CULT Presents
Oil and Soil: A New Foundation
From the notebook of Casanova English
It’s funny. I spent my early 20’s as a journalist trying to unearth the secrets of the elite… but I’ll never fucking get used to it. How right I was about this whole thing.
The elevator took me down through the internals of the mountain – into the cave. I walked a stone pathway to where the heartbeat of the world palpitated. The entity that ran my life now – the beast I sold my soul to in order to save Combat Unlimited.
The stench of rotting wood mixed with damp soil and unclean flesh. There she was once again atop the rudimentary stone steps – her naked torso leading to a tree trunk. Her veins gradually turned into roots. They stretched kilometers deep into the underbelly of the earth – used as a radar highlighting potential undiscovered shiny rocks humanity has yet to commodify.
“Up to this point you had done nothing but fail me Casanova. Your flock faltered – they spread their wings to go elsewhere and the might of the once great Lethal Trials — it’s cooling off now isn’t it my child? And we can’t baptize you in chilled waters can we?”
She spoke in riddles she didn’t want answered. So I did what I did best. I put a cigarette between my lips, lit it and listened.
“The way you dispatched of Bacchus though… it was impressive and now people are returning. The products are moving and moveover… you found a way to supply the blood to fuel the machines. They want the next precious rock… I want to find something to break this curse.”
I puffed on my cigarette, she wheezed with every sentence – her wrinkles arms motioned as she spoke – the antlers hanging the veil over her face swayed along with them.
“The KillDozer Cup is key to our plan and I need you to do everything in your power to ensure a plentiful harvest.”
She wanted people to bleed and putting folks in the perfect scenario to do so is how I found my success. All I ever wanted was enough cash to buy smokes, put a roof over my head – and a podium to preach…
Look where we found ourselves. The warnings on the packs of these smokes just don’t manifest quick enough do they?
“We are installing Lucas permanently into the company to ensure our plans continue as designed.”
The elevator dinged. The metal doors open and the 30-year-old silver fox head of marketing and strategic management for Corpus Energy, Lucas Oilsman steps out. He’s in a full gray suit and waves his hand through the smoke English was filling the cave with.
“Filthy habit really,” he said, winking at me.
I roll my eyes to the back of my mother fucking head.
“Have you told him about my new role,” he asks the entity before us…. the fucking sentient tree stump of a bitch.
The Veil shakes her head side to side.
“Well as it has been made clear at the last episode I am the head of marketing for the company now and going forward I’ll also be the head of booking alongside the incredible Quincy Harker. You see, English you’ve just got your hands a little messy at this point, a match with Datura, a blood feud with Johnny Bacchus and a loss to Kilroy… sure it has brought in the views, but really the public is losing trust… people are starting to think you are going to put the title on yourself and stage a full time comeback and we just can’t have that.”
I smirk, blowing smoke in the direction of the new authority.
“Is that so? I didn’t hear many complaints when views were reaching all time highs. Then again, that’s the thing with people like you. You wouldn’t want a person like me actually breaking through the glass ceiling. I have to be kept under your thumb. That’s fine.” I said, sighing.
“We could be doing so much more to take this company to the next level. Look at this, if the world caught a glimpse of what happens behind the curtain they’d revolt,” Lucas said.
The ground pulses around my feet as the old barked up bitch huffed air – her ego inflating by the words of her minion… and lucky for her Oilsman really liked to blow her. He paced around the creature – but her eyes never left me. I locked in on her, smoking my cigarette.
“As head of marketing one of the first things that needs to be done is a rebranding of the New World Championship… we need an even newer world championship… a fucking preorder world championship… We need to build anticipation and that’s why this week I am going to present Grac Leary with a new title. We can;t have the face of a serial killing cult leader in the middle of the championship… we need to appeal to app demographics… cultists and potential victims Casanova. You need to see the whole vision.”
He waves his hand through my cloud of toxic second hand smoke.
“I want to help you English. I am not here to destroy the product you created. I am here to advance it – with ancient knowledge,” he said pointing to the being in the center of the room working her entrails through the earth’s crust.
“I want you to help you see opportunities where you never saw them before. In fact, just how long have you been smoking? Just how long have you been doing it on national TV… someone really should be paying you to do that…”
Fuck.
He is good.
“I’ll make some calls…,” he said.
