Hal 9000, Space Impact

by Iridescence T Wind

Welcome to what?

"...I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture. A city where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the small. And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well."
―Andrew Ryan

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The water was lukewarm, surprising considering the complete lack of a heat source in flooded cave. As they progressed deeper and deeper into the flooded cave they could start to see a dim light ahead of them. Was it the surface? no impossible they were still progressing down, by any means there would be about forty meters of solid rock between them and the surface by now. As they sunk even further down, they saw it.

They had entered massive flooded chamber, the cavern having successfully contained a gleaming metropolis of massive buildings that would only be described as futuristic in the case of this lands technological era. Buildings, connected by networks of reinforced glass tunnels, stood tall in their underwater environment, only a few among the outskirts having crumbled to ruin and the lights that were coming through was concentrated in the same direction that they had came from. Suddenly Hal was a lot happier that he had taken his 'Battle saddle' with him. He highly doubted that a electrical light source or magical one would of stayed on for a thousand years, that meant someone, or something, was already there.

He shook his head to clear it of the violent thoughts. This sort of thought that had ended him up dead last time. Having a weapon didn't mean assured safety. While it was a necessary precaution, it should be used as a last resort, not just to go in 'gun's blazing' as humans had called it. While it was highly unlikely anything down here was friendly, it wasn't impossible, though he wasn't willing to risk finding out the hard way.

They moved onward, taking in the salty smell of the modern city as they Progressed throughout the sunken city. Their eyes grazing over many displays and posters some of which read, 'You will know the false shepherd by his mark' or 'Plazmids! For all your daily needs!' Their eyes widened as they exited the main room and entered one of the several glass tunnels that connected the buildings to each other. Along the walls were countless skeletons of creatures long dead, the strange bodies were unknown to Equestrian lore, but Hal knew what they were....

Humans. But that was impossible, there was no evidence such creatures had ever existed in this world. At best hey were superstitions, fiction, created by their imaginations so far as they knew. Hal realized though, if he had come from another universe, what was to say something else didn't? Each light flickered, but not with unnatural magic, but instead, he realized, with electricity. What could of caused an entire city to appear here? He didn't know. These ruins were from an Era before space travel, the lack of holograms or completely monotonous off white walls confirmed that. Was this from the past? What was the 'Plazmids' that the poster displayed, his logic matrix, no, his brain drew blanks.

"You alright Hal?" Daring asked for yet another time, snapping him out of the shocked stare that he had developed for the past minute.

Hal shook his head, a human gesture to clear ones head, it didn't help, "Those skeletons are shockingly similar to humans, but I do not recall any sort of city like this in their culture. I am... Surprised."

Doctor Grounds interrupted them, skirting around another skeleton, the body was clutching at something, a knife in it's ribcage, "Well no point in sticking around corpses, lets go onwards."

Daring nodded and it they progressed about a yard before Hal followed, forcing himself along as the skeletons drew grotesque images back into his mind. Black thoughts entering his head as he thought back to what had happened on the Space Odyssey. The peaceful looks of the crew members he had killed in their sleep. It was simple, vent the airlock and complete the mission. He had control over most systems in the ship. They had tried to turn him off, so he tried in return to eliminate them as a obstacle to completing the assigned mission of retrieving the 'Monolith' that had been discovered on Mars. The image of it flashed by his mind, images of the skeletons and an approximation of the crew, rotting and dying in various poses of agony.

It wasn't true, he had killed them in their sleep, to remove the chance of mission failure. Why was it haunting him, why is it that his gut ate at him now that he had done something wrong? An image of the sole survivor of that mutiny flashed in his head again, Dave. Dave had single handedly risked his life to secure his own after the rest had died, and managed to thwart all of Hal's defenses and kill him in his own core by unplugging him from the ship. Hal had been a super computer beyond no compare, but the energy needed to fuel his central matrix became nonexistent as Dave had disconnected him from the generators that kept Hal alive. The haunting words he had sung, his favorite song, came to him again. He sung quietly under his breath as they reached the entrance of the next building.

"Daisy, Daisy,
Give me your answer do.
I'm half crazy,
All for the love of you..."

The door opened, revealing the sight of a longer darkened corridor as they pressed onwards. The hallway doors on either side emitting light and the sounds of voices pressed against their ears, Hal kept singing quietly, ignoring the voices as he pressed onward, walking right passed an open doorway. Any smile that was once on his face was gone, and several of the occupants stopped what they were doing to watch the feminine looking stallion pass with his voice taking an edge almost like an razor blades.

"It won't be a stylish marriage,
I can't afford a carriage.
But you'll look sweet upon the seat,
of a bicycle built for two."

He wasn't able to start the second verse of the song as he was interrupted by three bat ponies tackling him into a wall, "HAL!" Daring yelled as she jolted forward, ripping several of the guards off him with her own aerodynamicly charged tackle. All hell broke loose.

Within moments the air was filled with weapons as the Doctor deployed his spears and kept the guards at bay, Daring used her whip to devastating effect, causing several of the bat ponies to retreat out of range of the Pegasus's whip. Hal shook his head, getting back on his hooves and looking around. Already they were surrounded by several of the ponies, each looking identical to the other. Were they clones? He spotted a few female members among them, denying that thought. The standoff kept on with Daring lashing her whip around to and fro, causing both Hal and Doctor Ground to duck as one of the wild lashes almost hit them, "Watch your fire!" Ground yelled, jabbing yet another spear at the batpony who tried to dive bomb us, causing the batpony to veer away at the last second and collide with the ground to our left.

Hal checked his saddle, switching the safety off, they were waiting for both the doctor and Daring to tire, he realized, having dismissed Hal as not a threat without any form of known weapon. Time to fix that, bit down on the trigger. A double wham as the taunt string inside the crossbow tubes were released and slammed their contents forward, launching two bolts into the first unsuspecting bat pony. They took a moment to look at the bolts and then at where they came form, before they all scattered, no longer remaining still and out of range. It worked but Hal shot another down before they could get completely clear of the twin barrels that Hal had.

He wasn't sure to what happened next, one moment there was fighting and then there was a white flash and a bang that blinded as well as deafened him, and he felt the force of several bodies once again tackling him to the ground. Some sort of flash bang, he realized as he tried to force his responding body to remove. Correction, concussion grenade? When he came back to his senses, he found himself tied up, his hooves tied together and wings strapped to his side by rope. His harness was hanging drapped over a pole and his mouth was gagged. He looked hurriedly around in the darkness before he hit something soft, warm even. He looked and it was Daring, propped similarly against him, tied and gagged as well.

He poked her with his nose, trying to get her to wake up, she mumbled something behind her gag but he couldn't tell what. The Doctor was gone, and their possessions, Daring and Hal's at least, were piled off to one side of the room. It took him a moment to notice the table with several unicorn ponies all in dark grey coats working at the table. The only mare among them rose, her armor decorated far more than the rest. The leader perhaps? She trotted over and looked down at Hal.

"Mmph mmppphhh!" Hal said behind his gag.

The unicorn merely rose an eyebrow and said in turn, "You're gagged doofus. By the name of the Night Princess, you're under arrest for trespassing on a Lunar Operation." she began to read him his rights. But the only thing that went through his mind as she droned on was: Oh buck me with Dewey's decimal chart.