The Demo Model

Steven’s eyes crept open to a curious sight.

He could have sworn he was awake, yet he was staring into a sea of plush orange. His groggy eyesight blurred the colour, making it appear as little more than a blur.

His hand wriggled free of the bedsheets and placed itself atop the strange mass, it felt warm, yet firm under his touch. He leaned in and sniffed it a little, it smelled like a new laptop, fresh from its packaging.

“Do you have a fillyfriend?” a squeaky, synthesised voice rung from above him.

Steven just about leapt out of his skin. He’d totally forgotten that Scootaloo even existed!

“Jesus Christ!” he gasped, shooting towards the other side of the large queen bed and teetering on the edge of the mattress. “Don’t scare me like that!”

“Oh, I’m sorry… I thought you were awake. Anyways, do ya?”

Steven huffed and panted as his heart rate began to return to normal and he gathered his thoughts. “What’s a fillyfriend?” he asked.

“You don’t know? Like a… Special somepony! Someone who you really, really like being around all the time!”

“Oh, like a girlfriend? No, definitely not.” He stated firmly.

“Aww, why not? Don’t you think it’d be nice?” she asked, tilting her head

Steven raised an eyebrow. “Uh, no. I barely have time to dedicate to myself without sharing it with someone, or something, else,” he said, shooting her a quick glance to see if she got his message.

She clearly didn’t, as she only got closer to him on the other side of the bed. “Well, I think you should!”

“Yeah, I’ll just get a girlfriend, like it’s that easy,” he said, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

He slid out of bed and straightened out his clothes as he shuffled over the coffee table and flipped open his laptop, it dawned on him that in his exhaustion the night before he’d forgotten to actually change out his day clothes. He quickly opened his work team’s ‘Slack’ channel and began filtering through work that needed to be done.

Meanwhile, Scootaloo hopped down from the bed and let the charging cable that was plugged into the base of her tail fall out and spool up back into the charging dock. She swung open the door to the balcony and poked her muzzle outside. She closed her eyes and smiled as she took a deep ‘breath’ of fresh air, making her cooling fans spin inside her.

After a few seconds, she pulled the door shut behind her and trotted up beside him.

“It is seventy-one point three degrees outside! You could visit the Golden Gate Bridge, take a harbour tour, or maybe you could visit Alcatraz!”

“Maybe later, I’ve gotta finish some of this work first,” he said dismissively.

“Come on!” Scoots said, tugging on the leg of his pants to draw his attention. “Don’t get stuck in here doing boring old work, you could do that anywhere! You’ve only got one week after all!” she encouraged in a whiney, childish, incredibly endearing voice.

He glanced at the task ahead of him, it did look pretty boring, and the image of the sun shining over the glimmering skyline before him made it hard to resist the urge to at least see some of it.

“Fine,” he said, flipping the lid of his laptop shut. “I’ll go, but you’ll come with me. You know the city, right? You can show me around for a bit, then I’ll come back and do some work.”

“Oh…” Scoots said, her face taking on a slightly sour look for a few moments.

“What, you don’t want to come out?”

“No! I do, it’s nothing!” she said with a sheepish look on her face.

“Great. Let me get dressed, then we can go,” he said, standing up and rifling through his suitcase before emerging with a bundle of street-worthy clothes and a toiletries bag.

He strolled to the bathroom, stripped down and donned his black t-shirt and khaki shorts, a common outfit for someone like him, who didn’t much care for fashion. He glanced into the mirror and noticed that his hair was still messy from last night’s sleep. He pulled out his comb and quickly brushed back into place the quiffs of hair that stuck out from the top of his head like antennae. Finally, he gave his teeth a quick going over with his toothbrush.

With his morning routine complete, he stepped out of the bathroom, almost missing the orange pony-bot sitting patiently in front of the door and stopping just short of tripping over her.

“Woah! You’re keen, huh?” he asked as he regained his balance.

Her eyes lit up happily, “Mhm!” she hummed, her ‘pupils’ turning to little upwards arrows, much like an old chatroom emoticon.

