Golden slammed the door behind her and fixed her eyes upon her synthetic visitor who barely fit into the room given her large size, but her temper cooled a little at the thought of the heavily armored troopers just outside the door.
“I do apologize for dropping in unannounced, but it is of the utmost importance that we commandeer your little compound for the moment.”
“You can start by telling me precisely who you are, what the hell you want, and when you’ll be gone by. You scared us half to death with that little stunt.”
“It’s a necessary measure, considering the assets in play right now. Am I to understand that it was you specifically that found my contractors?”
“Those two runners? Yeah we pulled them out the wreckage of their AV when they were shot down, seems Arcology staff really don’t want visitors right now.” Golden remarked. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, now would you?”
“You know full well I know about that, you suggested a way for a certain stallion to get a message to me.” Luna remarked sarcastically. “I assure you that we couldn’t have known they’d react this violently to an unmarked AV.”
“You still haven’t told me who you are and what you want.” Golden said as she became increasingly impatient. “And don’t lie to me, or I’ll know. Your troopers wont be able to salvage what’s left of you afterwards.”
This comment amused Luna to no end, but she looked past the thinly veiled threat to deliver a far more sinister one of her own.
“I am Director Luna, the head of an organization known to a select few as The Crown. One of our… projects… has gone missing, you might know of him, you might not, but he’s been quite the thorn in my side for quite some time. Those ponies you pulled out that flaming wreckage were the team I sent to deal with the situation.“
“Did your creators give you that name to be funny?” Golden responded. “I don’t buy that THE Luna is stood in front of me right now, better yet, why should I care?”
“The images you see everywhere are crude copies, and it matters very little to me whether you believe, or care, that this particular neural pattern belongs to the real Luna or not. What matters here is that, like it or not, I AM taking control of this compound and I AM going to do whatever I have to do in order to make sure that a certain madpony comes back here one way or another, dead or alive.”
“So what am I supposed to do, just have my people work around you?”
“I’d prefer if you went about your daily business, simply act as if we aren’t here.”
Flow poked her head into the office momentarily, earning a slight growl from Golden whose patience had long since ran out.
“Director, we’ve got a vehicle approaching.” she said, “It’s packed full of civilians, we assume them to be from the Arcology.”
Golden shifted her gaze between the Director and Flow, before she let out a loud groan. “Fine, let them through, just be quick about it. They can stay here for the moment.”
Access and Sheet Rock found themselves staring down the stairwell behind the last door in the hallway, beyond which was a dimly lit abyss and the distinct smell of burnt flesh, metal, and brick. A fight had occurred here, and recently. It was be remiss of them to assume that what caused this wasn’t still here, and it made little sense as to why the mercs left the majority of their gear upstairs laying around disassembled only to then run away from whatever the grand threat was.
Why didn’t they fight back? Did they have forewarning of their arrival, or was it something more sinister, more immediate?
“I’ve been thinking, Sheet.”
“Careful now, you’ll injure yourself.” Sheet Rock jabbed. “Jokes aside, what’s up?”
“Okay, so we saw a bunch of weapons upstairs right, all taken apart? I’ve been wondering why they didn’t put them back together as soon as they knew trouble was coming. With the amount of stuff there, they should’ve had the manpower to get themselves ready in time.”
“Maybe they only knew what was coming for them when it was beating down the door.” Sheet Rock said as a spark of realization hit her. “Matterhorn! He and Lucky must’ve got down here before us, and done them all in before we could even blink.”
“They’re that scared of them?” Access said. “You would have thought they’d have been more prepared.”
“Judging from the smell, I would say they’re much more than just scared of them.” Sheet Rock pointed out.
There eyes suddenly fell on a long, dimly lit corridor that stretched some distance lined with many doors, most of which were broken open and charred beyond recognition if not for the shattered remains of the frames that once held them.
The acrid smell of burnt flesh and metal was strongest down here, and it seemed whatever had torn through here was ruthless and surgical in its acts. Access peered into one of the doors at a set of terminals sat in the corner of what must’ve been a small office, they’d been smashed beyond any recognition by something roughly the size of a pony, judging from the huge concave dent put into terminal’s keyboard and central processor housing.
Sheet Rock peered into a room just opposite to the one Access was in, and what she saw was nothing short of shocking. Bodies, at least twenty scattered around the room. It seemed that their assailant acted quickly and with excessive amounts of force, and it became clear that they had barely a moment to react before they were struck down.
Only one actually had time to grab a weapon, but what was left of the weapon he held was a twisted semi-solid puddle of metal that had melted itself around what was once his hoof. All of them wore expressions of sheer panic right up until the moment of their apparent demise, and all Sheet Rock could feel was a strange sense of pity.
“Terminals are all wrecked, we aren’t getting anything out of them.” Access said, trudging into the room. “I guess this explains the smell, what in the hell happened in here?”
“Looks they were attacked, viciously, barely stood a chance.” Sheet Rock responded. “This has to be Matterhorn’s doing.”
“You really think he’d roast ponies alive, how did he do all this without us hearing it happen?”
“He and Lucky did take the other door on the platform, I bet you all the euro in my wallet that door led straight down here!” Sheet Rock barked as she slammed her hoof against a crumbling seat. “Come on, let’s just search the other rooms and get out of here already.”
