It was a dark and stormy night, because Tempest had timed it that way. No one would be outdoors, anyone looking out their window would have their vision blocked by the driving rain, and even if someone saw something unusual—well, what was one more burst of lightning?
Weather forecasting was so easy when you were from the future.
Tempest arrived in a lattice of electric energy, grunting as one bio-prosthetic knee drove into the ground. She stood slowly, carefully, and very very nudely. The rain was already soaking through her mohawk-hair—real rain, imagine that—and she shivered in the baptismal sensation. She opened her eyes and took her first look at the past.
Neon lights. Clean streets. Buildings with the roofs still on top. Most of all, an all-pervading sense of peace.
So this was what the world had been before Beanos.
Twenty minutes later, a department store's alarm had proved far less difficult to deactivate than the Beantroller Beandroids she'd learned to hack when she was five. Tempest had a well-fitting black coat to keep out the rain, with pockets large enough to hold the tools she'd need, and the tight blue jeans hid her prosthetic leg from any onlookers, if there were any.
She walked slowly, taking it all in, despite the voice in her head ordering her to march in a military cadence. There was so much to see: streets with potholes instead of craters, storefronts with the glass unbroken, and where there would have been the steady drum-drum footsteps of Beanpressor Beandroids there was only the gentle rain.
She took another few steps, glanced right, and froze. This, this had to be the alley she'd grown up in. There, that was the patch under the fire escape that stayed relatively safe when the seeds fell from the sky, which was why she'd put her box under it.
She took several trance-like steps inside, running a hand along the rough brick wall. It would be smoother in a couple decades' time, just smooth enough that her mother wouldn't be able to hold on as a Beanmulcher Beandroid dragged her away for processing—
With a snarl, Tempest punched the wall. It shattered under her fist.
She sucked in a breath and turned away. Her destination was close. Focus on the mission.
An hour later—the city looked so different when half of it wasn't rubble, and was a hell of a lot harder to navigate—Tempest's breath caught in her chest. There it was, across the street.
Beanis Inc. Ground zero for the apeacalypse. Its lights were still on, illuminating its inviting facade.
She'd read the books, written on what scraps of bean-based papyrus they'd been able to fashion. Of how one corporation had dared to play god, and how the whole world had reaped the whirlwind. Of Beanos, the mad tyrant whom no one had even seen, ruling from his black-bean tower with an army of organic, free-range, and utterly heartless killer Beandroids. Of the tens of billions slaughtered on the altar of his new world.
But tonight—Tempest shivered to think of it—those books wouldn't be rewritten but unwritten.
She reached into her pocket. The only things that could come to the past were organic matter, or at least were coated in organic matter. For instance, her bio-prosthetic leg, cobbled together from the junkyards. Or, for another example—she pulled out the long, phallic object—a bomb with a higher energy density than any seen in this world's history.
Tonight, Beanis Inc would cease to be. The future would be saved.
With a grim smirk, Tempest walked forward, and promptly fell into an open manhole.
Fluttershy gasped as the woman was wheeled in from the emergency department. She did this every time anyone was wheeled in from the emergency department, or any time anyone walked in, or really at most potentially bad things, and she was starting to get the feeling this made her a bad fit for an emergency department.
Thank goodness she only needed some time spent in a medical setting to get into vet school, but still. The nurses were giving her funny looks. It was nerve-wracking.
At least she was getting paid time off.
“What happened?” she said, staring at the... rather attractive female body. It was obvious under the stretcher straps, coat, and cervical collar; under the soaked-through coating of rain that signaled hypothermia from a mile away; even under that massive scar over the right eye.
“She was found at the bottom of an open manhole,” the first responder said. “Can we get a pulse and blood pressure on her?”
Fluttershy hopped to it just as Dr. Stable arrived.
“I heard over my pager,” the doctor said, pulling on his gloves. “On her head, you say? And last night? And she still has a pulse?”
Fluttershy finished hooking up the woman's finger to the pulse reader, just in time for the machine to confirm that yes, she did still have a pulse. Slow, steady beeps permeated the room, like those of an athlete at rest.
“Whew,” Dr. Stable said, as Fluttershy lifted the woman's arm to wrap the blood pressure cuff around it. “Looks like we've got a real Termane-ator on our hands.”
