Blindsided

It didn’t take too long to get from the warehouse to the better areas of Bronclyn where Cirrus’ hotel room was. About fifteen minutes of uninhibited flight above the skyline had her near there, at which point she stopped in an alley to remove her suit, just in case. She folded it up into a convenient carrying bag shape that hung nicely from her side before she stepped back out of the alley, strolling down the street to the hotel lobby. She already knew what room it was, so she took the elevator up to the 11th floor and got out.

With a gentle tap of her hoof against the door, she got an answer only seconds later. Cirrus opened the door with a wide smile, and before Lazuli knew it she was being pulled inside in a tight, crushing hug that would have squeezed the breath out of any other mare. Her tail swung back to shut the door behind them as she returned the embrace.

“Hey sweetie!” Cirrus greeted her as the door closed, looking down and noting the bag on her. “Guess the carrying straps came in handy?”

“It’s really comfy, actually.” Lazuli nuzzled Cirrus’ cheek with her nose, giving her a gentle kiss and letting go of her. “You just get here?”

“Mhm!” Cirrus nodded her head. “Actually checked in like, an hour ago, good timing babe.” She bumped Lazuli on the hip with her own hip, sauntering into the main room. The suite was nothing special, only a sitting area, kitchen and one bedroom, but again, Cirrus didn’t need anything else on her own, and even with Lazuli staying with her they hardly needed anything more.

“Huh…you unpack?” Lazuli looked around. White walls, brown couch, small but good quality TV, very bland smell – yep, it was a hotel room, but she liked it.

“Only the essentials.” Cirrus turned her head over her shoulder to shoot a wink at Lazuli, who couldn’t help but snicker in response.

“Is that a suggestion, Cirrus Refin?” Lazuli stepped forward, wrapping her tail around her lover’s with a smile.

“Maybe. Why don’t you accompany me to the bedroom, darling?” Cirrus tried to gesture with her tail, but had to clumsily uncurl it from Lazuli’s first, leading to a fumbling gesture that pointed at every room before settling on the bedroom. Cirrus’ face went bright red.

Lazuli hardly held back a giggle. “You’re honestly the worst at bedroom stuff and I love it.” She nudged Cirrus forward, and the two of them shut the bedroom door behind them.

A bit over two hours later, Lazuli laid in bed staring up at the ceiling as the fan slowly spun in circles above them. It was silent, just as they both were, Cirrus having fallen asleep just under an hour ago. Lazuli knew, because she had also been staring at the clock.

A shift next to her came from the huddled lump under the covers, then Cirrus’ head popped out with a low groan. “You’re still awake, aren’t you…” She mumbled.

“…No.” Lazuli said quietly, looking away with a grunt.

“Can’t sleep?” Cirrus shifted further up so half of her body was visible, her fur slightly ruffled.

“No…” Lazuli stared at the clock again. It was blurry, so she didn’t really pay much attention to it – it was just somewhere to look.

“Why?”

Lazuli had to put it in the most simple way she could. “I think this was a mistake.”

“What, making love? We haven’t in-“

“No, I- no…that’s…that’s not it.” Lazuli snorted. “I meant…meeting you here, coming here so openly.”

“Laz, you watch too many spy movies. There’s no underground syndicate making notes of who’s married to who.” Cirrus frowned, rolling onto her side and propping herself up with one hoof. “Talk to me. What exactly are you worried about?”

“I dunno…” Lazuli scuffed at the covers. “Just…you. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m hardly a fawn, Lazuli. I’ve got training.”

“Yeah but…”

“But what? Laz, you always operate just fine. You never get spotted, and even if you do, it’s not like you’re taking on the Bellephron military here. They can’t track you down or anything like that.”

“I know.” Lazuli sighed, leaning her head against Cirrus, nuzzling into her chest fur. “But you’re special to me.”

“And you’re special to me, but you don’t see me telling you not to go and put yourself in danger, Laz.” Cirrus gently stroked the back of her head. “You’re my mare.”

“And you’re mine…” Lazuli mumbled.

“Aw, cheer up, come on…” Cirrus poked at Lazuli’s back. “You’re strong enough to hurl a minotaur over a mountain, and you’re afraid about some mean li’l ponies coming for me?”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“Nope. You’re too strong, I thought you were gonna break me just now.”

