//------------------------------// // Ch7. Spaaaaaaaace! // Story: Synthetic // by Not Luna //------------------------------// “--ou see the look on his face? I swear he was going to piss himself!” Luna got out between heavy breathing and bellowing laughter. “Maybe if you hadn't looked at him the way you did, he wouldn’t have locked up like that.” Even though he was chastising her for laughing at the buscolt like she did, Jacob was having a hard time fighting back a grin himself. His human nature told him that it was okay to indulge in a little bit of schadenfreude. They both had been at another lunch date when a young colt had slipped and fallen while carrying a rather large assortment of plates, bowls, and the like. He swore he could recognize those derpy looking eyes, but couldn’t put a finger on it. In any case, they had just gotten back from their fifth lunch date that week. ‘Making up for lost time.’ Luna had said. She was laughing so hard at one point; Jacob actually had to carry her through the crowded streets. Maybe it was the advanced hydraulics talking, but he could not remember a time when she was so light. Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember a lot of things. His distant past was fine; it was the recent things that were getting to him. At first it was innocent enough; a missing face here, a forgotten place there. Then it started to get worse. After a while he was losing entire days of his memory! Things like that don’t just happen. He brought it to Twilight and she told him it might have been some kind of glitch or something. Just another thing to chalk up to being an android of a man that technically died thousands of years ago he guessed. Said android apparently had a lot of bugs as well, like every once in a while, he would get strange cravings to do certain things: Walking down the street, ‘Hey! I could go for a good fifty mile run right about now!’. Things like that. It was an odd five weeks. The oddness, however, was offset by the return to normalcy with Luna and training with Celestia. Due to the computer-like nature of Jacob’s shell, he was able to pick up everything Celestia was putting down while simultaneously cross referencing it with videos and guides on the net. What was once A Diamond Dog’s Guide to Stealth and Special Ops Execution became the former human’s reference material for the coming storm. Sometimes, being a walking supercomputer/weapon had its advantages. Sometimes it had had its disadvantages. Sometimes you just had to deal with it. All a part of living in the long run. “Living.” Jacob thought for what seemed to be the seventh time that day as he carried Luna to elevator leading up to the factory floor of the Lunar Munitions HQ. Every time he thought of that one word, he automatically called up the scientific definition of sentience. “The ability to feel, perceive, or to experience subjectivity” it said, and although he felt as if he had all those things he couldn’t help but feel… something wrong. Almost like the memory loss and odd cravings were fighting against something else inside him. Like something was trying to get out and it’s being repressed. “There I go being all philosophical during internal monologues again.” Jacob said to himself, actually going so far as to give a physical eye roll. “Okay, okay, I think I’m good. *snrk* You can let me down now.” Luna managed to squeak out as they ascended in the elevator. As he set her down, the elevator dinged and opened up to the assembly floor of the Lunar Munitions factory. It was your typical factory setting: Lots of ponies doing lots of jobs with lots of robotic assistance. Assembly lines for guns and ammo, anti-grav rooms for vehicles and large weapon systems, and a dry-dock for assembling small to medium size ships, both water bound and space bound. Luna trotted over to the row of lockers next to the floor managers office, opened a seemingly random one and pulled out its contents. She donned a welder’s apron, some custom protective neck padding, and a welder's helmet before trotting back over to Jacob. “I'll see you later alright hun?” She asked turning her head to the side. Giving her a quick peck on the cheek he answered. “Later.” As she walked away she heard him shout something. “Try not to get any third degree burns today!” Funny thing about Luna and her company, she actually likes to work with her employees and help assemble the products. She says it ensures quality products, but in all honesty, she just likes the work. “Hey Matte! Let’s get that Trophy System on the T-233B today!” -------------------------------------------------------------- With his arms and mind no longer occupied by his giggling wife, Jacob’s thoughts turned inwards once again as he made his way to Celestia’s office for another day of ‘class’. What would be the lesson? Silent takedowns? Moving with the shadows? Back flip tomahawk throwing? As he got into the elevator going to the top floor, nerve nodes began to flare up within his cranial cavity. “Another one? That’s the fifth