Sunset Shimmer smirked at her reflection in the chrome coated doors when the elevator dinged for the second floor. She felt good. Really good, actually. She was still a little blown away by the fact that Beanis Inc. had its own legitimate HQ (questionably legal zoning status notwithstanding) now, instead of running out of Twilight’s house. She had a corner office. She did! In a few just a day or two, she’d be on a flight to Fiji for a week long sojourn away from the madness that was Beanis Inc. The little pony from Hollow Shades was moving up in the world. Literally, as the elevator dinged for the third floor (where her office actually was!) administration wing of the building. It kept climbing, straight to the roof and the ‘Beangineering’ department-slash-greenhouse.
Which, admittedly, was an unusual choice for clandestine talks about industrial espionage. Sunset shot a glance at her cell phone, scanning the text message from Twilight again. She was definitely headed to the right place, so she took a deep, calming, breath and let it out through her nose when the elevator chimed a final time and the doors slid open.
The roof of Beanis HQ, ironically, had another—smaller—transparent roof over it and was surrounded on every side by walls of glass panels, creating a massive greenhouse where the source beans where grown for the company’s Beanis products. Twilight had hired Applejack to oversee the whole operation, refining the bean crops to maximize quality. Sunset stepped out into this little slice of green space four stories above the cracked pavement of Canterlot City’s lower East Side and sighed contently. She hadn’t told anyone, but Beangineering was her favorite part of the building apart from her office. It was the farthest space away from the registered ‘historic and/or religious artifact’ in the basement. The smell of dirt and growing things struck some primal chord deep inside her. Plus, the greenhouse was run by Applejack, the most sensible and down-to-earth member of their circle of friends and least interested in the actual products the company produced. A trait Sunset admired in Applejack.
So she was a little taken aback a second after stepping off the elevator and finding Twilight Sparkle taking notes next to a newly constructed interior wall outfitted with a half dozen waist-high open windows. Out of which leaned Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and their newest beta tester, Rarity. Twilight was in her usual lab coat attire, but the rest of the girls were all topless, crosseyed—and in Dash’s case—sweaty.
Sunset rolled her eyes, her stride barely broken as she walked over to Twilight. “You’d think I’d have learned to just not answer your texts anymore.”
“And risk me showing up at the Sweet Apple Acres barn, drunk on market research and dark rage?”
“How…?” Sunset blinked. Then she squinted accusingly at Applejack. “I thought we had an agreement, AJ?”
“That was...huh...that was before Twi let me...me play with that there CRISPR/Cas9.” Applejack was breathing in short pants as she leaned forward through the kiosk-like opening, resting on her elbows and rocking gently back and forth. The back side of the wall as well as Applejack’s backside were obscured by an opaque privacy curtain. “Plus...huh...it’s in the employee contract...mmmph...that Ah can’t hide yer location if asked.”
“It’s in the contract?” Sunset turned her squint on Twilight, who had the good graces to flinch.
“You’re my primary sounding board, Sunset!” Twilight grinned, adjusting her glasses unnecessarily. “I need you around to work through my thoughts...and stuff. Li-like when I go a bit off the deep end when someone steals my designs or I need a little help absorbing e-Jaculate data!”
“That was one time, Twilight.”
“Actually,” Twilight tucked a loose strand of hair back behind one ear and looked away, “I recorded that call. I’ve used it for...let’s call it ‘training purposes’... a few times since.”
“Okay!” Sunset shook her head and held up a hand. “Shelving that topic for now! We’ll come back to this contract thing later too, Sparkle. But for now...how about we go over whatever the heck this is?” She gestured at the wall and their faintly moaning friends. “And why you called me up from my office the first place, hmm?”
Twilight cleared her throat dramatically, gesturing at Rarity with her clipboard. “Yes, well...so recall that I had all research and testing put on hold until we figured out who was behind the Tofussy? Now that we know what we do, thanks to Rarity, I’ve lifted the ban. Wallflower then came to me about her pet project, codenamed ‘Giant-filler.’ She was ready to move to beta level tests. So here we are. Beta testing.”
“And it’s mmmng going well, darling!” Rarity chirped, quick little gasps escaping from her as she twisted at the waist. Her nails dug tiny ruts into the frame of her window, the curtains hiding her from view rustling as something pushed and rolled against them. “I knew I made a good choice to hhnnngk get in on the ground level with Beanis Inc. This is almost as good as when I get to make use of hwooof the Couch!”
“Speak for yourself, Rarity.” Rainbow Dash grunted, her cheeks puffing out and dripping with sweat. She was braced hard against the wall, arms taut and pushing back against each rhythmic thrust forward. “Couch time is way better than this.” She hissed and flexed like a cat, cut abs scrubbing the edge of her window, pointing her mosquito bites at Twilight and Sunset. Color flooded her face and Rainbow moaned girlishly.
“Oh please, Dashie!” Rarity rolled her eyes. “I said almost, and besides, you are clearly nnnnnfffk enjoying it too!”
Sunset rubbed her temples, eyes bouncing back and forth from Rainbow to Rarity, Applejack to Twilight. Watching the girls...do whatever it was they were doing...was making her temperature—and blood pressure—rise. It wasn’t, however, providing her with answers that she still wanted despite previous experience advising her that she really didn’t want them. She was going to have to ask a follow-up question and that presented two problems. Namely, Twilight loved to answer follow-up questions, and secondly, she would once again be digging her own grave in the TMI cemetery.
“Alright, I’ll bite. What are they beta testing? And why are Dash and Applejack involved? I thought Tempest was our other product tester?”
Twilight nodded absently, back at her clipboard and making some quick notes. “Oh, I had Tempest take Fluttershy home. Poor girl started vomiting again this morning. Given what we’re testing, I had the tests moved up here to Beangineering. Started out it was just Rar—”
“Wait,” Sunset snapped her fingers at Twilight, “you’re back to testing Wallflower’s hands-free Beanis model, right? The weird bean caterpillar thing!”
“Er...you’re not exactly incorrect.” Twilight smirked wildly, telegraphing the incoming pun. “This certainly is hands free,” her smirk grew into truly Pinkie Pie levels of mirth, “and this certainly has its roots in the same base idea.”
Sunset blinked again. She was doing a lot of that recently. Her departure time couldn’t get here fast enough. “Excuse me? What is that supposed to mea—?!” Sunset shrieked, falling back as an enormous, hideously thick, beanstalk reared up and over the makeshift kiosks like a fibrous python. Its bulk arced toward the greenhouse ceiling before crashing down again with a thud that rattled the entire building. All the Beanis employees, except Sunset, paid it little attention.
“What in the name of Celestia and Nightmare Moon is that thing!?” Sunset scrambled away from the plant tentacle, crabwalking as fast as she could.