“Hey, Tempest?”
Tempest Shadow paused in front of the doors to R&B. She frowned as she adjusted the barrel of blank Datanis fluid resting on her shoulder enough to regard the clipboard-wielding speaker behind her.
“Yeah, boss?”
Twilight gave a little wave. “Are you busy right now?”
Tempest arched a brow. She shrugged, causing the thirty gallons of steamy hot insulated e-Jaculate in her barrel to slosh dangerously. “Kinda.”
“Oh, good!” Twilight clapped her hands together with a smile. “I need you to come help me with something.”
“Uh.” In an impressive feat of strength, Tempest pulled one hand away from the barrel long enough to jerk a thumb at the door before her. “Can I put this away first? Wallflower and I just ran out of fluid, and it’s kinda holding up… testing.”
Twilight shook her head emphatically. “Sorry, this can’t wait. Not even for a few seconds.” Her eyes lit up as she looked past Tempest. “Oh, Smash! How convenient!”
“It’s Flash, actually.”
“Right, of course.” Twilight slapped the words away with one hand. “Do you think you could bring this container to Wallflower for me? I really need Tempest right now.”
Tempest’s brow furrowed in concentration as she slowly turned around to look at Flash. He seemed to have paused mid-step, wide eyes regarding the barrel on her shoulder with something caught between apprehension and panic. His hand shook as he placed his phone into its holster next to his SDD. “C-could I?”
“Fantastic!” Tempest grit her teeth and turned back around to see Twilight’s beaming smile. “Go ahead and just put it down there, Tempest. We’ve got no time to waste!”
After taking a moment to brace herself, Tempest crouched down and allowed the massive keg of information-bearing protein to slide down onto the ground. It landed with a solid thud that almost covered the sound of Flash’s whimper.
She straightened up with a groan, relishing the sensation of her joints popping. “Alright, what do you need?”
“We’ll talk in my office,” Twilight said, already starting down the hall. “Come with me.”
With one last glance back at the paling Flash Sentry, Tempest fell in behind the shorter woman. They walked through the facility at a brisk pace, Tempest asking no questions and Twilight offering no answers.
Morning sunlight streamed in through the windows of Twilight’s office as Tempest followed her inside and shut the door behind her. She waited patiently while Twilight sat down and logged into her computer.
“Okay,” Twilight began. “What do you know about digital rights?”
“Digital rights?” Tempest echoed. She frowned, imagining a throng of video game characters chanting and marching in neat columns beneath homemade signs.
“Digital rights management, to be exact,” Twilight added. She paused to interject a little smile before continuing. “We’re having a little bit of an issue with it at the moment.”
A couple seconds passed while Tempest considered this. “I’m not management.”
“That is correct!” Twilight said. “But you are security, and that’s what we need right now.”
Tempest’s frown deepened. “Flash manages security.”
“I don’t think Flash is really who I need for this task,” Twilight said. She leaned forwards and lowered her voice, and Tempest found herself leaning in almost without thinking. “He doesn’t have a good record with Datanises.”
“I’m still not sure where I fit in here.” Tempest glanced back at the door as something occurred to her. “Do you think he can even lift that thing?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Twilight said. “I’ll come right out and say it. We have a piracy issue.”
Tempest’s brow furrowed. She mulled this new information over, attempting to connect it to what she had already been told and coming up short. “I’m sorry, what does this have to do with management?”
“Digital rights management,” Twilight corrected. “Are you familiar with our latest operating system upgrades for the Datanis?”
“Of course,” Tempest said. She vividly recalled Wallflower’s enthusiastic testing of said creation. A small smile crept onto her face. “Thoroughly.”
“Great! Now, there are certain unscrupulous individuals who’ve been trying to share that data among themselves without paying us,” Twilight explained, slipping into her lecturing voice. “Or worse still, buying it and then trying to make copies and resell it to potential customers at a lower price!”
The frown returned. “And that’s bad?”
“And that’s bad!” Twilight slammed her hands down on the desk, rattling the various display beanises spread across it. A few sheets of paper were blown free and floated down to the floor. “They don’t have the digital right!”
“Ah.” Tempest nodded sagely. “So we need to manage them.”
“You need to manage them,” Twilight agreed. She leaned back, taking a deep breath, and pointed to a map pinned up against one wall. “So what I need you to do is—”
“I’m not management.”
Twilight blinked. She cocked her head as she met Tempest’s eyes. “I’m sorry?”
“I’m not management, boss,” Tempest repeated. “Maybe you want Wallflower? She’s like my manager, right?”
“You don’t have to be management to manage the digital rights of our customers.”
Several long seconds passed as the two girls looked between one another. Tempest opened her mouth to speak, but Twilight beat her to it.
“Would you like a promotion, Tempest?”
Tempest straightened up. “A promotion?”
“Why not?” Twilight smiled sweetly. “You’re a hard-working employee of Beanis Inc., aren’t you? I’m instating a new department, the Department of Rights Management, and I think you’d be the perfect choice for manager!”
Tempest looked away, one hand toying absent-mindedly with the SDD she kept holstered at her side. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m not really management material, boss.”
“Of course you are!” The sound of typing filled the room as Twilight’s hands raced over her keyboard. “Look, I already have the paperwork right here. All you have to do is agree to sign it once Pinkie is done with the photocopier, and you’re installed!” She beamed up at Tempest as she spoke, still furiously typing.
A little rush of elation swelled in Tempest at the words. Her, managing her own department? She had often felt a little uncertain about her place at Beanis Inc., torn between the worlds of security, R&B, and overall handywoman. She smiled as she imagined clocking into work and settling in at her own desk, at her own office. Wallflower would be so proud!
“Will I have my own office?” she asked.
“Ah, nope!” Twilight shook her head, still smiling and typing. “No room!”
Tempest’s own smile faltered. Not even The Couch room? Well, I suppose that’s actually Pinkie’s office. “A pay raise?”
Twilight hummed thoughtfully, eyes narrowing at her screen. “We can talk about a raise later.”
“A new nametag?”
