Five Double U

by Hoax1337

Full truths.

Beep beep beep-

Huh? Is it already morning? But I want to sleep...

Beep beep beep-

Would you shut up already?

Beep beep beep-

Okay, okay! I'll get up!

The first thing I noticed when I accumulated enough will to move from my comfortable position was the unusually small room I was in. For some instants, I did not recognize it, but a look through the window showing the passing landscape of a forest reminded me of last night events; how I escaped, reaching the train in the last second and transferring at Ponyville into the long distance two-floor train to Las Pegasus.

I should really thank Player for reserving the room-

Beep beep beep-

-but first I should take care of that alarm.

Hold on... an alarm?

But I did not remember setting one up before sleeping, given that I wanted to get enough rest before arriving.

I swiped through the cabin to find the phone, which happened to be close to an outlet which it was plugged in. But the screen had no alarm to turn off.

Beep beep beep-

At that moment I realized that the annoying beeping came from my body, more specifically, my waist. I sat down at the bed and I took the device that was attached to it, and I read the graph is displayed. It showed how overnight an almost smooth curve drastically went down to the red zone.

I had to fight the urge to panic as I turned upside down my bag in search of the case where I stored my lifeline. I took a pen from it, which had a transparent liquid loaded on it, but instead of having a ballpoint, a short needle was on its place.

Without hesitation, I punctured my skin with the needle and applied a respectable amount of insulin to my bloodstream, which I considered enough to recover my regular levels to live one more day.

Having taken care of my condition I dismissed the alarm and inspected the pump to see why the levels fell while I was asleep.

What I saw made me want to slap myself for my own stupidity.

The insulin reservoir was empty.

And I should have noticed that. After all, I need to check it constantly so that this type of emergencies do not happen. But the bad news was that I did not have spare insulin to fill it, as it was all left in Canterlot.

So now I had to depend on the good ol' injections, and make sure that I do not exceed the dose for my own sake until I was able to acquire some at the destination.

Thanks to that small incident, now I was completely awake, and the fact that it was afternoon already didn't help to go back to sleep, so I decided that the best would be to take a stroll through the train.

The narrowness of the passages was compensated by a complete view of the second floor of the car in which my bedroom was, but that sight would not suppress my increasing boringness, so the only logical option I had was to take my phone and tablet and find my way to the observation car. I was lucky enough to take the right direction, and I reached the car in a minute. There were windows in almost any direction, letting in a clear sight both sideways and up.

For that moment I dismissed the small café located at one corner and made myself comfortable in one of the seats.

'Connections, take the free one and fuck off network login'.

And without giving any real data, and after activating the VPN, I accessed the database that Player created to keep track of our progress. The best course of action was to dig in the seemingly innocent documents of many corporations and check out for discrepancies.

"Red, you okay?" A voice asked over my earring slash intercom. I should have remembered that the computer would warn him of any external access.

"Yeah. The pump was empty and woke me up. Now I only have the pen for my doses" I briefly explained.

"Ouch. Should really suck to need an injection all the time" Player said.

"It's not a great deal actually," I countered, "you get used to it after being raised around them. Besides, it helps me to have a balanced diet" I joked.

"Oh, come on, Carmen! Your condition is not something funny! You are missing a lot of delicious food out there!" He protested in a non-serious manner.

"You know what people say, Player. Laughter is the best medicine. It helps to not think about it constantly".

"I was just messing around. Would make me a hypocrite since I always joke about my lack of social skills".

"Then you would be double since right now you are holding a conversation with someone" I taunted him.

"It's... Different, and you know it!" He attempted to defend himself.

"Still, my point stands" I proudly claimed.

On the other side, I could hear a groan of frustration coming from him, so I decided to calm down the situation.

"In all seriousness, thank you for your help last night. I mean it".

"It was nothing really. Barely another show of my minor skills. Still, why are you on the database, Carmen?"

"Just looking for anything I can do while among so many famous people. I'm sure there is something, and I'm looking for any mention of the city on the documents".

"Save yourself the trouble. The word searcher found the city in at least five percent of the documents which mostly correspond to income declarations, and It also found mentions of companies that do not have any clear objective on them."

"Think you could compile all those names? We can later search for any information about suspicious activities reported. If any of them have a physical presence on Las Pegasus I might do some sightseeing".

"Heh. Already searching. And the info out there seems promising. You might see some action very soon".

"Nice" I simply replied, as in that instant my stomach rumbled. Seemed like I was going to make use of the café after all. "I'll be back soon, Player".

Already in front of the counter and with the order done, I took my wallet to take enough bits to pay the meal. I made a stack of coins that I was sure were enough to cover the cost. But then the cashier returned one of the coins.

"Umm, this is not a coin, miss" She told me politely.

I casually inspected the coin to see what was wrong with it, only to realize that it was not a bit.

It was far more important, at least to me.

Its silverish color was dimmed by a layer of rust, but the scene depicted was still legible on it. Under it, the number 1000 was graven at the border, accompanied by another inscription also in the border.¹

Back home it was a rare coin, as only five thousand were created, and while technically one could use it to pay for goods, It was more of a collection item, as they were specifically done to commemorate the 200 years of the start of the process of independence of the country.

The coin on itself had a value of around 30 dollars, and that was a fact; but its history, how it reached my hands...

That has a value beyond comprehension.

"Miss?" She called my attention again.

I excused myself and exchanged the coin with a valid one, and made my way back to the seat.

"Now trying to pay with counterfeit money? You surely are going down a path of darkness..."

