Squinting against the sunlight, Louisa looked for some sign of where they were. It was no use; VeliKo would not have driven the women two hours in an unmarked, windowless minivan only to give away the location upon arrival. All she could see was an empty car park before an enormous redbrick warehouse, alarmingly tall but square and featureless, besides a few black-framed factory windows. The car park was surrounded by green fences too tall to see over.

The eight women from the van were directed by the stone-faced driver to the open warehouse doors, tiny compared to the immense building, and they entered in single file, Louisa in the middle of the group. The applicants were mostly around Louisa’s age, mid-twenties, with a couple slightly younger and one a bit older, some dressed casually and some smart. Louisa had on her navy suit and her brown hair brushed neatly, hanging free. One woman had a tight, white-piped dress elegant enough for a dinner party, while another wore loose jeans and trainers. It was remarkable how such different people had received an invitation to test for one of the most elusive, yet surely most powerful, companies in the world. Louisa had noted, though, that they were all good-looking women, making her question the nature of the job.

“Do you have any idea what we’re doing?” a short, stout woman with a messy bob asked at Louisa’s shoulder. She was one of the scruffier ones, in a checkered shirt that showed off her cleavage. She had also been the most vocal during the drive, unsuccessfully trying to drum up conversation. Her name was Tammy and she’d spent six years as a marketing manager. “I imagined something in the office, on the hundredth floor, but this looks like they want us in manufacturing.”

“It’s just for the test,” Louisa assured her, though she had no idea where this was going either. As they entered the warehouse, their footsteps echoed loudly through a massive open room, the entire building gutted for this one hall. The women slowed down to gawk at a space bigger than any cathedral. There were eight desks spaced far apart in a square at the centre of the room, and the wall beyond them housed a blackboard that would dwarf an advertising billboard.

“Guess we just take a seat,” Tammy said, walking on in.

Louisa followed with the rest of the crowd, and gradually they all found a place. She sat right in the middle, with Tammy on her right, at an old school desk with nothing on it. It was a mind game, she decided; a scenario designed to elicit confusion by putting them in an exaggerated version of a childhood exam.

Once everyone was seated, the doors at the back opened again, and everyone turned to face a newcomer, marching purposefully in. The doors slammed shut with a clang that reverberated past them as the group watched the invigilator approach. She was a striking woman who completed the exam scenario perfectly: tall, wearing a short black skirt that stopped above her knees and a white shirt that barely contained her considerable chest. Her black hair was tied tightly back in a bun and she wore thick-rimmed plastic glasses, every bit the picture of a no-nonsense teacher.

“My name is Ms Vivian Miller,” the woman announced in a refined British accent. She had a stack of papers under one arm, which she started slapping face down on the desks as she passed. “VeliKo have flown me in to be your invigilator today. You ladies represent some of the best applicants from multiple rounds of interviews, but make no mistake.” She reached Louisa’s desk and placed a paper down, pausing to look at her. “This test is where you will really prove yourself.”

Louisa held her ground, not looking away, because you didn’t get to work for VeliKo by being timid. She soften her gaze, though, because you also didn’t succeed by coming across as hostile or arrogant. Vivian Miller’s expression was utterly fixed, bright red lips held in a straight line as she loomed over the desk – extra tall, Louisa realised, courtesy of a pair of black high heels on platforms.

“Now,” Vivian said, sharply turning away to distribute the final papers. “A few simple ground rules. You may not leave your desks until you pass your exam. You may not use your phones or confer with each other. You will not attempt to leave this room. If you break these rules, there will be severe corrective measures.”

With the last paper placed, she continued away from the desks, towards the front of the room, heels accentuating the curves of her legs, strong-muscled in white stockings. Tammy cleared her throat beside Lousia, a smile on her face as she prepared to speak.

“There will be no questions,” Vivian called out, and turned back to face them, twenty metres away now. “And needless to say, nothing you see in here shall leave this room.”

