcom broke into a fit of laughter.

I could see in the eyes of our guests that this remark made them a little nervous. They looked at each other then dismissed the comment and the younger man stepped forward. He had a thick accent that sounded Hungarian.

“Gentlemen, the pleasure is all mine”.

“Well not yet it isn’t”, Reggie threw in, “but once we get to the strip clubs you can tell me that again”

“And you’ll be buying, so the pleasure will be ours as well”, Malcom said.

Knowing that this is how these two characters operate, my partners, I was always the one to digress.

“Pay no mind gentlemen”.

“Oh I find it charming” Mr. Apollyon said.

This sent a shiver down me spine.

On the ride back to the office I was sandwiched between Mr. Beelzebub and Mr. Apollyon. Beelzebub kept taking deep drags off his oxygen.

“So tell me a little about your company. How many minions do you have?”, Mr. Beelzebub’s voice was deep and gravely, and you could hardly see his face with the sun glasses and fedora hat on.

“Minions?”, I said, surprised.

“Eh, yes, employees is what he means gentlemen”, Apollyon cut in, “how many employees do you have”.

“That’s ok”, Malcom said, “we like to think of them as minions too”.

At which point Reggie burst out laughing. I, hanging my head replied “twenty, but not for long”.

Reggie looked back, “But that’s what you boys will fix, right”.

“Indeed. Yes, indeed”, Beelzebub’s voice grumbled.

Back at the office Malcom and Reggie tried to keep it light.

“Here it is boys, here is where all the magic happens”, Malcom said.

“Yeah, here and my bedroom”, Reggie joked, elbowing Beelzebub in the shoulder.

Then Malcom looked at Apollyon. “Can I take your cape?”

“No thank you”, Apollyon was trying to be polite, but I could tell he was annoyed.

“What, you need it for later when you turn into a superhero”, Reggie said to Malcom’s delight. The two fell back into a fit of laughter.

“Reggie is a superhero too”, I said. “His mutant ability is the power to be extremely obnoxious”.

“Better than your mutant ability lad”, Reggie shot back, “I must warn you gentlemen that he posses the mutant power of an incredibly small penis”.

More laughter.

“Show me your minions”, Beelzebub was a man of few words. Strange words.

We walked them over to the employee bullpen.

As the meeting wore on Apollyon and Beelzebub questioned our staff intently. Asking of their abilities relating to video games, their area of expertise as related to the industry, and their affinity for evil deeds. I found the last point most bizarre.

Finally we ended up in Reggie’s office. I made a cup of Tetley tea for everyone and we all took a seat.

Reggie stood before a dry erase board, finishing his presentation.

“There you have it boys, give us some cash now, we will turn it into loads of cash for you later.”

Although we were now indoors both our guests kept their sunglasses on the whole time, and in Beelzebub’s case, the hat as well.

Apollyon stood up.

“Gentlemen, I’ll be brief. We are willing to give you a check right now in the amount of twenty million dollars, and this is just the beginning. However we are not interested in you making us more money.”

“Well if its sexual favors your looking for Malcom and I don’t do that type of thing, you’ll have to settle for him”, Reggie said, pointing at me.

Just then a loud wisp went through the room as Beelzebub took a deep hit off his oxygen, his face in shadow from the hat.

“There is always your wife, don’t forget”, Malcom laughed looking back at Reggie.

It was then that Apollyon threw back his cape and pulled from his overcoat three very large stacks of hundred dollar bills and threw them on Reggie’s desk. He followed this with a cashiers check for twenty million dollars made out to cash.

“You’re almost bankrupt gentlemen”, Apollyon said. We are offering you a solution, for almost no work at all. Rich for the rest of your lives. Whatever you want at your finger tips.

The three of us were stunned at the amount of cash, let alone the check, on the desk.

Then, for the first time Beelzebub stood up. He removed his hat and sunglasses to reveal two glowing red eyes and two horns on his forehead.

“Just in case you have been too daft to figure it out, I’m the devil boys. I don’t deal in money, I deal in souls”.

Another loud wisp went through the room and he sucked on the oxygen mask.

The three of us looked at each other. We were all days away from complete and utter financial ruin. No other options lay before us.

Reggie spoke up first.

“Alright then, let’s say we get on board, what do you want? We can offer you our three souls, but I don’t see what else we can do?”

“Well”, Apollyon now took the floor, “your souls are a given, and the souls of your minion….er, employees. We have a grander scheme however”.

He removed from his coat a contract and handed it to Reggie, presumably knowing he handled all our contracts.

“Look at paragraph 6 please”, Apollyon continued.

Reggie looked intently then spoke.

“So by signing this we are turning over the souls of our employees. Ok, I get that, but what is this part here; ‘the party of the second part shall provide for the corruption of as many souls as possible over the course of the party of the second parts natural lifetime through mind altering video images and play’”.

Beelzebub puffed off his oxygen tank and spoke up.

“My deer boy, it means you will design and make video games that corrupt the souls of any individual who plays them. That the fruit of your labor shall be to condemn as many souls as you possibly can, from now until you die, to ultimate submission and domination by me, in Hell. Apollyon will help with the design, throw in a little black magic to help soul corruption and we shall put millions on the shelves all over the world. Video game consoles and the games you develop for them will all become gateways to hell, and you will be the instrument that makes it so”

After a half hour of further discussion Reggie and Malcom had made up their minds.

“Let’s see, I’ve been busting my ass for seven years and I have nothing to show for it, now I can live like a king for the rest of my life just for condemning a few souls? Well that’s a no brainer, I’m in”, said Malcom.

“I don’t sees another choice”, added Reggie, “I have a family to support.

They both signed then slid the contract over to me. I had to be on it to make this work.

True, I was busted. No hope. I didn’t have the energy to start all over again, working the long hours building my life back from scratch. True, I was going to be evicted from my house in days. Homeless. No options. True, I wanted to retire. It is hard to fathom eternity.

I looked at the contract on the table before me, then up at Malcom and Reggie. They stared back, giving me little nods. In my peripheral vision I caught Beelzebub’s glowing red eyes. His horns started to glow red.

Apollyon put the pen in front of me.

Financial ruin or eternal damnation; why am I always faced with these kinds of decisions?