The entire board room sat in stunned silence.
"I mean it was bad enough that Gloria fell off a cliff and died...but she left us with THIS?"
"I doubt she gave it much thought." Charles Barker, CEO and board chairman said of the company's recently deceased owner, who at the age of 49 had died in a tragic accident.
"Oh no, I am SURE she gave this a ton of deliberate thought. She hated her step sister and I am sure she enjoyed setting things up this way."
"Can you explain again?" said Sarah Martin, the CFO.
"Basically, at the death of either Gloria or her step sister Rhonda, the surviving party has the right to take ownership of the other company. This was established when they split the company after their parents passed. The issue is that the company being taken over has the right to "defend itself in combat" he chuckled, "Typical Gloria...she loved to fight for everything." he continued, "It goes on to provide details, in a gladiatorial style combat, woman to woman. It specifically says it must be a female. IT goes on to say that the fight will be restricted to hand to hand combat and will not permit any protection whatsoever--it should be carried out in the traditional manner, completely naked."
He sighed.
There were three women on the board. Sarah Martin was the youngest and the fittest. "Well fuck. I have been in my share of fights in my life, but not since I was like, 19. And even then, I would NOT want to take on that psycho bitch Rhonda Sinclair. She scares the crap out of me. But fuck, what else can we do?"
Barker went on, "Well, it says a member of the company, it does NOT require that it is a board member. In fact she calls it the company 'champion'. And I am not sure Rhonda will be representing them, it could be another person."
Sarah snorted. "Who else in this company would fight to defend it--not that the employees aren't loyal, but who would put themselves in harm's way when they know they will still get paid. It's only us that are really affected."
"is there a way---" Charles cut Donna Timms off, "We have had legal go through this exhaustively, it's iron clad and clear as a bell."
Sarah sighed again, "I guess I better sharpen my nails and get to training again."
A small voice from the back of the room along the wall, not seated at the table suddenly spoke, "I'll do it."
All eyes in the room turned to the voice. It was a secretary, she was stunning, and not the type of character who conveyed confidence in a battle of gladiatorial combat.
"Who are you?" Charles asked.
Mitch Thompson, a 60ish year old balding man who was head of recruiting spoke up, "That's Abby Terranova, my administrative assistant."
"No offense Ms. Terranova, but why on earth would you volunteer for this and what makes you think you can take on Rhonda, I mean, you aren't some hulking monster. "
"Well, I can handle myself. And Ms. Gloria was really kind to me and I would like to pay her back even though she has passed. I feel like this was meant for me."
Denton Ansell, head of HR spoke up. "That is kind Abby. Would you mind excusing us for a moment, I need to provide the board with some sensitive information."
She nodded and walked out of the room.
Denton connected the video cable to his computer. "This is why she thinks she is willing. And this is also why I think we should let her. About 4 months ago, Abby got into an altercation with another of the secretaries in the alcove outside of the ladies room. Abby was beating the heck out of the other woman when one of that woman's colleagues jumped in to help. Abby beat them both up. It was brought to me and in my investigation I learned that the other two women had been harassing Abby and bullying her so she was just defending herself. Our policy is anti-violence so I was obligated to term her, but I offered her the opportunity to plead her case with Gloria, which she did and Gloria actually praised her for defending herself, fired the other two women and allowed Abby to keep her job. Here is the security video from outside the ladies room, obviously we can't have cameras inside."
The group watched as Abby was jumped, fought off her attacker, began winning the fight, got jumped again and took out the second woman and then finished off both women despite getting punched and kicked quite a few times. She was a tough cookie.
Several of the women and a few of the men gasped at the violence. After the video ended everyone looked around.
Barker looked at Mitch Thompson. "Call Abby back in please Mitch."
Abby sat at the table as instructed this time.
"You have a deal, Ms. Terranova, but we'll need to draw up some documents before so that you know what you are getting into and the company is not held accountable. We'll also compensate you for the matter. Does that make sense?"
Abby nodded.
The group adjourned.
And that was how dozens of people in two different companies ended up watching a livestream closed circuit video of an aerobics room in a rented exercise facility where two naked women stood across from one another preparing to fight for the life of their companies.
