//------------------------------// // [One-shot] Tek Ink // Story: Anthology of Everything // by SwordTune //------------------------------// The skyline looked beautiful from the top of the silo. It was the only area in Ponyville with green trees and big, ripe apples. Little neon fibre optics marked the irrigation lines, leading to the edge of the farm where the road took you to the city itself. Applebloom couldn't believe it sometimes when she looked at her old family photos. No cloudscapes that reached up and met the pegasi, no megablocks that housed thousands of ponies in a single building, just some down-to-earth businesses and homes. The night seemed to come quicker now as the sun set behind the structures of the city. Applebloom flicked on her Light-Tat, a little orange circle tattooed above her right eye, that worked like a torch, illuminating whatever was right in front of her. As the sun set, she continued sketching new designs for the farm. A new water purifier, for the factory run-off that seeped through the ground into the local water supply, needed to put in the fields closest to the city. It was a pain, but every pony knew the costs when the first factory was built at the edge of Ponyville. A truck rolled down the road. Its sputtering engine generated magic as the vehicle approached the farm. Big Mac loved coming in slow, riding the poor thing until it hummed to a standstill right at the door of the barn. She spotted the buckets he took that morning, now filled with pieces of tech from the junkyard not far from Sweet Apple Acres. Hopefully, there was something in there to finally repair the truck's engine. "We all set for tomorrow?" Applebloom shouted down to Big Mac. "Yep," he confirmed, waving an old, but intact, motor from his truck. The motor would make a pump, and the pump meant they could finally put the purifier from the shed to the farm. It was also when Applejack came back from Manehattan. Hopefully this time she brought some big-city presents. Applebloom flicked off her Light-Tatt and climbed down the silo to help Big Mac unload his truck. There were coils of wires and glass jars filled with expired, purple pizofluid. But, at the very least, pizofluid made great lava lamps when expired. When it was fresh, pizofluid was the primary component to making ink for tattoos with nano-robotics built in them. NanoTatts, colloquially named for the most famous brand of tattoos. Applebloom flicked hers on again to take a better look at what her brother bothered to bring home. Some of the circuit boards were clunky pieces of crystals and metal warped together by magic, clearly over a decade old. There were scrapped parts from just about every manufacturer in Ponyville, from prosthetic hooves to broken speakers. "Was any of this necessary?" Her voice strained as she carried a bucket over to the barn and set it down by some hay. She envied her friend Sweetie Belle for having magic to levitate stuff. Big Mac scanned his haul again and shrugged. "I dunno." Applebloom rolled her eyes at him. "At least you got the right motor." She grabbed the heavy metallic cylinder and put it in the shed by the barn, placing it in the box marked projects. "Leftover Friday," she reminded Big Mac while he hauled the other buckets to the barn. "I'm gonna heat up the mushroom pot pies while you finish here." He nodded back. Fixing up dinner was one of the chores she didn't mind. She always loved making potions, it was the only magic she could do, and cooking was a lot like testing an alchemy recipe. Applebloom squeezed a dollop of anti-bacterial gel on her hooves and wiped it clean on a dishrag before grabbing two trays of half-eaten pies from the fridge and sliding them into the oven. As much as she loved making new things, it was also a Friday, which needed a no-work night to welcome the weekend. She leaned back in a dining chair and waved her hoof over the light switch, dimming the whole room. The kitchen was a lot like the way it was when she was a filly, only a lot more metallic and shiny. She needed a lot less light to wind back and relax. After a couple of minutes, there was the sound of a bell in her left ear. She had another NanoTatt, a little green snake that ran the edge of her ear. The nanorobotics in the tattoo played sound into her ear and could receive calls from linked tattoos, like the ones her friends had. She kept her eyes closed and tapped on her ear. "Hey, Sweetie Belle!" "Hi Applebloom," her friend greeted on the other side of the call. "We're getting off the train from Canterlot right now. Still got some open seats for dinner?" "I thought your sister hated leftovers?" "She does, but you're cooking's so good I think she forgot. Besides, we were hoping we could stay over to surprise Applejack when she gets back tomorrow." "Of course," Applebloom smiled. "You'll finally get to see all the new stuff I added to the clubhouse." The