//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7 
// Story: Sleeping in the Light 
// by Wheller 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 7


‘She’s not a clone! You can’t clone people!’ DC Hopely said, stamping her hoof on the ground in annoyance.

‘Well then you explain it Hopely! I don’t see you coming up with any better ideas!’ Kelso snapped back at her.

Kelso, Hopely, and Viola were standing in the lift headed down to the first floor, they were expecting visitors that they needed to check in. They had left Pinkie Pie in the interview room where she would be safe, for now. Kelso had taken the opportunity to recount to her colleagues the things that Pinkie Pie had said. Everything that Pinkie Pie had said indicated, at least, in Kelso’s opinion, that the obnoxious pink mare was not the original. It didn’t leave a lot of options.

The lift door opened and they trotted outside to discover two unicorn mares filling out paper work at the front desk. Kelso smiled, Sparky had gotten here earlier than expected.

Sparky Starlight was pale blue coated mare, her mane a two tone violet and yellow, her eyes were cyan, and she was clad in an orange FutureTec issued utility vest and micro information processor snapped to her leg, and she appeared exactly as Kelso had seen her on the other occasions that they had met. Kelso could only imagine Sparky’s wardrobe at her home, figuring that it had to be filled completely with identical utility vests.

Standing next to her was Dizzy Doo, a violet coated mare with a blonde mane, who was much shorter than Sparky was. Her shorter stature put an emphasis on her seemingly large amber eyes, though; they were really the same size as everyone else’s in the room. Like Sparky, Dizzy Doo appeared exactly identical to the time in which she had last seen her.

Dizzy Doo was a nephite, a monotheistic religious group from out west who worshiped a single god, appropriately called ‘God’. Because of their outsider status for the entirety of their existence, nephites were survivalists by nature, and they were well trained fighters and sharpshooters. It was said that getting into a fight with a nephite was the worst possible life choice that one could ever make. A ten year old nephite filly could take a fully grown draught pony in a bar fight, and win. Though nephites were not aggressive by nature, in fact, far from it, they had a saying. ‘Never start a fight, always finish it’. Dizzy was wearing the same riot vest that she always did. Apparently, this was traditional dress for them; legend stated that the nephites found these vests, embroidered with the string ‘CO19’ on the chest pocket, in a warehouse on the edge of Canterlot Province some two hundred years before the Republic was founded.

Sparky slid the pads of paper forward towards the uniformed constable at the desk, and the two mares donned their visitor badges before noticing Kelso, Hopely, and Viola trotting over towards them. ‘Hopely, Kelso, DCI Auditore’, Sparky said with a respectful nod.

‘Hey Spark’, Hopely said with a smile, giving the unicorn mare a hug. ‘Good to see you again, and same to you Dizzy’, she added as she broke her hug with Sparky and gave one to Dizzy as well.

‘Hey Hopely’, Dizzy said with a smile.

‘Follow us, please’, Kelso said, waving them along down the hallway towards the server housing for the Crusader. She scanned them in, and waited for the door to shut so that they could speak freely. Much to Kelso’s chagrin, she discovered that Otto was sitting in his chair asleep, his head resting on the opened holographic keyboard. She trotted up to the schäferhund and gave him a tap on the shoulder.

Otto’s eyes popped open and he looked over towards Kelso, snapping his head up upon realising that she was standing over him. ‘I wasn’t sleeping!’ He cried out. ‘I was merely resting my eyes!’

‘Shut up Otto’, Kelso said with a sigh. ‘Go take a walk, try not to maul anything on your way out the door’.

Otto frowned at the detective sergeant before him as he rose from his seat in a huff. ‘I will have you know, while we are carnivorous, the stomachs of my race can digest your leafy foodstuffs, it is merely not our preferred diet, I will shall go find a pub and spend the next several hours drinking beer, let me know if you need me’, Otto added sarcastically as she scanned through the door and left the ponies to themselves.

Kelso brushed off Otto’s remarks completely and turned to the unicorn mare behind her. ‘So, Sparky, what’s this plan that you’ve come up with?’ she asked

‘You still have her upstairs?’ Sparky asked in reference to Pinkie Pie, pointing up towards the ceiling.

