C Lennart
Carla / Claus Lennart
The Decameron VP of Sales and Marketing, who is desperately trying to prevent disaster, and maybe take over the company
In Game
Character Hint
You are Carla Lennart, VP of Sales and Marketing for Decameron Enterprises, and you are mostly trying to keep all the balls in the air right now. The CEO was killed a couple of hours ago; if the details of how he was killed get out, it could sink the company. So you are trying to keep everybody in line, keep the details a little quiet, and help figure out the succession -- Roger Cameron wasn't exactly the sort to have a proper succession plan worked out. And if it turns out that the best possible successor as CEO is you, well, you probably wouldn't fight too hard against that...
Character Sheet
You are Carla Lennart, Decameron's Vice President of Sales and Marketing, and right now you feel sort of like a juggler who has seven balls in the air. It's kind of exhilarating, and kind of horrible.
You've been working here for about six years now, ever since Fred Ronit decided to drop the job and go into politics. He and Roger Cameron, the CEO, hired you to take the job on and help the company grow. You were the outsider at first (and one of two of the old-timers still make you feel a little bit that way), but you fit in before long, and have done well here. It was really what you were looking for: a medium-sized company where you could make a difference and show off a little. At 32, you're a bit young for your job, so you've been proving yourself here.
Decameron's been a company in transition for quite some time. Your understanding is that they almost went belly-up about fifteen years ago, having originally been in the model rocketry business (you still get a grin out of that -- boys and their toys) but having skated close to bankruptcy around 2000. They refocused and went into government contracting instead (a gutsy move, and you rather admire Fred for pushing them into it), and have been growing ever since. "Sales and marketing" is a bit weird when you primary customer is the government, but the basic principles have proven true -- you learn all about your customer, you come up with sexy sales pitches for them, and you get their egos all invested in your product.
Speaking of sexy: you've never hidden your sexuality -- it's a useful tool in your line of work, and a little flirting can go a long way. But you're dangerously close to falling in love right now, and that's been distracting you.
Paula Vasilios is one of Roger's "young guns" that he hired about a year ago -- engineers to work on Project Sureshot. She is the programmer, and cute in a kind of geeky and innocent way. You took her under wing not long after she joined the company: she was right out of college, and knew pretty much nothing about life in the real corporate world. So you set yourself up as her mentor. That was actually pretty innocent -- she was attractive, but ten years younger than you, so you didn't have any plans aside from the fact that it's always good to have friends around the company.
The attraction has been growing over the months, though, and you were fairly sure it was mutual, so you finally propositioned her a couple of months ago. Since then -- well, it's been a lot of fun. The sex is pretty great, and you just plain like her. You aren't used to getting mushy over someone, especially a co-worker, but you're beginning to think you might get serious about her.
That's assuming you both survive today without going stark raving mad, of course.
God, it was less than two hours ago. It sort of feels like an eternity ago -- but some of the images are seared so deeply that it sort of feels like it was only minutes ago.
It started a bit after nine o'clock, when you heard a loud bang. It startled the hell out of you, and left your nerves jangling, because it sure as hell sounded like a gunshot. You took a minute or two to compose yourself, then got up, out of your office, and headed down the hallway to the left. You passed a couple of empty offices, then got to Roger's...
... and he was lying on the floor, clearly dead. Clearly shot to death.
You're pretty sure you didn't scream, but as you were standing there in shock, you heard another shot from around the corner. You jumped, back to the wall in the corridor, but couldn't see anything, just standing there shaking. And then there was another shot, and a scream from further away.
You were still steeling your nerve to go see what was happening, when Paula ran past you, into Roger's office. She drew up short when she saw his body, and your heart almost broke when you could see her shake a little, but she stepped right over him, reached into his gun case and grabbed one of the guns he always kept there.
That was almost more shocking than anything else. This was your Paula, one of the gentlest, smilingest people you've ever known -- one of the people in this office best known for not liking guns -- drawing a weapon. You had a vision of her getting killed in some kind of horrible firefight; you must have let out a "no" or something. She just looked at you, more angry and sad than you've ever seen her, then ran back down the hallway. And then there was another shot, and your heart sank.
