//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Twig // Story: Synthesis // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Dakota’s own apartment was just another identical door amid hundreds, at least with the civic overlay switched on instead of any of the more colorful variants. “But that’s no way to experience home for the first time,” Cinnabar declared, as they neared her door from a length of unadorned hallway. Still, the slightly reflective paint on the walls was totally clean, and there was no stench of piss or anything in the hallways. So she didn’t live in a dump, that was something. “Everyone has a private overlay for home, even you. And now that you’ve got implants, you’re not just limited to sight and sound.” He stopped in front of one unmarked door—the lock didn’t even have a keyhole, but she heard it click as they got close. There was a tiny screen by the doorbell, though it looked cracked and nonfunctional. “I had something for home,” she said. “An… overlay. I made it?” “We made it,” he corrected. “Together. Like we do everything.” “Right. We made it. Not someone else. It wasn’t fed to us by some corporation, or some video game…” “Technically… I’m from a video game,” Cinnabar admitted. “But that was a long time ago. Other than Equestria, there’s nothing from a video game in there. It’s all ours.” “I guess you can turn it on, then,” Dakota muttered. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to keep it. I just want to see the sort of person I was. She’d been told by half a dozen different doctors that it wasn’t unusual to feel a crisis of identity after a catastrophic brain injury like her own. But just because her nightmares were normal did not make them any easier to deal with. The hallway around them changed. Other doors faded away, and the simple concrete was replaced with a precarious mountain path. The northern lights glowed brilliantly overhead, and distant clouds rumbled in time with the real storm beginning outside. Instead of an apartment door, they were standing outside a mountain retreat of stone and wood, like the summer retreat of a wealthy hunter high in the mountains. She could see no fresh kills hanging, waiting to be preserved, only beautiful stained glass giving her fractional glimpses inside. “This is near Port Jouster, isn’t it?” she asked, and didn’t even wait for a response. The huge oak door was swinging open for her. She reached through the air, swiping with one hand as though expecting her senses to be lying to her. But there was no door blocking her path—it had apparently opened. Inside was what the outside suggested—a huge vaulted ceiling of ancient bones, like some fallen dragon. Flaming sconces burned up there, filling the air with crackling light and the pleasant smell of flames without the smoke that choked and annoyed. But for all the decoration around it, she could almost see the truth that was underneath. The massive cooking area with its magical glowing box was really just a microwave, oven, and fridge. The dining table was thick wood engraved with gold, but it wasn’t any bigger than the cheapest Ikea products. “How is it so… big?” she asked. One of her hands wandered towards her eyes, trying to remove glasses that weren’t there and see the reality underneath. But nothing happened—she didn’t need glasses anymore. “Lots of little lies,” Cinnabar answered, practically skipping past her towards a balcony with a tiny glass door. It was big enough for him, but she would’ve had to get onto her knees to follow. She reached towards the opening, and for the first time her hand touched something solid. The helpful boundary grid appeared, highlighting the edge of the world. Except that Cinnabar slid past her, out through an apparently solid wall where he could lean over the edge and look down at the lights of a pony village far below. “Port Jouster,” he said. “I spent my whole life looking up at this place, wondering who lived here.” “And it was me,” she said. His voice was a little muffled by the glass, but not so much that she couldn’t hear him clearly. “When…” She was remembering something. “I was younger. When I still played the game.” “Yeah,” he answered, voice wistful and distant. “You were a monster hunter, an adventurer. There were ruins to explore, beasts to slay… you built this place using the rewards given to you by grateful ponies. And when you needed an apprentice…” She turned away from the balcony, from the pony village in the distance. She was losing focus—she was in a midlevel highrise in Chicago. The