"Chloe, I will guarantee that it won't be like the stuff that happened at Puracorp," Melinda declared. "I won't let you get in a tight spot if I can prevent it, all right?"
"All right. Though I bet you earned a referral bonus from me being hired, Ms. Director of Sales."
Melinda bit her lip. Of course, she'd earned that bonus.
As they neared the front of Building 770, they walked on a lawn with long, wild streaks of light green grass from the ground with patches of fuzz with the odd dandelion plant in random places. It wasn't as lush, beautiful or sustainable as the other lawns, but the grass did not show much worse for wear, considering its lack of care.
"This is it?" asked Chloe.
"Yup! Welcome to the future headquarters of Macmor where we deal with the monsters of—" Bump.
Chloe looked up at Melinda's head, which pressed against the top of the doorway.
"You okay?" Chloe giggled.
"Ouch, this ain't how Ms. Dealbreaker is supposed to make her entrance." She flashed a fang-filled smile and laughed. "I swear Chloe, when they're done with this place, I'm gonna tear it all down again starting with these doors!"
Building 770 was not part of the modern family of buildings that towered on campus. Instead, it was a low-rise office building, five stories tall with simple, square windows and straight lines. Inside, Chloe and Melinda arrived at what was supposed to be the reception area. A few of the pot lamp fixtures drooped from the ceiling unlit and lost their shine from the gathered dust and rust. The burgundy coloured carpeting had better days, with its fibers bunched up in tiny pill shapes. Chloe reached down and pulled one out, spotting the micro-tangles of carpet fiber, hair, and dust. Farther ahead, the reception table with its cracked stone base and wooden table top sat next to the hallway opening. Melinda lifted her tail-tip to dust away a panel that displayed the listing of each department in the building, though it only had one entry: "Internal Accounting" with no floor number.
"They put us with finance?" asked Chloe.
"Most of them are Demons,” said Melinda. “Hilda thinks that we'd bring in a new surge of energy and excitement to the place."
Over the counter and across the floor, wires as thick as rope criss-crossed each other around chairs and under the desk in a tangled web. At the back wall, a burned-in outline had some circles on one side and pointed edges on the other. Its center still had a couple holes with tubes sticking out from the wall, most likely used to light up an old sign for years before it got removed. She turned to Melinda, who had her hands on her hips.
"If there's people in this place, where the heck is everybody?" asked Melinda.
Chloe took two steps back and looked down. The sensation below her feet made her take another step back and turned around. "Is there a basement in this building?"
"Heck if I know. What's gotten you all nervous now?"
"I don't know." She took a few more steps, rotating herself. "It feels like something is there on the floor moving in waves."
Chloe set her bag to the side and kneeled down, pressing her palm down on the carpet. Something wiggled, then vibrated, before small lines bulged from underneath. Seconds later, wires, cords, and cables floated up from behind the desk and bunched into a blob with a blue glow. Chloe stood back up and shifted behind Melinda.
Chloe's voice rose. "Lin, please tell me this is the receptionist."
Melinda's ears shifted back, and she unsheathed her claws. "Rrrrow. Whatever that thing is, it ain't no friend of mine."
The wire blob lunged its mass at them, but it snapped back, wires pulled tight against the desk.
"We have to call security!" Chloe reached for her cell phone, but it slipped from her fingers and landed in front of the desk. The blob lunged forward and pulled hard to try to smash down on it, but it only got about a foot past the desk. Sparks flew from the blob and narrowly missed the cell phone.
“Quick, get out your cell phone,” said Chloe.
"Nah, we got this," said Melinda.
"But this isn't our job."
"Just another walk for the Market Maidens, Greenie. We can't always depend on security for the little things."
"This is little? It's a glowing bulge of network cables hovering in mid-air."
"I know what it is. Remember when we had to take care of that howling hacker?"
"Didn't he use electro-magnetic fields to make the wires move?"
"Yep. And you pulled him into a tug-o-war. You're a tank, Chloe. This will be nothing and I have the cable cutters right here." Melinda raised her hand, showing her well-pedicured and sharp claws.