“Oh, sure! We can do that. Manager Tempest Shadow!” She frowned, rubbing her chin. “Actually, that’s a little long. Would you be okay with Man. T. Shadow?”
Tempest shrugged. “I guess.” A resounding boom shook the building, and she crouched down without thinking, turning towards the source of the sound. “Was that R&B?”
“I’m sure Snatch has it handled,” Twilight said. A shrill scream reached Tempest’s ears, muffled by the walls. “That’s security’s job, after all.”
“Right.” After listening for a few more seconds and hearing nothing else unusual, Tempest straightened up and faced Twilight once more. She couldn’t be worrying about disturbing noises anymore if she was getting promoted out of security. It was unmanagerly. “So will I have any employees under me?”
“Maybe in the future!” Twilight said with several nods.
“So no desk, no office, no employees,” Tempest summarized. She crossed her arms, looking out the window and idly observing a mugging occurring in an alley across the street. “What am I supposed to be managing?”
“Digital rights,” Twilight said. “You’d be the Digital Rights Manager, or just DRM for short. Think of how it would look on your resume!”
It occurred to Tempest that she didn’t recall ever writing a resume. She wondered if she had ever held any management positions before. Well, if I have to start over from the beginning anyways, a manager position would look good. Not that she ever intended on leaving Beanis. It certainly couldn’t hurt. A quavering wail leaked through the walls.
“Alright, I accept.” Tempest smiled, glad to put the decision behind her. “I’ll be your DRM for you.”
“Fantastic!” Twilight pressed the enter key on her keyboard triumphantly. “Pinkie won’t be done with the photocopier for another two hours at least, but you start immediately. So I’m going to need you to take one of our shipping blimps down to Tortuga and go deal with our piracy problem.”
The frown returned once more to Tempest’s face. She ran a hand through her mohawk, wondering if she would soon come to miss the simple days before management. “I thought we were talking about digital rights?”
“Yes, digital rights,” Twilight said in the tone of a teacher helping along a slower student. “Piracy.”
Tempest nodded as she considered the connection between these two concepts. Digital rights. Piracy. She nodded again, stronger this time. She was in the big leagues now. Management. There was no time for understanding what she had to do, as long as she was willing to do it. “I’ll get right on it.”
Someone cleared their throat from beneath her. Tempest jumped back with a yelp, looking down to see Somnambula’s head poking up through the floor. “Tempest, can you come help Flash?”
Twilight let out an exasperated groan. “Ugh, what does he need now? She’s busy!”
Somnambula shot a sideways glance at the eager young CEO of Beanis Inc. before turning back to Tempest. “He pulled his back and dropped a thirty gallon drum of Datanis fluid on his foot, and Applejack is, uh, busy in Beangineering. We can’t get it off.”
Tempest puffed her chest out, giving the ghost a firm nod. “Don’t worry, management will handle it.”
She turned on her heel, strutting out of the office with the commanding gait of the Beanis DRM. Somnambula turned to Twilight with a question in her eyes.
“What?” Twilight asked. “Piracy doesn’t fight itself.”
Tempest traced a finger along the dotted red line. It was one of many that traveled in gently flowing curves across the world map, all originating from a single proud beanis framed in a six-pointed star, a symbol representing the Beanis corporate headquarters. The red lines traversed the globe like so many bean-vines.
Tempest’s finger came to rest on her destination: Tortuga, a haven for piracy. The island was so small that she wouldn’t have even noticed it if not for the tiny beanis-shaped pin stuck into the map.
Satisfied, Tempest stepped back from the navigation table and turned away. The gentle hum of the blimp’s engine buzzed in her ears as she squeezed through the tight confines of the gondola and made her way to the control room.
The pilot looked back at the sound of Tempest’s boots on the floor. Lazy blue eyes regarded her through a pair of flight goggles, framed in the stray locks of silver hair that escaped from a mohawk much sloppier than Tempest’s own.
“We’re almost there,” the pilot said, nodding out the window. A nametag was sewn onto his vest, marred by an old stain. Grubber. “You want a snack before you face those pirates?”
Tempest crossed her arms as she looked down at the island of Tortuga approaching on the horizon. “What pirates?”
Grubber paused. He reached into a lunchbox hanging from the pilot’s chair and grabbed a pair of sandwiches, holding one out. “I kinda need to know if you want one of these.”
Tempest narrowed her eyes, staring into the middle distance with managerial coolness. “I’m here to manage digital rights.”
“Uh huh. Right.” The pilot shrugged, put the two sandwiches together, and bit off a respectable chunk. Crumbs bounced off his chest as he continued to speak. “Well I appreciate it, anyways. Mmf, so good. How do you go about cracking a beanis, anyways?”
“Do you have one on hand?” Tempest asked.
“Yeah, I got a few on hand.” Grubber swallowed before reaching a hand in to his lunchbox and feeling around. “Did you want Roasted Jalapeno, Juan’s Authentic Classic, or Sour Cream?”
Tempest let out a brief hum. “Sour Cream.”
“Good choice. That one’s my favorite.” Grubber grinned as he pulled a bright-red Datanis out of the pack, the head tied off with a thin white ribbon, and held it up.
“This is a Datanis.” Tempest frowned as she accepted the beribboned SDD. “For self defense, specifically. It doesn’t hold sour cream.”
“I mean, yeah it does.” Grubber held up a finger as he reloaded his mouth and began spraying crumbs once more. “I like the red ones cause they’re real sensitive. I just don’t wanna have to spend five minutes jerking off a beanis to sauce up something I’ll eat in two, y’know? I empty them out and inject my own sauce. The things pop at the slightest touch. Real convenient.”
“I see.” Tempest ran a hand over the modified Datanis, thinking of Wallflower. A dollop of creamy whiteness dripped out of the head as it twitched and stiffened to full mast. She wrapped one hand around each end and, with a small grunt of exertion, snapped it in two.
“Whoa—why?!” Grubber ran his free hand through his hair as he watched sour cream dribble out the severed halves of the beanis and collect on the floor. “I needed that for lunch!”
“You asked me how to crack a beanis,” Tempest explained. She walked over and placed the two halves back into the lunchbox.
