Alpha One Six

by Misanthropian

Chapter Ten: Public

Alphie braced for the impact as she fell towards a parking lot behind the apartments.

She hit the ground hard and went tumbling across the concrete. The force knocked her system's calibrations out of alignment. Her vision flickered and her limbs locked up as they tried to recover from the shock.

She stumbled to her hooves as the ERoCo. agents came rushing around the corner.

"There! It's behind the building!"

Alphie looked back up the window where Lyra and Redheart were looking down to her.

Lyra shouted. "Run you idiot!"

Alphie stumbled forwards into an awkward, hobbling sprint. She was still recovering, and one of here forelimbs wasn't working properly. Still she ran as fast as she could to the nearest alleyway.

The agents pursued her down the street and around every corner. She knew she couldn't outrun them. She tried to think of a plan as she continued to down another alley towards the street where she could see ponies walking.

She looked down at the hoodie Lyra had given her and got an idea.

As she approached the street, she flipped the hood up and dashed into the thickest part of the crowd. Ponies shouted in frustration and surprise as she pushed past them. She slowed down and fell in line with the other ponies as they walked along.

She looked back, trying not to give herself away as she made her way down the street as casually as she could in her current state.

The ERoCo. agents came barrelling out from the alley and began looking about, trying to spot her among the masses. She watched as they began to slit up and search the area.

Alphie took the opportunity to duck into a nearby clothing store. She ducked behind one of the racks of cloths as one of the agents passed by the shop window.

Alphie let out a sigh of relief.

"Excuse me!" A voice angrily demanded her attention.

Alphie turned to see the store clerk standing over her giving a look of frustration and disapproval.

"No robots allowed! Where's your owner?!" He demanded.

Alphie looked past him to a door in the back of the shop.

"Hello! Are your ears working? I asked where your owner is!"

Alphie grabbed the stallion by his vest and pulled him so that they were face to face.

"What the!?"

"What did you see?" Alphie demanded, doing her best to appear threatening.

"I don't-" It must have worked as the clerk's expression suddenly changed to that of panic.

"What. Did. You. See?" Alphie demanded again. She didn't want to hurt him. She just needed to buy time to get away.

"Nothing! I saw nothing!", The shop keeper fell for her bluff, "Please. Just put me down!"

Alphie set the stallion down and backed slowly towards the back exit. "Stay there." She said glaring at him as she went to leave. Once outside, she bolted, being careful to stay out of site.

---

Alan Pulled his car into the driveway of his tiny suburban home outside Ponyville. The vehicle stopped suddenly and stalled with a thud.

"What wrong now..." Alan got out of the car and looked it over. There were no obvious issues. "I'll take you to the shop tomorrow..." He headed towards the door.

He trotted over to the front door and tried it, finding it unlocked. He opened the door and stepped in.

"Dennis? You in here?"

"Watchn' TV" The younger colt responded from across the house.

Alan headed over to one of the bedrooms and carefully opened the door. A frail mare in a wheelchair sat next to the bed. She smiled and raised a shaking hoof to point to Alan as he walked in.

"Hey sis. Yeah I'm back.", Alan trotted over and carefully placed his sisters hoof back down, "I'll have dinned ready in a bit. Does that sound good."

Through her frail shaking movements Alan was barely able to discern a nod.

"Dad! Come see the news." Dennis shouted from the other room.

He turned towards the door and shouted back. "Hold on!", He let out a sigh as he looked back to his sister, "What do you say, Claudia? Want to go watch some TV?"

The mare pointed to the door so Alan grabbed the wheelchair and pushed it out of the room. They headed down the hall into the den where Dennis sat on the couch watching the news.

"Look!", Dennis pointed with the remote, "Isn't that one of the robots from your work?"

Alan looked at the television. Sure enough they seemed to be doing a report on an escaped hospital robot. "Turn it up..."

Dennis nodded and turned up the volume.

The news reporter stood outside of a building where police where visible in the background.

"-here at the apartment building where, earlier today, police and personnel from the Equestrian Robotics Corporation located, and made pursuit of the missing robot." The pony turned to gesture towards the building. "Upon locating the missing robot, reports say that it jumped from the second story window in order to escape. The malfunctioning unit then fled down back alleys and onto a major street putting ponies in harm's way in order to escape its perusers."

The scene cut to a stallion in a vest standing outside of a clothing store. The stallion spoke in a panicked manner to the news crew.

"I was in my shop when this robot came storming in. She threatened me then told me to say nothing. Once it was gone I ran over and called the police as fast as I could."

The scene cut back to the reporter outside the apartments. "There are reportedly two arrests that have been made so far in this investigation. The fist being for a Miss Lyra Heartstrings, who is a formed ERoCo. developer, and was a major player in the incident at ERoCo. eight years ago. Shown here." An image of Lyra popped up on screen.

Alan looked in shock. "That's who that way!?"

Dennis looked. "You know here?"

The reporter continued "The second arrest was made for a Miss Redheart. A nurse from Ponyville General Hospital, where the robot in question originally escaped from. Shown here." The image of Nurse Redheart appeared on screen.

The scene cut back to the reporter, who continued. "The two individuals where taken by police for questioning, and for 'interfering with a police investigation'. No information has yet been given about their exact connection to the events here earlier today."

Alan watched in shock. "Redheart, what did you do?.."

Comments

[ibanix]

The storytelling here is good, but there are so many spelling and grammar errors - the bugs of the English programming language - that it is a major distraction