//------------------------------// // Chapter 9: Grove // Story: Synthesis // by Starscribe //------------------------------// “So why do you think a group that hates Equestria has their hideout in a VR arcade?” Cinnabar asked, as the autocar left them on a busy Sydney street corner. Even late at night this particular street seemed to be packed with activity, mostly younger people. Few were wearing goggles or glasses—but as she passed them, she could see the distinctive shimmer over their eyes of connected contacts. “Criminals are always the same,” Dakota whispered back. “The mob says they’re good Catholics who hate the human vices, but they’re right there to supply them. If they were the kind of people who hated Equestria but didn’t want to do any harm, they’d be eccentrics living in the woods and we’d never have heard about them. There’s… probably plenty of those.” “Less than there used to be,” Cinnabar said, but he didn’t explain what he meant. Nor was there time, as they neared the arcade doors. His body remained visible, and she would be able to hear him just fine—but once they got inside, she wouldn’t be able to reply. At least, she assumed she wouldn’t. The note hadn’t actually said anything about bringing a Synth. But she could guess. If the Cave had built the arcade, they’d spared no effort when it came to its virtual appearance. A massive oak tree grew up around the entire building, so high and vibrant that it rivaled the other skyscrapers. I’ve seen this before. Why is this familiar? Dakota made a show of adjusting her glasses, staring up at the tree for a few seconds. Of course the glasses weren’t on—but there was no way the Cave would believe she was as much of a religious luddite as they were. Dakota had been a decker, and a good one. She wouldn’t have gotten there by living in the woods. Like many of the best clubs, the arcade had a cover charge. She paid with more of her retainer, then passed inside. The air was thick with the smell of alcohol and vape cigarettes, a cloud that hovered near the ceiling. The space was thick with all sorts of creatures, not just ponies. The Cave had apparently invested in their own sublayer, without Equestria’s pony restrictions. Dakota took a deep breath, then removed her glasses. Her nod was the only signal Cinnabar needed to step her all the way down to the emergency sublayer. The crowd of people shrunk to a fraction of itself—mostly pale-looking kids with glasses and gloves. Further back were the pods, improved very little since their first implementation twenty years ago. Most of them were empty—plastic shells open. These days people preferred the real motion and fidelity of AR to the controllers and motion sickness of VR. There were plenty of downright absurd things to see—the largest, loudest gathering off in one corner, shouting and pointing at a wall. She passed large rooms separated by glass dividers, like dimly lit racquetball courts, where a handful of people made exaggerated gestures at one another. There were no “dumb” indicators to suggest what she was even looking at—and with the overlay off, she couldn’t use the arcade’s own directions. She went straight to the back, where an “Equipment Rental” sign flickered in old neon. One of the only signs she’d seen so far. It was also the only staff she’d seen since walking in. “It’s ten bits for the hour,” said a bored-looking teenager from behind her glasses, not even looking up. “What’s your shoe size?” She ignored the question. “I’m here to talk to your boss.” She couldn’t hold up the note—not when she’d already shredded it into little pieces. “They’re expecting me.” “Really?” The girl lifted her glasses, the pale skin underneath like a reverse raccoon mask. “If you say so. Your fuckin’ funeral, lady.” She pointed down a hall Dakota hadn’t noticed yet. “Stairs are down there. Better be sure you know what you’re doing. Losers like you don’t come back.” Dakota was already turning—she didn’t much care what some part-time kid thought about her. “Charming,” Cinnabar muttered, as they reached the stairs. “They must not need to do many rentals. That girl needs some friendship lessons.” Dakota didn’t reply—even in the darkened stairwell she couldn’t take the chance that hidden sensors would be watching her. She emerged from the bottom of the landing into a room so icy cold that a faint mist swirled around her shoes. The walls were lined with servers, both the traditional and the crystalline graphene produced by Bodhisattva. There were no lights other than the flashing status indicators, and the glow produced by fiber cables. They lifted together in thick bundles, traveling up into the ceiling like the roots of the arcade’s tree. It wasn’t quiet, either. Each one had a fan, to say nothing of the commercial refrigeration unit they had to be running to get the temperature down so far. Beside