//------------------------------// // Act 0.1: No such thing as a easy job // Story: Shadowrun: Equestria // by Savanah //------------------------------// Access Page was biting her lips anxiously, looking at the scenery through the small window of the helicopter, compulsively tapping her hoof against the floor. The helicopter they had charted was a NMM Dragon, a twin rotor cargo helicopter, most of its belly was full of construction material and the six ponies that where being transferred for the project. Time advanced slowly as the powerful twin engines made its way down the mountain in direction to the small city; even from here she could see the outline of the colossal building that was the arcology, its unfinished skeleton of steel and plasticrete. Trying to ease her mind, she tried to focus on the other passengers, right at her side there was Aura, the security pony seemed unconcerned, listening some music from her comlink, that she noted was one of those new model Meteor 6, those had barely been out for the public for a few days yet and this mare already had one. Access herself only had an old Meteor 3, it had all the simple functions you would expect from any comlink, it connected her to the world, always collecting and dispersing information’s about its owner, what food dos she like, what she wants to buy, what she really needs to buy and the digital world answered, with a few clicks she could find sales of her favorites socks, recommendations of new trids to watch, maybe information about some new restaurant she would like to try, beside this the comlink also could be used to store all kind of archives, maps, music, trids, exchange email, your personal schedule, and many other depending on the model. Aura’s comlink was plugged directly into her datajack, the cyberware that allowed the connection of electrical devices directly into one’s brain was so small and elegantly designed and implanted that Access hadn’t even noticed it at first, it probably was much more expensive than her own big and chromed datajack, a standard Hayraku model that almost all of programmers would have implanted as part of a basic benefit package. Access wondered what other implants the mare had, it was not unusual for ponies working in security to have lots of offensive and defensive cyberware, most of the time what restricted them was only how much of a threat they wanted to look and how much nuyen they had, the more discreet an implant was the pricier it gets. Besides this there was another limit, a more nebulous one that still baffled scientist since Rainbow Dash, it appeared that there was only a certain number of implants that a single pony could take, you pass this limit and you lose something, some of the more religious types got to call it your soul, but most scientist thought of it as cyberware induced psychopathic behavior, the symptoms were basically the same in every individual, the more cyberware one had the more disconnected it grew from ponykind, she lost some essential part of her equinity and so far there was no known cure. Access felt a chilling sensation through her spine as she realized that this augmented mare was probably sent by the security to catch her, that was why she was making so many questions, asking about her life, about her dreams; Access had to say that she was getting air sick and needed to isolate herself in a simulation for a few minutes to make her stop. Trying to distract her disturbed mind for a few minutes she tried to focus on her flight companions, looking around she counted three more ponies. At the other side from her there was an obvious couple, the mare had a bleached white coat and was busy at work on her deck, her SIN mark identified her as a senior level programmer, and she was probably going to be Access superior. Her companion was a yellow pony stallion, deep asleep. The fifth was the more mysterious of the bunch, he was a young bulky horse, barely out of his teenagers years, his coat of such an intense black that Access doubted it was natural and his eyes were cybernetics, pure white and like nothing she had ever seen, what he was doing here was a mystery, maybe he was another security agent, just waiting to jump on her at the first signal of problem. Her heart was racing inside her chest, the flight seemed to take forever, now they were over the fringes of the city, she could see the popular housing, the old buildings, most of them in disrepair and almost falling apart, she checked her comlink’s clock again, trying to think how to escape from the trap they were surely waiting to spring on her as soon as they landed, she would have wanted to escape in Canterlot, the city was big enough that she felt sure that she could disappear in its alleys and cheap hotels, just like in one of those spy trids, but Aura seemed to know what she was thinking and kept close to her, telling stories of her time in Neighpon and all the wonderful things she was going to show Access in Ponyville. As the helicopter started flying over the new city she saw the abundance of colored lights from all the decorations for the Heart Warming eve, the