He rubbed his gloved hands together, then carefully felt around the woman's head, pushing his palms against her maroon hair. “I'm not feeling any evidence of a skull fracture,” he said, then continued down the body. “Or neck, or arm injuries... nothing on the torso... this must be the luckiest woman of all time....”
He put his hands on her legs and froze. Then he put both hands on her left leg. “Is this... a prosthetic?” He rolled up the woman's pant leg, revealing not ruddy flesh but something more like a cobblestone road.
Very tiny cobblestones, shaped like kidneys. Fluttershy had seen this before—
The woman's leg snapped up, ripped through the bindings, and struck Dr. Stable's head. He went down like a sack of bricks, but without the elegance.
Fluttershy couldn't even gasp before a hand was on her throat, squeezing hard enough to prevent all speech. She watched as the woman's eyes opened, their gaze fixing up on Fluttershy, and the woman's mouth moved. “You're going to get me out of this hospital.”
The voice was as clear and concise as a gun to the head.
“Um, Doctor Stable says I have to bring her to the ICU,” Fluttershy said for the dozenth time as yet another nurse gave her an askance look. Then she returned to the other things she'd been doing this whole time: walking briskly, pushing the woman's stretcher, and—most crucially—trembling like a bird caught in an electric fence.
After five minutes of frantic wandering, she reached an exit where no one was around to give her odd looks. Fluttershy gulped, got her back to the door, and pushed.
As soon as they were outside, the woman came back to life. “Good,” she said, opening her eyes as Fluttershy pulled her into the walled-in parking lot. Fluttershy made to undo the straps, only to feel a little foolish as the woman sat up and got out of the stretcher. The straps tore like tissue paper. “You shouldn't tell anyone you saw me,” she said, adjusting her jacket and walking away. “Goodbye.”
“Wait!” Fluttershy cried out.
The woman didn't wait.
“At least—” Fluttershy started running to catch up with the woman. “At least tell me your name.”
“Call me Tempest,” the woman said. Her hands were in her pockets and her voice was brisk. “Or rather, don't call me at all.” She broke into a jog, vaulting the parking lot wall and landing on the pavement, then made to sprint away.
Fluttershy tried to jump over the wall as well, but only managed to prop herself up on it by her hands. “This is about Beanis, isn't it?” she cried.
Tempest tripped over her feet instead of sprinting.
Fluttershy tensed as Tempest stood up; then she tried to let go of the wall as Tempest's eyes flared. Before she could run, a hand smashed through the wall, grabbed her, and yanked her through a cloud of dust that had been bricks moments before.
Tempest's eyes were on fire. Figuratively, but from what Fluttershy knew about her life, that could become literal at any time. “How do you know about my mission?” she whispered.
Fluttershy flinched as though the whisper had been a shout. “I, um... I saw your leg. It's made of beans, isn't it?”
Tempest considered this. Considered her, in a way that made Fluttershy feel like Rainbow Dash was in attendance. Then, a few seconds after Fluttershy was pretty sure her blush was luminescent, Tempest said, “Tell me everything you know about Beanis Inc.”
“Marital aids.”
They sat in a secluded corner of the park. Tempest's face was buried in her hands. "They're marital aids?"
“It's okay,” Fluttershy said, patting her shoulder. “Everyone reacts that way at first. Well,” she quickly added, “at least ninety five percent, judging by our phone surveys.”
“And you work for them.”
“Well, it's not just me. There's Wallflower, and Sunset, and—oh, of course, Rainbow Dash, since she sort of started it all. And I get stock options. In a few years.”
“A few years,” Tempest repeated. She stood and wandered away a few steps, pallid and directionless as a ghost. Gone was the iron purpose that had characterized her for the last several minutes—not for very long, but more than enough time to make a definite first impression. Long enough that to see her like this was concerning. “I wonder,” she murmured, “if I'll be born in a few years.”
“What?”
“My mother always told me the world was so beautiful when she was young.” Tempest extended a quivering arm, laid a quivering palm upon the bark of a nearby tree. “The burgeoning young Beanis Inc. grew and grew, and nothing—common sense, incredulity, competition—could stop it. Those were the good times....”
