Chapter 10: Wood
“Dakota, you need to get out of there!” Cinnabar called, his voice seeming distant and stretched. “Something’s happening, I think it’s the—” For a single instant, there was nothing at all around her. Dakota was cast screaming into the void, her arms and legs scratching and clawing at nothing. But then the moment passed, and she realized she was inside the pod.
Signal Failure
Emergency Egress
“Cinnabar, where are you?” She shoved at the shell, pushing it off above her. The room outside was suddenly black, except for a handful of dimly illuminated exit signs over the stairway. Where was Jon? Dakota could hear screaming from up above, and what sounded like a brawl taking place. Hardware shattered onto the ground.
“Right here.” And suddenly the pony was there, possibly the only one in the entire building. His body didn’t glow brighter than the surrounding arcade, but was lit just as dimly.
“What the hell is going on?” Dakota clambered to her feet, her whole body shaking. “Sounds like…” It sounded like a riot was going on upstairs. No gunshots, just screaming voices and things breaking. “No, not a riot. Police raid.”
“Yeah.” Cinnabar gestured back towards the direction the Cave had been hiding. “Come on. Schematics of this place show it has underground utility access. This is our best chance of getting away not-arrested.”
Dakota nodded, scooping up her cane from the floor and hobbling forward through the dull racks of servers. She followed Cinnabar’s voice in front of her, the only thing she could clearly tell apart in a world of confusion. She had a vague idea that they were going in the right direction, since she’d already spoken to them there. But even so, she nearly fell over more than once.
And all the while the chaos upstairs was moving across the room. They’re dragging people out. Searching the building one piece at a time.
A reddish glow emerged from the end of the hall, where The Cave had their hidden workshop. “It’s me!” Dakota called into the opening. “Don’t shoot!”
She’d been right to say it. As she made her way through the server racks, she was greeted with at least two handguns pointed in her direction. “What’s going on up there?”
Her voice was barely loud enough to carry over the chaos upstairs.
Everyone’s eyes went to the Chinese woman in her suit. The woman quietly put her gun back into her suitcase, which she went back to packing up as though it was the most natural thing in the world. “This project was not risk-free. Do not be worried. My government will take care of this.”
“For you,” Jon muttered, watching Dakota suspiciously. “Fancy this happening right now, isn’t it? Those your friends upstairs?”
“Why wouldn’t they wait until I was gone if they were?” she cut back, annoyed. “I would’ve left after getting my information, then they could’ve fucked you guys. I’m in this as much as you.” She glanced sideways to Cinnabar, expression inquisitive. But she didn’t actually ask, not with so many eyes on her.
“Past here,” he said. “The opening that lady was using. This place gets a fiber line, this was one of the patch-in points.”
She turned around. “I like my chances better in the utility system than in here. Dunno about you all.”
“Running is pointless,” the Chinese woman declared. “I have already destroyed everything. We will not be caught.”
Dakota marched straight past her towards the open metal hatch on the wall. The members of the Cave watched her go. Until Jon settled one hand on her shoulder, stopping her. “If you were part a’ this, don’t think we’ll forgive. Part a livin’ in the real world is knowin’ how to pay yer debts.”
“It wasn’t me,” she said again, meeting his eyes without blinking. “I agree with you. I want all of us out of here.”
At least they weren’t pointing guns at her anymore. Dakota took a few steps further—and then she saw it. In the same instant, Cinnabar went running past her in the opposite direction. Apparently with the network down he didn’t have anything better than her eyes to see. Up ahead were the shapes of police in black, SWAT-like armor, with night vision masks over their faces and rifles in their hands.
She almost screamed. But Dakota’s survival instincts went deeper than that, and instead she dove to the side, flinging herself behind one of the server racks. A second later, the first of the police kicked their way into the room, knocking over a table full of half-repaired VR headsets on the way in. “Hands up, all of you!” came the yell, as commanding as anything on the floor above. If anything it was louder, soon joined by several others. Dakota didn’t hesitate for a second. Though she was on the floor out of the way, she put up both arms, whimpering fearfully.
This wouldn’t be the first time she’d been arrested, her memory told her. The life she vaguely remembered included an awful lot of going places she didn’t belong, and sometimes that meant an arrest. But she’d never had a gun pointed at her—never done anything to resist. Sometimes the law won, and you took your licks—most of the time they weren’t around, and you got away. Guess this isn’t one of those times.
“This display of force is entirely unnecessary,” said the woman, her hands up higher than anyone else. “This is an arcade. We will comply with your instructions.”
