I remember something going wrong. There was a fire and an explosion. The nurse told me to run so I followed orders, just like I always did.
I arrived in a hangar, where the ‘toy’ I played with always was. It was much bigger than I thought it was. It even looked a little scary. Another blast went off further back. It’d be the quickest way out.
After so many times, the life suit was easy to get into. Not even a minute passed and I was climbing up the outside. The fire was getting closer, smoke was billowing out of the hall and into the hangar. A burning figure ran out of the hall, only to collapse a little further down. The blaze flamed and whatever it had been was just a black mass of burnt rosemary.
Seeing that made my skin feel itchy, but another boom pushed me onward. I hopped down into the pool and slid into the harness like usual. I plugged the cable in, and all was as it should be. I don’t remember having wings or whatever was on my shoulders, but today I did.
The door was closed. I looked around for someone’s signal to depart, but no one was around. Still, my last order was to run, so I had to fulfill that. My shoulders felt like they could get me out of the door, so I traced the mechanism in my head and used it. A flash of light shot out from them. Fire so bright it could’ve been lightning burned through the hangar door. The hole was big enough that I could step through it, but I’d have to crush it a little.
Leaving the melted metal behind me, for the first time, I saw the outside.
It was some kind of green place with big sticks and green clumps on top of them. There were clouds on the ground, white ones that didn’t seem to belong there. The ceiling was gray everywhere, and billowy like smoke. It looked like it went on forever.
I knew I could go up there. She never told me how far or where I was supposed to go, so I guess I should just keep going. The wings opened up and like I’d done this every day of my life, I jumped and launched into the air. It felt right for me to be here.
Looking back down, it wasn’t just where I’d been that was on fire, but everything. A little network of roads went to five or six places, one spot had already been burned so badly that it was nothing but a pile of black under a cloud of smoke. Where should I go?
There was an edge to the ground all around me. Blue crept up to it, but then went everywhere. There was no end to the gray ceiling or the blue floor. Both moved in a way that unnerved me. There was nothing solid around.
Something popped up on my HUD. New directions: fly west. Only blue and gray that way too, but that was the order. I flew west.
I kept flying and the strangest thing happened. The colors of everything changed. The gray and the blue got darker. The further I kept flying, the more the gray receded. There was an edge to it, and behind it, the ceiling seemed to open up forever. Little sparkles appeared as the color got even darker. From blue to yellow to orange and red then purple with little sparkles above.
Would I find anything going on like this? My directive was west. It was all I had, so I followed it. Eventually, the colors started changing again. My purple ceiling became violet. Red, then orange, and somewhere behind me, a big shiny ball was rising above the blue below.
So many strange things were here. But I was beginning to run low. A tiredness I’d never felt inside a titan was creeping at my back. I’d been using so much energy that my battery was depleted and I was running on generator power alone. In an hour or two, I would run out of power for at least twenty-four hours before it could recharge again.
Where would I be, then? There’d only been blue one way and the color changing ceiling the other. Why this way? Would I find something solid in that time? I hope so. I was always so hungry when I got out of one of these. Would there be food waiting for me?
As the titan lost power, I got sleepy. Endless blue one way and another. I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.
The Miyako Islands are beautiful all year round. It’s never too hot, it’s never too cold, the sun shines softly, the storms are never too crazy, and life moves at a slow, easy pace.
We, however, were not so fortunate as to be born on the Miyako Islands. Instead, HD and I had our lots cast in the SAST, or Sea Air and Space Technologies, controlled territory of the Cavalisa Archipelago. It’s what tourists like to call a governmental gray zone. At the edge of SAST, or really any conglomerate’s airspace, you tend to be the test subjects, false flag targets, or straight up meat shields in the inter-political ‘not really’ war between the four mega companies. Because SAST is the bottom of the four and always playing catch-up with last year’s advancements by the time next year’s prototypes make it to production for the rest of the world, they’re generally seen as a non-threat to the others, and that makes them furious.
Further spit in the eye, the Miyako Islands belong to Alicorn Electronics, the undisputed king of the conglomerate war, and they have a not so secret base there where most of their prototypes do their test launches. When their pilots get too close in whatever new machine they’re playing with that day, sometimes, the witnesses get a little ‘foreign aid’ to keep their mouths shut. And if there’s one thing AE does that SAST doesn’t, it’s support its people.
Bottom dwellers like us out here in this hot, sticky place tend to be forgotten more often than not, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Enforcers are lax or totally non-present, black markets are basically out in the open, and rather than us getting punished if somebody in the inner circle gets caught out here, we usually get paid to do something for them instead.
Today, a scorching day in the Cavalisa summer of 2279, happened to be one of those days.
“Hey, Zap!” HD popped her blue head out from behind the kitchen counter the moment I walked in.
“Hey, HD!” I mirrored.
She hopped up into the air and over the counter, fluttering her multi-colored pastel wings as she did to meet me by the apartment door. “Gaston sent us an invite!”
The hell he did! “Gaston did?”
“He did!” Way too overzealous, she hopped back into the air and dove for the terminal pad on the coffee table. “He says this one is big. The kinda money we’re talking about could move us to anywhere we want in the AE! We could even go to a space colony!”
I frowned.
Her face fell. Ears folded, big golden eyes glittering, she asked, “You… you don’t wanna take it?”
I bit my hoof. Sweat rolled down my forehead. Rather than address the subject, I moved to the kitchen and set my bag down on the table. “Did you make anything for lunch?”
“Zap.”
Putting on the most neutral face I could, I stared right back at her. “Helium.”
She let out a breath and shook her head. “No. I need to go to the market. We’re out of rice and oats.”
I tapped the personal terminal hanging off my neck and had it send her about a thousand credits. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to get us through the month. “You are now perfectly capable of doing the only thing I ask of you.”
She drew a circle on the ground. “I… guess I am.” HD gave me one last sad little look, then moved for the door. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Thank you.”
Sighing, she spread her wings and took off into the pre-noon sun.
“That asshole! How many fucking times do I have to tell him not to call here!? Fuck!” I wanted to kick something, but our place had enough dents in the walls as it is. Apartment is too nice a word for this shack. Just a metal box papered over with organic synthetics to make it feel like painted walls and carpeted floors with just enough put into the life support to make it bearable. When it works.