Kelso nodded. ‘Based on what she told me when I interviewed her? I think she’s a clone’, Kelso said, and quickly recounted the tale that Pinkie Pie had given her.

Sparky shook her head. ‘She’s not a clone, you can’t clone people’, Sparky said simply.

‘Ha! Told you!’ Hopely said, in a vain attempt to not sound like she was rubbing it in Kelso’s face.

‘Well... okay it’s not entirely true, you CAN clone people’, Sparky said. ‘But there’s no point, for a clone to develop properly, you’d have to start from a zygote and work your way up naturally. The clone wouldn’t have the memories of the original, and they’d end up a completely different person, because our experiences shape who we are. It doesn’t make sense to clone people! We can clone organs, and they’re designed to mature rapidly to be used on demand, you can’t do that with a person, they’re too complex!’

Hopely nodded her head in understanding. ‘Right, if you could clone a person, and rapidly mature them to the age of twenty two... they still wouldn’t be able to walk, or talk, or even eat on their own’.

‘Exactly, worse still, everything develops at different rates, a rapidly matured clone wouldn’t last very long, and they’d have about twelve to twenty four hours before suffering from metabolic cascade failure!’ Sparky explained.

‘Meta-what?’ Kelso asked, raising an eyebrow in confusion.

‘Science speak for everything stops working’, Sparky said. ‘Pinkie Pie isn’t a clone’.

‘You’ll forgive me for interrupting’, Viola said, with a small cough. ‘But it really doesn’t matter what Pinkie Pie is or isn’t right now. What does matter is what we’re going to do; FutureTec wants her, which means that we need to have a plan’.

Sparky nodded her head in agreement. ‘I’ve had an idea about that, we need to find out what FutureTec is up to, and if we’ve learned anything about FutureTec, the quicker we figure it out the better’, Sparky said as she began to pace around the room in thought.

‘So what’s the plan Spark? We hide her from FutureTec?’ Dizzy asked.

‘No... no we’re going to wait until it’s dark out, and then we’re going to call up Ghastly Gorge Industrial Complex and report that the PPS has “Sugar Plum” in custody, they’ll want her delivered as soon they hear about it, and so we take her to them’, Sparky said.

‘What?!’ Kelso cried out in shock. ‘FutureTec’s number one priority is recovering Pinkie Pie, and your plan is to give her over to them!? What the hell is wrong with you Sparky!?’

Sparky raised a hoof to shush Kelso, shaking her head in the negative. ‘Ana, please, I have absolutely no intentions to give Pinkie Pie to FutureTec, there’s a reason why we’re waiting until night, GGIC will be minimally staffed, most of the workers will have gone home, there will be a few night workers, mostly scientists, and dozen security guards, nothing that we can’t handle, we’ll over power whoever we meet who tries to take Pinkie Pie, and we’ll use their security access to figure out what they want with her’, Sparky explained.

It was a risky plan, to be sure, but bull rushing FutureTec was probably their best shot, if Kelso had learned anything from going up against FutureTec in the past, it was that you needed to be quick, and aggressive, because there was only going to be one chance to get it done before FutureTec buttoned everything up tightly, and out of their reach. ‘You mentioned that your plan is going to be illegal? What exactly did you mean by that?’ Kelso asked, remembering the conversation from earlier.

‘Obviously, we can’t take anyone we don’t trust, so... Dizzy and I will be impersonating uniformed constables’, Sparky said as she opened her saddlebag and levitated something else out of it. ‘PPS might also have a problem with me carrying this around’, she said as she held it up. It was a revolver.

‘Are even legally able to possess that?’ Kelso asked with a frown.

‘Yes, I am actually’, Sparky said with a smirk. ‘This belonged to my grandmother. It’s an Emerald Ordinance No.4 Revolver manufactured in Year 35 before the Republic in South Island for the Welaran Commonwealth. Since it was manufactured before the founding of the Republic, and the ammunition for it is no longer commercially available, it is not required for me to register this with the PPS’.

‘Come now, Kelso, you should have expected Sparky of all people to do her homework’, Dizzy said, with a smirk. ‘There’s just one thing though... what are we going to tell Pinkie Pie?’