“Well come on then,” he said, slipping his wallet and phone into his pocket and stepping out into the hallway outside his room with Scoots in tow.

Down in the lobby, people seemed to be enjoying their extra ‘bonus guest’. Steven looked around, but he didn’t see anyone who was actually leaving the echo-y lobby with their temporary pets.

Scootaloo looked a little nervous, her eyes flicked around the room like she was watching for something. Steven chalked it up to just Scoots being Scoots, it’s not like a lot of what she’d done up until that point had been all that normal anyways.

As they were about to step into the confines of the large revolving door, a familiar synthetic voice from behind them stopped the pair in their tracks.

“Scootaloo!” called the regal, official-sounding voice receptionist pony from the day before. “I hope you’re not thinking of causing any trouble!

“Trouble? No, she caused enough of that last night, she was just going to help me explore the city, is all,” Steven explained.

“Ah, I see. You’re supposed to inform your guest of our policies, Scootaloo!” she said, coming out from behind the counter and trotting up to the duo. The size difference between her and Scootaloo was noticeable, but it made her scolding no less cute. “While all pon.io models are weather-proof, part of our promotional policy is that our demo models are not to be taken outside of the premises. I’m afraid if you do I’ll be forced to charge a retrieval fee for her recovery.”

Steven lifted an eyebrow and looked down at the filly on his side. “And you were going to tell me this when?” he questioned.

“I-I thought you knew! It was in the terms and conditions!” she said, her ears folding back against her head.

They both turned to her, unamused looks etched on their faces. “No one reads the terms and conditions,” they deadpanned in unison.

“S-Sorry Twilight…” she said.

“It’s not me you have to apologise to!”

Scootaloo kicked a hoof and gazed at the floor as she muttered an apology to Steven as well.

Steven sighed. “It’s fine, thank God we caught it early,” he said, looking around the room at the various people chatting with their robots around the lobby, it seemed he wasn’t the only one who almost made such a wallet-slaying mistake.

He caught sight of the same café-restaurant he’d gotten coffee at the day before, which now had a large chalk sign displayed out front proudly stating that they were open for breakfast.

“Is the restaurant considered ‘on the premises’?” Steven probed, prompting a nod from Twilight. “Great, I’m hungry anyway,” he said, beckoning to the ashamed little robot and heading for the entrance.

It seemed they weren’t the only pair who had the café idea, as the room was almost packed with guests sitting with their robots to eat and drink before they headed out to do whatever it was they were doing on their trip. It dawned on Steven that there was a certain genius to forcing the guests into the hotel’s own store to interact with their assistants. He smiled to himself as they found a free table.

Scoots launched herself up onto her chair with surprising precision and perched on the seat while Steven pulled out his chair and sat down to open the menu.

There was plenty on offer, from pancakes to cereal, there was definitely more than enough to choose from. He’d only just managed to finish the whole menu by the time the pink bot who made his coffee the day before materialized between them.

“Hiya!” she squeaked, the same almost unsettling grin plastered on her face.

“Hi, Pinkie!” Scootaloo said, her little wings fluttering happily against the seat behind her.

“Scootalooo, Scootmeister, Scoot-Scoot-Scootaloo!” chanted ‘Pinkie’ as her hooves poked and prodded at Scoot’s face. She returned her attention to Steven, who couldn’t help but crack a smile at the display.

“What can I getcha!” Pinkie asked.

“I’ll get the waffles, and maybe another one of your coffees, black with no sugar,” he said, the robot before him furiously scribbling notes.

“Got it! I’ll be right back!” she said before zooming off to serve the next table.

Steven sat in stunned silence for a moment, how anyone could expect to keep up with her was well beyond him.

“How old are you?” Scootaloo asked, unfazed by her fellow robot’s enthusiasm and speed.

“Uh, twenty-five,” Steven responded, snapping his attention back to the little filly. Come to think of it, how old was she meant to be anyways. “How about you?” he asked, curious to hear her response.