At that, Vivian suddenly expanded and the women collectively jumped up from their seats with shocked gasps. Louisa braced her hands against the desktop as the invigilator swelled, clothes tightening slightly as she grew. The tiles groaned under her increasing weight; Vivian doubled her size in an instant, and kept rising, three times, four, climbing up towards the ceiling with stretching limbs, expanding in all directions. One of the buttons on her shirt pinged off, opening up a mountainous cleavage in a black bra, and a woman at the edge of the group shrieked as the button – a foot wide – thunked into the tiles nearby.

Then the room was still, with the women whimpering and muttering nervously as they looked up at a giantess above them, a hundred feet tall. Louisa’s mind raced over explanations. VeliKo were capable of anything, it could be a hologram or projection, or it could be real, size-changing technology. Whichever it was, it was incredible, and for them to have been allowed to see it, they must be in with a real chance at joining the company.

Newly determined, Louisa dropped back down into her chair and grabbed the exam paper, ready to turn it over. The other women saw and split their attention between her and the massive woman above. Vivian watched them motionless from up high, like a god, and others took the hint to sit and ready themselves. Tammy was grinning giddily, as though this was a great treat.

“No, no way,” a plump ginger lady in a halter top said, backing away from her desk. “Forget this!”

She ran for the rear doors as everyone else watched. Vivian sighed, so big now that her inhalation sounded like a wind blowing through the rafters. The ginger woman tried to open the doors but they rattled, stuck. She put both hands on them and heaved harder, then shouted, “They’ve locked us in! Let me out of here!”

“The first rule was to stay at your desk,” Vivian said, her relaxed tone booming through the room, shaking the furniture. She took a step forward, shoe landing between the rows of desks, and multiple women jumped in their seats. Louisa looked sidelong at the shoe, the shiny black platform forming a wall alongside her, reflecting her shocked face. She craned her head up; she’d need a ladder just to get to the woman’s boulder-sized toes.

“I mean it, open the doors!” the ginger screamed as Vivian’s other foot rose high over the desks. It landed near the entrance and Vivian started to crouch, her bum descending like a dense cloud over the desks. The ginger woman hammered at the doors as Vivian reached a hand down towards her, then the woman gave up and ran. She got two steps before Vivian’s fingers closed on her.

Vivian rose back to her full height, turning on her heel and sweeping her shoe over the desks to elicit another round of startled gasps. She stood with her legs apart, giving Louisa a view into a dark abyss between her legs. The ginger woman struggled and shrieked from her fist, legs kicking about.

“You may only leave if you pass,” Vivian reiterated. “If you break the rules, or fail the test, the consequences are permanent.” The giantess lifted her tiny captive up to her face and Louisa dreaded how she might scold the squirming woman. “Those of you who prove not to be VeliKo material, you are my payment for being here.”

“Payment?” Tammy exclaimed, then Vivian pushed the screaming ginger lady into her mouth. The others cried out as the woman’s legs thrashed about, sucked between Vivian’s lips, then she was gone, just a shifting bulge in the giantess’s cheeks.

“Stop, you can’t –” a more mature woman in a red dress began, raising a hand, but Vivian shifted her jaw slightly and swallowed.

The hall was silent as the women stared in horror at the massive invigilator, whose eyes focused challengingly back on them. Louisa’s heart was beating a mile a minute but she didn’t dare move or speak. The psychotic giantess had just eaten a woman alive.

“You may now begin the test,” Vivian said, and stepped over their desks again, moving to the front of the room. Women made frightened noises as she passed, watching her rather than starting.

Louisa’s hand trembled as she picked up the paper and turned it over. The cover sheet asked for her name and personal details. She opened it and found the first page was maths questions. She flicked through – English questions, history, business and economics. It was a general aptitude test. She frowned at the monstrous titan watching them. There was a strange disconnect between the perfectly ordinary test and the extraordinary conditions. But Louisa swallowed her concerns; if this was what it took to get into VeliKo, so be it. Hell, this was a matter of survival now.

Louisa took her pen from inside her jacket, clicked it on and started writing, and again the others slowly followed suit, with a lot of shuffling and bags being opened. Louisa tried to focus on the questions, ignoring the huge woman watching her and the fact that she’d just seen someone be killed. God, was the ginger lady dead, or still struggling in Vivian’s stomach? Someone muttering behind Louisa interrupted that thought, and the giantess’s pivoting shoes made her look up.