“Oh, well—huh.” Grubber sighed, looking down into his lunchbox with the expression of a man visiting his grandmother’s grave. “In retrospect, I guess I shoulda seen that coming. Still, I had imagined something less brute force.”
“They won’t be cracking me,” Tempest growled, turning to stare at the horizon. “It’ll take more than brute force.”
“Hey, I believe you! So what’s your plan once we land?”
Tempest blinked, her stony mask crumbling like Flash’s bones under three hundred pounds of insulated e-Jaculate. “Plan?”
“Plan, yeah.” Grubber repeated. He popped the remainder of the double-layer sandwich into hsi mouth. “You, uh, did have a plan, right?”
Why hadn’t she thought of a plan? It had been hours since she left Beanis HQ, and yet she hadn’t even spared a thought for what to do once she arrived. Maybe I’m not management material after all.
No, she could do it! She was the DRM, and she’d be damned if she let those pirates crack her before she even got to sign her installation papers.
“Of course I have a plan,” Tempest said, sitting down in the copilot’s seat. She leveled a finger on Grubber. “Tell me everything you know about the pirates.”
Grubber let out a loud burp. “I dunno too much, really. They showed up a couple months ago and started raiding Beanis shipping all over the place. They’ve got this whole pirate schtick going on. Real weirdos.”
“Do you know what they do with their booty?” Tempest asked. Should she be taking notes? Wallflower was always taking notes during meetings.
“I don’t know what they do in the privacy of their bedrooms.” Grubber grinned at her expectantly. Several seconds passed before he looked away with a sigh. ”But everyone knows what they do with the stolen Datanises. Look up The Pirate Bean.”
Tempest pulled her phone out, summoning up her search engine and typing in the three words. “The children’s show?”
“Not that one.”
“Ah, the lesbian porn.” She clicked the second link, and soon a funky jazz tune was bouncing around the gondola. Her eyes widened as a tingling heat tickled at her loins. “W-wow.”
“There’s a porn for it now?” Grubber asked. His eyes widened as Tempest held the phone towards him for a couple seconds. “Huh. Well, that’s not the one I meant. What website is that?”
“Xpony.” The music cut off as Tempest tapped the back button. She looked down to the third link. “Down with the Bean Queen?”
“That’s the one.”
Tempest held the phone closer to her face as the page loaded. The words The Pirate Bean were emblazoned at the top of the page, above a livestream of a pale woman in a red-feathered slitted tricorn glowering at her laptop. She was in a room dimly lit by a gently swaying lantern, the warm light competing with the harsh glow of the monitor to illuminate several sealed metal crates behind her. A wilting Datanis was planted next to the laptop on her desk, a USB cable snaking between them. A hazy white mist hung in the air around her.
“Attempt number forty-one thousand, four hundred and twenty-one” the woman said, looking to the camera with a red-eyed grin. She raised a finger and brought it down dramatically upon her keyboard. “Down with the Bean Queen!”
The Datanis stiffened, extending to its full length and rolling around on the table as if in agony. The woman watched it with hungry eyes as she reached a tentative hand out as if to touch it.
With a crunch violent enough to make Tempest flinch, the Datanis went still. It began to glow red, slowly losing its shape and melting into a puddle of vaguely bean-colored muck.
“No!” The woman raised her hands to the ceiling, let out a strangled scream. She slammed her fists down on either side of the melting beanis and leaned in low over it, sucking in a great breath. “Ahhh, group theory. Group theory, group theory, group theory!” She continued to pound her fists into the desks, huffing more and more of the white steam curling off the dead Datanis. Adventurous pirate music played in the background. “We’ve failed again, my friends, but the fight isn’t over yet! With this new knowledge, the Bean Queen’s DRM will finally crack!”
Tempest’s jaw dropped. The pirates already knew she was coming? But how? Her identity as DRM was on a need-to-know basis only!
“Yeah, she’s birdshit insane,” Grubber said, drawing Tempest’s attention back to him. “She livestreams herself trying to crack those things for, like, hours. She’s got some weird obsession with it.”
“I see.” Tempest closed her mouth, watching the strange woman stumble out of her chair to one of the crates, crowbar in hand. The top popped off with a barely audible hiss as the environmental seal was broken, and she reached in to grab a fresh Datanis before slapping it down next to her laptop and plugging it in. “She really is crazy.”
“She just knows too much,” Grubber said.
“Knows too much?” Tempest closed the stream before replacing her phone in her pocket. “About what?”
Grubber shrugged. “I mean like, in general.”
Tempest let out a thoughtful hum. She turned back to the window and the gradually approaching landscape. “I must find her hideout and confront her.”
“Not that hard to find it,” Grubber said. He pointed into the distance. “It’s pretty cool.”
Tempest leaned forwards, following the pilot’s finger. An airship was hovering above the tallest mountain on the island. Its design was a far cry from that of the blimp Tempest was traveling on. Instead of the lumbering elliptical balloon and tiny gondola, the pirate ship had a rigid angled hull held aloft by several small balloons and four rapidly spinning propellers.
“Where did she get that ship?” Tempest asked, grabbing a beanis-shaped spyglass off a shelf and bringing it to her eye. A line of cannons bristled along each side of the pirate ship.
A strange memory picked at Tempest’s mind, just out of reach. She lowered the spyglass as flickering images of a ruined city, bean-shaped shadows overhead, and roving spotlights drifted across her vision.
“She got it from Beanis Inc.,” Grubber said.
Tempest blinked, and the strange visions were gone. “What?”
“Yeah, right?” The pilot let out a heavy sigh. “Corporate wanted to get ahead of the curve on potential piracy issues, right? So they made this fancy security ship to patrol our shipping lanes.”
Tempest rounded on her companion. Why was her heart beating so fast? “How did the pirates get it?”
“Corporate put out an open contract for a security crew and gave it to the lowest bidder, which just happened to be this so-called ‘Captain’ Celaeno.” Grubber let out a low chuckle as he rubbed his belly. “I swear, all that Glimmer chick cares about is the bottom line. Sometimes I wonder if she actually sees us as people.”
