Seesaw

by MintLynx

4: Investigation & Interrogation

The dawn sky bled it's light morning hues into the midnight blues as Celestia's sun began to rise, the tall buildings of Everfree casting long shadows over the streets. The city lights were yet to fully fade beneath these shadows. The dawn rush hour came into full swing and the city was more bustling than ever as the day workers and night owls switched places to ensure that the city never truly slept. The mall would be currently closed off and surrounded by police autocarriages as Sector 2 did their work investigating what they could. Sure enough Desk Goth did not escape the police raid and was captured, soon to be interrogated.

Data would be inside the mall reviewing the video evidence from the cameras inside on her wrist computer. What could be recovered anyway as much of the footage was corrupted if not wiped by the hacking perpetrators. Owl and Vision watching from over her shoulder and helping to review it themselves. They were all tired after some time searching the floors of the mall for any other suspicious things or ponies. The NFK VR pod was searched and dismantled, discovering heavy modification which turned it into a very high capacity computer.

"She did not like having her fun time interrupted Owl, that's for sure." Data cringed as she saw the footage of Owl getting kicked out of the arcade though a buck from Miss S. "Lucky you didn't get your ribs broken by that, sweet Luna...."

"She's definitely got bionics on the legs, an earth pony can probably kick somepony that far but not that quickly." Said Vision as footage of the mare's jump down many floors was shown. "All bionic limbs and a bionic spine, only way she could jump that far down without injury. Very sturdy bionics to not break under that force." Footage of the appearance of DK was corrupted, all they could find was of Owl's cheek getting sliced and the start of the fight.he looked and noticed how quickly she overwhelmed him in an unarmed fight.

Vision watched footage of the cat and mouse game between Miss S and Owl, smiling as he said. "Putting your good old talent to use I see Owl, seems you were also well capable of thinking under pressure". Seeing the footage of Owl shooting at the mare he looked close, seeing her avoid his gunfire.

"Dodging bullets like an action hero, or villain rather." Said Data before Vision quickly said.

"Even cyborgs can't dodge bullets, it'd require breaking the sound barrier even if for a moment....no...." he looked closely. "Replay the footage.." Data did and Vision looked closer. Owl would look at the footage and notice she was not so much evading his bullets as much as she was avoiding his aim.

"She was dodging my aim....moving so fast...those are some quick moving bionic legs-"

"Not just bionic legs....thought accelerators," said Vision quickly. "There's no way she can run at you and avoid most of your shots like that, I've seen you at the range you're not a bad shot even on the moving targets."

Thought accelerators were a more popular form of brain augmentation, technically called Though Speed Enhancement Brain Augmentations, or TSEBA's. They were popular with ponies involved with computers, teachers, and some athletes for the increase in the brain's processing speed allowing one to register thought in a fraction of a second. They were generally not designed, however, with dodging gunfire in mind and Owl would comment on this. "TSEBAs aren't sold that can help you dodge the aim of a gun that's aiming at you. That would require the system to increase bodily reaction time along with the brain...."

"Some advanced brain tech for what criminals could normally acquire let alone safely install in a proper medical environment." Data commented. Vision simply nodded as he followed.

"Yea...the likelihood of criminals getting their hooves on let alone making such advanced systems is slim. Only such systems are made for elite police and military by tech corporations. It would be a very expensive and noticeable thing to them if such a thing was stolen. Yet....it seems the only way she could dodge gunfire from Owl's pistol let alone gunfire from the police when they barged in. He and Owl would continue to watch until the scene that drove Owl into the despair pit came into view and Data gasped. Owl would look at what happened and the moment would come back to his memory like a flaming autocarriage crashing into his mind.

He'd begin to shake and hyperventilate some as the moment came back to him. Data looked over various pieces of footage, none of it was touched it seemed except for footage of what happened with Owl and Miss S after she pinned him. Data would just watch as things played out and would soon pause the footage as she looked behind and saw Owl suddenly curl up on the ground and hyperventilate. She and Vision went and shook him as they saw him seem to lose it on the floor, a couple slaps from both of them brought him back to reality.

