Caught up in It

"Goddamned press," Andrew Tarnick was fuming. "The frickin' Wall Street Journal. Couldn't just report that Anderson resigned. No, they had to bring up last year's party again!" He slammed the folded newspaper down on Mildred's desk. Its impact blew a few memos on to the floor.

As she stooped to recover the memos, Mildred said, "Really, Mr. Tarnick, maybe we should cancel this year's party. If they get wind of this one, it could really hurt you and Reckon."

"Never!" He angered further at Mildred's suggestion. "I'll be damned if I'll let the press force me to change my behavior. I run Reckon, not the Wall Street Journal! Besides, you know how much our management looks forward to the annual rewards party. What would they think if we cancelled it? It would be really bad for company morale."

Andrew Tarnick had bigger problems: a scheme developed by his Vice President of Marketing, which would have prevented a break in Reckon Drilling's continuous growth, was unraveling. Meetings of the Board of Directors were becoming chaotic. The disarray and confusion were encouraged (sometimes humorously) by two supernatural beings who, after appearing before the Zodiac Council for a discipline hearing (for the actions documented in The Mega-Bite Murders) had entered Reckon Drilling to fight and reveal greed--especially corporate greed.

Reckon's fabulous record would not have been possible without the computer genius of Michael Tarnick, Andrew's son. He had created a computer world that fed artificial profits into Reckon. Michael, a really nice guy, had, like so many others, become Caught Up In It.

How many innocent employees, their lovers, their families, would have their lives changed when Reckon came tumbling down!