entire city seemed to be gearing up for the holidays, the only thing brighter were the colossal planting fields shinning with artificial sunlight in the distance, even in the middle of the night ponies and machines toiled the soil and produced most of the food of Equestria, she pictured herself, toiling the field with those ponies, a sentence of at least thirty years as indentured servant on the farms was going to be a happy ending for her when all of this was done. “Hey, are you seeing that building over there?” Aura called, pointing to a big white modern building with bright white neon lights, on the fringe of the new city, almost on the old city. “Yes, what it is?” Access answered, trying to appear calm, she at least was learning a lot about history before being sent to jail for the rest of her life. “That the biggest non-corporative building in the city. Once it was the city library, but after Twilight’s treason the government closed it down and for a long time it just sited there completely abandoned. But just two years ago, the Universal Sisterhood bought the building and reformed it in their biggest temple in Equestria. When I was a filly they used to tell all those stories about matrix ghost haunting the place and that you still could hear the Twilight’s voice if you stood on the right spot, we used to dare each other to see who could stay inside the longer.” “And have you really seen a ghost?” Access had heard these kind of stories since she was filly, not exactly these ones, but there was always things like, the spirits of those that died connected to the matrix and now haunted it’s dark corners or maybe even of certain places were the matrix and the real world intersected, just because Meteor Shower had based the matrix in his arcane equations from before the Fading, some ponies believed that should be something magic on it, but Access knew better, the matrix was only zeros and ones in a certain order, there was no mysteries for her on the matrix. “Of course!” Aura replied with a devious grim. “Well, ok, maybe it could have been a stray cat, but I know this pony that knows this zebra that heard from a gryphon that he saw Twilight Sparkle’s ghost!” “Don’t do them all?” Access giggled for a moment, forgetting about the fact that the security mare was just taking her time before slapping her in chains or something even worse; she straightened her face as soon as she remembered this fact, she can’t be friends with this mare, she is the one that will put her in jail! “Maybe if you want to see for yourself we could go visit it anytime, I heard that they have a lovely restaurant on the top floor now.” Aura said with confident smile, looking deep into Access’s eyes. Access tilted her head, what kind of psychopath was this mare! She was inviting her to dinner a few moments before jailing her? “I don’t really like the universal sisterhood.” Access said coyly. “But they do such a wonderful work in these fringe communities! They help the people and are always so nice, what is there not to like?” “After my mother died, my father converted to the sisterhood, he started to get more and more enthralled in it. After me and my brother moved out, he moved to one of their temples, at first we would receive a few cards from him, heartwarming eve and the such, but eventually he stopped and when we tried to look for him, they wouldn’t allow us in, they simply said that he had moved to a higher level and had to cut his links anything that connected him to his old life.” “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” Aura answered awkwardly. “I lost my father too; he became addicted to BTL’s” Better Than life, was a form of virtual drug, it usually came in the form of an exhilarating experience, some of them were innocuous enough, like a first kiss or a night of intense sex, but they were altered to feel better than real life, more intense, happier. Use it long enough and the real world becomes bleaker, darker; soon you wouldn’t want to go back to the real world, you become addicted. “If you don’t mind me asking, how did you mother died?” Aura asked in a hush, seeing the normally confident and extrovert mare so quiet was strange to Access. “Work accident, she was an independent programmer and one day she stumbled over black ice while mining a few gigas of data from a big company.” She felt the pang of pain that came with messing in an old wound. Access left out that not only her mother had taught her most of what she knew, but that she had been fried entering in a Hayraku server. “Mine as killed by a gang in Ponyville, they call themselves Nigtmares, she committed the mistake of standing in the wrong corner and two ponies stabbed her.” “Oh, I’m sorry.” Access couldn’t believe she was having an emotional moment with the mare sent to capture her. “Don’t be, it was a long time ago and besides you didn’t knew.” Aura forced a smile, even though she had teary eyes. “If you don’t mind me changing the subject, but who is that horse?” “Him? He is the son of director Daiki, apparently he ended up mixed with some bad crowd in Neighpon; some group called Otakus. His