You don't know how long you stood there, in shock, but eventually somebody looked in Roger's office and screamed, which woke you out of it.
You walked down the hallway, half in a daze, looking in offices out of a sort of morbid curiosity. Samuel's was apparently empty, but Frank Meyer was sitting in his desk chair, quite dead, with a shot right through his heart. You passed the lunchroom, and the grisly tableau of Isaiah Zubin. And finally, as you got to the copier nook, you saw Paula, kneeling there silently, the gun on the floor beside her, clearly in at least as much shock as you. And in front of her was Jonathan Sheena keening over the body of Seamus O'Malley, with the Sureshot prototype on the floor beside him.
That damned child. And that damned gun. That shook you out of it, quite suddenly, as you realized what must have happened.
Project Sureshot has been the company's big money-spinner for the past year. Fred found out about the contract with his government connections, and you spent months wining and dining officers (well, figuratively, but there was certainly some flirting involved) to win it. Playing on the company's expertise with small rocket tech, as usual, the idea was to build a "smart bullet". Of course, what the Pentagon wants is a bullet that will fly around corners and hit terrorists -- or better yet, a small rocket that will fly into caves to take out the bin Laden types. The engineers at Decameron agreed that that was a little over-ambitious, but you got a contract worded vaguely enough to build something real: a gun that fires a tiny rocket that senses the center of mass of its target and hits it reliably just above that, so it always gets a heart shot. The whole thing is vaguely repulsive, but the Homeland Security Department has been all over it as a device for more reliably dealing with terrorists. And they were willing to pay handsomely for it.
That was what Roger's "young guns" were hired to build. Paula, Seamus and Shrivatsa have been working for most of a year on the prototype, under the direction of Frank Meyer. And that's what was sitting next to Seamus' body.
What was that idiot thinking?
You realized, almost instantly, that this was a disaster in the making. Sureshot is as confidential as confidential gets: Decameron has given assurances to the DoD that no one would hear a word of it, and the non-disclosure agreements are fierce. And if word got out that the company built the gun that was used to murder its own CEO -- well, to call it a publicity nightmare would be understating it badly. This mustn't get out.
You went over to Paula, as gently as you could, whispering to the poor thing that she needed to leave the scene and go to the lobby, to wait for the police. It took a heart-breaking minute before she even acknowledged you, but she numbly got up, without a word, and walked down the corridor that way. Then you did the same with Jonathan, prodding him out of the room.
Then back down the corridor. In the lunchroom, you tried to get Isaiah to move along (as well as Robert Gervasio, who you found against the wall, all but catatonic), but it was clear that neither was paying attention to anything. And along down the hallway, ushering people away from the crime scenes and towards the lobby.
Once everyone was away, it was time to fix this mess. You pulled out your handkerchief, and used it to grab one of Roger's guns, the same way Paula had done. There was a terrible racket as another gun fell off its shelf, but there was nothing to be done for it. Hiding the gun under your jacket, you quickly returned to Seamus' body, and swapped it for the Sureshot prototype.
Then quickly key-carding into to the Lab, where the damned thing belongs. You thought about trying to secret it away somewhere, but didn't know if you had time. So you simply lay it down on the lab table, which is reasonably innocuous, and out again. You paused to let your heart stop pounding, then began to check the offices again. You tried to comfort Isaiah, but he was disconsolate. You looked in offices a little more carefully, and were startled to find Samuel, back against his wall, looking panic-stricken; you calmed him down a little, and told him to help rounding people up and working with the police -- and remind the engineers that they are under NDA about Project Sureshot. (You're pretty sure that he needs something to do, to deal with this.)
Now, the office is crawling with police, media and politicians, and the juggling is going to get intense. With Roger and Frank both dead, you may be the nearest thing to a calm grown-up the company has -- Isaiah and Samuel have both been around a lot longer than you, but neither of them is in any state to take charge. The police are starting to ask lots of questions, so there is a real danger of Sureshot coming into the public eye and turning into a gigantic embarrassment. And of course, Brian Truman, the Board member from Greyrock Investments, was already in town to take a look at the company's finances and such. He is sure to be taking an acid look at this debacle, and that's dangerous -- if Greyrock pulls out suddenly, it could sink the company.