sound of Sweetie Belle's excitement ringed in her words. "I can't wait. See you later." "See ya." Applebloom tapped her NanoTatt and ended the call. "I smell something good," Big Mac bellowed as he marched in from the living room, drawn to the food heating up in the oven. "You're not coming into my kitchen until you wash yourself off, mister," Applebloom mocked, pointing to the oil-covered NanoTatt on his shoulder. "I can barely see you under all that junkyard filth." He looked himself over and resigned to the shower upstairs. He was just too dirty to argue back. Applebloom got up and went outside again. She didn't need to worry about the oven, it'd know when the food was ready and automatically set itself to keeping it warm. She looked off from the porch, and fro the corner of her eye spotted a little blue crystal tablet sitting on the railings. "There you are," she said. The NanoTatt on her right foreleg, a glowing green tree branch with an apple on the end, lit up and linked her with the device. The tablet responded by projecting a blue display up in front of her. The device tracked the NanoTatt on her right hoof, letting her control the icons on the display. She expanded a little image of a book until it took up the whole screen. Machining Magic, Edition 17, it showed while the text loaded up. The tablet continued to project the screen in front of Applebloom as she walked around the farm. She read the logs on new software and hardware. "Sixteen crystal-core processors" flashed over a picture of a computer, followed by a list of the device's other specs. The beast of a machine looked like a miniature version of a megablock tower. A few pages later were the drone section. Maybe she could order a few drones to spread fertilizer around the farm. Applebloom thought to herself about how she would add a nitrogen-sulfur dispenser onto the drones to help her fertilize the fields. She skipped over the lighter models; only the heavy-duty drones had the thrust to carry a big tank. Once her screen started to flicker she circled back to the house. Ponyville looked like one of those pictures of the deep sea, where little creatures made their own light. Power cables wrapped the city like vines, glowing purple and blue with magic, and the buildings were trees that housed a million fireflies. Sweetie Belle and her sister, Rarity, would be here soon. Knowing them, they probably rented a nice car, the ones that still looked like old pony-drawn carriages with elegance written all over it. Anyways, Bic Mac was probably done scrubbing the muck off his coat. Applebloom chuckled. Probably not clean enough for their company though. And, even with all their wonderful technology, she still had to set the table herself. *!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!* *!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!* Sweetie Belle stretched her legs the moment she got off the train. Ponyville's downtown was nothing like Canterlot. Polished metal furniture and pristine modern architecture were gone. Instead, she smelled soldering kits and factory smoke and felt the shoulders of ponies just trying to squeeze by. Blocks of greyish black metal and concrete stretched up and over, suspending businesses higher to follow their profits. It felt like home. She rolled her bags out behind her and followed her sister, who was already at the station's rental kiosk. While Rarity mulled over which car they'd look more stylish in, Sweetie Belle decided to catch up on some business. She left her stuff in the waiting lounge and made her way to another wing of the train station until she reached the nearest store selling software downloads for NanoTatts. "Look who it is, Ms Belle herself," announced the scrawny stallion at the cash register. "Nice to see you too Feather Weight," she replied. When they were young they went to the same school together. She wondered where his photography career would have gone if he didn't get so interested in Techomedia. "What's the new's on the VizSync update?" Sweetie Belle pointed to the green NanoTatt of a phoenix wing beside her right eye. "Can't wait to see what they've added." Feather Weight shook his head. "I'm telling ya, Eye Tek tattoos are the way to go. They come out cheaper and earlier than VizSync every year." "They also come with closed source operating system," Sweetie Belle countered, "which means no mods from yours truly." Feather Weight sighed. "Yeah, alright. Came out two days ago, what colour you want?" "Green, of course," she replied, almost bouncing from excitement. He turned to the shelves behind him and picked a sealed crystal cylinder of pizofluid. He checked the date printed on it, picked up a syringe, and injected a set of nanorobotics through the thick plastic seal on the top. Sweetie Belle watched as the purple fluid glowed, turning green as the LENs--light emission nanites--activated. But