father decided he needed some vacations on the uncivilized lands to learn some respect.” “Really, what did he do?” Access asked; she knew it was rude, but if she was going to jail, at least she was going to sate her curiosity. Aura smiled and answered. “Apparently they caught him snooping around in some of the maneframes of the arcology. So the old horse decided that if he liked the arcology so much, he could go and work on it for a few months.” “So that’s where he got those eyes? His dad must have paid a fortune for them, I never have see implants like those; they are really pretty.” “In fact… Oh, it’s time to land, fast your seatbelt and it would be good for you to lay down, with your sickness. I can tell you when to open your eyes.” Aura said with a smile on her muzzle that Access could almost believe was honest. Access fastened her seatbelt, in her mind the countdown for disaster approached zero as she felt the helicopter getting ready to land, the metallic structure shuddering under the power of the two massive engines, she closed her eyes and laid down, this way at least they couldn’t say that she resisted arrest. The helicopter touched down and with a whinnying of hydraulics its rear ramp opened, flooding the cargo hold with the artificial lights of the landing pad and before they could get free of their seatbelts there was already a team boarding the helicopter, probably to make sure that the cargo was in order. Access tilted her head as she saw the team, it was… strange. The team leader was an old zebra, followed closely by two diamond dogs and behind those there were two ponies. She always knew that things where more diverse in Equestria than in Neighpon, but to see a team like that was unexpected, the Hayraku company had always been… selective with their recruitment. The zebra on the front got up on two legs, a pair of pistol barrels coming out of his yellow jumpsuit’s sleeves. “Fillies and colts, stay in your seats, remain calm and nothing will go wrong!” The NMM Predator was possible the second or third most famous gun in the world, it was a heavy and powerful pistol, chambering .45 rounds and capable of semi auto fire, easy to clean and repair and with options for mouth-grip, saddle-grip and even hoof clamps. It was the number one weapon of choice for personal protection amongst professionals of the area. Access always wanted to see one, but now as she had one pressed against the back of her head, all that she could think of where the gruesome pictures in the newspapers of ponies with their brains splattered. The zebra had chosen her as a hostage, one hoof circling tightly her neck, the other pressing the pistol against her head. The zebra was slowly backing away, pulling Access with him, one of the diamond dogs had a submachine gun in his paws trained on the other passengers and the other had a small container that he had recovered from the back of the helicopter; the two ponies where behind, covering their rear with smaller pistols. “Stay calm, everypony! We are here for this small box and this pony is our exit ticket, if no one here alerts the guards, she will be returned safe and sound.” He spoke in a controlled voice, a bit hoarse. Slowly they backed away, Access Page sweating coldly as she saw the other passengers, the horse was unfazed, his piercing white eyes looking at the criminals; the couple was huddled together and Aura was still laying on her place, but Access could feel her gaze, her bright intense purple eyes scanning the place, she could see her muscles tensing and her respiration accelerating, she tried to warm her captor, but he diverted his sight for just a moment as he was going down the ramp… Aura leapt into action in the blink of an eye, turning her body and pointing her left hoof to the zebra, a hidden augmentation throwing a small blade with great velocity and deadly precision, her right eye was glowing with an artificial luminescence. The blade stuck the zebra on his hoof, discharging immediately a potent shock that made his left hoof twitch in electric spasm, the blade had hit with cybernetic precision, frying the electronic firing mechanism of the NMM predator. “No one is getting out of here with her!” Aura said in a calm, cold voice, her internal radio trying to enter in contact with the security and ask for backup, but the signal appeared to be jammed. The two diamond dogs charged her, now Access could notice their differences, the first one had a light brown coat and appeared to be much older, the younger had a white coat and appeared much stronger, bulging with muscles that Access suspected were probably grafts, long metallic claws unsheathing from his knuckles. Aura reacted with trained grace, dodging the older and bucking the younger on the head before he could close his sharp claws on her. The older tried again, throwing the box at his backpack and this time leaping at her with both claws extended, Aura dodged the pounce attack with ease, but the older dog had predicted her movements, twisting his body and hitting her with a double kick on her belly, planting two purple bruises on her side. Aura let out a