//------------------------------//
// Invisible Warfare 
// Story: Shorts (no skirts) by Tactical 
// by TacticalRainboom 
//------------------------------//

Minific Mayhem
"Into the Machine"

She'd done it hundreds, thousands of times now, so at this point Redshift had given up on  ever getting used to the click of a heavy cable being plugged into her neck and the tiny shudder that always came when the connection went live. The transition was smooth; it always was. The world faded out and the network faded in seamlessly. She still had feeling in her limbs—simulated feeling, of course—and she could even blink and cough and stretch. That little shiver lasted all of thirty seconds, but it was enough to remind her for the next hour that everything she saw was being fed to her brain through a cable in her spinal cord.

All right, I'm in, she pinged to the unicorn on her HUD. Before her, the network was laid out before her, shimmering pathways and pulsating open nodes under a starry sky of protocols and scripts. She made sure to sound as grouchy as possible as she talked to Wrench, so that even that ruster's rig could pick up the kinesics. Let's get this over with.

C'mon, show some enthusiasm, the little prick replied in his nasal whine. Not every day you get to totally slag a net this nice. It's like a nice clean room, begging for some violent remodeling.

Redshift didn't have it in her to properly insult him. I'm heading for 52.61.35, she pinged. I'm gonna expect you to slice your node perfectly 'cause we're gonna need to be all aces for this. Grok?

Grok, Wrench replied happily. The little shit.

Redshift's hooves blurred as she galloped towards her target node. Some of the stars above swooped down to make some kind of attempt to stop her. A smirk crossed Red's simulated features as they dove close, only to be shattered in mid-air, breaking themselves against her rear hooves in a shower of sparks. She skidded to a halt, glancing around for more trouble—a multi-stage barrier perhaps—and of course there was nothing to see. In the lull, she allowed herself a glance at her own body. Her avatar's legs were as toned and as battle-ready as always. And, as always, the sight made her smile, an expression that was increasingly reserved for when her face was made of data and not flesh. Runner's legs, fighter's legs, like she'd had a few years ago. The Net wasn't all bad after all.



Writing this was fun, but it has nothing to do with ponies and it has no plot. So, it's shit.

Also, I'm not required to use the term "grok" correctly, because they're ponies and the word might mean something different to them, so screw you.

But I surely did like using sci-fi slang all over the place.