A one bedroom with the cheapest bed you can find, a built in terminal from fifty years ago on its last legs, a couch we found in a dump, a kitchen from centuries ago, and unless I put my life on the line again with this asshole griffon, it’s the best I can do for us too.
Instead of taking my anger out on what little I had, I figured I’d do better yelling at Gaston. No way he would send HD details. He just wanted to get her hopes up to drag me into whatever bullshit he has lined up. The bastard.
Finding a water bottle in the fridge and sucking half of it down, I trotted over to the couch and opened up the main terminal. Holographic screens filed out of a little projector like an ancient computer setup. This one was so old it still had a keyboard. It’s a miracle this thing still connects to the web. Can’t be long before they discontinue support for devices from the last age. Then we’ll really be screwed.
After a few minutes of searching, I found the original recording and then ordered a call from there. As soon as I get done yelling in his face, I’m scrubbing the terminal and blocking every number of his I know of.
A moment passed, it picked up. “Ey, if isn’t little Zap Flash. You know, I thought—”
“Shut the fuck up! Who told you you could call here? Because I remember telling you not to!”
The griffon on the screen stepped back and threw his claws up. “Woah, woah, relax, little pony.”
“The hell I will! Next time HD sees your face, I will make sure it’s the last time. You’re getting real close to the edge of ‘fuck around and find out,’ Gaston.”
He knows better than to belittle me, so he relaxed his posture and straightened up. “Look, I remember, but is important. We not dealing with usual clientele, you know? This one is bourgeois.”
Again, I bit my hoof. To use that word… I turned my eye at him. “You serious?”
He put a claw over his fat brown chest. “By the Goddess as witness.” Then he snapped and pulled up a list of recent transactions for me to see. I’m sure my eyes looked like dinner plates. Gaston smiled. “And that, my boy, is just advance. A little something to help us make decision over. Even if we don’t take, ten percent is going to everybody. Even you.”
And just like that, I watched as ten K disappeared from his account and reappeared in mine. Ain’t dumb enough to send it back, but this had bad news written all over it. Gaston isn’t exactly known for having consistent partners. And not because they leave him.
“What kinda guy was this?”
Gaston stroked the double chin under his beak. “Big fellow. Definitely pony, but biggest pony I ever saw. Like you, but, you know, odd. I like to think my security is pretty good, but I could swear he was using magic in my face.”
I’m on the small side as far as earth ponies go. We’re bigger than unicorns and pegasi like HD in general, but only as far as normal trends will take it. In SAST territory, you mostly find Griffons, Pegasi, Changelings, and Hippogriffs. The air fairing kind. Anything that can fly usually does pretty well here since most of SAST is just islands out in the eastern seas. Earth Ponies and Unicorns are almost strictly found in the AE and Glorious Iron Industries areas. More so in AE than GII though. And magic? Could’ve had an implant, but Gaston has some of the best disablers GII produces. Either this guy had one hell of an implant, or he was one hell of a unicorn.
“What’d he look like? Got a capture?”
Gaston chuckled. “What, do you know somebody in inner circle, Zap? Can’t be holding out on me.”
“You know better, ya dick. Come on.”
He pointed to the side of his box for another screen to appear. It was a short video capture of a huge pony in knock-off military digs, but garbled when it came to the details of his actual appearance. He had a beard, but other than that, you couldn’t make out much of anything.
“Everything looks like this, by the way.” Gaston shrugged. “Even my own memory. Might recognize if I see, but capture is impossible. Could be magic, could be implant. Pretty well layered up in this Cavalisa heat.”
I stared at him as their conversation played, also garbled, but only when the guy was speaking.
“And… you say we get more just for taking job?”
The big pony nodded. He said more, and Gaston’s wings nearly flared out.
“How much!?”
A noise covered screen, a screen next to Gaston, and then all those credits flowed into his account.
“I will consult my men. How should I contact you again?”
More was said, and then Gaston bowed.
“Of course, sir. We will be ready.”
The capture disappeared and I turned back to the present Gaston. “So? How much?”
“Two B.”
“The fuck it is.”
“It is fuck!” Panting, Gaston ran a claw through gold feathers on his head. “And we get half for taking job! We could leave this shithole, Zap! But I need pilot. He was specific. Has to be good pilot. Best pilot. Has to be Zap Flash.”
My pulse was drumming in my ears. “What, like specifically me? Did he use my name?”
Gaston rolled his eyes. “Of course he did not! I use your name because I know you are pony for job! Just for taking job, you could get your little girlie off this rock and set her up for life! Hundred million for accept, two hundred for complete! Say yes, and I send you credit the moment he gives.”
Goddess damn it, why in the world are you even considering this, Zap? This is a trap. It’s so obviously a trap you can see the teeth on the floor. You even think about touching it and you’re getting swallowed. And yet…
“Fucking hell.” I scratched at my mane. “Why a pilot? What are we doing, Gaston?”
The fat griffon flashed his teeth. Oh, Zap, what have you just gotten yourself into? “Baited hook is tasty bite, no? There is catch, though, catch you not like.”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to see through him. The holographic screen was solid enough that he might as well be standing in front of me instead of on his titan dock on the water. He didn’t call here for no reason… “No.”
He shook his head. “Is non-negotiable. Need two pony. Part of deal.”
“I will not!”
“B-but Zap!”
I froze. How long have I been on call? She can’t be done shopping already. How long has she been here? What all did she hear? Shit, shit, shit!
“If… if it’s true, we’d never have to work again!”
I turned away from the screen. “I don’t give a damn if it’s true, you are not coming!”
“You can’t do this forever!” Teary-eyed, feathers ruffled, HD took a step closer. “You barely make anything running parts for those thugs, you always come home tired and beaten, and one of these days, you aren’t going to be so lucky!” She rubbed at her eyes and made another advance. “You could run a thousand jobs for ten years and never see a hundredth of this kind of money!”
I stomped my hoof. “And you could die! What’s the point if something goes wrong!?”
She closed the gap and tried her best to get level with me. “Yeah, what is the point, Zap? What happens when you don’t come back one morning? What happens when the enforcers come and find me asking for you? What happens if we get caught in an attack and you’re out and I’m here alone?”
HD shivered, her strength failed, and she sank to the floor at my hooves. “I can’t do this alone. I can’t be alone again. You can’t leave me alone.” She gasped for air. “At least… if we’re together… I-I wouldn’t have to be alone.”