time this week!” Jacob thought to himself as he slid down the wall of the elevator to sit on the floor and let it pass. Luckily, nopony else entered to find him sitting there. That would have been just a bit awkward. The headaches were not bad per se, just annoying. They would get in the way of a train of thought or a conversation. Just annoying. -------------------------------------------------------------- “Ugh! Not again!” Deep within the confines of TS Cybernetics, a smallish alicorn typed away feverishly at a keyboard while staring at a large screen. Another damn glitch she had to deal with. Jacob’s data files in the container had become corrupted again! She knew the A.I. container installed in him was… strange, but to constantly become corrupted? Maybe he had a virus? She would have to look into it when he went to sleep again. Until then, she just restored the files to their previous state before he got into the elevator. -------------------------------------------------------------- “Damnit! Lost it again!” Another train of thought bites the dust. He couldn’t remember what he was thinking about before he got the headache. Just a blank gap. It didn’t matter anyway, he had arrived. As the door to Celestia’s personal elevator slid open, he noticed that it was dark and quiet, with the only light being the minute slivers that passed through the shutters, bathing the room in a half-light, half-dark Don’s office aura. She had done this before; making the whole room dark, then, when he least expects it, she jumps from the shadows and he has to fight her off. He’s gotten better at it since he first lost to her. Muscles tensed, he crept his way into the office with the utmost care, remembering to cloak once he made it beyond the threshold of the door. The Ghost module sprang to life and began its process, magically bending light around Jacob’s skin and clothes by way of microscopic, contained, negative gravity wells. In only one-point-five seconds, he was completely invisible to the naked eye. Not even UV goggles could detect him. If one were to really search, one could find he is completely invisible on thermals too, as he had no core body temperature, much like a cold blooded animal. Running a quick bio-scan of the room, he found that, oddly, Celestia was not in the room. Feeling confident enough to drop the cloak, he began roaming the empty space for some type of clue to lead him to her. As he approached the desk, his answer came to him in the form of a small note and a card. Head to the space elevator in town. Once you’re up, use the card to get to gate 5B. We will talk more there. -Celly “Wonder what she wants to talk about. At a space port no less!” He knew that the space elevator in town led to one of Equestria’s only space ports. It was one of the first stops on Luna's tour of the ‘City of Tomorrow!’. He just couldn’t figure out what Celestia planned to do with him once he was up there. “Only one way to find out.” -------------------------------------------------------------- Luna gazed longingly out the window of her top floor executive office at the city-scape below. In the distance, she could make out a thin, black sliver against the backdrop of the Equestrian sky. A conglomeration of violets, oranges, reds, and dark blues meshed together like a great melting pot atop the gray and chrome tops of the skyscrapers and the dimming semi-circle of the setting sun. From the horizon of one of the taller buildings, a small, black dot began to ascend the thin sliver, slowly gaining speed as it jealously rose higher and higher above its ground-bound cousins. As the dot disappeared from the skyline, Luna sighed and lovingly caressed the small rock wrapped around her horn. “I’ll see you soon love.” Her attention switched to her phone on the desk, from which a message shined brightly in the pre-dark twilight. She had received it not five minutes before, choosing instead to ‘see’ him off before responding. As she picked it up, she read the bright white words on the screen one more time. You ready 2 go? Entering the pass code without a second thought, she typed a response. Yea Not wanting to wait any longer, she picked up her travel bag, packed with everything she might need for a couple of weeks on a transit shuttle, and a one way ticket to the Pluto station, courtesy of the Equus System Colonization Fleet. As the double doors closed for what would be, undoubtedly, a long time, a stray beam of light, reflecting off a seemingly random window outside, shone through the office and illuminated a small slip of paper and a note. I, Princess Luna, CEO of Lunar Munitions, hereby resign my post as leader of this great company. I leave my position, office, and all personal company assets to factory floor manager Matte Black. Furthermore-- -------------------------------------------------------------- The Equestrian Interplanetary Space Port was abuzz with activity. Creatures from all walks of life ran, walked, trotted, and flew too and from various places. The only thing that was