//------------------------------// // Arrival // Story: Project Pegasus // by BronySpielberg //------------------------------// The double doors slid open and a tsunami of air conditioning rushed out to mingle with the sticky humidity of a Central Florida afternoon. Matt Hutchinson stepped from the cool dim interior of Orlando International Airport. Idling at the curb sat a hot pink hardtop Porsche rattling with bass from a high powered sound system. A matching cartoon pony dangled from the rearview mirror. The door popped open and the music blasted orchestral obscenity into his ears. "Well, the prodigal son returns", a chipper female voice beckoned from the drivers seat. He took his place in the hard bucket racing seat beside an attractive young woman with her hair dyed to match her car's paint. With a slam and a spew of soot and smoke the sportscar leaped away from the curb and into the traffic lane, cutting off a swearing taxi driver. The flash of pink sped down the ramp with squealing rubber and shot under a green sign that read "To Interstate 4 South". Once they had gotten properly on the road and averted the attention of a highway patrolman, Sarah shifted the car into high gear and her attention to her passenger. "So, how ya feelin' pal, enjoy any of those first class cocktails?" "You know I don't drink anymore." Matt seemed nonplussed at the choice of topic. "Yeah, not since the accident." Sarah said with a hint of friendly sarcasm in her voice. Matt frowned at his companion. The remark was in bad taste. He had been severed from his internship at Walt Disney Imagineering for "improper conduct on property" as they supervised construction of the New Fantasyland project. That was three years ago and the only good thing that had come from it was meeting Sarah. Matt had brought his college drinking habit with him to Orlando like many interns in the program. The party scene was quite lively and Matt found ample opportunity to get himself into trouble. They finished in record time and to celebrate, he and a few interns had gone out for drinks at a bar off property. Matt ran afoul of the police on the way back in and spent the night in Orange County Jail with his car impounded and a DUI for his trouble. His work records were stellar though, so the company credited him with a successful completion of the project and full recommendations to any future employers. It had been tough at first, and the rejection letters and bottles piled up in Matt's apartment, later trailer, and finally car as his savings dwindled. Matt wondered if his life was over. After selling his prized Mazda, he had fallen into a deep depression. A night on the phone with Sarah talking him down as he stared at a loaded pistol made him gave in and seek help. After a month in an Orlando rehab center, Matt didn't exactly feel ready to take on the world but he no longer felt like leaving it either. In early 2013 though, after a hard year his luck turned. Sarah had been working for Universal Orlando's creative team all along, and she convinced her boss to bring him on for their "Halloween Horror Nights" event. Matt quickly made an impression and was kept on. After Halloween, Sarah and Matt went separate ways as Universal sent Matt to California while Sarah remained in FL, working on a secretive new project. Just weeks ago, Matt had finished Universal Hollywood's version of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Now he was returning to work in Florida after a short vacation. At Sarah's request, Matt had been attached to the mysterious "Project : Pegasus". According to conversations with Sarah prior to his arrival, this "project" was shrouded in even more secrecy than Harry and his pals. Even now, Matt didn't know much more than its name. At Universal Creative, expansions for the park were assigned codenames like "StrongArm"; the pseudonym for the Harry Potter ride when it was considered top secret. The pink hardtop tore past Sea World and turned westward toward Universal's property. It was plain to see that Sarah was a speed demon, the way she handled the machine, deftly clutching and dropping the hammer into 4th. Matt broke in over the buzz of exhaust. "Okay, so you've had your fun with the "classified info" and all that over the phone. Care to spill the beans?" Sarah pondered this for a moment as she maneuvered around a semi-trailer. "Well, it's not really something anyone's tried before, that's for sure." She went on, detailing how it had gone through a very long development just to get the hardware running. Universal for the most part shunned traditional "carny" rides in favor of exotic technologies. Roller coasters with electromagnetic launches, dark rides with simulator cars and real explosions in the building were the standard. The Harry Potter ride even used robotic arms for ride vehicles! All these tech toys meant that an army of engineers could take months to fine tune the "show" to meet the demanding standard