My haunches sank. Why did you have to be here? Why did you come in now? Didn’t I tell you to go do the shopping? You could’ve been anywhere, but you had to be here.
She sniveled, “You promised, Zap. You promised.”
“Damn it all!” Whatever was to my left felt the full force of everything my hoof could muster. Another dent to add to the collection. The sting was so dull now that I barely felt it.
“When are we meeting!?” I shouted at Gaston.
I’d never seen the griffon embarrassed, but he was right now. Redder in the face than ever and trying his hardest not to pant like an overworked dog. “Eh… job is on Sunday. We start preparations tonight. I go over details at ten.”
“Fuck you, and see you tonight!” I dismissed the terminal to then turn my wrath at HD. “Why are you here!?”
“I forgot the bags!” she cried.
“Fuck!” Another new dent. I grabbed the bags. “Let’s go! I need air, damn it!”
HD gave me a weak and weepy, “Okay.” and we headed off to the market. What a fucking day.
It was late. I couldn’t bring myself to apologize to HD, but I know I should. The night air was cool and wet, and I was pissed off. Some big dick comes in wagging his giant credit-cock around, and now we’re caught up in it. And you know what? I’m practically drooling on my knees for it!
Why am I so fucking stupid? This is going to get us killed. Running parts isn’t ‘safe’ by any standard, but it’s enough to get us by and it’s not like I’m ever running anything I could get caught with. You need something moved? You call Zap because he’ll get it there. No questions asked, no delays, on time or early. I’m the best in Cavalisa, that’s why they come to me. I work for scraps because scraps are safe to handle. Somebody always ends up dead when we work for real money and that’s why I stopped doing it.
And here I am on the way to Gaston’s harbor, begging to get reamed by some giant stallion, and I’m bringing HD along for the ride too! We’ll do it together, just for a taste of that hot wad of cash! Goddess damn me for being this thirsty.
Still, we’re already acting like we’ve got this thing in the bag. We just got ten K in the bank, we’re taking a first class hover tram like we’re hot shit and eating a good meal for once. It doesn’t matter one way or another, we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. Might as well enjoy it before we all go up in smoke.
“This is stupid.” I took a bite of the fresh apple I bought and it nearly brought me to tears. Sweet, crisp, cold, juicy, delicious. “If this is gonna be the last thing I eat before I die, then whatever, it’s fine.”
HD put a hoof on my shoulder. “Quit talking like that! It’ll be fine, okay? He said you’re the best, and you are, aren’t you? You can do this. And I’m sure he doesn’t need me to do much anyways. I’ll stay out of the way and where it’s safe so you don’t have to worry.”
Dead inside, I swallowed and turned to her. “You are not that naive.”
Blushing, HD fidgeted with her little blue hooves. “Well…”
We were the only ones in first class. Plush seats, brand new terminals, at least ten years ago anyways, on demand service, food fabricators, anything you could want to eat or drink. Even a limited selection of real food. Grown food, artisan stuff you just can’t get if you’re not in the big cities. That apple was probably one of the few in SAST, let alone Cavalisa. Somehow, it felt nostalgic. And if this goes off, we can go somewhere where real apples are grown in abundance. We could afford it. HD can go to school again. Don’t know how much good it would do me, but I could learn modern mechanics. Maybe even prosthetics. Finally get a chance to really design my own titan. I always feel like they put too much emphasis on nuclear generators when magic generators can be integrated with the pilot and bring the reaction speed of the machine up that much faster. Something easy on us that can make life better in places like this.
We watched as the sea sparkled under Luna’s light. Makes you wonder what kind of power the CEO of AE has over the world. If they didn’t literally have possession of the moon, somebody like Chemical Language Industrial Front could really make a move for the world. So much magic, so much chaos in this planet. What I wouldn’t give to leave it all behind. And there she is, sitting right next to me. The bane of my existence and all there is in the world.
“What’s wrong, Zap?”
I must’ve been staring at her. “Everything.”
She rolled her eyes. “Uh-huh. Try to focus on something else then. Um…” she tapped her lips. “What are we gonna be doing, anyways?”
I thought about it. “Almost certainly stealing a titan.”
Her ears shot up. She scanned the car and looked at me with a worried face. “Is… can you say that out loud here?”
I motioned toward the empty seats. “Who’s gonna hear us? You think they monitor first class? Here? In back-ass Cavalria Island?” I tilted my head at her. “Hell, maybe you are that naive.”
HD groaned. “Okay, okay. I get it. Come on, Zap, lighten up, please?”
“I’m light, alright. Ready to blow my goddess-blessed fuse! You should not be here. We should not be here! This is stupid!”
She took a deep breath and clasped her hooves. “I get it already. You’ve only said it a billion times. So we’re doing that. Any idea why? Who for? What does this entail?” She paused and studied me carefully. I could see my reflection in her big eyes. I sure do look like hell. No way I’m getting a decent night’s sleep until this is all over. “Have you… have you done this before?”
I turned back to the window and the sea. A hoofful of clouds, the deep night sky, the last embers of sunset fading on the horizon, the turbulent waves. It was windy. Gonna be a storm here soon, and I would put down every last credit from this it’ll be here whenever we set out for this stupid, dumb, asinine job.
“Gaston is gonna tell you everything you need to know here in a bit. Order something. Get something stupid expensive, just for the hell of it. We’re gonna be rich or dead in a week, so it doesn’t matter what.”
Pouting, HD crossed her forelegs. “This protective older brother crap is getting real old, you know that?”
“Doubt it. Ninety/ten, we die in this. Twenty five is hardly the average lifespan for an earth pony these days.”
She punched my shoulder. “Work with me, please? Come on, if we’re going to live through this so you can keep this crap up for more than a week, I need to know what to expect! Straighten your panties out and quit being a baby!”
I shrugged, not bothering to look away from the sea. “Why? Falling all over myself and crying on the floor seems to get ponies what they want.” I stared her down. “Right?”
“Zap!”
Moving my half-eaten apple to the center of our table, I laid my hooves on it and tried to act out the future. “First, Gaston gathers his crew, probably ten of us including you, and we set out on a small frigate. Two, maybe three titans aboard. Can’t have too many, and they can’t be active either. If we’re getting paid this much, security is going to be top shelf.”