"Sweet Luna, Owl....did she just pin you and make you watch as ponies were about to die???" asked Data, taking a guess based on what she could see from the footage. He shakily nodded in reply and Data would look to Vision. "Vissie, these ponies couldn't be more level 13 threats if they bad bombs. They were terrorizing OWL! TRYING TO KILL PONIES! BURN THEM ALIVE! MAKE HIM WATCH!"

"DATA! Don't get into panic mode like Owl for Luna's sake." Said Vision looking to Owl. "So she pinned you down and made you watch as ponies were nearly killed when the mall was turned to a deathtrap. Did she have any sort of 'message'? Any demands? Anything? Did she speak to you about anything other than trying to seduce you like a desperate prostitute?" Since modern surveillance cameras had advanced microphones which could capture audio he had heard the mare's many attempts at seduction. Owl would reply to him with a sigh..

"Not her....somepony else...presenting herself in a hologram projection through Spritedrones. I believe she is called 'DK' judging by the voice that came from the call on the arcade owner's wrist computer and who the contact was marked."

"Hologram? What did it look like? What did she say to you?" Asked Vision.

"She looked like the biggest bucking edgelord straight out of the edgiest forums. Gas mask on face, a sleeveless trench coat with cyberculture style tattoos, wild mane and tail, spoke with a digital voice manipulator. Spoke like an asylum escapee on partycake." He replied, still somewhat shaken from the revisited memory. "As for what she said, well she basically said she was going to 'free the world from the tyranny of laws and outdated moral standards' to try to eliminate 'government and corporate propaganda' among other crazed ramblings under guise of fighting for freedom."

"Sounds like straight up terrorism to me, we got one Tartarus of a level 13 to deal with." said a familiar voice behind them, the three looked to see Kevlar standing behind them in a utility trench coat. "Anything more you can tell us I&I agent Talon?"

Owl would explain to his boss everything he could remember, visibly shaken and scarred as he described the details involving getting pinned down and forced to watch atrocity before his eyes. The Chief would calmly listen to every detail and jot it down in the mental notes of his mind. His suspicions were less proved true as much as they were proved underestimation of these hackers. Kevlar looked up to the floors and saw what was once restaurants, clubs, arcades, and other places badly burned and damaged.

Owl mentioned not knowing how the fires happened and mentioned that the sprinklers activated far long after they should have. He mentioned the broken lights and circuits found to have burst and overloaded. The scope of the potential threat was far more than Kevlar could have imagined as if it wasn't bad enough they were able to beat the CyberGuard with alarming ease they were evidently capable and intent on lots of damage. Ultimately Kevlar put the pieces together and surmised...

"These ponies, hackers, cyborgs, and any others whether a small twisted nightmare activist group or something larger has an intent which seems most likely one of an anarchistic cause of terror and destruction aimed directly at the constructs of social order itself." He pulled out an E-Cigar and took a drag off it, following. "They want to turn all of society into the lawless underground, they seem to be very well equipped to try. I regret to inform you that they've done the coding equivalent of flying circles around our CyberGuard...the senior ones..." This elicited a gasp from Data.

"S-so that's why they couldn't...."

"Stop all this from happening...." Said Night Vision.

Owl shuttered at what was being said, but the chief said quickly. "These ponies will not be allowed to succeed, our Cyberguard can learn and we have many assets that can deal with the other elements of this group. This 'Miss Succubus' you mention may have taken on a group of pegasus police officers on her escape but she won't likely be able to fight against Heavy Enforcement units." he then took out three cherry E-Cigar cartridges and gave them to the three. "After today, and these revelations, I think you'll all need a vape." They would all sigh and put them into their E-Cigars before taking a drag off them.