only thing through that wall were buildings, factories, people. Ponies weren’t real, neither were monsters. “And now you’re disappointed that you went with me. You’d rather be someone else’s Synth.” “No!” Cinnabar was at her side in a second. “You take that back! We still hunt monsters, Dakota. It’s just that ours are real, they aren’t procedurally generated.” “The monsters, not the ponies?” He shrugged. “The ponies you helped were always real.” There was a chime from somewhere behind them, and Cinnabar turned eagerly. “That’s dinner!” It wasn’t dinner. The massive door swung open at Cinnabar’s gesture, as though it had been summoned that way by the will of an invisible god. But there were no humans on the other side, or even the squat delivery drones with their heat-insulating lids. Instead there was a pony on the other side of the door, a pony wearing a suit and a bowler hat and an expression that wasn’t far removed from carnivorous. “Dakota!” he exclaimed, striding across the threshold without invitation. There was no one behind him. Is there a way to tell if someone is a Synth or a person using telepresence? There had to be, and she intended to ask Cinnabar about it as soon as this uncomfortable encounter was over. As it was she knew they couldn’t really be here regardless. There would be no point at all in making a person seem like a pony when she could disable their appearance overlays with a single command. “Dakota, Dakota, Dakota. I heard you finally made it out of that awful place. Old sawbones really took you apart, I see. But those stitches look pretty good. Scars might not even be too noticeable, err… one day.” “What do you want, Omar? I don’t think we’re ready for another job right now,” Cinnabar said. “Not ready for another job…” he repeated, sliding around Cinnabar’s attempt to block the way and casually over to the table. “Omar” climbed up on top of it, adjusting the suit. Despite how it was intending to look, Dakota’s imagination added some grease-stains and ill fit that weren’t visible. Maybe a memory of the person it represented? “You listen to your Synth too much if you take his advice,” he said. “Nothing better for the soul than reminding it what it ought to do, that’s how I see it. I’ve got a case no one else could handle, Dakota. A case fit to inspire you. To guide that poor, broken body of yours until you are mended. And maybe make up for your failure with Congressman Harriot a little. If you’re lucky.” Dakota didn’t think she could keep standing much longer. She’d already walked all the way upstairs, and her legs were starting to shake. She would look silly—but there was nothing for it. She wobbled over to the table and sat down across from the pony, her weight on the cane most of the way. You didn’t wait ten minutes to follow me here. You’re desperate, but why? “We’re not ready to work again yet,” Cinnabar declared, taking a seat beside her. He spoke simply, without anything argumentative. He was just stating facts. And Dakota knew that he was right, on every conceivable level. She just wasn’t healed yet. There’s no harm in hearing him out. Maybe we’ll learn more about what he’s really doing here in the process. “Be quiet, program,” Omar spat. “She’s the one I’m here to talk to, not you. If Dakota wants the job, you can’t stop her.” “You can tell me,” she said, cautious. “I am not committing to anything. I can barely stay on my feet for an hour at a time right now. I’m still doing physical therapy… I can’t be out there on the streets yet. So keep that in mind before you give me your offer.” “Ah, well… yeah.” Omar shook his head. “That’s no problem at all, yeah. No problem. Fact, I think most of this case might be virtual anyway. Not a lot of gumshoe work on something so old, ya’ know?” “I don’t like where this is going,” Cinnabar said. “We don’t have to listen to him, Dakota. Say the word and I’ll cut him off. This is our space.” “It’s her space, program,” Omar interrupted. “You really going to let your Synth tell you what to do, Dakota? Best Decker in Chicago does what the horse tells her—fucking right.” “I’m just going to hear him out,” she said again, trying to sound as neutral as she could. “I’m not agreeing to anything, Cinnabar. I’ll probably say no.” “She’ll probably say no, she says,” Omar said, with a bit of cruel laughter. “I don’t believe that for one second. See, I’m talkin’ the oldest case you ever heard. I got a case so old they used to talk about it on Reddit.” “That… isn’t selling it to me,” she said flatly. “If it’s that