The Parliament of Dreams

by Wheller

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Sparky and Dizzy made it a point to keep out of sight. The sun had since gone down, but whoever had placed the jamming device would have been keeping an eye on it. If they were to turn it off, it wouldn’t be long before whoever planted it there would know, and they’d be all over them.

Sparky couldn’t wrap her head around one thing though, what could possibly be in Olde Towne that required such high tech jamming equipment to keep it hidden?

‘You’re doing it again’, Dizzy said with a small smile. ‘Staring off blankly into space, lost in your own thoughts’.

Sparky snapped back to attention, she looked over at Dizzy and returned a small smirk. ‘I think about things a lot, I grew up spending a lot of time by myself, I had a lot of time to think’.

Dizzy’s smile turned to a frown. ‘Sounds like a lonely childhood’, she said.

‘It was’, Sparky said simply, her head turning down as memories of her childhood flooded back to her head. Those were not good times for a young Sparky.

‘You want to talk about it?’ Dizzy asked. It pained her to see her new friend clearly distressed by something.

‘Oh, my parents died when I was little, they were aboard the Diamond during the accident’, Sparky said.

Dizzy looked at her in confusion. ‘I’m not familiar with the Diamond; New Maneaan doesn’t get a lot of airship traffic...’

‘The worst airship accident in the history of the Republic, Helium lifted, turbofan dirigible, collides head on with City-class Heavy Cruiser ERS Fillydelphia, flying brick comes out without a scratch’, Sparky said with a frown. ‘All one hundred and thirteen passengers and crew aboard the Diamond perish’, Sparky said solemnly. Sparky didn’t think about her parents that often anymore, she barely remembered them, and this was not the time to get emotional. She had to fight to keep a single tear from rolling down her cheek.

‘I’m sorry’, Dizzy said with a frown. ‘If you were nephite... I’d try to reassure you that your parents are waiting for you in heaven... but I have a feeling that doesn’t mean much to you...’

‘I don’t believe in heaven’, Sparky said with a nod in affirmation. She looked over at Dizzy and offered her a sincere smile. ‘But it’s the thought that counts. Thank you Dizzy’.

A smile began to form on Dizzy face as well. ‘No problem’, she said as the two of them turned down a dark alley.

Now it was time to focus, trying to find this jamming device wasn’t going to be easy, though Sparky had an idea for how they were going to. This was a high powered jammer, able to block signals from the orbiting satellites, but while still back at the estate building that Dizzy had made into her home; Sparky was still able to pull up the holographic display and use it as if it could be operated normally. Sparky theorised that as they got closer to the source of the jamming, the jamming signal would become so strong that it would affect the MIP’s holographic emitter’s ability to form into a coherent block.

Sparky and Dizzy spent several hours trying to locate the source of the jamming, going block by block through the Olde Towne area. Sparky kept a close eye on her MIP, looking for any minor changes to the hologram. After feeling like they had covered almost every square centimetre of Olde Towne. Sparky was nearly ready to give up. She sat down on the ground, looking towards it in discouragement. She let out a long sigh and looked back up at her friend. ‘What am I doing Dizzy?’ she asked.

‘Um...’ Dizzy began, not exactly sure where Sparky was going with this.

‘Here I am, walking around Olde Towne in the middle of the night. My grandmother has probably murdered Shortfuse and stuffed her body into a dumpster for letting me run off, and I’m out here with a cutie mark looking for some jamming device’, Sparky said.

‘Um...’ Dizzy began again before Sparky interrupted her again.

‘I’m being stupid; I don’t even know what I’m thinking anymore!’ Sparky said.

‘Um...’ Dizzy said again, before being interrupted.

‘I need to stop this; I should just go home...’ Sparky said with a sigh.

‘SPARKY!’ Dizzy cried out at the top of her lungs.

‘What?!’ Sparky cried back, looking up at her.

‘Look at the hologram!’ Dizzy said, pointing to Sparky’s leg.

Sparky looked down to see that the hologram being projected by her MIP was being distorted, just ever so slightly. They were close! Sparky’s eyes lit up in pure joy. ‘Dizzy! Why didn’t you say something before?’ she asked.

Dizzy frowned, and gave Sparky a cross look. ‘Let’s not go there. I may not be a violent pony, but I am not unwilling to hit you right now’, she said in annoyance.

‘What?’ Sparky asked in confusion, but chose to move on to more pressing concerns, like their discovery, rather than wait for an answer. She leapt up and began moving forward, a grin began to appear on her face as the distortion became more pronounced. She followed it into the next alleyway and looked up to find a brick wall in front of her.

Sparky frowned. The jammer was clearly behind this wall that had been put up before her. There had to be something that she missed along the way.

‘Sparky!’ Dizzy called out to her. Sparky turned to look and saw that Dizzy was pulling piles of rubbish that were leaning against the wall away, revealing a small access hatch. While too small to fit a pony, it was something.

