The Freelancers

by OverHeart

Chapter 32 - The Meeting

Riot had one of his cronies remove the hoods that’d been put over Bulwark and Scarlet’s heads, and they winced as the bright lights of this small dank room they found themselves in met their eyes.

Scarlet could see at least four other ponies stood around in various spots in this featureless room,

She attempted to stand but the clink of chains attached to two loops in the floor echoed around the room, quickly prompting her to kneel back into an uncomfortable position.

“Oh good, you’re awake.” Riot chuckled. “Just when I thought I’d have to wake you up myself.”

“You’ve already got what you want, your job’s done. Why are you still hounding us?” Scarlet croaked out.

“I might have completed my job for that feckless stallion, Bright Sun, but there are others that want a piece of me.” Riot offered. “Problem is, your friends might just run into them if they haven’t already, so why not kill two birds with one stone?”

“You aren’t very smart, are you?” Bulwark spat. “Bringing down the fury of a corp, on purpose no less, is the most stupid thing I have ever heard.”

“I know.” Riot said as he knelt in front of the two captives, staring them straight in the eyes. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you and say that you have little understanding of the situation you’re in.”

“Enlighten us.”

“Alright, I’ll bite since I’m in a good mood today.” Riot admitted. “What if I told you there was a guiding force, more powerful than the big four but hidden away outside the city somewhere?”

“I’d say you were crazy. Corps don’t answer to anyone but themselves, you should know that, being their lackey and all.”

“There was a time they still answered to what was then the Equestrian Royal Court, but as should be expected of any set of large enterprises with a lot of money and political power, they took control and drove this other group out.”

“You’re talking about the Crown, aren’t you?“ Scarlet shook her head. “They’re a ghost story, nothing more.”

“A ghost story? Perhaps.” Riot stood up and shook his head. “But they regularly recruit and outright sculpt ponies from the ground up to be used as tools, and then thrown out when they have served their purpose. I should know, I’m one of those tools they tossed into the trash because I didn’t turn out the way they wanted.”

“Are we supposed to feel sorry for you? Cause we don’t.”

“Unsurprising.” Riot grumbled as he stepped toward the door. “No matter, you’ll find out when they toss your friends aside after they finish turning this place upside down just to find me. I just hope they have the good sense to run while they can.”

“Do you really expect us to believe that after you hunted us down, trashed our home, and then feed us lie upon lie?”

“Like you’ve never done reprehensible things in the name of survival or however you want to justify it, you’re just like me at the end of the day.”

---

A low pitched and rhythmic synthesized beep echoed from the speakers embedded into the ceiling of Access’ room and he awoke with a start before an unfamiliar voice crackled through.

“Access Granted, Sheet Rock, and Starry Night. Your presence in the boardroom is requested at your earliest convenience. Agents will wait for you to ready yourselves, and then escort you there. Please do not delay.”

Access rolled over and stared up at the holographic clock on the wall, it was a hair past seven in the morning and they weren’t very polite with their wake up call. He threw off the heavy cotton covers, got to his hooves, and collected his belongings from the small footlocker provided to each of them.

While he strapped his holster and Cyberdeck harness over his jumpsuit, a small knock came from the thin steel door followed by a short, authoritative call.

“I’m here to collect you for your meeting, please do not delay longer than you have to.”

“One moment!” Access began. “A little more warning would have been great, you know?”

He trotted over to the door and tapped the door control with the back of his hoof, and when it opened a small earth turquoise pony stared back up at him. She brushed aside her azure mane and bowed respectfully before she stepped aside.

Sheet Rock and Star were already awake, albeit barely, and they shared a small good morning wave between each other.

“I trust that everyone slept well?” the turquoise mare remarked. “My name is Flow, I’m the agent assigned to make sure you behave, but given Matterhorn’s rather spotless report of you, I don’t think we’ll run into any problems, will we?”

“Of course not.” Access remarked.

“Good. Follow me, please.”

They followed Flow down the hallway and to a bank of elevators, she pointed downwards and waited for them to pass her before she followed close behind. It was only a few floors down to the boardroom they were required to go to, but given their lack of sleep it felt like a marathon.

“Say, Flow-” Sheet Rock began.

“I’m not interested in anything you have to say.” she barked. “You’re not going to bargain with me like you bargained with Matterhorn. If it was up to me, I’d have taken what we wanted from you and left you by the curbside.”

“Well aren’t you a ray of sunshine? Could have fooled me otherwise with the otherwise respectful attitude you just threw away.”

Flow didn’t answer and remained silent for the majority of the short trip down. Sheet Rock stood in the corner of the elevator cab in barely contained fury, staring at the back of Flow’s head like she could’ve bored a hole straight through it with her glare alone.

The elevator ground to a halt and opened out into a long glass hallway, with each of the gigantic offices on the floor sectioned off but clearly visible through the smoky black glass walls. Their destination however was at the very end of this hallway and it looked like Matterhorn and Lucky were already waiting for them, judging from the smudges they could make out through the boardroom door.

“End of the corridor, don’t get sidetracked okay?” Flow grumbled.

Access and Sheet Rock walked down the hallway toward the large boardroom, and as they drew closer they saw Matterhorn and Lucky gesturing for them to come in through the glass, it was obvious that they had something to tell them but it didn’t seem like it was the news they wanted to hear.

“Good of you two to join us.” Luna greeted the two with a small wave. “We have good news and bad news, which would you rather hear first?”

“Give us the bad news first.” Access said with a frown. “Then brighten our day with some good news.”

“The bad news is we don’t know where your friends could possibly be at this time, but the good news is we do however have the location of a hideout known to be actively used by Riot. Our spies assure us that it contains a wealth of documents, both physical and digital for us to… liberate, so to speak.”

Luna was right, in that it was not the news they wanted to hear, but given Riot’s slippery nature they were glad to have any leads at all, however this felt like this would be a situation in which they’d have to give the Crown a favor to get one in return.

A vidscreen embedded into the table sprang to life and displayed a large map of the Everfree Arcology, specifically the leisure and storage districts. The Everfree Arcology was the one remaining place in Equestria where you’d find a Thestral, and due to their somewhat unsocial nature, it would be very difficult to get inside without a very good reason.

They had long since separated themselves from Equestria at large, opting to seal themselves away in a world of their own, both physically and from the wider net. It was about as much as an island as you could get without being on a literal island.

“You are aware the Everfree Arcology is one of the hardest places to get into in Equestria, right? We can’t jack in remotely and work our own way there, we’d have to physically be there.” Access pointed out, as if it was obvious.

“Plus I don’t think they’ll let a heavily armored mage and his caretaker in either, just the armor alone would make them seal the place up tighter than a corp’s retirement wallet.” Sheet Rock chuckled.

“That’ll be up to you two, I’m sure you can figure something out.” Matterhorn grinned. “Just use that sprawl pony charm you have.”

Luna tapped at a small area of the map, which looked to be a cluster of hotels and eateries. “Once inside you’ll go to one of these hotels and rent a room, with any luck it’ll have an access point you can use.”

Lucky pointed at a small checkpoint just before the cluster of hotels. “It should also go without saying that the longer you can pull off the tourist couple shtick, the less chance there is that we’ll be thrown out on our backsides, or worse, shot.”

“We can do that.” Access reassured.

“We basically act like a bickering married couple anyway.” Sheet Rock added. “We can play the part, at least until we find what we need.”

“Good to hear.”