old, there might not be anything left. Or if there is, it’s locked up in some government secure layer with Alicorn-level encryption and a prison sentence waiting for me for my trouble. No client pays enough to be worth that.” “Mine does,” he said, and he tossed something onto the table in front of them. It looked like a sack of bits, the same that would automatically spawn in Equestria to contain the world’s digital currency. Decentralized, cryptographically secure, they were the globe’s default second monetary system now that the big nations had giving up trying to regulate it. Only, the bits that tumbled out the open sack were transparent and clear, like sparkling gemstones. Dakota didn’t recognize them, and she didn’t know the exchange rate. But as they landed in front of him, Cinnabar fell backwards off the table, hacking in surprise and confusion. “That’s… who in Celestia’s name is paying in…” “Go on, verify the hash.” Omar leered at them. “Say it’s counterfeit, I fuckin’ dare.” Cinnabar clambered up onto the table, summoning a transparent jeweler’s glass and holding it over one eye. He lifted a single bit up to the glass, then tossed it back and grabbed another. By the third, he dropped the glass, staring out the window in simple shock. “Go on, program. Tell your master what you saw. Be a loyal fuckin’ secretary.” “It’s real,” Cinnabar muttered, cowed. “All of it is. It’s part of one transaction to you. Your retainer. That…” He bit his tongue, apparently searching for the most extreme insult he could. He settled on “changeling… over there, he’s taking five percent. That’s one of these. The other nineteen are ours. That’s almost twenty million bits, Dakota. Twice as many in dollars, if you wanted them exchanged. On the advance.” If Dakota’s alarms had gone off when she learned about the day of her accident, she could practically hear an air-raid siren while staring at that money. “So who’s the client, Omar? We talking… Yakuza? Sinaloa? Who buries me when this is over?” Omar laughed again. “That wouldn’t be in their best interests, would it? If they buried you, then the state would get your bits. Not very economical of them.” Then he shook his head. “Money like this doesn’t like to talk about where it came from, Dakota. That’s part of what makes this pile so big.” Cinnabar turned away from the table. “Send him away, Dakota. This… we don’t want to go anywhere near this. No way those bits are clean. The blood will get on us too, eventually.” She knew he was right—but she’d seen the outside of this apartment. It was hard to look at nineteen million bits and feel guilty about where they’d come from. It’s the advance. All he needs is my signature, and they’re mine. “What’s the job?” Cinnabar’s ears flattened, and he retreated from the table, looking disgusted. See if you’re complaining when we stop eating takeout, Cinnabar. But then, why should he complain? When he wasn’t with her, he was living in a pretend world where he didn’t have to eat takeout. She was the one living in a popup apartment that was only made tolerable by overlay. For this much money, she could build a real cabin. She could retire, even. “Ah, hah. Yeah. Well, all you have to do is find a missing person. Concerned citizens want to know what happened to Kayla Rhodes.” He stopped then, as the room was filled with a pregnant silence apparently expecting her to be moved. It was significant, but… she couldn’t have identified the name. Was it familiar? Maybe. Her memory was struggling to connect something, to remind her of something, but… no, it was gone. But my old self knew, that means I can’t let him see. Cinnabar saved her—however upset he might be, her success was his, and he didn’t remain silent. “You’re asking us to solve the most prominent missing person case of our century. The one everypony calls—” “Equestria’s first murder,” Omar said, annoyed. “Yes. First of many, I’m sure. But not me asking, her client. I’m just the… intermediary.” Dakota wanted to go online and run a search right now, see what sort of information was there, see if she could estimate her odds. But she couldn’t with him watching. “If the case has been cold for…” “Twenty-three years,” Cinnabar supplied. “Right. This… Kayla Rhodes case… I’m not a magician, Omar.” She lifted the cane in one hand, tossing it onto the table beside his bits. They jostled realistically at the motion. “What makes you think I can find something others couldn’t? Why’d you pick me for this case?” “You’re the best,” Omar said simply. “Best in Chicago, anyway. You’ve