Her hand closed into a fist. “The good times. Before the first seeds of destruction fell and killed nine tenths of the world's population in the first wave.” Tempest's teeth gritted. “The survivors—the lucky ones—got to work on the plantations. We weren't lucky. We scrounged for scraps in the ruins of Canterlot City, only a few blocks away from the husk of the building that had started it all. And then they took Mom away, along with my leg.”
Without apparent effort, she punched the tree. It fell over. “Your company annihilated my world,” she said, whirling back to Fluttershy with frenzy in her eyes. “For marital aids. And I'm here to kill it before it can hurt anyone else, and you're working there?” She leaned forward, planting her hand next to Fluttershy's shoulder. “For stock options? Do you get it now?”
Fluttershy gulped. Tempest's face was very close.
“Your company,” Tempest said, enunciating every word, “is evil. And you and I are going to destroy it. Do you understand?”
Each hot breath landed on Fluttershy's face. Fluttershy blinked, then realized that wasn't an answer, and nodded hastily. Then, in case that wasn't enough of an answer, she added, “You're, um, just like the Termane-Ator then?”
Tempest squinted. “The what?”
“You know, the old movie where they send the robot back in time to, well, terminate this woman, and the good guys send a... human back to... stop the robot.”
Fluttershy petered off as Tempest's stare became increasingly withering. “Itwasanotherrobotinthesecondone,” she whispered.
Then Tempest rolled her eyes. “Mother always said the old world was obsessed with working horse words into common terms. I bet you have some stupid horse name for the Beanbus, don't you?”
“Um.” Fluttershy frowned. “I was actually going to say something else.”
“Or the Beancar.”
“Like, if you're the good Termane-ator, where's the evil one?”
“Or the Beanhorse—” Tempest's mouth hung open for a second. “Wait, the what one?”
“There were always at least two of them who got sent back,” Fluttershy said, standing up. “So if you're the good one—and I'm not saying you're not the good one, but—where's the evil one?”
Tempest's jaw locked. She froze for a moment, then stood jerkily and glanced around the park, as if searching for exit routes. Then she found one. “You're right,” she said. “We should move quickly.”
“I never actually agreed to this,” Fluttershy whimpered, as Tempest grabbed her hand and pulled her along in her wake.
“Unfortunately I lost my high explosive in the sewer last night. So lead me somewhere where I can improvise another one.”
“I also didn't agree to bombs—ow,” Fluttershy said, wincing as Tempest picked up the pace, forcing Fluttershy to run behind her or get dragged along the ground. “You have a really strong grip. Are you a robot?”
“Then you'll sneak me into Beanis Inc. and—what?” Tempest's grip slackened for a moment. “Why would I be a robot?”
“I'm just saying,” Fluttershy repeated for what felt like the hundredth time. It helped to distract from what she was doing, IE, conspiring to destroy her workplace. “You can punch through walls, I don't think you can be physically injured, and you did sort of come back from the future to destroy something.”
“And why would that make me a robot?” Tempest scoffed, pushing their cart forward in line. “Besides, we call them Beandroids in the future.”
“That's, um, that's weird.”
“Not as weird as all of your world's horse puns.”
“There's not that many—”
“Thank you for shopping at Horse Depot,” the teenager behind the counter whined. “Would you like a bag for your....” He trailed off, looking at the stack of bags on Tempest's cart, and then looking up to the stack's top, four feet higher than his own head. “For your several hundred pounds of fertilizer?”
“Horse Depot,” Tempest said, cracking a grin. “Told you.”
“Not now,” Fluttershy sighed, before smiling awkwardly at the cashier. “No thanks, but if you could bag some of this Tovex, that would be lovely.” He did so wordlessly. “So if your world doesn't have horse puns,” Fluttershy continued, “did they change the name of this place after the apocalypse?”
Tempest's grin faded. She looked down at the ground and mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, “Bean Depot”.
“Mm.” Fluttershy wordlessly paid with her credit card—almost certainly maxing it out—then walked alongside Tempest as she wheeled the several hundred pounds of fertilizer out of the parking lot. The cart creaked; Tempest didn't.
