Dante's Abyss Spectators

[PepsiWhirda]

Whirda blanched.

“Sit, sit,” the man with the lapel pin said, still chuckling.

No one else in the room moved a muscle.

Joviality giving way abruptly to icy hatred once more, the man’s face became a mask of fury. “I said sit!” he barked, and the room exploded into motion. Even Whirda, still stunned and trying to make sense of the last several minutes, eased herself gingerly off the table.

When everyone was seated, the man smiled. “Thank you. Now, back to business. As I said earlier, Ms. Windstrom, we are quite pleased with your performance in the event, aside from a few… less than enthusiastic references to our products. But if the viewers love you—which they do!—then we love you too. We do love Ms. Windstrom, don’t we everyone?”

The gathered executives murmured their consent.

As if just then taking notice of Whirda’s many scrapes and bruises, and the trail of blood droplets on the pristine tiles of the boardroom floor, the man with the lapel pin gestured to a woman at the other end of the table. “Margaret, can we get Ms. Windstrom an ice-cold Crystal Pepsi please? She’s looking a little banged up.”

“At once, Mr. Bepis,” the bespectacled woman replied, nervously sweeping a strand of sandy hair out of her face. She exited the room through the same door as Yuuka, returning shortly with a bottle of clear liquid emblazoned with the Pepsi logo. She placed it in front of Whirda without making eye contact and shuffled away.

Whirda looked from the bottle to the man with the lapel pin, still speechless from her encounter with the invisible barrier.

“Go on,” Mr. Bepis urged, still wearing his cheshire cat grin. “I trust you will find it an effective remedy for what ails you.”

Unwilling to incur the man’s wrath a second time, Whirda unscrewed the cap and took a long draw from the bottle, curling her toes so she wouldn’t wince openly at the sickly sweet flavor of its contents. Immediately, a profound warmth suffused her body and spread to her limbs, leaving a tingling sensation in her extremities. When she looked down, the wound in her thigh had closed and the bruises and scrapes on her exposed forearms were receding.

“That’s just a… taste… of what’s in store for you in the next fight.” Mr. Bepis interlaced his fingers and put his hands behind his bed, leaning back onto two legs of his chair, supremely amused by his own humor. “What we have planned for you two... it’s gonna catapult PepsiCo into the forefront of cool, refreshing beverages Omniverse-wide! Margaret, why don’t you take Whirda to the lab and begin the procedure?”

“Procedure?” Whirda blurted. “I don’t—”

“Ah, but you do,” Mr. Bepis said. “Or else.”

Margaret waited patiently while Whirda floundered for a response. In the end, she stood obediently, even offering Mr. Bepis a thin smile. Inside, though, the rage threatened to send her careening toward the smug executive once more. But Whirda Windstrom was no fool, and she never made the same mistake twice. No, her revenge on Mr. Bepis would have to come later. For now, she would play his mysterious game, and focus on the battles to come.

As she followed Margaret out of the room, she stepped gingerly around the body of the slain executive, whose blood had begun to pool beneath him on the tiles.