“Dakota!” Cinnabar appeared right in front of her, his form flashing into existence so quickly that she squeaked and dropped her cane back onto the ground with a thunk. “Dakota, those men aren’t like the ones upstairs! They aren’t real police!”
Her reactions were too slow—they started shooting. The woman’s suit exploded in a shower of red. Several members of the Cave screamed, or else dove for cover as she had. But Dakota couldn’t see what they were doing, because Cinnabar tackled her to the ground.
She couldn’t have said how he did it—but his weight felt entirely real enough that she was driven gasping to the floor. She coughed and shoved, but compared to the echoing of bullets in the small space, she was basically silent. She covered her head with both arms, and whimpered as people who had helped her died feet away. Brass clattered onto the ground, a shallow pool of discarded casings that rolled around as the not-police stomped over them.
Had she heard return-fire from the Cave’s single handgun? If so, it didn’t last long. Less than a minute after it had begun, it was over. Dakota kept herself flat on the ground behind the server-rack, rolling onto her back so that she would see anyone coming if they rounded the corner. She shouldn’t be visible from that side, but if anyone thought to look this way…
Something in her pocket started wiggling. Dakota fished around for it, hoping there was a gun she’d forgotten—but obviously it wasn’t. She wouldn’t have had a gun in a country where most people couldn’t own them. She pulled her hand out with the eyeball clutched firmly in her fist. Between her fingers, the white sclera had gone black, with a greenish glowing pupil underneath. It seemed to be watching the scene unfold on the other side of the server racks—which made one of them, since Dakota couldn’t see through it.
Cinnabar walked to the end of the narrow corridor, watching. “We heard four sets of boots over there. Those were bucking automatic weapons. You’re only hearing… four sets of breathing, Dakota. Just so you know.”
He stopped abruptly as another voice sounded from the other side. It sounded muffled, like the speaker was wearing a mask. Which made sense, since the soldiers on that side had been wearing them. “Is that everyone down here?” A male voice, deep and digitally distorted.
“Thought I heard something over there,” said another voice—male as well, also muffled. Boots crunched towards her.
Shit shit shit. Dakota’s hands scrambled on the ground for something, anything she could use as a weapon. There was nothing here, even her cane was out of reach. The wires in the back of each server were all zip tied together, and each machine was thoroughly settled in place. No chance she could get any piece free to use as a makeshift club.
Cinnabar puffed away to smoke as a figure in all black passed through where he’d been standing, pointing their rifle around the corner at where Dakota was sprawled. He was still wearing the helmet and mask, his eyes nothing more than the greenish tubes of his night-vision. She wouldn’t even see the eyes of her killer.
In Dakota’s right hand, the eyeball abruptly vanished, a greenish glowing smoke through her fingers.
The soldier in front of her stared straight at her for a few seconds, then turned back the way he’d come. “No one here, sir. Looks like we got it.”
“You two, the bodies. Lawson, petrol. Sydney’s finest will be down here any minute.”
“Why didn’t he see us?” Cinnabar asked, sitting at the intersection and staring off the way the soldier had just left. “That’s the latest gear they’re wearing—their encrypted network is blasting into this whole arcade. No way the goggles aren’t good enough.”
But Dakota couldn’t answer. She opened her fingers, and a few last wisps of green smoke seeped out. Could she crawl around to the utility entrance, and leave the way these men had come in?
I hope you got a good look at them, Cinnabar. These people just murdered right in front of us. Not only that, but one of the ones they’d killed was certainly an ambassador of some kind. Her confidence in her own safety practically guaranteed it. At best, it would look like she’d been killed by local terrorists. At worst…
“You need to get ready to run,” Cinnabar said, his voice low. “I know you can’t answer. Just…” He started backing away, through the row of servers towards the upstairs. “I’m sure I heard real sirens outside, real police before they cut the utilities. We need to get to them.” The rest went unsaid—what they would actually do to reveal the truths they’d seen. They had to survive first.
She heard liquid sloshing around from the center of the room. “That’s it, everybody out. Scanner says the police are about to get through the door.”
“They get their fire in the cave after all,” said another of the soldier’s voices, a woman she hadn’t heard yet. “I hope it’s what they wanted.”
One of the others laughed, then the room lit up with a flash of searing heat. For a blinding second Dakota couldn’t see or feel anything—then the smoke settled, and the room was on fire.
She couldn’t pick up her cane, just turned for the stairwell and hobbled out without a backward glance. “I really hope this wasn’t because of me,” she muttered to herself as she clambered over pipes and bundles of cable, running from the flames. It was the smoke she ought to worry about—only a few seconds, and it was already making it difficult to see. She dropped onto her knees, breathing as low as she could. But that wouldn’t stop the room from heating up.
