Powered Personnel: The Big Startup

by K. A. Maxwell

  Thomas stayed quiet.

  Ebony focused on first engaging and flexing every single part of her body. Then she allowed the well of her blessed energy to flow and fill her. Within a few seconds, her body was fully primed. The straps along her shoulder and chest pads stretched. Now came the tough part, using her own power to expand it and herself, but slowly and less intensely. Normally, she would go all out to transform as quickly as she could, but doing that here would destroy the entire campus, along with the city at least. She gritted her teeth and her once green eyes shifted into a deep magenta glow. With a grunt, a shockwave of raw power blasted from her body and hit everyone. It knocked down most of the crowd and blew some smaller recruits away several feet. Was that too much power already? She waited for a moment for them to get back on their feet, and they wisely braced or held on to someone heavier or stronger. She brought her attention back to her own body and grunted again, releasing a surge of power which increased her size. Then another surge, and another, and another. The ground cracked and cratered as each shockwave slammed into it. One minute had passed, and Ebony's body stiffened. This was it. She now had to be really careful. Slowly, she let more of her blessed power flow and flexed. The training field trembled, and it grew into a full-on rumble. She looked up. Thomas still maintained his ground and stood in front of her; not bad, but she was only getting started.

  Another shout, another push, another surge, which blasted out a more powerful shockwave that slammed into poles yards away and bent them backward and embedded them into the ground. Her shoulder and chest pad straps stretched taut as they struggled to contain her. She looked at Thomas again, who still managed to stand his ground in spite of being hit with multiple shockwaves earlier as the ground split apart around him.

  That can't be possible. The power report on Thomas did not mention a high-level of durability, and his body weight was well under five-hundred pounds. Through the destruction she made, how was he not moving? Her eyes scanned his chest, waist, arms. Nothing out of the ordinary from the vines that wrapped around them. She looked down at his legs, and then at his boots. Roots penetrated through them into the ground and drilled deeper by the moment. That ability was not in the report. He was only reported to be able to extend his vines with limited plant control.

  Thomas had a smug smile on his face. That bastard. Ebony growled and tensed harder. The shockwave that blasted off her body shot rubble up in the air. Ebony's shoulder and chest pads exploded off her and left her only in her bodysuit. Ebony looked up and Thomas still stood. He laughed.

  "Commander, I play to win." His voice was even more cocky than before. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a disc shaped device and attached it to her shoulder.

  "It's all ready," he called out.

  "Fire!" shouted Wats.

  Ebony's sight lit up in a brilliant white light and she could only hear buzzes. Her body went numb, and then the blessed power that she was full of suddenly vanished. It was like someone unplugged her and left her empty. Her body fell to the ground and embedded itself a couple inches deep. Only her eyes moved, while the rest of her body remained stiff. She tried using her flight to push up and away, at least to let her hover, but she stayed grounded like a rock. A few moments later, her vision cleared up and her ears clicked as they recovered amid the sounds of ray fire.

  Within her field of view, the vets dragged the unconscious bodies of Meng, Bailey and Orsi to a floating platform while Thomas's roots pulled back into his boots. Then his face entered her view.

  "Looks like I win for real, Commander." He whirled around and left a red rose in front of her face. "How do you like the smell of defeat? Remember it well, it smells so sweet, just like me."

  Ebony roared in rage.

  "What was that? 'Why don't you help me?' I don't get paid enough to rescue Nyxazons-in-distress," said Thomas.

  A shadow loomed. Behind Thomas, Recruit Stonhart had his fist pulled back ready to smash him, but by then, vines had burst up from the ground and snapped around his arm, pulling him back.

  "That was pretty rude," said Thomas. "Didn't you doubt my ability to capture her with my charm?"

  "Let her go," said Stonhart.

  Thomas shrugged. "She's already free. But the so-called most powerful security officer on campus can't even move under her own power. But sure, you can have her."

  Thomas got out of the way and the vines went loose. With all the held-up force released, Stonhart's fist rushed at Ebony's head. She didn't feel anything more than a tap, but a cry of pain from its owner followed a loud crack from Stonhart's fist. A group of vines surrounded his body and pulled the stone giant to the ground.