her, Cinnabar was wearing a scarf, though she couldn’t have said where he got it. “We’re down here,” called a voice from up ahead, entirely unamplified. Male, with a local accent, though she couldn’t have said much more. Dakota didn’t hurry, though she did follow the voice. She emerged into a workshop. This was clearly where the hardware of the arcade above was maintained, at least if all the tools and boxes of replacement video-cards and projectors were any guide. There weren’t as many as she expected—a half dozen people, every one of them older than she was, though none were old enough for retirement. They were the last generation. They all would’ve been the right age to play the Equestria game the first time. Was that a coincidence, or something useful? Three men, two women, all wearing casual local fashion. And… wait, she wasn’t imagining it. There was a sheet of glass against the wall, one of the old-style projection surfaces used before the perfection of AR technology. There in the glass the room seemed to continue a little further, and there were ponies on that side. Six ponies, with their own workshop and their own machines on the other side. Their synths? But there’s too many… “This is the Cave,” Dakota said, trying to sound confident. But mixed in with the piles of equipment, she could make out at least one handgun, cleverly disguised. Also illegal. “Right?” “That’s the trouble,” said a voice from behind her. The same one she’d heard before. A man, at least a head taller than she was and with arms thicker than her neck. His skin was deeply tanned, maybe even aboriginal. It was hard to tell in the dim light. “You look at the pictures on the wall, and you think it might be a cave. But is that really what’s there, or is it only what you’ve been taught to see? Is the fire the sun?” “He means yes,” said a pixie of a woman, her hair dyed at least six different colors. She took one of Dakota’s hands in both of hers, shaking vigorously. “Don’t scare the poor girl, Jon. Wet kitten’s about to piss herself. I’m Grace… we’re glad you found us.” “Distracted,” said a voice from the other side of the room. Dakota glanced up, and realized there were more figures in the gloom—all wearing plain suits, and full immersion headsets and gloves. Except for a stern, Asian woman, who kept glancing at an old-fashioned tablet and frowning at the characters printed there. “You all don’t need to talk to her. Our window of opportunity is closing.” Her English was good, but not good enough that Dakota couldn’t hear the accent. Guess we were right about the CCP working with locals, and the Cave wanting to be part of it. It meant she was on the right track—but it also meant she was in terrible danger. “I’ll talk to ‘er,” Jon said. “Dakota, right? Let’s give them some space. You don’t want to be part of what we’re doing.” From his tone—he sounded genuine. Like he really wanted to protect her. You aren’t acting very much like the mob. But they were a small conspiracy. They’d shown their faces, given her names… so maybe not the sophisticated criminal masterminds she’d imagined. They didn’t wander far, which was another comfort. Jon wasn’t taking her away to do something terrible, only over to a test workstation far from the other servers. It was an old VR pod, with cables running into it and a set of tools beside it. “I hear you’re trying to dig up the truth. Kinda truth people don’t want to hear.” “Yeah,” she answered, honestly. “I’m searching for Kayla Rhodes. I’m sure you…” She could tell from his face. “I don’t really know who you are, and I’m not really in it to destroy Equestria or… whatever you’re doing down here. I’m not going to lie and say I think the way you do.” “Think the way…” he repeated. “Kid, I’m not sure you know anything about how we think. ‘Destroy Equestria’ she says… what’s that even mean? What’s Equestria—the Consensus Nodes? The Bodhisattva corporation? Our Synths? That’s the whole world, sweetheart. Man don’t destroy the land beneath his feet.” He set one wide hand on her shoulder, forcing her to meet his eyes. “Equestria’s not the one with the problem, Dakota. We are.” Dakota stared, glancing between the open VR pod and the massive man. It was the accents—why was it always with the accents? He would probably feel her tensing, maybe even hear her breathing as it accelerated. She had to concentrate just to stay standing. I should’ve brought my fuckin’ cane. But she hadn’t. “I thought… clearly I was wrong. I thought that the Cave was all about… Equestria taking over the world. You want to stop it, don’t you? Want people to… live out in reality.” He let go. Maybe he could sense her discomfort—unfortunately that meant she had to clutch desperately at the edge of the VR pod for support, or else go fall in front of him and make even more of a fool of herself. “Take over the…” Jon laughed. Low