proved plenty of times you’re not averse to a little risk. And more importantly, I’ve got a fresh lead. Catch is, you don’t get it until you sign the contract. If you don’t take the case, then it stays secret until the next person. But there ain’t no decker on this side of the Mississippi I trust with it. It’s either you, or I give it to the Koreans. Take your pick.” Dakota reached out towards the bits, expecting them to pass through her fingers. But they didn’t, and one of the heavy rounded coins settled there. She lifted one up, holding it close. As she did so, the bit’s cryptographic signature appeared in the air beside it, along with a transaction record ten thousand items long, scrolling past in the air at blurring speed. These bits had been gathered together from various corporations and interests across Earth and Equestria both. Now they’d been put together, grouped only along the lines of the digital contract’s wallet address. To her surprise, the terms were already attached, waiting for her to read. She gestured with her other hand, and they expanded in the air beside her. “Nevermind the fine print,” Omar called from the other end of the table. “I can give you the important part, since I had to read all that first. Highlights are: you get a month, you find Kayla Rhodes. You fail, you keep the retainer. You find her alive, you get ten times that. You find her dead, you get another payment like that. You lie, you cheat, you steal… you get fucked. Simple.” “We’re not just going to—” Cinnabar began. “Signed,” Dakota said, finishing her digital signature with a flourish. The pile of currency on the table vanished in a flash, and a little “new message” indicator appeared on the corner of the table. “You have money!” the text said, before fading away and vanishing from the wood. “You bucking didn’t…” Cinnabar’s eyes went wide. “You did.” “Now what’s your lead?” Dakota asked, ignoring the little flashing message indicator that remained in the corner of her vision. She already knew what it would say. “What’s such good information that someone thought I could solve your case?” “Just this.” He removed something from an invisible pocket, pushing it across the table towards her. A sheet of paper, which Dakota opened with two fingers and lifted in front of her. Despite his objections, Cinnabar crowded over her shoulder, staring. It was a symbol—the thing that would’ve been a cutie mark if it belonged to a pony. It was similar in basic layout and design, in this case a bright blue spyglass with a little person visible as a reflection in the glass. But Dakota’s overlay told her something else—the symbol was an EI, and the cutie mark’s colors and overlapping symbology stood for a string of letters and numbers. The personal information associated with that EI appeared in her field of view, hovering beside the cutie mark. “North American Regional Identity Lookup Service” it said, along with the picture of a young woman’s face, badly compressed and pixelated in an ancient camera. “Kayla Rhodes” said the name. “Female, Caucasian. 23. City of residence: Chicago. Missing as of…” “Friend of mine caught sight of a pony with this mark while they were trailing in Equestria. Just… one problem with that…” “Humans didn’t have Synths back then,” Cinnabar muttered. “Or cutie marks.” Omar nodded, satisfied. “Three options here, and they affect your pay so pay attention. Cryptographically speaking, you can’t spoof an EI. If some brainiac cracked that fuckin’ nut, well say goodbye to all the encryption in the civilized world. Not likely. Option two: little miss Rhodes is alive, somewhere. She’s logging into Equestria, maybe trying to find old friends, maybe…” “Maybe what?” Dakota prompted. “Well, third option is that it’s shit information. Sources are good, but… sources are stupid sometimes too. Maybe they wanted to waste somebody’s time. If you don’t find her, you best keep careful tabs on every bit you just signed up for, because you’ll be accounting. Anything in that retainer that didn’t get spent on the investigation, you pay back. And I don’t mean no fuckin’ five star catering for your stakeout, neither.” “You didn’t say anything like that!” Cinnabar protested. “That isn’t how a retainer works! It’s payment for our time!” Omar shrugged, sliding back from the table. “Actually, it is what she signed. But forget about that. You’ve got her EI, Dakota. Biggest case you’ll ever have. You’ll be a fuckin’ legend when you dig up wherever she’s been hiding. Either that, or you figure out hackers