The sun was finally setting as the carousel slowly wound down. You’d been surprised by just how much progress you’d made in a single day, but all the driving and recruiting was finally catching up to you.
The next morning, you might have thought of the whole thing as a weird dream, had Connie not been standing in the apartment kitchen, biting into boiled eggs.
“Good morning Johnny,” She greeted you with a soft smile, her whiskers rising. “Sleep well?”
You shook your head as you realized you’ve been staring. “Yeah. Sorry, still kinda taking this all in.” You pour yourself a bowl of cereal.
“Oh, I get you, it still feels a little weird if I try to think about my own change too hard.” She gulped down the last of the egg, and grabbed her phone. “By the way, I’d called my previous employer to give my two weeks notice, but it looks like your mysterious benefactors already took care of that, so I’m ready to help out with the theme park. What are your plans today?”
“My plans… Well…” You weren’t quite sure how to answer that. After being laughed out of that investor meeting, you’d pretty much given up on your dream and haven’t given it serious thought. Even with the magic taking care of so many of the logistical issues, you still weren’t even sure of what the general “theme” of your theme park would be, beyond having a lot of animal ladies.
“I was thinking I’d wing it, try to create a few more classic rides, now that we’ve got a couple attractions that could stand on their own while we build up the rest of the park.”
“I was wondering about those, actually,” Connie raised a claw. “I know we had a pretty busy day yesterday, and we didn’t really expect to go running around recruiting people when we woke up that morning, but if you plan to start running the haunted house and carousel, you’re gonna need to hire a few park associates to take tickets, at least enough to cover multiple shifts for both rides.”
Your eyes widened. It had completely slipped your mind! “Oh, right, I guess I’ll need to take care of that next.”
“And we’ll probably need to steadily add more associates, as well as janitors and mechanics, electricians, and other maintenance-workers as the park grows. Some security wouldn’t hurt, either.”
“Security?” You cock an eyebrow. “What’ll we need security for? We’re not gonna have that much cash lying around.”
“Some people are desperate enough that they wouldn’t care, but they’re in the minority. What we’d actually need them for is to keep out vandals and trespassers, as well as to enforce park policies so the rowdy customers don’t pick fights with or harass the rest.”
You hadn’t really thought about that before. You’d never seen any vandalism or tough customers when you’d gone to theme parks as a kid, but you knew from experience that the kind of people who’d do that stuff could show up anywhere.
“I also admit,” she continued, “I was a little weary of starting with attractions that could stand on their own, because they might end up being positioned closer to the front than you’d want once things are in full swing, though the magic benefactors might-”
You hung your head and looked down at your nearly-empty cereal bowl. You were a lot less prepared for this than you’d imagined.
Your change in mood didn’t go unnoticed by Connie. “Er, sorry, didn’t mean to overwhelm you right off that bat. This is just something that’ll take a lot of hard work and time, right?”
You look up, and nod. “Yeah… Glad I have you to help out.”
There was a little “ding” from your phone, announcing a text message. You picked it up, and saw it was from Courtney, your robot cat PR manager, announcing several applicants had already responded to her ad, and one would be waiting for you when you arrived.
You realized you’d still got a long way ahead, so there wasn’t much point in delaying. “Looks like Courtney’s bringing recruits to us! Let’s go!”
The visitor’s center hadn’t changed any since you last stood in it, save for the map on your office desk now having a mark for both the carousel and haunted house.
You pressed a button on your desk. “You can send him in now.”
The applicant was James Vander, if his resume was to be believed. A skinny man, probably in his early twenties, dressed in simple jeans and t-shirt, his whole countenance carrying an air of someone who knew that this job wasn’t going to be anything special.
“Hello there,” you introduced yourself, “It’s nice to meet you, James. So, what position are you applying for?”
“Well, your ad said you guys were hiring for all positions, but I’m pretty sure I’d only qualify for something like a mascot or ‘park associate,’ or the like. But it looks a little early to be hiring for those positions, so…”
“Don’t worry about that, construction’s going way faster than expected.” You paused. “But if you could freely apply to any position, what would be most interesting to you?”
“I don’t really think a handyman or gardener would be much better. Really, what other positions would there be besides lawyers and stuff? Nah, I’m fine with this.”
Rather than waste time with more interview questions, you cut to the chase: “You’re hired.” You activated the penlight, and watched as her clothes vanished to be replaced with tan fur, with a wide patch of black on the back. She promptly stood up straight and tall, as her hips expanded with a slight cracking sound. Above her rear, her tail poked out, wagging quickly already, while her waist pinched inward slightly. Her legs became a few inches longer, and her height rose up further as her feet adapted to a digitigrade stance, sprouting claws and pads as the toes grew bigger and rounded up into paws. Her hands grew similar claws and pads, while her chest swelled up to about a b-cup. As her ears grew up into a wide, triangular shape, and her nose turned black and wet, a collar appeared around her neck with a star-shaped badge, with the words “Jane Vander: Traffic Officer K-9” written on it. A whistle on a string appeared around her neck, as well.
Her hand immediately flew up into a salute. “Thank you, sir! Officer Jane ready for traffic duty at Bumper Block junction!”
Looking down at your map, you saw a new spot on the map is marked as a bumper car attraction.
“Welcome to the crew, Jane,” you said. “We look forward to you showing kids how to safely operate our cars.”
"Yes Sir!" She did a 'hup-to' only to nearly trip over her own feet and bend around comically like she was in the middle of a slapstick routine.
You check the map and see indeed, a spot for the bumper car arena now exists. It's kinda relief that you aren't going to need to transform potential customers for every nut and bolt in the park.
"But boss... can I please have this Friday off?" Jane asked suddenly and in a subdued voice.
"Sure, why?"
"It's my great-grandmother's funeral."
"Oh!... I'm sorry... " Though in a twisted way, it was a relief, showing those changed weren't total sociopaths to everything not related to the park.