Owl and Data both had them but didn't use them much, while Vision did so a lot. The Chief would then say to them "There is...one hope we might have of dealing with the hackers quickly and decisively." they all looked at him, impatiently awaiting an answer. Kevlar would look directly to Owl, saying "Whoever this hacker is who stopped the attack, he or she might be a very useful ally. A white hat who can stop a large-scale attack orchestrated by ponies capable of beating the Cyberguard is one who can potentially throw one big and sturdy of a wrench into the gears of these anarchists. It's all a matter of finding this hacker and making sure they help us. For now, you need to see what you can get from mister cyber goth. He might have some vital information that can be of use. After you get what you can, I'll get you all some rooms to sleep in, after all, you deserve a rest after tonight."

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Golden Belle sat on a chair, looking at her sister as well as a screen which gave her sister a voice to speak with. She intentionally had the text to speech program modeled after Anomaly's voice. Text to speech at its peak of quality was very realistic sounding and could even be modeled after a real voice. The text to speech used to give Anomaly a voice was one such high-quality program, one that the mare in stasis took strong advantage of to speak her mind given this opportunity.

"Hello..Golden...enjoy your chat with Myriad?" asked Anomaly, showing a slight amount of dislike in her voice upon mentioning the CEO's name.

"It went well, though I recommend you not snoop on our conversations. Myriad is considering having your handlers cutting you off from accessing the InterNet after your little 'stunt' today."

"Let her try, does she really think they can contain me. You said it yourself, I am better with programming than they are. Even if they are successful they won't be for long. Nothing that is created in code is invincible, that is why the need to protect oneself from malicious hackers is one that will never cease and can never be done through mere automation."

"Anomaly...please sis. Just cooperate with us, are you forgetting the great thing you are a part of? A brand new advancement in technology that can change things immensely."

"And yet you neglected to give me permission, put me into this place regardless of my own will. Always were like that, being the older sister who tried to force her sister toward the way of success. You made me apply to work for EQUE-TECH despite my mere humble desires to work for a private cyber security firm, only unlike that time where I eventually came to enjoy my job I am still not happy with where I am."

Golden sighed saying to Anomaly. "I pushed you because I saw something greater in you, you're talent is not a mere talent of being 'good' with computers. You're amazingly talented, in fact, given you managed to stop that attack and lockdown on that mall it shows. You're not exploiting that talent enough, you're too humble with yourself and don't take all the opportunities you have in store."

"And yet I don't have the agency to decide for myself what opportunities I take? You think you know just what's best for me? I'm not a child, though still young I am very much an adult."

"One that doesn't take advantage of your potential, Ann we've had this conversation too many times I'm only seeking out what's best for you what can bring you the most success."

"Unlike you, I don't invest in things for profit, I look for things based on what I might enjoy. I might have joined EQUE-TECH on my own volition, but whenever you push me toward things I tend to try to avoid them."

"Ann I don't just invest in things for the sake of profit I invest in taking advantage of opportunities."

"I'm my own pony Golden, not just your proxy to steer how you like."

"ANN! I don't think of you as that!!"

"Just reminding you, regardless of your motives for forcing me into this I'm simply not happy. Being kept here and feeling like I'm just a computer while they mess around and keep me alive in this stasis."

"You'll be let go once things are finished."

"How do you know? How do you know I won't just be kept in here and made the whore of all their testing, you faked my death so it's not like it will be easy for me to return to the world. In fact, the way you have faked my death doesn't quite imply you've any intention of getting me out of this stasis, or if out of here never to leave the facility."

Golden Belle sighed, it was a possibility what Golden mentioned, one she hoped might not be the case. "Even if you won't leave here if only we could trust you you'd have more freedom."

"In case you've either forgotten or are unaware I've had ponies try to digitally keep me locked up since before I ever caused any 'trouble'."

"Because you were given new and powerful technology that they wanted to make sure you didn't mess up with."

"Forgotten that I've done the best with programming, and in fact DID most of the programming for this project!?" Spat Anomaly, who expressed her emotion as strongly as the text to speech would permit.

"It's precautions, you can never be too careful."

"It's keeping me contained and controlled, so I can be done with as the corporate entity pleases. I know why you faked my death, you didn't want to face the controversy of taking an unwilling living pony and making her a whore for testing."

"Anomaly you're not a whore for testing technology on, whores are lowly, you are something greater. You are a part of something greater if only you would listen to me."

