//------------------------------// // Shuffle // Story: Tales Of The Canterlot Deportation Agency: Jack // by Estee //------------------------------// The current 'usual place' had only been their usual for ten days: Jack and Victor switched up those locations regularly, desperately trying to give themselves one more potential line of defense. But their nighttime meeting locations did tend to share a subconscious theme, and the uniting idea was conquest. Every place they used was a site where he had won. A reminder. For the most part, they kept it to the economic victories. A single entity controlled just about every aspect of the city -- on the largest scale. (Sometimes that hand directly reached down to the lowest levels, just before it gripped someone's throat.) But that still left room for the things which were only controlled through law and intimidation. There were small businesses and once you factored out the protection costs and occasional bits of 'advice', those who ran them were truly the owners -- for just as long as those businesses remained small. Jack suspected there were even a few things which were left completely alone, if only because setting up zoning permits for lemonade stands would attract the wrong kind of attention. But there were those outside the city who simply didn't understand how things worked. Some of them would try to enter and set up shop. They were just about always permitted to begin. (The major exception, forever blocked on even the smallest attempts, was a science and industry mega-corp run by a bright-eyed bald man with the readiest smile Jack had ever seen. There was a rumor that he was worried about that man, and it had made the CEO into someone Jack dearly wanted to meet.) And once they'd put together the shell of their new building, perhaps even moved in some of the machinery or arranged a few displays, they would discover that somehow, they didn't own it any more. All they retained the rights to was their legs, and only as long as those limbs were quickly used to help them get out. Those who tried to argue the case in controlled courts didn't even keep that much. Most of the security on such fresh acquisitions came from the locals knowing who now held that property: having the vast majority of the true criminals under direct employ took care of the remainder. Some of those half-filled shells didn't even have working security cameras -- while Victor had a device which identified which buildings those were. It gave them places to meet, outside of Victor's home. (Jack usually started those roaming conversations. The other one typically finished them.) The teens had been talking for some time, and nearly all of it had been about a single subject. "So what are you going to do?" Victor's slim back had been planted against a half-painted wall, angled so that only the narrow shoulders made true contact. He was mostly visible as silhouette: they both stayed away from the third-story windows (or the places where windows would eventually go), and the dirty light which streamed in didn't quite reach him. "I don't know," Jack quietly said, long legs folded up on the floor, his right hand covering the matching eye. He'd been in that pose for some time: someone fighting off a headache which didn't exist. Not as physical pain. "I mean -- I'm fired..." Which triggered a small, soft laugh. "Fired. I never had a paying job in my life until she hired me and now I'm fired." "Collecting unemployment's going to be hard," Victor quietly said. "No paperwork. Plus technically, you were working part-time." That brought a quick smile to Jack's face, just as small as the accompanying laugh. His hand slowly lowered, with the palm eventually planted against the plain wood floor. "Yeah... Vic, I know she's scared for me. But when I stop, the incursions won't. It's not like the movies, where there's only one copy of the build plans and no one ever makes backups. It takes out one transfer point and a few weeks later, there's another. I don't even know why we're only getting one operation at a time to begin with..." "I've got some theories," his friend admitted, and Jack looked directly at him. "But nothing worth talking about yet. Keep going, Jack." He did. "I stop, and -- he keeps bringing ponies over to our side. What if I can't find someone who'll take the job? How many ponies die while I'm looking? What if the new guy isn't any good at it? And who even makes the approach? Do I take that risk? Does it?" In rueful understatement, "Because it kind of has trouble with introductions. A lot of trouble." Victor softly sighed. "And it would sound crazy." A little more quickly, "Telling someone about Equestria, I mean. That sounds crazy." And at a standard, somewhat wry pace, "On the other hand, providing proof is just about the easiest thing there is." Jack nodded. Anything living which stayed within the deep blue cloud for the full duration (plus whatever they were wearing, carrying, or holding) would go to Equestria -- whether it wanted to or not. Race out of the borders even a second early and transport wouldn't occur: be held within until the timer ran out and greet a new Sun. The chemicals would sound insane if they tried to tell someone about the other world (although admittedly, having it sound insane was pretty much the default state). But proof was simple -- as long as you choose the right person to see that proof. He had to try and choose his own successor. What if he put his trust in the wrong person? And he had his friends, it was sort of possible that one of them could try to do it, but he was already asking them to take so many risks... "Fired," he wearily