“She doesn’t. And now the pirates are using our own security against us.” Tempest shook her head. She glanced down to the SDD on her belt. “Alright, bring us in.”
Grubber shot her a sideways look. “I was already doing that, y’know. There’s no need to micromanage.”
“I mean, bring us to the mountaintop.” Tempest pointed towards the pirate ship in the distance. “I intend to board them.”
“Uh, excuse me?” Grubber turned fully to face the amazonian woman. “You want me to fly this slow, unarmed cargo blimp directly at a state-of-the-art patrol ship crewed by crazy pirates high off a steady diet of melted info-jizz?”
“Yes.” Tempest Shadow leaned back in her seat and buckled herself in. “We’re going to confront those pirates, and we’re going to manage their digital rights.”
“Oh, man, we are so dead,” Grubber said. The sweat on his brow gleamed in the sunlight. “They shoulda shot us out of the sky already.”
“It’s as you said,” Tempest whispered. She checked both of her SDDs for the third time. “They’re all crazy.”
“Why are you whispering?” Grubber asked. “Even if they could hear you from inside the gondola, they must have heard our propellers like an hour ago.”
“Why am I whispering?” Tempest locked eyes with the pilot. “Why are you wearing goggles when we’re inside?”
“That’s got nothing to do with anything!” Grubber hissed back. “They look totally rad! And what if the windshield broke? Y’know, I heard a story once about a pilot who lost an arm to a stray goose!”
“I’m just saying, my whispering is insignificant compared to your own oddities.” Tempest stood up, placing one hand on the handle of the emergency exit and peering down at the pirate ship beneath them. A name had been painted over with thick layers of red, but the guacamole green lettering underneath was still visible from up close. BCS Duly Received Money.
“My oddities?” Grubber echoed, jumping out of his seat. “That’s pretty rich coming from Corporate. We’ve all heard the stories!”
“Really?” Tempest glanced back. The pilot was strapping a dusty SDD to his side. “What kind of stories?”
“Oh, everything! Cultists, ghosts, some disgusting Couch!” He paused, cocking his head in thought. “Y’know, now that I think about it, you’re a lot more normal than I had expected from Corporate.”
Tempest gave him a little smile. “Thank you. That means more than you’d think.” And then she turned around and ripped the emergency door off its hinges with one hand.
“Wh-what the—what!”
Tempest looked down at the door in her hand with a frown, reading the text under the handle. TWIST AND PULL it said in wide, friendly letters. She glanced back at the squat pilot with a sheepish smile. “Sorry, I didn’t see the directions.”
“Y-you just—” Grubber pointed a shaky finger at the gap where the emergency exit had once been. “You ripped th-that off with one hand!”
“That was my bad,” Tempest admitted. Setting the door aside, she knelt down and grabbed a rope coiled up on the ground. She tied a quick knot around the nearest bulkhead and tested it before giving a quick nod. “I’m going to jump down and tie us off. You follow, okay?”
“I-it’s a thirty foot drop!”
“Don’t worry, you can slide down the rope.” And with that, Tempest leaned out of the gondola, took a moment to gauge the distance, and jumped out.
The wind rushed in her ears for barely a half-second before she felt the shock of impact against her knees. She grunted, surprised to find that the metal hull had merely dented instead of giving way beneath her. She raised her prosthetic bean leg high and brought it down once, twice, three times. On the fourth strike, the hull finally gave in, and Tempest Shadow dropped into the dimly lit interior of the ship.
She bounced to her feet in an instant, ready to manage the beans out of anyone’s digital rights, but nothing happened. She looked up and down the hall. Nothing continued to happen. “Hrm.”
Keeping an eye on her surroundings, Tempest tied the rope around a bulkhead and gave it a testing tug. She peered up through the hole she had made in the hull and waved up at Grubber, who was staring down at her open-mouthed.
Grubber’s old boots made a soft scraping sound as he reached the bottom of the rope. Tempest looked back to see him huddled up against a wall, clutching a twitching SDD to his chest. “Oh, man. Oh, this is so not what I signed up for.”
“Careful with that,” Tempest said, gesturing towards his weapon. “You don’t want it shooting off prematurely.”
“R-right. Yeah.”
Beckoning with one hand, Tempest crept down the hall in total silence. She didn’t have to look behind her to know that Grubber was following. His steps were heavy against the metal floor and his breathing almost as loud. Luckily, it was drowned out by the tinny echo of the same pirate music bouncing across the ship.
Seeing an open door at the end of the hall, Tempest raised a fist to signal for a halt. She frowned as she felt Grubber stumble into her and bounce off with a quiet exclamation. She turned around to see him on the floor, SDD fallen beside him and pointed at his face.
“Sorry!” he whispered. “I wasn’t looking!”
Tempest picked up his SDD and stuck it into her belt. “Stay here until I call you.”
The hall came out onto the upper level of a wide, open room. She was on a narrow catwalk that looked over a square floor dominated by a long metal table and two matching benches. A pair of burly men in old vests and trousers were huddled over some cards with a skinny, cross-eyed hunchback in similarly ragged clothing, basking in the cloud of white gas that filled the lower level.
The thickest one let out a wheezing cough as he skewered a card on the sharp hook that sat where his right hand should be and dealt it to the hunchback. He repeated this process twenty more times, dealing out a hand to himself and each of his compatriots at an agonizing pace. Finally done, he nodded at the hunchback, whose tongue was hanging limply from his open mouth. “Your go.”
The hunchback let out a loud squawk and slammed his face into the table.
Thick grinned. “Go fish.”
The third pirate, this one taller than the others, sucked in a great breath of air. He shuddered as he exhaled, closing his eyes and asking, “Got any beanises?”
Again, Hunchback slammed his face into the table. This time a pair of cards was left behind, and Tall smiled as he scooped them up.
There was a clank, and a fourth pirate entered. This one was a woman, short and broad, and she carried a tray with five bowls of soup on them. “You boys hungry? I snorted a new recipe last night and thought I’d give it a try!”
A chorus of approval made its way around the table as the cook distributed the bowls, placing one at an empty spot which Tempest assumed was for herself. She took the tray to a sturdy metal door at the back of the room and knocked three times. “Celaeno? Come and eat, dearie!”