Just then, Sheet Rock’s comm-link was forced on and a call started without her input, which had come from an unknown number. Access’ was similarly affected, and the feedback from being so close together was a little disorientating at first but the noise soon cleared up as whoever was on the other end of the line cleared his throat roughly.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to welcome you two, but I suppose this comm-link will have to do.” the voice said. “Don’t bother picking through the wreckage of my base for information, you wont find any.“
“Who is this?”
“The Crown calls me MU-0122, you can call me Riot or any number of expletives if you prefer. I do apologize for what I’ve done to you and your friends, but it was a necessary evil.”
“Necessary? You destroyed my friend’s home and turned a long-time ally against us.” Access bellowed. “How do you justify that?”
Riot chuckled lightly through the comm, which crackled slightly. “To be fair, you accessed a system you shouldn’t have, downloaded corporate secrets, and allowed a valuable AI to stage its escape. Is it any wonder Bright Sun decided that it was best to silence you before you could do anything with what you found.”
“It’s funny, Gray told us about how you wanted to help these ponies out, sure is convenient that you’re working for one of the Corps that likely forced these ponies into a disused Arcology module in the first place.” Sheet Rock pointed out as she started to pace around the room. “I wonder what they’d think if they knew you were working for the enemy behind their backs.”
“Not that I expect mere children to understand, but you’re not the only ponies that have ever thought of taking advantage of a corp for personal gain.” Riot grumbled. “I did what I had to because Equi-Tech was, and still is, very close to wielding power they cannot be allowed to wield. I needed them to trust me, at least up until the point I left with their secrets. The Crown is after that data too, what do you think they’ll do with it, and to you, once you’ve outlived your usefulness?”
“Cut the shit, we’re settling this here and now.” Access barked. “Show yourself, and we might just go easy on you.”
A full-on belly laugh came from the comm-link which quickly tapered off into a childish giggle. “I don’t think so, but don’t worry I’ll be leaving you with a gift, you ponies like gifts right?”
“What kind of gift?”
“The gift of truth, of course!” Riot said happily as a file transfer request appeared before his eyes. “You’d do well to take this one and only chance you’ll get to get anything out of me, since my brother so nicely destroyed all my gear.”
Access threw the request out of his vision with an annoyed grunt, as did Sheet Rock. They weren’t about to accept unknown files from a pony they trusted about as far as they could throw.
“Fine, I’ll have someone drop it off to you then if you want to be paranoid mules. Now run along, no doubt my brother will be coming by any time now.”
The comm-link went dead as Access was about to launch into another tirade and his ranting only fell on dead air. There entire trip had been a complete bust, if Riot had ever been here, he was almost certain to be long gone by now.
They took their anger out on the one and only thing in the room that wasn’t completely destroyed, a small section of the north wall that had already been cracked by something hitting it at speed. Access picked up a shattered office chair and threw it at the wall in a rage and the cracked section of wall fell away to reveal a small hidden space.
It contained a small fireproof safe, just large enough for some small personal belongings, the kind a Canterlot home might have. The lock was mechanical, not electronic, so neither Access or Sheet Rock could ‘run it open much to their disappointment, it would have to be done manually, easy work for a Unicorn.
“So what now?” Sheet Rock said as Access fiddled with the safe’s internals with his magic. “Access are you paying attention to me?”
“Found a safe.” he responded absentmindedly. “It’s flameproof, but the wall it was behind took a beating so I’m hoping it’ll just fall apart.”
Almost as soon as he’d said that, he felt the lock crumble internally, presumably due to the physical trauma of the chair he thew and the carnage wrought upon the room, and went about prying the door open.
With a sharp tug, the door broke away from the fragile hinges which he discarded, throwing it across the room which landed with a loud clatter when it hit the tiled floor. Inside was a portable hoof-held terminal, roughly the size of the average cellphone immaculately kept in a clear plastic case.
Access picked the case up and examined it before a noise coming from down the hall startled him into action. He drew his weapon and hid behind a ruined console nearest to where he found the portable terminal while Sheet Rock scrambled behind an overturned table.
Hoof steps drew closer until they stopped outside the door and a dull thud filled the room as something hit the floor followed by an equally dull and pathetic groan.
“You can come out, it’s just us.” Lucky said in amusement. “We’ve got a friend for you two to play with, I’m sure you’ll be pleased.”
“Pleased might be an understatement.” Matterhorn chuckled darkly. “I think this might end up being the most joyful moment of their little lives.”
Access peeked out from behind the console. At the two crown operatives hooves was a pony with an orange coat and a messy and unkempt red mane and tail, he also looked as if he’d taken a beating even though he had been spared the fate of his comrades.
“Who’s that?”
“Riot. The slippery bastard was on the tracks trying to make his escape, though he wasn’t trying very hard.” Matterhorn said, still chuckling. “We made sure to jam his comms so he couldn’t call for help, not that there is anyone left to respond to that call.”
“Our friends have a lot of questions they’d like to ask you, Riot, then it’s off to be liquidated for you.” Lucky remarked. “Let’s get out of here while we can, the Director is waiting for us at that nomad camp. We spotted a makeshift motor poor further down the tracks, we can use one of their cars to get us out of here.”
“Idiots, the lot of you.” the pony on the ground said with a strange laugh. “You’ve got no idea what you’re in for!”