Universal had set since opening in 1990. It was this "test and adjust" process that Matt specialized in, but Sarah was being too vague for him to surmise what he'd be dealing with. She spoke, "The IP's hot right now, but they're not sure that it'll last so they went with the tech we've been working with for the last year. We can always change things overnight if this one takes a crap" Matt found this tidbit unusual. She was speaking of "intellectual property", the thing this ride would be trying to convince guests they were experiencing in-person. Millions of dollars could be spent trying to convince people that they were "riding the movies" as Universal's slogan had once proclaimed. How could that just be changed overnight? "So what's this IP you keep going on about?" Matt asked as he regarded the pink plush pony swinging from the mirror with contempt. It was one of those with the little pictures on the butt. This one had a mess of balloons. If there was one thing Matt hated about theme park design, it was the girly shit. He'd been burned out with all of the princess crap the Mouse had him doing, and he often joked (in bad taste) that it was this that had driven him to drink. "Funny you should ask just now, because you're staring at it!" If it wasn't for the hornet's buzz of exhaust, a man screaming might have been heard as the hardtop flew down the interstate towards a sign, "Universal Orlando Resort, Sand Lake Rd, 2 miles". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The pink Porsche pulled into a marked space in a rather ordinary looking office park outside a rather ordinary looking two-story building. The only thing that might give a clue as to what lay inside was the Universal globe frosted on the glass doors to the lobby. Inside, Sarah led a steaming Matt down a hall to a door marked "Project Pegasus-Team Only". She slid her id card and the door unlocked with an automatic click. There was a rush of icy air from within. Inside a row of computer servers sat humming. In the center of the room sat a pair of what appeared to be barber's chairs. In front of them hung two thick plastic discs, about 2 feet in diameter. Sarah closed the door behind him with a click as it locked again. The room was spartan,with wires streaming all over the floor and up to the discs. He had to practically shout over the thrum of fans from the servers on the back wall. "This is it? Project Pegasus? You brought me here to do 'My little Pony' and it looks like you're about to have a LAN party in here. What is all this crap?" "You know, LAN party's not a bad guess. You're familiar with MMORPG's?" Sarah explained as she checked over the hardware. Matt was examining one of the servers when this caught his attention. He'd spent most of his childhood staring at a CRT with a controller in his hand. Games were about the only thing Matt loved as much as rides, but this was still supposedly frilly pink garbage. The chairs in the middle of the room looked like something out of "The Matrix". He couldn't see the connection between this and their subject matter, but the promise of a new type of game kept him from calling his project manager begging reassignment. After all, she'd said once this flopped they'd develop all new software, right? She went on "Well, the hardware is all off the self. Something to do with the military. After they moved on to some new toy, Universal took a crack at it and brought us in to see if we could make some kind of ride out of it on the cheap. In terms of our IP, I don't think we could have done better if they'd given us millions to play with." The "Dream Machine" as it was called utilized powerful computers and alpha wave transmitter/receivers to put the human brain into an REM state and provide the user with an interactive dream that would be just as vivid as reality itself. They were able to create a world that matched the hit cartoon perfectly. "You mean this show is popular?" Matt was incredulous. "Sure is, and wait 'til you see what it looks like," came the reply as Sarah hastily tapped instructions into a tablet computer. The disks started to emit a whirring sound and the fans in the servers went up a couple of octaves. She set the tablet on a desk and sat down in one of the barber chairs, motioning for Matt to do likewise. "Sit back, shut your eyes and try to relax. This might feel a little weird." As Matt prepared himself in the adjacent chair, an electronic female voice spoke. "Initializing subject scan, please remain still and do not open your eyes" A green laser fan swept from the disks and went from their feet to their heads. "Targets acquired. Alpha wave emitters ready, receivers are primed. Initializing tranquillizing beam." Tranquilizer? What the hell was this crazy science experiment doing to him? Before he could move a muscle though, he found himself paralyzed and fading from consciousness. The last thing he sensed was a feeling like sinking into a cool dark cloud of fog.