seemingly stagnant in the beehive of a station was the long line of changelings in front of the coffee shop, waiting for a cup with a shot of synthetic emotion energy. But, even the unmoving changelings had to part the line and move to make way for the strange creature that walked among them. Jacob was having trouble moving through the crowded station. Not only was there no elbow room, he was gaining lots of unwanted attention as well. Stares and dropped jaws followed him wherever he went. It dredged up some unpleasant memories from a long time ago. Still, he only had a little ways to go before he reached gate 5B. As he pushed through a particularly thick crowd, he saw it. It was very unassuming, looking like any TSA checkpoint in an airport on Earth. Just with ponies. Oddly enough there was no line, just a bored looking officer standing at a podium. Jacob walked up to him with some trepidation, not knowing if he should just go, or wait for others so he could-- “I.D. please.” He was torn from his thoughts by the voice of the officer. “I.D. sir. I haven't got all day.” “Just as grating as TSA officers I see. Some things never change.” Pulling his I.D. and the card he found in Celestia’s office, he handed them over to the impatient pony. The officer went through the motions, looking for discrepancies, black lighting the card for legitimacy, and swiping it through the scanner. “You're clear. Go on through Mr. LeBlanc.” “Thank you.” Retrieving the cards from the pony, he walked through the gate threshold and security and sat down in a random seat, waiting for Celestia to talk to him, like the note said. “Good to see you got the note. I’m sure you want answers now.” Already desensitized to her way of just silently popping up next to you, he turned to his sister, sitting in the seat next to him and wearing a ridiculous looking overcoat and fedora. “First question: What the hell are you wearing?” She looked at him questioningly. “It’s a disguise. I can’t go out in public without one being me, can I?” He narrowed his eyes at her, wondering why she didn’t just use a cloak spell or an appearance illusion. In the end, he came to the conclusion that Celly can be an airhead sometimes. He cracked a small smile of amusement. “Okay, question two: What did you want to see me about?” She sadly sighed, the pep talk she gave herself an hour before beginning to crumble around her. She levitated a slip of paper, upon which the letters ‘Boarding Pass’ were printed. “What is this? Why are you giving me a boarding pass?” She just gazed sadly into his eyes, knowing full well that what she was about to do, might hold the possibility of him not coming back. “It’s time” He tilted his head and cocked an eyebrow. “Time for what?” “To put everything I have taught you to the test.” Suddenly, all the pieces fell together; the pass, the space port, and the phrase ‘It was time’. “It’s time for me to go then huh?” “Yes. Everypony already knows you are leaving and probably not coming back for a considerable time. It breaks my heart to have to send you away so soon after you just arrived, but the violence has reached a critical level. We need to send you in or risk more innocent civilians.” This was it. The ultimatum. A few feet away stood the final gateway to whatever fresh Hell awaited him on Io. He turned over the thin piece of paper in his hands, contemplating that he could just walk away. Celestia would never know if he just cloaked and left. Faded into the shadows. He knew full well, however, that he would never do something so dastardly, so cruel to her. After all, it was him that had said that first day in her office: “You don’t have to worry anymore sis, I’ve got you.”. “Okay. Can I get one last hug before I go?” She smiled for the first time that day; big, bright, and full of love. “Of course you can, come here.” They stayed like that for a good five minutes before a voice broke the comfortable silence. “All passengers on flight 258, direct to Io station, are to begin boarding.” “Guess that's me.” He pried himself from her and began a slow saunter to the gate. As the flight pony scanned his pass, he chanced one last look back to Celestia, only to find that she had disappeared. “Probably to escape any prying eyes.” He mused. “Clear to board sir. Have a nice day!” He mumbled a quick ‘Thank you’ and made his way to the docked space craft. His thoughts were surprisingly blank as he climbed aboard the craft and took a random seat next to a window. He settled into the chair and prepared to take a nap to pass the time before the ship was out of Equus’s gravity well. He thought of his family. Everything he was leaving behind in order to solve a problem that really should not have been there in the first place. He didn’t even get to say goodbye to Luna. But he steeled himself, promising to make it back to her in time for dinner, to finally settle down with his beloved forever. As he drifted off into blissful unconsciousness, an errant thought skipped its way into his CPU. “I’m ready for Mr. Bone’s wild ride.”