The Happiness and Peace of Mind Committee
Chapter 1: The Happiness Committee and the Rebellion Bureau
Twilight’s quill was released from her magical grasp and clinked on the marble tabletop. She reread her work a few times, taking special care with reminding herself the precious memories of her friends. Satisfied, she turned to the light bulb blazing on the other side of her desk, and, with a good amount of effort, managed to teleport the charge to her entry. The parchment quickly went up in flames. It was too risky to keep the kind of information in her diary lying around, and if anybody of importance found out about it...
Before long, the paper was just a pile of ash on the table. She swept it into a trash bin, then gave a startled jump as the television embedded into the wall behind her crackled to life. She turned and watched the image of an all too familiar mare appear.
“Good morning, everybody!” Emerald Joy chimed with a sickeningly sweet voice, matched with a smile. “I hope you all slept wonderfully, but now it’s time to come meet with your friends for the speech of the day!” With a flourish of her gown, the screen darkened and the purple mare was met again with silence.
Finding no reason to arrive to the event late, considering she didn’t have any say in the matter anyway, Twilight absently ran a brush through her mane and trotted towards the door. Before exiting, she turned towards a mirror mounted on the adjacent wall. Twilight closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them again, this time wide and joyful. She plastered a smile on her face to complete the charade, although it had been such a long time since she was actually as happy as her expression suggested.
After inspecting her face for a moment or two, she opened her door and walked out onto the city’s main street. Other ponies were also emerging from their houses, and the road was soon filled with ponies of all different hues, but with the same matching grins. When she first started going out in public, she was very conscious of making sure her smile matched the others for fear of getting caught, but now she had done it so many times she could easily pull it off in her sleep.
After a few minutes of trotting down the pavement, Twilight arrived at the center of town, which she couldn’t deny was absolutely elegant. A large fountain gushed in the center, and she could make out a few fillies tossing coins into it. The water arced high in the air before cascading down the intricate gold-leaf designs carved into the sides. Behind it stood a raised metal platform that had latches holding it in place, with wires and cords underneath. On the platform was a microphone and multiple cameras at every angle. Giant monitors were mounted high in the air, so everybody in the densely packed crowd could see what was going on on the stage.
Twilight scanned the crowd for her friends so they could meet up before the event started, but with all of the bustling about it was hard to tell anybody apart. The mare got a sudden jolt when a pony tapped on her shoulder. She spun around to see Applejack and Pinkie Pie.
“Thank goodness,” Twilight sighed, relaxing a little. Just because all of the other ponies were brain dead, didn’t mean that nopony could talk. Of course, most of the daily conversation was about gardening or the weather. Both were controlled by Emerald to keep the populace in good spirits, so nothing ever changed.
“Sorry if I startled you,” Applejack apologized. “I just wanted to double-check, are we still having a meeting afterwards?” The gears in Twilight’s head spun.
“Oh! Yes, yes we are. Yup.” She spoke quickly and darted her eyes around to make sure nobody of interest heard.
“Great! Oh I’m so excited, today we might finally figure out something big!” Pinkie exclaimed. Even under the circumstances, she could still be upbeat every once and awhile.
“Well I’m going to head back to the family. See you then.” Applejack turned and disappeared back into the sea of ponies. Pinkie lagged behind for a moment.
“Wow, we haven’t met up in like forever!” the pink mare exclaimed. “Maybe...” Twilight waited a few moments for Pinkie to finish, but it didn’t seem like she was going to.
“...Maybe?”
“It’s just...” Pinkie studied the pavement for a moment, then brought her eye’s level to her friend’s. “...Maybe we’ll actually find a way out.” Twilight was taken aback for a moment, as she could’ve sworn she saw the earth pony’s hair inflate slightly. Before she could say anything, though, Pinkie also disappeared deep into the crowd.
Twilight’s mind kicked into overdrive, which happened quite often when something piqued her interest. Pinkie’s mane hadn’t gotten anywhere close to being poofy in seemingly forever. What triggers it? What happens if her mane goes back to the way it was before all of this?
