[HappyHappyHierophant]

The black borders and crossbeams of the office windows cut the gray, clouded sky in perfect, uniform squares, tessellating perfectly with one another as if this were not the vast sea of cloudy sky raining down on the street twenty stories below, but a series of carefully arranged muted, slate-colored photographs. They seemed to glow faintly in the dark room, but flashes of lightning in the distance would alight the room in fury of bluish-white and spidery shadows.

Johnathan stared out seemingly into the distance, but it wasn't the faint sky line of the white buildings in the distance he was staring at. If you could get into his mind, which no one ever really could, you would see that he wasn't staring at anything. When people asked what he looked at with those semi-dead eyes of his, all he could softly reply everything. His green irises never faltered, tracing every criss-crossing alley of the city, each little car creeping past and around corners, umbrellas swimming in makeshift lanes.

[HappyHappyHierophant]

It was quiet. His hands lay dead still and cold on his lap. He was in a trance-like state. Finally he flickered, the small snap of his toungue remoistening his pale lips, the rustle of his suit coat against his navy blue dress shirt, the creak beneath his office chair. He would never admit it to a person in public, much less in the business, but he was a daydreamer of sorts, losing his thoughts in the flowing gray monotony of the passing storm...

[HappyHappyHierophant]

We might start with the setting: GAIUS Biotechnologies Inc., a grey cement building caught in between style of Bauhaus and Deconstructivism, with a thick, lush,  high hedge running consistently around each side of the lot except for a single entrance off the main road. Three of the smooth gray walls sat perpendicular to each other, but the fourth wall, facing the parking lot was slanted sideways, covered from the black steel cornice rimming the roof down the twenty-seventh, down, down, down to the fifth, fourth, third, and second stories with jet black glossy shaded windows. The second floor overhung over the first, with a small shaded area in front of the entrance with black grated benches, and a small abstract fountain with water gurgling down from the peaked top. The architecture was thoroughly beautiful, and yet several measures had been made to ensure that the building was secluded as possible from human eye. And then there were the cameras, white boxes with black lenses, leaving no corner or crevice unseen or unaccounted for. You entered at your own risk, you left quickly as possible.

[HappyHappyHierophant]

The rain was now pattering off the windows like clear, glassy bullets, and the pool of the fountain was a chaos of rings and droplets. The wind carried the rain in inconsistent torrents, hosing water across the walls for a couple minutes, than falling back to the same tittering rhythm. If you stuck out your tongue, the water would taste sweet; it was the type of rain that was more of a deluge rather than a thunderstorm, rain falling heavily, but not furiously. Black and red umbrellas were now dotting the sidewalks as people left their buildings for lunch. Jonathan swiveled back and forth, the chair creaking with the heave left and right of the chair, with the clicking of his fingernails against the frosty glass surface of the desk.

[HappyHappyHierophant]

Unfortunately, before the trance deepened, it had to be broken by the sound of someone's voice. Johnathan was far too polite voice this opinion, but nevertheless secretly longed to see what was further beyond the halls his mind so often descended further into.

"John?" buzzed his desk phone.
"Er, yes?" he answered, slightly irritated at this disturbance from his thoughts.
"There's someone at the door, sir. Well, actually he's just standing there. Shall I let him in?"

He swiveled over to look down at the entrance from his window.  As an afterthought, he really ought have used a number of more sophisticated ways to see who was at the entrance, but it was his immediate instinct, and who was he to fight that?

[HappyHappyHierophant]

It was a surprise to have any unknown visitors. The building was hardly an inviting one, and many passerby could hardly recall what it was they heard GAIUS industries did. He could only see a tiny dot where the man lay below. He sat on one of the benches, half concealed by one corner of the overhang. He tilted further in his chair. And the faint sound of faraway leaves rustled back in forth in the ongoing rainstorm.

"Shhhhh....," he thought.

[HappyHappyHierophant]

Unbeknownst to him, a man huddled in a gray fraying overcoat sat outside his door. He had a floppy worn felt fedora pulled over his head. It didn't do very well to cover his stringy thin brown hair. All in all, he looked nothing more than a bum. Which was odd in its self, as this was a rather imposing high profile corporate section of Medicai City with little traffic, and why a bum would look to settle here was beyond anyone's thoughts or cares.

[HappyHappyHierophant]

Corinna, who was working on the reception table, in a bit of empathy that the corporate setting rarely allowed her, decided to investigate rather than wait on any permissions from Jonathan. She was not typically a defiant person, but she knew Jonathan well enough to know that it would be a length of time before she heard anything of him.

