POV: Cynthia / LOCATION: Galactic Energy HQ


Once Cyrus unlocks the main doors, a wimpy kind of young man throws himself on the floor.

"Master Cyrus, she has a chainsaw!"

Cyrus is gone before I can even blink. He returns with a young woman. She's laughing loudly as if he had told her a hilarious joke. His scowl disproves that theory, however.

"Morning, Boss!" she chirps.

Cyrus holds out his hand. She pouts. Slowly retracts her hands from behind her back and places a chainsaw into his palm. He cocks a brow. She surrenders a stack of dynamite.

"No contraband on the premises." His deepening scowl suggests this line hads been repeated and overused.

"Okay, Boss!"

"Not okay!" the young man hisses. "One day you'll blow up the whole place! Who's going to pay for my processor!"

"You're such a loser, Saturn."

"Master Cyrus, Mars is bullying me again!"

Cyrus has been pinching his temples so hard they have begun to bruise. Once those two stop bickering, he says, "Mars. Saturn. This is Miss Cynthia, the Champion of Sinnoh."

"Champion of what?" Saturn says.

"Of… Pokemon battles?" I say.

"Oh. Cool. Anyway, I'm going to my pod. Don't follow me, Mars!"

Mars follows him, much to his immense chagrin.

"Are they related?" I ask once those two are out of sight.

"No."

"How old are they?"

"Why?"

For someone who wouldn't shut up about jazz, he sure is generous with questions that really matter. What charming one-word replies. Sarcasm, of course.

"They are capable," he says with enough conviction to make me whole-heartedly believe him. "Mars and Saturn are my deputies. They ensure that our employees are productive."

Somehow I severely doubt that.

Soon the employees begin trickling in. Spacepeople sporting neon-bright bowl cuts. A stream of bioluminescent mushrooms with golden G's printed on their flashy uniforms.

Two things are happening here: either this CEO has taken his space kink too far, or I've accidentally wandered into a cult.

While I gape at this surreal spectacle, a spaceman with a… with a very big butt approaches us. His ass is so big that it strains against his pants. The air literally ripples whenever those swollen asscheeks jiggle… which they never stop doing. I cannot stop staring at them.

"Don't encourage him," Cyrus hisses. Out loud, he says, "Miss Cynthia, this is B-2."

B-2? Like… booty? These people are really out of this world.

B-2 gasps. "Cynthia, the Champion of Sinnoh? You're even more beautiful in person!"

His exclamation draws the attention of everyone nearby. And it snowballs from there, and soon I am mobbed by the entire colony.

"Cyrus!" I yelp.

Cyrus is already striding away, his phone glued to his ear. How dare he leave me alone with the ravenous paparazzi. It's as if he planned to ditch me from the very beginning!

Suddenly, everyone shuts up. The cause: the muzzle of a submachine gun pointed indiscriminately to the crowd.

"What's all the ruckus?" Mars says.

Without another word, the spacepeople disperse to their cubicles.

"Thanks," I wheeze.

"For what?"

Honestly, I don't think she's all there.

"You look familiar." Mars cocks her head to and fro as if listening to a heartbeat in the walls. "Oh! The boss reads about you all the time. You're that lady who beats people up!"

In its purest essence, that's essentially what the Champion does. But from the way Mars puts it, it's like I enjoy hurting people. "Where did Cyrus go?"

"He goes everywhere." She hoists the giant gun over her petite shoulders. Something falls out of her dress. Before I can convince myself that it's surely not a magazine clip, she sweeps into her sleeve and flashes me an endearing, compromising smile. "Anyway, I'm going hunting. Ciao!"


I already hear Saturn when I step out of the elevator.

"How the heck am I supposed to dodge these Gaster Blasters? The easiest enemy in the game, my—"

Saturn jerks around, hugging his arms as though expecting to be violently pinched. When he sees me, however, his face resets to an expression of disinterest, and he promptly returns to his game.

"Shouldn't you be working?" I say, more put off by his rudeness than the fact that he's clearly shirking off in front of the other employees who don't even bat an eye. In fact, no one on this floor is even the least productive.

"You're not my boss, lady."

Scattered over his desk are suspicious gizmos; on his right lap sits an opened bag of cheese puffs; on his left lap oozes a chunky Croagunk. His nameplate is buried underneath a swamp of videogame cartridges.

"Is Saturn really your name?" I ask.

"Look, lady, I need to beat this boss before Master Cyrus comes back. I owe him two weeks' worth of spreadsheets."

At least he's self-aware. "Why do you call him Master Cyrus?"

To my surprise, Saturn yanks off his headphones. His character dies in the game, but he doesn't seem to mind. "Because I'm his favorite Commander! Don't believe anything Mars tells you! I've been with him the longest, so he goes to me for everything!"

Looks like Cyrus has himself a little fanboy. "Where did your boss go?"

"Probably talking to Jupiter in his office. She said she was running late."

"Jupiter?"

By that point, he completely ignores me.


Voices are coming inside the boss's office. A peek reveals Cyrus in deep discussion with a woman who gives off the impression that she can and will kick his ass without warning.

"…not your fault," the woman is saying. "You can't plan for everything."

"I hired him. I should've been more attentive to his true ambitions." Cyrus is gnashing his teeth. The sound is horrible, like a burst of feedback on the radio.

"I'll hunt him down and get back those stolen documents. Don't worry about it. In the meantime, have you put balm on your burns like I told you—"

I sneeze. The door bursts open.

No one speaks. The weight of their stares drill into my forehead. I force a weak chuckle.

Oh boy.

"Um. Hi. I'm Cynthia."

Unlike the rest of the astronauts in this space colony, the woman does not display the slightest bit of interest in me. Instead, she scrapes her icy gaze to Cyrus, who is so still that he can pass as a crystal statue. I hear his tongue dragging along his teeth as he gropes for the right words.

"Miss Cynthia, I'll be right with you."