  "Is she moving?" asked Wats.

  "She's just an overpowered brick now. By the way, I wasn't paid to bag a stone giant. I'm going to charge extra for this," said Thomas.

  Wats moved into view. "I warned you that you might have to defend yourself. Read the damned contract for once."

  Thomas held up his hands. "Fine, fine."

  Ebony moaned. She had to do something. All she had to do was move and finish her transformation. She could not let these men have their way, not like this. She let loose a muffled roar and tried to summon her blessed power once again, but nothing. All it did was get Wats's attention and Thomas's laughter.

  "I've never been this close to a pissed off Nyxazon," said Thomas. "What a thrill, it's almost a once in a lifetime opportunity." He reached down to touch Ebony's face.

  A white furred hand grabbed Thomas's and squeezed. "Don't get cocky,” growled Gatti. “We're not doing this for your own amusement."

  Thomas winced and pulled away. "Ow, I get it. Ow."

  Gatti released his hand and crouched down.

  “That was some pretty intense drama, Felina. I think someone deserves an acting award,” said Wats.

  “Who's acting?” said Gatti as her angered gaze shifted to Ebony.

  Wats reached over and pulled off the device from Ebony's back. "This Electromagnetic Inverter wasn't fully field tested. But it got the job done."

  A Fire Antoise joined them; she had red skin and thicker limbs than the Huen sisters. She opened a portable scanner. "Sir, it looks like the inverter did what it needed to do," she said. "It redirected the power waves given off during the transformation and when it was activated, the feedback disabled 99.999% of the organic matter-antimatter reactions, as well as paralyzing her for the time being."

  "Just as simulated. Good work, Zava. How long do you think it will take before she's able to move again?" asked Wats.

  "By my estimates, about 4 hours," replied Ensign Zava.

  "We shouldn't count on that." The human female joined them and held the large rifle in her hands.

  "What should we do, Fonseca?" asked Zava.

  "Let's do one more test," said Ensign Fonseca. Touching a few settings on her rifle. Its hum intensified and fired a thin beam that drilled into Ebony's shoulder. The pain was like several hot blow torches stabbing her. She squealed as her brain sent signals to thrash about, but her body was still unresponsive.

  Wats pushed the human away. "What are you doing?"

  "Making sure plan B was an option, sir," said Fonseca.

  "And who ordered you to hurt her before the deal was done?"

  "Erm, no one?" replied Fonseca.

  "If we're going to negotiate, we can't have Commander Ebony or anyone compromised. Think carefully and critically, Ensign, or you'll join our prisoners in cuffs. Clear?"

  Fonseca lowered her weapon. "Very clear, sir. Sorry, sir."

  “And that goes for all of you. Do not forget the amount of work we had to do to get to this point. We can't afford to indulge ourselves until the mission is complete. Is that understood?”

  “Yes sir,” Wats' group replied.

  "Woo, a gun that can cut through Nyxazons." Thomas patted the rifle like a pet. "Do you know how much something like this goes on the dark market?"

  "We designed one of them. Now, get this stone recruit
into the wagon. Fonseca, Zava, I need an anti-gravity platform to carry Ebony."

  "Yes, sir," said Zava and Fonseca.

  “Yeah, sure,” said Thomas, walking away and directing the vines to carry the Stone Giant away.

  Ebony shut her eyes, trying to fight off what she saw, what she felt, and the reality of her own performance. For all her power and training, she couldn't stop these traitors, and if it wasn't for Wats himself, she might have been killed just now.

  “Felina, I had my doubts. But, it looks like we made the right call to do this today on short notice,” said Wats. “How are you holding up?”

  “I'm fine,” growled Gatti, closing her eyes and massaging her forehead. “Just this headache. But it's nothing. We have to finish this mission.”

  “Yes, and get the word out about this injustice,” said Wats, turning towards Ebony. He crouched down with a scornful look on his face. "Bridget, whatever you are feeling right now is how my team felt after you went against my orders and were rewarded for it at our cost. If they value you that much, let them pay to get you and the others back."