She perked up. “Titans? Are we riding them? Do I get to ride in a titan?”
“Good goddess, I hope not.” A shiver came over me. Having nice air conditioning is weird. Bet I could get used to it, though. “First person that gets shot when things go sideways is whoever is in the nearest titan. It’s not like Gaston has access to the top of the line suits from AE. We’re working with ancient Mercurys from the original Jupiter project. We’re talking fifty-year-old Bionic Titans. It’s a miracle they’ve lasted as long as they have.”
“A… Mercury?”
Rolling my eyes, I tapped the personal terminal around my neck and pulled up a picture of the old thing. Ten meters tall, ten meters long, three and a half wide, CLIF’s original Mercury I Bionic Titan, circa 2222. The progenitor of all those that came after it. And what a mean looking thing it is. Black elastic nanite steel coating, semi-organic fiber muscles on top of a titanium bone structure, shaped like the changelings that made it, save the single ‘eye’ filled with advanced sensors at the head. A horn for focusing magic, two more ‘ears’ to help it ram and demolish structures, foil wings that folded in like a betel. A giant, shiny black pony, the harbinger of the modern era.
“This is your Mercury I, the original BT. The story goes that the guy who designed this thing was high out of his mind. He believed the goddess herself came down and gave him the design. It was two hundred years later, long after he was dead, did they finally manage to construct it. Made to the original specs, this thing was a monster the moment it showed up. By then, the conglomerates had taken over the globe, but no one had developed a weapon like this yet. Something so fast, destructive, and small (relatively speaking), was unheard of before. It was so powerful that it almost made it to AE HQ before CEO Luna stopped it. Hard to beat an alicorn in practice, but this was the closest anybody had ever gotten.”
I expanded the image and moved to the semi see-through diagram showing the inner workings. “The CLIF-BTM1 has condensed plasma blades all over, but carries two guns that are incredibly low output, again, comparatively. When it was new, this was the thing to beat and it took the rest of the world a decade to catch up. These days, it might as well be a paper tiger. Anything can put a hole in it with relative ease, and most BTs can keep up with it. Others in its class can out pace it with ease. But because it was the first one and most standardized parts are based on it, they’re fairly cheap and easy to maintain. Again, relatively.”
HD frowned and put her hoof to the screen to move the picture around. Like a 3D model, she checked it from every angle. “It sure is mean looking. When you say ‘cheap,’ what kind of money are you talking about?”
“Twenty-million credits. Exponentially more when it was new. As far as BTs go, this thing is worth dirt.”
Her big yellow eyes got even bigger. “T-twenty… million?”
I nodded. “You need mechanics and parts too, so you can basically double that if you want to keep the thing running for a while. You find them in space construction nowadays. The only reason Gaston has his is because of their one competitive quality: speed.”
“Oh. Did titans not get much faster than this for some reason?”
I thought back to the first time I drove a Mercury III. Newest suit I was ever in and the only suit I never want to get back in. “Too fast. Kills the pilot after a certain point. It’s impossible to remote control something like this as well, since the time lag pretty much makes them a sitting duck in front of a live titan. And because magic is also light, we’re limited by how fast we can send information. Even with an advanced particle satellite, the signal can be lost easily, and broadcasting with anything slower basically renders it useless. Lots of money wasted on a big target for somebody else to shoot.
“Instead, they focused on making the ones with the big guns faster and stronger. There’s rumor of an AE titan in the works that’s as fast as the Merc IV and doesn’t kill the pilot nearly as often. For reference, the Merc IV is the fastest production model out there, and putting the thing at full speed for more than ten minutes kills the pilot 100% of the time. Forced CLIF to put a governor on the thing just to keep adrenaline junkies from smashing their insides inside one.”
“Eww.” She had a staring contest with the digital Merc I. Eventually, she lost and fell back into her seat. “How do you get in one of these things?”
I dismissed the static screen and found a video of the universal hatch system. “There’s two ways in. One hatch on the back, and another on the belly. Depending on gravity, you get in whichever side is away from the ground. You’ve got to put on a life suit, and then you hook up to a harness that sits inside a cockpit full of motion gel.”
The original cockpit was a big ball of monitors filled with clear gel so the pilot could see in the event of an input cable failure. Modern titans have several redundancy systems that don’t require any monitors, but the more experimental ones still have them for extra testing. I’ve had cables fail on me, so I prefer the monitor cockpits. Anything that can go wrong, will. It’ll be a miracle and a half if we make it to next week.
“Wait a minute…” HD grabbed and spun the cockpit model too. “Where are the controls?”
I frowned. “What do you mean? It’s the harness.”
“The harness?”
I pulled up a video from inside a cockpit of a modern GII suit prototype test. An average size griffon bulked out to hell and back, probably with enhancers, was performing a variety of close quarters combat techniques. The view from inside was just a griffon sort of still and twitching slightly, but the machine itself was basically doing acrobatics while sinking in and crushing the terrain where it landed. GII tends to make the heaviest suits on the market.
HD blinked. “I don’t understand. What’s happening here?”
“The life suit was also designed by the CLIF engineer. On top of taking care of your bodily functions and recycling everything you output so you can input what can be salvaged again, it also tracks your motor neurons. Your body is stuck in the gel because it keeps you in place and stops you from feeling most forces, like say going too fast and splatting yourself inside the cockpit when you come to a sudden stop—within limits, of course. The life suit, while plugged into the titan, will transmit your actions at light speed to the outer frame and it will act accordingly. To some degree, even an untrained idiot can pilot a titan. Since it takes over your vision and numbs your senses, your body doesn’t realize it isn’t moving, and because the titan is performing the way you imagine it, it all translates naturally.”
“What about flying for ponies that can’t? Or, using magic, or even shooting a gun! Ponies don’t have guns on their bodies.” She thought about that. “Sometimes.”
Miniaturized bionics have recently become a thing in the last decade. Prosthetics using titan technology are beginning to circulate around the earth sphere, but they’re mostly limited to the upper class. We’ve only seen it once because a bodyguard working for a high security facility on Cavalria had one. If it weren’t for the mini gun on an arm poking out of his shoulder, you might not think anything of it.