Tempest bristled at the familiar sound of the pirate captain’s voice, muffled by the door. “I’ll eat in a bit, auntie! I just need to finish this trial!”
Auntie glowered at the door as she planted a hand against her hip. “Celaeno, those beanises aren’t going anywhere! I put a lot of effort into this bird’s nest soup and I won’t have it going cold waiting for you!”
Tempest pursed her lips as she stepped back into the hall. Grubber looked to her expectantly, sucking on the tip of a bright red Datanis decorated with a pink ribbon. She wrinkled her nose at the scent of jalapeno.
“These pirates are mad,” she whispered. “I believe one of them has suffered permanent brain damage, and another just keeps banging his head on the table.”
Grubber pulled the beanis out of his mouth. A line of red sauce dripped down his chin. “What are they doing?”
“Playing cards,” Tempest answered. “Also, Celaeno’s auntie made bird nest soup.”
“Oh, bird nest soup?” Grubber licked the jalapeno sauce from his lips. “I’ve hearda that. Made from a real bird nest. The bird spit, like, makes it like jello. Do you think we can get some?”
Tempest frowned at him. A few seconds passed. “I’ll see what I can do. Stay here and warn me if anyone comes up the hall.”
Grubber glanced behind him as if suddenly realizing that someone could have snuck up on him at any point. “Oh, uh, okay! I’ll watch your back.”
Tempest stepped back onto the catwalk. Auntie was still arguing with Celaeno.
“Young lady, you will put that beanis down and come eat dinner this instant!” she shouted. “This soup is a delicacy, and I spent seven hours this morning slaving over the bird’s nest myself!”
Tall gagged and spit out his soup. “You mean this ain’t made with real bird’s nest?”
“It is made with real bird’s nest!” Auntie assured him. “I built them from garbage with my own spit!”
Hunchback fell backwards out of his seat with a gagging squawk. His rolling eyes each bounced wildly in their sockets before independently focusing on Tempest. She flinched as he screeched what she assumed to be alarm.
Seizing the initiative, Tempest stepped off the catwalk, plummeted into the white mist, and landed on the floor below without even bending her knees. All eyes went to her—except for Hunchback’s, as he was busy screeching at the ceiling—as she raised her badge.
“Tempest Shadow, Beanis DRM.” She locked eyes with each one in turn while she considered what to say next. “I’m here to manage your digital rights.”
Thick shot up out of his seat and brandished his hook. “Enforcer on ship! Take her down!”
A bowl of steaming hot trash nest soup was flung at Tempest’s face. She caught it in one hand, twisting around, and sent it flying at Tall, who had just enough time to yelp in alarm before being knocked off his feet as the steaming hot garbage struck him head-on.
“I’m not here to fight,” Tempest said, ignoring Tall’s disgusted screaming. “I’m from manage—”
Auntie charged for her, a mixing spoon held high in one hand while she balanced Celaeno’s bowl in the other. Tempest dodged two wild swings, then caught Auntie’s forearm on the third. With a flick of Tempest’s wrist, Auntie was sent spinning across the room. The bowl of soup was tossed up into the air as the stocky woman bounced off the wall and fell to the floor with a groan.
Tempest’s hand darted out and caught the bowl of soup before it could hit the ground. Disgusting though it may be, she hadn’t forgotten Grubber’s request. “I’m from management. We’ve received reports of—”
She leaned backwards as Thick swiped at her with his hook. Planting her free hand on the floor, Tempest’s cybeanetic leg rocketed up into Thick’s chin and threw him into the air. His limp body did two full backwards rotations before crashing down onto the table with a clang.
Tempest came out of the backflip with a deep frown. The bowl of soup sloshed dangerously in her hand, but she was careful to keep any from spilling. She looked down at the last remaining active member of the pirate gang, Hunchback, who was still lying on his back and now watching her with one glassy eye.
Bracing herself to be interrupted once more, Tempest took a deep breath and cleared her throat. She opened her mouth to speak, only to discover with some alarm that she now knew how to properly purify a ritual circle in preparation for the esbat. She was so taken aback by this that she didn’t even react when Hunchback performed a strange rolling bounce, coming to his feet and slamming his forehead into hers.
Tempest flinched a step backwards. She glared at Hunchback, who drooled and pointed one eye at each of her shoulders. “We’ve received reports of digital rights viol—”
Hunchback headbutted her again. There was a sharp cracking sound, and Tempest grimaced as he dropped to the floor. He stared up at the ceiling with blank, glassy eyes.
“Are you still conscious?” Tempest asked. She kneeled beside him, waving a hand in front of his face. “We’ve received reports of a digital rights violation. I’m here to manage it.”
If Hunchback could hear her, he showed no sign of as much. One eye continued to roll in its socket while the other slowly closed. The pirate music looped back to the beginning.
Grubber’s voice drew her attention. “Whoa, that was so awesome!”
Tempest looked up to the catwalk. Grubber was up there, red and yellow sauce trails alike on his chin. “All clear up there?”
“What?” Grubber’s eyes widened, and he suddenly twisted around to look behind him. A nervous chuckle escaped him. “Oh, heh, yeah! All clear! I got your back, fam!”
Tempest nodded. She placed the bowl of soup—now comfortably toasty instead of steaming hot—onto the table next to Thick. “Here’s your soup.”
“Oh, sweet!” Grubber’s face broke out into a toothy grin as he scampered around the catwalk to a ladder and slid down to the lower level. He was panting as he approached the table and leaned in to take a big whiff of the soup’s aroma. “Man, did you know that the charm quark is the third most massive of all quarks?”
Tempest blinked. “What?”
Grubber shrugged. “I dunno, it just kinda occured to me. You got a spoon?”
Tempest looked around. She stepped over to the curled up form of Auntie and plucked the large serving spoon out of her limp hand before returning to the table. “Here.”
“Thanks!”
With a curt nod, Tempest turned to Celaeno’s door. She marched up to the thick metal hatch, raised a single fist, and politely knocked.