repeated, now staring at the floor. "By the Princess. Son of a bitch." "Filly of a dam," Victor countered, and Jack glanced up at him. "Equine mother. They don't use that word?" "I haven't exactly gotten to listen in one of their language classes. I don't even understand how the translation effect works to start with." Magic was a lot of things, and all of them were completely incomprehensible. The thinner male adjusted his position a little. "Do you think..." A long pause, and fingers wove through the air, their owner trying to pick out words which would encompass the scale of what he needed to say. And he failed, because words for that scale didn't exist. "...do you think the Princess would be doing this to you if they hadn't just -- lost that world?" Jack closed his eyes. He'd asked to see her. The Princess had told him that she was still unconscious, might remain so for some time. But he'd still asked if he could see her before he left. There was a certain degree of solidarity between agents, during those rare times when they got to meet. Victor and his friends were with him in the fight (although nowhere near the front lines, by Jack's choice, and the chemicals had readily agreed), but -- the other agents were the people who truly understood. (Jack couldn't even get Victor to go into Equestria with him, not even long enough for a single glimpse. All Vic had ever said on the subject was that from a scientific standpoint, knowing the place was real was bad enough. He didn't have to look at it. He'd had a hard enough day with the one time when the transport chemical vials got smashed up during a really bad fight and Jack had wound up smuggling the frightened pegasus into Victor's house. (In retrospect, the bathroom had been a really bad choice of emergency hiding place.)) Luna had teleported him down to the secret layers which lurked beneath the Agency's headquarters. The hospital (or the four rooms which passed for such), filled with improvised equipment added to the scattershot medical wealth of so many worlds. And there she had been, in the bed, half-propped on carefully arranged pillows. He'd never seen that particular agent before, not even as a body going by in the hidden halls. (He had no current way of knowing if it ever had.) He would have remembered. A figure that repulsive stuck out, particularly along the upper torso. She was... everything he didn't want in a girl. ('Girl' seemed fair: she only looked a little older than him.) She was far too tall, limbs more muscular than he wanted to see in a female, and her breasts had the mass for the mammaries of everyone he'd ever gone out with combined, plus some extra. Her hair didn't go with her skin, her skin didn't go with her height, and overall, she was someone his pre-championship self would have briefly considered tripping in the school corridors just to see which part of her anatomy hit first. (Not that he would have done it, because he'd never attacked girls. But when one of the female students inevitably went for it, he would have watched. And laughed.) To him, her body was repulsive. Her face, in normal sleep, might have almost been something close to beautiful. But it couldn't be, for all the pain of the waking world remained with her in false repose. Features twisted, the left arm abruptly jerked out as if trying to fend something off. She'd already kicked the blankets away from her legs, and he looked at the bandages which covered both limbs from ankle to thigh. She was nothing he would ever want to be with. She was nothing he ever wanted to be. She was... everything he was afraid of. Everything which could happen. She was the worst-case scenario and she was -- still there. She'd lived. Jack understood about being the one who had lived. He'd watched his new sister as she failed to fight her pain. And with only a silent Luna as witness, he'd let himself cry. "I think so," he said as he let himself look at the world again. "I think it's been building up for a while, Vic. The name thing --" and stopped. "Has it asked you? Or talked to you about that?" A slow head shake. "No. We usually discuss other things, especially if it's trying out equipment. It's curious about how things work. More than you, some days. It asks more, it jokes more, it... talks. I think it just likes having someone it can talk to." He sighed. "And it's not a topic I want to bring up. The Princess... I know you're worried, Jack. But so am I. About a lot of things. I'm not sure she's got her priorities straight this time. But she's not completely wrong. All the things she said about destiny is -- pony stuff. It doesn't hold, not here. But -- naming's a big deal in science. Naming something, especially when you've made a discovery, sort of -- finishes it off. If it latches onto a name, with the way it thinks..." The slightly shorter male glanced at the open window frame. They both listened to the sound of police sirens. Being able to freely run through red lights when you were on the way to pick up bribes was presumably a good thing. "But it doesn't know what happened," Victor went on. "It shouldn't know about the name thing being her motivation. But for being fired..." And his friend took a deep breath, then tried to take some of the burden. "I'll tell it. If you want me to." Jack slowly shook his head. "No. I'll let it know. It should hear this from me." He took a slow breath, felt the air saturating his lungs. His lungs, for just a little while longer. There had been times when he'd had to perform the entire operation in a hurry, and with necessity pushing him, he'd done just that. But when there was time... His hand came up to the metal square of his