Chapter 7

Welcome Wastelanders to the Post-Apocalyptic Joe in a Cinematic Wasteland Audiobook Podcast! My name is Joe Gillis, and I’m the writer and narrator of this Serial Fiction Series. This week we’re in Chapter 7 this week, but there is a new chapter every Friday, so be sure to subscribe.

Before we jump into it, I’d like to tell you about one more thing: if you stay until the very end, you’ll get a peek behind the page with a quick tidbit about this chapter.

The story so far…

Joe was facing a crucial Board meeting and had just discovered two major program setbacks that could harm the company's profits—and potentially ruin his chances of being appointed CEO. Even with all of this hanging in the balance, he stopped testing their lab-created brain organoids once they began exhibiting consciousness. He also split Warrior's Creed MECHA IR environment into two distinct parts: one for general use which didn't include things like torture or enhanced interrogations, while the other could be sold to the military for training purposes.

Now let’s go ahead and jump right in that chapter.

Chapter 7

The Board in their infinite wisdom decided that I didn’t have the business experience needed to grow the company into what they believed we were capable of, even though we were already poised to have one of the largest IPOs ever. They appointed me President and hired Martin Connolly to be our CEO. You know, I couldn’t fault them for bringing in Martin; I mean, the guy had already successfully run multiple Fortune 500 companies that grew exponentially under his leadership. He definitely had the experience, but that didn’t mean I had to like him.

We immediately butted heads on how we wanted to run the company. I was driven by the user experience, and he was driven by money. I always felt that the money would come if we continued to build things to improve people’s lives, but he just couldn’t see how one could lead to the other. Fortunately, MECHA IR was too far along for him to meddle with, so it launched with my vision fully intact.

The public didn’t know nor care about any of our internal bickering. They just cared about the end product. MECHA IR became a massive hit with the public, causing our initial public offering for SI Tech to become one of the largest IPOs ever—which was somehow credited to freakin’ Martin.

 Years passed with plenty of fighting between me and Martin. Despite all of our “disagreements,” everything was going great until news broke that our company sold the military torture scenarios.

Leaked footage showed them using one of our torture scenarios as “enhanced interrogation techniques” on an “enemy combatant.” Anyone who used the MECHA IR tech knew that it felt exactly like the real thing. They tried to say it was gentler to the body than waterboarding someone, but both messed with the mind, and I knew our tech was worse because it allowed them to take it further than they would have if they were doing it in the real world. I was furious because this was all done behind my back, and to be honest, I felt like I was the cause of it all. But of course, that didn’t stop me from barging into Martin’s office to give him a piece of my mind.

“What the heck have you done, Martin?!”

“What I was brought in t’ do… make money. Which ye should be thankin' me fer, not attackin' me. Weren’t the torture scenarios yer own idea anyway?”

“Yes, but it was a mistake. A big mistake.”

“Not based on the amount the US government paid us. As ye'd say in America: I think you hit this one out of the park.”

“What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing. How the user decides t’ use our tech shouldn’t be up t’ us once they’ve bought it.”

“Our tech? You mean my tech.”

“Aren’t ye forgettin' da true brains behind it all? Oh, aye, that’s right, yer da ‘ideas guy,’” Martin, of course, made sure he poured salt on the wound by using air quotes. “Ye know, Joe, ye’d be nowhere right now if it wasn’t for Sanjay and Maya.”

“You know, Martin, you’d be nowhere right now if it wasn’t for the three of us.”

“Keep remindin' yerself o' that, Joe. The board had thar reasons fer pickin' me t' run this company.”

“How do companies keep falling for that old Martin charm?”

“It must be me charm of all charms—money. An' I'm makin' ‘em a ton of it.”

“You’re going too far to turn a buck with our tech. First, I hear that you’re integrating AI tech with the freakin’ organoids—which I thought had been shut down since the dang things were gaining consciousness—now you’re selling the government a torture device!”

“I’m not selling the government a torture device—technically, that’s on ya. As fer integrating AI with the organoids, well that’s t’ keep children safe.”

“To keep children safe?”

“That's what we're hopin' fer.”

“How’s that?”

“Now you wouldn’t have me go putting implants in children without testing it, would ya? I'm not the complete monster ye be thinkin' me t' be.”

“Why are we even thinking of doing that? For more money?”

“Ye need t' stop being so daft. The sooner ye realize that we’re a business, the sooner I think we could move past these wee little squabbles of ours. If not, ye’ll just have to feck off. Ye know I’m quite pressed fer time.”

“Man, this is low, even for you.”

“Could ye shut the door on yer way out?”

We were making plenty of money, but I guess that wasn’t enough. It was beginning to feel like we as a company just didn’t care about the consequences of our actions. And who knew what else we were doing?

I’m a guy that cracks jokes at all the wrong times—heck, that’s gotten me into my fair share of trouble in the past, like telling funny stories about my sister while people were standing in line to pay their respects at her funeral. I knew if she were alive, she’d be joining in with me, but other people may have not known her that way, or they just felt it was disrespectful. Either way, I found myself in another situation where people felt I needed to shut the heck up.

I became very vocal about all of it and publicly fought to end the military using our tech for torture. I knew Yoda was right, ‘Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.’ Martin and the Board disagreed with me.

You know, even though the Board and I didn’t see eye-to-eye on all of this, I tried to get them to oust Martin. Problem was, he must have caught wind of it, and talked to the Board of Directors pushing his own agenda—which he let me know as we headed to the Board meeting.

“Ya know, ya shouldn’t have gone public. Ya signed a non-disparagement agreement that forbids ya from doin’ just that. Or did ya not remember that part?”

To be honest I had gotten so caught up in doing what I felt was right that I had forgotten all about that—but I certainly wasn’t going to let him know that.

“You know what? Some things are more important than a job.”

“I discussed our situation with the Board, and I have all the votes I need to be rid of ya.”

“Wait… Are you—are you trying to fire me from my own company?”

“Aye, that's the long and short of it. Now isn't 't?”

This concludes Chapter 7 of Post-Apocalyptic Joe in a Cinematic Wasteland. Written by Joe Gillis and read by Joe Gillis.

Man, Joe’s life is turned upside down at the end of this chapter. The story of a Board pushing out a President of a company was something I got to experience first-hand years ago. The Board removed the President, who was one of the three founders, of the software company I worked for in the early 2000s. Nothing about it was like what I wrote here, but it was interesting to see how things work with a Board.

So let me ask you, what do you think Joe will do now?

I hope I see you next Friday, because this next episode is going to be a real doozy. Of course, you could jump into it now by joining Joe’s Post-Apocalyptic Army at CinematicWasteland.com and get up to 4 weeks early a membership. There is even a free level that gives you access to the Podcast or Web Novel one week early. I’ll post a link in the show notes.

If you enjoyed what you heard, hit subscribe to continue to get a new chapter every week.

Thanks for joining me on this crazy journey! See you on the flip side!

Post-Apocalyptic Joe in a Cinematic Wasteland copyright 2023, Joe Gillis, All rights reserved. This is a Jowagi Production and is distributed by Slacker Entertainment.