"Haha, very funny. I almost lost one of the few things I have from home, Player".

There was silence from his part. At first, I was too hungry to realize that he was not talking, so the meal was gone faster than in other instances.

Still, without realizing his silence, I made my way back to the bedroom and laid down on the bed.

My mind wandered back to the coin, and the awkward moment with the cashier. I mindlessly attempted to roll the coin over my hand, failing miserably due to the fact that it was simply too big for such trick.

"Carmen?" Oh. Was already starting to miss him.

"Yeah?"

"This might sound a bit out of nowhere, but you told me a lot about where you come from, your life before ending here, you know, stuff you used to do and watch. You also told me why you nicknamed me like that, you know, from the show that also happens to have your name."

"Mhm..."

"Is that your actual name?"

I was mute at the question. A lot of memories surged back with the question, of the girl I used to be.

How peaceful it was.

And how it was shattered by one fucker.

"Isabella."

"Umm, what?"

"Isabella Rojas. That's my name." The irony, eh?

"Are you sure this isn't another pun of yours?" He asked in disbelief.

"I still have my ID. I can show it to you if you want." Immediately I took from the wallet a blue plastic card with my face on it, took a photo and redacted the ID number. Finally, I sent it through our private chat.

"I... See..."

"Still, why were you suddenly curious about my real identity?"

"Well, your incident with the coin reminded me of all the things you shared with me about your world, and when I hit the topic of the Show..."

"You did simple math, I guess."

"Right. Why didn't you share your name before?" He asked with some concern in his voice.

"I guess the topic never came, and," I struggled to continue the sentence, "I don't know, sometimes you have something wrong right in front of you and don't realize until much later."

He let out a small chuckle. "Can relate. I can't think of another reason why I never thought of that coincidence."

"Just, I don't want you to think I'm holding information on purpose. My mind can be a beautifully ordered chaos, and when it comes to exposing information, some is lost only to come again when it isn't useful anymore."

"You sure? Do you know what is the source you cite the most when you have those spontaneous ideas at critical moments?"

"YouTube?"

"Yes Red. A freaking video streaming platform. A place so random, yet you manage to retain information of something that most of the people would consider useless."

"Hey!" I protested, "it's not so useless, only, the algorithm of suggestions can be a bit weird... Usually. Besides, don't think I'm the only one who managed to make use of the information out there. There is this guy with a math channel and some pi mascots that helped a lot of people to finally understand calculus-"

"I have heard the term at school, yet I don't know what it means."

"Short version? Mathematical torture about areas of irregular shapes that is rewarding to understand. Understand the math jokes. Still, matrices ended up being more useful."

"Please don't scare me. I still have to tackle it."

We both shared a nervous laugh. "Knowing you, it is likely that you have been using it for a long time without realizing."

"Maybe."

Again silence fell for another moment before I resumed. "You're such a nice person to talk to Player, we end up talking about random things."

"Yes, I think we need to focus on what to do once you get off the train."

"First I need to deal with the pump, and also we have the accommodation problem. Then we can... plan my tour through the city."

"Don't worry about the first things, they are a click away on the web. It can be done in a few minutes. We should focus on the documents for now."

Having planned my next movements, I opened once again the documents for my next hit.

1. 

Author's Note:

Next time there will be action, I promise.

Comments

[Who cares]

I’m pretty sure diabetes doesn’t work that way.

[Hoax1337]

9613492
explain.

[Who cares]

9613533
Diabetes does mean that the body has trouble producing insulin; insulin lowers blood sugar. There is no way in hell she would be in life threatening danger due to lack of insulin in her sleep unless she had downed a LOT of sugar. She would have probably killed herself by injecting a large amount of insulin like that without drastically increasing her blood sugar levels.

[ironwar]

9613726
9613533
Um that I have to disagree. I had a grandpa who was a diabetic and he was born before insulin so was able to tell me and the rest of the family some things insulin helps with. He liked the pump to due to it giving out small duses over a shorter amount of time due to him getting high blood levels qlicly. I remember him having to get a shot a few hours after his last one due to how high it got in the short amount of time. You can't even say its what he ate due to him not ever eating that much

He was near the end when this happened a lot more due to his kidneys shutting down but it happened often before that to. If Carmen uses the pump as often as sounds than her blood levels could rise up as fast meaning her life is in danger of going into a coma in her sleep and later dying from it.

[Who cares]

9613898
She broke out of her statue, escaped the city, biked all the way to the train station, made a mad dash to her train, and went to sleep without eating anything! You need to eat in order to raise your blood sugar level, so unless the atmosphere is part sugar there’s no way her insulin pump didn’t kill her by dropping her blood sugar level dangerously low.

[ironwar]

9613955
from what I saw of grandpa I remember it also going up most of time even when he hasn't eaten but that could just be me mis-remembering stuff from a kid. Also this is mlp I pretty sure sugar has replaced everything in that world. Have you seen how enigma the pony's are. Its ether sugar or meth there on.

[Who cares]

9614144
What do you mean enigma?

[ironwar]

9614200
'energize'

[Who cares]

9614236
That makes more sense. As for your previous post; magic.

[ironwar]

9614250
...... meth. with some of the shit that goes on in that show, meth

[Who cares]

9614272
Fair enough.

[Hoax1337]

9613726

9613898

The thing is, she has a closed loop system, meaning she only has to calibrate and do maintenance when necessary, as the doses are applied automatically. Still, she had a leap on judgment, and it is going to affect her on the next chapter.