Chapter 01
Victor Stewart stood before a small building. Holographic projectors gave it the appearance of a medieval castle, though it was looking… childish, somehow, with its rounded corners, bright colors and oversized ornamental plasterwork. Still, the holograms were quite high-grade: one couldn’t tell the illusions from the real decorations without taking a closer look.
A holographic banner that read ‘Solaire Club’ and adorned with a stylized image of the sun on a rainbow field swayed over the entrance.
A high carved tower with a bright light on top loomed over the structure. One would notice its somewhat ghostly appearance: the tower was yet another holographic illusion.
Vic once again rechecked the address that a gamine lass from a virtual site had given to him. Apparently, it was here. Do you really need this date IRL, pal? he asked himself again. In Virtuality she was a lovely girl with a huge bush of rebellious curls on her head, so cheerful and sincere, at first Vic couldn't help doubting her identity. To think that someone could be so open and straightforward to another – to a stranger, no less – without asking anything in return was something bordering on fantasy in the modern world. It was just too good to be true and, probably, she would turn out to be some old hag, a romantic child, or a fat pervert.
But, too tired of staying in his apartment with only walls to stare back at him, Victor decided to take his chances. After all, he didn’t promise anything. One would hardly even call it a date. Just a friendly meeting to share a cup of coffee and have a look at each other, nothing more.
Victor had been wandering Virtuality dying of boredom back then. The Cybercity, a grotesque copy of the European Gigapolis in the realm of digital reveries, teemed with all kinds of pleasures. But the thing was, Vic had got tired of indulging his base desires back in high school. The thrill of it dulled down, and reality seemed sickeningly grey and uninviting. The negligence or sugary pretence of people around, the estrangement of relatives, and the lack of friends made matters even worse.
Every day Victor felt an overwhelming, all-absorbing sense of loneliness. It even came to him entering a virtual brothel and spending all the paid time just talking. Young ladies there stayed professional and listened stoically, although sometimes Vic suspected they were scripting their avatars to nod and agree and leaving during his monologues.
And so it went, until he met her.
In cyberspace Vic’s avatar was faceless and nonchalant; the most dependable mask. But his new peer seemed to see through him. And her cheerful chatter, banter, and infectious laughter stirred something inside Vic.
Therefore, when invited to meet in person, he agreed, and not with the ritual “Okay, maybe later,” but with genuine interest, an obligation to honor.
There’s no mask to hide behind when confronted face to face. At least, not literally.
He belatedly thought they probably should have shared photos, though in his opinion there was nothing extraordinary about his appearance: blond hair, grey eyes, proper features, everything typical for a citizen of the upper city levels. All congenital malformations were strictly inhibited: the legacies of past wars, epidemics and mangled ecology were not to be ignored. And although the contemporaries of those glorious events could hope to escape the worst of the consequences, their descendants would be plagued by the radiation and weaponized viruses for generations to come.
Vic approached the entrance. The monitoring system buzzed and fizzled with its camera to match the entrant’s identity with their personal chip ID, and heavy doors, concealed to look like oaken planks, silently opened outwards.
He passed a short entryway furnished with sofas and found himself in an unlit main hall that looked empty and abandoned. Some vague forms loomed in the darkness, and once again Vic thought he got the wrong place.
“SURPRISE!” a choir of voices boomed, making Victor jump in bewilderment.
The lights came on, and a long table, laden with treats for a tea party, spread before his eyes. He also saw a few dozen smiling people and... ponies. Not ordinary ponies, but synthets, the characters of an ancient TV show that had been rebranded and revived years before.
Ponies about three feet tall that looked a bit like grotesque bobble-headed parodies of the actual animals, wore clothes, and acted just like humans, only not bipedal.
Those talking technicolor horses had swarmed the Cybernet of late, and, frankly, got on Vic’s nerves: the screaming colors, the cloyingly rosy fairy-tale for kids, and the adults for some reason so obsessed with it they followed their perverted desires and bought synthetic ponies. Vic was aware all too well where such relationships could lead.
The club filled with the merry sounds of chatter, clopping of hooves and music. Some ponies, he saw, could fly on short wings. And those horned ones seemed to wield telekinesis – Vic saw a glass of punch fly on its own to the mouth of a white pony with a well-done purple mane that strangely reminded him of an elaborate female coiffure.
Why the girl would make a date in a such place was completely unclear.
Vic ruminated over these matters while being dragged to the table and treated with punch and a huge piece of cake. He automatically acknowledged a cascade of greetings from both humans and ponies, without paying them any real attention.