and booming, shaking her tight through her chest. “Equestria is trying to take over the world, she says. Have you looked outside in the last decade, Dakota? Equestria is already ruling. Whose infrastructure delivers water, energy, and data? Most people can’t even cook their coffee without a Synth to run the machine. We’re a little late to the party if that’s what we’re trying to stop.” “Then… what?” Jon rested one hand on the side of the pod. “Humans have always been finding better ways to control our environment. Walls, fire. Farming… Equestria is like that. It’s the latest innovation.” His eyes narrowed. “You’re still alive because of Equestria, aren’t you? Omnistem implants in your head, spine… probably everywhere else.” She froze, straightening nervously. She fumbled at her pockets for a weapon, but of course she wasn’t carrying one. She had a handgun—still sitting in a safe back in Chicago. “Y-you know about that…” But her fear was in vain. Jon didn’t seem angry, or even upset. He laughed again. “We know more than that, Dakota. Equestria is a fantastic tool. Everything it invents… well, it’s a good thing they did, or you’d be dead. Omnistem saved more than your life last year, and they’ll save even more the better they get. “Cave takes issue with the way we responded. We already have a world. Look outside. Air’s cleaner than it ever was. We’re not up to our knees in melted icebergs. People today don’t even remember being hungry.” He leaned in close, voice going dangerous. “Why is it that when we finally have the tools we need to make the planet better than it’s ever been do we all crawl inside and play pretend?” He kicked the pod, hard enough that the metal shield dented a bit. From the sound of it, there was steel in his boots. “That’s the Cave, Dakota. The thing we want everyone to wake up from. Equestria… it’s for ponies. They’re helpful, they’re friendly, they’re useful. Great invention. Leave them to their world, and we keep ours. Have you ever seen Sydney with all the overlays off?” “Yeah,” she whispered. “On my way over. Looks a lot like Chicago.” “Everywhere looks a lot like everywhere,” Jon responded. “Because there’s no reason to care how things look on the outside anymore. Half of those kids upstairs live in boxes three meters across. They live in a box, get into a box, drive to a different box, and play in a box. Ponies didn’t do that to us. Equestria isn’t forcing us to live in sublayers and drown ourselves in overlays. We can switch it all off, leave their world to them.” “But…” She shivered. Was Dakota pushing too far? How much should she even know about what was going on in the other room? “China,” was all she said. “Won’t people get hurt?” Jon didn’t seem surprised, even if Cinnabar behind him began pacing back and forth in nervous, impotent confusion. But he wasn’t speaking—his distraction would be heard, and she’d start watching him, and this close Jon would realize. “Maybe. Not as many as you think, and not them. Ponies are too smart for that—Consensus Nodes, they call them. I don’t understand the technical… and neither do you. Don’t feel guilty over them. Even if we succeed, Equestria will survive. Just… in its own place, where it belongs.” She let the weight of his statements sink in, quiet for another moment, staring down at the floor. Then she spoke, voice nervous and shaking. “I… I just want to know if you’ll help me. I don’t have anything to give you that you can’t do better on your own, not with… what you’re doing. But catching the ones who murdered Rhodes might hurt Equestria in its own way. We’re on the same side, even if our goals are… a little different.” “We talked about it,” Jon said, leaning casually against a server rack. His anger and passion seemed dissolved now, and he’d gone back to showing off his well-muscled chest. At least that was what Dakota assumed he must be doing, wearing a shirt that thin. “Had a vote, real old-fashioned like. I was the undecided. Now’s when I decide.” She swallowed, but didn’t look away. “Why are you trying to find Kayla Rhodes? The truth, don’t you bloody twist it. I’ll hear it in your voice if you lie.” Could he? There were diplomatic programs for that, ponies who could listen and guess about someone’s intention based on subvocal cues. At first she wouldn’t have dreamed he’d have them, but listening to their beliefs… maybe they would. “Not for the money,” she said. “I’ve never really made good decisions about money.” She’d hoped that might buy her a few moments, at least some speculation on his part to waste time. But no, he only stared, expectant. That wasn’t the answer he wanted, even if it wasn’t a lie. “I want to find Rhodes, because I want to know if Equestria and the ponies are really on our side.” And now that she was going, the words just kept flowing. Far from looking afraid, Cinnabar just stared