Steven stepped onto the street into the warm San Francisco sunlight, his suitcase firmly in his hand. He’d just spent the past week helping the start-up company he worked for set up the new West Coast office, not an easy task when all you have are recent graduates to work with. Usually, he’d return home to New York as soon as he finished a work trip, but this time was different.

His boss had forced him to take some time off to have a vacation, something about his social life being ‘entirely non-existent’. The company had given him permission to work remotely should something come up that urgently required his attention.

The only stipulation, of course, was that he pay his own way after the week he’d spent having his travel, accommodation, and food covered by the company. Alas, this meant he was tasked with finding his own place to stay.

He reached a hand into his jeans and fished out his phone to pull up his maps app and find his hotel.

He’d never been one to waste money, so he wasted no time checking and cross-referencing the various price comparison websites around the net to find the best deal for his hard-earned cash. Luckily enough he’d managed to find a name-your-price room at a nice looking hotel in the middle of town, The Shillton.

At first, he wondered why they were offering such cheap rooms, but reading a little deeper he discovered that they were doing some cross-promotion thing with a new robotic assistance start-up called ‘pon.io’ which specialized in quadrupedal robot companions. He never took the time to look too deeply into them, figuring he’d just shut off the assistant and take advantage of the bargain.

Glancing down at the map on his phone and running a hand through his messy, dirty blonde hair, Steven set out towards the hotel. It wasn’t far from the office building he’d spent the last week working at, and it wasn’t long before he saw the large ‘Shillton’ sign on one of the many high rise buildings that towered above.

The sound of commotion greeted him as he turned the corner onto the street the main entrance was on. As he got closer to the grand entranceway, he saw the source.

A crowd of what looked to be protestors crowded the sidewalk, shouting at anyone who walked by and entered the hotel lobby. Steven gulped. If there was one thing he wasn’t a huge fan of, it was crowds of angry people.

He steeled himself and strolled towards the group, who had been corralled by security to only a section of the space outside the hotel so that people could get into and out of the hotel. Hoping to simply slide past, he barely acknowledged the group, simply looking forward as he headed for the sliding double doors.

But as much as he wanted to avoid trouble, he couldn’t help but take a look at the various signs they held up. He snuck a glance to his side to see a host of accusatory messages.

‘Slavery is a crime!’

‘Robots have feelings too!’

‘Robots can’t consent!’

He’d always thought the whole ‘A.I. Rights’ crowd were a little crazy.

He admired the extravagant, if slightly tacky, beige porte-cochère that the hotel had out front as he walked up to the revolving door that served as the entryway.

A sigh escaped his lips as he entered the air-conditioned lobby and escaped the heat outside. He looked around to see the reception, a couple of elevators to take guests up to their rooms, and the entrance to the hotel restaurant and café. The lobby itself was somewhat busy, various people wandered around the marble-tiled floor gripping key cards, a few reporters from various tech blogs sat in the comfortable seats around the room tapping away at their laptops as they wrote about the curious promotion scheme. But it wasn’t the humans who caught Steven’s attention.

Behind the large wooden reception desk stood a tall, pony-like robot serving the patrons who made their way to the desk. Its fur and the strange unicorn horn that jutted from its forehead were purple; Getting a little closer, he could see a pair of large, bird wings on either side of its torso, also purple. He watched as it used the lev-tech built into her horn to levitate the keys to each guest, ticking each one off a ‘list’ it held in front of her as a cute gimmick.

He stepped into the short line of people checking in and out, which flowed at an incredible pace due to the robot’s efficiency. It wasn’t long before it was his turn.

“Hello! Are you checking in?” the bot asked, her synthesised voice taking on a distinctly feminine tone. The voice was surprisingly lifelike, if he hadn’t known to look for the tell-tale artefacts of artificial voices, he might have even been tricked into thinking she was a human.

He looked into her large, expressive eyes for a moment before realizing that she had, in fact, asked him a question.

“Y-Yeah, checking in, booking under ‘Miles’?” he asked, prompting her to check her list. It seemed that it was more than just a gimmick, she had literally printed a list of all the day's check-ins onto a parchment.

“Hmm…” she hummed, running her eyes down it until she found what she was looking for. “Steven Miles? Aged 25, born the 15th of March 2026?” she asked, reading from the page.