those were just for show. The real magic was in the nanites carrying the new software. "You know, you're just about the only pony I know willing to mod a NanoTatt synced with her eye." Feather Weight remarked as he put the cylinder into a little machine that resealed the punctured plastic and put it in a plastic bag for Sweetie Belle. "What can I say? VizSync makes good augmented reality software. I just gotta make it better." Sweetie Belle put her hoof to the scanner on the checkout counter. Her NanoTatt of a gold coin glowed. She saw the digital receipt hovering over the scanner as she paid, reading what she had bought and how much it cost. Fifty e-bits was removed from her bank account. "I tell ya, I'd be too freaked out to do anything with my eyes, but that's just me." Another message, in the corner this time, popped up in Sweetie Belle's eye. It was from Rarity, saying the rental car arrived. "It was nice seeing you again Feather Weight," she told him, "but I gotta go to Applebloom's." He put a hoof to his forehead dramatically. "Oh! How I've been replaced by a better friend!" He couldn't help but laugh at his own joke. "But seriously, tell that farm girl to come by sometime. I know the Apples aren't big on city tech, but I bet she'll find something she'd like." "Sure thing. I'll see you around." Sweetie Belle left the store and galloped back over to her sister. She was waiting outside the train station and had somehow convinced the stallion who drove their car over to help her with all the bags. In her typical fashion, Rarity had to choose the most antique model the kiosk had available. She didn't know much about cars, but whatever she wanted to know, her NanoTatt could find out. Its design looked like it belonged in a museum detailing the royal processions of Celestia and Luna, but it sported jet black laminated metal with neon blue highlights. The seats were Fabricade designed, a company that dominated the industry for artificial leathers and wool. The orange sky above peeked through the solar panels that jutted off the edge of the city's tallest structures. Pegasi moved through the skyways, confined in the spaces created by the megalithic structures of the city. "Alright Miss Rarity, is that all?" asked the driver. Rarity shook his hoof, tipping him through their NanoTatts. Sweetie Belle focused her eye on the driver's hoof and read the data, her tattoo organizing it into a digital receipt. A ten-bit tip? Then again, she was a generous one. Sweetie Belle hopped into the car. Rarity followed to the diver seat and exhaled as she sat down. "Technology may be a wonder, dear, but I honestly wonder sometimes if it was worth losing all of Ponyville's charm." "I think it just has a new charm," Sweetie Belle replied. "Everything's closer together now. There's a NanoTatt store at every corner, and Vendomatics at every grocery store." "You know, I'd wish you'd stop eating all that junk food those machines sell," Rarity told her as she waved her horn over the car's control console. She checked her blind spots and steered out onto the street, casually driving their way to the edge of Ponyville. "What else am I supposed to eat?" Sweetie Belle asked. "It's not like there's a lot of cheap snack options at CIM." "Well it's not like you live there, darling," Rarity replied. "Go off-campus." "I gotta be there all day for office hours. Professor Quartz insists students go to discussion leaders before asking him any questions." "Well those students are lucky to have you," her sister reassured. "Not every pony can be as talented as you. Still, taking a short vacation should be on your to-do list." Buildings shrunk down as they entered the less populated edges of Ponyville. Here were some remnants from twenty years ago. Little shops selling fans and candy and books were just the first floor to bigger markets and housing complexes, but while everything was metal and neon, they kept their look. Of course, she missed how things were, the same way every pony missed their childhood. But life had to move forward. Rarity slowed the car as they passed one of the channels that piped factory run-off out of the city. Sweetie Belle saw the reflection of her phoenix tattoo light up in the window as she scanned the construction site. The collapsed building was a design store for a company called Techno Incorporated, a repair shop for NanoTatts. Heavy-duty drones shined beams of light and lifted sections of rubble that had collapsed over the run-off system underneath. The hazardous liquid, bright blue and purple blobs and chunks in a soup of black impurities, was leaking on the streets and underground. Sweetie Belle's NanoTatt displayed blueprints of the local infrastructure. It highlighted the waterlines, and she could trace them all the way to the end of the street. Doubtless, there'd be no be running water as long as that intersection was contaminated. Maybe