• Published 15th Dec 2018
  • 3,615 Views, 330 Comments

Synthesis - Starscribe



There wasn't a better private investigator in Chicago, not before Dakota's near-fatal car accident. But thanks to a new class of medical implant she's been brought back, to investigate one of the oldest mysteries of earth and Equestria alike.

  • ...
16
 330
 3,615

Chapter 4: Branch

Dakota could not even remember the last time she hadn’t had her Synth. During the darkest moments in the hospital, he had been there. Cinnabar had been there when she was in surgery, been there when she was going through physical therapy. When she woke each morning he was there, generally with breakfast he’d requested from the hospital based on her preferences and a few interesting videos he’d collected while she slept.

But now Dakota was alone—alone in what no longer felt like a warm, welcoming cabin. She struggled for twenty minutes or so with the overlay, since this one was her own and not on any standard layer. Eventually she found it, and switched the whole thing off. If she was going to be miserable, at least she’d be miserable in reality.

Of course, no sooner did she see what the apartment really looked like than she wished she hadn’t. The floors were either naked cement or naked cement with imitation wood/tile patterns set into them. The walls were undecorated polycarbonate, coated with a plastic layer that made it look like a public park. There were windows—tiny rectangular things with embedded silent fans, meant for circulation only. Once the overlays were all off, her lights reverted to plain, harsh blue, shining over worn polycarbonate furniture.

The only thing that kept its color was the now-empty takeout container, which shone as bright red as it had when it was delivered. Everything else was bleak and gray and plain. Every object had tracking and positional tags printed into the plastic, which were doing all of nothing for her now.

Is this normal? Most people still have to wear AR gear to see this stuff. I did before I got the implants, didn’t I? Dakota knew she should probably start on her case, or at least get some rest, but she couldn’t muster the energy for either just now. So she wandered until she found the tiny bedroom, and sure enough there was a set of AR glasses hanging on a hook right by the bed. First on, last off. The bed itself looked as plain as anything else in the apartment, though at least it felt comfortable enough.

Dakota lifted the glasses up to her eyes—almost ordinary in their style, except that they curved all the way around like safety goggles. There was no preamble—once up to her eyes, she could see the exact same fancy cabin that she’d seen when they walked in. Her mattress and plain sheets now looked like an elegant four-poster, though the sheets were all in the same place. Dakota screamed, tossing the glasses against the back wall. They didn’t shatter, just bounced and clattered to the floor.

Now that Cinnabar wasn’t here to help her make sense of it all, Dakota’s world felt wrong. He’ll come back, right? Synths don’t just give up on their people. At least, not that she knew of. Dakota wanted to search, but she couldn’t remember how to do even that. Maybe if she still had a smartphone, she could’ve just typed it into an internet search and asked. I bet Omar still uses a smartphone. He doesn’t have a Synth. More precisely, he didn’t use his Synth. If he used any modern technology at all, he certainly had one. But from the way he’d treated Cinnabar, his own was probably ordered to stay trapped on some device all the time, never interacting with anything. Poor thing.

Dakota managed to get undressed, largely thanks to her weeks of physical therapy, and she spent hours just lying awake on her sheets, fumbling with the interface that appeared whenever she lifted her arm. This was the way she’d interacted with the world—regaining use of it was as important as getting her legs back. Maybe more, since her financial future and maybe even her life depended on solving the case of Kayla Rhodes. She wouldn’t need to get out into the world much for that, at first. First she would have to use that EI to find the avatar with it. Then… what? Trace her? Convince her to reveal her location?

She might not remember how to control the hardware of her world so well anymore, but Dakota’s investigative senses were still sharp. She could feel another layer to this, entirely out of sight. There was complexity yet unrevealed, dangers she hadn’t even imagined yet. I’m not worth so much money. Someone desperately wanted me on this case. What makes me different from other investigators? Maybe it was all wrapped up in her immortality contract with Omnistem, somehow. After all the medical and hardware bills, her life was probably getting up into the millions for cost. She wouldn’t know, since not having to look at the finances was part of the contract. Maybe Omnistem’s rivals want to embarrass them? Make it look like the implants drive you crazy?

Corporate espionage did seem like the most likely reality here—only government, corporation, or the elite could afford the money that had been spent on her. Eccentric billionaire was certainly an option, but most billionaires didn’t get their wealth by wasting it. With a less strict contract, I would’ve taken this job for a hundred thousand, maybe less. They wanted an offer they knew I wouldn’t refuse. They wanted me.