"It's not the same as cables carrying a charge."
The cable blob pulled to the left, then the right, then lunged toward them again. More sparks flew from its glow, narrowly missing them.
"And it might cause a fire at this rate," said Chloe.
Melinda frowned. "I tell you this ain't too big for us. Let's throw something at it. It should ground that electricity if we knock it out, right?"
Chloe turned to her giant bag and pulled out a couple tubs of compost, handing one to Melinda. Her nose turned up, and she squinted. When she had a good grip on her tub, Chloe readied hers.
"On three Chloe, aim for that bulge on the top, okay?” said Melinda. “One, two, three!"
They both hurled the tubs at the blob, landing square on the bulge, sending it slamming into the back wall. It fell down and the bump on the top swelled like an over irritated zit. A ball of blue lightning popped out and bounced wall to wall, floor to ceiling, off doors, windows, and fixtures, until it finally slowed and formed into a glowing ball. It approached them and hovered up to Melinda, then swooped down to Chloe.
"H...l...o," its voice buzzed.
"What did it just say?" said Chloe.
"C...n….y…..he..a.r..me?"
"Sweetie, I can't hear ya. Can you clear yourself up?" said Melinda.
The ball vibrated, and its round shape morphed into a humanoid body with long, flowing hair. His blue, translucent wings spread out and fluttered as his glow dissipated.
"Sorry," he said, adjusting his glasses. "Thanks for freeing me from that maze. I wasn't sure what to do."
"Ain't no problem sweetie, haven't met a Voltfae in a while," said Melinda.
"Are you okay?" asked Chloe.
"I got trapped in the network wires while doing trace runs,” replied the Voltfae. “It didn't have enough bandwidth for me to squeeze through. I'm Adam, Adam Lyndon." Adam was about half a foot tall, with blue translucent wings, blond hair, pointy ears, and blue eyes. He wore what looked to be the GVU security uniform, but with blue highlights instead of grey.
Adam floated up and looked at the broken tubs of dirt and he covered his nose and mouth. "You threw those at the wires?"
"We thought it would ground you," Melinda said.
Adam frowned. "That's not how grounding works."
"But it got you out of those wires, didn't it? Plus, if we didn't try, you'd be trapped in there forever."
He shrugged. "I guess."
"She's Chloe Ceres, I'm Melinda Calanke, heroes at your service."
Chloe rolled her eyes.
"You're licensed?" said Adam.
"We just reunited today and we're giving our shtick another go," said Melinda.
"But you two were up against electricity. You should have called security and maintenance."
"That's what I told her," said Chloe. "Actually, we're the new directors of Macmor, and we were expecting someone to show us around this building. Like a receptionist or an administrator?"
"It wasn't me," said Adam. "I had to replace the tech for a new hire."
"Ain't that strange," said Melinda. "I was told we were getting someone who transferred in from another department."
"Must have quit," said Adam.
Chloe groaned. "Another person we'll have to hire."
"It can't all be that bad. How hard is it to answer phones and welcome people?" Melinda asked.
"They'
re the first point of contact and they need to have the ability to handle the type of people we'll get."
They peered over the desk to check the underbelly of reception. The cables were mostly of the older types, with connectors where it needed a twist to plug into a socket on the wall.
"Adam, are you sure you were only here to set up a new computer?" Chloe asked.
"That's what I was told," said Adam.
"Yeah, right, one person to go through all of this mess to set up one computer?" Melinda said. "Nah, you're coming with us."
"But, I was told to—"
"And now I'm telling you that you're coming with us. If those tech people try giving you flak for it, tell them that Lin said so, ya hear? Now, mind calling your friends to get rid of this stinky mess and giving us a tour of the place?"