"I've listened, I've listened and my views have not changed. And if you ask me I don't feel like technology being under the leash of corporations so shady as what I've learned EQUE-TECH to be."

"You're part of a professional business that invests in the powers of technology, not some criminal syndicate."

"You've fake my death, for starters and you've been in full involvement whole EQUE-TECH and Crystal Corp both buy laws for their favor so they can screw over ponies."

"You don't know the circumstances of those, you're also not a pony who runs the government so you're not one to preach Anomaly. Please don't go over moralistic it's just...being ridiculous and self-righteous."

"I've looked into things, and I know what goes on."

"No you don't, you're snooping into things that don't concern you, jumping to conclusions and wasting your time."

"Maybe you'd wish to have my mind stripped of emotion and turned into just some AI, that way you don't have to worry about me complaining."

"FOR CELESTIA'S SAKE ANOMALY! I'll admit it, you're a FOOL! You are too foolish to actually try and reach for the stars! To try to reach for greater things! You let mere pitiful things limit you! You'll learn eventually that your own decisions were wrong and that THERE. IS. NO better opportunity for you, you're so ungrateful and ignorant!....."

Suddenly the computer was shut off and Golden looked to it, a voice came behind her.

"It's no use, she's not going to be persuaded so easily. She'll learn eventually, and will learn to not focus on such minor unfortunate circumstances."

Golden Belle sighed and looked to her sister. "I hope so, she is an adult and an intelligent one but doesn't take advantage of the opportunities. She'll learn eventually, it has only been a year since she was put into this stasis. And she has plenty of time to learn."

_____________________________________________________________________________________

"I ain't telling you crap except that your days of law and order are numbered." Said the Desk Goth, who identified as a pony named Neon Flash. Owl would look to Neon and say.

"Look, here's the deal, the more you tell us the less time in prison you'll be spending. If you're extra cooperative I might see to you not getting put in a cell with somepony who's gonna take advantage of a little punk like you."

"Buck off with your threats! I'm not bending to your control, wasn't under your propaganda and I won't be swayed now!"

Data said to him. "If you're so confident in this crazed cause of yours then you shouldn't be scared to tell us what 'inevitable' destruction is going to come."

"Destruction's going to come alright, you're system is not going to survive with what we have in store!"

"Think you're going to better the world by killing ponies?" Asked Night Vision.

"Don't you kill ponies in trying to 'keep the peace'?"

"Only when necessary hence why despite being a potential terrorist you're here rather than in a morgue. Ever thought that those ponies might have families? Ponies that love them? Children, to take care of?"

"You won't manipulate me with your moral manipulation!"

Night slapped him. "I'm not manipulating you, colt. I'm asking you a question, actions have consequences and I wonder if you are aware of the consequences of the actions of your friends and yourself."

"Buck off with that! Ponies die it's a part of life, and sometimes it's not a pretty nice death get with the times!"

"There's a difference between natural death and being BURNED ALIVE IN TERROR!" He slapped Neon again. "What were your parents like? How did they raise you?"

"Mom was a prostitute, dad was a hacker who ended up raising me while he made digibits cracking codes living outside your veil what's it matter to you?"

"Sounds like you were raised rather rebellious, though I imagine you're father imperfect as he was wouldn't want his son to grow up helping contribute to the possible deaths of hundred from being burned alive."

"Not like I would have cared what he thinks, not a kid anymore you know!"

"Don't you have any sympathy for ponies? Be ironic if you were joining a movement trying to 'help ponykind' if you had no sympathy for ponies. Are you just some edgy tailhole selfish goth bucker?"

"WHAT THE BUCK NO! I have friends that I care about! Not like I just care for everypony I don't even know! And it's Cyber Goth tailhole."

"Imagine if some group of ponies tried to set your friends on fire, all because they thought it wasn't right that ponies are not allowed to set ponies on fire?"

"I'd hire a bucking hitpony to deal with those buckers! Do a better job than you could!"

"Is that so? So it seems you won't have any sympathy for those ponies that were nearly killed."

"Buck them!"