“I was assembled eight months, three weeks and two days ago!”

“Not like that, I mean how old are you supposed to be?” he refined his query, hoping that she might pick up on his intent. Scootaloo took on a quizzical look, clearly unprepared for such a question.

“I don’t think I understand… I thought age was just like, a number or something,” she said, tilting her head as she tried to process his request.

Steven sighed, “Well, young humans act differently to old humans, so how are you supposed to act?”

“Ohhh,” she said, finally a question she could answer! “My personality class is ‘foalish’!”

Steven pondered this for a moment, she was clearly intended to be young, but he wondered if her designers had intended for her to be as over-enthusiastic as she had been.

“What was it like when you were a kid?” she asked, her eyes widening with a sense of wonderment and curiosity. Steven felt a strangely fuzzy feeling as he looked at her excited expression, he’d never been asked about his past by someone who had no idea what it was like before. Was this what having an actual human kid was like?

“Well, I grew up with my parents in the suburbs of New York, I think it was a nice childhood.”

“Did you have a backyard?” she asked, perching on the edge of her seat and leaning in closer.

“Yeah. Why do you ask?” Steven responded. His software engineering mind was starting to take an interest now, and he was curious to find out why a computer would want to know about his upbringing.

“Well, when I was getting trained, I saw that real horses like to roll around on grass and stuff, but I’ve never felt what it’s like…”

Steven felt a slight pang of empathy for her, he’d always taken nature for granted, but Scootaloo really appeared interested in what it was like to be out in the ‘real world’. Of course, it could just be her designers making her feel real by making her interested in such things, but he got a feeling that wasn’t the case.

“What about going to school?”

“What about it?”

“Well, is it as boring as it looks?”

“Yeah, sometimes,” he chuckled, she had no idea.

“Did you ride scooters with your friends?”

“Scooters? Why scooters?”

“Well, did you?”

“Sometimes, I was more into my bike tho—”

“Awesome! I bet it felt great, doing all those tricks and stuff!” she interrupted. “I hope whoever buys me lets me try one out, even just once!”

Steven smiled at her enthusiasm, he almost corrected her, he was always far too cautious to try any tricks on his scooter. But if thinking he wasn't made her happy, it felt wrong to ruin it for her. He was kind of glad he decided to take a break before work consumed him again. This was the first time he’d felt relaxed since he left New York.

Scootaloo sat back in her seat as she pondered what question to ask next. Right when she opened her mouth, however, the clink of a cup and plate settling on the wooden table made them both jump with surprise.

“O-Oh… I’m sorry… Did I sc-scare you?” a new voice squeaked. Steven hadn’t even noticed her approach, but a new pony-bot had appeared to bring him his food. A yellow one this time, with long, flowing pink hair that covered her face slightly.

“N-No, it’s fine,” he said.

“Okay, I h-hope you enjoy your food…” she muttered as she slinked away.

“Fluttershy’s pretty uh, shy. She’s actually really into animals and non-human stuff,” Scootaloo explained.

Steven shrugged, his stomach growling as he looked over his waffles, which were absolutely covered in maple syrup which shone in the light of the morning rays that poured in through the window.

He cut into it and took a mouthful, savouring the sweetness of the syrup coupled with the salty bacon layered on top. Scootaloo watched the room, smiling happily as she did her best to not get caught taking glances back at him.

“Can you eat, like, human food?” he asked between bites, wondering if it was him or the food she was so blatantly looking at.

“Yeah, but I gotta clean myself after or else I get all sticky inside!”

“I-I see…”

Steven immediately regretted asking and tried to salvage his appetite by putting the image of her opening her belly up and scooping out food out of his mind. Regardless of the disconcerting mental imagery, he considered offering her a bite of his waffles, but he quickly snuffed out that idea after seeing another pair doing it. The way the turquoise mare-bot leaned over the table and her human spoon-fed her his food was… Uncomfortably romantic.