After a call to get a janitor to clean up the soil, with no less than an industrial respirator, Adam guided them to the main floor cafeteria, which had an open seating area with wooden tables and chairs with metal frames. Melinda and Chloe had to twist and turn around people that sat close to each other. Chloe still had her giant bag and had to heft it up over her so she could slip by. Melinda slid sideways through the narrow gaps while Adam flew over. When Chloe got to that spot, her hip pressed and pushed back the chair with its occupant seated, who leaned over and saved her coffee from knocking over. Chloe mouthed an apology and tried to move around as gently as she could without bumping over anyone else. "Sorry. Excuse me, I just need to pass by, please let me pass." Her shoes scratched across the floor about as loud as the chairs she bumped.
"Chloe, where are you going? Get a move on," Melinda called out.
Chloe had gone across the cafeteria instead of forward. Adam and Melinda were already at the entrance of the food service section while others looked at the short green person with the huge bag on top of her head. She decided to take a direct path ahead through a couple tables that seemed to have a wide enough gap without any occupants. She squeezed her legs and hips while her dress tugged and stretched. The pair of old tables weren't going to stop her one way or the next. She pushed through with loud snaps and pings echoing through the cafeteria.
As she breathed in relief, she took stock of the damage. The narrow opening that she'd gone through wasn't so narrow anymore, and the wood splintered around the edges while the metal frame against the chairs bent in a large apple shape.
That gave Chloe an excuse to pretend, ignore, or otherwise act like she hadn't noticed the remodeling she'd done and jogged up, giant bag in hand, to the others.
In the food service section, there were posters of sandwiches, drinks, and coffees hanging on the side walls, each with a number. Above the posters, pipes lined the walls and ceilings that led to machines mounted on top of counters.
"Let me make it up to ya. My treat," said Melinda. "What do ya feel like, Lil' Greenie?"
"Maybe something to eat with coffee?" said Chloe.
Melinda led them to the other side of the food hall, where the aroma of hot baked donuts filled the air. Laid out in groups, each size of the pastries were stacked on high.
"They make fourteen sizes of donuts every day," said Melinda.
Adam picked up a donut from the size two pile. It was about the size of a quarter, but to Adam, it was twice the size of his palm. Chloe walked over to the size fourteen donuts. There were only two of them, but up close, they were like inflatable floating tubes from a water park except they were made out of pastry, icing, and sprinkles. Chloe never really paid too much attention to calories anyway, and considering the size of them, she had to wonder what type of ovens and fryers they used to make them.
"You can eat that much?" asked Adam.
"I'm going to try. I never saw any donut places sell one this big before. I'll share it with you guys." Chloe said.
"You'll want to pair that with this," Melinda said as she reached for a coffee cup that resembled more of a giant paper bucket. "I figured you'd need it to dip with the donut you got there. Go for the double record, Chloe. People will notice."
"Were we keeping track of people's consumption records?" said Adam.
"Now we are. C'mon, have you ever seen anybody as small as Chloe drink from a fifth-degree extra-large cup?"
Adam shook his head.
"I say that since it's Chloe's first real day, she should send a message to people that a member of Macmor should never be messed with."
"Isn't that your role?" said Chloe. She picked up the cup and headed to the coffee station, where she eyed each label of coffee on the wall. "Granmaza, Iatomacchi, Bustaro, don't we have just plain decaf somewhere?"
"Beats me," said Melinda. "I just take selection number one every day; keeps things simple, y'know?"
Try as she might, the word "decaf" was hard to find in a sea of posters filled with different coffee blends from different planets. Most of the coffee beans had the same color and shape. It took having to enlist the help of a couple cashiers to find the decaffeinated selection within a panel printed in small font.
Melinda pointed at a platform within a machine that sat next to the coffee containers. "You punch in the coffee number, size number, and the add-on numbers. It will do the rest."
Chloe nodded and slid the giant cup onto the platform. "Sounds easy enough."
She punched in the code for decaf, then punched in the cup size code.
"You mind hurrying it up?" asked a voice behind her. A line-up had formed.
Chloe checked a wall poster for the add-ons. Pictures of sprinkles, sugars, syrups, bugs, cheese, and others were printed in a grid with numbers.