“Auntie, go away!” Celaeno shouted. “Attempt number forty-two thousand, five hundred and thirty-three, my friends! The Bean Queen is helpless against our knowledge of Euryentmema australiana!”
Tempest knocked again, harder this time. “DRM, open up!”
“DRM?” Celaeno’s voice was tense. After several seconds, she spoke again. “Is there a minion of the Bean Queen aboard my vessel?”
“This is the manager of the Department of Rights Management speaking!” Tempest shouted. “We’ve received reports of digital rights violations at this address! Open the door!”
A sick cackling leaked through from behind the door. “Do you hear that, friends? The Bean Queen has sent one of her minions to stop us! We must be close! We know too much about Beanis, huh, minion?”
“I don’t know what you know about Beanis Inc.,” Tempest responded. She twitched at the sound of Grubber’s slurping behind her. It reminded her of Wallflower. “But I am fairly certain that you do know too much, just generally speaking!”
“Your lies won’t confuse me, servant of the bean!” Celaeno called. “I know that I’m close! I have another two hundred Datanises in here with me, and enough food and water to test every one of them!” She cackled again, her laughter descending into a fit of deranged giggles. “You’re too late! Your foolish engineers made a safe room so sturdy that you’ll never be able to get to me before I can crack your software and torrent the file across the clouds!”
Tempest let out a thoughtful hum. She stepped back, lifted her left leg, and kicked at the hatch with all her strength. The hatch didn’t even dent, but the wall it was set into buckled like paper.
The hatch toppled to the floor with a resounding bang, releasing an impenetrable cloud of thick white smoke. Tempest had just enough time to gasp in alarm before it was upon her, rushing into her lungs with the malice of eight years of sporadic college attendance with an undecided major.
The red hartebeest is a species of even-toed ungulate in the family Bovidae. Amyl alcohol is used as a solvent and in esterfication, by which is produced amyl acetate and other important products. Luxembourg took part in twenty-two events at the 1956 Summer Olympics. The adult human rectum is about four point seven inches long.
Tempest staggered backwards, covering her mouth and nose with a hand. How could the rectum be less than five inches long? She was certain she had taken far longer things up there when those assassins ambushed her in the parking lot. What am I missing?
“En garde!”
Still off balance, Tempest fell back as Captain Celaeno swooped out of the white mist and slashed at her midriff with a razor-sharp saber. The pirate grinned down at her, pointing the tip of the blade at her face. “My name is Captain Celaeno! Beanis killed my mother! Now prepare to die!”
The blade arced up high, and Tempest just managed to roll to the side as it came slashing down where her neck had been. She pushed off the ground with a hand and a foot at the same time, propelling herself up high enough to twist and land on her feet.
“Stop! You’ve violated digital rights!” Tempest raised an open palm, putting as much managerial command in her voice as she could. “Pay the corporation a fine or serve your sentence! Your stolen goods are now forfeit!”
“Digital rights!” Celaeno spat. She danced forwards, the tip of her sword darting out a series of precise swipes at odds with the glazed look in her red eyes. “You won’t stop me, you gutless bean! An-extempo-is-a-lyrically-improvised-form-of-calypso!”
“What does that have to do with—whoa!” Tempest ducked behind one of the catwalk’s supports, using it as a shield against the twirling blade. One of her SDD’s slid out of its holster with practiced ease, and she flicked a burst of spicy e-Jaculate towards her opponent’s face.
Celaeno didn’t even flinch when the hot load splattered over her eyes. “You think that can stop me, bean dog? Hypochondroplasia-is-a-developmental-disorder! I built up an immunity to SDD’s weeks ago!”
Oh, beans. Tempest tossed the spent beanis away, sidestepping a stab aimed for her heart. She jabbed at Calaeno’s side with a fist, but the crazed woman twisted around the strike and responded by opening Tempest’s cheek with a slash of her sword.
Tempest grit her teeth at the unexpected pain as she planted a boot on the nearby bench and vaulted over the table. She landed facing Celaeno, who cleaned the fresh blood from her blade with a flick of her wrist and struck a pose. “Where’s your courage, bean mutt?”
Now that she got a good look at the pirate, Tempest realized that she’d seen the face and preposterously large tricorn hat before. “Wait, I know you!”
Celaeno barked a laugh. “A servant of the Bean Queen could never know me! Coffee-was-invented-in-the-year-1671!”
“But what did people drink before then?” Tempest shook her head, dislodging the distracting question. She leveled a finger on the pirate. “On The Couch! You streamed with Pinkie!”
Celaeno’s face contorted into a wicked snarl as she slammed her hands onto the table, causing Grubber to jump and scoop up his bowl of soup. “Liar!”
Seeing an opportunity, Tempest snapped her foot out and struck the table. Celaeno yelped as the table slid into her, flipping her head over heels. She landed on her back as the table struck the far wall, and Tempest pounced.
Celaeno raised the tip of her sword to catch Tempest, but the mohawked manager kicked the blade with enough force to send it spinning off into the still smoking safe room. She straddled the pirate and lifted a fist for the finishing blow.
Celaeno’s off hand flashed out, grabbing Tempest’s second SDD from its holster and aiming it at her face. Tempest threw herself backwards, but she was too slow. Droplets of information-laden proteins with a Scoville rating that rivaled pepper spray splattered over her face, and she cried out as she suddenly attained a working knowledge of the guinea worm.
By the time she had forced the disturbing imagery from her mind and climbed back to her feet, the pirate was nowhere to be seen. Tempest turned to Grubber, who was seated cross-legged against a wall with his bowl in his lap.
“Oh, uh, she went back in the safe room,” he said. “Should I be helping more, or?”
“I need Juan’s Authentic Classic,” Tempest growled. She closed the distance to Grubber in three big steps, ripping a red bandanna off the head of the unconscious Thick. “Blow it all over my face.”
Grubber blushed. He fumbled with the white ribboned SDD for a few seconds before getting enough of a grip to aim it at her face and blow a load. Tempest flinched before smearing the sauce over her mouth and nose with the bandanna and tying it securely over her mouth. The sauce-dampened cloth should keep her relatively safe from the gaseous knowledge.