She also took pride in the fact that she was one of the few people he trusted the opinion even a little bit. Fresh out of school, how relieved she was to find a boss who had faith in her studies and passion for learning rather  a predatory interest in what lay below her neckline. "Sometimes," a girl-friend in her study group had told her over drinks after finals, "I worry that you're too pretty than you know how to deal with in that type of structure."

She walked, in defiance, with her tight-hipped gait disappearing through the wide glass doors.

Her heels clicked carefully on the wet cement in a concise staccato rhythm behind her.

[HappyHappyHierophant]

Corinna was then suddenly aware that it was raining, as well of how ill-prepared for such conditions. Here she laughed a little at herself. With all the giant picture windows that covered every side of the building, how could she not have seen that it was raining?

"Oh. My shoes," she thought. She wasn't a vain person, but they did happen to be a very nice gift from her sister. This made her hesitate a little bit as she paused from her confident gait from the door, but nevertheless, she continued toward the rather ... ripe ... smelling man. He looked rather "ill-prepared" himself for any type of contact with any person in the first place.

Nevertheless her bad feelings about this man, she stuck a tentative palm out toward him.

[HappyHappyHierophant]

To her relief, he didn't take her hand, which she tried to subtly as possible to tuck as far away from the man as possible.

"Good day, sir. How is it you do today?"

He didn't reply and gave her a rather uncomfortable stare and grin.

"I'm Corinna Le Belle," she introduced herself tentatively, but soon regretted it due to a very uncouth whistle the man made towards her self. "This is the GAIUS Dynamic. What can I do for you today?"

"Turn that sweet ass back into the doors, honey. I'm answering only to Jonathan. And bring me a coffee while you're at it. That's you're job ain't it?" He chuckled to himself revealing an unsightly view of his much-neglected yellowing teeth.

Then again, she thought, repulsed, perhaps he was just wheezing.

[HappyHappyHierophant]

"Well, then," she said calmly behind a bit of a temper becoming harder and harder to manage. "Is there a way that I should introduce you 'only to Johnathan'?"

He made another unseemly laugh, this time tipping his scuffed fedora in a mock gesture, before bitingly replying,

"Not in any way then I'm sure you introduce yourself every day, you little h*ssy. Can I watch this time?"

[HappyHappyHierophant]

Before she could stop herself. She raised her hand and with one clean blow slapped him across a greasy cheek. The strangers head snapped to the side, but he flung a coy look at her. For good measure, she gave him another deeper strike with the ballpoint pen, cutting deeply cutting one side of his cheek.

One might recall a day in primary school, when two girls had made a purposeful gesture of spilling ink on her notebook in the middle of break. By the end of break, both girls were tearfully missing quite a bit of hair on their scalps and Corinna was sitting in the dean's office.

Her good sense began to return, and she turned sharply to march back into the building.

"Vicious one, 'ey?" he spat as he held his face.

She turned to strike a kick with her stiletto heel right into his other cheek, whilst grunting,

"Yup."

Her sister had actually had invested in getting the shoes specifically had the heels cast in gunmetal.

         "You know this is for weapons, right?" the caster had said, giving a confused look to the cobbler.
         "Er, the girl I'm buying this for breaks them often," she replied sheepishly. Due to another confused look she reaffirmed with a nervous nod, "She's very athletic."

These heels, glinting furiously with each click on the pavement were all the man could see before disappearing behind the doors slamming shut so hard the glass rattled against the rain.

[HappyHappyHierophant]

To Jonathan, the hasty trip down the twenty-six floors of stairs seemed to be a specific strike against him to ruin a pair of stiff wing-tip shoes. He wasn't usually such a materialist, but he did feel entitled that if the damn building had a elevator, it should be working most of the time, shouldn't it? He sighed, on the last set of slate gray marble steps, holding himself steady on the square black hand rail, for mercy of his toes. Corinna then trotted back from the ladies' room with every hair in place, and Jonathan couldn't help but envy the grace and strength that she must have had to show everyday wearing those shoes.

"He's out front," she grunted, not exactly looking in the eye. Turning towards and peering out of the glass, Jonathan was shocked at a crumpled form. This would have to be the most emotion Corinna had ever shown while working. It was hard to imagine her doing anything but sitting behind the front desk typing furiously away to any number of the clients and calls and smiling professionally to employees helping in one swift movement to check the door with their keycards.

Whoever it was in front, must have been --

[HappyHappyHierophant]

Oh.

Oh no.

Johnathan punctuated with a hard tap of his head against the glass.

[HappyHappyHierophant]

"You know, you really didn't have to give my secretary such a hard time."
"C'mon Jon-jon. A lady with that rack has it coming."
"You do realize that I specifically instructed you not to visit me at work."
"Jon-jon. A little thing called hospitality. Or did you forget that after you left the Slums?"