“Do you have a spare pen?” a woman whispered urgently. “I didn’t bring a pen!”

It was a short-haired blonde woman in a pantsuit, frantically looking at the people either side of her – both of whom pretended not to hear, burying their faces in the exam.

“Please.” The woman looked up as Vivian’s shadow fell over them, the giantess leaning forward. “If I could just borrow a pen –”

“You will not confer,” Vivian said. “And frankly should have been prepared.”

“Oh God,” the woman gasped, rooted to her seat, too afraid to move as the giantess crouched and reached towards her. Louisa flinched away from the enormous knee that filled the top of her vision. The woman shrieked as Vivian grabbed her, then her empty chair clattered onto the floor.

Vivian rose up again, the rest of the women cowering under her spread legs as she lifted her next victim high into the air. She opened her hand and dangled the woman by an ankle, making her scream and writhe about like a mouse caught by the tail. The woman begged as Vivian opened her mouth wide, tilted her head back and lowered her in. The invigilator did it deliberately slowly, to heighten the woman’s panic as she looked down into that terrifying maw, and to make the consequences clear to everyone else. Vivian closed her mouth over the woman, sucking her fingers clean, then swallowed.

Another empty chair fell over and Louisa snapped her gaze up to see a woman in a blue shirt and slacks running for a side door. Did she seriously expect that one to be unlocked? It was further away than the main entrance, giving Vivian plenty of time to merely watch as she raced over the tiles, then the giantess slowly lifted a shoe and placed it down in front of her. The blue shirt woman ran right into the platform and bounced off, falling onto her backside. She started scooting over the tiles as she stared at the shoe, over a storey high, the spiked heel big as a tree. As the woman rolled over and tried to get up, Vivian lifted her huge toe. The woman looked up again. She screamed and raised a hand as Vivian brought the toe down. There was an awful crunch, blood squirting across the floor as the giantess ground her toe into the tile.

Satisfied, the giantess stepped away, bits of the blue shirt woman dripping off her shoe, and she paced a lion’s circle around the exam-takers, leaving small blood stains around them. Louisa hunched low, desperately trying to focus again, amid the sound of all the others hurriedly scribbling. Just answer one question then another. She completed the first page and flipped over. Now a question about the angles of triangles.

Vivian’s footsteps made for a terrible metronome, booming against the floor as she circled them, watching from above. She cut between the desks, one shoe landing by Louisa again, reminding her of its awesome power, then continued.

There was a clatter and a woman started swearing – the more mature lady in a red dress, with short grey hair. She had dropped her pen and reached under the desk for it, making a show of appearing nonchalant. She flicked the pen suggesting it wasn’t working properly, and opened her handbag to search for another. She spent a long time searching, and Louisa frowned, noticing a light in the bag. Oh, the fool, it was an obvious ruse to get to her phone.

“No phones,” Vivian’s voice thundered, and a moment later her huge hand snatched down from the sky to pinch the mature lady from her seat. The woman screamed as she was lifted up by the waist, phone falling to break on the floor.

“Don’t, I’ve got money, I know people –” The woman’s protests were carried up into the air, but Vivian flicked her into her mouth as casually as tossing popcorn. Her lips sealed in the woman’s screams, and a vicious crack followed as Vivian chewed. Another crack, bones snapping between the giantess’s teeth. After a few moments of horrible crunching, the giantess swallowed.

The remaining women kept working, trying to pretend it hadn’t happened.

They stuck at the exam diligently for what must have been half an hour, with Vivian occasionally moving around or between them. It was going alright, Louisa told herself; not every answer was obvious but she was confident she could pass this. She just needed to keep her head. They all just needed to –

A whisper made her look up, and she saw with horror that the woman in loose jeans and bangs was leaning towards the woman with the elegant black dress and braids, getting agitated as she tried to ask something. The braided woman flapped a hand, discouraging her, and she hissed, “Just tell me, I can’t –”

The jeans woman froze, realising she’d spoken too loudly, and in another instant she was up, bursting into a run. Vivian took one step forward and swept down to grab her, and in another second snatched the woman with braids off her seat. They both squirmed in her fists as she rose back to standing, the braided woman yelling, “I didn’t do anything, she spoke to me!”