Ponyville did rush its development. City planning needed some work. But she let the thought pass as quickly as Rarity drove by. The Princesses were in charge, and she knew Twilight very well. As long as she was able, she'd never stop working for other ponies' sake. The rest of the city was doing fine, and it was all under her supervision. Finally, the fields outside the city were in sight, and they both exhaled a little at the breathtaking sight of nature. Fireflies were to the grass as stars were to the night sky. Along the black horizon, the only thing that marked the dark sky above from the equally dark ground below was a little farm lit by streaks of neon lights. Sweetie Belle's mouth watered at the thought of Applebloom's cooking. She never quite liked the idea that ignorance was bliss, but her friend's pies certainly were. *!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!* *!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!* No technology could ever change the taste of genuine food cooked by the Apple family. They had eaten all they had kept from the past couple days. Rarity had been reluctant to admit it, but she had stuffed herself to the brink and couldn't do anything else but spread herself out on the couch in their living room. Big Mac fared a little better and retreated to his room to make a visual call to a very close friend. Sweetie Belle and Applebloom leaned out the window of their old treehouse. But, like everything else, it had to change. The monitors were connected to a massive computer kept to the side of the room. A curved laminated metal table at the centre of the treehouse had its own crystal screen at its centre. "It's just not something I think about," Applebloom replied to Sweetie's question about college. "I mean, I built almost everything on the farm, and certainly everything inside our clubhouse. Just don't seem to need it, you know?" "But Granny Smith saved up for Applejack," Sweetie Belle reminded her. "I know she had more years on you, but that doesn't mean you won't be able to get a degree." Applebloom chuckled, extending her hoof to gesture at the whole farm. "This is all I know. Ponyville, potion lessons, and Sweet Apple Acres. I dunno what I'd study." "Crystal engineering, maybe." Sweetie Belle pointed to the clubhouse table. "Didn't take you long to figure that out. You're ahead of most undergrads in that field." "Honestly I just guessed. If that's true I dunno how Equestria got to the way it is now," Applebloom said. Sweetie Belle laughed. "With ponies like us." "Ponies like us," Applebloom echoed. "How are Babs and Scootlaloo?" "Huh?" Sweetie Belle paused a moment, giving her mind a second to switch topics. "Oh, they were doing pretty well the last time I visited. Babs had a whole new barbershop now for fibre optic mane extensions, and Scootaloo had just gotten a new job at the West Manehattan precinct." "I know they don't have time to visit, but it'd be nice to see them." Applebloom tapped her NanoTat that linked to the table's screen and projected a picture of Scootaloo and Babs Seed diving into a lake together. She motioned her hoof and it created another picture, one where Scootaloo is graduating from Manehattan's police academy. "Once AJ's back, I'm sure you'll have more time to take a trip." Sweetie Belle turned her eye to the table, looking at all the data on the crystal processors. Magic flowed through each piece, like neurons in a brain, and spells altered their actions. Applebloom notices her glowing iris. "Does it get weird, seeing so much?" "I actually bought some nanorobotics with new software loaded onto them." Sweetie Belle stared at the table again until some music started playing from it. It was a new release from yet another rising music star. "Seems to me you see just enough already," Applebloom chuckled, looking at her own NanoTat. "Reckon I could use an upgrade, but I just don't see the point." She displayed the playlist Sweetie Belle had created and scrolled through the songs. She switched to a classic by Sapphire Shores. "Well you'll never know what you can do until you open that door," Sweetie Belle answered. "Remember when we helped ponies find their calling? They discovered so many other things they liked to do." "Maybe when AJ's back and the farm's fully up to date I'll take a vacation." Applebloom projected a second screen and sampled potential places to see. Griffonstone, the Crystal Empire, even New Yakyakistan, home to the Yak Astronomical Conservatory. Sweetie Belle smiled and opened the video game. "Plan a vacation on your own time. Right now, I'm taking your high score for Obliterate Five." The starting screen of an armoured pony wielding a sword with a chainsaw blade teleporting into the game before their eyes. Applebloom smirked. She had spent months practising in order to topple Big Mac's old high score. Sweetie Belle didn't stand a chance.