  Ebony seethed as tears trembled and ran down her face. There was nothing she could do.

  "Sir.” Zava returned with a floating platform. “Zurach asked about where we're headed."

  "Not too far. It'll be the best place to make our stand and escape afterwards: Building 770."

  Chapter 5

  The Building 770 tour ended at the ground floor's boardroom. Like reception, wires sprawled on the floor, over chairs and across the table in a tangled web of communication lines. Pot lamps drooped out of their sockets like distended eyes from the ceiling.

  "And you're absolutely sure you were only supposed to set up the receptionist's computer?" said Chloe as she laid the giant food tray down.

  Adam landed on the table and paced. "I don't understand. No one told me the wiring was this bad."

  Melinda used her claws to cut through the wiring to clear her seat.

  Adam flew up to her, waving his arms frantically, "Wait, stop, you might cut a power cable and fry yourself."

  "I know what a power cable looks like." Melinda sat and took a sip of her coffee. "What a mess. I'm betting that you were about to be drafted by your boss to work on all of this."

  "He wouldn't do that, would he? This amount of rewiring takes an entire team to do. It can't be done in a day."

  Chloe reached out and snatched a fistful piece of donut. "We have two weeks to get our team together. That means we have to find an office admin that no one provided to us, get our production systems up and running, and clean up this mess we didn't make." She stuffed it in her mouth.

  "Relax gal, relax. Remember that promise that I made about not letting GVU screw ya?" said Melinda. "Two weeks is a good enough time to get things together and Hilda will want in when she's back. She'll be a huge help."

  Chloe placed two hands on the giant bucket-sized coffee cup and tilted it back, then tore off another piece of donut. She sighed and slumped back on her chair, which snapped back making Chloe flail her arms to keep her balance. She snorted and pulled herself up toward her laptop.

  "You think she wants to get her hands dirty dealing with all of this?" asked Chloe.

  "Wouldn't be the first time. I'm a bit torn, to be honest,” said Melinda. “There was this one time when we negotiated a deal with a sentient replicator. To put pressure on us, it tried to multiply itself so it could beat us with numbers. I didn't mind so much since I missed a workout the day before. But just as I kicked off my heels, Hilda already roughed them up. Turns out she also missed a training session too, and you know how Nyxazons are with their training." She slashed at the giant donut, leaving behind narrow stripes, each stripe now on top of Melinda's claws. She leaned in and licked at one of them before biting.

  Adam hovered high above and hid behind one of the drooping lamp fixtures. "Please warn me when you're about to do that," said Adam.

  "Ah, don't worry about that, sweetie. I knew exactly where my target was and I never miss," Melinda pointed out, with no less than six inches of donut on her pointed claw. She then dipped it in her coffee and munched.

  "Adam, I think now would be a good time to do a site survey," said Chloe. "Just an estimate. I have a feeling we'll need to ask for a budget increase."

  Adam floated back down to the table and finished off his donut. He turned to Melinda again as she bit down and pulled another piece of donut off her claw. Wincing, he gave short, quick nods and shifted back into his electric form then leaped into a nearby power junction box. At least it would keep him occupied and settled. She didn't want to lose anyone else too soon.

  "It's gonna be like old times, Chloe," Melinda said. She leaned back in her chair and placed her paws up on the table, purring as she stretched her legs.

  "You wish it were like old times, Lin, but it's not," said Chloe.

  "Maybe, but it sure smells that way. It's like revivals of old TV shows, old products coming back new, celebs coming out of retirement for one more go at it. It's the era of the comeback, Chloe. It's gonna be our year."

  Chloe chuckled, groaned, and took another hasty bite.

  "Picture this: After a long break, The Market Maidens are back with…" Melinda paused dramatically. "... The Case of The Budget Doubles. The ol' Agency is facing problems at the bank which forced our Heroes to adopt Villain alter egos to do double work. Ms. Dealbreaker and Ms. Money go undercover to investigate and have to fight old friends to uncover the people behind the scandal: The Sidekicks."