It was the sort of thing she’d love to bounce ideas off Cinnabar about. Either that, or some other friends. Did she even have human friends? There was her mom, but that woman didn’t know a thing about her investigative career and wasn’t going to learn now.

Dakota struggled for a bit, until she came up with her contact list. She ordered by recent messages, and a stream of “get well soon” animations appeared in the air in front of her. Adding a filter to restrict all but those who had sent her at least five other messages this year, and she was down to three names other than her mom.

She skimmed the first conversation, and winced as it came up with a stream of profanity. Whoever “Enrique Fowler” was, it was obvious they hadn’t cut things off in good terms. She didn’t have to read much of the “I thought I meant something to you” and “how could you just leave” to understand what had happened between them. Well there’s at least one thing I’m better off not remembering.

Next there were a few more promising names. Someone named “Beck” whose messages were mostly locations and times, apparently at coffee shops and cafes around town. Her last message was, “When Mercy lets you go, don’t lock yourself up to rot, Dakota. Don’t go talking to other suppliers, either. I got the real good shit for you.”

Some kind of… drug dealer? But that didn’t feel right, and she hadn’t seen anything to suggest that she’d done drugs before her accident. There wasn’t even a vape cigarette tucked into a drawer, or empty bottles of booze. So either I kept it clean, or I cleaned up after myself. More questions she wanted to ask Cinnabar. More reasons to wish she hadn’t scared him off.

The only other name on her contact list that had messaged her a lot wasn’t a human name at all, but a pony one. “Java.” But from the way her contact list showed the names, it didn’t actually say that the person was a pony—maybe it was just someone else she knew online, like Omar.

Java was the only one who’d kept messaging her after the day she went into the hospital. Something similar each time—hoping that she was doing well, begging her to give her an update, asking about the new implants. Whoever Java was, she’d been in close touch with Dakota before her accident, and tried to stay in touch after.

There was a fresh swelling of guilt as she saw that—this was unmistakably an actual friend, though whether she was real or not was still an open question. Cinnabar could speak just as convincingly, but he made no secret about being a program. Are you a Synth or just an avatar, Java?

She probably should’ve slept, but Dakota wasn’t feeling particularly tired. Part of that was the drugs—her anti-rejection medication had “insomnia” as one of its side effects. And I’ll be taking it until the day I die. Isn’t that fantastic.

But a few minutes was enough to figure out the interface. The air in front of her filled with a chat window, showing her own Identifier in one corner in green, while Java’s Equestrian Identifier was in yellow. And there was the EI listing, along with the same message from the North American Regional Identity Lookup Service. Only Java’s records said, “Expunged by Data Privacy Request, 2039. Female, United States.” Curious. Even Kayla Rhodes didn’t do that.

But she wasn’t trying to dig up information on the person, whoever they were. There was a keyboard in the air below the text-box, with Java’s last message hovering there in a pale bubble.

“Hey,” Dakota wrote, her fingers stiff. “Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I kinda forgot how to do everything.”

Java’s icon instantly went green, and three dots appeared in the box. A few seconds later, a message replaced them. “Thank god you’re finally out of there. I didn’t think I was gonna hear from you again.”

Dakota shrugged, then realized that the one on the other end couldn’t see her and felt a little stupider. “Cinnabar kept telling me I had messages to deal with, but the first few I looked at were all the same shit. I think you got buried.”

Whoever Java was, she was awake into the wee hours of the night, because she’d responded almost immediately. Either that, or she was on the other side of the world. “Cinnabar’s back in town right now. It’s… uncanny. Seeing him around here without you. Looks like he just got turned down for the prom or something.”

Dakota winced, though she mostly just got a little more confused. The one she was talking to was either in Equestria right now, or had visited long enough to see Cinnabar. Either way was confusing. “You should come see both of us. Tomorrow, though. He said you just got released. You need some sleep.”

“Yeah.” But she didn’t actually feel tired. Confusion and unanswered questions were even more potent than whatever was in those orange bottles. But how could she ask “are you one of those weird escapists” without sounding rude? This was supposed to be one of her friends. “You’ll be there tomorrow?” It was the least direct way she could think to ask. She wasn’t trying to drive everyone away.

“Well yeah.” Her words were confused, if anything. “I think my brother needs the company. He’ll be glad to have you visit tomorrow.”

Brother. That did not make things less confusing. Why is someone who is enough of a real person to have a real EI claiming that a pony Synth is her brother? It might explain why the two of them were friends, maybe.

