Chapter 34
Everyone in the room fell silent as they turned to look at Amarilla. Sparky knew the name Applejack. That had been the blonde mare from Grandma V's holo photo, the one that had disappeared without a trace.
Amarilla's eyes widened at the accusation, it had come as a complete surprise to her. 'I... I do not know what you are talking about', she stammered.
'Save it!' Grandma V spat at her. 'Please, it was obvious since I first set eyes on you... Señora Amarilla de la Manzana, you think you're so clever, don't you? Well, I'm sorry to tell you that you weren't as clever as you think. Manzana is hispaña for apple, after all. Own up to it'.
By this time, Juan Carlos looked up at the scene, not understanding the language that the VI was speaking didn't give him much incentive to pay attention, he would have expected Amarilla to fill him in on what he needed to know later, but now, everyone was looking at his mistress and one of them was speaking in a raised voice. He may not have understood the words but raised voices were almost never pleasant. Juan Carlos stretched up, getting to all fours and readying to move between his mistress and the rest of their party.
'Juan Carlos! No', Amarilla said, waving him off. Juan Carlos looked at her in confusion, but it was not his place to question her, and he sat back down on the floor. Amarilla cleared her throat and looked to the rest of their group. 'I admit it', she said. 'There was a time, when I was known as Applejack'.
Sparky blinked at Amarilla in confusion, but then it started to make sense. Mister Happy must have figured it out a long time ago, and he gave her all the pieces to put together.
'A very long time ago, long before you were born, even before the Equestrian Republic was founded, I lived in Ponyville with my brother, Big McIntosh, my little sister, Apple Bloom, and my grandmother Granny Smith, we ran a farm called Sweet Apple Acres, things were great... and then one day, the impossible happened. I died... and then I got back up and I was fine', Amarilla said with a frown. 'It was something I was never able to explain. My family members grew older, but I stayed the same, so then one day, I ran off, took a ship to hispaña, dyed my mane and my coat, I sat in the back of a classroom for foals, learning to speak, and read, and write in hispaña for several years. I moved around quite a bit, afraid to stay in one place for more than a few months at a time, until one day, when I took work on a large farm run by an elderly widower, she took pity on me, the raggedy mare, homeless and hungry. I became to her what Juan Carlos is to me; she was alone, with no friends, and no family, no one other than me for company. Then one day, she died, I took up a role as her distant niece, and her sole remaining heir, that day, Señora Amarilla de la Manzana was born', Amarilla said with a sigh of relief, as if a huge weight had been taken off her shoulders.
Sparky figured that she had to have been carrying that around for quite some time, she might have even been keeping it a secret from Juan Carlos.
'I... I feel so relieved now', Amarilla said. 'I have not spoken of this matter in a very long time... I stopped thinking about it when I could not figure out how it happened'.
'I think I know', Sparky said, she took the time to recount the tale of the Lake of Origin and the Lake of Circumstance that Mister Happy had told her, recounting the legend that those who would drink from both lakes would be granted life immortal.
Amarilla's eyes widened as Sparky recounted this tale to her, as if what she was saying was making sense. 'That day... during the Running of the Leaves... Rainbow Dash and I passed a lake that I drank from... a lake I had never seen before, or since...'
Out of the corner of her eye, Sparky glanced over towards Dizzy. Her helmet had completely fogged up from her crying; Sparky stepped over to her and placed a hoof on her shoulder. 'Dizzy... are you...?'
'FUCK OFF!' Dizzy shouted at her, brushing her away, before running off back towards the lift. Sparky turned to go after her, when she felt another hoof stop her.
'Sparky... no', DC Hopely said. 'Let her go, her entire world was just shattered before her very eyes, she needs time to process'.
Sparky frowned, but realised that DC Hopely was right, and turned back towards Hannibal. 'I have to ask, this context that you're giving us, I'm not sure I understand exactly where you're going with this, why mention these groups at all?'
'I am getting to that', Hannibal said. 'Several months before the Discovery One was launched, FutureTec discovered a strange artefact, a large black tetrahedron on the moon, a FutureTec surveyor accidentally touched it, and when he did, he disappeared in a flash of light... exactly eighteen minutes later, he returned as a charred black husk'.
Sparky grimaced, and here she had thought that suffocation had been bad. Burned to a crisp had rapidly taken the place of worst fate that a person could endure.
