It was a cool night in New York, calm, serene or at least it should’ve been. ‘Carl’ was impatiently tapping his finger on a desk as he looked out the window of the small apartment complex that was utilized by the Human Liberation Front as a nexus for ammunition and storage in this part of town. Of course ‘Carl’ wasn’t his real name but it was the one the men here knew him by, he was here to oversee the purchase of particularly valuable commodity from a Russian contact of the HLF. The exchange had gone over smoothly enough as the price was agreed upon well before the meeting had taken place. Fifty million American for something like this was a bit expensive, but the contents violated about thirty international laws and half of the second Geneva Convention, possession of the object alone could mean a life sentence.
A young man stepped inside the office Carl had commandeered “Sir, we’ve just received a communique from central.” He said extending his hand which held a piece of paper. Obviously all communications between cells of the HLF were coded and translations were required before any message could be read.
As he turned to take the message from the kid he noticed a small red dot playing over his face a split second before it vanished in an explosion of blood. Carl immediately threw himself to the floor as he heard the report of gunfire and the noise of combat from below him. He swore to himself as he grabbed the steel briefcase and gun from the table he had been keeping them on and dashed out the door and down the hallway. He emerged into a small alleyway two buildings down as the fighting continued between HLF and whoever had decided to raid the complex. He started sprinting down the alley away from the shootout. Those members of the HLF were nothing more than fanatics and there were plenty to replace them; he on the other hand was not quite as expendable to the organization. As he ran down the alley of the slums he failed to notice the shimmering outline of a humanoid figure watching his escape.
The alleyway eventually opened up into a large seaside area overlooking Manhattan bay. Carl finally slowed to a stop on the edge of the water panting as he went over in his mind any relevant information the members he had just abandoned might know. No one here knew his real name and all they were aware of was that he had come here to purchase something of great value, they had no idea what it was or the reason for buying it. Deciding that he was safe for now he let out a large breath looking out over the water at the skyline of this once great city. A scowl began to appear on his face as he saw the numerous pegasai flying among the buildings. These ponies thought they could just come and destroy everything man had ever accomplished out of some illusion of kindness? Not if he and the rest of the HLF had anything to say about it. A noise behind him snapped the HLF member out of his reverie; he immediately panicked and fired three quick rounds in the direction of the noise. There was nothing there, but his eyes kept sweeping the area regardless. Carl felt as an iron grip clamped down on his arm right above the wrist, he looked back to his arm just in time to watch in horror and pain as his wrist was snapped before his very eyes in the invisible grip of his assailant. The gun clattered to the ground as he clutched his now useless right hand to his chest.
“Adaptive camouflage?” he asked the air, knowing he’d been had.
“Yep.” Responded a male voice behind him, Carl grimaced as he suddenly felt a prick on the right side of his neck, he was unconscious before he even hit the ground.
Captain James Miller disengaged the AdCam as most called it making himself easily visible once again. He had been slightly worried for a small time that his intel was off and all they would find here was a typical HLF safehouse but this man on the ground in front of him had proven that worry to be groundless. He turned slightly as he heard approaching footsteps,
“Jesus Captain you certainly did a number on him.” Said his immediate subordinate Scott Baker. “Assault team’s wrapping things up at the safehouse, we even managed to take a couple alive this time.”
“Anything interesting turn up there?”
“Not at first glance, no. But we’ll have a better picture once forensics gets through with the place.”
“I doubt they’ll find anything, but this guy on the other hand,” James said as he bent down to pick up the briefcase. “might just have something of value. Let’s get him back to HQ.”
Headquarters was located in the financial district of the city in one of the many modern skyscrapers that had been built in the wake of cheap robotic labor. James spent most of the ride back in silence, instead choosing to file his report via his neural net as he had to get going soon. As the team dismounted the vehicles in the garage beneath the structure he tapped baker on the shoulder. “Hey would you take care of processing these guys for me? I’ve already filed my report with the director and I need to get back home.”
Baker nodded. The captain had been working “off the clock” so to speak tonight, but he had wanted to oversee the raid personally as several months of work had gone into it. “Sure thing boss, see ya tomorrow.”
James, having taken care of all official business for now, headed over to his own car, a blue 2008 Ford Shelby Mustang GT500, an inheritance from his father who was an avid car buff. As he drove through the practically empty city streets he was thinking over the latest report on the state of the city, the most optimistic estimates put the human population of New York at 200,000 but of course years of experience had taught him to never believe the optimistic ones. At least the street lights were still working, not that he needed them, his right eye was totally cybernetic, a replacement for his natural one that he had lost early on in his career to a lucky shot from a mafia enforcer he had been tailing. All in all James Miller was still mostly human compared to many others in his line of work, besides his eye, musculature enhancements, and military grade neural net he was still totally organic. He was a fairly unassuming man, brown hair and eyes certainly didn’t distinguish him from the crowd at all, of course there weren’t any crowds really left for him to blend into, having two legs when everyone else has four kinda gives you away.
He pulled into the apartment building where he lived with his sister as both their parents were currently living in Equestria somewhere; James could never remember the name of the city. As he walked through the lobby, he wasn’t too surprised to see a couple ponies coming and going even at this hour, New York was still the city that never sleeps. He took the elevator up to his floor and entered his apartment as quietly as he could so as not to wake the other occupant of his home, as always he failed miserably.
“Late night huh?” Said his sister Mary’s voice from the couch.
“Yep.” James said as he looked through their fridge. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”
“I have tomorrow off.” She said from right behind him, “You should take it off too, you’re working too hard again.” There was a note of concern in her voice.