“I have eyes,” Vivian said, calmly. “But any interference forfeits you.”

“That’s not fair! Put me down!” The woman punched at her fingers, trying desperately to loosen Vivian’s grip.

“Fair is what I say,” Vivian told her, at the same time lifting the jeans woman, who was shouting nonsensically. She put the jeans woman in her mouth, then pulled open the shirt pocket on her chest. Vivian pushed the little jeans-clad legs to the side of her mouth and mumbled around then, “But I will spare you until later.”

“Later? What then?” the braided woman cried, but Vivian didn’t answer as she dropped her into the pocket. The woman twisted about, pushing against the material and against the huge breast she fell onto, until Vivian patted the pocket firmly to still her. Vivian then leaned a shoulder against a wall and watched the exam again, letting the jeans woman struggle between her lips.

Louisa tried to continue the test, ignoring the occasional sounds of the woman slipping about in Vivian’s mouth. The giantess was savouring her, rolling the woman about on her tongue. She occasionally teased her legs by pulling one or the other as she might stretch gum. It went on for a long time, as Louisa completed one page and then another, hardly able to focus. But there were only two of them left now, her and Tammy; if she could just complete the test then maybe with all the competition gone, that would be enough.

She was on the last page, with the jeans women’s struggles reduced to gentle whimpers from the sky, when Tammy shot to her feet and shouted, “That’s enough. You have to stop.” She stood with her hands in fists, glaring defiantly up at Vivian as the giantess straightened up. Louisa desperately wanted to tell her to shut up and sit down. Vivian put her hands on her hips as she stared down at the relatively tiny woman, who showed no fear.

Tammy shouted, “I’ve had enough of this bullshit test and know exactly what you’re doing. Listen, you must have some idea who I am, don’t you? I have friends in the government and law enforcement and this has gone far enough.”

Vivian plucked the jeans woman from her mouth by an ankle and held her dripping and limp to the side of her face. She cocked her head to one side, regarding Tammy. Was this actually going to work? Tammy was surprisingly forceful and Louisa found herself believing her, that casual appearance clearly masking a woman with a powerful background.

“Now,” Tammy continued, losing speed now she had Vivian listening. “You put her down and we –” She gave a brief gasp, as Vivian raised a foot and stomped on her. Tammy disappeared in an instant with a splat, the shoe slamming the tile alongside Louisa and almost knocking her from her seat. She stayed upright, tensing against the impact even as a flick of Tammy’s blood hit her.

The shoe remained there, Vivian’s calf muscle rising skyward over Louisa’s head, as she quickly refocused on the exam and kept scribbling. Flicking through pages, checking the answers, hurrying to finish. She was wary all the while that she now had the giantess’s complete attention, the jeans woman barely conscious as she hung from her fingers.

At last, Louisa slammed the paper closed and called out, “Finished!”

The giantess met her eye, face impassive again, and Louisa bravely waited, dreading how the result would be decided. Vivian gave a nod and said, “Congratulations. You have passed.”

Louisa’s heart sank. “Passed? You mean –”

“Yes,” Vivian said, without explaining. The test was merely to complete the test? To tolerate the giantess and her terrible actions long enough to finish? Those women could so easily have survived, Louisa realised. As that dawned on her, Vivian lift the jeans woman back to her mouth, and the little victim gave a final bleat of protest as she was dropped in.

Louisa swallowed the urge to complain even now, when it was surely over, and she merely watched as Vivian swallowed the final woman. The giantess sighed and said, “So. You will want to know about the position. Your first assignment is to invigilate an exam yourself.”

“Myself?” Louisa frowned. “What – why –”

She stopped, because Vivian was smiling suggestively. They were testing the women’s tolerance to see if they would follow Vivian’s example? To join VeliKo, Louisa was to become a giantess herself, however it worked. But if it started with an exam like this, where would it end?

Not in another woman’s stomach, Louisa told herself, decided.

She said, firmly, “Very well. I look forward to working with you.”

Vivian reached a massive hand own to take her, and Louisa refused to be afraid.