long breath and charged at the dog, the experienced diamond dog readied to counter attack. As the pony charged the older dog, the younger had recovered, took his submachine gun and let out a burst of fire in the direction of the pony. Aura would never have noticed the bullets in her direction, if not for her implanted echolocation device, she jumped out of the way of the bullets in a blur of movement, the bullets barely missing hitting the older diamond dog; She felt pain from excess heat the augmentations were dumping on her body, but she needed to keep going, later she would care about the internal damage, now she had ponies to save. The younger diamond dog kept firing, quickly reloading and firing once again, Aura closing on him with each dodge, her internal computers and augmentations working in combination with her trained body to make an efficient killing machine. She closed on him at the time he was shooting one last burst that she easily deflected with a strike against his paw and a second more powerful hoofpunch against his jaw, sending thousands of volts through it. The old zebra was back up, recovered from the spasm, biting the blade craved in his fore hoof and taking it out with a muffled grunt of pain. “Password, brick her, now!” The zebra screamed to one of the ponies at the back, he knew that bringing him together had been a mistake, he is an amateur, completely green, but he had been in a hurry and no other regular decker was free. Password was a young pony colt decker, his coat was dyed black and he had deep purple eyes and a short grey mane and tail, still wet behind his ears and to be honest, still learning his craft, most of his runs so far had been simple jobs, nothing much more than entering somepony email’s account or stealing a few gigas of paydata from one server or other, right now he was desperately keeping the communications jammed and browsing through his list of exploits, trying to find one that matched the class of cyberware that the mare was using, his hoofs dancing in the air as he ran programs from his own customized bodysuit, which had the capacity of a overclocked Blueblood Cyber-5 cyberdeck built into its various pockets. A set of goggles and gloves linked to the suit allowed him to execute any program with the blink of an eye. As Aura was trading punches with the zebra, the older diamond dog pounced her, she barely being able to get out of the way before his claws would have ripped her apart, she felt her muscles aching from the continuous effort, but there was no time to rest, she activated an injection of stimulants and jumped over the diamond dog, hitting both hoofs on his muzzle before he could defend and throwing another electrified blade against the zebra, that this time was able to deflect it. She was getting nervous, the older diamond dog was a pretty good fighter, but was physically weaker than her, the zebra was in better shape, but he didn’t seemed to have any kind of formal training, the younger dog was incredible stronger, but too aggressive. Where the hell was security, she couldn’t hold them forever! Echo Phony, a white pony mare with golden eyes and mane carefully stilled was conveniently away from all the fighting, she didn’t cared to get her hoofs dirty, but they had brought along three very competent fighters, so she was contempt to just stay away and observe the action, her specialist was another anyway, Password was proficient in manipulating the matrix, but she was proficient in manipulating ponies. She had made unplanned invasion possible, talking or bribing their way through guards and security systems, as far as anyone know they were just another team of freelancer’s contractors here to deliver some special merchandising to some Mr. Pony in the upper floors. Aura was punching the zebra in the face repeatedly when she noticed the quickly blinking light coming from the pony that was on the back, she took one moment too long to notice what he was doing, she usually kept all her implants carefully isolated from any outside network, but her cyber eyes where constantly receiving input from the outside and the little decker had just beamed a stream of binary right through her cyber eyes and before she could react she felt to the ground, all of her augmentations receiving a command to reset at once. “Come on, we need to hurry!” The zebra spoke to the crew, grabbing Access Page with them as they run through the door and to the stairs that would lead them into the arcology. Aura couldn’t do anything but look as they ran away with the mare, she wanted to give pursuit, to save Access, fighting to move her limbs, all of the sudden so heavy with metal and plastic. That was when she heard the cry, right at her back, still inside the cargo hold of the helicopter was the couple still huddled together, but now there was blood. During the shooting one of the stray bursts had hit them, the mare had throw herself in front of the colt and now he was crying, trying to wake her up, incapable of realizing what had happened. Aura not even noticed the horse coming to her side. "It's time to wake up..." He whispered in