“I’m deeply grateful,” he said meekly under the stares of dozens of eyes, “but I think I probably got the wrong address…”
“You’ve been invited by Pinkie, haven’t ya?” asked a plump man wearing simple jeans and a T-shirt with a silhouette of a winged pony.
Somehow Vic felt a deep sense of relief: at least it was the right place. “Right, by Pinkie,” he replied. “We have appointed a date over the Cybernet.”
“Serge Troyanovsky.” The man offered his hand, and Viс shook it hesitantly. “Chairman.”
“Victor Stewart, but it seems you already know,” Vic replied. “May I see Pinkie?”
The man laughed heartily, as if Vic just told a witty joke.
“Which one?” he asked, then sipped his punch.
I never realized “Pinkie” is such a common name, Vic thought. “Pinkie Pie McGee,” he clarified aloud.
“Sure! There she is.” Mr. Troyanovsky pointed at a group of humans and equines playing Twister. It seemed the heap of bodies had almost reached critical mass.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Over there, trying to reach the... Okay, no matter. Pinks! McGee!! Can ya stop hooping around and come here, please?!” the man yelled.
Vic didn't believe his eyes when a pink pony deftly wriggled itself out from a pile of tangled bodies and approached their table with a bounce in its step. It had familiar features that made Vic’s heart skip a beat: an unruly cloud of pink hair and the symbol of three balloons. Vic had already seen the same emblem in Virtuality on one very pink dress, and now it was placed on a white T-shirt and tight green shorts. A poofy pink tail, sticking out from shorts, looked like a strange addition to the hairdo. Then Vic saw a familiar mischievous sparkle in huge blue eyes.
“Hi, Vic!” exclaimed Pinkie with a familiar squeaky voice, jumping on the couch between Victor and Serge, who was chuckling at his plate. “I finally get to see your face!”
She laughed delightedly, covering her muzzle with a hoof. Vic noticed a crown-shaped blue hoop lying askew on her exuberant curls. But where there should have been a jewel or a symbol of power, he instead saw a laughing smiley face.
Struck to the core, Victor merely managed to ask:
“Pinkie… is it really you?”
“Of course it’s me, silly!”
“But I... ”
“Didn’t think I’m a pony?” Pinkie laughed merrily, then somehow scooped up a handful of candies from a bowl with her hoof and shoved them all in her mouth at once. “You’re so funny! You could’ve guessed if you saw the show!”
“But it is…” Vic mumbled. “But I...”
The pony interrupted him and started jabbering just like in VR.
“You haven’t seen it? Oh, it’s okay! When we met, you seemed so sad, I could see it by your avatar! And when I saw you, I went AAAHH and realized you needed help stat! You didn’t smile, you were sad, you didn’t even have a mouth to smile. It’s very-very sad when no one smiles. It means I simply must throw a party ASAP to make everyone smile and solve the problem!” Suddenly, the pony narrowed her eyes, and, her voice filled with determination, finished, “Pinkie Pie style!”
Victor, who was deeply stricken by sudden reveal of Pinkie’s true nature, didn’t know how to act. On the one hand, he didn’t doubt her identity anymore: her manner of speech and sugar-rush level of hyperactive happiness were all too recognisable from VR. On the other, he came to the club for a date. A real one. But the pink ray of light that painted his world bright and filled his days with kindness and joy turned up to be a synthet pony, a character from some stupid TV show.
Victor stayed at the hall for a while out of courtesy, and even took part in some games, but once Pinkie moved away to organize the pinata hunt, he seized the opportunity to get away from the crowd. He walked up a flight of stairs which inspired thoughts of kings in high palaces, and found himself at the middle of a wide balcony hanging over a street in one of the prosperous districts.
The trees planted along the street below whispered softly in the fading light. Wind brought in the sounds of slow footsteps and quiet conversations. Rare groundcars swished by the asphalt roadway. Somewhere a motorcycle roared and a siren howled – the music of the city night, unchanged for centuries, so unlike the eternal silence of the Spires.
So much for the first nice girl, Victor thought bitterly, leaning over the balustrade, Childish fantasy with hobby horses!
“... Steve, it’s about Fluttershy,” he heard a hoarse voice say.
Victor turned his head and spotted the figure of a fair-haired man at the opposite side of the balcony. The man seemed young, but what did appearance matter in the age of genetic engineering? He sported a mustache and goatee, and his long hair fell on the shoulders of the expensive-looking grey suit he wore over a light blue jumper.
