“I can’t believe them. I just can’t believe them!”
“Cypress—”
“I mean, the way they looked at you, the way they spoke, you’d think that invasion happened only yesterday! And that other engineer, he—”
“Cypress, calm down—”
“Calm down? Calm down?! How can I calm down after all that? In fact, how come you’re so calm? How can you be—”
“Because I’m used to it.”
Kai spoke those five words in a harsh whisper, but Cypress heard them as though they’d been uttered through Station Thirteen’s loudspeaker. Having been pacing across the corridor—it was empty, thankfully—he stopped short and twisted around. “What?”
The station’s clinically blue lights seemed to suck the color from Kai’s face, reverting it to some poor and pale visage. Even the brightness of their eyes had dimmed, as though drained of previous vitality. Behind them was a wall of reflective panels, and Cypress could see his reflection staring aghast.
“I’m used to it,” they repeated, resigned. “It’s happened before.”
Cypress couldn’t say anything. He was aware that he should say something, but was unable to come up with anything that didn’t seem shallow or hollow.
Kai glanced up, though it was not clear they were looking at anything among the ceiling pipes and light fixtures. “Stations Five, Seven, and Twelve. I was stationed at each for less than a few weeks on average before I was transferred. Each time, I was told it was due to downsizing or reshuffling—it became the mantra of Equine Resources. But they and I always knew the real reason. My presence made for a… difficult atmosphere.” They followed this with a twirl of their hoof, eyes slitted slightly.
Cypress furrowed his brow. “That engineer, those guards… They had no right. No right to say those things. To think those things.”
“We Changelings have learned that prejudices do not die out quickly. Some ponies will always remember. Who can blame them?”
“I can! I mean, for stars’ sake, Kai, Changelings have been a part of Equestrian society for ages!” Cypress stomped a hoof. “Even longer than my people!”
“This is also true,” Kai stated; by the Silence, Cypress wanted to smack that neutral tone out of their voice. “But the Kirins are more pony-like in appearance than us Changelings, aren’t they? Thus, in that regard, here, on this station, I am alone.”
Kai looked at Cypress with sympathetic longing. It was a soft look, filled not with distaste or jealousy, but instead, a trove of earnest, horrendous, exposing want, whose other side was guilt, that can only appear in those who find that which they desire the most in the lives of others. But Cypress’s reflection, frozen in those reflecting panels, wasn’t looking back. It stared at itself, then past that, past the limitations offered by that surface, until Station Thirteen melted away and all that remained was that reflection, surrounded by a nothingness compounded upon itself. If Cypress looked close enough, he could make his vision blur by itself, until the reflected form sizzled away into a faded, forgotten memory. Then nothing would truly remain. How fragile was a reflection, how easy could one dissolve it of substance. And if that was the case, what did that mean for the pony behind it? Were they just as prone to dissolution?
The thought was so unnerving that it brought Cypress back into himself; yet, in having come back, he suddenly remembered his experiences on Station Thirteen, could view them at an angle which revealed another side to them all. His eyes twisted away from his reflection and centered back on Kai, still looking at him with that sad, self-effacing want. “I may look like one,” Cypress said, voice soft, “but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m always treated like one.” He looked directly at Kai, unblinking. “Neither of us deserve to feel any less than one.”
Kai said nothing for a time. The station beeped and whirred, and let out other sounds, sounds which lacked names but which were nonetheless as recognizable as any other. Cypress let himself fall into the orange of Kai’s eyes, let the Changeling sense his words, sense his meaning behind each thing stated. Kai stared back, for as long as they could.
Then they were the one to look away. “You are a strange creature,” they said.
Cypress laughed. “Is that what gave it away?” Through his chuckling, though, he caught Kai smiling.
Logistics felt like a dead place when they returned, and by that point, Cypress’s mirth had faded. He gazed in the direction of the corridor leading to the storeroom. Kai slipped into one of the office chairs, folding their legs in front of them. “You appear conflicted,” they said.
