The Company

Much of the company's history is shrouded in secrecy, with almost all relevant records either having been relabeled “trade secrets”, sold to other companies or misplaced in a filing cabinet somewhere within the company's archive. What is known is that the Company has been a world leader in the production, manifestation and globalisation of business for the past thirty years. Now it is one of the most powerful mega-corporations in existence with a market capitalisation in excess of “NUMBER REDACTED,” according to its most recent tax returns, and with interests in the defence sector, agriculture, high-end erotic lingerie, biotechnology, banking, children's toys and pest-control to name but a few.

Following the second meeting of the Board in Fiscal Year 12, it was decided to relocate Company Headquarters to the recently acquired Des Moines, Iowa. The Board chose Des Moines as a place where there was nothing that could potentially distract company employees from their work. The Company Productivity-Maximising Campus occupies 15.3 square miles of a perfectly flat expanse of concrete designed to minimise disruptive distractions.

Company headquarters currently consist of 6 interconnected skyscrapers with one building allocated to each department, with the central building containing core resource units such as conference rooms, the office of the CEO, and the executive bathroom. The buildings are connected by convenient walkways allowing employees easy, multi-level access to other departments. Assuming they have the necessary security clearance.

The Headquarters have been renovated, demolished, restructured, enhanced, and rebuilt many times over the past sixty years, normally as a result of a rebranding requiring the company to project a new outward facing message or due to a change in productivity-enhancing paradigms requiring a synergistic overhaul (and once due to a critical test failure in the R&D building requiring complete decontamination of all employees). This has resulted in a vast labyrinthine network of abandoned and half-demolished offices and research laboratories being buried underneath the current buildings. Access is limited by security for health and safety reasons.

The Central Building, located at 1, Company Lane, housing core resource units such as conference rooms, the office of the CEO, and the executive bathroom.

The pristine glass tower, surrounded with retro-space rings, home to the R&D labs.

The glowing neon citadel of Public Relations & Sales, visible for miles around as it lights up in whatever colours are currently dominating company advertising campaigns.

The palatial fortress of Facilities, containing the central security room, the tube nexus and the vending machine refills. Its corridors are always clean and its plumbing never troubled.

The stern pillar of Legal & Acquisitions. A statue of Lady Justice sits atop it with CCTV cameras for eyes.

The grim black spire of Finance & HR, that always seems to be in shadow irrespective of the weather. The reflective glass façade of the building is perpetually covered in hoarfrost but inside it is all open plan offices with fresh-baked cookies in the meetings rooms. Supposedly built on a Native American burial ground and also a Native American casino.

Located In the deepest sub-basement of Building 1 is the Company Archive that supposedly contains almost all of the company's trade secrets carefully documented in specially constructed Adamantium™ filing cabinets. Only Managing Directors (and the Archivist) have access to the outer vault. Supposedly the inner vault may only be accessed by the CEO in person.

Occasionally, when a Highly Effective Person fails to meet appropriate quotas, the company is left with no recourse but to terminate their employment contract. Due to the inherent danger in potentially upsetting a Guru, this is done by an unsuspecting HR intern at the Firing Range, a conference room situated as far away from the rest of the company buildings as possible in order to minimise collateral damage.

Beneath Building 2, beneath even the extra-thick concrete foundations used to contain some of the more volatile experiments, are sealed-off labs and chambers. Occasionally a note is pinned to the door, explaining it was due to a deadly gas leak or employee termination. Other times, though, the doors are welded shut and it looks like something tried to get out.

Constructed to combat record levels of biro theft a decade ago, the ultra-secure Stationery Bunker 01 sits three miles underground and contains the company's stores of branded stationery and office furniture. Recently there appears to have been some trouble with the bunker and stationery supplies have dwindled to a trickle resulting in unsual levels of chaos in some departments.

The company also maintains a number of testing facilities around the world to be used by R&D or Highly Effective People. A number of these have been sealed and declared “Not Productive” for any number of reasons. A few more are special high-clearance only where the company tests its more secretive (and most potentially profitable) products.

The company maintains a number of Regional Headquarters and Branch Offices around the world mostly to keep distateful activities (like waste management or customer service) as far away from its productive core, but also to serve as embassies in rival-controlled territories. Most former capitals will have a regional headquarter, and most other important cities will have at least a company branch office.

Publicly an arm of the Company's charitable tax-exemption non-profit* foundation devoted to researching the endangered “Lesser Spotted Monochrome-Penguin.” Needless to say, there is no reason to doubt the veracity of this explanation and any questions as to why an avian research program would require six nuclear reactors, the world's largest tesla coil and 18 billion tonnes of military-grade latex are unproductive gossip.

Located in the District of Columbia, the K Street Offices are where the company's lobbyists plan and execute the buying and selling of politicians that will work to further the company's interests. It is primarily staffed by Marketing and Sales employees.

Located deep in the primeval jungle of sub-Saharan Africa, the Management Training Centre is where the Company's future leaders are put through their paces in a gruelling series of physical and psychometric assessments. Supposedly unreachable on foot, the heavily fortified compound contains test centres, obstacle courses and eight different kinds of deadfall trap all designed to find the best of the best.

Company headquarters and the regional offices are all linked together by the company's state-of-the-art pneumatic tube system that is capable of carrying capsules at six times the speed of sound. Linking every office, lab and conference room the tube network allows employees to communicate with each other in almost real time, delivering 85% of capsules to the right person at the right time and at the right speed.