He let Scoots do as she pleased while he wolfed down the waffles, he looked over at his companion periodically, waiting for her to ask more questions, but she was surprisingly quiet until she saw him pop the last morsel of his breakfast into his mouth and down it with his final drops of coffee.

“So, what are you gonna see first?” she asked as the shy pony from earlier reappeared and slid the bill across the table.

“I dunno, I don’t really feel like going out anymore,” he said as he idly signed the docket and slipped his card in for ‘Fluttershy’ to take away.

“Aww, why not?”

“Just don’t feel like it,” he shrugged.

Not that he was going to tell her, but in reality, it felt almost wrong to leave her alone in the room, and he was actually starting to appreciate her cute annoying chatter.

He figured the afternoon and evening was a better time to go out and see the city anyways. Guidebooks online said that the ‘golden hour’ was the best time to see the sights and there’d probably be some bar or something he could go sit in. Despite not being the biggest drinker or extrovert, he sometimes found some fun in going out and forgetting his responsibilities for a little while.

Scootaloo looked a little confused, but Steven elected to simply just take his receipt and card, slip them back into his wallet and leave the restaurant. She got the message, hopping off her chair with cat-like grace and pulling up the rear.

They made their way back to Steven’s room, where his relaxed mood was instantly shattered by the sight of his work laptop still sitting open on his table.

“Work now, fun later…” he muttered, sliding onto the chair and tapping the 'on' button to get to work. Scootaloo simply made herself comfortable by laying down on his bed.

Later that same evening, Steven slid his keycard into the reader on his door and pushed it open to reveal Scootaloo sitting almost motionless in the doorway.

“You’re back!” she squeaked happily.

“Yup,” he said, flopping back onto his neat bed with a relaxed sigh. “How long were you sitting there waiting for me, anyway?”

“Only a few hours!”

“A few hours? That seems a bit excessive…”

“I don’t mind! I like waiting for you, Steven,” she said, nosing his side affectionately. Steven had to focus to stop his heart from bursting then and there.

“W-Well anyways, I’m gonna go to sleep now, I think there’s some stuff I wanna check out tomorrow morning,” he said, pulling himself back up and rummaging through his case for his pyjamas.

He tugged off his shirt, pulling it over his head only to reveal the little bot staring at his nude torso. “The human body looks kinda different in real life!” she stated bluntly, her eyes tracing his form. Steven’s face flushed red, he wasn’t the fittest guy in the world, but he was by no means fat, not that it made it any more okay to be eyed up by an 8-month old robot.

“D-Do you think you could wait in the bathroom while I get changed?”

A disappointed pout flashed across Scoots’ face, “Okay…” she muttered as she shuffled off to the bathroom and left Steven to change.

He simply shrugged and finished stripping down before slipping into his nightclothes, nice striped roomy ones. Scootaloo poked her head out from the bathroom, “Can I come out now?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s all good,” he replied, crawling into his sheets and writhing about a bit to loosen them up. “Could you get the lights?” he asked, already starting to feel sleep overtake his mind.

Scootaloo trotted back into the room and flicked off the lights before settling back down on her charging bay. Steven rolled over, his back to her as the darkness began to consume him.

Thinking her ‘client’ was asleep, Scootaloo carefully climbed up onto the bed and pulled herself close to him, almost as if she was seeking his warmth. So she was able to learn boundaries after all, even if she only respected them when she thought he was conscious of her.

He made she was still above the covers, he didn’t need her getting all matrimonial on him.

Content with her position on the bed, he gave in to the draw of his dreams and drifted off to sleep.

Steven was awoken by a familiar feeling. A growing pressure in his crotch, a rubbing against his pants. He slid his hand down under the sheets and let it come to rest against his firm erection. He paused for a moment before reaching for his phone on the bedside table.

He flicked it open and instinctively browsed to his usual ‘stuff’, vanilla, some would say boring, but ‘TEEN GETS PUNISHED BY STEPDAD’ was a classic. He gripped the phone with one hand and pushed the other under the waistband of his pants before tapping the video and letting it play.