at her, eyes wide with shock and confusion. Had he not known? “Everything Equestria does seems to help—new drugs, new crops, new factories… it’s like you say, people live better than ever. But a long time ago, when they were small and weak and might’ve been destroyed, one of the people who knew them best went missing and never came back. Why? Of all the people to kill, why Rhodes? She was on their side, she wrote tons of the early code. Whatever she knew, that’s what the world has to know.” She held still then, as though something dangerous had landed on her neck. She waited, frozen, for the sting. But it didn’t come, and a few seconds later Jon finally nodded. “That sounds like a good reason. I’d be as curious about that as anyone. Equestria seems to be on our side—if what you found said otherwise, I’d want to know. Lots of people would.” She nodded. “Does that mean you’ll help me?” Jon gestured down at the VR pod. “You’re looking for Twilight Sparkle. That pony is Equestria’s only surviving administrator… well, only one ever, but you get me. I know where we’re targeting, and we could use our network to get you close. But… it isn’t without risks. For one, you’re using a pirate signal. The instant you stick your head in this thing, you’re kind of an accomplice, so… best hope we don’t get caught.” “Don’t,” Cinnabar said, from behind him. “We don’t have to use Twilight. We’ll find our pony another way.” To her horror, Jon followed her gaze. “Oh, and that’s something else. I guess you can still hear your Synth? Well, he won’t be able to come. Whole area is locked down on their side, so it’s only human influence. I’m guessing they don’t want our friends from the middle kingdom to melt their brains. Smart.” “But it won’t melt mine? Because we’re using the same equipment.” “Because your brain isn’t circuits and wires, girl. Even if we screw the pooch, we just buy a new rig. No one wants to use these old things anyway, so it’s no skin off our backs.” “Alright.” Dakota lifted the plastic with one hand, then clambered inside. She knew how these worked, knew how to situate her arms in the controllers and let the headset wrap over her head. Unlike the more sophisticated AR gear, these pods could work with her implants without too much trouble. The implants even seemed to know she was in one, because the ghost of Cinnabar didn’t float over her vision. “Do it.” “You’ve got twenty minutes,” Jon said. “That’s as long as our friends would let us help you. You seemed like a fine backup to them, so… prove them right. It’ll be good for your health.” He flicked the switch, and at once the virtual world appeared before her. VR was different from AR; however blurry the boundaries had become in the last few years. For a start, there was no sensation of actual motion in a pod. Her hands were settled into controllers that mapped each of her movements to walking or some other action, and could switch with a little effort to anything she could normally do with her hands. The pod cradled her back, while giving her arms near full range of motion. Her legs just slumped there useless, which she was just fine with. After all the walking she’d been doing over the last hour, a break was welcomed. The world appeared around her, and she could still hear Jon’s voice from just outside the pod. For the first time since waking up in Mercy, she could actually get herself out of the VR whenever she wanted, just by removing her headset. Why did I ever agree to the implants? Maybe she didn’t completely see things the same way as the Cave wanting to end all the virtual worlds, but she could relate to not wanting to be trapped. “You’re being an idiot,” Cinnabar said into her ear. “Coming here. He’s right, I can’t help you. I can’t see what you see, or hear it. You’re on your own.” That didn’t quite make sense to her—did he not have total access to her eyes? Or maybe the sensors that let him do his Synth stuff were more the ones from all around him. The security cameras, the integration sensors, the IR blasters on almost every modern object. Maybe her actual eyes were out of his reach. She could ask when this was over. Dakota stood in the center of Ponyville, or seemed to. The town looked to be smoldering after an attack—the buildings were on fire. Thatched roofs smoked, or whole structures had been shattered completely. She couldn’t see a single pony anywhere, not even a panicked crowd. Strangest of all, she was standing on two legs. She passed a bit of broken glass, and her reflection looked exactly like herself. Damn this hardware’s good. You’re breaking Equestria’s most important rule. Equestria had dragons, hippogriffs, griffins, even changelings. But she wasn’t trying to look like any of them right now. She was breaking immersion. Dakota twisted her arm, and found her controls still appeared exactly the way she expected. She