Tempest paused outside of the open door to the safe room. “This is your last chance, Celaeno! Surrender!”
The response came quickly. “That’s Captain Celaeno! Never-cross-a-Sicilian-when-death-is-on-the-line!”
Tempest took a few cautious steps into the white mist, one hand held out in front of her. “Are you Sicilian?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Tempest stalked through the mist, head on a swivel. She could barely see more than two feet in front of her. She couldn’t even tell how big the room was. “Why are you doing this, Celaeno? You know I’m in the right!”
“Hah!” Tempest twirled around at the voice behind her, but saw nothing. Where had the door gone? “A Beanis dog, in the right? Don’t make me laugh! A-chef’s-hat-has-exactly-a-hundred-pleats!”
Tempest’s lip curled up at the condescension in the pirate’s voice. “That seems oddly specific. Beanis is a good company, Celaeno. Twilight Sparkle only wants to help people!”
“Is that so?”
The whistle of the blade flying through the air came from her right. Tempest twisted to the side, narrowly avoiding the thrown weapon before it vanished back into the mist.
She was so focused on the weapon that she didn’t notice Celaeno coming up on her until it was too late. The pirate tackled her shoulder-first, throwing her onto the ground with a heavy thud. When Tempest recovered her senses, she looked down to see a penis, over a foot long, firm and smooth enough for her to see her own surprised reflection, planted tip-down on her chest. She followed it up to where it met a leg at the knee, and then followed the leg up to Celaeno’s face contorted in manic fury.
The pirate spoke slowly, every word dripping with hatred. “Then why did she take my leg?”
With a flash of her coat, Celaeno vanished back into the mists. Tempest rose slowly to her knees. “You’re like me.”
“I am nothing like you, bean worshipper,” Celaeno’s voice hissed. “You don’t know the pain that Beanis brings. I’m the only one that can stop them!”
“Your leg,” Tempest said, standing straight and pulling the left leg of her pants up to reveal her prosthetic. “I’m missing one too. We can help you! You won’t have to walk around on that thing, if you just turn yourself in!”
“Thing?” Tempest flinched at the sound of something heavy being thrown to the ground. “This thing is the last creation of my mother, gifted to me before Beanis killed her!”
“W-what?” Tempest bumped against something behind her. She turned around to see the toppled desk that the livestream had been recorded from. A cracked laptop rested on its side next to a limp Datanis. “Beanis would never do that. We only sell marital aids!”
“Oh, aren’t you so innocent?” Celaeno spat. “You may only sell marital aids, but do you ever consider the consequences of your actions? Oranges-aren’t-naturally-occurring-fruits!”
Tempest frowned. “But then what are they?”
Celaeno pressed on, ignoring the question. “My mother and father were honest workers! Every day they toiled over their tools, making lovingly crafted marital aids with the same traditional techniques that had been passed down for generations! Do you know what that’s like, bean slave? To have a place where you know you belong? To train your whole youth to carry the torch of your ancestors, only to have it ripped away from you?”
Tempest held her mask close as she took a deep, calming breath. The smell of Juan’s Authentic Classic brought her back to her days of testing in R&B with Wallflower. Her heart rate began to slow.
“Hot-water-freezes-faster-than-cold-water! How could my parents compete with something like Beanis? We tried so hard to beat their prices, to beat their quality, to beat their variety, but it was all for nothing!”
“I’m sorry, Celaeno,” Tempest said. She closed her eyes, listening intently to the echoes of the crazed pirate’s voice. “It was just business. It was nothing personal.”
“Nothing personal?”
Tempest snapped her eyes open, twisting around and slapping her palms together as the blade came out of the mist. It came to a stop inches from her neck. Celaeno glowered at her from behind the hilt as both girls struggled to overpower the other.
“Was it personal when mother came home early one day and found father using a beanis?” she spat. “Was it personal when my family fell apart, beanling? Was it personal when mother grew sick from the stress and couldn’t get out of bed?”
Celaeno put her second hand on the sword, pushing harder and speaking through clenched teeth. “Was it personal when Beanis bought the family store from the bank and turned it into a warehouse? The-bowler-hat-was-invented-as-a-safety-measure! Was it personal when I finally stooped to camming at the Beanis office just so I could buy a Datanis behind my mother’s back? So I could learn how to better care for her? Only for the Beanis DRM servers to go down?!”
Tempest’s hands shook as the sword threatened to slip through her grip. “Celaeno—”
“Was it personal when the Datanis burned through my leg because I couldn’t wait for the servers to come back, Manty Shadow?” Celaeno hissed, glancing at Tempest’s nametag. “Or when my poor mother’s heart finally gave out as she watched her daughter lose a limb to Beanis Incorporated?”
The blade snapped.
Lacking resistance, Celaeno fell forwards. At the same time, Tempest twisted around her. She landed on Celaeno’s back. Her arms wrapped around the pirate’s neck and secured it in a headlock.
“I can’t speak for what happened to your parents,” Tempest said as her opponent struggled beneath her. “My own didn’t meet me until I was already an adult, and I have no memory of my childhood. But Beanis is my home.”
“It’ll turn on you one day, bean thrall!” Celaeno screamed in frustration as she dug her fingers into Tempest’s arm. “You come here speaking of rights, and you don’t even know who you’re working for!”
Tempest tightened her hold on the pirate’s neck, cutting off her air supply. Her words began to slur and her struggles began to weaken.
“Someone has to stop them before—before it’s too late! I’m the only one. I—I made a—a vow. Stop signs… used to be… yellow.”
With one last sigh, Celaeno fell still. Tempest held the grip for a little while longer, ensuring the woman was unconscious, before finally standing back up.
She took a deep breath, thankful for the protection of the sauced bandanna, and looked down solemnly at Celaeno.
“Consider your rights managed.”
“You wouldn’t steal a handbag.”
A skinny young man with spiky blue hair rushes up to a smiling pink-haired girl and attempts to take her purse by force.
“You wouldn’t steal a car.”
The same man, now in a hoodie, looks behind him before sticking a crowbar into a car window.
