The Election

Pentex is many things, but it is not stupid. New blood and new ideas help the corporation thrive. Benjamin Rushing’s ascendancy to Executive Director didn’t stop there; he restructured the Board of Directors along with Peter Culliford. Even though it was a joint change, Rushing still stacked the deck in his favor. Aware that he can’t force the Board to just give him more influence, Culliford believed that he could shake Rushing’s power base by opening the Board to new blood.

At the start of 2014, Peter Culliford moved that the Board open up three new seats for Subdivision Directors. Enough of the other Directors agreed that they set about finding suitable nominees and preparing for the election. Rushing was well aware that Culliford was trying to shore up his power base, but didn’t want to play his hand too early.

Well aware of the last election, when rampaging werewolves murdered several Board members and Enzo Giovanni ascended to Subdivision Director of Finance in a storm of corruption, Kathryn Mollett suggested a different kind of election. This would use an online voting system, where shareholders could participate without gathering in one place and making themselves easy targets. That didn’t stop all of the nominees (bar one) using every dirty trick in the book. Early in the campaign, the links between Mike Dragon’s-Wrath and fellow nominee Ash Pyralis lead to worries that the two Black Spiral Dancers would try to manipulate the Board for their own gain. The other nominees launched a poisonous PR campaign — both literally and figuratively — that forced Ash to withdraw. Darrien Terrell stepped up to replace her, sponsored by Harold Zettler, but his entry late in the campaign made him an easy target for the other nominees.

One nominee took a different tack. Rather than revealing himself early in the campaign and answering the shareholders’ questions, he remained shrouded in mystery. That way, they could vote for him as a “none of the above” candidate, or project their hopes on to him. Only late in the game did he even reveal his name: Frédéri Pochard. This tactic proved successful, as he took significantly more votes than the other new Directors combined.

The election took place in June, and by September 2014, three new Board members took their places. Ian Robertson was installed as Director of Process and Integration with Franklin Rubin’s support. Mike Dragon’s- Wrath took his seat as Director of Pentex Security, having ousted Persephone Tar-Anis. Frédéri Pochard took a seat as Director without Portfolio. While still ranking on the Board with the Subdivision Directors, his position makes him a loose cannon.

The New Directors

The three winners of the election to the Board of Directors now each have their hand in directing the future of Pentex itself.

Subdivision Director without Portfolio Elected in a landslide despite not campaigning, Frédéri Pochard is an enigma. He looks different at each Board meeting. Initially he would show up with a different hair color or a sudden change in muscle mass. Once, he arrived in a woman’s body. Nobody knows if he’s going through some radical body-alteration before each meeting, if he is a psychic taking over the bodies of random people to preserve his true identity, or if “he” is actually a group of people who work together to manipulate the Board to their own ends.