“Did ya sleep well?” came a voice to his left.

Strange, that’s not how the video usually started, and it didn’t sound like her either. Come to think of it, since when was his phone’s audio in stereo?

He glanced over toward the source of the voice to see a pair of wide, glowing LCD eyes staring back at him. Panic shot through his body as he locked his phone and tossed it to the side.

“Jesus!” he gasped.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine, don’t worry about it,” he sighed as his heart rate slowly returned to normal.

“What were you looking at on your phone?” she questioned.

“I said don’t worry about it, okay?” he asked, using the hand he would have used to jack off to pat her on the head. He tried to ignore the need between his legs, instead focusing on boring things like sports and exams to get himself out of the mood.

“But now I’m worrying about it! You know I can’t tell anyone anything you tell me, right?”

“Just drop it,” he said, feeling himself go soft. He gingerly peeled back the covers, careful not to accidentally stimulate himself again, before swinging his feet over the side of the bed away from the inquisitive fillybot behind him. “Why don’t you hop into the bathroom so I can get dressed,” he instructed, feeling the weight on the bed shift as she jumped down and trotted to the bathroom.

He quickly slipped into a pair of jeans and another plain tee, this time he selected a cool grey colour.

“Can I come out now?” Scoots asked from behind the bathroom door.

“Sure,” Steven called back, idly sitting down and flipping open his laptop to get some more work done.

Scootaloo silently crawled under his chair and plopped herself atop his feet, her comfy belly fur warming his toes. This was nice for a while until she grew noticeably restless and began shuffling and wriggling to try to get more comfortable.

Eventually, it became too much for Steven to bear, and he shuffled his feet out from under her, prompting her to emerge from under the coffee table, a pout set across her muzzle.

Steven sighed, “Alright then, come up,” he said, patting his lap.

She beamed as she bunched up her hindquarters and launched herself up onto his waiting lap with a whir of her motors and a puff of air from her hydraulics. Steven tensed and waited for a heavyweight to crush his thighs, but Scootaloo was surprisingly light.

“Just try to keep still, okay?” he asked.

He tried to return to his work, but the magnetic cuteness was just too strong. He couldn’t help but place his hand on her soft head and begin to run it down her back. She hummed happily as he pet her soft mane, stretching out like a cat.

A smile crept across Steven’s face at her actions. He still couldn’t be sure it wasn’t all just a ploy to get him to buy her, but if such realistic expressions and behaviours could be taught, it was nothing short of impressive.

Hm, I wonder… he thought to himself, giving up on getting any work done and letting his petting hand wander further down her back, scratching lower and lower. He found a few spots which she seemed to like more than others, prompting him to hunt down the rest of them with his probing digits.

His search was stopped in its tracks, however, by a slightly wet, pliable feeling under his fingertips under the filly’s tail. His heart leapt into his throat as he accidentally pressed his finger against what could only be an incredibly accurate vagina. If Scootaloo felt anything when he touched her, she was good at hiding it, her gleeful grin undisturbed as she waited for his next move.

Snapping out of his filly-induced distraction, he tried to keep calm as he petted back up her back and mane and ignored the slight stickiness left on his fingers.

He gingerly lifted his arm back to his laptop and returned to his work, prompting an unsatisfied huff from his lap.

He tried to get absorbed back into his work and ignore her protests.

Alas, the wriggly little robot on his knees wouldn’t let him focus. She writhed atop him, rubbing her belly against his knees.

“Jesus Christ, tiny horse, what do you want?” he groaned.

“I’m boooored!” she whined.

“How can you be bored? You waited hours for me last time!”

“But now you’re here, but all you’re doing is working!”

Steven sighed, “Fine, what do you want to do,” he said, closing his laptop. Work would have to wait until he tired her out, if that was even possible.