‘FutureTec, however, was interested in the tetrahedron, because it transported the researcher to another place, though they did not know where, they intended to find out. They began experimenting on the artefact, sending more hopeless and ignorant researchers to touch the device. Seven ponies were taken in total, six were returned burned to a crisp. We do not know who made the tetrahedron, and all that we know is this. It was not made by the ones the nephites believe to be god, it is far, far older than they could possibly be’, Hannibal said. Sparky noticed that there was clear disgust in the VI’s voice. He found FutureTec’s experimenting with this tetrahedron to be distasteful. Hannibal was evolving, if Sparky were to guess, she would say he was somewhere half way between VI and true AI. While he wasn’t there quite yet, he was getting close. He had thoughts, feelings; he felt that the experimenting with the tetrahedron was wrong.
‘Wait... if six were burned, what happened to the seventh?’ Sparky asked.
‘The seventh was returned, still breathing’, Hannibal said sadly. ‘However, he would have been better off having been burned along with the rest, because he was no longer alive, the reports described him as a mindless zombie, shuffling along and dragging his hooves, as if someone else was pulling the strings. It took no less than a hundred bullets to end his pain, he would have been better off having been burned... after the incident, the tetrahedron on the moon went inert, everyone who touched it afterwards were not taken. FutureTec... was disappointed’, Hannibal added with disgust. ‘They cared not for the loss of life; they only cared about the applications of the tetrahedron, so you can imagine their excitement when FutureTec telescopes discovered a second, larger, tetrahedron in orbit around Tartarus’.
Sparky’s mouth fell open in shock, this tetrahedron, this was what the Discovery One crew had been sent to Tartarus for.
‘The crew was not informed of the tetrahedron’s existence, I alone was programmed with the knowledge of it, and I was given parameters to keep it a secret from them until we reached Tartarus ærospace. I was not able to violate this directive, and the parameters rendered me unable to turn the ship around, there was only one viable option at this point. For their own good, I had to murder the crew. Death is preferable to being taken, it pained me to do this, I am responsible for the deaths of Anatoliy Leninov, Grigori Nikolayev, Leonid Bykovsky, Firecracker Starshot, and Allegro Adagio, I regret that it had to be done, but I do not regret the choice, it was better than being taken... I tried to make Mission Commander Ice Wind understand that, but she would not listen, in her fury, she invaded my computer core and ripped all of my disk drives out of their housings... the ship arrived at Tartarus not long afterwards... I do not know what became of the Mission Commander, I can only assume that she was taken, the tetrahedron that we were sent to investigate, too, has disappeared. I assume that it took Mission Commander Ice Wind, but for what reason, I cannot know, it is not something any of us can comprehend. It is unknowable, and FutureTec is foolhardy enough to believe that they can be its’ master, that they alone can bend it to their will. I arm you with this knowledge, so that you may put an end to their madness’, Hannibal said determinately.
Sparky nodded her head in agreement. FutureTec was a child playing with fire. What they were doing was dangerous, and irresponsible, they had to be stopped. She would stop them, if it was the last thing that she would ever do, she would stop them. ‘Hannibal...?’ Sparky asked, a thought dawning upon her. ‘Do you... do you know anything about cutie marks?’
Hannibal raised a holographic eyebrow in surprise. ‘Yes... as a matter of fact, I do, while science and research was discouraged by the Old Monarchy, the phenomenon known as the cutie mark happened to be extremely well documented... why do you ask?’ Hannibal asked.
Sparky had clearly surprised him with the question, and why should he not be? Cutie marks, of all things, were something that had almost been forgotten about entirely; Sparky removed her helmet, and undid the fastenings of her space suit, allowing it to fall to the floor. ‘Because I have one’, Sparky said simply, turning to show it to the VI.
‘Interesting, may I see it?’ Hannibal asked.
Sparky nodded in agreement and moved closer to the VI, allowing him to look it over. She watched nervously as the VI scanned it, looking over every detail.
‘Cutie Marks... they were a uniquely Equestrian phenomenon, but since the foundation of the Republic, they have not been obtained by any pony, at least, until now, so it seems’, Hannibal said, as if he was deep in thought. ‘I cannot tell you how you obtained it... but I think I can tell you the meaning. The mark is of a sparkplug; tell me, what does a sparkplug do?’
Sparky blinked. ‘It’s one of the most important pieces of an internal combustion engine. It delivers electric current from an ignition system to the combustion chamber to ignite the compressed fuel/air mixture by an electric spark’, she said expertly, without bothering to stop for a breath.
Hannibal nodded his head. ‘Correct, without a sparkplug, an engine cannot start, and just like your cutie mark, you could not have gathered your friends and arrived at this point without its ignition. I propose to you, that it does not matter, how your cutie mark was obtained. What is important is what it represents’, Hannibal said with a smile. ‘You, Sparkplug Starlight, have a destiny’.