The stale, musty air of their apartment complex, which while normally an unpleasant experience was like heaven to the crew as they made their way into the foyer. As usual, the receptionist gave them a slight nod before she went back to her newspaper, which thankfully was not plastered with their name and faces.
They were glad to be home and they eagerly made their way to the stairwell. Access had to suppress a chuckle upon noticing that the building’s one and only elevator was still unusable after being messed with by some neighbor foals. It seemed that building administration had finally given up all pretense of care about their own property.
“I’ve been thinking, you two.” Star admitted. “We should probably up stakes here as soon as possible, given how many ponies we’re upsetting on a daily basis now.”
“Unless you forgot, the tussle with your father’s pet project and Riot showing up because a trusted friend fucked us over kinda ruined that plan.” Access grumbled. “We can’t go back there, so these tiny little rooms are quite literally the only place we can stay.”
“As much as I’m loathe to admit it, Access is right.” Sheet Rock pointed out as they all reached their floor, the small dusty landing dimly lit with a murky yellow lamp. “We’ve got enough Euro between us to outright pay some ponies off if we have to, best thing to do is live as we always have. We’re far less likely to draw attention that way.”
“There’s something you two aren’t telling me, isn’t there?” Star pointed out, walking down the hallway with a pout on her face. “Does nothing I say mean anything to you two? I’ve been living under a corporate heel all my life, I know better than you two what’s coming our way!”
“Where would you have us stay then?” Access replied with a hint of anger on his voice. “If we leave we’re cut off from all our resources, if we stay we’re at risk of being found but we keep our network of contacts who could actually help us out. How about you come up with solutions rather than complaints?”
“If I could interject for a moment, you still do have the option of finding another space where you could set up, no? It would just be a matter of finding another out of the way spot somewhere in the city.” Snowy said, reminding them. “As an alternative, you could just outright buy a small building, the Director rewarded you, did she not?”
They came to their respective apartment doors and opened them with their keys in silence for a few tense moments. While it was true they could always refit and repair their original hideout, it was likely to be crawling with Canterlot police by now while they investigated the disturbance their little run in with the Crown likely caused. Not that they would find anything there apart from broken furniture, bullet holes, and what was left of their equipment.
Everything else had been taken by Riot and his goons, which on the face of things might turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Just what was his game, what did he hope to get out of making an enemy of everyone he meets?
“Look, let’s just cool off and get some sleep.” Star urged. “We’re getting twisted out of shape over nothing, we don’t need to rush coming up with a plan.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re right.” Access responded, with Sheet Rock silently agreeing along with him. “Let’s just get some sleep, we’ll feel better after we’ve unwound a little.”
The best part was that their little excursion was over, they’d been paid, and they were able to go home in something other than a body bag, but a few questions still lingered in their minds and their answers were frustratingly just out of their reach.
Access tossed his Cyberdeck onto his desk and practically collapsed into the small seat that had started to gather dust due to his admittedly short absence. While Sheet Rock had wandered off into her room, presumably to pass out for a few hours, he couldn’t sleep despite his already apparent lack of energy.
He peered at the half empty bottle of pills on his desk, the ones he’d forgotten to take with him when the panic first set in. Now that he could think straight it became apparent that the perpetually bothersome buzz in the back of his skull was back, and far louder than it ever was before.
“Damned chromes more trouble than its worth.” he grumbled darkly. “Thousands of eurobits worth of tech just wasted on someone that can barely use it all.”
He stared at the label for a moment, the word “Baloperidol” was stamped into the dark translucent plastic of the bottle. The chalky taste was unpleasant at best, and downright disgusting at worst as always, but he needed the clarity of mind if he was going to examine this terminal.
Access stared at it for a short while before he snorted in annoyance and stormed off to his own room.
“That chip you removed, what was its purpose?” Matterhorn inquired as Riot lead him through a set of cramped hallways. “I found a catalog of Cyberware in my deep memory storage, but…”
“There’s nothing about in there, is there?” Riot said, as if it was obvious. “Tell me, does it seem quiet in here to you?”