“Let’s play a game!” she said as she leapt from his lap and trotted over to the dresser to the side of the room. She slid open a drawer and pulled out a box of jumbo-sized playing cards and a pack of ‘UNO’. Time seemed to slow down as she reached into the drawer, her tail lifting and giving Steven a totally unrestricted view of the same faux-pussy his hand had pressed against earlier.

He felt his cheeks grow hot with shame. As much as he hated watching, he just couldn’t tear his gaze away from the gentle swaying of her rear as she hunted for what she was looking for. What must have only taken mere seconds felt like hours of excruciating awkwardness.

Eventually, however, she found what she was looking for, her tail lowering to hide her privates once again as she turned to face him. In her mouth was a pair of cardboard packages for card games.

“Go Fish or UNO?” she asked through the objects in her mouth.

“UNO,” Steven stammered quickly, his face returning to its usual pasty white as he pushed the memory of her compromising position out of his head. There was no way she intended to do such a lewd thing, right?

The grinning filly put the playing cards back, hopped back over to the table, and jumped up onto the chair on the opposite side. Sitting on her hindquarters, one could only just see her LCDs and muzzle poking out from underneath the table, even as she stretched her neck as far out as she could to see over it.

After trying to reposition herself a few times, she resorted to simply rearing up on her hind legs and bracing herself on the table. She balanced on one hoof while she used the other and her muzzle to unpack the UNO cards.

Unfortunately, she then ran into a new problem: shuffling.

Steven watched as she placed the stack of cards down on the table and began to gingerly place each card into six piles. It wasn’t long before he grew tired of the painstaking process she was making.

“Would you like some help?” he asked. Scoots grinned sheepishly and gave a quick nod, sliding her piles and the rest of the deck over to him.

“Aren’t you supposed to be my assistant while I’m here? I wouldn’t think that distracting me from my work is a part of your job description,” He questioned as he made light work of finishing the job, mixing the cards thoroughly before dealing one card to either side of the table.

“Nuh-uh, my job is to make you enjoy staying here, and there’s no way you can enjoy your stay if all you’re doing is being boring and working!”

Scootaloo lifted each card one by one, saving it to her memory before placing it back face down on the table. Steven simply grabbed his hand and looked over his cards for a moment before flipping over the top card from the deck.

The little robot looked over at him with an uncharacteristically fierce look in her eyes.

“I’m not gonna go easy on you!” she said, placing down her first card, a green ‘pick-up two’.

Steven let out an exaggerated sigh and picked up two cards from the deck. His heart swelled a little at the little bot’s joy. He still couldn’t tell whether it was all just a marketing ploy that she was so adorable, but as they played he couldn’t help but grin at her enthusiasm.

He slid his card across the table, a ‘draw four’. A snort escaped his nose as Scootaloo’s face soured while she wordlessly scooped up four extra cards.

“Hey, I never said I was going to go easy on you, either!” he teased.

They played a few rounds of UNO, with Steven winning each time except for the last round. He didn’t know if Scoots could even produce tears, but with the frown she was sporting by the end of his third win, he didn’t want to risk making her upset.

Of course, he kicked himself for such a thought. He reminded himself that she was just a robot, but it was impossible to ignore her cute little personality quirks.

“I’m bored with this game,” Scootaloo stated plainly, clearly deciding that they were done as she collected all the cards and dumped them in a pile, awkwardly using her hooves to fiddle with the pile and trying to fit it back into the box it came from.

Steven glanced over at his laptop, which he’d moved to the side to make room for the game. A sense of dread welled up in his stomach. For the first time in what felt like forever, he had no intention of going back to work right then and there.

“What do you want to do, then?” he asked as he watched her slide the deck towards the edge of the table, holding the box with her other hoof. Her tongue poked from her mouth as she carefully angled it and shimmied the cards in before sealing the deck and hopping down from her seat.

“I’ve got another game we can play, it’ll be really fun, I promise~,” she said as she waltzed over to the drawer, her flank swayed gently. She stopped at the drawer to look over her shoulder at him.

His heart skipped a beat at her words, she couldn’t possibly be meaning what he thought she meant?