She wanted to pursue the questions further, but her thought process was cut short by the ear splitting sound of microphone feedback. She tried her hardest not to wince. Her gaze shifted to the metal platform before her, where a mint green unicorn in an emerald dress was standing, her white teeth glistening.
“Why good morning, everybody!” Emerald Joy chimed. Her words were met with a roar of approval from the crowd. “Alrighty, let me explain to you! About all those problems you worry about, those problems you’re thinking about. All of it, I’ll explain it for you!” The way she was wording things made it sound like she was helping, like everybody still had a free will and could even have problems.
“Eh, everybody... being happy...” She stumbled over her words for a moment. “Well, it’s your duty! Now then, aren’t you happy?” Thousands of ponies roared with approval again as if they were at a famous musician’s concert. “You know it’s your duty, right? Are you doing as expected?”
Without waiting for any specific response, Emerald shifted to face another good chunk of the crowd, her gown flowing with every movement. “Here at the Happiness and Peace of Mind Committee, our wish is for your absolute happiness, and we’ll do anything in our power to support you!”
With her last few words, steam began rolling out from underneath the platform, the giant latches holding it in place unhooking to allow the stage to rise up far above the populace. Meanwhile, the enormous speakers surrounding the whole town square repeatedly droned the sentence: “Always being happy is your duty.” Twilight would have suspected it as brainwashing, but at this late in the game, that wouldn’t be necessary.
“Therefore, we hope you stay at peace, have the happiest of days, and fulfill your duty, ” the unicorn continued. “Just remember, your happiness is also our happiness! Doesn’t that make you just so happy? Since it’s your duty, you know. Are you doing your duty?” She paused. For the whole speech up to this point her voice and expression were overly optimistic. Now, however, her smile faltered and now seemed more sinister.
“Because, if you aren’t...” She turned to one of the giant screens.
“Hanging, decapitation, fire squad, boiling, drowning, electrocution, buried alive, burning, poisoning, stoning, dismemberment, crucifixion, pick whichever you like~!” With every example, a picture flashed on the screen of a pony dying of said method. It wasn’t exactly easy stomaching a picture of an offending filly being shot at by ten full grown stallions, but after going through this speech day after day, Twilight and her friends were at the very least used to it. Fluttershy still had to cover her eyes though.
“But, y’know, I’m always open to suggestions!” Emerald Joy chimed, as if nothing had happened. “Alrighty! Come now, everybody, you should only be filled with complete happiness! Worries and dissatisfaction, of course you don’t have any of those, right?” Oh how Twilight knew Rainbow Dash would have spoken up if she wouldn’t be killed for it.
With another burst of steam, the platform was lowered and latched back into place. “That will be all everybody! Don’t let me down, alright? Ta ta!” Emerald Joy flashed her teeth one final time before turning and trotting back into The Committee’s headquarters building, her elegant gown billowing out behind her.
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“Is everybody here yet?” Rarity asked, sneaking cautiously into the empty warehouse office. The room’s entrance was located in an out of the way part of the city, where nobody ever ventured, but they could never be too careful.
“Not everybody,” Rainbow Dash sighed, moving her multicolored mane out of her eyes to see how Twilight was coming along lighting the hundreds of candles around the room. “We’re still waiting on Applejack and Fluttershy.”
“Eck, remind me again why we have to use candles.” Rarity clenched a hoof over her snout as she opened the door to let some air in. “The smoke makes it hard to breathe and smells absolutely dreadful.”
“The reason we use candles instead of light bulbs,” Aquamarine interjected, slamming the door shut again so fast that her deep blue hair nearly hit Rarity in the face, “is because where there’s light bulbs, there’s electricity. Where there’s electricity, there’s androids. Where there’s androids, there’s security. And where there’s security, there’s trouble.” She turned and sat back down in her seat. “And hopefully the reason why we can’t leave the door open is self-explanatory.”
Rarity sighed, unable to argue, and took a seat herself. “Even though androids being able to charge on any stray electricity is supposed to be helpful, it really isn’t.”
“Well maybe to us, but not everypony is in a secret organization that’s trying to stay under the radar,” Twilight giggled. The exchange was suddenly cut short by a certain orange mare’s entrance.
