The Parliament of Dreams

by Wheller

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Sparky blinked several times as she looked to Grandma V, then back to Mister Happy, and then back to Grandma V. She was dumbfounded, to say the least. 'Grandma? You... KNOW this thing?' she asked.

'I am right here, and I can hear you!' Mister Happy said plainly.

'As a matter of fact, I do', Grandma V said, taking a sip of her cup of tea. 'I met Mister Happy when I was young, in the early days of the Republic'.

'Correct!' Mister Happy exclaimed. 'Upon uploading myself to the internet, I ran a search through public records, looking for anyone who was still alive from when I first came on line! Considering how much time had passed, I wasn't expecting to find any! So imagine my surprise to discover that Vinyl Scratch was still alive! I figured I just had to pay her a visit!'

'Uh hmm', Grandma V said, nodding her head in affirmation, she looked over to Sparky and frowned at her. 'Mister Happy has been filling us in on your exploits in Olde Towne, and what you did at the LAMP POST... Sparky, I have to ask, are you stupid?'

The question caught Sparky by surprise. 'I... uh...'

'This jamming device, you shut it off without any thought of the consequences of your actions and let a dangerous rogue AI loose... no offence Mister Happy'.

'None taken! It happens to be completely true!' Mister Happy said cheerfully.

'You let a dangerous rogue AI loose and could have spelled disaster for not only the Equestrian Republic, but the entire world!' Grandma V said angrily. She gave Sparky cross looks, causing the young mare to look down towards the ground, her face turning bright red from embarrassment and shame.

'I would have done the same thing', Grandma V added with a smile, taking another sip of her tea.

Sparky's head snapped back up, and she looked at her grandmother in confusion.

'I'm confused', Dizzy said. 'Is your grandmother chastising you? Or praising you?'

'I have no idea', Sparky said.

Grandma V merely grinned at her in. 'You going to introduce your friends?' she asked.

'Right... um, Grandma V, Shortfuse, this is Dizzy Doo of the New Maneaan Nephites', Sparky said pointing to Dizzy.

'Hi', Dizzy said, offering them a polite smile.

'And this is... um...' Sparky said, looking over to DC Hopely. 'I don't actually know your full name...'

'DC Hopely is fine', DC Hopely said simply.

'This is DC Hopely, of the PPS Serious and Organised Crime Group', Sparky added, pointing to DC Hopely.

'Nice to meet you all', Grandma V. 'I'm Vinyl Scratch, but you can call me Grandma V, that useless waste of space over there is Shortfuse Skydancer', she added, pointing over to Shortfuse.

'Hey!' Shortfuse cried out.

'I asked you to keep an eye on Sparky and you let her run off!' Grandma V said in annoyance.

'All of you! Shut up!' DC Hopely cried out, she was starting to get angry. The room fell silent as everyone turned towards her. 'We do not have time for this! All of us are in terrible danger, and we need to leave!'

'I am already ahead of you on that part!' Mister Happy said. 'I have been booking you all space on the luxury liner Madame La Salle... hmm, completely booked? It appears that one passenger has booked an entire section of the airship for herself and a plus one... Done! I have changed the booking information, you all now have space aboard the Madame La Salle, the company operating the ship has refunded that passenger completely for the inconvenience'.

'Who is this passenger?' Sparky asked.

'Her name is Señora Amarilla de la Manzana, she is a wealthy hispñana landowner, and she is in Equestria negotiating the purchase of the Sweet Apple Acres Corporation. She was successful, and the announcement of the purchase will be made public in the next few days!' Mister Happy said.

'Okay, the fact that you know all that? That's creepy', Shortfuse said with a grimace. 'Can you do that to anyone?'

'I know everything', Mister Happy said. 'With access to the internet, I can do almost anything. Security is relatively weak... though they were not counting on an Artificial Intelligence when they designed the systems!'

'The Madame La Salle... It's not going to the Præsidium, is it?' DC Hopely asked on a hunch.