She bent over again as she rooted through the drawer, even though she managed to keep her tail down this time, he couldn’t help but be reminded of how she looked the first time. He gulped as his mind wandered and he felt an uncomfortable feeling wash over him, what if this was her plan all along? Would he be able to stop himself from going too far?

His paranoia mounted as she searched, before quickly dying out as she proudly lifted a large square box out of the drawer: Monopoly.

Steven breathed a sigh of relief. As he thought, she was far too innocent to realize the subtext of what she was saying.

She slid the box onto her back and confidently waddled back to the table, her motors whirring as her hardware stabilized her movements to keep the box perfectly perched atop her back.

Taking another shaky breath to calm himself, he took the box from her back and began setting it up. He noticed that all his worrying and thinking had made him more than a little hungry, and a growl from his stomach made the whole room aware of it too.

“Hey, why don’t you order room service, just the salmon I ate last night, I don’t want a repeat of last time,” he instructed, causing the filly to straighten up, her eyes turning to spinning ‘loading’ symbols for a few seconds before she returned to her cheerful self once again.

“All done!” she chimed.

Using her head, she gently nudged and adjusted the chair she had been sitting on, sliding it around the table until it sat just beside Steven. She leapt back up onto it and confidently shuffled close to the human, who instinctively let his hand fall down onto her head and started to pet her.

“Alright,” he said, still running his fingers through her mane. “I’ll start, then?” he said, finishing setting up the game. Scootaloo simply nodded.

He picked up the dice, shaking them in his hand in preparation to throw them. But just as he went to let go, the familiar chime of the ringtone he’d set for his boss sounded from his pocket.

Letting out a sigh, he placed the dice down on the board and slipped his phone out. “Hey Jackie,” he said, taking his hand off Scootaloo’s head absentmindedly.

“Hey! How’s everything going, enjoying your break?” came the voice on the other end of the phone.

Scootaloo looked up at him pleadingly, clearly upset at the lack of petting going on. “Come onnn, keep going!” she complained, tugging at his shirt a little. He shot her a disapproving look and shook his head a little.

“Yep, everything’s going just fine!” he replied, brushing her hoof away.

“Sounds like you’re making ‘friends’ already, and here I thought you were above flings,” the lewd-minded manager teased.

“N-No! It’s not like that, it’s this android that came with my room and—”

“Ah, truly embracing the pleasures of the 21st century, then. I can’t say I blame you, San Fran is one freaky place.”

“Pleeeease keep going?” Scootaloo begged, rearing up and placing both her hooves on him.

“Again, it’s not like that. You know me, I’d never do anything like that,” Steven said, ignored the bot.

“I thought I did, but it sounds like she’s pretty keen for whatever it is you’re doing,”

“She’s basically just a kid! I’m not that kind of sicko!”

Jess fell silent for a moment, clearly thrown off by this new information. “You know what, we’ll just save it for when you get back, hm? Enjoy… Whatever it is you’re doing, and I’ll see you in a couple of days, okay?” she said.

“W-Wait, I—” he started to complain, but she had already hung up.

Anger quickly began to well up inside him, twisting and turning in his belly as it got closer and closer to bursting out of him. He glared down at the filly, who clearly noticed his anger as she let go of his shirt and folded her ears back. Resisting the urge to punt the little robot across the room, he rose from his seat, grabbed his laptop and slipped it into his backpack.

“I’m going out.” He stated plainly, storming towards the door.

“W-Wait, what about our game, and the rooms service?”

“I’ll pay for the room service, I just don’t want to be here right now. I’m here to relax, not have my job ruined by some dumb robot!” he called back, swinging the door open and slamming it behind him.

A few onlookers noticed him in the hallway, prompting him to take a breath to calm himself down. Thinking about it, he probably overreacted, but he couldn’t well go back in and apologise in the state he was in.

Instead, he set off down the hall, determined to find a coffee shop to work in. He could probably get more done without horse-based distractions, anyways.