  Chloe leaned forward. "The sidekicks?"

  "I know what ya gonna say: The Market Maidens never had sidekicks, but the market got huge and they needed some help to get back in the game. So, they brought in a few to help, which turned out to be a nasty investment."

  Chloe had never really considered the prospects of bringing in protégés and teaching them. It would be good to pass on her knowledge and build—She shook her head and opened the laptop.

  "You're still collecting comics, aren't you?" said Chloe.

  "Yup. They put them out digitally, so I can read 'em on my phone now. Makes for great research and bedtime story reading. Heck, it inspired our team name, remember?"

  "Our team name was cheesy. It put everyone off."

  "Ain't that the point? Having a name like that made them underestimate us and they paid more attention to our looks. By the time they realized how good we were, Bof! Whack! Ka-ching! Don't you remember how great it was, Chloe?"

  "I remember how much trouble we got in, how many incident reports we had to fill out, and how much money out of our student loans we had to spend for the hero gear and training." Chloe gripped her giant cup in both hands and took a gulp. "Practically had double the work, both in school and in hero courses…"

  Another gulp.

  "...assignment to assignment, project to project..."

  Another swig, allowing the warm, decaffeinated beverage to fill her cheeks until they puffed out, then swallowed.

  "...job to job." Chloe growled, tilting her head back and took a deep draw of coffee. She pulled out a napkin and wiped her lips before she reached over and broke off a large piece of her donut and tried to stuff it all in. She pressed it down, overflowing her cheeks, then used more of the hot decaffeinated beverage to help wash it down. With a refreshing breath, Chloe patted her mouth with a napkin before she noticed Melinda smirking at her.

  "What?" said Chloe.

  "You always fuel up before something big happens," said Melinda.

  Chloe narrowed her eyes. "That can't be true and we're not doing superhero work."

  "Ah well." Melinda shrugged. "Since there aren't any hero positions here, guess we'll have to settle for being mundane department directors. You might as well surrender to fate then."

  "I'm not waiting on fate; I'm getting us back on track and ahead on day one." She hit enter on the keyboard. "There, I just sent you a copy of the approved product team roster."

  Melinda's phone ch
imed, "Already? You sure didn't miss a beat after being let go from Puracorp."

  "Right, Puracorp." Chloe grabbed the cup and drank until she slammed it down, causing the laptop, phone, table, wires, and Melinda herself to jump. She squeezed and crushed the giant coffee cup into a baseball and threw it into the garbage pail.

  As Chloe took the last piece of giant donut, she kept her gaze on Melinda's face as she looked through the email. Her eyes widened, and her mouth hung open.

  "Chloe," Melinda gasped. "How in the world did you get a Nyxazon on this team?"

  Now it was Chloe's turn to smirk at Melinda. No superpowers needed when you had a natural talent for doing mundane things. "You're supposed to be the deal breaker, guess."

  "All right then, let's see." Melinda placed a finger on her cheek. "Most other companies would all but kill to have one if they could get one on this planet in the first place, especially security companies. At GVU, we have Hilda and there's another Nyxazon that's in the GVU security force, Bridget Ebony."

  "I saw her this morning. She's already a lieutenant-commander at twenty-four years of age. That's impressive."

  "Everyone knows of her or otherwise, she would have you know of her somehow. With this gal you got here, she's just a junior designer, huh? I never heard of any of them going for a job like that. What's the story with her?"

  "There isn't much of a story. She just likes to draw and do architecture work. She loves reading visual novels but doesn't play sports that often, though she's still into gladiator fights."

  "What's her gladiator record?"

  "She said she had an average winning record for her matches while in high school."

  "Heck, as long as she can throw a punch, that's more than good enough for me."

  Chloe's smile grew. "It's a bonus."

  "Knowing you, the only way you could have snagged her was that you actually know her personally. Am I right?"

  Chloe pouted and surrendered to defeat. "She interned with me before and I kept in touch."

  "Hah, I knew it. What's her work experience like?"