“Stop it.”

“Nooope.” Cirrus buried her muzzle in Lazuli’s mane. “Make me.”

“Stoooop.” Lazuli curled up, hiding her face in her chest.

Cirrus rolled her eyes, though Lazuli couldn’t see it. “Get some sleep. I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you tomorrow. Riiiight?”

“We’re gonna see so much tourist shit.” Lazuli mumbled into Cirrus’ chest.

Cirrus had to cover her mouth to stop herself from laughing. “Yeah, I mean, I was gonna use other terminology, but yeah.” She patted Laz on the head, then pulled the covers up over them both. “Now get some sleep.”

The two of them drifted off, but Lazuli fell asleep about twenty minutes after Cirrus.

The next day was a blur for Lazuli, but not in the sense that she didn’t enjoy it. They just did so much that it was difficult to keep track of it all. Cirrus’ business wasn’t until 7 PM, so they had time to get breakfast, go sightseeing, eat lunch, more sightseeing, and even snuck in dinner near the end of the day. In all honesty, Lazuli needed a day like this – she had plenty of days off, and she and Cirrus spent plenty of time together, but never when it wasn’t burdened in some way by work. When Lazuli returned to the hotel room alone, having left Cirrus at her fashion show in some fancy meeting hall, she felt significantly refreshed.

As she sat down at the room’s computer, she fished her earpiece out of one of the pockets of her suit hanging nearby and clipped it into her ear, clicking the button to turn it on. She waited for a moment until she could hear the faint static, then spoke. “Steel?”

Lazuli had to wait a second for a response, then Steel’s voice came over the speaker. “Laz!” He said, sounding more jolly than usual. “Was getting a little worried, you didn’t report in this morning.”

“Technically not on the job, remember?” Lazuli kicked her hooves up on the desk. “So, you get the pictures?”

“Yep. We had the team look at them.”

“Aaaand?” Lazuli didn’t have a vested interest in the organization she had investigated, but the subject was intriguing enough that she wanted updates.

“You got some pretty good stuff. The schematics were more interesting than the manifests, but well…the second one’s what gives us the legal ability to raid it, of course.”

“Raid…classy.” Lazuli mumbled.

“Don’t give me that. We can’t all just sneak in and kill everyone without being seen.”

“Okay…so what were the schematics about?”

“Prosthetics, mostly. Legs, eyes, even organs – those were crazy, too. Apparently never actually built or tested but the planning is all there. Could even replace hearts.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Lazuli swiveled the chair slightly so she could look out the window nearby, which had a decently nice view of Bronclyn.

“The heart’s just a muscle, Laz. It’s not that hard to make artificial. Connecting it to everything else is uh…a different issue, but still.”

“What about power sources? The ponies I saw didn’t have big backpacks or anything.”

“From what we can tell they’re powered on kinetic energy. Basically power themselves. And that uh…other zebra that was in the room with you, looks like he’s been modded so heavily he’s more metal than zebra.”

“That can’t be good. Any idea what the place is all about?”

“Probably some kind of cyber-cult, though we can’t be sure until we actually raid the place. Your intel gave us enough to get a warrant.”

“I still don’t know why this is a federal issue.” Lazuli idly twirled a holster around her tail, without the gun in it of course.

“For all we know these ponies could be terrorists.” Steel said bluntly. “We need to make sure they’re not anything worse than an illegal manufacturing operation.”

“Mmhm…” Lazuli crossed her forelegs over her chest…then sighed, and stood up. “Nothing else then?”

“Nope. You enjoy your time in Manehatten, Laz. You earned it.”

“Thanks.” Lazuli pulled the earpiece out of her ear and shut it off. She then headed to the bedroom to rest, flopping down on the bed.

Cirrus returned to the hotel room at around 11 PM, too nervous after her fashion showing to properly sleep. She saw the bedroom door was closed, so she stepped into the living room and gently pulled the rack with her outfits on it behind her. Not knowing what else to do, she strolled over to the couch and sat down, flicking on the TV. She imagined there wouldn’t be anything good, but started flipping through channels regardless, just to see.

Sports, she was marginally interested in. She checked the score on the buckball tournament between Maretonia and the Crystal Empire, then realized she didn’t care about either of the teams and switched to some random sitcom. It didn’t interest her either, so eventually she just ended up on the news.

