Holding Company

by Corey Mertes

Fortune has referred to the holding company as “titanic” and “octopus-like.” Forbes in its centennial edition published a fold-out of the company’s holdings that resembled a family tree of the world’s myriad religions. Consider a single tentacle, one subsidiary branch: insurance. Master Premiums Collective (MPC) partners with FIG, the First Insurance Group, an affiliate of First National of Delaware (itself a holding company), to act as brokers—or, more frequently, mediators—between rival providers or confederated amalgamations, the latter more often than not structurally convoluted in their own right. One example is the Mouthpiece Cooperative, a coalition of agents who, as independent contractors, represent Farm Bureau insurance policies to bands of Australian shepherds.  
The holding company’s Chief Executive Officer believes in efficiency. “Time is money” ranks as his favorite apothegm. “And space is time,” he has been known to add, jutting an index finger into the air, for example in the middle of a TED talk or between bites of Chinese take-out during an all-night session with senior management, “according to Einstein.” In a light-bulb moment during the latter colloquy, making sure to direct his secretary to write down everything he says, he completed the syllogism with a queer look out the window by wondering aloud, “Does that mean space is money?”
Company policy mandates that paper clips and Post-its be purchased in supersized bulk. Desk paraphernalia must be arranged to minimize nonessential motion. The CEO insists that everyone be kept in the loop. He likes to drill down, to do a deep dive. The Wall Street Journal routinely applauds his courageous bucking of trends. With his assistant of twelve years, a Cherokee woman named Concotocko (a renowned futurist, the CEO showed a commitment to diversity long before it became the vogue), he might, in his private elevator or on a helipad at a wilderness retreat honoring team member accomplishments, spontaneously ideate or run things up the flagpole (or the “totem” pole, as he might joke, trading on Concotocko’s celebrated thick skin). She is required to be available at all hours. There is no telling when the CEO may drop everything and decide to push the envelope or move the goal posts. They sleep at the office on extra-firm mattresses, when they sleep at all.
Another branch consists exclusively of hedge funds, themselves umbrella matrices controlling an array of global enterprises. These include pharmaceutical companies, media conglomerates, and inter-planetary travel. The president of the sector is female, the first to lead a financial organization of this scope. Skeptics concerned about her qualifications are directed to framed diplomas on her wall: an M.B.A. from Wharton with a focus on data mining, and a doctoral degree in Pragmatic Optimism from the University of Chicago.  
Nursing homes comprise another division of holdings. The man hired to manage it is known for his sensitivity. He popularized the GeroChip, now commonly embedded beneath the skin of most senior citizens to track their health and movements. The Joint Venture Agreement his LLC entered into with the speculative fund responsible for the division’s underwriting obliges him to operate his unit in a manner “(1) consistent with Industry Norms, (2) in accord with his Warmhearted Instincts, and (3) notwithstanding (1) and (2), at all times in subservience to the Holding Company’s Overarching Investment Strategy®.”  
In a synergistic consolidation upheld by the courts after eleven years of procedural rulings, appeals, and remands, the holding company was acquired by an even more prodigious holding company whose primary endeavors until then had been a brain implant trust—branded “cerebrolinx” under the auspices of PsychoNexus™—and an artificial intelligence network, whose motto “AI Singularity Now” had, prior to the merger’s approval, been artificially upgraded to “AI is Your Friend.” Even a comprehensive judicial history would fail to convey the magnitude of the combined companies’ sphere of influence. During a joint profile on 60 Minutes, the two CEOs, each of whom had at some point in his career been described as “more visionary than even Steve Jobs,” referred to the integrated company’s reach as “Hydra-like” and “gargantuan.” They remained humbly silent when asked if they believed they were geniuses on the order of, say, Albert Einstein or Steve Jobs, by Sharyn Alfonsi.
Pursuant to the Seventeenth Revised and Amended Merger and Acquisition Agreement, the combined company would be named Holding Company International (HCI) as a placeholder until a permanent name could be determined. The two leaders would manage the corporation in tandem. These men were not strangers. Early in his career the CEO of the acquired holding company (CEO2) had been recognized as a rising star by the CEO of the acquiring holding company (CEO1). In a gif that went internally viral, CEO2 was referred to by CEO1, back when CEO1 was CEO of the acquired company and CEO2 was only an executive vice-president there, as one of the “future greats” during the company’s annual shareholder meeting. “Future GREATS! Future GREATS! Future GREATS!” the image of the assumed-to-be-even-greater man prophesied over and over as his head snapped back and forth ad infinitum. The S&P skyrocketed. After the merger, Time Magazine compared CEO1 to such luminaries as Jack Welch and Chainsaw Al Dunlap. Once in a fit of whimsy he fired two out of every three employees in HCI’s coal division from a list generated by his assistant, Spotted Elk, only to re-hire them all the next day while terminating everyone else. In a press release, his co-CEO, who had been caught off guard by the move, called the initial firings a stroke of genius, and doubled down the next afternoon in a company-wide email, describing that morning’s reversal as in line with the corporation’s Overarching Investment Strategy®.
As one might suspect, behind the scenes the relationship between the two men can be strained. Their philosophies turn out to be incompatible. CEO1 is a man of impulse and ever alert to synergies and economies of scale, whereas CEO2 tends to adopt a more unifying approach, preferring his team to circle the wagons and sing from the same hymn sheet. Things have been growing progressively worse. During a particularly fraught crisis in connection with whose image would appear on a series of memecoins, CEO1 allegedly ordered the assassination of his younger colleague. Barring a temporarily jammed flamethrower in the hands of a hired assassin, CEO2, rather than a line of jeering protesters behind him, might have been set on fire. A failed retaliatory attempt by the no-longer-servile CEO2, involving nerve agents and office sprinkler heads, resulted in equally unfortunate collateral damage.  
The President of the United States pledged to intervene. Both CEOs are now protected by teams of bodyguards, all Navy Seals. Our national security may rest in the balance, an image of the President is quoted as saying. It is whispered that HCI is only one arm of an even larger holding company owned by the Saudis or the Chinese. Nobody knows for sure. Disclosure requirements have been deemed unconstitutional by a divided Supreme Court. The SEC has been disbanded.

Corey Mertes received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago and an MFA in Film and Television Production from the University of Southern California. His short stories have appeared in many journals and have been shortlisted for the American Fiction Short Story Award, the Tartts Fiction Award and the Hudson Prize. His debut story collection, Self-Defense, was published in February 2023 by Cornerstone Press. A second collection, titled The Doctrine of Signatures, will be published by Cornerstone in early 2027.