FRED, KEVIN, GREGORY, CHRISTINA, and RUTHIE sit silently in a meeting room.
FRED
One of us is going to have to talk eventually.
KEVIN
Sounds like you just did.
FRED
How did he even GET a SOKE Bar?!
GREGORY
There was a…um…mishap at the factory.
FRED
You think?
GREGORY
Communication failure, and I take full responsibility.
FRED
Damn right you do.
RUTHIE
Someone remind me, do we like this Lorenzo guy or not?
FRED
I have no idea. On one hand he’s beloved in the Indianapolis area as a member of the Primitives bullpen. On the other he’s also a politician who just lost re-election and is possibly about to become a convicted felon.
RUTHIE
But he’s not a convicted felon yet.
FRED
Word on the street is he has several inexperienced lawyers working on the case. The same ones who served with him in the state congress and lost re-election by more than he did. They’ll do him no favors.
KEVIN
From a financial standpoint we do like that he sold Lorenzo’s Kitchen to us. SugarCity’s Kitchen is undoubtedly a success.
CHRISTINA
We need to find the person who paid Lorenzo to hype up the SOKE Bar on social media and fire them.
FRED
That would be one of us. And I know it certainly wasn’t me.
GREGORY
Me neither.
KEVIN
I as well did not pay Lorenzo.
CHRISTINA
And I would not have even brought this up if I was guilty.
RUTHIE
Can’t pay someone you don’t know.
FRED
Okay, then clearly it was one of the factory workers.
KEVIN, GREGORY, CHRISTINA, and RUTHIE laugh.
KEVIN
Don’t you know how much money you have to pay someone to brag about your product?
GREGORY
More money than those guys can afford to scape together.
FRED
But we gave them all raises—
CHRISTINA
They’re still paid, like, way less than SugarCity office workers though.
FRED sighs.
CHRISTINA
Is it possible Lorenzo just made the post himself? No payments involved?
KEVIN
If none of us paid him then I guess. Either way, we have a huge problem on our hands.
Everyone continues to look at KEVIN.
KEVIN
Seriously? Nobody knows? Everyone wants a SOKE Bar now when we’ve already started production on SOKE Munch. It’d be impractical, very costly, and near-impossible to do a SOKE Bar.
FRED
Let’s do it. We can save the SOKE Munches for a limited supply release as a spin-off to the SOKE Bar. We have to capitalize on this.
GREGORY
Fred, it’s not possible.
FRED
Make it possible. We’re on the brink of producing the next big chocolate bar!
GREGORY
Fred. We don’t have the ingredients in the factory to make the new chocolate bar. We don’t have the chemicals to synthesize fake chocolate and it’d be terrible PR if people discovered it. Launching a new chocolate bar makes no sense right now.
FRED
Then let’s discontinue an old bar.
After a pause:
KEVIN
If the SOKE Bar is going to be as huge as we expect, we would have to cease operations on all our currently-circulated chocolate bars. We’d be going all-in on the SOKE Bar.
FRED
If that’s what it takes, then so be it.
KEVIN
We’d also have to pull together a little bit of money from other resources.
FRED
Are you saying what I think you’re saying?
KEVIN
What do you think I’m saying?
FRED
That we have to cut back on wages?
GREGORY
FRED DON’T DO IT!
KEVIN
To produce the SOKE Bar as intended I project wages would need to be cut by at least 10% as production develops. Possibly closer to 15 or even 20%.
RUTHIE
What kind of CFO are you, aren’t you supposed to give fancy numbers?
KEVIN rolls his eyes.
KEVIN
Fine. 14.37%.
FRED
Well that’s down the road, we can cross that bridge when we get there. It’s official everyone, we are now the company behind the SOKE Bar!