Which means the company needs leadership, and fast. You've always said that half of winning the game of life is seeing when your moment arrives, and seizing it. This is a horrible moment, but it might just be yours...
Who You Know
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Roger Cameron: Founder of Decameron Enterprises, your boss until a couple of hours ago. You weren't close friends, but he was a good person, and you know you're going to be having nightmares of seeing him dead.
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Frank Meyer: The head of Research and Development, Seamus' boss, who was in charge of Project Sureshot, also now dead.
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Paula Vasilios: Your -- student? friend? lover? -- pretty much all of the above. You've always been a passionate person, but you've always maintained a bit of distance from your lovers before, making sure to look out for number one. There are times you feel like a cradle-robber, falling for someone who is only 22, but you've fallen hard.
Right now, you're a bit scared for her. You aren't sure quite what happened, but it looked like she was forced to kill Seamus, and that can't have been easy. And God help her if the media decide to focus on her -- they are fickle bastards, and you can just see them declaring her a "hero" one minute and a killer the next.
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Seamus O'Malley: One of Paula' co-workers in the Lab, working on Sureshot. It brings up bile to think of the way she always described him as the "gentle" and "artistic" one of the group. It's always the quiet ones who turn out to be the crazies, damn him.
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Samuel Antonino: The company's Office Manager since pretty much forever, as you understand it. A terribly nice older man, who has had a terribly obvious crush on you from the start. You've tried not to lead him on too badly, but hey -- it never hurts to have people who will follow you around. So you've let yourself flirt a little bit with him, when it seemed convenient.
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Jamie Rickie: The company's accountant -- another long-timer, and one of the cooler heads at Decameron. You may need to work with him to get things under control today.
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Millie Cameron: Roger's wife, who you've met a number of times over the years you've been here. She seems like a nice enough woman, if a bit of the home-and-hearth type.
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Helen Derren: The company's long-time lead investor, and still a Board member, so definitely someone you need to get on-side.
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Fred Ronit: Roger's co-founder, who left the company and the Board six years ago to go play politics. He was your predecessor on sales, and you've hit it off pretty well in the past.
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Brian Truman: The partner from Greyrock Investments who sits on Decameron's Board. Decameron is into Greyrock for a good deal of money, enough so that they could sink the company simply by declaring that they have lost faith in it, so you need to make sure he doesn't lose confidence.
GM Notes
She considers herself to be a romantic and passionate person, but can never stop thinking about how her romances will help or hinder her. A classic example is her relationship with
S Antonino. She finds him kind of cute, in a dorky kind of way, but would never dream of dating him. But having one of the company's most central and popular employees as an ally is always a good idea -- never underestimate the power of the Office Manager. So she has always flirted a bit with Samuel. Yes, she is stringing Samuel along a bit, but she has never promised anything, or told any lies. And it seems to make Samuel happy, so where is the harm?
More seriously, she has been grooming
P Vasilios almost since she joined the company. Carla has always been good at recognizing talent, and there's clearly a lot here. So she started out simply befriending her and mentoring her, providing a view of how the world really works and trying to counter her naivete. But over the past few months, that's started to get more serious: frankly, she just plain finds her kind of hot. So she propositioned her a couple of months ago, and they've been going at it hot and heavy ever since. She has really fallen for her, which was totally unexpected, and she is painfully conscious of the ten-year age gap between them -- she feels like some kind of predator, almost, never mind that Paula is a perfectly-respectable 22.
So as if today wasn't enough of a disaster, she is trying to figure out how to keep Paula out of the public eye as much as possible. The media is a fickle beast, and today's "hero" quickly becomes tomorrow's controversy.
To Do
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She was basically hosed as soon as the police thought to ask for the records of who card-keyed into the Lab. Can we rework this in some way, so that the police have a fair chance of figuring out the cover-up, but it doesn't point a laser beam right at her?
