Get fixated on a particular reference point

Geoff craned his neck and looked up at the building.

‘Soon they’ll be everywhere,’ he muttered. ‘Pinkman and Grist Associates, sweeping across the financial district like Genghis Khan, destroying everything in their path.’

‘Not if we stop them,’ said Felicity, quietly. Geoff shook his head.

‘We’re like unarmed Chinese peasants,’ he said. ‘They’ll run us down on horseback.’

‘But the antitrust investigation...’ began Felicity.

‘Useless,’ Geoff interrupted. ‘Like a bamboo hut. They’ll lie to the regulators, they’ll lie to the courts, they’ll do whatever it takes and come out clutching the still-beating heart of the bonds market like a newborn Genghis Khan emerging from his mother’s womb clutching a bloodclot – a story which, whether apocryphal or not, indicates the high regard in which Genghis Khan’s capacity for bloodthirstiness was held by his people.’

‘I know,’ said Felicity. ‘That’s what you always say.’ She stared down at her shoes, made of the same kind of leather as Genghis Khan’s saddle would once have been. Geoff’s gaze was still on the skyscraper above them.

‘How tall would you say it is?’ he mused. ‘If you got two hundred Genghis Khans and stood them on each other’s shoulders...’