“Yep! That’s me!”

“Great! Do you have your booking reference?”

Steven paused for a moment, he’d been so intrigued by the peculiar robot that he’d forgotten to find his booking. “Uh, yeah. One sec!” he said as he pulled his phone from his pocket and searched through it to find the email containing his reference.

He eventually found it and held up the QR code contained within for her to scan. The LCD screens that served as her eyes went completely white for a moment as her cameras scanned the code.

“Great! You’ll be in room 655. I’m afraid the cleaning ponies haven’t quite made it to that room so it’s not ready just yet, I can give you your key and tell you when the room is ready if you’d like!” she said, already pulling his key card from the neat pile on her desk. She held it out to offer it to him.

“Thanks,” he said, grabbing the card from the air.

“That’s what friends are for! On behalf of all of us at pon.io, I hope you enjoy your stay!”

Steven just nodded and turned away from the reception. Figuring he could use a pick-me-up after a long week of admin, hiring, and troubleshooting, he headed for the coffee shop.

It seemed Steven wasn’t the only one to be waiting for his room. About ten other guests gripped their key cards as they peered over the counter at the coffee machine. Most of them had their phones out and were recording whatever was going on.

As he stepped closer, he noticed what it was that was so interesting; the barista wasn’t human. A bright pink pony with a curly pink mane stood behind the machine, her tongue poked from her mouth as she focused on manipulating the various levers and buttons on the machine with her hooves, which had more tech built into them to help her complete her tasks.

She hummed as she worked. Despite the machine being designed for those with thumbs, her bouncy and excitable nature meant she ripped through each step of the process, serving coffee after coffee to many an enthralled customer.

Steven shrugged and stepped across to stand in front of the counter, which was unoccupied. In fact, it seemed like there was no staff at all except for the coffee pony, who looked pretty busy with her torrent of coffee orders. He reached out and rung the service bell, looking to see if any new ponies appeared.

“Hi!” came a squeaky, bubbly voice, snapping Steven back into reality. Suddenly, the pink barista had materialized in front of him. He took a moment to process the pony’s sheer speed, peering back at the coffee machine to see that she’d somehow finished all of her orders and moved to the counter just moments after he rung the bell. “Hellooo, anyone there?” she giggled, tilting her head at him.

“Oh, uh, sorry,” Steven said, still a bit mystified by her. “I’ll have a coffee, just black, please.” He said, pulling out his wallet and sliding a few bills across the counter to her.

“Okie-dokie!” the pony said, tapping away quickly at the counter to put his order through before popping open the register, sliding his money in and giving him his change. “It’ll be ready lickety-split!” she said, bounding off before Steven could get another word in.

Steven stood stunned while he watched her work, somehow she seemed to be able to do three things at once. She’s probably a worker model… Steven pondered. He wasn't sure anyone could live with a robot with her kind of hyperactive personality for anything more than a day or so.

It felt like only moments before the pony was sliding his coffee across the counter to him with a giddy grin. “There ya go!” she said, beaming at him before darting off to serve another customer who was waiting to be served.

He took the lid off the top and blew on the dark liquid to cool it off as he took a seat in one of the comfortable leather seats positioned around the café. He pulled out his phone; it felt weird for it to be only the early afternoon and already out of work for the day. While he wasn’t shy, he wasn’t really one for small talk in real life. Flicking through the team Slack channels, he could see that everyone really did seem to have everything under control, leaving him with nothing to do.

He took a sip of his drink. It was strangely sweet for a black coffee, and he wondered if she’d misheard him and slipped a sugar into his drink. It tasted good, regardless, so he was content to finish it off.

On a whim, he decided to take a deeper look into this whole ‘pon.io’ thing in between sips. He pulled up their website and started to trawl through to look for more information. The home page was sleek and modern, the company boasting of the numerous awards and grants its tech had been given. He tapped through to the ‘about us’ section and read through the marketing jibberish they’d written up.

At pon.io, we make the robots we all wished we had as children. We believe in robotics free of constraints, robots which can be both assistants and companions. We don’t build robots to satisfy any preconceived notions of gender, race, sexuality or class, we build robots for all of society.