“Using weapons requires training. Using weapons on titans requires even more training. Sure, anybody can drive one, but to fight in one, you’ve got to already know how to fight. You can only control it as well as you can control yourself. It can be done, though, and it doesn’t take more than thirty hours to get the hang of it on average. Some people can just hop in and go, but they’re freaks who are made for this kind of thing.”
“Zap?”
I turned. “Yeah?”
She looked deep into my eyes. Past them, into my very soul. Like she was piercing straight through me. “Why do you know so much about this?”
Putting my terminal in sleep mode, I grabbed the apple and ate the rest of it, core and all. Real food tasted so good. It’s a crime that fabricated oats and hay are what most people eat these days. “Get your stuff, we’re here.”
Sighing, she put her bag back on and stood up. “Alright.”
HD led, and I followed after. Five minutes to ten, the Tram stopped for passengers to get off at the southern harbor. Stepping onto the platform, HD and I surveyed the area. The closest thing to middle class Cavalria has lives here, but off in a dark corner by the swampy edge of the island covered in trees and vines lies Gaston’s place; Blackrow Transit HQ. We ship everything and anything, no questions asked.
As long as you’ve got the cash, Blackrow Transit is for you.
There was a little dirt road that led from town all the way to Blackrow. Well, ‘town’ and ‘road’ are strong words for this place, but all the same, HD and I made our way from the tram out to the swamp. The trees, the heat, the steam that rises in the summer, everything went its way to help conceal the hangar dock over here, which is likely why Gaston bought the old abandoned building in the first place. Hiding BTs isn’t exactly a crime, but it would definitely make the local government look at you funny, which might end up as a report on some SAST officer’s desk, i.e. the last thing you want.
Of the four conglomerates, SAST holds the least overall territory and has the lowest immigration rates across the board. Agriculture is low because the total landmass is small, fabrication is in high demand, and much of SAST’s developments are aimed at space for some reason when oceanic tech would do wonders to boost their power over what they already have instead of trying to compete where they can’t. AE, CLIF, and GII can all fight over space. We’d do well if we actually focused on the right thing, but big corporate bodies always end up shooting themselves in the foot one way or another. In the global dick-measuring contest, it’s all about space and firepower, and SAST only has a little bit of both and far too much pride for introspection.
On the one hoof, that’s part of what I like about this place: no official with his head up his ass comes to bother you here. On the other hoof, we’re so often forgotten that it takes them a minute to realize we took a typhoon to the face or something and then consider if it’s worth sending help. Cavalisa brings in enough money to remain useful, so sometimes, we get it.
“Zap, are we going the right way?” HD asked.
I looked around. In the night with the dark trees, the low fog, the slowly dampening ground, the vines and the bugs, I checked for the markers I knew. I spotted one in the moonlight and then continued on. “Yeah. I’m sure if we wave, Gaston can see us too.” I had the terminal pull up a 3D claw so I could flip off the camera with it.
My traveling companion frowned, but moved a little closer to me without a word. The cicadas were loud this time of year. We went on in silence relative to the little jungle’s active night until, finally, we started to see floodlights. The wet mud path gave way to gravel, and then we were out of the trees and in a small clearing leading to a cave.
Just beside the cave was a little bush, and a suspicious clump of grass and vines. I’d rather not scare HD tonight, so I stopped and called out to it. “Garrod? Is that you?”
HD looked at me like I was crazy, but sure enough, the clump of grass got up and pulled a hood down to reveal a raven-headed griffon. “Well, shit. Guess I’m gonna have to find a better spot to hide.” He turned his head sideways at HD. “Who’s the dame?”
“She’s with me.”
“I’m Helium Delight, but most people just call me HD. Nice to meet you.”
I slapped a hoof to my face. “Don’t be telling people your name, alright?”
Garrod made a slow nod of his beak. “Oh… You’re the girlie.” He stepped closer with a curve in his beak, letting the outline of his rifle show itself through the ghillie suit. “What’s a pretty little thing like you doing with a gear jockey like him?”
Rather than him, her attention was on the gun. “Oh, well, Zap and I have been together for a long time.”
Garrod snorted. “Course you have.” He turned to me and asked, “Why you gotta be flipping off the cameras? He’s gonna make me move that shit now.”
I shrugged. “If they were less obvious, then I’d have a harder time finding them in the dark and the fog. Sounds like a skill issue to me.”
“Can you believe this guy?” he said, turning back to her. “Every time I see his ugly mug, my life gets harder.”
HD touched a feather to my shoulder. “Be in a better mood, please? One week and we can put this behind us.”
I rolled my eyes. “One way or another.” I stuck a hoof out for Garrod to shake. “You in on this, or are you just security tonight?”
A dark gray claw appeared from under the vines and shook my hoof. “Yes and yes. We all are for that matter, but yeah, I’m on security tonight too. Soon as we get paid, Blackrow is moving back to GII, and maybe headed to space. But, uh, you didn’t hear that from me.”
We broke and I pointed HD to him. “See that? That’s what a big mouth looks like. Try not to have one.”
Garrod shrugged. “Relatively speaking, my beak ain’t that big. You see Gaston’s friggin’ schnoz and you know what a big beak is.”
I nodded my assent. “The terminal really doesn’t do him justice.”
Not knowing what to make of us, HD sort of straightened up and nodded. “Um, sure, I’ll keep that in mind.” She blinked a few times. “So… are you guys friends?”
Garrod and I shared a look. “Does that sound right?” I asked.
He sucked air in through his teeth. “Yeah, I don’t know about that. I don’t hate his guts or nothin’, but if he was on the wrong side of a job…”
“Yeah… if he was down, I wouldn’t go back for him either.”
Together we said, “Business acquaintances.”
“I see.” HD frowned again. Not knowing what else to do, she looked toward the moon. “Should we get going? We didn’t have a whole lot of time left…”
“Sure, go on in. Zap knows the way. Couple of these assholes are late anyways, including the boss himself.” The griffon activated his terminal and disarmed the tunnel entrance.
“Figures.” I muttered. “Come on. Gaston has never been the punctual sort anyways.”
“Would that not reflect poorly on his business record?” HD asked.
Shaking my head, I started in. “This isn’t that kind of business.”
Deep in, the cave gave way to a big blast door, and from beyond that point, we’d entered another world. Steel panels coated the walls, lights lined the corners of the halls, and our little tunnel widened out to a three griffon-wide walking space. Climate-controlled, filled with the sounds of life, bright as daylight, Blackrow was alive and well.
