I stepped through the double sliding doors and then into an office that almost seemed to be shouting at me.

There were Crusher Media posters everywhere. Newspaper articles, photocopied and then expanded 100 times to fill whole walls. There wasn't a space of wall, flooring or coffee mug that didn't proclaim Crusher Media's greatness.

And right at the centre of it, like a god in the middle of his newly created universe, was Richard Balls.

The man looked much shorter than he did in his pictures and he had a slight bald spot at the back of his head that wasn't shown in any of the photographs that coated the walls. But when I looked past those things I saw the grinning teeth of the coyote just before it eats you for lunch and the laser-like eyes of a shark-eagle-snake-bat-octopus-killer-whale-combo.

'Mr Hill' he said in a deep, polished voice, 'Take a seat. Have you met each other?'

The woman sitting opposite him didn't even turn her head but instantly I knew it was her - Lazy Cultivator. Brown, half-brushed hair And a pair of glasses she probably used for burning whole villages of ants on her off days. I walk over and sat.

The chair was a piece of shite. The way it was angled made me sit up straight, and the base was rock-hard. It took half my mind of the conversation that followed. No doubt a man of Richard Balls status and wealth would have no problem purchasing a decent chair so obviously, it was some sort of intimidation tactic. To be fair, the joke was on him, I'd spent a good portion of my recent life either in homeless shelters or cooped up in a grey concrete prison without so much is a pillow to ease my pain.

'Eli.' Mr Balls said, 'Well done on making it this far. I have to say I was a little...' he licked his lips, '...apprehensive about your story to begin with. Non-fiction, or at least hyper-inflated non-fiction isn't the sort of thing we usually do here at Crusher Books. But since the beginning of this company, I've always said give the customers what they want. And so if people want your book then we’ll damn well give it to them. But Mr Hill, my advice for you would be don't bite the hand that feeds you.'

He narrowed his eyes at me like he was trying to take a shit on his brown leather chair.

'Now...' Balls said, a business-like grin appearing on his face, 'I brought the two of you here today to talk about this. He raised two fingers on each hand above his head and made bunny ears with them, “Beef” between yourselves and perhaps more importantly between your fans.’

Lazy Cultivator rolled her eyes 'Mr Balls I would not call...' she just did vaguely to me, ‘...this a beef, this guy, he's been obsessed with me, constantly writing and fantasizing about getting more reads than me, writing about weird, boxing fuelled dreams. I gave him a small mention, he's obsessed, this is very much a one-way street and a one-person problem.’

I frowned, 'That's not the way I-'

‘-That's exactly the way it's been happening.’ she said, 'You, you're obsessed, you seem to think you're the Moriarty to my Sherlock Holmes, but in reality, you're just the cab driver who thinks he can do what I do because he's read a few books. You can't do half the things that I've done, Mr Hill.'

Balls watched this all go on and I swear he didn't really hear a single thing we said. The only sound he heard was the cha-ching cha-ching of money falling into his pockets. 'You see,' Mr Balls said, 'I love your passion, both of you are so passionate about what you do. That is what makes...' he gestured to lazy cultivator '...your work the most read work of literature of any living author.'

Then he pointed to me 'And you Mister Hill, trying to take on an almost godlike figure of our time. That is something to be commended. There is something I myself faced when I was getting started,' then he held out his hands, 'And look at where I am now. The reason why I succeeded is I was prepared to do things other companies would not do and I was prepared to carry out experiments and take risks that other companies could never take.'

He laced his fingers together. 'And that is why I want the two of you to keep up this...' he raised his fingers again, '...“beef”. Over the last 18 hours, Lazy Cultivator, your story more than tripled its daily read count. Mr Hill...' he laughed, '...your results are even more impressive. You have achieved 40 times your daily read count. 40 times Mr Hill and that's after just a single mention from your good friend Lazy Cultivator,'

He clicked his teeth, 'And the plus of all this is more money for the company and for you.' Lazy Cultivator didn't say a thing. She seemed to be almost shimmering like she was going to go super-saiyan. I, on the other hand, well I was just glad I wasn't going to be executed or forced to shave an apology into the back of my head or something like that.

An insanely high definition hologram on Balls’ desk flared to life and gave a little ding. Mr Balls nodded to it, 'That's all the time I had for the two of you today.' He licked his lips, 'But I've enjoyed this, it's not often I get to meet with the farmers who grow the produce we sell at this business.'

He pointed to Lazy Cultivator 'That one's a metaphor.' She gave a slow groan-like nod, 'Very good Mr. Balls.' And he laughed, 'Anyway that's the time I have free today but let's do this again. Don and Marty will show the two of you out.'

We left Balls' office and honestly I felt good. I was there with the best damn writer in the world and just spoken to the CEO of the largest private company in the world, never mind the fact that it was also the company that had held me hostage for what was probably coming up two years. I flicked a glance at Lazy Cultivator. She seemed extremely disinterested in me, I bit my lip, 'So it was like really good to meet you. And sorry about everything I wrote.'

She glared at me, we were in a little waiting area just outside Mr Ball's office with a table, plush chairs, and a quarter-filled jug of water. One of the security guards, I couldn't remember their names, peeked out us from behind the window. He had a phone in one hand and held up his other hand to us with five fingers spread out. Five minutes he mouthed to us.

I nodded and the guy gave a thumbs up and went back to his conversation.

'I don't care about you.' Lazy Cultivator said, 'The moment I'm out of this room you will be out of my mind, hopefully forever.' She pulled a purple pill bottle from her jacket and flicked the lid with a deft, practised motion. She put a pill between her teeth, crunched it, and swallowed it down. She grabbed the almost empty glass jar of water and poured it into two glasses so the jar was completely empty.

'The thing is, Richard wants us to have beef. The more beef we have, the more money we make. Creating beef is like creating drama in stories. You've got to have pacing. You've got to have high points, low points...' she held the jar in her hand, ‘And most importantly... escalation. If nothing escalates, well chances are your story's going to be a little dry.'

She rolled her eyes, 'But why am I telling you; a b-class hack all this, well I guess it's just an example of foreshadowing. If you were a writer, and proper writer, he would have probably seen this coming.’

She swung the glass jar full force into the side of my head. It was one of those fancy, thin walled ones. And it smashed into a hundred pieces as it came in contact with one of those bumpy parts of my skull. Instantly the pain knifed through my head, down my spine, and back up again in the form of a string of drool. My eyes wavered and I spun in a slow circle onto the ground, where more glass awaited me like a little goose feather pillow, only replace goose with glass. All those cuts started leaking blood. I guess it must have looked kind of dramatic because the security guard on the phone had ended his call and was running over to me. A couple of Balls' secretaries arrived with wet towels and even Balls himself made a brief appearance to laugh and to slap Lazy Cultivator on the back, 'That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.’ He said, then he winked at me, 'Just don't kill each other.'