Steven couldn’t help but roll his eyes, it was clearly written with marketing in mind, given they so far looked more like a little girl’s playhouse doll than a ‘companion’. Regardless, he kept reading.

Our patented ‘Nurture+’ training method guarantees that each of our robots’ personality is as unique as yours, and our ethical production methods result in a high-quality build in each model. Each assistant comes with advanced technology for navigation, expression and any other task you might require.

Deciding that was more than enough of being advertised to, he pulled the page down to reveal the close button, only for his eye to catch sight of a curious link on the page labelled simply ‘For Adults…’

Just as he was about to press it, however, a familiar prim and proper voice rang out from the reception.

“Steven Miles? Your room is ready!” the receptionist pony called, prompting Steven to quickly lock his phone and rise to his feet.

He grabbed his suitcase and downed the last of his coffee, tossing it in the trashcan as he walked by. The wheels of the suitcase scraped softly on the tiles as he made his way across the lobby to the elevators and pressed the ‘up’ button.

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open, allowing Steven and the other four guests to cram themselves inside with their suitcases.

He looked over another man’s shoulder at the floor list, which had a handy room guide associated with each button. He reached over and pressed the button labelled ‘6’, then waited for the elevator to glide its way up.

When it finally made it to the sixth floor, he awkwardly jostled his way out of the elevator and stepped into the quiet hallways. Counting the numbers emblazoned in gold lettering on each door, he made his way to his room, which was at the very end of the hall.

He finally came to stand in front of his door, room 655. He lifted his hand, pushed down the handle, and—

“Hi!” a squeaky, synthesized voice greeted him as soon as Steven opened the door, causing him to gasp in surprise. He’d almost forgotten that he was to have a robot in his room as well.

The robot that greeted him was quite a bit smaller than the other two he’d seen, she had bright orange fur, with messy purple hair. It had wings like the receptionist pony but lacked the horn attachment to go with it. She sat on her rear, looking up at him with her big, expressive eyes.

“I’m Scootaloo, but you can just call me Scoots if you wanna!” she said in her gravelly, somewhat immature voice. “What’s your name?”

Steven stepped into the room and looked around. The room had all the trappings of a regular hotel room, a neatly made double bed, a small TV, a minibar, and a small dining table. The room looked out over the city of San Francisco, with the iconic Golden Gate Bridge planted off to the side. The glass was squeaky clean, much like the beige walls and carpet. He’d travelled enough that he was familiar with the lingering scent of cleaning fluid that indicated that the room had only just been cleaned.

The only strange feature of the room was the charging bay plugged in beside his bed, a rather elaborate-looking black box with a cable jutting from it with a strange adapter on the end. It was branded with a ‘pon.io’ logo emblazoned in silver, helping him to realize that it was the charger for the robot that came with his room.

“Hellooooo?” the pony-bot probed, reminding Steven of her presence directly in front of him.

“Sorry, I’m Steven,” he responded, looking down at her.

He placed his suitcase at the foot of his bed and let himself flop back onto the plush sheets. It felt like it had been ages since he rested, and he just wanted to let himself go for a bit.

“So!” Scootaloo chimed, breaking him out of his quickly approaching sleep as she launched herself up onto the bed and stood over his head to look down at him. “What should we do first? I can do all kinds of things, we can watch movies, or play games, or I can tell you all about the city!”

Steven blinked at her forwardness, which would have been cute if she wasn’t two inches away from his nose.

“Well, maybe we can start with you backing up a bit, okay?” he said, trying to be kind about it.

Scootaloo paused as she mulled over the command. She looked a little disappointed, but she hopped off the bed and took a seat just beside where his legs hung over the edge of the bed.

Silence hung in the air for a few moments as Scootaloo held herself back and Steven thought through what to do next. It seemed his body had the answer, as it broke the silence with a loud growl. He suddenly realized that he’d barely eaten anything since breakfast.

He clearly wasn’t the only one who noticed, however, as he heard the soft whir of Scootaloo’s servos bringing her to her hooves.

“Are you hungry? I’ll order room service!” she chimed.

Steven immediately sat up and glared down at her, “I don’t thi--”

“All done!” Scootaloo said, beaming up at him with a proud look in her fake eyes.