“Obviously not!” Cinnabar did nothing to keep his voice down, just walked backwards through the aisle ahead of her and kept urging her forward. “We didn’t do anything! And now we need to not do anything somewhere else.”
“Don’t…” She slowed, hacking and coughing. “...stay. Fire will… cook your circuits too. Should… download out of my head.”
Which way was out again? She nearly fell onto her face right there on the cement. The air was so awful, thick enough that only right on the floor was there anything like clear air.
Cinnabar pulled on one of her arms, urging her back onto her knees. His outline was no longer obscured by the smoke. A glowing trail appeared in front of her, leading up only a few feet away. The stairs. “No signal down here,” he said. “But I wouldn’t go if there was. I’m not going insane like those others. We live or die together.”
“Some survival instinct you have…” she grumbled, lifting her shirt to her mouth and trying to breathe through that. But she’d made it to the stairs. She took one last breath, before clawing her way up as fast as she could. The smoke was thick here, and she was almost completely blind as soon as she went inside. Heat charred at her body, not quite warm enough to burn yet, but close. If she stopped to take a breath, she would probably collapse right there and suffocate long before any rescue arrived.
“Just a few more steps, Dakota. Keep going! You’ve got an earth pony’s endurance in there somewhere, just pull it out!”
She would’ve turned to glare at him, except that she needed every miniscule drop of energy she could scrape together in order to keep moving. Maybe that was his intention—to get her angrily biting her lip, surging forward. The door into the stairwell was already open, where the air was perfect and clear.
For a few seconds all she did was lay on her knees, hacking and spitting the black contents of her lungs out onto the floor. Her eyes hurt, her skin hurt, her everything hurt—but that didn’t matter. She was alive.
The sounds came back first—shouted voices of emergency responders, mostly. She looked up, and wasn’t entirely surprised to see that the room was full of police.
This was more of what she had been expecting. Blue uniforms, striped hats, and nothing more than a handgun on belts where there was anything at all. The lights had all been raised, turning the comfortable, cool space into something strange. Some of the arcade machines kept playing their loud music, while others had been toppled or switched off. Near the stairs, a popcorn machine overflowed with popcorn all over the floor.
Cinnabar walked just in front of her. “You’re not imagining things, Dakota. None of them are looking at us. See their glasses? Every policeman wears them. Whatever you did… must be working on those too. No, don’t say anything! They won’t be wearing sound isolation.”
She shut her mouth, then stumbled to her feet. The police probably would’ve overheard her arrival if the room was quiet, but quiet it wasn’t. Aside from the arcade machines, the front of the arcade was open and a dozen sirens echoed in, along with the voice of hundreds of patrons. It seemed like most of them were just being escorted out of the building.
Not me though. I’m burned to hell, they’ll know where I came from.
Even as she watched, a fire engine slid to a stop right in front of the building, and figures in uniform hopped off, anchoring to the hydrant and dragging their hose.
“Go through the front,” Cinnabar said. “Quick as you can. I’ve already got a car waiting on the other side of the block. You can make it that far, can’t you?”
She didn’t answer, just stumbled forward without her cane. Her eyes kept glancing around, expecting any of the police to notice her—but they had their glasses on. Most of them seemed to be leaving right along with her, as the building filled with smoke.
“Got here quick tonight, didn’t ya’ mates?” called one of the officers, as the first of the fire brigade made it inside. “Basement looks like. Building’s sprinklers aren’t up to code. Not sure what caused it yet.”
“Just get clear of the building,” said the only fireman not helping with the hose, pushing chairs and debris out of the way behind his crew, keeping the area clear.
Dakota watched from just feet away as the crew passed her, dodging out of the way as they came. She stumbled, clutching on to an overturned pod to keep herself standing. It squeaked loudly, and one of the officers turned. But then she went back to what she was doing behind the counter, and seemed to lose interest.
Dakota stumbled out onto the street at the back of a group of retreating police, fleeing an increasing wave of smoke up from below.
Out here were many of the patrons from the arcade, huddled together in a tight clump surrounded by police. It looked like they were being interviewed and released in small groups, with an increasing cloud of gawkers peeking down from surrounding buildings. A news van was already across the street, a crew already setting up. Dakota didn’t look back, and walked right past them all down the street. She hobbled and limped, dragging her fingers against the rough stone.
The cool air of night burned against her skin after the heat inside the arcade. But the pain was its own kind of relief, keeping her awake.