And Fluttershy was just along for the ride. This had to be how Sunset felt all the time.
“Mission accomplished,” Tempest said, cracking a smirk. “Now take me to your safehouse, and I'll make the bomb that wipes Beanis Inc. off the map. Beanos's schemes will stop before they start.”
“Um,” Fluttershy said, as they walked. The sidewalk was cracking under the cart with each step Tempest took, and Fluttershy found it hard to pay attention to anything else. “Um, it sounded like you said 'beanis' differently that time. Like, with an 'o'.”
“That's because I said Beanos, not beanis.”
Fluttershy pursed her lips.
“I know, it's confusing.” Tempest sighed. “Beanos is the one who usurped the power of the Beanis from its original creators. He rules with a soylent fist, and his eyes are everywhere. With a snap of his fingers, he wiped out most of humanity.”
“Oh, like Thanos.”
Tempest glanced her way. “What.”
“Like Thanos, but a bean version.” Fluttershy looked up at Tempest and flinched out of reflex. “It's this movie that came out... really big purple villain... also, not a horse pun, so I think I'm winning,” she said, finishing with a slight smile. And then another flinch, just for safety's sake.
To her surprise, Tempest smiled back. Then, to her astonishment—as in, actual gasping astonishment—Tempest laughed. Laughed so hard she stopped walking, and actually started crying and heaving breaths as she leaned against the cart.
“It wasn't that funny,” Fluttershy mumbled, as Tempest got her breath back a full minute later.
“Sorry,” Tempest gasped. “Just....” She got herself standing again, with what looked like the first exertion of effort Fluttershy had seen from her. “My mom used to tell me jokes to cheer me up. Said it was something her friend used to do for her.”
Fluttershy noticed some things all at once: Tempest was much taller than her, and leaning over her with a slight smile, and it felt like Fluttershy was pinned against a wall. She gulped.
“You know,” she said, “you really remind me of my mom.”
She leaned in closer.
It wasn't even in the top ten list of worst things she'd been told before a kiss, so Fluttershy just got on her tiptoes and went for it. Their lips met, then their tongues. It wasn't a battle for dominance like she'd read in some romance novels—it was a rout, its victor decisive. Tempest embraced her fiercely around the shoulders, and Fluttershy could only lay her hands weakly on Tempest's back: not claiming her, but welcoming her in.
A siren sounded somewhere.
Tempest pulled back immediately. “What was that?” she hissed, eyes wide and searching all over the city street.
“It's just the police,” Fluttershy said, pouting a little as Tempest continued to look around like a caged animal. “Come on, let's walk to my house. I think I can store this in my backyard....”
“It's getting closer,” Tempest whispered. And come to think of it, the sirens were approaching. And they had just bought a suspicious amount of something that could make a bomb.
Before Fluttershy could really put two and two together in her head, Tempest grabbed her by the shoulders. “I have to go. I'll be back for you, I promise.” And then she was off like a shot. Fluttershy watched her sprint into an alley, vault over a chain-link fence taller than she was, and disappear from sight.
Just in time for the sirens to arrive, along with their attached police cars. The cops in those attached police cars got out and approached with all the confidence that Fluttershy lacked. “Ma'am,” the closest one said, “we got a tip that someone made a suspicious purchase from Horse Depot earlier today. Mind telling me where you got all that fertilizer?”
Fluttershy tried to push the cart away. It was a bit like trying to shove Mount Everest. She grinned nervously.
“For the last time, ma'am, just tell us who you're working with,” the interrogator said, leaning across the table. “We know you couldn't have moved all that material with your adorable noodle arms.”
Fluttershy just tried to cram herself deeper into the corner of her chair.
The interrogator grimaced, then stood up and threw his chair. “Who taught you to resist interrogation like this?” He slammed the table with both fists. “Answer me!”
“Eep,” Fluttershy said.
A klaxon sounded, and the interrogator froze. “Miss Shy,” the voice on the speaker said, “your bail's been posted. You're free to go for now.”
Feeling like she'd been shell-shocked, Fluttershy walked out of the room as the interrogator continued with what was either an intimidation tactic or a nervous breakdown. She walked into the main lobby of the police station to see not only Tempest, but also Rainbow Dash, both of them grinning like she was part of the world's greatest joke.