Cirrus wasn’t sure how long she was watching. She hadn’t checked the time when she started, but before she knew it she was shocked back to reality by a louder volume newscast with a flashy graphic saying “Today in Equestri-tech” that made her groan.

“Thank you Firefly,” a smartly dressed unicorn mare with a bright green mane and blue fur said cheerily. She held a microphone in her magical grip, and appeared to be standing in some kind of business lobby. “And thank you all for tuning in. Today we have exciting news from the world of medicinal technology – a revolutionary new company has popped up over the past few months, steadily developing new advancements in prosthetic augmentation.”

Cirrus blinked, having been about to change the channel, then looked back up at the television. “I’m here with the CEO of Green Motors Technology, Kiama Siwazuri.” The camera panned to the side, and Cirrus tilted her head further at the sight of the mare in front of it.

Cirrus’ first instinct was surprise – she looked different, mainly because she was a zebra, and a rather attractive one at that. Her mane was nicely trimmed and styled, combed down to one side, though it still had the long braid draped over her shoulder. Her eyes were a bright blue colour, but seemed friendly at a glance. The zebra was really quite pretty, and it was accentuated by the cute glasses sitting on her nose. Her body was covered by a lab coat, and Cirrus couldn’t see her lower legs.

“Thank you Static, but please, call me Kiama.” The zebra flashed a winning ‘I’m totally on your side, look how friendly I am’ smile at the camera, which Cirrus had learned to distrust from businessponies.

“So Kiama,” The reporter started, as all reporters did. “I’ve been told you’ve been working on new prosthetic technology that might give disabled ponies their functionality back?” She turned the microphone to Kiama.

“Oh yes, well that’s our entire company goal.” Kiama smiled again, though it seemed slightly more sincere. “Right now, ponies who lose limbs, or even their eyesight, are completely left to fend for themselves. The best we have are wooden or plastic crutches that not only hardly work, they just look downright awful.” Kiama flourished brightly, swinging her right hoof out to the side to discard her lab coat, revealing a right hoof entirely made out of metal. Cirrus blinked in surprise. It was bulky, but still nice looking. “Behold!” She said excitedly.

“Oh my goodness!” Static exclaimed, looking at the camera with a look of surprise that was absolutely faked, since she had probably seen the metal limb the whole time and the camera just didn’t show it. “It moves just like a real hoof…and it’s so quiet!”

Yeah, sell it harder for her, Static. How much did she pay you? Cirrus snorted, but it was all in jest. It did look impressive.

“Yes, this is our newest prototype, fully functional and easy to use! No pain on installation, and it connects to the body like you’ve sewn your leg right back on!” Kiama’s expression dropped slightly. “When I was a filly, I was in a horrible accident that cost me the use of this limb.” She pressed the metal hoof to her chest. “I had to endure ridicule, mockery, even rejection from employment thanks to my disability, but no longer!” She threw her hoof up, smiling brightly in a way that made Cirrus feel at least a little bit happy for her – she looked quite excited to be sharing her inventions. “Now, now I can live like my fellow zebras, ponies, Draconies, what have you! I can do all of the things a zebra with functioning limbs can!” She seemed to be getting a bit off track, so she cleared her throat and adjusted her glasses. “Sorry.”

“Oh, it’s fine!” Static smiled, apparently quite affected by the mare’s enthusiasm as well. “It’s certainly a wonderful story, and it’s wonderful what you’re doing for other ponies. Now tell us, Kiama, are these prosthetics going to be available to the public?”

“But of course!” Kiama said ecstatically. “I’d be a fool, not to mention simply a cruel mare to not share this with the world! However, it needs more research. Mine still does have its, erm…” She tapped her metal hoof with a slight chuckle. “Kinks. We are still in the last stages of research, though we expect to be able to produce them en masse quite soon.” She smiled and turned to the camera. “And if you’d like to help donate to our cause, visit our website!” She smiled giddily, pointing at a banner that appeared at the bottom of the screen.

Cirrus nodded her head slowly. While she often donated to charities as it was, she liked the idea of providing more for disabled ponies. She got up, turning down the volume to the TV and heading over to the computer. A few extra dollars wouldn’t be much, but she’d at least be doing a bit of something to help.