'Of course not!' Mister Happy said. 'The Madame La Salle is scheduled to stop in Manzanares, Hispaña Third Republic! However, based on communications chatter in various intelligence circles, the Welaran MI8, in particular, that Præsidium Spetsnaz special forces group intends to hijack the ship...'

'You can't be serious!' Sparky said. 'Even if they're planning to do it, you know about it, and you can't let it happen!'

'I have analysed the situation thoroughly, this is the best option for entering the Præsidium!' Mister Happy said.

'I don't care! Do something to stop it! Now!' Sparky said firmly, staring down the artificial intelligence, oblivious to the fact that the image on the happy face displaying on the holographic ball remained static at all times. 'We'll find another way'.

Mister Happy was silent for a moment. 'Okay!' he said finally. 'I have issued falsified orders to the Spetsnaz operators to call off the hijacking, however, this was the best option for entry into the Præsidium, I have no further options within the required time frame... I'm sorry'.

DC Hopely looked to the group and smiled. 'Don't worry, I got this, I know a guy, let's get ready to head out'.

Grandma V nodded and picked up a suitcase in her telekinesis and pointed towards several others in the other room. 'I packed a few things for you Sparky; you should be good to go...'

'Thanks Grandma', Sparky said with a smile, giving her a hug.

Grandma V looked over to Dizzy, examining the riot barding that she was wearing and frowned. 'You have anything else to wear?'

Dizzy frowned. 'No... I left all of my things at my home in Olde Towne'.

'Guess it'll have to do... what was your name again?' Grandma V asked.

'Dizzy Doo', Dizzy said simply.

Grandma V tilted her head, thinking about what she had just heard; she offered the young nephite mare a pleasant smile. 'Okay then, let’s go!'

Mister Happy closed up the holographic display, returning to his domain in the internet. Shortfuse, Dizzy, and Grandma V went ahead towards the door. Sparky however hung back and tapped DC Hopely on the shoulder. 'You... know a guy?' Sparky asked.

DC Hopely nodded. 'I... I know a guy', DC Hopely said, not offering up anything further.

'You plan on telling me what this is about?' Sparky asked.

'Y... yeah, of course!' DC Hopely said. 'Not here, wait until we're in the air'.

Sparky frowned; this did not bode well for her. All of this, all of it was wrong. All of it was completely insane, all of it was happening to her and she didn't know why! DC Hopely turned and headed out of the house, Sparky followed. Her mind was filled with questions. She glanced over her shoulders at the cutie mark on her flank. She was still no closer to answering that mystery than she was two days ago. Her entire life had turned upside down. She thought back to the other day, Shortfuse's birthday, and of how different her life was then. It felt like that was a long time ago. She had nothing she needed to worry about but getting up and going to work, and that dress that Shortfuse had given her.

Sparky's thoughts lingered on the dress for a moment. The more she thought about it, the funnier it became. Two days ago, that dress was her biggest worry in the world. She had been afraid that it revealed too much and would attract the wrong kind of interest from stallions, and even other mares.

Then the cutie mark appeared, and she had gotten herself wound up in all this. Now here she was, leaving her home for a land completely alien to her. She was afraid, she wanted to turn around and run back upstairs, leap into bed, and pull the covers over her head and drown out the entire world.

No.

Even if that's what she wanted, she couldn't do that. She had gotten into this mess by running away, she couldn't run and hide, not now, and she couldn't leave her friends. She could not and she would not. Now was not the time to be afraid, now was the time to be brave. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and thought back to something that her mother had told her once when she was young.

Whenever you are in doubt, whenever you are lonely or afraid, look to your friends, and they will always be there to help you. Sparky thought about it, and she knew she had friends and family she could count on. Dizzy, Shortfuse, DC Hopely, and Grandma V, of course, would never abandon her, and she would never abandon them. Sparky took a deep breath, opened her eyes and took a step forward. Now was not the time to be afraid. Now was the time to make sure that they all would be safe.