His posture showed neither the swagger nor the fussiness of an inhabitant of the Spires come down to a common district of Greytown.
In front of the balcony, wings flapping, hovered a pegasus synthet black as night, with a cropped light mane, wearing a dark jacket and pants made of something reminiscent of riveted leather. But the weirdest thing about the pegasus was the long sheathed sword hanging from its neck.
I wonder how he holds it in combat. With his teeth? Victor thought.
“How is she?” the man asked the pegasus.
“I worry about her,” the synthet replied. “After all she’s been through… I’m responsible for her now. And, you know, I guess I have feelings towards her...”
“Then why are you still here? Fly to her, dammit!”
The huge eyes of the pegasus widened.
“Right now? And this is your advice?”
“But of course.” The man nodded. “She’s scared and alone. And she has no one closer than you. When you are there for her, the past will dare not approach, ronin. You shouldn’t have left her alone. What was so urgent at the club that Snow and I couldn’t handle?”
“Oh, for Celestia’s sake, I’m such a moron!”
With that the pegasus dashed into the night.
“This is a long and confusing story. Though, I can tell it someday, if you wish” the man said, turning to Vic.
Victor averted his eyes sheepishly.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “it seems I’ve unwillingly overheard your conversation.”
The sound of quiet footsteps broke the silence as the man approached. Vic squinted at the offered hand and reluctantly shook it.
“Steven Aguilar,” the man introduced himself. “Call me Steve.”
“Victor Stewart. Vic.”
“I haven’t seen you before. Are you new here?”
“I’ve come at the invitation of Pinkie McGee. And, frankly speaking, I was quite shocked to learn she is…” Victor paused mid-sentence and squinted at his new acquaintance.
Steven didn’t smile, but a spark of understanding flashed in his grey eyes.
“... A pony?” he finished for Vic. “Yeah, that Pinkie came up with a great prank. She wears a mask of a girl in VR, and doubles her fun. You would never guess how many times she has been asked out on a date.”
Vic felt these words hit a raw nerve. He had hoped for a romantic evening, and all he got was a farce by a pink horse that mocked him to amuse itself.
“Came up with a prank?” he repeated bitterly. “Very funny. Enough to make a pony laugh.”
Steven frowned a little as he caught his companion’s gloomy mood.
“She bore no malice at heart,” he retorted, “and she never wished to hurt your feelings. Or do you just hate parties in general?”
“I must admit I never liked this sort of thing very much,” Vic shook his head.
“Well, yes, me too. But believe me when I say it, this place is much better than you think, and also much more... complex. Pinkie Pie was sincere when she spoke of friendship and fun. She doesn’t want anything from you, not your money and not a relationship. She just wants to help, and she really does help those who come and accept her... aid.”
Victor didn’t reply. All he wanted now was to leave this place. His disillusionment was slowly turning into deep frustration, and it felt like his heart was pumping black acid made of hurt and his deceived, shattered aspirations.
I should have known, he thought bitterly, no real person could be so humane.
“Well,” Steven said quietly, “Thunderlane’s left, my business here is done. It’s time for me to go too.” He advanced to the balcony exit and called, “Snowdrop, we are leaving!”
There was a rhythmic sound of clattering hooves that accompanied all the equines here if they didn’t wear any kind of slippers or soft socks. Vic turned in surprise to see a silver blue winged pony with a lily-white mane as it… she?... trotted towards Steven. Her small skirt and jacket were almost shining snow-white, and a few azure strands streaked her mane. A strange barrette like a flower of interwoven silver and crystal held her forelock.
Vic hadn’t noticed when she’d entered the balcony. Or maybe she had been there the whole time, silently blending in with the white marble wall in the shadows of night?
The pegasus turned to Victor and looked at him... no, through him... with the gaze of her light-blue, almost crystalline eyes. Then she looked up at Steven, and he squatted to face her as her lips moved and she whispered something. The man frowned and cast Victor a sidelong glance, then seemed to relax.
“Victor, Snowdrop says you’ve been lonely for a long time, and that’s why you took umbrage at Pinkie. You were looking for friendship, for a way to dispel your loneliness with a nice girl, but met a pony,” he said, rising.
The young man stared at the couple in bewilderment, his mind full of the wildest assumptions.
“You stalked me, didn’t you?” he finally asked.
“What? No!” Steven laughed. “My little Snow has extremely acute senses, though. She can feel much more than others see even though she lacks eyesight.”