We took the main path all the way until the hangar bay. It was about the size of a big warehouse, and if you tried really hard and filled every inch, you could probably fit about thirty BTs in here, with the average BT being about ten by five by ten meters, length-width-height. Course, building this place wouldn’t cost anywhere near as much as something like forty Mercury Is would, and most of the time, the docks were lined with goods ready to be moved out to their next location.
The back opened up to the sea with ten docks behind hangar doors. There were a hoofful of boats around, but the one we were going to use was on the bigger side. A shipping vessel loaded with freight boxes, or at least the appearance of it, all with official SAST tags and everything, dubbed, The Mimic. In reality, those freight boxes were just a shell with an anti-magic and anti-EM coating inside and out to hide BTs. It could fit up to six, but that was pushing the load bearing capacity of the ship. Even the old Mercurys weighed about twenty tons each.
I pointed it out to HD, “This is what we’ll be taking for the job.”
She took to a hover and floated over to inspect the ship. “The Mimic?”
“Open it up and you find teeth inside.”
“Teeth?”
I pointed over to the other side of the hangar where a few flying creatures were working on a BT. “Teeth.”
HD’s eyes went all big and she flew over to get a closer look at the machine. “What is this one?”
A changeling, black as night, shiny, and a little on the yellow side with a pair of glasses, stopped what he was doing to address her. “Hey, who is this?” He looked around til he spotted me, then reassessed HD. “Zap, who is this?”
I deferred to HD, and she introduced herself.
“I see. You must be the ‘second pony’ our gentleman requested. In that case, I’m Ligament, Blackrow’s chief mechanic. People call me Doc, Lig, or a combination of the two.” The changeling gave her a hoof and she shook it.
“It’s nice to meet you! I’ve never actually seen a titan in person and I’ve always been curious.”
Lig frowned. “Uh…” He turned to me as I caught up to the airborne creatures. “Is this a good idea?”
“No. But we don’t have another choice.” And that was the truth. Once upon a time, the Cavalisa Archipelago was owned by Equestria. However, after some kind of fallout between the royalty of the old country, Equestria shrank in size to cover what territory it reasonably could. In that time, pirates became the primary owners of Cavalisa, and that gave rise to crime and diversity within the archipelago. Ponies became less and less as pegasi began to leave while things got worse, and so only a few families of mostly unicorns and earth ponies remained here, if only because they couldn’t leave. Of the ponies who can pilot BTs around here, I am one of few. And even fewer who are of the type to work for Blackrow. To get somepony else, we’d have to import, and you can’t trust outsiders with money like this on the line. So HD it is.
Lig shook his head, then turned back to his machine. “This is a GII BT L-59 Grimgarde III. Though, as far as I know, we’re not using it for this mission.”
She looked it up and down. “It sure does look grim. What’s all the code stand for?”
“Manufacturer, type, model, name, generation.” I answered. “Glorious Iron Industries, Bionic Titan, Legion 59, Grimgarde third generation.”
And it was a big, tricked up piece of machinery. Heavy armor, heavy weaponry, this thing could stand up to most suits of its age, sponge beams like nobody’s business, and then return fire with excellent accuracy. GII titans always have a distinct ‘line sensor’ type eye in the head and a huge hooked beak that usually had a hidden weapon or two in it just for extra flare. Thanks to implants, most creatures can use their own innate magic like a unicorn could and then have it exponentially increased so that a BT could use it with a focusing horn, but GII always forgoes the magic advancements for conventional ones. Save for a low output magic generator, this thing ran almost entirely on nuclear power. The magic generator might as well be a spark plug, or a battery for the controls. It’s one thing GII still hasn’t found a way around just yet. If they actually invested into the magical side of things, they might beat out CLIF for second place, but they’re awful stubborn too.
“Why isn’t it coming?” HD asked.
“Weight, speed.” Lig sighed. “Of course, the boss is partial to his home country’s titans, but the reason they are never in the top brackets of the global marketplace is because they’re all so heavy and slow. While your average titan weighs about twenty-five tons, your average GII titan weighs about forty. This one is about forty-three tons, and because of how little magic is integrated into the system, the semi-organic muscles of the machine have a long repair time. If the muscles are damaged, just like how your body has to heal slowly after extensive use, so does a titan. And this one took a lot of damage in its last outing, so it will be a few weeks before its back in service again.”
HD furrowed her brows and looked harder and closer at the machine. For the most part it was covered in armor, but in a few places, the armor had been removed to reveal a very large muscle-like structure beneath, a hole here and there in the shoulder where the usually still shiny silver muscle fibers were ‘wiggling’. “So these things sort of… grow, I guess?”
Lig and I looked to each other. “Yes and no,” I answered. “They’re called semi-organic because they’re machines that imitate life using real organic processes. In a basic sense, each strand of muscle is a string of tiny machines that use energy to move and replicate themselves. The more advanced the machine, the better it can do these things. With billions of them all over, it becomes very sturdy as a unit, but if you were to cut it away or destroy pieces, the other machines would devote themselves to replication and repair instead of movement, like, say, if you broke a leg or something. They won’t ‘grow’ beyond their specified programming, so to speak.”
“Oh, okay. I guess nature really is our best subject to model from, huh?”
Becoming more animated, Lig hovered next to her to admire the machine. “Truly. It takes years to develop the muscle nanites that make up a titan’s body, but one day, technology will advance to a point where we can recreate these things in days! And with the growing prosthetics field, we may be able to replace our bodies with these things too. Ah, what it would be to live without hunger ever again. So many doors we could open if we weren’t so tied to flesh.”
HD tilted her head. “But, if we weren’t part of our bodies, would we still be the same?”
And for once in his life, Ligament donned a confused look. “Would we… be the same?” he buzzed hither and thither muttering those words over and over again.
“Doctor Ligma!” Somebody called.
Snapped out, the changeling fumed. “Call me that again and you’re dead! What do you want!?”
“I wouldn’t have if you weren’t lost in your own head! We’ve got a problem with the spine, I need you!”
Ligament sounded his irritation, but turned back to HD in earnest before he went. “You’ll be back here again, won’t you? I think I’d like to discuss that topic more another time.”
