Powered Personnel
The Big Startup
K. A. Maxwell
Powered Personnel: The Big Startup
(Powered Personnel Book 1)
Copyright © 2021 by K. A. Maxwell
Cover Art by Pixie Covers Copyright © 2021
Editing: Kaija Rayne
Formatting: The Cover Villain
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in critical book reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact K. A. Maxwell at [email protected].
Published in Canada
eBook ISBN: 978-1-7776580-1-4
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7776580-0-7
www.poweredpersonnel.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales and incidents are either of the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is purely coincidental.
Content Advisory: This book has scenes of violence and drama which may make this book unsuitable for younger and sensitive readers.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
To Grandma Doreen (1920-2018).
May you rest in power.
Chapter 1
Chloe Ceres stirred under her bed sheets as beams of sunlight leaked through the window blinds and hit her lime-colored skin. Her eyelids fluttered, and she rolled onto her stomach. After a moment, she cleared strands of bark-brown hair from the spikes protruding across her eyebrows to get a look around her environment: Queen size bed, thick pillows, wooden bedside table and solid walls. For a moment, the sounds of the morning buzz within her half-asleep haze had her wondering if she was in the middle of a busy honey factory. Once she threw open the blinds, she took a long breath and stretched her arms wide, letting as much of the sun hit her body as possible.
She turned to a can-sized device on her bedside table that projected a hologram with the words "New Job Day" and "New Voicemail" with the time on the top-right side of the display: "6:49 a.m."
"Hey Steve," said Chloe. "Can you play my voice messages?"
"Sure can, Chloe," replied the virtual assistant. "I took this message today at 4:52 a.m."
"Good morning, my Super Sales Warrior."
Chloe winced at the booming voice of her new boss.
"It's Hilda. As I speak, I am on my way to a summit with members of the Executive team on the other side of the Caerus System. Alas, I won't be around to see you on your first day at work. But do not fret. Melinda will get you settled in. I did have a chance to review your talent roster earlier today, and I'm impressed with your selections. I've approved your roster and made arrangements for their salaries to be added to your budget."
So far, so good.
"Melinda chose well in introducing you to me. I want you to enjoy this first day and get acquainted with GVU's culture before we engage in the battles that lie ahead."
Chloe shrugged and opened a bottle of water, gulping it down. She turned around, back now facing the sunlight so she could get a hearty photosynthesis-style breakfast.
"Indeed, with the challenges you will face in building Macmor, we may see the Market Maidens in full costume yet!"
The water sprayed from Chloe's mouth in a blast, leaving droplets gleaming in the sunlight across the hardwood floor.
"May the blessings of the Goddess be with you, Ms. Money, Chloe Ceres. I will talk to you again soon."
"Do you want me to play this message again, delete it or save it?" asked Steve.
"Nuke it," grumbled Chloe.
"Boom. Message nuked."
Chloe stomped into the shower and spent the next few minutes going through all the possible ways her semi-secret identity could have been leaked. Hacking? Spying? Conspiracy theorists? Or someone with a grudge?
Chloe reached up and lathered bath suds across her hair and body until the moisture saturated her skin, then rinsed. Once out of the shower, she combed her hair, leaning into the mirror to run thick fingers through to form it into a pixie bob style, straight, slightly lower than chin length with bangs that hung over the right side of her brow spikes and face. She made sure they properly covered her large ears, which angled outwards. She stood up straight to review her stature, making sure she was at the normal height: a couple inches above five feet and not a single inch more.
The phone rang.
"Hey Steve, can you answer that?" said Chloe.
" No problem. Aaaand, phone connected."
"Hello?"
"Mrrrow... morning Lil' Greenie." The voice had a twangy drawl of a northern city accent.
Chloe narrowed her eyes. Out of all possible suspects, this person was most likely to have clued in Hilda on their alter egos.
"Melinda, did you tell Hilda about what we did at business school?" asked Chloe.
"What?" said Melinda.
"How did Hilda know about the Market Maidens?" Chloe paced around her bed. "We haven't done anything for years. There's no way she could have known unless she found an old news clip or someone told her about it."
"Maybe she, uh, did some kind of due diligence and poked around some Heroes' Guilds? The boss lady's been a Nyxazon gladiator and probably tapped into her network to talk about us. Kinda hard to deny her once she gets on your case."
"In other words." Chloe sighed. "You told her when she asked about it."
"Course I did," said Melinda. "We did great work back then, Greenie. There ain't nothing to be ashamed about."
Chloe's face burned as she looked over the options of dresses and tops to wear over her generous figure.
"Not everyone likes telling stories about being in tight super suits, okay? Does yours still even fit?"
"Why are you asking a question like that? With all that flexicarb they strung into that suit, you got nothing to worry about."
