Context

“So, you’re going to be taking over Jerry’s job of orienting the new meat to the compound.” Wendy, the secretary said to Jason.

“Why? I have other shit to do, I need to make sure that our line of sight system will work in the rain, which thankfully, the local weather team has scheduled for today.” Jason rebutted.

Standing in the carbon graphene waiting room, Jason held himself awkwardly, he hated talking to any kind of large groups. His aggressive style of getting stuff done did not mesh well with anyone except his superiors, and only because it frequently got results.

“Listen, you have a human and two ponies from Las Pegasus in that meeting room who need to be brought up to speed. And frankly, Steve, the human in there, is thinking this is all a game. You need to go in there and let them know about how we deal with public relations because Jerry, unlike you, is sick with some conjunctivitis and Steve, Fluff Weed, and Diving Horizon don’t have a clue that we have a town that would like nothing better then to see us all exiled, just like Marco, remember Marco?” Wendy sternly held her tanned face at Jason, locking her eyes with his.

“Yeah, I know... fuck fine, get me the next time the Weather Team is going to have it rain. I’ll go take care of the new guys.” Jason reluctantly muttered, taking the dossier from Wendy.

“They’re in Room 105 W” Wendy finished, sitting down, and returning back to sorting out inventory orders.

Walking to the room, he grabbed the long metallic handle, down farther than any earth door in order to accommodate the on compound population of ponies. Walking in, he saw a very tall man in a chair, whose hair was darker than coal, leaning towards a light blue unicorn mare with a podium on her flank. She was obviously trying to ignore the human as she telekinetically wrote somthing on a piece of paper. Towards the corner of the room, a dust grey stallion pegasi slept, having fallen asleep while waiting for Jason.

Speaking with an agitated, yet soft bellow, Jason did what he usually did when he had to talk to a group of people. He started hating them for whatever tiny reasons he could stir up. He had no fear of talking to people he loathed.

“Alright, Jerry is not here today, so I will be taking over his duty of orienting you three to the local operating area. I’m Jason, I do geographic coordination and equipment planning and testing here, but today, I will be the one to break you in - any questions?” Jason spoke quickly, moving from one topic to the next with a slight growl in his voice.

The pegasi sprung awake, his wings popping out in surprise. The unicorn had a look of relief, while Steve just stared at Jason as if he had ruined his plan for the night.

“Can I assume our winged compatron is Diving Horizon, and our horned acquaintance is Fluff Weed?” Jason snorted.

Both ponies nodded up and down, seeming surprised that Jason hadn’t tried to do the usual pony song and dance of friend making with each one of them individually.

“Well if you know who they are, do you know who I am?” the man who was obviously Steve spoke up.

Jason grunted in displeasure.

“I was informed that there would be a human and two ponies in this room, and I was given their names. Did you leave your critical thinking skills on terra firma STEVE?” Jason shot at Steve.

Steve looked away, trying to laugh it off.

laugh it up chucklenuts... Jason thought to himself

“Alright lets start, Steve, did you go over your VIP book we gave to you before being shipped to this side of the river?” Jason spoke out loud, taking a tangent from where he left off.

“Yes sir I did.” Steve spoke with a borderline grin.

Jason let the projector warm up as he got on the presentation computer and pulled up a picture. After a few moments, the projector flickered on.

“Steve, by yourself with no help, name the pony on the screen and tell me how we handle her on sight.” Jason growled. The screen had a pink pony with both wings, and a horn. Her hair was a tri colored light purple, vanilla white, and the same pink as her own coat. A diamond heart decorated her ass as the pony held herself in a posture of pride.

“I..um....” Steve trailed off. He should have known her immediately if he cared to read the VIP book.

“THIS” Jason nearly yelled, “Is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, better known by her condensed name Princess Cadence. She rules a principality to the north with her husband, Prince Shining Armor, who is a member of the Equestrian military force. IF you read your book, you would have known that if you saw her in the area, company protocol dictates that you inform a supervisor, who will then put out a “Code Green”, at which you return to your compound home for the duration of the visit, while our public relations team comes out to meet her. IF she addresses you, you will stay for the full duration, leaving our PR team to politely get you out of there. Until then, you greet yourself with a bow, NOT a noble greeting, ponies are expected to but not humans as recent trends in the intermingling of our species means that a noble greeting is much more than just a greeting, and you shut the fuck up Steve. If she asks you questions, you either say ‘its not my department’ or if it is ‘we are still researching on the matter’. Any personal questions, keep it dull and neutral. Also Steve, we are not Gentlemen for Mares here, so if I catch you hitting on ANY of the staff, male, female, or pony on company time again so help me god you will be back on earth with an exile order so fast the gigantic phallus that you will claim to have regardless of it’s actual size will still be in customs. Do I make that clear?”

“Dude, I’m sorry, I just..”Steve was lowering himself, trying to shrink himself to a size much smaller than he was.

“No, you know who is sorry? Marc, our programming lead? Got arrested in the nearby town of Trottington for public drunkenness. He was pissing on the goddamn local bakery doorstep when he was brought in. And you know what happened to him? The company we work for annulled his work visa, and after his Trottington court date, while he was to be exiled from just Trottington, we permanently exiled him from this realm. We can do that you know, right? We revoked his visa, sending him out of here, then on our side, we submitted him to a blacklist. You can pull that shit off in Fillydelphia, but you pull that here and its into the neo equinox you go.” Jason finished his loud rant with a cough.

Even the ponies in the room were startled. Realizing he just went a bit too far, Jason had to reel back from his sudden outburst.