He felt his stomach twist at her presumption, ready to explode on her, but somehow the ‘cute-factor’ her manufacturers had built into her made it impossible to be angry with her, something about her slightly chubby cheeks and wide, slightly bashful smile she had on complimented her personality and messy look in a way that made a wave of calm wash over him each time their eyes met. Besides, he probably would have ended up ordering room service anyways given that he was too tired to go out again.

Still, he couldn’t show her that he wasn’t too pissed off, he didn’t need her autonomy to become a habit. He wordlessly kicked his shoes off and lay back on the bed, the sweetness and caffeine of the coffee from earlier still hung around on his tongue and in his belly, keeping him from properly falling asleep, so he simply lay there and listened to Scootaloo’s cooling fans hum while he stared out at the city. The afternoon sun made the shadows of the tall high-rises longer and seemed to refract off the bridge perched in the distance, at a time like this, he realized, it really did look golden.

The minutes dragged on, there must have been a rush on the kitchen as a full thirty minutes passed before there was a knock on the door.

“Room service!” a new voice called.

Steven rolled to his feet, stretching as he walked past Scootaloo, who fell in behind him. He grasped the door handle and pulled it open to reveal yet another pony. This one was cream-coloured, with a mane like plumes of blue and pink candyfloss that settled neatly over her forehead.

In front of her was a trolley stacked with plate after plate of food, each one covered by a silver cover to keep them warm and presented nicely.

“Lots of hungry guests tonight, huh?” he asked, nodding to the trolley.

The pony peered into the room curiously before turning back to Steven. “Nope, this is all yours!” she said.

Steven paused, “What? There has to have been some kind of mistake! There’s no way I’d order this much food!” he exclaimed. Then he realized, he didn’t order anything at all.

Scootaloo peeked out from behind Steven, prompting the room service pony to gaze down at her with a look of disappointment. “Oh. I see.” She deadpanned, glaring down at the smaller robot with disdain.

“I didn’t know what you like to eat, so I thought you could just try it all and tell me what you like!” Scootaloo stated proudly before she read the room and her excited smile turned to one of sheepishness.

“Yeah,” Steven said, not hiding the anger in his voice. He turned to the pony at his side, “What the fu—” he began, it didn’t feel right to swear at what was effectively a kid, even if she wasn’t human. “What the heck were you thinking? How am I going to afford… How much is this costing me?” he paused, turning to the cream pony.

“Two-hundred and sixty-four dollars and ninety-nine cents.”

“Two-hundred and sixty four dollars and ninety-nine cents! How am I going to afford this much food?!”

Scootaloo backed up a little, folding her ears back as she looked up at him with a look of shock and fear. Her lower lip pouted a little, “I-I’m sorry…” she muttered innocently. Somehow, whether she was designed that way or not, her undeniable cuteness softened Steven’s rage, he couldn’t stay angry at her forever, after all.

“Well, I suppose it’s happened now, what can we do about it?” he sighed as he looked back to the pony before him. This was not the way he wanted to start his week off.

“I’m afraid I don’t have the authority to issue refunds, and anyone who can seem to be clocked out,” she explained. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until my manager comes in tomorrow and we can sort it all out.”

“That’s fine, I guess,” he responded.

“Then the only question left is what to do with all of this food,” she pondered. “I suppose you may as well take it, we’re probably going to give you a refund on most of it anyway.”

Steven gazed at the trolley, examining the plates stacked on it. There were four that were clearly main dishes, and a few smaller plates with entrées and desserts, their glistening silver covers gave them an expensive, high-class allure. It felt wrong for him to have even one of them, let alone a whole trolley full.

“Are you sure?” he asked as she started to wheel the trolley into the room.

“Yep, we can’t re-serve them so it’ll all just go to waste otherwise,” she explained as she parked the trolley. “Also, if Scootaloo is causing too much trouble, we can swap her out, we have plenty of models available who might be less… Gung ho…” she explained, shooting another glare at the fillybot.

Steven glanced down at the filly who shrunk away in shame at the thinly veiled jab. Whether it was meant to be a marketing trick or not, she did seem to really feel the shame of having messed up. He felt bad for pitying what was essentially just an object, but he couldn’t help it.