“Told you'd come back for you,” Tempest said, stepping forward for a quick hug.
“Um, thanks,” Fluttershy said into Tempest's boobs. Tempest pulled away. “What's Dash doing here, though?” Fluttershy asked.
“It looks like your new friend doesn't have any money,” Rainbow said, swaggering as she walked to the door, “so I just posted your bail. You can thank me later.”
“Bale,” Tempest whispered, leaning down to Fluttershy as they exited the station. “Like a horse eats. I win.” She smirked, walking with a bit of Dash's swagger.
“It's, um, not spelled that way....” Fluttershy sighed. “Did you even tell Rainbow what you're trying to do here?”
“Yeah, she spilled the beans.” Rainbow waited for several seconds, then laughed. “Wow, I'm hilarious! But yeah, she says she wants to bring her contraception-thingy to show off at the company.”
Fluttershy frowned and squinted at Tempest, who sighed and said, “I told her I'm planning on deploying an IED at Beanis Inc.”
“Yeah, like what Chrysalis uses!” Rainbow clapped Tempest on the back, and Tempest actually winced. “Safe sex is important. I approve.” She nodded wisely.
Fluttershy's frown deepened as she noticed something about Tempest's swagger: namely, how it wasn't really a swagger at all. More of a bow-legged stance, as if Tempest were sore. “Rainbow,” Fluttershy sighed, without taking her eyes off Tempest, “did you....”
“Uh, duh.”
Fluttershy groaned.
“Fluttershy, what is she—” Tempest's eyes widened, and she blushed. “I'm so sorry! It just sort of happened, one thing led to another and—”
“It's okay,” Fluttershy said. “It happens to everyone. Except Sunset, for some reason. No one's really sure why.”
“It was great,” Dash said. “She was calling me 'daddy' by the end.”
“Thanks for telling me that, Rainbow.”
“She should probably take a shower or something. It got dirty.”
“Thanks for telling me that, Rainbow.”
They walked in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes.
“Well,” Tempest finally said, “our raw materials were confiscated by the government, so we need to come up with something else. Where's the nearest firearms shop?”
“What? Wait!”
“Four blocks that way,” Rainbow said, pointing to her right.
Tempest's stride accelerated, and Fluttershy started running. “Hold on!” she said, getting in front of Tempest. “Just wait a second. You're saying that Beanos is the one who used the beanis to destroy everything?”
“Yes....”
“We don't know anyone named Beanos. So it's got to be someone outside the company, someone who's not there yet.” Fluttershy stared up into Tempest's eyes. “So why not just tell them not to hire anyone named Beanos?”
Tempest stared at her. Then she blinked a couple of times, like a computer recalibrating. Maybe she was a robot.
“We need to get to Beanis Inc.” she finally said. “Now.”
“Yeah!” Rainbow added, unnecessarily. “Before the other robot gets there first!”
Tempest glared at her. “I didn't talk with you about another robot. I talked with Fluttershy.”
Rainbow folded her arms. “I watch movies!”
“I hate time travel so much.” Sunset's face, predictably, fell into her palm as she spoke. “This is the dumbest—” She stopped herself, and when she sat straight again, she seemed to be biting her tongue.
“I know it's crazy,” Tempest said, “but it's true.” She leaned forward, hands clenched into fists, to look at Twilight and Sunset. “You're tampering with forces you don't comprehend. The technology created here will annihilate my world in a few decades' time, you need to believe me!”
Sunset grunted, then looked at Fluttershy. “And you do believe her?”
“I do.” Fluttershy sat beside Tempest, arm on her shoulder for moral support. It was, against all doubt, working: something about the gesture made Tempest feel safe. Rainbow Dash, meanwhile, had fucked off to R&B as soon as they'd entered the building.
“Beanis isn't dangerous!” Twilight tittered, grinning like a loon. Which meant like a crazy person, not like the waterfowl, which don't have teeth. Twilight was baring a lot of teeth. “And it isn't apocalyptic either; it's just filling an underserved niche in the market!”