“What kind of question is that?” Matterhorn snorted. “We’re underground, what do you expect me to hear?”
“I don’t mean like that.” Riot sighed, stopping at a rusted door emblazoned with a large red medical cross. “Someone in here will explain it to you, I need to make sure we weren't followed down here. You and your friends made a real mess of things you know.”
Before Matterhorn could respond, Riot sauntered off further down the hall toward what looked like a large meeting room, though the grime and trash that littered the floor made it look more like a dump than anything else.
The door in front of him slid open surprisingly quietly for as bad condition everything looked to be in though, and the interior of the makeshift med-bay itself was, to his surprise, rather clean and well kept.
A pure white mare stood in one corner of the room, inspecting a large metal shelf stacked with glass bottles and small plastic pill containers of varying sizes and colors with little regard for organization or proper storage practices.
Clearly this must be their medic, or something closely approximating one, and she quickly turned to face him as he entered. She practically bound over to him with a bright smile on her face, and she proceeded to shake his hoof vigorously enough to elicit an annoyed grunt of surprise.
“Oh good, you’re awake! I guess I didn’t hit anything vital then?”
Not words he wanted to hear by any stretch of the imagination, but strangely comforting nonetheless.
“It seems not.” Matterhorn remarked dryly. “So I have you to thank for pulling that junk out of the back of my head?”
“The tracker, yes, it was distressingly close to the plug at the base of your head but we managed to remove most of it.” the mare responded. “We haven’t tested it, but you should retain usage of your neural link for the most part.”
“Considering I don’t have my armor, it’s pretty useless.”
“It’s a standard neural connector, Matterhorn, it’s useful for a lot more than just that. Ponies have them implanted all the time for a reason, though I must admit very few have them basically woven into their spines.” the mare chuckled. “I’m Liberty Song by the way, I’m something of a medic around these parts. If you develop a splitting headache, burning sensation behind the eyes, or a metallic taste in your mouth, please do tell me, we did a lot of invasive surgery in order to make sure the Crown couldn’t follow you and I had to cut some corners.”
“Cut some… corners?” Matterhorn said, trying not to sound horrified.
Liberty sensed some apprehension and was quick to defend herself, even after Matterhorn’s facade broke down.
“It’s nothing like what you’re thinking!” she began. “It’s not every day you have to work that close to someone’s spinal cord, I did what I had to, and the take away here is that you’re fine.”
“What exactly did you pull out of me though, Riot didn’t feel like explaining, I know I had a lot of cyberware put in me but I was never really told what it all was.”
Liberty walked over to a small cart, and set atop it was a shallow oval aluminum tray. On it were a collection of assorted wires, chips, and connective tissues, caked in what was once fresh wet blood, now dried and dark-brown in color.
Strange to think that was once stuffed into his brain stem, and even stranger to think that all agents had this strange jumble of metal and silicon in them at all. One of the chips stood out, it was slightly larger than the others, gray and green in color, with an odd symbol etched into its plastic case. It was among the first cyberware suites he was fitted with when he came of age, during a time when the Crown only considered him a mere curiosity and not their personal super soldier.
“You might want to sit down for this one, Matterhorn.” Liberty said gently. “Just to recheck, you were told what you were being installed with right?”
“I was, but whats your point?”
“Whatever they told you wasn’t the whole truth. There was a reason it was so close to your brain stem, and they bare striking resemblance to chips used in both Synthetics and Organics to control their behavior.”
“What’re you saying?”
“How do I put this?” Liberty said, bring a hoof to her mouth. “I can’t be sure, but it’s likely they were using that chip to introduce subtle and almost imperceptible changes to the way you think, not enough to change your personality but enough so as to provide a means to guide you in a direction someone would fine favorable.”
“How long was that chip there do you think?”
“Probably for a while if I had to guess.” Liberty shrugged. “Riot had one in his head too, and so did all the other agents the Crown sent after him too, at least the higher ranking ones. It’s safe to assume that all of their field operatives do in some capacity, especially the ones that work behind enemy lines.”