“I think we’ll be fine, just don’t do anything for me unless I tell you that I want you to do it, okay?” he said. He figured it would just take some time for her to get used to him, so a second chance was probably in order.

Scootaloo nodded quickly, her face brightening up again at Steven sticking up for her.

“If you insist,” the cream one sighed. “I’ll bring my manager around tomorrow so we can sort this whole mess out.”

Steven just nodded, the smell of the food had well overridden his anger and he was happy just to be able to eat. The room service pony-bot met Scootaloo’s eyes and shook her head as she trotted out, closing the door behind her and leaving the pair in peace.

“I-I really am sorry…” the filly muttered, following Steven closely as he strolled to the trolley and picked a random main and entrée dish from the stack.

“I said it’s fine, it was a mistake, and you learn from your mistakes, right?” he said.

He removed the cover to reveal a large fillet of well-fried salmon resting atop a bed of rice and salad. His mouth salivated as he eyed up the crunchy skin and the tender, pink flesh that seemed to be just barely held together.

A wave of pleasant scents hit his nose, making him instantly begin to salivate. He picked up the plate and sat at the small dining table, looking over the dimming twilight of the San-Francisan sky.

Scootaloo looked at him expectantly, saying nothing as she watched him stab his fork into the salmon and lift it to his mouth. He paused as he noticed her staring, the fork hovering just before his lips.

“Are you just gunna stare at me while I eat?”

“Is that weird?”

“Don’t they teach you this stuff in robot school or whatever?” he said, putting his fork back down.

“I-I don’t think they’ve worked out how to teach me everything yet, you know they’ve only ever made three of my model, I was the first!”

Steven couldn’t help but wonder why they’d deliberately make such a strangely childish robot. “Well, it’s weird to stare,” he said.

Scootaloo nodded and turned around on the spot to stare blankly at the wall, “How’s this?”

Steven went to explain further but instead gave a resigned sigh. “That’s fine,” he said before picking the fork back up and popping the salmon in his mouth.

It took a moment to register the taste of it on his tongue, but once it did, it was like an explosion of flavour. The slightly sweet spices it was cooked in perfectly complemented the saltiness of the fish and the sourness of the lemon squeezed atop it. The skin was just crunchy enough to be satisfying, but not enough that it was burnt, making a resounding crackle reverberate through his head as his teeth tore through it. He immediately went back for more, this time scooping up some of the creamy rice to further compliment the flavours.

“Well?” Scootaloo asked into the beige wallpaper. “Do ya like it?”

“Oh yeah,” Steven replied.

“So I made the right choice! Yay!”

“’All of the above’ isn’t making a choice,” Steven deadpanned between bites, causing her ears to fold back in shame yet again.

“Hey, I said I was sorry!”

“Yeah yeah,” he said as he pulled out his phone, he still hadn’t forgotten that ‘For Adults’ page on the website.

He clicked the ‘on’ button only to be greeted with his favourite sight: a Slack notification from his boss. He considered pretending he never saw it, a thought process he often went through when he received such messages, but he could never bring himself to say no to her. He slid open the message to see what he was needed for.

‘Hey, sorry to already be giving you work on your week off, but I reeeeeally need a favour. One of the newbies here in New York’s written some code which is going out in the build tomorrow and there’s no one here to review it, you think you could take care of it for me? Pretty please? Love ya.’

A sigh escaped his lips as he stood up from the chair and walked past the still-motionless Scootaloo. He reached into his backpack and pulled his laptop from within it before returning to his seat and starting it up.

He poked at the salmon dish as he worked. Glancing over at Scoots, he considered offering her some, before he realized she probably can’t even taste food let alone digest it.

The impatient bot finally got bored of standing motionlessly and turned to face Steven. She looked him up and down, whirring softly as she studied him. “Hey, you should sit up straight, your posture’s all weird!” she said.

Steven groaned internally, he was starting to get real creeped out by the filly’s constant ‘help’. But she was right, he was slumped over his keyboard, causing all kinds of tension in the muscles in his back. He quickly sat up straight and muttered a quiet ‘thank you’ as he plugged his headphones in.

