Jonathan LaRocca was the brash young CEO of Sigil, and it was time for him to fall.

“Every crypto company is doing it wrong,” he began. Rows of investors leaned back in their seats, sipping coffee. “You heard that right. Not a single company is doing blockchain right. Not Alpha, not Pogo, not Rekn. But to-day, we at Sigil—”

This is when it happened. “Sigil,” he repeated. “We at Sigil. Yeah. Sigil.”

The investors continued to nurse their caffeine fixes politely.

“Sigil. Sigil. Uh, Sigil. Hey guys, has anyone noticed that Sigil has stopped sounding like a word?”

If that was meant as a joke, it crashed on stone-cold faces. It was not a joke, though. Jonathan LaRocca was truly unwell.

“Sigilsigilsigilsigilsigilsigil—hey!” He had been apprehended by two figures on stage. By the insignia on their T-shirts they were Sigil engineers, who by silent agreement had risen from their seats and pushed their way to the front in order to escort their CEO out of the spotlight where he could embarrass the company’s image no longer. I kept my concentration on the hopelessly babbling LaRocca until he disappeared through the double doors.

“Hey! What the fuck?” everybody managed to hear him yell at his subordinates after the doors closed.

A woman had taken the podium. “Hello everyone, my name is Annette Orenstein, and I’ll be continuing the presentation on Jon’s behalf.”

Three days earlier Annette Orenstein came into my office.

“I can’t stand him anymore,” she said, plopping into the chair.

“You can’t stand who?”

“Jon. Our CEO.”

“Ah, him.”

“Yes, him. This is the fourth time he’s passed me over for a promotion. The company is literally built on work from my senior thesis, but he doesn’t even seem to acknowledge that I exist. Instead he thinks he’s some sort of crypto revolutionary. But no, he’s just an asshole.”

“Tell me more.”

She sighed weakly, and then resumed. “Okay, he’s not just an asshole. He also harasses us daily, all of us, his female employees. I have a list of everything he’s—”

Then she stopped. “Tanya, please tell me you’re listening.”

“Yes. I’m listening. Go on.”

“No, you’re not listening. You’re doing that thing every counsellor does where you say Yes I’m listening and Tell me more and How does that make you feel but you’re probably thinking about what you’re going to make for dinner or how long can you stay before you have to pick up the kids and nobody listens to me and this is why nothing ever gets done and it’s the same shit day in and day out and you’re just as much part of the problem as the Jon LaRoccas of the world, you who stand by and pretend like everything’s a cosy little toy world and all our problems are just cosy little toy problems so you can just spew your clinical bullshit solutions and feel good about your job while I get passed over for a promotion for the fourth time and I can’t fucking deal with this shit anymore!”

An uneasy silence settled over the office. There was something I could do. I thought about whether I ought to do it.

“Tell you what,” I said. “Does Jon LaRocca have any speeches coming up? Like, to the public or shareholders or anything?”

“He’s got one on Friday. To investors. Why, what are you thinking?”

“Nothing. But just in case, be ready to take over if for some reason he can’t deliver his speech.”

She thought. “Huh,” she finally said. “Whatever it is, thank you.”

I smiled. In my closet at home hung my Semantic Satiation Woman suit.