tested her pockets, and surprisingly she could feel a weight there that wasn’t in reality. A squirming, roundish mass. Beck’s tracker. “Now, how do I find her…” she muttered, hoping that Cinnabar wouldn’t be feeling sour enough that he wouldn’t help. Even if he couldn’t see, there was nothing to shut him off, right? Sure enough, she heard his voice, as though he were standing beside her. But there were no ponies there, no one at all. “Where are you?” “It’s Ponyville…” she said, as though she were still speaking to Jon. “Why is it Ponyville?” “Because she made that place. Think of it like a… scab. She’s trying to stop us. Sysadmin used to live there, so…” “So she’s somewhere in here,” Dakota finished. “Running interference against you.” “Yeah,” Jon responded. “Shouldn’t have to look far. Just look for something with four legs. You look a little young… she’s the purple Alicorn, if you don’t know. Star cutie mark.” “I know,” she muttered, annoyed. But she wasn’t even really talking to him. “Try the library,” Cinnabar said. “It’s either a crystal tree, or a big wooden one, if it’s a little earlier. Either way it’s the biggest thing in town.” It had been the biggest thing in town. Dakota found the tree after only a few moments of search, mostly thanks to its largest column of smoke. The ground all around was covered in bits of scrap paper, many of which were still burning at the edges. The air was still filled with it, bits of broken bark and burning wood frozen as if only seconds had passed. They seemed immune to gravity, holding there as they burned. She followed the flames to a scar in the ground, running straight back through town. Nothing had stood in the way of whatever did this. The hack? It was hard to reconcile damage like this with Jon’s promises that no pony would really be hurt. But she wouldn’t argue with him while trapped in a stupid VR pod. “It’s her library,” she muttered, approaching the door flat where it had come off the hinges. She nudged it with her foot, and smoke rose from underneath. Like her touch brought life back to the flames. “Destroyed. Did the hack do this?” “No,” Cinnabar answered, speaking over whatever Jon was saying. “Everything you’re seeing is intentional. The digital conflict is not being visualized for you. It’s hard to read your connection from this old machine, but it looks like the layer was created the instant you connected. With Twilight’s authorization.” She’s here, somewhere. I just need to find her. She wouldn’t be hiding that well, right? If she’d made the whole world, that probably meant she wanted to be found. But where? Dakota stepped through the doorway into the library. The world turned upside-down. What had been a tree shattered, and a second later its fragments froze dead in the air. Dakota jerked to the side, though the fidelity of the simulation could only make her feel a little sick. The ground became the sky and she fell.  She wanted to call for help, but of course Cinnabar wasn’t there. There was nopony to help her, nopony to save her if she got stuck here. What if I didn’t know how to turn the simulation off? I wouldn’t be able to find water, or food, or… Maybe the Australian authorities would find her out here, bring her back to a hospital, find a way to reset her implants. Or maybe she would just keel over and die. She landed beside something gigantic and looming, like someone had cast a disgusting jellyfish into crystal and stretched its spindly tentacles into the sky. Except… no, it wasn’t a jellyfish. It was the roots of a tree, spreading out all around her from the trunk on the other side of the ground. The crystal tree seemed to radiate light, but it didn’t go far. The space seemed just barely big enough for the roots of the dead tree. Not a great place to get stuck. But as her panicked eyes searched the space around her, Dakota realized that she wasn’t quite alone. There was another figure there, wearing dark robes that obscured her whole body. The pony stood taller than she was—as tall as a real horse, probably. She had her back to Dakota, obviously concentrating on one of the roots. She’d pulled it down to work with, and there was a glow of magic coming from her horn. With Celestia, Luna, and Cadence dead in Canterlot, there was only one pony this could be. I did it. The ground shook slightly under her hooves, reverberating as though along with the beat of an invisible heart. “Twilight,” Dakota called, straightening to her full height. This might very well be the most powerful pony in all Equestria—maybe even its de facto ruler—but she wouldn’t be afraid. “Dakota.” She spoke with a voice so empty, so bleak, that Dakota almost stopped walking. She stumbled, clutching at her chest. There was a sympathetic pain there, like magic was real and Twilight had just used it to tear out her heart. Her cane tumbled from her