“Director, what were you thinking unchaining MU-4844!” Rain Noir cried. “Do you have any idea what he-”
“Yes I do, and his fondness for one Miss Lucky Fields will keep him in check, call it a hunch.”
“Do you really think a hunch is worth risking catastrophe?”
Luna shrugged nonchalantly with a rather smug smile plastered on her face. “It used to work for my sister all the time. I think it’ll still work now.”
Rain Noir looked about fit to burst with anger. “We implanted that device because YOUR crackpot experiment imbued him with power he shouldn’t have, that nobody should have, not even you. That’s the whole point of this entire endeavor, this entire compound, this entire agency! Did you forget that?”
Luna shook her head, readjusting her holographic mane a little so that it was out of her face. “Nobody is coming to help us Rain, nobody. The six ponies we could’ve relied upon are long dead, their descendants want nothing to do with us, and a pony of our own creation, drunk with anger, is on the loose. It was inevitable we’d have to create ponies to take their places, even if it meant perverting the very power that was once used by them.”
Rain Noir didn’t answer, as he too was to shoulder the blame for the existence of the pony Luna had mentioned. In fact, it was by his hoof that ponies like Matterhorn existed in the first place, and he felt dirty remembering what he did on the Director’s orders.
“We needn’t worry. Matterhorn and his new friends will take Riot down, correct a past mistake and perhaps gain us some footing back in Canterlot.” Luna continued. “That is, if they can get into the Arcology at all.”
Steel and Matterhorn had to curb their speed somewhat as they made their way back to the depot, passing more than a few wrecked cars on the edges of the road, reduced into smoking, mangled heaps of metal due to the crashes that the low visibility brought.
Their speed was little more than a slow crawl at this point and the wind audibly howled outside the car, tearing at the bodywork and at points, nearly tipping the car over into the dusty ditches along the sides of the road.
“I’ll be honest, I heard part of that conversation you had.” Steel began. “And I gotta say, that didn’t sound at all like the professional report I expected.”
“The boss is hardly professional. I’m convinced she just wings everything and waits to see what happens, consequences be damned.”
Steel let out a loud, hearty chuckle. “Sounds a lot like Golden in a way. But don’t tell her I said that, she’ll grill us alive.”
Matterhorn felt a little awkward all of a sudden, and shifted around in his seat. His little chat with the Director weighed on him, like a psychological switch in him had been flipped. He didn’t know if that was due to his horn being allowed to work as it should, or if what he felt was guilt.
Uncertainty turned to anger, then to hate, then back to anger in quick succession. Steel noticed the expression on Matterhorn’s face and opened his mouth to speak, but opted not to at the last possible moment.
Access and Sheet Rock hobbled out of the makeshift medical room fashioned out of an old store room, wrapped up in bandages and hopped up on very strong painkillers. They walked as a pair, supporting each other’s weight as they made their way out to the dorms, where they hoped their friends were still waiting.
Lucky noticed them as they walked in with a small smile on her face. She was glad they survived and were up and about again. They sat down on the same bunk and breathed what she assumed was a sigh of relief, mixed with exasperation.
“So.” Access said happily. “What did we miss?”
“Star screaming to the heavens and squeezing all the air out of Matterhorn.” Lucky giggled. “Speaking of which actually, I just got a message from him. Direct Comms are fine as it seems, but not net access in general, so he had to jack into a tower our rescuers apparently spiked to get the word out we’re okay.”
“Yeah about that, our access codes are no good out here are they? I couldn’t do anything during the surgery, so boring…” Access lamented.
“You were supposed to pay attention in case they cut something they shouldn't have.” Sheet Rock retorted. “But yeah, we figured that out when Access started whining like a baby.”
“He did manage to get a short call out to Director Luna though, and he mentioned she had issued the order to withdraw, but he refused.”
“For our sake or…?” Sheet Rock inquired.
“He didn’t say, but he sounded weird. Distant, if I had to put a word to it, it’s hard to explain.” Lucky remarked, shaking her head a little. “Doesn’t matter anyway, even if we were going to bug out, the incoming sandstorm would throw a wrench in those plans anyway.”
“I’m guessing that you’re concerned about his tone of voice then?”
“Agents have handlers for a reason, Sheet. We need to keep them balanced and as mellow as we can or we get ponies like Riot thinking they’re above their station.” Lucky remarked with a small sigh “I suppose it isn’t worth keeping it under wraps anymore.”
Everyone looked at each other strangely, unaware that a secret was even being kept from them. It didn’t matter much, but Lucky seemed to disagree if her face was any indication just how serious she was being.
“Riot’s an Agent, or at least he WAS an agent.” Lucky began, laying back on her bunk. “One of the first, in fact. I don’t have all the details as my clearance isn’t particularly permissive, but he was a perfectly normal pony at one time or another, until he found out he was a product of a lab and went rogue.”
“Does that mean Matterhorn wasn’t naturally born as well?” Access pointed out. “I mean, you might want to break that to him if you don’t want him to atomize the lot of us.”
“He’s a fourth generation agent, they’re conditioned for obedience and implanted with Cyberware that can cripple them if they don’t obey.” Lucky remarked coldly. “Realistically, my only job is to observe him and make sure the programming he was imprinted with doesn’t falter.”
Sheet Rock felt anger bubble within her. She had thought she and Matterhorn were friends, or at least colleagues, but it sounded like Lucky regarded him as a mere tool, and deciding to probe a little more, she continued.
“Don’t you care about his well-being though? It seems to me that his life is all work and no play, that has to be hard on the pair of you.”
Lucky chuckled to herself. “I know what you’re insinuating, and while his well-being is my concern, you have to realize he was made for a specific purpose and MUST be kept under control by any means. That includes lieing to his face if i have to.”
“That wont end well, take it from me.” Sheet Rock warned, the corners of her mouth quivering in anger. “I’ve had to lie to my crew before, and we didn’t speak for weeks. At the time we needed each other to even afford to eat.”
“Then as one mare to another, I think you know what I mean when I say that lieing is necessary to save the feelings of others. But that’s irrelevant, we have a job to do, and personal pleasures take a back seat until the jobs done and you have your money in hoof. Isn’t that right, merc?” Lucky said smugly.
“This isn’t about money!” Sheet Rock spat, now visibly angry. “We want the rest of our crew back, because you know, we care about the ponies we work with.”
“One day you’ll learn that things aren’t as simple as you want them to be. Tell Matterhorn all about how he’s just a tool for a corp if you want, but be ready for the consequences.”
Sheet Rock went to open her mouth, but snapped it closed and stomped off. Lucky’s words had hit close to home considering she saw a lot of Access in Matterhorn, if for different reasons. Many considered Access unnatural after he was fitted with all the Cyberware he had now, and she respected him, so why couldn’t Lucky respect Matterhorn?
Granted none of them truly understood what the Crown had done to Matterhorn to make him worth all the trouble, but something was very fishy. If Matterhorn was so disciplined to the point of total and unquestioning obedience then why did he need someone with him at all times?
“I know what you’re thinking.” Access remarked, placing a hoof on her shoulder. “Just drop it, we don’t want to upset the one and only ponies who can help us.”
“But…”
“When we get Bulwark and Scarlet back, we’ll go home and wash our hooves of them. Go back to being common runners for all I care, I refuse to get caught up with a corp again.”