Sleipnir Colony - A Short Story Collection

It was unusual that Di locked herself in her office, but she was keeping an eye on the security feed to the restaurant. Nopony could know about this. She was almost shaking with anticipation, if any of her staff found out what she was up to she would be done for. Betraying the brand like this was so unlike her, it was a little thrilling but also very worrying.

On the outside delivery entrance feed she was staring at, she noted the delivery pad she had been waiting for pull up. As quickly as she could manage to she shut the feed off, opened her office door and piloting her pad out the rear entrance as quickly as she could. Just in time too, the pony with the delivery was about to ring the rear bell. He pulled a flabby hoof back and smiled at her.

“Oh hi, this for you?”

“Yeah, for me thanks. What do I owe you?”

“Oh uh…” The pony dialed into his pad and brought up a payment system. “Twenty three bits. Cash or pad payment?”

“Pad payment.” She replied, a portion of her pads screen lighting up as the delivery pony linked his up with hers to complete the transaction. With her food paid for he deposited it on a free area of hers via a small transfer arm.

“Alright, thanks - order again soon! By the way, isn’t this the back of Blubber King? What do you do here?” He asked, a little curious.

“Oh uh, nothing important! Cook!” Di managed to squeak out before turning her pad around and heading back to her office, shutting the door behind her.

She unwrapped the food, carefully. Her mouth hanging open slightly she didn’t realise she was drooling until a small drop of it fell onto the wrapper with a tiny splash. The discarded wrappers were covered with P.P which was initialed all over them. She stuffed them deep inside the bin in her office, just in case.

First she tried the appetizer, the small box of onion rings with a creamy but rich sauce. They disappeared in moments. As delicious as she was expecting.

Next the main course, well two main courses. Di had ordered for herself the Plump Porker Burger and the Triple Stuffed Pizza Feast. The burger seemed like a good start, which it was. Moist and delicious with an almost beautiful covering of sauce to make the flavour just right she scarfed it down in a mere three bites. Maybe too quickly.

“Urrrppp!”

She looked around, hopefully none of her staff had heard her belch and luckily none came knocking on her door, now just the pizza remained. Covered in four different types of cheese it looked just as good as or even perhaps better than the burger she had just consumed. Every slice was heaven, the melted cheese almost running off the pizza base as it tried to fight gravity and stay on before it got into her maw. Di’s eyes rolled back in her head as she swallowed the last one, almost in a food coma.

Her fat belly jiggled in delight, she leaned back in her pad for a moment to let her stomach process the food, leaning forward again to take some greedy bites of the fries and a chug of the XL cola-like drink she had ordered. It helped to digest the food if it was spaced out with a bit of liquid.

Finally there was a dessert. A small batch of three glazed donuts of varying flavours. All presented neatly in a cardboard box. One, two, three. All gone, devoured by the greedy Di within a few mere moments. She leaned back, satisfied and content with what she had eaten. A huge smile on her face. Her belly gloorrrppeed! in pleasure as it digested the calorie rich food that must have added a nice extra chunk of weight to her already more than ample frame.

But then she opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. The food was good, too good. Plump Palace had them beat. If her, the manager of Blubber King was ordering their food over her own place, and secretly, there was something seriously wrong. But the food they offered over theirs was just above and beyond anything they had on the menu right now.

She had noticed it too. Customer hooffall throughout the building (if there was much of that anyway with all the pad users) had declined a fair amount. She had found days where Sunnyside and her other employees had so little to do they had all gathered near the front just to chat with each other. Not even the drone delivery system or the still new ish menu was pulling people in. A lot obviously still came for the competition eating but even that was starting to wane on numbers.

Laying back on her pad Di thought, she wracked her brain trying to think what they could do. If corporate saw falling numbers she might lose her job, be replaced or worse they could decide Sleipnir was a lost cause for fast food and pull out entirely with this new chain taking all the business they had built up. Di really didn’t fancy moving to another branch on another colony again, she was getting too old to keep moving about, too fat as well.

But try as she might she couldn’t. She wasn’t a marketing pony. She had no idea how to come up with some brilliant way to save the business. This left her two choices, either carry on as they were and pray that something catastrophic befell Plump Palace, or call in...urgh, she couldn’t even believe she was considering that option. But what choice did she have?

She sat up and put her hoof to her pad computer and started dialing.

Outside on the counter, Sunny was just finishing up serving a customer. It had been very quiet. But most days were like this now, not even the family was that impressed with her position anymore that the new place across town had opened, although she was still nicely packing on the pounds. The food here was still as fattening as ever, still partaking in her little perk of the free food whenever she could.

She heard a light slam from behind her, Di had come out her office and was piloting her pad towards the front registers, parking herself in the middle of them and then waving a flabby hoof to usher her staff over. The store had maybe four of five customers in, eating away and not paying much attention to the gathering of the employees. They all positioned themselves around her, looking to her to see what she was going to say.

“I’m sure you’ve all noticed the dramatic drop off in customers lately…” She said with a small sigh. Some nodded in return as she carried on speaking. “I hate throwing in the towel, but our new competition has us beat. I’ve been doing some uh, research.” She confessed, but none of the staff really picked up on what she meant. Seems the deliveries of food had gone completely unnoticed. “Their food is well, it’s amazing. That’s all I can say really. It beats ours all the way to Equestria and back. If we don’t do something soon, those five customers behind me will become zero customers and I’m sure you all know what zero customers means.”

Her staff looked worried, but not a panicked worry. They were aware on some level as well that they were bleeding customers to the competition. But since Di had not said a word on the matter up until now, they had assumed it was being taken care of.

“Anyhow. I’ve called corporate for… The Marketeers.”

There was a silence, each member of staff looked at each other with confusion. Finally a confused Sunny just asked “Um...who?”

“They’re like an elite division on the marketing department, the ones you call if something terrible is happening. Like a campaign doesn’t run as expected or goes wrong. But they are also adept at bringing a failing store back to its former glory. They have a 95% success rate at it. However, it’s not easy. They’re really a last resort option and I’ve only ever called them in once before at another branch. They are ruthless and will do anything needed to sort the problems out. That means unless some of you straighten up your jobs may be at risk.” She said, she couldn’t sugar coat it. At the last store this had happened, she had lost what she had thought were good members of her team but in the end, the marketeers had done their job and the store had recovered. It was never good to lose people you didn’t want to lose however.

“Now back to work, just prepare yourselves. They’ll arrive in the next week. You’ll know it’s them, they look the part.” Di finished, going back to her office leaving the rest of her staff to whisper amongst themselves about what sort of changes would be made and who would be hoofed out the building. For some this might be their last working week at Blubber King.

Back in her office Di sighed, she really had no other choice. It was not a decision she had made lightly, but it was this or lose potentially everything they had build up here on Sleipnir. She didn’t want to leave the colony either, it was nice here. However tough it would be, whoever the higher ups were sending would sort this out. One way or another...