Cypress sighed. “Is it that obvious? I just don’t feel like we’ve gotten any closer to figuring this out.” He looked at Kai. “Do you?”
Kai rubbed their chin. “Well, the stop by the guard booth has made me consider a few more things. The fact that the camera only watches…” They turned their head and gestured to the monitors under the camera’s gaze. “… over that area.”
“And the fact that the guards didn’t know anything about the storeroom, or that it even exists.” Cypress glanced that way, then, back to his companion. “You think the guards were lying?”
“Unlikely. Brash, yes, but lying about knowing about a room? That seems a bit much. This also means that I don’t think they’re our thieves—either one of them.”
“Sure. They didn’t strike me as the thieving type.”
“Plus, well, what reason would they have to go around and steal some supplies? Pure boredom?”
“We don’t know why they were stolen, though. Just that they were.”
“Ignore the motive for now,” Kai said. “Let’s think about all the things the thief would need to know if they wanted to accomplish this.”
Cypress nodded, then joined Kai in sitting in one of the office chairs. “Well, obviously, they’d need to know about the limits of what that camera can see. And I guess they’d have to know about the storeroom itself.”
“Which further eliminates the guards, since neither knew about its existence—assuming they are telling the truth, though we have no real reason to think they’re lying.” Kai left their chair and began to pace across the room. “Of course, only the guards would know about the exact placement of each camera. If it’s not them…”
“Then it must be someone who had seen the feed. But couldn’t that be anycreature? Anyone over the course of however long we’ve had those cameras?”
“It seems more likely it’d be a recent visitor, considering when these supplies were stolen. Is there anypony else in Logistics?”
“No, it’s just me and my supervisor. Not exactly great task management, if you ask me. From what I hear, my supervisor would do all this work on her own, if I wasn’t around.” Cypress paused, then tilted his head, smiling a little wryly. “You’re, uh, not about to name me as a suspect, are you?”
“Technically you haven’t been ruled out, but if you were the culprit, you’re either really good at hiding that fact or really bad at it.”
“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or an insult.”
“Maybe a complimentary insult. So no one else in Logistics—meaning, no one else who should know about the storeroom. Is that right?”
Cypress nodded. “No one whatsoever. Unless she somehow mentioned it in casual conversation. Not that I think she’s even engaged in casual conversation.”
Kai nodded. Then they were quiet. After a few moments, they sighed. “That… doesn’t really help us all that much, though, does it? I can see why you feel like we’ve not made much progress.”
Cypress shook his head. “Peppy will probably be back in a few days at the latest, if not tomorrow at the earliest.” He could not contain his gloom.
Kai came over and pressed a sympathetic hoof to his shoulder. “Hey. We’ve still got time. I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”
Cypress nodded, but couldn’t answer. Kai stood there awkwardly for a second, then returned to their chair. Cypress looked at the door to the storeroom, head swimming with questions. The nature of the supplies stolen still bothered him. Such a limited number was taken—for what purpose? Why not mine for more the first time around? Perhaps the thief hadn’t counted on remaining uncaught for long.
He returned to the possibility that perhaps the thief simply didn’t know how much to steal. If that was the case, then it followed that for whatever purpose the perpetrator had resorted to theft, they had a distinct lack of information.
“From what you told me, nothing all that big—or—small could be built from just that,” Kai had told him.
But what if the thief didn’t know this? What if they’d only assumed they’d need these items, but hadn’t considered how much of each? What if that was why such a strange number was given to each missing component?
Cypress closed his eyes, falling deeper into confusion. But his head felt full of sludge. He needed it clean, spick-and-span, as clean, in fact, as the storeroom had been when he’d first discovered it—
With an exclamation, Cypress stood up. Kai, startled, fell out of their chair. “What? What is it?”
“I—”
For a moment, Cypress couldn’t speak. Wordless thoughts swarmed his head, but as he began to desperately sort them, they all started constructing one definitive conclusion. Slowly, he turned his head to look at Kai.
“I think I’ve figured it out,” he said.