Gold Coffins
A short story masquerading as a blog post. This is not my best work, but I will extend it over the weekend and release it late next week as a full story. After an alien attacks the CCO of a large construction company on live TV, the Outer Planet Defense Agency moves quickly to ensure there is confusion.
“Why are you showing me this?” Chief Executive Officer Dean Kenmore asked. “Who are you again?”
Joyner winced. He sympathized with the CEO, it was not a bad company, nor were there any laws broken or people offended- but he did hate to repeat himself. “I am with Outer Planet Defense Agency. We handle cases where an alien has visited earth for one reason or another. In an event such as this, my organization chooses to go to the top of the company. We believe you can keep quiet about what you saw, and the fewer people involved, the better.”
“I didn’t see anything,” Mr. Kenmore attempted.
Joyner shook his head. “Too many people saw the worm come out of the coffin. None of this was your fault. I want to remind you. No one could possibly expect an alien artifact to be excavated in the middle of a city. And you can’t possibly live your life trying to deny what you saw. We do not encourage that behavior.”
“I’m not going to lie. When I first heard you were coming in I thought you were going to kill me,” Mr. Kenmore gave Joyner a brief, harsh smile.
“Not our policy either. There is always a spin a story, even this story. I am going to tell you how to spin this so there is no bad press. The story must be broken out by you, and you only. Afterwards, your marketing team can work with what you have publicly released. Understand?” Mr. Kenmore nodded. “This was a movie production,” Agent Joyner smiled.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me, a movie production, about aliens.”
“We’re a construction company!”
“Yes, but, you had been talking to your board and as a whole decided to start producing a movie. Business was getting slow and you needed some way to bring it back. So, you build an amazing, beautiful, innovative building in the middle of the city and then make a movie out of it. The movie is your advertisement. We are even writing a script for you to release to the public in two weeks. Construction was cost-efficient, which is true, correct?”
Mr. Kenmore nodded. “Excellent,” Joyner continued, “So with the spare money you decided to make a low budget horror movie featuring aliens. A call to the old fifties classics, if you will. You are already quite popular on social media, so you have some traction on getting advertisements for the movie itself.”
“We don’t actually have to produce a movie do we?”
“No, not at all. You see, after Max was injured, your company decided to step back and reevaluate the situation. You come to the realization you do not know how to make a movie. It was a test run that did not go well. Many people try their hand at small indie movies, why couldn’t a multi-million dollar company do the same? So you move on with the construction without the movie… I can see you believing the public will think you are an idiot, Mr. Kenmore, and there is no reason to think this. You’re company was trying something new, and it didn’t work, and in short order, the public will forget all about the awesome practical effects that accidentally went wrong and injured your friend, and the amazing gold coffin set piece.”
Mr. Kenmore still did not look convinced, but he nodded as he mulled over the crisis plan. “It could be worse,” he said quietly.