belt buckle and through his index finger, the natural electrostatic charge of the human body (his charge: Victor had made sure the buckle would work for no other) was pressed against a hidden trigger. The front panel dropped open, and a hyper-compressed roll of something more than plastic dropped into his palm. There was also a tiny vial. The contents were swirling green which refused to select a state of matter, never quite settling into liquid or gas -- for as long as they were within the vial. Expose them to air, and the issue would be settled quickly enough. The plastic was unfolding, expanding into something the size of a human face. On the side which pointed away from him, frozen features were unfurling. He wasn't looking at them, and hardly ever did. His view was of a panel which would go over the eyes, only clear from his viewpoint, along with filters which would press against nose and mouth. There was time. And so he hesitated. Even on the first night... His left hand pressed the hybrid plastic against his face. His right crushed the vial. Jack's last view through his own eyes was of Victor backing away, getting clear of the green cloud's borders. Staying safe, even as his friend turned that blue gaze away. Transition began. From the outside, it can look just about instantaneous. They'd both seen that, for Victor had recorded the process on video -- once. The chemicals had watched the results with bemused curiosity, as it had never been in a position to witness its own recurring birth before. (It did openly declare the viewing experience lacked something for not being a record of the original.) Jack had watched later, and then the boys had silently erased everything. It hadn't just been for security, although that had been the open excuse. It was simply something they didn't want to watch again. From the outside, chemicals contact skin and pink loses all hue, goes to white. The effect rushes along that outer layer of fully ineffective biological armor, even as the colors of the fabric start to shift. Entire limbs bleach, just about all at once. Hair goes through a different kind of color change, which includes one to the texture. Posture warps: the chemicals have a different way of standing, something which makes it a little taller than Jack and leaves his back sore for a few hours after the loan is repaid. (It's sorry about that, but the situation is something it can't help.) And then the side effects kick in, including the one which is the existence of that other. From the outside, it's a few heartbeats. But on the inside, everything is still shifting. Balances aren't quite any more, and the new levels haven't found themselves. Neurons are trying to fire two sets of messages at once. In transition (and only then), there are two. Transition creates a period of time where Jack and the chemicals communicate directly, each taking their part of the stage within the theater of the mind. In transition, there are arguments and agreements, plans made and dashed, information passed along. There have been times when they've risked leaving videos for each other on a phone, but such messages only go one way, and no permanent record can ever be kept. Transition allows them to talk. Transition lasts eighty-four seconds. "Fired," the chemicals declared in open outrage, and that frustration vibrated the phantom proscenium arch of the invisible theater. (In the not-as-true world, the chemicals stretched out borrowed joints, checked to see how the wrist was healing and then stood up, happy to see a friend waiting for it.) "Fired?" "I don't like it any more than you do," Jack quickly continued, "but when the Princess decides --" "-- fired," it cut him off, now muttering the word. "One would think it would have been frozen. Aren't we doing a good job, Jack? Aren't we bringing them home?" "Yes, but --" "Why would she fire us? What did we do wrong? Was it bringing that one criminal to her direct attention, not to mention her cells? After what he tried to do -- it was better than what he deserved, you know that. But we did it anyway, because we don't kill, and to let him go into tissue paper and cardboard, laughing at his free premium streaming exclusives while he waited to be brought back out..." Jack didn't have an answer. Not one he could give. "And what happens without us?" Its inner hands were gripping intangible stage curtains, wringing the fabric. "How many of those little ponies wind up in the dump?" And for that question, Jack had no answer he wanted to give. "What did we do?" the chemicals half-whispered. "What did I do? You have to tell me, Jack. Someone has to tell me, because..." It hunched forward. The white face, whose features could only fully express themselves here, traded the only expression it truly knew for a different one. The misery was pressed into the imaginary curtains, and untouchable tears soaked the unreal. "...I don't understand..." Jack was -- closer. He hadn't walked across the distance, because there truly wasn't any. The stage, for the short times of its existence, was what they made it. He was simply closer, directly behind it, his right arm was coming up and -- -- guys didn't hug. Didn't really touch. So he didn't. He simply stayed where he was and watched, for it seemed as if there was nothing else he could do. Nothing he understood. "Bodies in the dump," the chemicals whispered. (In the outer world, it was smiling, for it had no real choice in the matter. It was approaching its friend with long strides and asking what was new, because that was what friends did.) "You remember the dump." Jack did. They both remembered the dump. For one, it was the first memory.