her ear and to her surprise he produced a long stream of binary, it was strange, complex and revealing. ----------------------------- Once in the entrails of the gargantuan construction, Echo took front, talking their way through confused and hurried guards and curious salaryponies, talking about a boring incident on the landing pad and how she was late for an important meeting and if they could just let her, her personal detail trough even though she had lost her identity card just this once, she would make sure to put a good word of such an efficient and valuable functionary of the Hayraku corporation on her next meeting. Or maybe they would like to discuss more privately, maybe over a dinner? As they moved around the colossal structure Access noticed that wherever they go the cameras would simply look the other way or turn off, Password frenetically working with his body suit, a smirk on his face as each camera were defeated and conquered on the matrix. They ended in an interdicted bathroom, all of them changing into clean maintenance jumpsuits, the zebra covering his bruised face with a painting mask; they had even arranged three different jumpsuits to Access to make sure she had one of the right sizes. “It’s important to always have a uniform of the right size to avoid calling attention, now here, spray this over your face.” Echo said and gave her a small bottle that smelled strongly of disinfectant and sweat, Access sprayed a bit over herself, wincing at the smell. “It has to be so bad?” “That’s the smell of a pony that worked all day on cleaning duty.” Echo answered. Only Password and Access complained about taking off their clothes in front of everyone else, the other males and even Echo Phony seemed completely at ease with the situation. But while Access had Neighponese discretion, the decker simply felt useless without the computer in his jumpsuit. The lower floors of the arcology were dedicated to shopping and other leisure areas open to anypony what made it easy for their small group to disappear amidst the giant crowds that had been attracted by the holiday's sales, differently from the almost completely pony and horse dominated upper floors, on the lower levels there was a greater variety of people, it was Access first impression of real Equestrian diversity and she was amazed to see so many ponies, zebras, diamond dogs and even a few gryphons around, she had seen all of them before on trids, but to actually see them in real life was a different matter and it wasn’t just the other races, the ponies seemed more diverse, she could even spot some unicorn and pegasi posers walking around, in fact Echo had to poke her to make her stop glaring at an young mauve gryphoness. They took a public bus out of the arcology and back into the Poniville proper. Or so they had hopped. As the bus was nearing the exit heavy doors of steel and plasticrete closed down blocking the exit completely. Access looked as the confused bus drive got out and tried to mess around with the heavy doors, but for no avail. "I know another route." Echo said and the group jumped out of the bus and back trough the tunnel, the lights had begun to flick and when they walked back into shopping plaza they found all the doors closed, the people around was a bit uncomfortable, but a voice in the speakers assured everyone that it was just a glitch, that soon it would be solved. "So much for a easy job, eh?" The older diamond dog said with a grim. "No, they wouldn't do this just for us." Password replied quickly. "Would they?" "No, we are small fish." Echo assured him. "This is just bad luck." "Doesn't matter, we need to keep moving." The zebra spoke. "Lead the way, Horus." The younger dog said, a hint of annoyance in his voice. They took an cargo elevator to the privative garages, but once again all the doors were locked shut and no signal of them coming open. "Password, open one of the doors." The zebra, Horus, gave the command and before he had finished speaking the pony took out his jumpsuit from his bag and seemed relieved from putting it back on. "Druni, we will need a car, can you arrange it?" Horus asked the younger dog that simply nodded and walked towards one of the parked cars. "What's happening?" Access finally decided to ask. "Golden Watts contracted us to extract you from the arcology. We really didn't expected the chromed bodyguard or that problem with the doors." Horus explained as he took back his functional gun and strapped it to his right hoof. "Horus, you better see it!" Echo called, she had been messing around with her comlink and seemed scared. Horus and Access peeked over Echo's comlink where a mare in a sharp suit noticed from a helicopter over the arcology, she focused on the wreckage of several helicopters and cars around, apparently the arcology's self defense system had come online and was shooting anything that tried to get too close. Horus tilted his head. "Skande..." he whispered. A laughter of pure joy filled the empty garage, They all looked to Password, the decker was laughing loudly and crazily. "She is here!" Password screamed. "Celestia ex machina!"