“All right, look, it might not make much sense, but let me catch you up to speed. The Equestrian Government commissioned us to establish a rudimentary high speed communications network. One of the towns we were contracted to work on is the nearby town of Trottington. As some of the ponies here know, while we are in the equestrian frontier, this town’s primary export is salt, a mineral that all ponies need to manually add to their food to keep them healthy. So, while small, Trottington is important as it’s the last major salt mines discovered in the last 100 years. So the Government wants to keep real time tabs on all pony bureaus and local governments within Trottington.” Jason spoke in a much more calmer voice then what he started out with.

“Well, why were we ordered to stay in the compound and not talk to any of the locals?” Diving asked.

“To answer your question, you need to know that, for whatever reason, the locals in this town hate humans, Fluff, you’re part of the PR department, did they bring you up to speed?” Jason said, pointing at Fluff

“Um, yeah, I read the report. It stated that the locals have a ‘disproportionate disgust and fear’ at any humans that come through the town.” Fluff weakly announced, trying to be sure that she was heard.

“Did they also tell you what happens to ponies found associating with humans?” Jason asked, hoping that she could fill in the gaps for the other two members of the meeting.

“Um... they said that any ponies who act friendly with humans inside the town, that are seen by one or two other town members are treated as if they were humans themselves...” Fuff teetered off. Her face twisted around, showing that she was very disturbed by this fact.

“In short,” Jason continued for Fluff, “Any human and any pony employed by us is considered less than other townsfolk there. Any other town, and Marc would have been fined and maybe jailed for the weekend. Here, they are not afraid of issuing exile orders. And it’s not just humans. We are on the main salt trail to San Caballero and we have seen, no griffons, nor diamond dog traders moving from or to Trottington with wears. This might not just be a human problem, but regardless, Trottington has fought us every step of the way, to the point we had to get a royal mandate to get land in unincorporated trottington. We have to use a line of sight laser for internet connectivity because they banned the running of cables and the use of a solar high speed broadband wireless system from being used in the city...” Jason started to heave.

“...All employees except for the few who rented out human converted houses by a overly eager renter from out of town before this rule was put in place are required to live on the compound. This is for your safety.” Jason finished.

Steve had a blank look, trying to take everything in. Dive was noticeably worried, he probably came here to try and start a herd from how young he was. Fluff however, seemed indifferent. She was part of the PR team, she knew what she was getting into.

“Dive, go ahead and go to room 308 E, thats where our geographic data group works in. Fluff, PR is just down the hall. Tell Stacy that you three are good to go. Steve, stay here.” Jason snuffed, sitting down.

The two ponies started for the door, Dive already in the air. Steve was rubbing his face, as if from a bad nights sleep.

As the door closed, Jason faced Steve, giving him his full attention.

“Do you still want to stay here?” Jason asked Steve, sounding sincere because his thrashing of the new guy was a bit much, even by his own standards. Steve looked at Jason, his eyes rolling up to his forehead.

“You came here hoping to be one of those human guys who can convince multiple mares to herd with him aren’t you?” Jason sighed.

“Kinda...yeah...”Steve sputtered, looking away and towards the white board.

“You got assigned a shit detail. While you can request a transfer, you won’t get it. You might get sent to a new location when your work visa expires and if you reapply for Equestrian work, but I will tell you right now, this is not the side of the ponies any of us ever knew, not even the ponies from everywhere else expected this kind of behavior from their own kind...” Jason trailed off.

“Do we know why they act like that?” Steve mumbled, hoping to find some reason for being lost on his left turn to Albuquerque.

“No, and that’s what is worrying to our company. No rhyme or reason. Just disgust...” Jason trailed off, at the eggshell white wall.

“Look, I know this isn't a great compromise, and this is not a recommendation for you to quit because you’re not good enough at this job. But if you’re out here to see the Equestria as most of us wanted AND bang mares, every two weeks, we get the Pegasi Express to major cities. The company is doing this so that our residence here don’t get stir crazy. I know for a fact that Manehatten has a company called Gentlemen for Mares, if you get work with them, your work visa will be moved over to their dominion and you will be free of this...” Jason looked up, sighing out loud, “Equine Hell.”

“What is Gentlemen for Mares?” Steve asked, folding his arms.

“To put it plainly, if hired you will provide sexual service to mares who desire to rut with humans.” Jason coughed out.

“What? That’s an actual job?” Steve raised his eyebrow.

“Yeah, and before you ask how I know, they send Gentlemen to our compound almost every week to satisfy a few of the mare staff members. Like you should know, physical intimacy with employees here is a fireable offence.” Jason spoke.

“Ah I see....um...when is the next Pegasi Express headed out?” Steve trailed off.

“This weekend, talk to Wendy at the front desk and she will arrange for you to ride with other employees to Manehatten. And don’t just stop coming to work, let us know so we can forward the visa papers to the Gentlemen. Also they don’t just take anyone, they have specific qualities they hunt for in individuals. That’s why we still retain... most of our male staff.” Jason started to trail off. It wasn’t that he did not want Steve here, it was that Steve obviously came here to get laid, not to focus on any kind of work.

Steve started to get up and move for the door.

“You know where you’re headed?” Jason asked Steve.

“Yeah, 203 N” Steve spoke, opening the door.

“Hey Jason...” Steve stopped, and closed the door before he fully opened it. “What do you think of humans trying to get with mares?”

“I honestly think its their dick and they can do whatever they want, though personally, I wouldn’t be caught dead fucking a micro-horse”

Steve laughed beneath his breath before leaving the room. Out of habit, Jason pulled his phone from his pocket to find an instant message waiting for him.

“We still on for tonight?”-Naple