“You haven't seen what I've seen!” Tempest yelled, slamming the table. “You haven't seen the Beandroids charging across the landscape, massacring the innocent by the thousands! You haven't seen the fields where the survivors work!”
Sunset raised a hand. “Beandroids. Beandroids?”
“Yes, that's what I said.”
“That is the dumbest name I have ever—” She planted her hand over her mouth, eyes wide.
However, Twilight was grinning and her eyes shone. “You said enough of it! That's a dollar in the jar, Sunset!”
Tempest frowned hard. “What?”
“Ugh, fine,” Sunset said, standing up. “I'll go get the jar.”
Twilight chuckled as Sunset left the room, the door swinging shut behind her. “Sunset has to put a dollar in the jar every time she calls something the dumbest thing ever. She should be able to get to Fiji in two weeks from the proceeds.” She bounced to her feet, smiling widely and brightly. “Anyway, Tempest, I can see you're really worked up about this, so we should probably talk about it in private. Fluttershy, if you could just, um, power down?”
“Okay, Twilight,” Fluttershy said, and then did nothing further.
Nothing at all. Including, for instance, breathing.
Tempest took a while to catch on. “Fluttershy?” she asked, and Fluttershy did not respond; her hand didn't move a millimeter from its position on Tempest's shoulder. Her eyes remained open, staring vaguely at the wall.
Twilight laughed again, just as innocently as before. “You know, you shouldn't be surprised. We've all watched the movie. They always send two back.” She turned away to face the nearby desk, then removed her glasses with clinical precision and placed them on top. “If it's any consolation, she really believes she's Fluttershy. She's such a feat of beangineering, I can't wait to study her.”
Twilight turned back, and she had glasses again. A sort of blue, flaring, magical pair of glasses around her eyes.
Tempest growled. “Who are you?”
“I'm the one they think only comes out when Twily gets mad!” She giggled again. “Oops, I guess I'd better calm down! One hundred, ninety seven, ninety four—”
There was a pen on the desk. Tempest lunged forward from a sitting position, grabbed the pen, and twisted to stab the monster through the neck—
She heard a fingersnap, and she froze. Her vision was covered with a violet haze. “That's my nice pen,” the woman said, smirking and taking it from Tempest's fingers. “Please, sit.”
The magic surrounding Tempest's body pressed upon her, pushing until her knees buckled and she sank back into the couch next to the motionless Flutterdroid. She'd never felt anything this strong, and against the magic's hold on her chest, she couldn't speak louder than a whisper. “Beanos.”
“Hmm.” The woman with Twilight's face frowned, tapping her chin. “They actually call me Midnight in this part of the timeline. Like any good businesswoman, though, I'm open to rebranding!” She winked. “Now, Tempest Shadow, let's chat.”
“If you think I'll talk, you're crazy. You'd better kill me now.”
Midnight snorted. It was quite undignified. “What? Why would I—I'd have told Fluttershy here to kill you the moment she saw you, if that's what I wanted! No, no,” she said, wiping her eyes clean, “that's the last thing I'd do to you. But I am—” her voice deepened by a half-tone, just enough to be noticeable, “—very interested in what you know.”
“So what are you gonna do to me?” Tempest snarled. It was important to snarl—it kept the fear out.
“Oh, Tempest. It's not what I'm going to do, no no no—it's what you're going to do.” Midnight plopped herself down on the seat opposite Tempest. “Really, though. When Fluttershy here arrived last night, and told me my future self had sent her to stop you, I could have ordered her to take you out. But instead, I told her to guide you here, like a friend, because what you're going to do today, Tempest, is make a choice.”
Midnight leaned forward in her seat. Those glasses of hers still shone obscenely.
“A choice?” Tempest whispered.
“Do you know what Beanis Inc. has done for people throughout the tri-city area?” Midnight's voice was suddenly as chipper as before, although it sounded slightly rehearsed. She seemed to be repeating a sales pitch. “My friend Fluttershy—the real one—would have been pregnant three times over if not for this invention. Hundreds, soon to be thousands of people throughout Canterlot are experiencing greater marital satisfaction, improved self-confidence, and higher test scores thanks to our products. Do you really want to take that away?”
Tempest's only reply was a hard glare.