Scootaloo grinned as she trotted away, leaving him to tap away at his keyboard while he sifted through line after line of code. Over the music in his ears, he could hear her climbing up onto his bed, followed by the sound of the mattress springs bouncing rhythmically as she hopped up and down on the bed. He didn’t really mind, he wasn’t one to get all worked up over neat bedsheets, and if it meant she wasn’t staring at him or doing any of the other weird stuff she does, then it was probably the better option.

He turned up the volume in his headphones to drown out the sounds of her soft giggles. At some point, he got up and returned to the food-laden cart to collect a dessert plate: a crème-Brulee.

It felt like hours before he reached the finish line, what had started out as a relatively simple task had spiralled, as things tend to do, into a mess of fixing and tweaking other bits and pieces to perfect the software. Only once his belly was full and his eyes were strained from the constant staring at this laptop’s screen did he manage to finish the review.

The sun had fully set by the time he flipped his laptop closed and settled back in his chair. He removed his headphones to give himself a moment to compose himself.

Scootaloo had clearly gotten tired of jumping on the bed and had instead settled for prancing around the room and humming to herself. It took her a few moments to realize Steven was no longer locked into his work, but when she did, she came racing over in an instant.

“Are you finally finished?” she asked, plonking herself at the feet of his chair. “Let’s do something fun!”

Steven smiled softly, her enthusiasm was starting to become a little endearing.

“That sounds good, how does a movie sound?” he asked.

“Can do!”

Her eyes flashed to a ‘loading’ animation for a second before the sound of motors turning alerted him to a panel opening at her flank. The shield mark on her rear lifted to reveal a port for a USB hardware key.

She turned so that her flank faced him. He slid his wallet from his pocket and retrieved the key loaded with his credentials he always kept with him from its coin-pouch. It felt weird to be touching so close to her tail, but he still popped it in regardless, watching as her servos accepted the rectangular key and drew it into her body before the panel slid shut.

“Okay! What do you wanna watch?” the robot asked, pointing at the TV on the wall in front of the bed to turn it on.

“Why don’t you suggest something?”

“Hm… How about Love Actually?”

“Ugh, no rom coms”

“Gossip Girl?”

“Absolutely not.”

“How about… Fifty Shades of Grey?”

Steven chuckled, “Nah, I’d much rather watch actual porn,” he said.

“Okay!”

His eyes widened in surprise as Scootaloo instantly pulled up an explicit striptease video, it was strangely familiar, like he’d seen it before. A beet-red blush glowed in his cheeks as he realized the hardware key he gave her also had his Pornhub login information on it, allowing her to see every video he’d ever upvoted or commented on.

The TV’s volume obviously wasn’t reset after the last occupant’s stay, as the sound of the woman teasing the camera boomed through the speakers and filled the room with loud noises.

“That’s not what I meant! Change that!” he demanded, he felt the strangest compulsion to cover the robot’s eyes, even though he knew she’d already seen it all.

“What to?” she asked in a panicked tone, not quite understanding what he was so worked up about.

“I dunno, anything!”

Steven immediately regretted his command. What was a rather tame porn clip quickly turned to an extreme bondage scene, featuring one woman getting spit-roasted by two men. The sounds in this particular clip were much louder, and unmistakable to anyone who might have been listening, including his neighbours.

“No! Ugh, just turn the screen off!”

“My security protocols mean I can’t turn off any smart appliances!” Scootaloo hurriedly replied, starting to recognise the urgency of the situation.

Just when he thought the situation couldn’t get any worse, he heard a knock at the door.

“Room service!” a distinctly non-synthesized voice called, striking fear into Steven’s heart.

“J-Just a second!” he said, scrambling to find the TV remote. He saw it on the bed earlier, but Scootaloo’s bouncing must have caused to drop to the floor. He let go of the fillybot’s head and collapsed to the floor, frantically searching for the remote.

He reached under the bed and felt his hand hit the hard plastic of the remote. Breathing a sigh of relief, he pulled it out, pointed it at the TV and hit the power button. The image instantly cut to black, and the lewd moans and groans of the actors onscreen died in the air.

“Phew, comin--” he began, standing up and beginning to head for the door before he realized that the very human concierge had already let herself in and was standing with her mouth aghast at the scene before her, with the bedsheets messy, Scootaloo visibly embarrassed and a Steven panting like he had just run a marathon with the amount of stress-sweat dripping from his body.