“You wouldn’t steal a baby.”
The man runs up to a girl with vibrant rainbow hair and gingerly plucks a swaddled baby out of her hands.
“You wouldn’t punch a cowgirl—”
The man walks up and punches a blonde girl in a Stetson in the jaw. She arches a brow and crosses her arms before dramatically falling down.
“—and then steal her beanis—”
He pulls a beanis out from under her skirt and runs away.
“—and then use the beanis—”
The man holds the beanis in front of him, eyeing the camera in clear discomfort. Slowly, he unzips his pants.
“—and then send it to her family—”
An old lady opens a neatly wrapped box on her front porch. Her eyes light up as she pulls a beanis out of the box.
“—and then steal it again!”
The lady watches in shock as the man runs up and snatches the beanis out of her hand.
“Downloading Datanis software is stealing.”
The man is sitting in a bedroom, hunting and pecking keys on his keyboard.
“If you do it, you will face the consequences.”
The wall suddenly bursts open as a muscle bound woman with a tall purple mohawk walks through it. She pulls a bright red beanis out and sprays its contents over the man as he falls to the ground. The camera follows his fall and lingers as he writhes on the ground.
“Wow,” Twilight said. “Just wow. That was amazing.”
Tempest gave a few small, satisfied nods as the commercial came to an end. “Juniper Montage really has an eye for cinematography.”
“And Mash really blew it out of the park with the acting,” Twilight added. “Especially at the end. It looked so real!”
Tempest decided to keep her eyes on the screen a little longer. The prop really had looked identical to the real thing. “I agree.”
“I’m immensely pleased with your performance, Tempest,” Twilight said. Tempest turned to face her boss as she sat at her expansive desk and fiddled with a beanis. “Dealing with the pirates mid-stream was a genius idea. Nobody wants to mess with Beanis DRM anymore.”
A proud smile tugged at the corner of Tempest’s lips. She reached a hand up to adjust her nametag. “Glad to be of service. What will happen to Celaeno?”
“Oh, we’ve had her sent to The Bean House.” Twilight turned to her computer and began clicking away. “It’s a sort of focus group facility that I bought last week. Don’t worry, she’ll get the care she needs there!” She let out a quick giggle. “Oh! And I got your request to hire Grubber as a corporate employee for DRM. I sent him the offer, so we’ll just have to see how he responds. I’m sure he’ll take it. The benefits just don’t compare to contract work. I’ll let you know when he gets back to us!”
Sensing a dismissal, Tempest turned for the door. She paused as her hand came to rest on the handle. “Actually, boss, I did want to talk to you about something.” She looked back to see Twilight facing her with a bright smile.
“Yes?”
“Didn’t we kind of cause the piracy issue ourselves?”
Twilight cocked her head. Her smile remained rigidly in place. “What do you mean?”
Tempest turned to fully face the desk, crossing her arms. “The pirate ship. Beanis built it, right?”
Twilight’s smile faltered as she looked away. “Well, yes. It was designed as an anti-piracy ship, initially.”
“And we gave it to the pirates,” Tempest continued. “Because they offered the lowest bid.”
“It’s not my fault!” Twilight snapped, a flicker of light appearing around her eyes. “Starlight is the one that handled that. I made sure that the ship was loaded with anti-piracy software! It should have been impossible for anyone to use it like that!”
“Okay, okay.” Tempest raised her palms in surrender. “But Celaeno did it.” She let out a thoughtful hum as she looked out the window. Was that the same person being mugged? “Do we put people out of business?”
“Pfft, of course we do!” Twilight seemed to brighten up at the question, the scowl fading away. “Beanis Inc. is the fastest growing company in the marital aid industry! We can’t allow competitors to get an edge on us.”
Tempest was quiet for a few seconds. “What happens to those people?”
Twilight shrugged. She leaned back, twiddling a finger through her hair. “Well, usually we just buy them out and let them work at the local warehouse. Some are a bit more stubborn than others, but that’s not our responsibility.” She paused, cocking her head. “Where are these questions coming from, Tempest?”
“It’s just some things that Celaeno said,” Tempest said. “After the stream cut out.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.” Twilight turned back to her computer, frowning at something on the screen. “As abhorrent as the idea is, that poor girl knew too much in the most literal sense. Not about Beanis but, y’know, just generally speaking. She was long gone.”
“Yeah, I guess she was.” Tempest turned back to the door. “Call me if you need me.”
“You know I will!”
Back in the hall, Tempest let her legs work of their own volition as she thought back to the fight with Celaeno. She had no reason to believe that the pirate had ever lied about anything. She would have to be a terrific actor if she was. I suppose she might have huffed some acting talent. A small shiver went through her as she thought on the audible fury in her voice.
Did Beanis really ruin Celaeno’s family, kill her mother, and cost her a leg? Tempest looked down to her own bean prosthetic. She couldn’t even remember how she had lost it. Her finger ran small circles over her thigh, feeling the slightly lumpy texture of the leg hidden inside her pants. She closed her eyes, grimacing at the image of a pink-haired, kind-eyed woman being dragged away that came unbidden to her mind.
Tempest snapped her eyes open, breathing hard. She squeezed at her leg. She wished she could remember how she lost it.
Looking up, she found herself in front of the doors to R&B. A warmth blossomed in her breast as she thought of Wallflower’s smile during their streetside dance session.
But there was a doubt in the back of her mind that she couldn’t shake. She worked at Beanis, breaking into museums and carrying heavy things and traveling the world to manage customer rights, because it was what she knew. She had just woken up one day with a job opening in mind and a beanis in body, and never really looked back.
Tempest glanced behind her. A plain wall met her gaze, marred by a few thin cracks from when Flash had dropped the keg. She felt a little silly as she turned back to R&B.
Maybe she should spend some time looking around, see if any other jobs caught her eye or if she found anyone that knew anything. She would feel better afterwards if she knew that she was working as Beanis DRM because she wanted to, and not just because she didn’t know any better.
But for now, she would let herself unwind a little.
“Wallflower?” Tempest asked as she opened the door to R&B. “I’m back! Do you know how deep my rectum is?”
