Chapter 44 – A Fresh Start
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"The Stone of Life... what exactly am I supposed to do with this?"

Miss Planner sat down at her desk examining the glowing red Stone of Life. Elder Incarnate claimed it was the secret to immortality, but she had no idea what it actually did. The stone was about the size of her palm, smooth and warm, without a single scratch. It just sort of existed, radiating a weird, mystical energy.

"Ahh... I wish I knew. I need to ask him... or maybe give it to one of the other Elders to play with..."

She yawned widely, stretched, and flopped backwards in her chair. Her body felt stiff. She was still waiting on the next batch of psychic materials from the Ancient Race to complete her next Soul Shell prototype, which would implement all the changes she thought up over the weekend. Until then, she was catching up on all of the unfinished business that had accumulated over the last three months. Her pleasant dream of artistic perfection was slowly drifting away into the darkness of her subconscious mind as her focus shifted back towards real work and practical results.

"Let's see... sales are up, and recruitment is way up. The contract killers are taking a lot of heat off our security division. Maxwell got his promotion to executive. No problems with our expansion into Challebon. I got Gordon's research team ready to go the Grand Temple. Is there anything new? Looks like the Controllers are recruiting, too... more and more monster attacks... Hm. I need to think of something to keep the Elders busy..."

She narrowed her eyes and turned to look out of her window. She could see the smoggy city skyline stretching off into the distance, the towers looming high above the streets below. The sun shined dimly through the haze.

"Ahhh... I wish the weather wasn't so bad."

Miss Planner sighed deeply and slumped forward in her seat, resting her chin on top of her hands as she stared at the ground.

"I've been working nonstop on this stupid armor... I'm exhausted! If I’d known how much work this project was going to be, I never would have started it in the first place!"

Miss Planner looked up and relaxed. Then, she lazily grabbed the Stone of Life.

"Well, I'll figure something out. There must be some good use for a powerful psychic material like this... maybe I can give one of my puppets a power-up or something. Or if I really can use it to live forever... maybe one day I can become Elder Planner? Hehehe..."

The young woman's face lit up. She pulled the Stone of Life close and hugged it tightly against her chest, distractedly muttering to herself as she absentmindedly clicked through e-mails on her computer screen. Then, her gaze shifted to an alert that she'd been ignoring.

"Performance review time for all my little analysts... Ahh, I should have done this last week. They're going to hate me!"

She grimaced, put the Stone of Life back in its box, and reached down to grab a few files from her desk.

"Gordon and Erica have been doing good... Tracy, so-so... Alex, poor... I guess I should get started on the evaluation forms. Quality and quantity of useful work, work habits, attitude, job knowledge and skills... should I even bother? They're all more or less fine... oh, what am I saying? Their work... is all horrible! These slackers need a wake-up call!"

Miss Planner picked up the pen and began writing everyone's performance reviews with a strange and furious energy. She didn't let anyone off the hook this time around. Her hand moved faster than she was aware of, filling page after page with angry red lines and accusations. She was truly the boss from hell.

"There are far too many complaints in here. Quality of life... what a joke. I don't want to hear any of these trained apes whining about anything ever again. All they do is complain and moan. Why don't they try being productive? It's not my fault they're on the bottom of the totem pole... I should just send them home early today... just tell them to take the whole year off! I'll give them all the vacation days they could ever want. That's right. One year of unpaid leave. Hehehehe..."

Miss Planner chuckled and rubbed her forehead. She was getting back into the groove of things with surprising ease. Her restlessness and self-doubt were quickly giving way to a familiar, comfortable feeling of total control. She quickly finished her evaluations and went back over them once more, scaling back the harshness of her criticism and couching everything in vague, positive language. This wasn't because she suddenly liked her people... no, this was merely a calculated attempt to wring as much productivity as possible out of her unimaginative band of peons.

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