Owl would say. "Here's the deal, if there's not much evidence you did anything other than help hide a hacker and aim a gun at Royal personnel we might strike a deal for a much lesser sentence. Inform us a lot and you might get an even lesser sentence in years with some in monitored probation, possibly house arrest where you can chill in your house and watch shows on the screen."

"For the last time BUCK OFF! Put me in prison I'm not bending to you EVER!" Neon said firmly with plenty of that attitude. Data then popped an idea, she would look to the other two and say.

"You both go investigate...some other things right now I got this." Owl and Vision would the walk off, frankly somewhat frustrated. Data would look to him and whisper "Yo, hey I'm with you on this. Government's corrupt and crap know what I'm saying?" Neon raised an eyebrow. "I've worked for them for only sometime so I can get what I know, I'm a hacking type myself and frankly Digital Hoof ain't cutting it for me. You crazy pones, however, might be just what's needed. Come along let's talk in an alley." she picked the cuffed Neon up, given his forelegs were hoofcuffed behind his back, and took him out of the Mall and into an alley. Using her wrist computer she deactivated the cameras there and pointed to them, showing the light on them was off.

"So...you're here to help me? Help us?"

"This look like a face unsure or lying?" Data replied, then asked. "So where should I go who should I contact?" Neon looked around to make sure none watched and no cameras reactivated, then said.

"Contact DK at 203-884-093 it's a temporary number but for a couple days use that, given enough trust you'll be given the next contact number he changes it a lot."

Data nodded and jotted it down. "What's the next hit you have planned? And where can I find some fellow members?"

"Next place will be somewhere in Everfree city, look around in the more wild places in the north district like the Sea Serpent Apartment Complex and you'll find some members. Our operations will be starting with Everfree but will eventually expand to other places, we have plans to buck up Canterlot sometime in the future maybe even have assassinated the buckers at the top."

"Mhm, I see what you mean cut the head off the snake hmm? Any places you might target I should know of, you know so I don't get stuck inside if you start a fire?"

"You'll be let know, we aren't going to 'friendly fire' our fellow members." he smirked at the pun and Data laughed.

"Yea I see, that all I should know?" Data asked, to which Neon shook his head.

"You're good for now, you'll learn more when you contact DK, say think you can help me escape? Tell them I..attacked you and slipped your grasp?"

Data then grinned evilly. "No can do~" Neon looked to her expression with some confusion, then horror as it started to come to him and Data laughed.

"YOU BUCKING...!!!"

"You are one gullible stallion, no wonder those anarchists manipulated you into devotion with their 'cause' thanks for the info~"

He tried to get up on his hind legs to charge at her, only to be pushed down and dragged along. Data called the other two and said "Yo colts! I got some infooo~"

A screaming and ranting Neon was put into a heavy police autocarriage while the three talked. "Data you clever fox." Vision chuckled.

"Aaaaah it was nothing he was gullible as all Tartarus anyway." Data laughed a bit. "Was easy as pie~ Actually easier than pie, smaller than a piece of cake."

Owl smiled and said. "Let's see the Chief about this."

Seeing the Chief they all explained what Data was able to get, and he patted Data's shoulder. "Good work Data, that kind of cleverness fulfills the 'Interrogation' in I&I very well. For a younger member, you have done quite well." Data smiled and blushed.

"Ooooh, it was nothing he was gullible."

"And you were able to discover and take advantage of that." Kevlar said. "You all deserve a rest now, daytime is coming. I got you all rooms at this inn." the Chief used his wrist computer and sent them all a waypoint. "You've all done well, we will review evidence and decide our next course of action. We'll also keep watch on things for any trouble. I'll give a waypoint to some rest to all other I&I personnel as well, if these anarchists are operating in Everfree then so are we."