This new world is too strange. Part of Dakota wished she could close her eyes and wake up in the world of her memory. But that picture was so blurry she couldn’t have painted it to make into a sublayer if she wanted to. The only thing she knew for sure was that the world she remembered made sense and this one didn’t. You weren’t out that long, Dakota. A month under anesthetic doesn’t change the world into a different place. It’s only you that’s different.

“How do I visit you?” she eventually typed. “I haven’t done a visit to Equestria myself since the implants, I don’t know how they work. Cinnabar took care of everything.”

This time the one on the other end took a little longer to respond. “I know you’ve got the right shoes for VR. Either you do it in your house, or you go out into the city and get some air at the same time. But based on what Cinnabar said about your health, maybe try at home first. You’ll want him with you when you go out in case you get yourself into trouble.”

Dakota flopped onto her back in bed and found the interface traveled with her—though slowly, it eventually migrated until it was right overhead, with the keyboard shrunken down enough that she could type comfortably with just one hand. “Okay.” She wanted to ask if there was some way to get Cinnabar to come back without visiting. But that would’ve been rude, particularly if this was someone who’d been her friend before. Somehow. That at least made more sense than being related to a Synth. “Tomorrow. I’ll talk to you then.”

Dakota might not want to sleep, but she probably could. She could close her eyes, and finally the constant deluge of overlays and messages would fade. She could sleep. Maybe in the morning her world would make more sense.


Morning proved to be a return to something at least a little familiar to her. The hot water in the bathroom took a little figuring out, but like most things there was a backup touchscreen and Dakota could fumble around with that. Less clear was how to get breakfast—while she’d been gone, all her food had apparently gone bad and been thrown away by the maid service Cinnabar requested, because there was nothing in her fridge and little in the cupboards. She found some dry ramen and made do with that, as empty a breakfast as it made.

What she wanted to do after that was dig a little into her missing person case, but that was easier said than done. Her only lead pointed at Equestria, where she couldn’t easily go. Plenty of people apparently did it without a Synth—but she hadn’t been one of those, and becoming one would take much more work than the thing she knew she ought to do.

So it was into Equestria after all, just not so far as she might otherwise. Discovering which “shoes” were the ones Java meant was a surprisingly simple task. One pair were docked on a conductive charger in the closet, while the rest weren’t. She removed them cautiously, running one hand under the bottom surface. There were lots of tiny wheels, currently retracted such that she could walk in the shoe without trouble. This is how they manipulate the size of rooms, then. Put these on, and you can walk without moving.

Of course, she could just sit in place, figure out how to use a controller for input or something similar. But she needed to use as many of her physical abilities as she could—if she didn’t, those parts of her brain might not integrate into her implants, and she’d lose them in time.

Once wearing the slightly bottom-heavy shoes, Dakota spent another few minutes struggling with what to do. She searched for some button or program that would take her to Equestria, but couldn’t find any. At least until she remembered something from the night before—her mansion was already there, in some sense. It was built on a path that overlooked Cinnabar’s home village, and in some ways her own as well. All she had to do was walk out the door and follow him.

She could still turn her own little sublayer back on—if she could get rid of it, then she could activate it without much difficulty. The space around her seemed to briefly shift and distort, with a tiny icon appearing at the corner of her vision. “Movement integration hardware detected. Adjusting for immersion.” Whatever that meant.

Apparently it meant that when Dakota looked down, she saw mauve fur ending in hooves, instead of the oversized gray tee-shirt and brown shorts she’d shrugged on that morning. She lifted one foot, and one of the hooves responded. Sure enough, a glance behind her lied the same way—there was a mauve body back there, and curls of sandy yellow mane cascading over her shoulders. Immersion mode apparently meant pony mode.

Some part of her thought about giving up then—Cinnabar would eventually get bored of being alone and come back for her, wouldn’t he? Or maybe he’d feel guilty and desperate, knowing the two of them only had a month to solve their case. But that timer wouldn’t just fade because she didn’t want to think about it. She had a whole month now, but that time would start feeling really short if she put it off.

It didn’t matter how other people saw her, and she could always not look at herself. But Dakota was curious, and there were plenty of mirrors in the massive manor.

She crossed over to one near the balcony, which interestingly enough did not seem too small for her to walk out onto this time. But she lingered in front of the mirror first.