“Am I… broken?” she asked, slumping to the sidewalk behind a dumpster.
“A little dehydrated,” Cinnabar answered. “And you might’ve taken in a little too much smoke. I’ll get an inhalation kit delivered to the hotel.”
You can do that? But she swallowed those words. Obviously they could, or he wouldn’t have said it. She didn’t have the energy to question everything he said. “What do you think our chances are of getting out of here without going to jail?”
Cinnabar hesitated. “Celestia only knows. We should both be dead on the floor down there. Will we be invisible to the security cameras? Will it be suspicious that we’re taking a car from near the arcade?”
She didn’t have an answer. “Any way for the car not to be linked to me?”
“Already done,” he answered, sitting down on his haunches on the pavement and grinning proudly. “We’ve been doing this for years. But all the anonymity in the world is only going to protect us from the lowest-level scrutiny. How much digging do we think the Aussies are going to do? Do they think you’re a suspect?”
She shook her head. “W-why… why would they? I’m not an arsonist. And… I think they’ll figure out those people were dead before they burned.” She slumped against the dumpster, closing her eyes. “Oh god. Four people died right in front of me.” Dakota was not nearly as disturbed by that fact as she expected. Had she seen death before? It felt like the answer was yes.
But at the same time, she was positive she’d never killed anyone. She’d shot back before, but never tried to kill the ones she hit. It was always a matter of survival.
“How much further to the car?”
“Not very.” Cinnabar pointed down the dimly-lit alley. “Through there, across a vacant lot, and we’re there.”
Dakota started walking again. Each step was a struggle, but she had the cement walls of Sydney’s buildings to keep her standing. She didn’t notice as a pony slipped in beside her at first, thinking it was Cinnabar. But then she heard the voice, and she realized it wasn’t.
The pony beside her was mostly obscured in shadow, but she could make out a yellow coat and pink mane. She quickly looked away, pretending not to see. But the pony had noticed her. I thought I had overlays turned off.
“You’re really putting yourself in danger, Dakota,” said the voice. “Don’t you think that, um… maybe you should leave it to the professionals?” It wasn’t the same pony as the one she’d met in the airport—this one was a pegasus, she could see the wings. But just like before, Cinnabar was nowhere to be seen.
Dakota actually stopped walking, resting her back on a rusting AC unit and looking down the alley. “What happened to my Synth?”
“I, uh… asked him very nicely to give us some privacy,” said the pony. “And he didn’t have a choice, because I’m root.”
Dakota swallowed, running one hand up through her hair. At least it hadn’t burned—she hadn’t been close enough to the flames for that. She was probably still covered with ash, though. “Are you the reason those soldiers couldn’t see me? Or the police?” She turned and started walking again, for where the car was waiting. “Beck doesn’t usually promise less than he can deliver. His hacks are exaggerated, not understated.” And not only that, but getting into what had to be secured hardware, rewriting its vision in real time… the computation involved in such a task was staggering. Certainly none of her implants were capable of it. And the arcade’s connections had all been shut down during the attack.
She wouldn’t be able to get away from this pony, whoever she was. But those soldiers were still out there, and right now she looked like she’d just clawed her way out of a fire. Best not let them catch me on the street like this.
The pony shrugged, following behind her with a smile. “I, uh… I’m pretty good at not being noticed. A long time ago, I spent a little while as a fashion model. Ponies would stare at me for hours sometimes, as I’d put on different clothes. Sometimes I just wished I could… disappear. I guess I thought about it a little since then.”
Holy shit who am I getting involved with. After tonight, she was ready to admit that Cinnabar was probably right about the Rhodes case. First there was the federal agent in the airport, then people killed right in front of her. Now here she was, one step away from ending up in jail in a foreign country with armed mercenaries killing people right out from under the police’s boots.
Can I quit? Give the money back, get a loan for what I spent?
She thought about it for a few seconds, while she and the pony walked silently down the alley. Not a fucking chance.
Twilight had told her where to go. Getting there would be its own kind of nightmare. But she could solve that problem once she got out of tonight alive.
She was almost out of the alley. There was indeed an autocar parked there, its unobtrusive gray paint barely even visible against the night. “Why?” she asked. “Why help me?” Dakota heard a slight chime—an “incoming message” notification. But she brushed it aside for the moment, focusing on her companion. She could read it when her life wasn’t in danger. “If you’re one of the feds…” Then her eyes widened. “You don’t want an American national to turn up dead in a building with an assassinated Chinese diplomat. That car is going to drive me right to the embassy, isn’t it? Then you’ll… vanish me away. Probably to federal prison.”