It had cost Chloe an extra three thousand credits on top of the original thousand to have her suit made with durable stretch fibers. That discovery led her to get almost every piece of wardrobe with it as a necessity afterward. She picked a simple brown one-piece dress with a white collar and pulled it over her head, then buckled her belt. It initially stretched taut around her body before it expanded and draped over her properly.
"By the way, mine still fits me just fine," said Melinda. "I bet if we wore our super suits today, we'd get a helluva lot more attention, now that our curves grew and matured after how long?"
"Sixteen years, and we're not superheroes anymore," Chloe said as she brushed her hair. "Is that the only thing you called about?"
"But it was so much fun doing those jobs back in school, wasn't it?"
"We can talk more about it later, but if I don't, ugh—" Chloe's hair brush got stuck.
"You okay?"
Another tug; it didn't budge. Then with one more pull, the brush snapped loose and smashed into the closet door, leaving a big dent while the brush shattered into pieces on the floor.
"Crap."
"What happened?"
"Had a hair accident. I broke my brush and the closet door."
"Still a tank," Melinda declared. "Better than wa
rdrobe malfunctions, right?"
"If you told Hilda about any of that..."
"Nah. I wouldn't tell people about the time when your b—"
Knocks and bumps interrupted Melinda, followed by a loud crash.
"Mooooom!"
"Mooooom!"
"Rrroraaah! What's going on down there? Chloe, hang on a sec?"
The next time Chloe visited the Calanke house, she would definitely bring some ice cream cones for the kids. She took the interruption as a chance to clean up the brush pieces and wet spots from the floor. When she slid open the damaged closet door, there was a cardboard box that sat behind the pair of shoes which matched the dress. Chloe kneeled down towards it and brushed off some dust, revealing a sticker. It was of an insignia of two M's intertwined, with arrows pointing up at each end. She flipped open the box and inside was her old costume: a simple dark green one piece with a skirt, mask, and her hero's license card on top. Her license photo showed a younger face with hair in an apple-shaped style. A dark green mask over her eyes and spiked brows completed the look. She picked up the one-piece and held it up. Chloe tugged at the suit. It made a light groan and stretched out as wide as her arms could spread. Her right fingers slipped, and the fabric snapped back.
“Ouch!”
Chloe recoiled, and the one-piece floated and landed back on her bed. Leaning forward, she took the suit up by the shoulder straps and gazed at the suit's neck line which dipped low in a ‘U' shape. Chloe shook her head in disbelief at one of her not-so-smart career decisions, at least when it came to suit selection.
“I'm back,” said Melinda.
“Is everything okay?” asked Chloe.
“Just two of the cubs trying a new strike move they saw on TV. They thought it would be fun to try it out on each other in the kitchen, again."
“They're good kids.”
“They better be good alright, ‘cause I'm the one training them.”
“How do you keep up?”
“Best advice I can give any potential babysitter or parent: Get a supply of super-high concentrated coffee that glows in the morning, the one that gives super-speed, without too much sugar.”
Chloe raised an eyebrow. “And where would I get that?”
“At a secret service supermarket where superheroes are born from breakthroughs. Get it? Superhero, Super-market?” Melinda laughed.
Chloe groaned at the mom joke. “You'd have better odds of winning the lottery than having a breakthrough. Even if that kind of coffee existed, would you really risk your health like that?”
“One can still dream, Lil' Greenie. But for now, I still got that long commute ahead. Don't forget that I'm meeting ya after onboarding, all right?"
"Okay, thanks so much."
"All in a day's work, citizen."
Chloe rolled her eyes and dropped the super suit back into the box, "Bye, Lin."
When Chloe got outside, she placed a hand on one of the layers of wood that were part of the building's structure.
"How are you doing today?" she asked.
The building itself didn't respond vocally, but gave Chloe a gentle warmth as her fingers brushed over the vines and leaves which interconnected with each other across the structure. She walked away from her home and turned around one more time, admiring the green apartment building, made with wooden layers, vines, and blooms.
The Timberfront neighborhood was known for its sustainable housing, having most of its buildings made with materials and plants which also lived within its structures to fortify them. Between the townhouses were thick trees with wooden cone-shaped homes placed on top. Most of them were occupied by fliers who were more comfortable living in traditional tree houses and needed an easy path to the sky roads.
Five minutes of walking brought Chloe into more traditional brick and mortar store spaces with residences on top. A lot of them let vines and other plants live within and around them. One of the stores, Gaia's Gifts, used to be her staple stop on her way to downtown Brahma City. She'd done a good job staying away in the past few months while she kept her food budget under control. But today, she faced the store window, eyeing those massive Mushroom Muffins. She reached her hand over the full curve of her stomach, rubbing it in anticipation until she glanced down at the paper in front of the large pastries. Their price made her take a step back and fiddle with the strap of her bag, then the zipper. Chloe shook her head at her reflection and kept walking. It was better to wait until her wallet got thick enough to enjoy them again.