A bright mauve pegasus stared back at her in the glass, blinking and moving precisely in line with her. She fidgeted one way, and so did the reflection. But then she lifted one hoof towards her face. Her brain didn’t quite want her to—but she felt skin there, and five fingers, and her hand. Nothing magic about it. It’s just really good VR. It was so good that almost all the world’s entertainment was on one sublayer or another. It all flowed to or from Equestria.

Dakota ignored the balcony, and turned instead for the door. There was no reason to bring anything, not when she was really never leaving her apartment. Breakfast had been awful, but they wouldn’t serve real food in Equestria.

I should just think of it as research. I have to go in here to find that missing pony anyway. No sense hiding from it. She felt the door against her hand, but also didn’t feel it. Like she could force her way through if she wanted to, and reveal the fault in the illusion. This is like when Cinnabar touches me. It’s the implant. And if it could spoof touch, how much more could that implant do?

It wasn’t a question she wanted to answer, maybe ever.

Once outside, the sound of crackling torches was replaced with a mountain breeze. She could see it blowing over the landscape in front of her, feel her hair swept back slightly. But this version of her had a coat thick enough to fly through the highest clouds, so she wasn’t bothered. Or maybe the simulation couldn’t make her too uncomfortable, and how fluffy she looked was just the excuse.

Even from the path, she could see Port Jouster visible below, its dozen or so buildings fairly close together. It didn’t strike her as realistic—not compared to Earth, anyway. There were no farms around it, none of the infrastructure that a few hundred people would need to survive. Just the town itself, and a tiny grove of fruit trees beside it, and a single rail line leading away. Away to where…

And ahead of her, the path twisted and wound through switchbacks and between the smaller peaks, down towards the village. She could see most of its distance, except where it slipped occasionally into tunnels that looked like they’d once been mines.

But then a pony emerged from the tunnel ahead of her, a pony that somehow struck her as instantly familiar. It was another earth pony, with a similar coat to Cinnabar’s, though she had a soft pink mane instead of his orange. Curious.

But she recognized the symbol on her flank—like most ponies, this one wore little. Only a vest over her front, with several layers of brown and green cloth. No pants, not even saddlebags. “Hello Java.”

“I was going to get you if you didn’t make it,” Java said, stopping a few feet away and clutching at her chest with harsh, panting breaths. “Wasn’t… sure you’d manage… without my brother.”

Brother, right. The human was related to a program that was also Dakota’s personal assistant. That made sense. “Well, I managed. But now that you’re here, maybe you can show me how to be human? I’m not a fan of the, uh…” She couldn’t feel it exactly, but she could see her wings spread out on her back, opening in the breeze. “Of looking like this.”

“Well…” Java winced. “You, uh… forgot more than I thought. You’re in Equestria proper, Dakota. This is as deep as you can go. I can help you switch your avatar if you like. You wanna go hippogriff, or changeling, or…” She lowered her voice, grinning mischievously. “If you don’t tell anyone, I could help you go dragon even. But that’s about what I could manage. Last time there were humans in here… that was before 1.0. Back when they could pop over from the Star Wars realm, or the Harry Potter realm, or whatever was popular that week. I think I played Pokémon back then, but… I honestly don’t remember. Little me was an idiot.”

Big you is pretending to be a horse. But she didn’t say it. This “Java” person was close to her, or so her messages suggested. She didn’t want to ruin that without even knowing her.

“None of those things sound like… they’re better than being a pony. I can stick with this.”

Java shrugged ambivalently, and the two of them resumed their slow walk down the mountain. It felt like she was walking downhill, but was that another illusion? It didn’t feel as steep as it had looked from above…

“I’m… I’d like to ask you something, Java. Something that’s probably gonna suck.”

“Well when you say it that way, now I’m dripping with curiosity.”

“I’m told I lost ten percent. Ten percent of my… brain. I’d almost certainly be dead now, if it wasn’t for the implants. They’re great for gluing a broken person together—”

“I’ll say. You don’t talk like someone who lost most of their brain.”

“Not most!” She glared. “Look, I’m having trouble remembering things from before. My new memories are fine, I think they’re… maybe supplemented with digital, or… I don’t really get it. I’m not a hardware girl. But I can’t remember how we met. Why we’re friends. Can you… remind me?”

“Oh.” Dakota had been right—either by suggestion, or the simple reality behind it, her words clearly hurt. Java slowed a little, and was no longer meeting her eyes. “You don’t remember me at all, do you?”

“I remembered you enough to call,” she argued. “And to trust you! I just… need a little help. If you don’t want to stay my friend, I guess that’s up to you.”