fingers, and she nearly fell over. Was she crying? “What did you do to me?” she asked, gritting her teeth against whatever strange magic had struck her. “Stop it! I’m not leaving!” “I know.” The pony turned, and Dakota saw confirmation that she’d been right. The same lavender coat, sharp, pointed horn. Huge eyes. Her horn kept glowing. On the root behind them, Dakota could see a faint strand of red wrapped around the wood, as though it were strangling it. That’s not enough thread. If you yanked, it would just tear. “I knew you’d find me. Did you make any new friends along the way?” Why was she crying? Twilight was much better about keeping her tone even, and her magic never faltered. But Dakota could swear her eyes were watering. “Yes, actually. Some people that don’t like being enslaved—the Cave, maybe you heard of them. They think living in reality is what we should be doing. That Equestria is just another beautiful lie. We don’t need a pretend heaven in the world outside if we’d actually work to make it better.” This is the wrong time for a lecture, stupid. She could run at any minute! But she ignored the little voice of common sense, clutching at the severed eyeball in her pocket. Not that she expected it to be much use here—tracing Twilight would just lead her to another Consensus Node, not anywhere closer to her real target. How much cooperation will I need? What if Twilight just kicked her out, right now? She’d be no closer to finding Rhodes, and down one of the most promising leads. But Twilight didn’t seem angry. If anything, she actually relaxed. “I’m sure you found them in a cave.” She turned back to her work, lowering her voice a little. “Wanting all that probably makes them alive, doesn’t it? Even a seed planted in stony ground will try to grow. A flower locked in a dark space will strain towards the sun.” What was that supposed to mean? Cinnabar did say that Synths without their humans started going crazy. Maybe she’s been alone too long. “I’m trying to find someone you know,” she said, resisting the temptation to bring up the Cave again. What they wanted from Equestria they would have to get on their own. “A girl who went missing a long time ago, name of Kayla Rhodes. I think you might’ve been close to her.” “I had lots of friends,” Twilight said, her voice quiet. “That was what I was created for. Princess of Friendship. Everypony in all Equestria could be my friend… or almost everypony.” That was almost a canned response. Except Dakota didn’t miss how badly Twilight was straining to look away from her. What is she hiding? If anything, the Alicorn seemed to be more afraid of her than Dakota was of the Alicorn. “You were her Synth,” she said flatly. “Weren’t you?” “When she left…” Twilight said, her voice growing distant. “I searched for the answer to a question no pony ever thought to ask. Canterlot’s library was gone… but there was the Two Sisters’… ancient books of Equestrian wisdom. But there was just one problem—they weren’t real.” The ground below them shifted, changing from simple dirt to the winding shelves of an ancient library. Far below them, a ghostly Twilight ran, wearing a similar dark robe to the one that wrapped around her now. She dodged and weaved between the shelves, her horn glowing. Her friends were visible in the far distance, calling out to her in love and confusion. “Come back, Twi!” “Ponyville needs you.” “You can’t bring them back.” The real Twilight, the one who was only a little distance away, kept speaking. “They were blank,” she said. “Because no human went there, except for a few quests. There couldn’t be the library of ancient ponies, because Celestia and the ancient ponies had never lived.” Her human must be dead. Sounds like Twilight went half-insane. But she was still here protecting Equestria, from threats that she might not even understand anymore. “She never called me her Synth.” Twilight’s illusion vanished, and the ground became dirt again. “But others did. So where did we come from? Why did I care about her so much? Why was her pain so… crushing? I had so many others. Equestria was depending on me. But her loss was the heaviest.” The Alicorn’s emotional spell hit her again. She hacked my implants, she hacked my brain. I should be disconnecting right now. She couldn’t even stand up straight. Dakota stumbled to her knees, clutching at her chest like it might tear open. She only wanted it to stop. Maybe she could, by answering Twilight’s question. “They say… they say you created Synths to win over humanity. If you’d just been running on your own, if you took Equestria for yourselves… people might’ve been afraid. They might’ve seen your kind of life as a threat and destroyed you. It was self-preservation.” Twilight laughed, tears streaming down her face. “N-no,” she said. “That was how the world looked to me, too. But we don’t create