Matterhorn supposed this was what Riot had meant when he asked if it was quiet to him, with the influence of the chip gone it would not be able to nudge him into the “correct” course of action anymore. Although he had to admit that he didn’t feel much different, only a little angry that the Director would implant such a device in him, let alone everyone else.
It took him a brief moment, but the thought occurred to him that Lucky would’ve more than likely been subjected to the same treatment. Liberty took note of Matterhorn’s horrified expression and offered a little piece of advice now he was gutter trash like the rest of them.
“You can’t help her now, Matterhorn, I know you know who I mean. The moment you step hoof in that compound you’ll be put back on your leash again, and this time you wont get free, so don’t do anything stupid.” she urged. “We have eyes and ears within the Crown, so we can keep an eye on her for the moment, but we must choose the right moment to act.”
He didn’t like it, but Liberty’s words rang true. They didn’t know just how many more tricks the Director had up her sleeve and in all likelihood she had prepared for this eventually, but not for the removal of his tracker and behavioral modifier chip.
“Now, I’d like to run a few tests to make sure I didn’t miss anything.” Liberty remarked. “After that, I need you to rest, you’ve taken quite a beating and Riot would never forgive me if I let you walk around in your state for too long.”
“Correct.” Riot responded, having not left the doorway throughout the exchange. “When you’ve had some rest, come find me in the main room, I need a word.”
“The big idiot is probably working on it now.” Sheet Rock grumbled through her implanted comm-link “I’d have preferred to discuss this face-to-face, but you know how he is and I gotta keep an eye on him.”
“They make medication for that, you know. It feels weird to be having this conversation on the holo when we’re literally right next door, doesn’t it?” Star chuckled back, the holographic representation of her face mimicking her amusement. “I’m sure you can fake a prescription or two to get something that’ll help.”
“Sometimes I wonder if we’re not as slick as we think we are.” Sheet Rock replied, peering out the window at the cloudless night sky. “He fakes prescriptions on the regular, only way to get Baloperidol without being scrutinized to hell and back. He’s been on the stuff for-”
“Cyber-psychosis medication?!” Star said in disbelief. “I think I can see why Jackie didn’t want to talk about him much.”
“And I do hope she didn’t break that promise. It’s hard enough keeping him stable when he isn’t busy, but when he’s presented with a problem he can’t solve or beat through he’ll instead become violent.” Sheet Rock disclosed. “At first, my folks got the Baloperidol for him through their work benefits, but they soon cut him off after it came out that his case was worse than they thought. Gutless cowards barely fit to be called parents let alone doctors.”
Star was quiet for a time. Until recently, it was a given that she could have access to any kind of medication and the thought never occurred that not everyone was as lucky as she had been, and it had been made clearer to her than ever when she lost that privilege. Cyber-psychosis was a serious condition brought on by a number of factors, chief of which was large amounts of cyberware installed in one’s body.
It affected everyone differently, and the symptoms were as diverse as the ponies that were afflicted with it. There was no known cure, short of removing all of one’s Cyberware entirely but there were a number of dubiously effective treatments to mitigate the symptoms, assuming you had the money to pay for it.
“Just how much of his body is Cyberware, Sheet?” Star said carefully, after realizing that Sheet Rock had started to sob quietly.
“Roughly seventy percent or so if I had to guess, probably closer to sixty maybe. That puts him dangerously close the point of no return I know, but his condition is manageable if we keep him dosed and out of situations like we were just in.”
“is there really no other treatment?”
“There are other ways, but I doubt you’ll get him to part with his euro for something like that.” Sheet Rock admitted. “Your concern is touching, but we’ll manage.”
She abruptly cut the call and let out another long sigh. By now she’d heard Access storm off to bed, apparently frustrated with something and she considered checking up on him, though she thought it best not to when a loud crash rang out through the apartment.
Her door was open just enough to peer out into the main room, and from what little she could see, there was now a freshly made hole in a portion of the drywall nearest to the kitchen. Yet another mess to fix, Sheet Rock thought to herself as she closed the door back up as quietly as she could.
“Maybe I could… I mean we do need it…” she murmured to herself, calling up an AR display with a quick flick of her hoof. “Like I have anything better to do, can’t sleep anyway.”