“N-no.” She winced. “It’s not that. I’m just trying to figure out… how to explain it. How to explain anything. I mean… I guess it’s not that complicated. We went to school together, Dakota. Long time ago. We were best friends, and we stayed friends. Neither of us really went anywhere… you stayed in town, I played a lot of games… I got you into this game, that’s something! Perfect, immersive world. Meaningful interactions, real factions, dynamic economy, infinite exploration… Long list. And it was a fun way to pass the time together when you weren’t chasing down mobsters or shooting at spies, or… whatever you do. I’m not the badass, I can’t guess what goes on out there.”

Dakota didn’t feel like much of a badass now either—and she didn’t think any of what Java had just said was true about her life before. But she didn’t actually point it out. Somehow it felt like her friend should’ve known that, and she was probably just saying it to make her feel better. I remember spending most of my time in front of a computer. Or wearing one, or walking around digging up old public records. Half of what had made her so good at her job was that she remembered libraries and city halls existed, and most everyone else had apparently forgotten.

“I guess I was expecting something a little crazier. You, uh… calling Cinnabar your brother, spending enough time in Equestria that you want me to visit you there… that’s confusing to me.”

Java shrugged. “It can be hard. I mean, I don’t know if anything was ever as hard for me as… what you’re going through right now. I can try to answer all your questions.” They were nearing the village now. Despite how long and imposing this trail had seemed from above, they were already near the bottom. “But I’ll start with the one you gave me. Cinnabar isn’t related to me out in the real world, obviously. But Equestria’s different. It’s not just populated by game characters, but… they make a living world. When you come here, you fit into that world somehow or other. The system tries to figure out how you best fit. My siblings in real life were pretty shit, so the system gave me a better one. And it meant I had more reason to be close to you—probably the system had some real creepy levels of information about both of us, and it knew we’d want to play together, and so it made Cinnabar the way he is. Hard to know, I barely even remember him before the Convergence.”

“Convergence,” she repeated. “That’s one I haven’t heard before.”

“Oh, that’s easy. It’s when Equestria stopped being a world some fans built into a cooperative multiplayer space and turned into something more.”

“We know… how that happened?”

She laughed. “If you figure it out, you’re smarter than everypony here, and that’s not easy. I don’t think any of them know. Seems to me like… we just plugged enough computers into each other, told them to work together, and… eventually they did. Maybe some military AI got loose into the system and got mixed up with all the friendship and ponies. Maybe it was ghosts, or aliens, or…” She stopped walking, settling one hoof on Dakota’s shoulder. As before, she found she could feel the pressure against her body. It was like the door, both real and not.

But Dakota didn’t push her away. As frightening as the implications of false touch might be, she was fascinated by the story and didn’t want her to stop. “Origin isn’t an important question. It’s not where the gift comes from, it’s what you do with it that matters.”

“And Equestria built a giant freaky monolith that kills spaceships and shot it at the moon.”

Java rolled her eyes. “I thought you didn’t like conspiracy theories, Dakota.” But she didn’t give her any chance to argue. “That’s the workshop!” she exclaimed, pointing eagerly at one of the buildings on the edge of town. It looked nothing like the others—there was a great big glass window out front, and a blacksmith’s forge was visible inside. Cinnabar was there, or at least his outline, hammering away at something under the intense heat. “Now, it’s time for you to apologize. You can’t take back what you did, but you can tell my brother you’re sorry for not listening to his advice and beg for his help getting you out. I think that’s all he wants.”

“Right,” Dakota muttered. She found her eyes wandering, drifting through the streets of Port Jouster. “Sure we couldn’t just… do something else first?”

“Nope!”

“Well…” She lowered her voice, leaning in close. “Before I go, I want you to answer one more question. Just… how real are these ponies? Synths, and… these other characters. Are they NPCs, just mindless bits of code, or…?”

Java’s expression was a mask. “There’s no one answer,” she said. “There are certainly characters that don’t seem to have much intelligence. They don’t think creatively, or react in different ways based on what you do. Some of the oldest parts of Equestria are like that, with the NPC shopkeepers, and the recreations from the old TV show that just reenact episodes and recite their lines. But the further out you get, the more into Equestria’s own creations and less into the things humans made before the Convergence, and… they’re pretty smart. Cinnabar and the others like him are at least as smart as humans. You better hope that’s as far as it gets, because if they are smarter than us… we’re in over our buckin’ heads.”