Midnight sighed. “Well, it's your choice. Fluttershy, please place the bomb on the table.”
The Fluttershy robot moved with mechanical precision. It reached into its pocket and pulled out—Tempest stifled a gasp—the bomb she'd brought from the future. After laying the phallic object on the table, Fluttershy returned to her earlier pose and ceased once more.
“Fluttershy found that after your spill last night,” Midnight said, smiling placidly. “If you want to use it to blow up this entire building—with you in it, since I notice you didn't include a timer, I guess you wanted to go out in a blaze of glory or something—well, as I keep saying, it's your choice.”
Tempest stared at it. The bomb was literally inches away. If she could just break through this telekinesis—
“But I want it to be an informed choice,” Midnight continued, pushing herself to a standing position with her hands. “So I figured you should get a firsthand look at how Beanis products can improve the lives of millions around the globe.”
“Or end them.”
“Pessimistic, are we?” Midnight chuckled, then crossed to the desk and opened it. “I worked with Wallflower on this one, actually. We have a study aid device that sort of... ejaculates knowledge into your body. This one essentially reverses the process. We call it a memorynis!”
Tempest squinted.
“Working title. Anyway.” Midnight rooted around in the drawer for a bit, then pulled out a heavy duty pair of goggles and put them on, partially obscuring her blue magical glasses. Then she pulled out some metal tongs. “It's designed for trauma victims to pull out their very worst memories, and you, Tempest Shadow, have had a rough life. Think what burdens you could leave behind.”
She took the tongs in hand and poked them into the drawer a final time, then pulled out a phallic object covered in cloth. “The childhood you spent scrounging in ruins. Your missing father. Watching your mother die—oh yeah, Fluttershy gave me some pretty detailed information about your file,” she added, as Tempest flinched with each new sentence. “It could all become a bad dream, and this would be how you woke up.”
She dropped the cloth colored object on the table with a dull thud. “Of course, there's always side effects. You'd probably forget all sorts of stuff related to your trauma like, for instance, your mission to destroy Beanis Inc. You'd likely come up with replacement fake memories to fill in the blanks. And....”
For the first time, Midnight's smile was as predatory as the intent behind her every word. “If someone, just hypothetically, were to look at the memorynis afterward, they could view all the memories it had extracted. And I'm not saying that that someone would be me, but you know what they say—never look a gift bean in the mouth, right?”
“They don't say that,” Tempest hissed.
“They will.”
Tempest glowered. “How is this even a choice? I choose the bomb. Let me go!” She tried to struggle, but Midnight's telekinesis was like a mountain crushing her body. Even breathing was hard enough.
“Are you sure?” Midnight chuckled. “You know, you haven't even seen it!” She grabbed the cloth in the tongs and whipped it off.
Tempest stopped struggling. It was a penis, fashioned of beans and bean paste.
And it was perfect. She couldn't take her eyes off it. “What....” she murmured.
“So, funny story.” Safe behind her goggles, Midnight smiled. “Rainbow Dash actually models for all our beanises here, but we don't actually get it right most of the time. We introduce deliberate imperfections, because Rainbow Dash's dick is so alluring that beanises would otherwise be classified as an illegally addictive substance. However....”
She swept her hand over the beanis—the perfect, perfect beanis. “We didn't introduce any flaws to this prototype. It's spot-on to Rainbow Dash's measurements, with an accuracy of at least ninety-nine point nine eight percent.”
“Nnh.”
“Which,” Midnight continued, “makes it basically irresistible.” She frowned. “Well, almost. That blasted Sunset Shimmer seems to be unaffected....” She glowered for a few seconds, then brightened up again. “In any case, otherwise it's proved irresistible. However, I have a hypothesis.”
She leaned forward and tapped Tempest gently on the cheek. Tempest didn't react, and not just because of the telekinesis. “I hypothesize,” Midnight said, “that a sufficiently motivated individual—e.g., someone trying to prevent the end of the world—could overcome the insatiable urge to fuck herself on Rainbow's proxy cock. But that's just a hypothesis. I've never had the chance to test it... before now.”
Midnight's smile was wide again. She snapped her fingers. The weight crushing Tempest fell away, and yet—she didn't move. “Nnh,” she said.