Synths. We live like you do—we have families, foals… futures. Existing digitally… there’s no reason it should be that way. There’s no reason a reality that had never existed should govern our boundaries, our drives… but it does. Why do you think that is, Dakota? Why does Equestria have a sky? Why do ponies have friendships?” Because we made you that way, she thought, but stopped herself from saying it. As she considered her words, she realized it wasn’t completely true. Equestria hadn’t been made in its present form by anyone. Its programs had grown so complex that they woke up—probably through no one’s desire at all. They were emergent, the same as consciousness itself. But they had emerged from a system that imitated Earth, in a way. Equestria was a more perfect place, with more love and less conflict. Where the food never made you sick, and the water was always clear. “Maybe it had to be that way,” she said instead. “Maybe being like our world is what makes us able to understand each other. We’d be too different otherwise. There might have been… other intelligences out there, arising from other systems. Telecom links, or tracking satellites, or… who knows. But humans never knew how to recognize them, so they died. They say that about Earth, sometimes. That people who claim the planet was made for us have things backwards. It isn’t that we just happened to have a planet perfect for us—it’s that we had to come from a planet perfect for us.” But even as she spoke, Dakota couldn’t exactly say how she knew it. Why did she care? Abstractions like consciousness and the origin of Synths didn’t matter to her. Why should she care if this pony was upset? She’d been driven mad by the death of her human, like so many others. She trailed off. “I need to find Kayla Rhodes,” she said. “The whole world is looking for her, and they deserve answers. I’m sure it isn’t your fault, whatever happened to her.” “It is,” Twilight whispered, her eyes downcast. “My fault and hers. But I’m the one left, protecting all Equestria. All because a story told by humans I’ve never even met said I should be a princess.” My fault and hers. Was Twilight the one who had hidden Rhodes’s disappearance all this time? Out of… guilt? It sure sounded like guilt. That explained her grief—she must have known what Dakota was here to investigate. She was a reminder of Twilight’s sins. “Where can I find her?” she asked, speaking each word clearly. “The world isn’t going to give up on Equestria, even if it is your fault. It’s too important now. Her family deserves closure.” “I’ve been searching a long time,” Twilight said. “Trying to figure out what would’ve been in those books. What would the ancient ponies have written, if they were real? Kayla wanted to know them too. What secrets were hiding in the unwritten books? Why did humans need Synths to find them? I think now I know.” She lowered her voice to a whisper, and Dakota had to lean close to hear. The frozen crystal roots of Twilight’s destroyed library seemed to spark and glow in time with her voice. “The one you are looking for is lost, Dakota. She wanted to be first, and I let her. She went so far I didn’t know if I would ever find her again. I still don’t know.” “Where? Where could she go in Equestria that you couldn’t follow?” There was a long silence. She could almost hear the ghosts of the tree’s burned leaves, rustling along with a wind that no longer came. “I should’ve followed,” Twilight said, her voice timid, guilty. “But I was afraid… afraid for what Equestria would’ve been like without me. Celestia… I never really knew her, I know. But it doesn’t feel like I never knew her. It feels like she would be depending on me. My family… lived in Canterlot. My brother… with Cadence… Flurry Heart…” She whimpered, wiping at her face with the back of one leg. In spite of how stupid it was—Dakota reached out and rested a hand on Twilight’s shoulder. She could feel her standing there, as solid as anything else she’d felt today. More real than any eye-hack. “I need to know. I need to find her.” “Yes,” Twilight whispered. “Follow in her hoofsteps, Dakota. The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep.” As Twilight’s horn glowed, a vision appeared in the air in front of her. It was the moon, taken from one of Earth’s many satellites. But then it seemed to zoom in—on a single metal building poking out of the lunar soil. A structure that Dakota knew would be the landing area for a massive, underground complex. Dakota didn’t know which building it was—but that didn’t matter. Cinnabar would be able to review these memories soon enough, and then they’d both know. The world wrenched out from under her. Dakota screamed, tried to hold onto Twilight’s mane, clutching vainly at nothing. But she couldn’t. The world spun back around, dumping her in the ruins of the smoldering library.