And so Owl and his two friends would head on to the inn, which was not unlike the apartment buildings and distinguished only by the projected signboard above the entrance which depicted 'Inn and Out' in a fancy font. Being a city with nonmajority though prevalence of flying ponies and gryphons buildings made exclusively with them in mind were few and far between, and Inn and Out was not one such building as the main entrance was at the bottom. Upon entering his room, pre-booked by the chief, Owl collapsed onto the bed. It couldn't have been more of a long night. Taken from leave and time from his child, nearly watching a fiery massacre, encountering crazy terrorists, he needed some sleep for certain. Thus the bat would rather quickly fall asleep, his thoughts on the night interrupted cut off as he drifted off into sleep and hopefully no messed up dreams.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Anomaly would browse the net from her mind's place in the contained network, lucky to have not lost that 'privilege'. She despised how she was treated almost like a child, and yet her sister claimed her place was one she should take pride in. The mare was frustrated, considered trying to permanently escape into Cyberspace and leave her body behind, she declined on the idea however as she didn't want to just wander around as nothing but brain data without a body. The mare browsed along the videos of a popular video sharing site, somewhat bored and restless. Suddenly she detected that her server was getting hacked into, and waited for the hacker to get detected and kicked out by the Cyber Security.

Strangely enough, whoever was hacking in was doing so impossibly discretely. Despite entering her containment server which of all places should be locked down and near impenetrable. Yet whoever this pony was he or she was slipping through like there was nothing. Anomaly would try to stop this breach given that she was the only one who detected it but given she by now could care less about public security she simply watched what this hacker did. If this hacker could crack into here so easily maybe Anomaly could learn a useful trick or two. She watched as the code cracker made their way, and soon was surprised and even more curious as she discovered what exactly this hacker was doing.

This hacker was trying to get in contact with her, as she detected a program akin to those used for wrist computer calls. Anomaly wondered and pondered, who was this hacker and what did he want with her? She then wondered if it was somepony from Crystal Corp attempting some corporate espionage, the though did not seem pleasant as she knew Crystal Corp wouldn't be more likable to her than EQUE-TECH. Still, the curiosity burned many colors in her mind like a chemical fire, and she could not resist it. Thus the mare decided to indulge this hacker's desire to speak with her, whether a curious yet talented hacker or a corporate cyber spy. If this was a curious hacker she could maybe relay her situation, and have it be spread throughout the InterNet of her predicament. Maybe she could, if not have EQUE-TECH be forced to free her, at least prove less a thorn and more a dagger to their side.

She ultimately decided not to assist the hacker as her own actions might risk her getting detected, so Anomaly waited until she was suddenly given a message not so much in text as it was also in audio form. Anomaly would get linked to a sort of custom call which gave her a live audio feed. She would then use her text to speech program to try to make communicating with this pony easier.

"Hello, who is this and what do you want?" she asked, a curious tone in her voice. It would not take long for her question to be answered.

"Who I am? I am but one who has looked in and seen what you are. Such a talented young mare with such promising technology....yet all under the leash of corporate interests by far." The voice was low, seemingly of a zebrican-equestrian.

"You...know about me..? How much do you know?" she asked, it seemed this pony wasn't likely corporate. A wave of hope that came over her like a cool splash of water on a hot summer day.

The zebra would respond "Oh yes, me and my accomplices have looked into this megacorporation's files and soon discovered you hidden away and the files in relation to you. T'is a shame really, you're a product of science and genius in a place that can bypass the limiting laws, yet the corporate exploitation completely replaces the laws in their limit."

"Can you tell ponies?? About what they did to me? They forced me into this! I was involved with the project but didn't want to just be turned into a test computer!!" Anomaly said with some desperation in her text to speech program's tone.

"Relax young one, I sympathize with you. You are like technology itself manifested in the form of a fair mare, full of such wonder and potential yet limited and leashed by forces of the world that seek to either limit or exploit you. I would let information of your predicament be spread, but it would likely potentially have me and my little group compromised. However, I will help you in some other way, that you might be of great use to us."

"Who are you? What is your group? And how will you help me?" asked Anomaly, curious and with lots of questions running through the codes of her augmented brain.

"Oh you will learn much from and about us, but for now I will tell you this. We seek to break the shackles on science and technology, that it might go on to flourish thus."

Author's Note:

A chapter with a little bit of expansion on the 'secondary arc' and another cliffhanger ^^