“I-I’ll leave you to it! Just call us again when you want us to send someone down!” the maid said, backing out of the room with her cart in hand.

“W-Wait! It’s not what it looks like, I swear, it’s all the robot’s fault!”

“No no, it’s fine I can—"

“Seriously, it’s all her fault, I accidentally told her to put on porn, and when I told her to turn it off, she just put on other porn! I’m not like, one of those guys who tries to jerk off as room service comes in, I swear!”

The maid paused for a moment, before bursting out into laughter. She leaned over the cart as she tried her best to recover her composure. “Bahaha! So much for ‘robo-replacements’ am I right?” she cackled.

With the situation diffused, the concierge paced into the room and started clearing the plates from the dining table. Steven wiped his brow as he glared at Scootaloo, who gave him yet another sheepish grin.

“You really ordered all this food?” the maid said, trying not to sound judgemental.

“Don’t even ask,” Steven stated, motioning to the robot on the floor before the pair and prompting another bout of laughter.

“I won't,” she said as she placed the empty plates on her cleaning trolley. “Want me to take these as well?” she asked.

“Uh, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“It’s my job, after all. It seems like these little things aren’t what the papers cracked them up to be, job-stealers they are not,” she said as she pushed both trolleys out the door. “Certainly make for good entertainment on a lonely shift, though!” she called before grasping the handle and clicking the door shut, leaving Steven and Scootaloo in silence.

“Th-Thanks!” he called after her. He turned to face Scootaloo, “Now, how do I turn you off?” he demanded.

“Wh-What?” Scootaloo said, her tone wavering a little.

“You heard me, how do I switch you off?” Steven repeated, feeling his hands ball up into fists.

“I-I’m sorry I messed up again…”

“No more, I’m sick of your antics now, and no matter what kind of cute, heart-softening pre-programmed bullshit you give me, I’m still going to turn you off. I know you’re compelled to tell me how you have to by law. Now how the fuck do I turn you off?!” he shouted, anger building in his belly at her reluctance.

Scootaloo took a step back, but she couldn’t stop herself from giving him what he wanted. “I-It’s a button at the base of my neck, b-between my shoulders… Y-You just hold it down for ten seconds…” she muttered, just loud enough for him to hear.

He stepped forward and knelt down, placing his fingers on her soft fur as he felt for the button. After a bit of searching, he hit a bump under her ‘skin’ which had a little bit of give under his finger.

Without hesitation, he pushed it down, feeling it click into place. He began to count back from ten in his mind, watching for the moment she turned off.

Her head turned to look up at him with profound sadness, if she had tear ducts, Steven was pretty sure she’d be bawling her eyes out. Regardless, he kept the button held down.

“I-I was just trying to help…”

His stomach twisted at her words. Three… he counted down the seconds, but each moment seemed to stretch longer and longer. Two… No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t bring himself to take the light out of her eyes, which screwed shut as she waited for the feeling of being switched off to set in. One… He lifted his finger off the button and rose to his feet.

Scootaloo opened one eye, glancing up at him with a look of confusion.

“H-Huh? I thought you were going to—”

“Don’t you have to charge overnight or something? I’m going to bed so you won’t have to do anything else for me.” He interrupted.

Curse my dumb heart… he thought as he climbed into bed and reassembled the bedsheets as best he could around his body.

“C-Can I at least switch the lights off for you?” Scootaloo asked cautiously.

Steven pondered her request for a moment. Surely there was no way to mess up such a simple task. “Fine,” he stated. Scootaloo nodded and the lights began to dim before finally flickering off.

She trotted over to the charging station and plugged herself in by slotting her tail into the end of the adapter, making it glow a gentle purple.

The darkness quickly drew Steven in, as he felt himself slipping away, there was a shifting behind him as the robot clambered up onto the side of his double bed and tried to get close to him as quietly as possible. Her soft leg fur brushed against the back of his neck as she got comfortable.

“Th-Thanks, Steven…” she muttered.

“Just stay above the sheets,” he ordered before sleep finally claimed him.

Author's Note

It begins!

If you enjoy my work, consider donating via ko-fi!