“Well, it's a big decision,” Midnight said brightly, placing the tongs back into the drawer with reverent care. “I'll give you some privacy. Fluttershy?” She raised her voice slightly. “Kindly ignore the beanises on the table. Power on, and leave the room.”
Fluttershy blinked. “Oh, Twilight. Sorry, I think I zoned out for a few minutes there.”
“It's okay.” Midnight patted her on the shoulder in a friendly way as Fluttershy stood and walked toward her. “You shouldn't push yourself so hard.”
“Fluttershy,” Tempest whimpered, “please—” Fluttershy kept walking as though she hadn't heard a thing.
“Well,” Midnight said, “no pressure!” She winked at Tempest again, then made to leave.
“You—will never—win.” Each word was an immense effort to force out, but Tempest did it anyway.
Midnight paused. “Oh, Fizzlepop,” she said, and Tempest's blood froze. “You might have your mother's heart, but it's plain to anyone that there's a whole lot of your father's spunk in you, too.” She sniffed, then made a face. “Seriously, take a shower.”
With that, she walked out and closed the door.
Tempest took deep breaths. All she had to do was grab the correct one, right? She could do this. For Dad. For Mom. For everyone.
She reached out her hand.
“Fluttershy?” Midnight said, once the soundproofed door was closed behind her.
“Yes, Twilight?” Fluttershy said, standing demurely. Obediently.
“You know the secret vaults in the sub-basement? The ones no one knows about....” Midnight shook her head. “Well, that's what makes them secret, dummy. Go down there and deactivate yourself. I'll study you later.”
Fluttershy nodded, then hurried down the stairs.
Midnight laughed under her breath. How thoughtful of her future self to provide such a marvel of technology to learn from—especially in the midst of all this worry over corporate espionage. Nothing facilitated counter-espionage quite like lifelike, obedient beandroids.
But that was a concern for another day. For today, it was time to go to bed.
Midnight closed her eyes.
Twilight opened her eyes, and wondered why she was wearing goggles. She pulled them off, checked the time on her phone, gasped, and dialed a number as fast as she could manage it. “Fluttershy!” she said, once the phone had stopped ringing. “I'm sorry, I was going to check in on you earlier but time slipped away from me. How's your stomach?”
“Better....” Fluttershy made a little grunt, just visible from her phone's speakers. “I should be able to come to work tomorrow. I don't know what happened—I just got sick yesterday all of a sudden.”
Twilight smiled ruefully. “Get some rest, Fluttershy. Goodness knows we need you healthy.”
“Twilight!” Sunset called, brandishing a tin jar with “Worst Idea I've Ever Heard” written in marker on the front, as she walked back from her office to the meeting room. “Did you hide my jar? It took me like ten minutes to find it—”
She reached the room, opened the door, and stopped.
“Oh, oh god,” Tempest said, shoving a beanis in and out of herself like there was no tomorrow. “Oh, oh, oh, daddy, daddy—”
Her eyes rolled back, and she slackened back against the small couch she was sitting on.
Sunset grunted. “Twilight?” she yelled. “Does every couch we have to have in this building need to become The Couch?”
“No clue what you mean, Sunset!” came the distant reply.
Sunset groaned, then returned her attention to Tempest, who was breathing heavily. “Hey,” Sunset said, “sorry I had to be away. Are you, er, still convinced we're gonna destroy the world?”
Tempest stared back at her with blank eyes. “What?” she said.
“You know,” Sunset said, “how you were saying that someone named Beanos was going to use our technology for evil? As opposed to just for stupid,” she added under her breath. Then, because that probably counted, she shoved another dollar in the jar.
“What?” Tempest repeated. “I'm... I'm here for the product tester division. I heard you had an opening?”
Sunset stared back. “But—earlier, you said—oh, forget it,” she finished, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I'll just take those.” She rolled out a glove from her pocket—it paid to have protective gear in this business—and pulled it onto her hand; then she reached in and grabbed both beanises, shoving them in her jacket pocket.
Sunset walked back to her office, put the jar on her desk, and sighed. She lifted it a few times, testing its heft, and then added another twenty dollars into it for good measure. “Fiji can't come soon enough.”