“Stevie, I am a big pony!” objected the pegasus with obviously feigned pique.
The man just laughed again lightly and ruffled the pony’s mane, which looked like a soft dollop of ice cream.
“You’ll always remain a little filly for me,” he said affectionately.
“Her eyesight?... Wha?...” he mumbled, his thoughts a complete stuttering mess.
“She is blind, yes.” Steve nodded as he kept stroking Snowdrop’s sticking ears, while she just squinted with delight.
“Is she a telepath?” Victor finally squeezed out.
It was the pony who replied.
“I’m empathic.” Her voice was soft, as if she was afraid to produce a loud noise. But then, the sharp hearing explained that. “Sorry, I couldn’t help it, your emotions are just so... loud.”
Victor sighed. He’d never thought he could be read so easily, like an open book.
They act too playfully, just like lovers. There must be some unnatural relationship between them, Vic decided.
“Pardon me, Steve, but friendship with a pony looks… unhealthy. Or is it more than just friendship?” he managed to ask.
Victor expected an instant denial of the obvious. But Steve appeared to be deep in thought for a few seconds and kept stroking Snowdrop, who leaned against his leg.
“You know what, I’d rather not elaborate,” he replied at last. “If you want to understand, just watch the show. I suggest you start with the hundred-and-fifty-year-old one. Spend some time on it, and maybe you’ll find the answers you’re looking for.”
“Is it even worth it?” Victor asked.
Snowdrop lifted up her unseeing eyes, and Steven smiled, although the pony would never see it.
“Oh yes… ” he replied. “Absolutely.”
“But heed my warning, Mr. Stewart,” Snowdrop added, her voice dead serious. “As you value your life or your reason, keep away from G3.”
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С почином
Let it begins YAY!
excellent :)
What is the finest peace of shit.
Moar please
Программа освоения дальнего зарубежья начата =)
Remember this day. That is one small step for a brony, but a giant leap for fandom
7131729
Unfortunately, we can`t deliver moar less than in a month, as russian→english translation is a rather tough thing to do for non-native english speakers like us.
Still, we do have editors on our side whose first language is english, who proofread everything before it gets here.
7131207 ты шутишь?
7131865 Где-то я уже слышал?
Probably not soon see.
7132941 Эм-м... В чём ты видишь шутку?
7132829
To be even more exact, it's not the translation and editing that takes the most time, it's the audiobook. Yes, we release audiobook chapter as well. Here's the link
But yeah, we'll do our best to deliver a steady stream of chapters once a month at the very least.
7132829
Мне нравится эта история , и я понимаю, если он принимает зубец
7132947 это Нейл Хуфстронг делится впечатлениями после высадки на Луну
7132993 Ну не знаю. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Люди бы не поняли, если увидели название фика "YAY"
7133044 Знаю.
This might be an issue:
What is hooping around?
Kudos.
7133428
It is actually a reference. And the more appropriate verb here would be "to writhe", not "to hop", as you might think. If you've ever played twister, you know what I'm talking about.
7133441
Thanks.
7134219
You're most welcome. How do you like the story so far?
7134231
Evidently, there`s just not enough text to draw opinions.
7134231
I'm tracking the story so I get notified when new chapters come out.
I want to read more.
I do have a question.
Apologies, if I sound hostile.
I don't mean it.
There seems to be a lot of back and forward on Prologues.
Some writers don't use them and others do.
I've switched back and forward on using Prologues too.
I wonder if the info in the prologue could have been dribbled into the story.
You could have started with the main char immediately, and drawn in the readers instead of an info dump then we meet the main char. Why did you or the writers decide to have the prologue?
Again, I'm being curious and not judging.
7134961
Now, I reckon the author wanted to set the stage first, so to say. That is, explain the basics of the story world without having lots of exposition in the main part (the chapters) devoted to it. So, in the future chapters showing something complex about the world would be easier for the reader, because they already know what makes the world go 'round.
I hope I don't sound too confusing.
I've just read Russian version of the story, and i must say it's very VERY good!
Such a dark cyberpunk alike the best of conversion bureau stories, action-packed and intriguing.
Have a like in advance!
*turns light off*
*turns it on again*
*turns light off*
*turns it on again*
Wow. I really love the feel and lore of this story. I shall definitely read on!
The first four chapters are translated simply perfectly. Creative approach to work is clearly visible.
By the way, in the Russian original (at least in its current version) there's no the last paragraph about G3. So I think in some places the translator was too much free with the text.