have broken every security measure Earth and Equestria ever invented… either way, you get in a book somewhere.” The doorbell rang again—this time when it opened, the apartment hall was on the other side. A group of several ponies and humans were gathered there, each wearing the uniform of Dakota’s favorite Chinese restaurant. Music that was as authentic as the food (which was to say, not at all) played behind them. But the smell was real, and she couldn’t ignore that. She was starving. Dakota got up, almost forgetting about her cane as she wobbled over to the door. “Here you are, Dakota!” said a pony, offering the plastic bag in her glowing magic. It didn’t actually lift that high, though, or drift too far from the doorway. That’s a delivery drone. There’s no one there. Again Dakota lifted a hand to her face, and again there were no goggles to remove. “So glad to see you’re well.” “Thanks, I’m glad to—” But the pony wasn’t listening. “Thank you so much from ordering from Happy Panda! We can’t wait to see you again soon!” And down the hall they went, playing more butchered music as the procession of panda-patterned ponies vanished from sight. Omar slid past her towards the door, rolling his eyes at the display. “You got my EI,” he said. “You call me if you find anything. I’m not gonna breathe down your neck on this. But I’ll be back in a month. Be ready with the money, or the girl.” He lifted up onto his hind legs, lowering his voice to a whisper. “I can’t tell you who we’re working for, Dakota. I can only say—you don’t fuck with them. I lied when I said not to read the contract. Fuckin’ get it tattooed on your eyelids. You can bet they’ll hold you to every word it says.” “You’ll sink if we do, Omar,” Cinnabar called after him, settling down beside Dakota and glaring at him. “I read the contract already. I know how it works for consultants like you.” Omar shrugged. “I’m just a pony, obviously. Ghost in the fuckin’ machine, that’s me.” But then he looked up, towards blank wall. “I said keep it warm until I was—” He glanced back at them, ears flattening. “Right. Fuckin’ going now. Have fun.” He vanished, with a unicorn-teleport effect that looked more retroactive than intended. More the system imposing its own rules after the fact than an intended special effect. “Well, that was… not quite how I imagined your gradual reintroduction going…” Cinnabar said, his voice obviously annoyed. Dakota stumbled over to the table, opening the bag. She couldn’t remember the name of anything in the little paper boxes, but she didn’t care. Her nose sure as hell remembered, and the growling in her stomach demanded to be satisfied. If food got here before Omar did, I probably would’ve told him no. That wasn’t a good sign about her odds. But she couldn’t just admit that to Cinnabar, not after how stubborn he’d acted. When she was done eating, she finally said, “You know I can’t just stay locked up in here. I have to be doing something.” “I know.” He sounded defeated. “But there are way better jobs than…” He tossed the pouch of bits onto the table beside her empty plate. How he’d gotten them, Dakota didn’t have to wonder—he was her Synth, after all. He had all her finances. It was the same way he’d ordered dinner. The dinner he’d apparently eaten too. Cinnabar had his own plate, and he’d apparently enjoyed it as much as she had. Despite it looking like chicken and veggies. Aren’t ponies not supposed to eat meat? She was a little fuzzy on that one. “There aren’t better jobs,” she said, picking up the bag between her fingers and jostling it. It sounded like little bits of glass crystal, almost musical. “That’s… that’s change our lives money. That’s new start money.” “That’s slave money,” Cinnabar whispered. “It doesn’t matter what the contract says, Dakota. Someone pays us that much… they think they own us. Chances are they’ve got the power to make that true, too. If we use this, if we spend it… might as well hobble our legs and stick our necks into the harness now. And when it’s over, worst thing that happens to me is I go back to Equestria alone. But you… they could kill you, Dakota. Didn’t the accident teach you anything? You’re not an Alicorn!” He got up, stumbling away from her. “I’m… going down to the village. You’re on your own tonight. I… I need to think. Maybe you do too.” When Cinnabar opened the front door, there was no hallway on the other side, but a winding mountain path. Before Dakota could so much as get to her feet again, he slammed it shut behind him, and vanished into the night.