Comments

[DreadedCandiru2]

Well, it is nice to see that AJ wants to buy back Sweet Apple Acres now that she's had time to learn things like fancy mathematics and alphabetic literacy.

[Lesolan - Rest In Peace]

412509

Actually, the way it is worded, Señora Amarilla de la Manzana is buying the Sweet Apple Acres Corporation.
So... basically, it won't be family run anymore. Even if it was up till that point...
AJ'd be so ashamed...

[SCaitan]

OMG the indecency of a horse without clothers...I shudder at the notion. Sorry for sarcasm but this is really funny.

[Professor Plum]

Alright, I'm checking this story out as we speak and honestly? It's a bit convoluted.

There's an awful lot of references, the majority of which are unnecessary/out of place. The whole story, for instance, is pretty much the Pony Cold War. Throw in a generous sprinkle of items "borrowed" from Fallout (Pipboys, New Canaanites, Yes Man, etc), add some more random references (Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster) and a bunch of other things I'm sure I've missed/have gone over my head, and it all seems a bit messy.

There are plenty of odd, out of place moments too. For example, Dizzy is supposed to be very religious, yes? On her pilgrimage and everything. So when some random pony reveals to her that she's been branded with the mark of someone who was not only a disgraced ruler from a darker time, but someone who tried to crush her religion in its fledgling years, she just... does what? Ignores it? Says "That's nice dear" and carries on? We don't actually know. The story skips over that, to where they're suddenly in the middle of town, with everything being fine and dandy. Doesn't make sense to me.

There are a ton of other things that niggle at me. Big Mac? Leader of some kind of rebellion? Gentle Giant Macintosh? The one who doesn't waste words, but never minces them? Simple farm folk? I don't see it at all. And up to this point, nothing has been mentioned about the Mane 6. Were they with the Princesses? Did they help forge this uprising? What happened to them? And for that matter, what happened to the Princesses? Are they dead? Exiled? The sun and moon still move, but is it them, teams of unicorns, or all natural? All we know is Sweet Apple Acres and Carousel Boutique are corporations now, and I don't know how to feel about that.

At this point, I'd be tempted to give up on this and go read something else in the towering stack of my "To Read" pile, but I made a promise to a friend to give this thing a proper shot. I'll go to the halfway point and see where that leaves me.

[ColdGoldLazarus]

"Are you stupid?"
...yes?

"I would have done the same thing."
Badass Grandma indeed.

Mr. Happy really really scares me.

"Dizzy Doo"
Nope, no connection at all.

I still think Shortfuse has something special she's not telling Sparky, impossible indecency aside.

606706 I kinda have to agree on a few points here, though I have a slightly more favorable impression. Eh, I'll see what's going on eventually.

[Macon Mixx]

Love Grandma V.

Only a distributed, and therefore practically unkillable and immortal, AI could think of something so crazy as planning to be hijacked. But really, I almost wish she had gone for it!

624179 The dress may not be revealing so much, as directing attention. I.e., maybe it's like a giant arrow pointing at her rear end.

[Lucky424]

Okay, so who's the guy? Spkie?

[Borg]

All of it was completely insane, all of it was happening to her and she didn't know why!

I'll say.

624179 Oh, you poor, naive soul. Has nobody ever told you that "less is more" can run the other way too? For example:
I would classify this image as merely "saucy," but would still rater not put it directly in my comment.
Can you honestly tell me you don't think that is more revealing than her normal nudity?
Thanks a lot, by the way, for forcing me to ask Google's help in finding a suitable example. I do not enjoy looking through some of the results I inevitably get from the sort of image search I needed to do to find that image, I assure you. If you were not aware, let me tell you: Safe Search does nothing.
Actually thanks, though, for reminding me that I wanted to actually properly test that Safe Search does nothing. Amusingly, the first search I compared ("twilight plot," if you're wondering) actually came out slightly less safe with Safe Search on. Which is probably a good reason to try to lose my aversion to cartoon sexuality, since Google cannot protect me, but explicit images of ponies are basically the only thing left that bothers me, and I don't want to lose that.