The Company

The Company's structure was like an onion. Peel back the paper, and there were layers underneath. Peeling back each successive layer led to a smaller layer. Each one stank worse than the last.   On the surface, the Company presented itself as a medical and genetics research corporation that occasionally stretched the limits of anti-trust legislation, and delved into other fields in an effort to expand its influence. Their foray into pharmaceuticals slipped under the radar, as did their expansion into military weapons, then prosthetics; and through that, into robotics, software technology, nanotechnology, algorithms, and social media and advertising. Their attempt to expand into media from that jumping-off point was met with severe backlash in the Lapin, Meles, and Chiroptera Protectorates, however.   Most of the people who worked for the Company thought they were effectively working for Amazon. It was a megacorporation that engaged in the typical megacorporate activities of buying influence, trying to control information and markets, oppressing workers, and (mostly legally) bribing politicians. Most of them were ordinary people trying to make a living as warehouse labourers, public service representatives, advertising executives, tech geeks, or research technicians.   Beneath this layer there was a complex web of illegal and immoral activity. Much of their genetics and nanotech research was like something out of a comic book or a Bond movie. Through blackmail, careful selection of "the right personality type" and NDAs, behavioural engineering or outright mind control, the Company engaged in a variety of dangerous and highly illegal experiments into bioweapons, some of which were performed on willing or unwilling sapient beings, primarily literomancers.   Beneath this layer was a tangled web of former and current intelligence operatives who were either loyal to the cause or willing to sell their services to the highest bidder. On this level, the Company dealt in illicit weapons sales, particularly chemical and biological weapons, and also engaged the services of numerous "private contractors."   Beneath this layer was a secret occult society that had its origins in the Thule Society, who conducted occult research for the Third Reich, and in the research of Nazi eugenicists. On this level, they sought to master the use of Literomancy for their own purposes. It was they who unearthed The Iron Tome in the 20th Century, thus inadvertently causing the return of Literomancy and the reappearance of The Undead Horde.   The Board of Directors were puppets of the nebulous society underneath, managed either through blackmail, open threats, or actual mind control.

The corporate front of the Company was everything one might expect of a soulless megacorp. Team-building exercises and corp-speak directed loyalty up the chain, but little loyalty was offered in the other direction. Whenever possible, they kept their employees on part time hours to deprive them of benefits, required forced overtime, and regulated the amount of time spent to take a bio-break. They did their utmost to keep their rank-and-file too exhausted and anxious to think much. They brainwashed their middle management into believing if they just worked a little harder, they, too, could ascend the corporate ladder. They paid women, the disabled, and People of Colour less than they did white, able-bodied, cishet men, and in all ways, they illustrated that every Company worker was an interchangeable part.   Once an employee made it past the public front, either into research and development or private contracting and security, they were showered in a Company culture that told them in no uncertain terms they were among the elite. They were told they had been selected because of their special skills, their superior intellect, whatever was most flattering. They suddenly gained access to many Company perks — the fancy hotels, the private jets, the catered dinners, the first class legal services if their activities got them into trouble with secular authorities. They were made to believe they were above the law, and mostly, they were. If the boss occasionally sexually harassed their sisters, or made a racist joke or two, it was worth it to look the other way.   At its heart, the Company was a cult. Eugenics and the occult yearnings of the Thule Society, which revealed that Literomancy existed, but not how to harness it, combined to create a secret society that did not view literomancers as Human. Literomancers were thought to be demons, innately evil creatures with unnatural powers, who needed to be yoked by the best and the brightest among real humans, and then destroyed once they had outlived their usefulness. Even children with literomantic powers were "spawn of the devil," whose pain was considered irrelevant.

The Company appeared to have significant amounts of money and resources at its disposal. Little is known about how this was maintained, or even where all of it is, even now, but investigations by the Lapin, Meles, and Chiropteran Protectorates, and the International Criminal Court, as well as a clandestine investigation by House Sauropoda, are still ongoing.

After World War II, many former members of the National Socialist Party fled Germany and did their best to hide in any country that would have them. Numerous governments around the world looked the other way, either because they had fascist leanings, or because they wanted the skills, knowledge or resources these people had.   The Company was one such group. Created from the unholy union of some ex-executives from IG Farben (many of whom also went on to found Bayer) and the Thule Society, they quickly put many of the things they had learned from their chemical weapons production and their concentration camp experiments to work for the "public good."   Many of the details are yet unknown, but they somehow managed to stumble upon House Lapin among the Polish Jewish population. Then Chief Rabbit Dorothy Lapin fled Poland at the beginning of WWII, taking the Lapin Secret Library with her, to keep it out of their hands. She managed to disappear from their view in North America, leaving the Key to the Lapin Library and the Carrot Throne to her future granddaughter, Sable Aradia.   Much of that history is only now coming to light, but it appears there were numerous crimes committed against the Lapin and House Meles royal families, and they likely were responsible for an attack against Siobhan the Writer, Queen of Bats, as well. They may also have been partially responsible for the appearance of "monsters" in The Zafforza Trench. It is believed that DM Stretch was at one time a double agent within the Company structure, working secretly for House Lapin, although some believe he may have, in fact, been working in the opposite direction.   After a successful civil suit, Lapin, Eds & Chiroptera vs. GOT News Network and the Company, the Company was charged with criminal conspiracy in the Lapin Protectorate, and numerous criminal offenses in the International Criminal Court at the Hague. It was thought that many details would come to light at the trial, but the ICC was close-mouthed, citing protection of the victims, a standard policy, as the reason for their silence.   However, the Company did receive the distinction of being the first corporation found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity by the ICC. They were subsequently designated as a terrorist organization in most of the Protectorates, and as a corporate presence, their assets were seized or completely dismantled.   There may yet be small cells of Company loyalists scattered throughout the globe, but their influence has been effectively destroyed, and if anyone does remain, they have been staying quiet and out of sight.