Sunlight, water, and soil were plentiful on Planet Neerg. But she longed to eat solid food through her mouth again. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out a couple sticks of minty gum.
A few minutes later, she reached a main street and walked among people also on their way to work, although she spotted a few kids here and there in school uniforms, laughing. Most of the crowd read their ebooks, listened to music, or talked on their cell phones. Then, some chirping from above, which grew into a: "Watch wing angle, your wing angle."
A shadow loomed over Chloe and she ducked just in time to avoid colliding into someone who ended up landing a few feet in front of her. As he stumbled, brown feathered wings fluttered. Before he ground to a stop, the young Falcan boy flapped his wings, turned and stretched them out wide, before folding them back. He reached up with his hands and took off his helmet and goggles. Short white feathers covered his head, with a row of them in the middle that stood up higher in a single line. He clicked his yellow beak and brushed himself off.
"Are you all right?" said Chloe.
The young Falcan turned and gave Chloe the thumbs up. "Good, Ma'am. Getting warmed up."
"Must be careful, must be careful. Son flew dangerously." His father, a larger, stocky Falcan landed next to him, wings out, then folded in.
"Aw, Dad. I have to train.”
The Falcan's father sighed and bowed his head. "This started when his mom and I took him to an air show a month ago. Been obsessed with learning to be a stunt flyer ever since."
The father Falcan reached down with his arm and opened up the young Falcan's backpack. "And you forgot your lunch. No more stunts in the street." He pecked his son on the head with his beak. "Say sorry to the lady."
The young Falcan bowed his head. "Sorry, miss. School won't teach me advanced flying in gym class."
"They won't teach that sort of stuff in primary school," said Chloe. "They don't have the facilities."
"Have to wait until high school," said the father Falcan.
"Dad," squawked the young Falcan.
"I think The Heroes of Verity might have camps for kids on flying," said Chloe. "I don't know if they still offer it, but it's worth looking into if he really wants to try."
"That's the superhero guild, isn't it? I can be a superhero," exclaimed the young Falcan.
"No. Too young." The father Falcan folded his arms and raised his eyebrows at Chloe.
Chloe shrunk back slightly and mouthed a "sorry."
"Forget about that and get to school. You'll be late," father Falcan said.
The young Falcan put his helmet and goggles back on. "Okay, thanks Lady.” With a wave, his wings opened up, and he launched himself into the air. Chloe's gaze followed him up as he joined the stream of air traffic; people and vehicles that led into swirls around a cityscape with skyscrapers on the horizon. Down below, a river separated Downtown Brahma from the southern part of the city. Chloe stood and admired the landscape with its bustling traffic, both on the ground and in the air. Pulling out her phone, she took a photo. It would be a memento of sorts, of the day that Chloe Ceres re-entered the job force with a better salary, job, and progress in her life.
Upon entering the Timberfront Subway Station, screens by the fare gates displayed a Weather Report. It was going to be a sunny day with a bit of cloud, warm, with a high of—it switched to breaking news about the Brahma City Council deadlocked on the vote on charging tolls on traffic entering downtown from the sky roads while they struggled to fi
nd ways to close the fiscal deficit. The displays switched, showing an ad from the Orbblu App showing its upcoming movies and TV shows from Planet Earth, especially their documentaries. “Subscribe to the only source for Earthling Entertainment for free for the first month.*”
Chloe glanced a bit lower for that asterisk with the fine print which read: “*new customers only, some restrictions apply, not available in all areas.” It didn't matter a whole lot; she was already a subscriber and loved watching movies that featured Earth's nature and their animals. Some of the species looked oddly similar to ones found on Neerg and around the Caerus system, except they were more... primitive?
As Chloe tapped her fare card, it gave a beep, then the screens switched to showing an ad to try out PuraCorp's latest PuraWake supplements to "help give extra pep to your step without the harmful effects of stimulants." She stopped for a moment and glared at the ad, then snorted, pushing through the fare gates without looking back.
Chloe shifted and squeezed through people who packed the subway platform and were far in the back, hardly in a good spot to get on the next train. Clutching her bag, she glanced around the floor for cracked tiles. She found one fully cratered in and positioned the front of her foot on it, then pressed down. With her eyes closed, she focused on the energy within her body and channeled it through the minute polyps on the bottom of her foot. They shook and sent vibrations through the sole of her shoe, the crack and into the floor. She only needed to send a subtle wave with just the right amount of intensity and feedback to get a rough estimate of how dense and strong the people in front of her were. She glowered at the narrow image with shoe shaped outlines; hardly any of the waves went beyond that. Either these people were denser than a wall, strong enough to break one or both. That was usually a sign of someone with a high amount of power or ability. It was important to know before getting on the subway because it's a struggle to get a seat and relaxing in comfort during a commute was best won with the least amount of conflict.
Powered Personnel: The Big Startup Page 1