"We have almost every sort of sugar, milk, cream, syrup, decoration, and flavoring you can think of. Diversity and variety, Chloe, get it?" Melinda chuckled.
Chloe reached up to her eyebrow thorns, short of massaging them. "All I want is sugar. Isn't there a cheat sheet for this?"
"It's twenty-two," several people said.
She punched in the code. A door slid open, and a tube slithered into the cup. It started its brew with a few drips and slowly sped up to a smooth flow that poured, and poured, and poured. More people lined up behind Chloe as the time ticked on. After a couple minutes passed, only a quarter of the cup was full. Melinda bent over Chloe and dangled an empty coffee cup over her, grinning and giggling. "Don't forget to do me next, 'Lil Greenie!"
The line-up kept piling and the growing number of caffeine addicted eyes burned deep into Chloe's back.
Chapter 4
Lieutenant-Commander Bridget Ebony of the GVU Security Force led the group of thirteen recruits toward the training field and kept her high-powered eyes scanning for any trouble. Her gaze zoomed into a window on the fourth floor of Building 770, about two hundred feet away. There, she spotted a demon working her magic on a demonic counter while writing something in a book, doing finances just like on most days. Her gaze shifted to the eighth floor of Building 845 and zoomed in on a group of people in lab coats watching someone present a drawing on a whiteboard. She could make out a part of it with a bunch of dots and lines drawn and wondered if this was a new kind of game made up on this planet. The conversations from the room revealed nothing but complex science talk in her pointy ears.
Just before she was about to yawn in front of the recruits, her ears picked up a loud crash. She zeroed in on the eleventh floor.
"You all right?" she heard one person say.
"I'm fine, just slipped on some goo," another person said.
Ebony got ready to issue emergency commands to the recruits. They're going to be lucky or unlucky to be tested on a hazardous material incident on day one. None of them had any resistance to that, and it would definitely give her a chance to assess how they'd deal with it.
"I think your accident proves that we need to keep working on that slip hazard for the non-toxic GameGoo product. Safety first," said another scientist.
Ebony looked up at the sky, sighing. She made a silent prayer to the Goddess for a real challenge so boredom woul
dn't kill her. The group was almost at the training field, but it would take another long and brutal three minutes of walking before she'd get a chance to see what they could really do and maybe get some more training partners out of it. She tuned into the group's conversations.
"What do you think she'll have us do, sister?"
"Fight you one-on-one."
"Fight her?" The woman's heartbeat raced.
"I'm joking. You wouldn't be able to beat her, anyway."
"Don't joke. No one here can beat her one-on-one. It will take a team to do that."
Nadia Heun was absolutely right about that. She was one of the four Honey Antoise sisters alongside Saquita, Zarela, and Shantana, who joined the GVU security team to provide underground support and strategy. Nadia, the shortest of the four, about Bridget's chest level height, furiously shook her four arms and her antennae, scolding Zarela as the others laughed.
"Where are you from?"
"Tisfield Tides."
Ebony's attention shifted to a couple of other recruits. The first person was a grey-skinned man, with no hair, athletic build, probably built more for speed. His name was Elric Trens. A Neutran. The other was a woman with long golden-orange hair which shifted to blue halfway, tied up in a thick and wild ponytail. She had a swimmer's build, broad shoulders, and pale-golden scaled skin. Overall, Bridget would put her about as lean as a human female athlete. Her name was Oriana Chandroni, a Bettan.
"I just moved to the Beaches a couple months ago," she said.
"How's the water?" asked Trens.
"Warm. It's okay, I guess. I have to swim a bit to get to a good depth. Hunting is eh, but food is food."
Ebony snickered. At least she wasn't the only one who felt that way when it came to hunting on Planet Neerg.
"You don't look like the hunting type," said Trens.
Chandroni laughed. "What makes you say that?"
Trens flinched at the sight of Chandroni's teeth: pointy, narrow, and sharp. "Nice teeth."
"Everyone says I have nice shiny teeth, I take good care of them, brush and floss them twice a day." Chandroni sneered.
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