James turned to fix his sister with a cynical look. Mary now stood at about his waist ever since she had undergone conversion; she was a light green unicorn with a white mane who had decided to stay in New York with her still human older brother while their ponified parents both moved to Equestria. “Well maybe it’d be a little easier for us if you guys weren’t so good at your jobs. We’re short staffed as it is without us losing a guy every few weeks that then takes us a month to replace.”
Mary rolled her eyes at that; she worked as an administrative assistant at the New York bureau. “Uh-huh sure, blame us for being so convincing. I just wish I could convince you as easily as them.” She had been trying to get James to undergo conversion for nearly a year now, and he still refused to go.
“Don’t worry; I’m sure one of these days I’ll cave. You’re too damn persistent for me to resist forever.” James continued to rummage through their fridge, he was absolutely starving and tended not to trust his sister with getting him take-out anymore, not since she had ‘forgotten’ he didn’t eat daisies the last time he had asked her to pick him up something. Failing to find anything that resembled meat he gave up and just grabbed two apples. “Is it really that hard to find meat anymore around here?” he asked as he walked over to and collapsed onto the couch.
“Have you looked around lately? There’s no one left to sell it to.” Mary said as she lay down next to him she paused for bit as he continued to eat his meal of fruit. “Hey James?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m meeting up with some of my Equestrian friends for dinner tomorrow and I’d really appreciate it if you actually came this time. They’ve all wanted to meet you for a long time now and I kinda want to show them that my older brother actually exists.”
James sighed, she was guilt tripping him and he knew it, didn’t stop it from working though. “Fine, I’ll come.”
“That’s what you said last time.”
“I mean it this time.”
“You said that too.”
James buried his face in his hands as he tried to think of a way to fix this whole situation. “What else do you want me to say Mary? I’m sorry I had to bail on you those other times, I really am. But my job isn’t as cut and dry as we’d both like it to be, stuff comes up that they need me for and I can’t just ignore it.”
Mary looked down as the words sunk in, she knew her brother worked directly for the government, and whatever he did it was it was both highly dangerous and important. But it still didn’t change the fact that it stung to have her older brother whom she held in such high esteem leave her hanging when she was just trying to have her friends meet her family.
James saw just how crestfallen his sister was and he immediately felt the guilt of bailing on her triple. He put a hand on her shoulder. “Look I’ll make it up to you; I’ll call in every favor I can to make sure I’m there tomorrow, OK?”
Mary looked significantly happier at this development “OK, just remember you have to call me by my Equestrian name tomorrow.”
“Ah erm, well about that….”
She just looked at him disbelief, “You forgot what it was again didn’t you?”
“No, well not really it has something to do with the sun right?” He offered weakly.
She rolled her eyes again, “its Radiant Dawn FYI. And you’re going to have to start remembering it eventually, it IS my official name now, you’re the only one that still calls me Mary.”
“I’ll call you Radiant Dawn around the same time you convince me to get converted, until then you’re still Mary to me.” He said as he ruffled her mane. “Now you best get some sleep sis, you’re not meant for these long nights.”
“And YOU need to stop having so many of them, I’ll go to bed when you do.”
“I was actually planning on doing that right now.” He said as he stood, he then locked up for the night and headed off to his room after making sure his sister went to sleep.
James undid the front of his jacket and un-holstered his M1911 Colt .45, it was a bit old fashioned compared to many of the newer guns that had been developed recently but he preferred the classics. He lay down on his bed after undressing and turned off the lights before finally taking the last few minutes to access his personal messages via the net. There was already one waiting from the director.
ENCRYPTED USING KEY: *********
DECRYPTED USING KEY: *****
’Your report is, as always, impeccable in detail Captain. The forensics team is already going over the evidence seized from the safehouse, and they are currently analyzing the contents of the briefcase you retrieved from the HVT. Baker and the others currently have him in medical care for the wrist you broke and are planning on interrogating him as soon as he is conscious again. You on the other hand, have tomorrow off on my orders; you’re burning yourself out on this James, Baker will handle the case for tomorrow.’ – Director Moore.
Well, Mary will certainly be happy with that. He thought to himself as James switched off his neural net. I’m beginning to think she’s right about me working too hard on this, I mean when even the director thinks I’m going to far…
James rolled over as he settled down to sleep; deciding it didn’t really matter in the end anyways. One way or another, this would be his last case.
Roughly 500 miles away in an underground complex sat a man who appeared to be in his fifties. He sat in an ornate chair facing the only source of illumination in the room, a hologram of the planet earth that was constantly updated to show the advance of Equestrian influence. Behind him a door opened into the room spilling in white light, a second man advanced through it coming to stop halfway to the older one in the chair. The one in the chair turned his head slightly indicating to the intruder that he should speak, “Sir, we have just received word that one of our New York cells was raided tonight. It would appear Mr. Anderson has been compromised along with the package.” His message delivered the younger man departed leaving the room shrouded in darkness once again.
The lone man steepled his fingers as he thought about the impact this would have on the organization as a whole. It was certainly an annoyance but it was nothing more a setback in the grand scheme of things, a replacement for the lost package could be found easily enough. The thing that concerned him most was what their enemies would do now that they had discovered what the HLF was interested in. The man known to many simply as “Jeremiah” knew that there was only one true threat left in the US government and that was the Internal Defense Initiative or IDI. Undoubtedly it was they who had raided the cell, they were ever present as a thorn in his side and had even come close to ending his life nearly a year and half ago, he unconsciously fingered the scar on his face that he had acquired on that fateful day. Yes, the IDI were indeed formidable opponents, but would they be able to stop the HLF’s final plan? That was the question that truly mattered. The fate of two races and the world itself would be decided quite soon, and that decision would rest either in their hands, or the HLF’s.