Sparky trotted up to Dizzy and took a look at the hatch, upon taking a closer look at it, she froze. The FutureTec logo was emboldened on the hatch.

Sparky knelt down and opened up the hatch, it revealed a small scanner, almost identical to the ones she used to enter secure areas of FutureTec’s Whitetail Industrial Complex, except looking somewhat older. Sparky ran her MIP over the scanner, not sure exactly what would happen.

The brick wall shifted, and slid open to reveal a hidden lift. Sparky looked over to Dizzy and smiled approvingly at her friend.

Dizzy blushed modestly and reminded Sparky that she would have figured it out even without her help.

The two of them entered into the passage, stepping onto the hidden lift and pressing the button on the control console. The lift shuddered and began to head up. After about thirty seconds, the lift reached the top floor, and opened up to allow Sparky and Dizzy entry.

Sparky took a look around the room that they were in. Like almost everything else in Olde Towne that she had seen, the room was filled with a mishmash of random equipment. At the far left of the room as an old style mainframe terminal with an over sized screen. Sparky couldn’t help but think that it must have been a nightmare to get that into this building. Whereas on the far right of the room was a newer style server cluster. Scattered about the room were several different objects, multiple computer terminals, and even a gun was sitting in the corner, having looked untouched for quite some time. Dizzy trotted over to it and picked up the gun to examine it, discovering it to be an old style eight gauge lever action shotgun. She noticed that there was an inscription etched into a small brass plate on the stock. ‘The Great and Powerful?’ she read off. What was the significance of that?

Sparky’s interest was piqued, however, by a large metal object in the centre of the room. It was the jamming device. In front of it was a small console with a large red button on it, labelled, ‘off’. Sparky merely smirked. ‘Looks easy to turn off’, she said, looking over to Dizzy.

Dizzy set the shotgun back down and trotted over to Sparky. ‘About that... Sparky? I’ve been thinking... this jamming device... well someone obviously put it here for a reason’.

‘Yeah?’ Sparky asked, not exactly seeing what Dizzy was getting at.

‘Don’t you think... it might be a better idea to just leave it on and turn around and go back home?’ Dizzy asked, a worried look appearing on the young unicorn’s face.

‘Probably’, Sparky said, before raising a hoof and mashing down on the off button. Dizzy’s heart skipped a beat

The two of them watched as the jamming device powered itself down. They watched as it completely shut off. They waited for a few seconds... only to find that nothing happened.

‘Well. There we go, device is powered off, and no big disasters happened!’ Sparky said with a grin.

‘Yeah’, Dizzy said, taking a deep breath. ‘Apart from the fact that I almost had a heart attack!’

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a small holographic ball appeared before them. Sparky and Dizzy both jumped in surprise.

The ball itself had a smiling face on it, but its appearance out of nowhere was not what they were ready for. ‘Hi there!’ said a cheerful sounding, but artificial voice, coming out of loudspeakers from around the room. ‘My name is Mister Happy! How are you doing today?’

Comments

[DreadedCandiru2]

Oh, goody.....they're right on top of the old missile base. Either that or one of Field Marshall Trixie's emergency bunkers.

[Apocalypse Pony]

Im doing just fine, and yourself ?

[IRBRONY]

TRIXIE DID YOU LEAVE THE SHOTGUN IN THE MISSLE BUNKER AGAIN

[KingOfTheMuffins]

Oh, great...

A possibly homicidal AI that was disabled for safety concerns....

Let's turn it on! :D

[Liquid Squid]

Yesman from New Vegas? Maybe. *sniff* Maybe.

[P0nies]

Good so far, really enjoying this.

‘Probably’, Sparky said, before raising a hoof and mashing down on the off button. Dizzy’s heart skipped a beat

Maybe you missed a period? other than that, you have a thumbs and a fav from me!

[Themaskedferret]

This is not going to go well. The only way it could've been worse would've been a large red eye calling itself Hal. Though in rethinking it I think Mr Happy is scarier.

[SCaitan]

Holographic Ball as an AI interface? You are pushing the Mass Effect references here. And Fallout New Vegas.

[ColdGoldLazarus]

FutureTec logo? IT'S A CONSPIRACY

Trixie is now a shotgun. I'm not sure what to make of that.

Mr Happy scares me.

Side-Quest sub-objective [find and deactivate jammer] complete!
Side-Quest sub-objective [figure out Mr Happy] added!

[Thespurgin]

When they have an unwinnable war, you know what the commander says?

"Send in Mr. Happy."

In truth, nothing else need be said. You simply sit back and enjoy the show.

[Lucky424]

"The Great and Powerful" Shotgun......I wish I had Fallout on Pc now, then I could make skin for a lever action using Trixie's colours......

"Mr Happy"?? With Trixie??

[Borg]

Hello, Mr Happy! It's nice to meet you.