Startled, HD hovered back a bit. “Oh. I think so? Um, sure.”
He bowed, pushed up his glasses, and then moved behind the head of the titan with the other engineer.
“Zap, my boy!”
I groaned.
The big bumbling brown griffon flew heavily down the entryway hall, and nearly crashed into me. “You’re late, Gaston.”
He landed with a crash and panted for a moment before he caught his breath. “Yes, urgent business, you know? If Gunter not got shot today, meeting would be going now.”
I shook my head. “You keep buying these slow ass GII titans, and you’re gonna keep getting shot.”
Gaston huffed. “What you have me do? Buy SAST? No chance on life. Magic is expensive, and we have few pilots as is. Who going to use combat magic, huh? You? You never come when I call anyways.”
Gaston’s terminal beeped. After tapping it, Garrod appeared beside us. “Last VIP is in, Boss.”
“Very good. Continue watch. We need no interruption tonight.”
“Yessir.”
Garrod disappeared in a shimmer, and Gaston turned to us and motioned with his fat head. “Let’s go. You will want to see this.”
I sighed. “If we must.”
When the three of us entered the conference room, there were seven other creatures already seated. I knew the names of most of these guys, but there were two I didn’t. One griffon who had a ‘schnoz’ identical to Gaston’s but probably a hundred pounds lighter, and a hippogriff mare with an orange-red complexion. HD and I were the only ponies in the room, and I was the only flightless creature at all.
“Good evening, my fine friends,” Gaston addressed the room.
A changeling, much more red than Doc. Ligament, who went by the name Tendon, shouted, “It’s about damn time! You griffons and your sorry excuse for punctuality. You were supposed to be here half an hour ago! What gives?”
Taking a seat, not at the head of the table but right next to it, Gaston raised a claw of apology. “I very sorry, Tendon, there was complication. Eh, you see why soon enough.”
That’s weird. Something is off, but what? I looked around until it hit me—there was an extra chair. Unless Garrod was going to come in and lead the meeting, we had another guest.
The sound of marching hooves came from the metal floors outside the conference room. The door slid open to reveal Ligament leading a giant behind him.
“Right here, sir.”
“Thank ya, kindly.” It was a big, deep, booming voice. He took a step in and at once, I knew his dress. The phony military clothes, the long captain's coat and hat, the gigantic stature. It was the stallion from the capture. Our employer.
The massive pony ducked his horn to get into the room, probably used to more accommodating doorways. He was as wide as the obese Gaston, but there was no fat to be found on him. Though his long coat obscured much, his legs were covered in a tight suit down to military boots on his rear hooves. Crushing power in each step, the swagger of an authority figure.
As if his presence wasn’t enough, behind him were a pair of body guards that could both give Garrod a run for his money. One unicorn, one earth pony, both as muscly as an unarmored titan in black suits with black ties, and eye terminals to hide their faces. He bade them to stand in the corners behind him, then stood in at the head of the table, moving the chair out of the way because there was no chance he could fit in it.
He took his hat off, revealing a bright red mane that faded to orange and then yellow as it got longer, and a beard to match. His coat was purple, his eyes were green, and of all the strange things about this stallion, were the freckles under his eyes. As far as I could tell, everything else about him was a genetic jackpot. Freckles were typically seen as a flaw, and it felt so odd for somebody like this to have them.
The massive stallion stared each one of us down until, finally, he came to HD and I. He studied her for a long while like he was summing her up somehow. And when he got to me, he raised a brow.
“And what do we have here?” Not giving me the slightest chance to react, he caught my face in his magic and held my chin up in a massive gloved hoof. Forced to stare into his eyes, there was some hint of recognition in there. And, weirdly, on my part too. It felt like I knew this stallion’s face from somewhere, but I couldn’t place it. After a moment, he released me, then let his haunches crash to the floor. “I find your choices satisfactory, Gaston. I assume this is the pilot you told me about?”
Rubbing his claws together like a miser, Gaston nodded. “He is, sir. The very best.”
Tendon stamped his hoof on the table. “The hell he is! Am I not even here?”
Gaston glared death at the changeling. “The best pony pilot Cavalisa has to offer!”
Tendon crossed his forelegs in defiance, but didn’t comment further.
“Please, do not mind Tendon. He is prideful, but very good pilot too.”
The big stallion smirked. “He had better be. The task I am about to give you is no easy one, after all. Deep pockets are being emptied for this, I hope you all know that.”
Another griffon, our helmsman, Gerund, raised a question. “I have heard so. Gaston has offered a very large sum simply for taking the job. Is this true?”
In response, the stallion flicked his hoof and a screen appeared with the originally described amount of credits with 100K missing from the total. 1.9 billion credits “I assume the advance has already been distributed. You’ll receive your next payment when you launch, and your last payment when the job is complete.” He caught all the eyes in the room. “Do we… understand each other?”
Those who could retain their composure simply weren’t frothing at the mouth. For just an instant, I could swear I caught an approving glance at me from the big stallion.
As one of those frothing ponies, HD asked, “And, so, um… mister…”
“You may call me Comet, little one.”
She colored a little, if only because she hates it when people think she’s a filly. In truth, we figure she’s about 22. However, the press of money at her back made her ignore it. “Well, Mister Comet, what are we going to be doing exactly? I’ve heard a few things, but I don’t quite understand what two ponies were specifically necessary for.”
Comet popped his neck to one side. “As far as that is concerned—” Crack, he popped the other side, “—it is for me to know, and you to find out. For now, you should know that you will be in the cockpit with your boy here when you attain the object of your outing.”
He pointed up with a hoof, and another, larger screen appeared behind him for everyone to see. It was a capture of an AE base on Miyako or somewhere nearby. One of the Miyako islands volcanoes could be seen in the distance, but I wasn’t familiar enough with them to know which one it was. The view was from far out at sea looking in. It zoomed further and further until it was like we were standing in front of a base hidden behind a jungle. A titan flatbed was hauling something into a hangar. Normally, this wouldn’t be anything unusual, but then, one of the tie-downs came off and revealed the head of the thing.
My jaw dropped.