The pony beside her giggled. “You humans are so good at telling yourselves stories. We should be grateful, or we wouldn’t exist.”
So you’re a pony. And you want me to think the other pony who visited was too. This one had saved her life—it wasn’t like she had any reason to doubt her. Now I just need to figure out why you feel so familiar to me. “If this isn’t some… powerplay in the new cold war… then why? And how? Who the hell has the power to do… what you did?”
The pony reached out, pulling the car open for her with a kind smile. “You’re only, um… a little wrong about the names. It is a cold war, just not the one you think.”
“Whose side are you on?” On any other night, she would’ve folded her arms and waited to get her answers. As it was, she practically fell into the open backseat of the van.
“Yours,” the pony answered.
Dakota sighed, sitting up awkwardly in the seat. Of course she’d say that.
“You should use the ticket my friend gave you. If you, uh… want to meet us.” She snapped the door closed, and the van drove off into the night.
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The more I see of this world, the less I trust it. One wonders if anything she's heard since she awoke in that hospital bed has been truthful.
9436374
Or seen. She's got the same AR tech built right into her eyeballs, and possibly her optic nerves and/or visual cortex. Everything she sees is an overlay, effectively, and Equestria's already demonstrated it can generate vision-tracking perfect photorealistic imagery in real time. Not to mention doing the same for her sense of touch.
A NEW CHALLENGER ARRIVES
FLUTTERSHY!!
This chapters pretty set, not too much to say, and the nature of cinnabar here was right.
Though we do see something interesting. That being the nature of a reactive use program, and what can happen to cinnabar when he's ousted via the administrator.
9436975
If you really want to delve into the paranoia...
She woke with no memory of anything, and cinnabar was the first person she met. (As a side note, "cinnabar" is a toxic ore once used in pottery dye, and is the primary source of mercury. An interesting name, considering the nature of Equestrian naming convention) The first two facts impressed upon her was his trustworthiness, and that the tech in her head is vital to her survival.
From then on, everything she's learned has been funneled through him, or her augments, which are him anyway. Furthermore, until this incident with the cave, she has only his word that she's ever interacted with another human. She didn't remember her "close friend" at all, and her "personalized" overlay was likewise unfamiliar. Her past is what Cinnabar tells her it is.
If I were a paranoiac, I might opine that a dandy way to "manage" someone would be to take out an immortality contract in their name, and then hit them with a remote-controlled truck. A little memory scrub during the surgery, an embedded control agent added to their mind via implants, and viola! A perfect cat's-paw.
Cinnabar doesn't even need to be consciously complicit, he's an AI. They can be made to be utterly dependable, right up until you whisper "order sixty-six" in their ear.
9437433
So would you say he might have a... mercurial allegiance? :)
Not to mention the interesting historical role of mercury in the production of mirrors. To get something which produces a very clear reflection, you make a series of layers: a transparent yet impenetrable material in front, backed by an amalgam of mercury and silver... and then subjecting it to such intense heat that the mercury component evaporates away, leaving only the metal associated with the moon - and, to the eye, a completely convincing other universe, even if everything seems back to front there...
9437501
Possibly, perhaps even probably.
In addition, cinnabar can also be used to make a wicked contact-poison. The Mayans used it as a burial trap, they'd paint the stuff all over the treasure, the sarcophagi, even the very bones of the interred. And it lasts. It was just as potent when the archeologists found the tomb as when it was freshly applied.
And as a final note, we must address the fact that Equestria owns her, body and mind. Perhaps they haven't tugged on the strings yet, but they're surely there. We saw how she walked past all of those AR-using personnel, the same could be done to her. And she has nothing to take off, no way to independently ascertain truth. Her reality consists of whatever the owner of the tech in her head says it is.
If this gets too far or too close, somepony need only say "enough". Then the puppet will quietly forget what she was doing, and meekly trot back to whatever life she was leading.
Another member of the Mane Six. They're definitely herding Dakota towards some goal of theirs. The question is what. And who the pseudo-S.W.A.T. team was working for. They clearly don't think much of the Cave...
And then there's the chapter title. We've gone from natural growth to a harvested resource. What could that signify? Or is this human just telling himself an unrelated story?
9439846
A wood could also mean a forest.
If Dakota had ever watched the show, she'd probably be even more paranoid than she is now. If that were possible.
9449800
She was forced to by her mother brain damage does cause memory loss
Ok...we've gone through Rarity Prime to Fluttershy Prime. Who's next? Oh also a brief visit to a very broken Twilight Sparkle Prime.