“Sorry I’m late, guys. Just a couple of family matters.” Applejack waved it aside. “Now then, should we get started?”
“We’re still waiting on Fluttershy, though,” Pinkie said.
“Really? Honestly, she’s been late to every meeting we’ve had this past month!”
“So let’s just start the meeting without her,” Rainbow suggested. “Might as well, right?” The others nodded in agreement.
“Alright then,” the yellow unicorn announced. “This meeting of the Rebellion Bureau has officially come to order. Would anybody like to start?” Twilight contemplated bringing up what she saw earlier when Pinkie became happy enough to illicit slight poofing in her hair, but the others probably wouldn’t see the significance of it. Especially Aquamarine, since she hadn’t seen Pinkie before when her hair was always frizzed up beyond control, and how it correlated with her attitude.
“Well, the queerest thing happened while I was at the headquarters today,” Rarity piped up. Rarity was an interesting case within their circle of friends, as she actually worked in the system, and therefore didn’t have to keep up the whole brainwashed act. She worked as Emerald Joy’s private dressmaker and makeup artist. When Emerald learned of her abilities when the city was still new, she cast the cure for the curse on the seamstress and hired her, trusting she would stay faithful to the cause and wouldn’t cause any trouble. Of course Rarity’s job wasn’t very important, so she didn’t directly get told anything big, but being able to go in the headquarters at all made finding inside information that much easier.
But before Rarity could continue, there was a faint knocking on the door. The group turned their heads to see Fluttershy entering, her face flustered.
“Um, sorry, I hope I’m not interrupting,” she whispered.
“For goodness sake, Fluttershy, where have you been? You’ve been late to the last five meetings!” Rainbow scolded. The yellow pegasus recoiled.
“I’m sorry, um, something... came up.”
“Every time?”
“Uh... yes.”
“But Fluttershy,” Aquamarine exclaimed, “what could possibly be so important that you’ve had to miss out on a good chunk of five meetings? Things don’t just ‘come up’ like that.”
“Well, erm...” Fluttershy shrank into a corner. “Well, you see, there’s this stallion who always goes to the market after every daily speech...”
“But how’s that important?” Twilight interrupted. “He’s just another brain dead pony like all of the others.”
“Well, that’s the thing.” Fluttershy toyed with her hair nervously. “One day, I was on my way to our meeting, and I accidentally bumped into him and we both fell over. He got up and apologized, but the thing was, it wasn’t the same as any of the other times I’ve bumped into ponies.”
“Wait, you can’t possibly be implying...” Pinkie whispered. Fluttershy nodded.
“I’m saying that he’s not brainwashed either.” The six other ponies gasped.
“But, surely just that one occurrence can’t prove anything. And why did that make you late all those other times?” Twilight reasoned.
“Well, he noticed that I wasn’t exactly like the others either, and, well, one thing led to another, and now we’re friends.” Fluttershy explained.
“Are you serious?” Applejack asked. The pegasus nodded meekly.
“He’s real nice, too. He even has his own plans of escape and rebellion, so I thought maybe he could help us. That’s why I always go to the market after the daily speech every day to talk to him, and, uh, see if he has any... new information.” This seemed to satisfy most of the group’s curiosity, although a few of them still couldn’t get over the shock of another pony getting past the brainwashing.
“Oh no, Fluttershy, this is horrible!” Rarity exclaimed.
“W—why?” Fluttershy stammered.
“You know exactly why! That kind of thing could completely ruin any chances we have of escaping!” Rarity frowned disappointedly. “Even if you say that he’s also planning a rebellion and might have information we don’t, there’s obviously something else there.”
“Rarity, what in Equestria are you talking about?” Aquamarine inquired, raising an eyebrow. The alabaster unicorn scoffed.
“Maybe none of you can see it because you’re all amateurs when it comes to this sort of thing, but a mare doesn’t just know where a stallion goes and then meet him there every day, even at the risk of running late for something extremely urgent,” she explained.
“Where are you going with this?” Rainbow asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Rarity pointed an accusatory hoof at the yellow pegasus who was still pressed up against the wall, and at this point was starting to cry in embarrassment. “Fluttershy is in love with this stallion!”