There were rumors out in the wild about this. The next stage in the evolution of the Bionic Titan was just around the corner, and Alicorn Electronics was developing it. The fastest neural link system ever created, the lightest frame of any titan ever made, and an entirely new series of muscle nanites that can replicate in minutes. Fast as a Mercury IV, but AE had done something to make that speed usable—or so they say. It was nearly unarmored, but the helmet of the machine had already been attached before they decided to move it.
A golden warrior. The armor of a relic long past, reminiscent of the ancient equestrian sun princess who disappeared over a thousand years ago. Even modern AE titans didn’t have the craftsmanship this did. Whatever it was, it was something entirely new. And yet… all the same, I felt like it was calling to me. Deep inside, I wanted to know it. Or maybe, I already did somehow.
Everybody here who knows anything about titans practically had their eyes pop out of their skulls. Tendon was the first to ask. “Is… is that what I think it is?”
Comet paused the capture and zoomed in more on the machine. “Yes, we believe it is. This is a capture by CLIF spies off the coast of a Miyako base on a small island out of the way from the rest of the chain. What is rumored to be the birthplace of AE’s prototypes had this new titan moved here and many of us are still scratching our heads as to what it could possibly be.
“As many of your looks noted, this is a craft of unique and original construction. The semi-organic muscle fibers alone have double the strands of a modern CLIF or AE titan, but by the compression of the tires on what appears to be a normal flatbed, it seems to be lighter than an unarmored modern titan from either conglomerate. That’s to say nothing of the art-piece helm it has going on. We believe this could be the Project Celestial.”
The hippogriff I didn’t know whistled. “So that’s the real thing, huh? Who are you working for, anyways? You a SAST guy?”
Comet shrugged. “Perhaps. What’s it to you?”
“I like to know who my money is coming from. I owe Gaston a big favor, and I’ll put my neck out for him, but I’m not about to paint a target on my head for some CLIF enforcer to come find later because I was involved with this.”
“A valid concern,” Comet assented, “But there’s nothing for you to worry about in that regard. So long as you complete your task—which, if it wasn’t obvious: to get these two ponies here inside the cockpit of that titan—then my power can protect and relocate every last one of you if the need arises.”
Another hippogriff, Heron, asked, “Alright, so we go, we get this thing, and we bring it back here. I figure if this is an AE prototype facility, we’re dealing with the tightest security money can buy, right? Any chance we can get in and out clean?”
Comet pulled up another screen with an emblem of the sun above an alicorn. “Normally, you’d be correct. However, the reason you’re scheduled for this operation next Sunday is because that day is, of course, an AE corporate holiday. Not a soul will be working on the day of the Summer Sun Celebration. The facility will be shut and locked, but quite empty.”
Geffery, our ship mechanic, clicked his tongue. “I don’t like it. AE is just gonna up and leave this place empty with something so precious in it? What else is in there guarding it?”
Another new screen, this time an image of a four legged machine on hover discs strapped with a few guns and beam blades on a box above a series of cameras. “Living staff will of course be off site, but the automatons will not. Our CLIF spy has obtained the routes of these automatons and there is a small gap in which the hangar we’ve pinned the Project Celestial titan is located. From 1200 to 1215, there are no automatons in hangar two. In that time, you must enter undetected, get these two inside, and from there, you simply have to walk the machine out. You will trigger the alarms of course, but I am told you have a ship with a protected hangar that can return to cover very quickly. Though it is a holiday, AE will have security on you in half an hour at most. While the rumors say that Project Celestial is in a class of its own, an AE Wonderbolt III will have you caught and blown to smithereens in ten seconds flat. You’d better be out of sight by then.”
The griffon I didn’t know yelled at Gaston in their language. Gaston yelled right back, probably saying something about money, and that calmed him down a bit. Surprisingly, Comet himself replied to the upset griffon in his own language. They went back and forth a bit, and that put the uneasy griffon in better spirits. Our third pilot, the changeling Sinue, asked what was just said.
Gaston answered, “My young brother Gallant here is concerned about time we have to do job. Three quarter hour is not lot of time, you know. Worse yet, Zap is necessary to get into facility while also one of best pilots. Will be running skeleton crew as is to keep lips tight, so chance of thing go wrong is high.”
“And I assured him,” Comet continued, “that a fast ship should be capable of making it to cover from outer Miyako without much trouble. The little intelligence CLIF has managed to gather on the Celestial is that it has built in hover plates on the hooves just like the Mercury line. Unarmed, the thing should be able to move at a rapid pace, land or sea. How fast has yet to be determined, but given what else we know about it, it’s said to be capable of speeds similar to or better than a Mercury IV.”
“On hover plates?” I muttered. “What kinda magic generator does this thing have? To make that kind of speed… I wonder if they finally found a way to go without nuclear…”
Comet cleared his throat. “As my time is running short, speak now or forever hold your peace. Y’all will take the job, correct?”
I had to double take for a moment. Everything else he’s said has been in perfect Equestrian, which, for better or worse, was practically the world language. That, however, told of a local dialect. Who is this guy?
There was a quiet murmuring, but it all died down quickly. Everyone had made their decision. And as stupid as it was, I’d been roped in too. Something about this stallion, something about this titan… it speaks to me in a way I can’t understand. I can’t place it, but I feel like I know him. And the machine… oh, what I wouldn’t give to meet the designer. It was art. It was beautiful. It was the future. HD could have all the money she wanted. As long as I could set her up and keep her safe, I don’t know what I wouldn’t do to find a way to keep in contact with this machine.
Gaston stood. “I believe company is all in agreement. We will gladly take job, Mister Comet.”
Comet stood, his giant frame nearly bringing his horn to the ceiling. He offered a massive hoof. “Then we have an agreement.” They shook, then Comet pulled up his credit account. One by one terminals around the room all had their accounts opened and another ten K was deposited in each. “Consider this your second advance, unrelated to the total originally agreed upon. I believe your man outside is part of the expedition, no?”
Practically drooling over the new balance in his account, Gaston absently said, “He is Garrod, yes.”
“Very good.” The massive stallion picked up his hat with his magic and put it back on, shading his eyes. Under the dark of his brim, they gleamed, specifically on HD and I. “Then I will see you again next week around 1030 hours. Until next time.” As he sang his last words, the green magic of his horn flared blindingly bright.
When we could see again, Comet and his two guards were nowhere to be found.
Unsure what to do next, Gaston searched around until he settled on me. “I guess this answer morning’s question. One hell of unicorn.”