The Trinity of Moons: Mending Shards

by Cloud Ring

Chapter 30: Contamination

Faraway Storm's cutie mark

☳☳☳

Faraway Storm recorded and broadcast the dialogue — a monologue, to be honest. She asked careful questions to help ponies collate meaningful answers, trying not to look hostile, and the ponies answered her. All doubts and attempts to check the consistency of their story Storm left for later, listening to them as-is and trying to make a decent impression.

The regional center was also silent, and there was almost no sign that the recording was going on and was heard there, in between cells, except for three calm blue light bulbs in a small projection inside the helmet — no issues on acquiring, transmitting and receiving. Only once did the center ask for clarification — when Cursory Streak spoke about the tower. The data that Black Moon is actively using the everside, in itself, as Storm understood, was the reason for another operation; but, fortunately, not hers.

And yet, the rumble of excited and anticipating voices, even at a distance, delighted Storm — she found a job for somepony waiting, somepony whose profile was right for such a rarity.

So, everything was already not in vain.

A little later, when she heard about the countdown timer, she went against the opinions of the overseers as a field operator and returned to the tower along with her temporary trio. The phase dampener whistled from overload and tended to miss secondary frequencies to neutralize, it constantly had to be adjusted with personal input from Storm. When that was urgently required, the indicator switched from yellow to orange, then back to yellow, but never green, and blue was out of the question for ages. But in general the ancient tech was still holding together, somehow. Solid Line had explained that she doesn't need magic to turn off the timer. This simplified a lot.

She looked with curiosity at the local terminal behind the threshold of the tower: first, too primitive and second, able to do something that technology, in principle, should never be allowed to do — it could read minds! The combination was worrying at best.

Then, once again asking if all urgent matters had been addressed, she again sent the trio towards more populated areas, and began to clarify.

Most of all, she was worried about the telepathy of Solid Line and Pink that allowed the latter to use teleportation of the former: although Solid did not call it telepathy, everything that she mentioned fit into this umbrella term; especially the capture of somepony else's body.

So Storm asked the center for more data regarding Solid Line, and for a module to keep the abilities of this spectrum in check, and for confirmation that Pink is, indeed, one out of the six, functional and bootable barring the Red's contamination.

For Solid Line, the center did not have enough clearance, so she remained a mystery; Solid Line's cat, even more suspiciously, was blank as well — there was nothing on Signal Line at all in the database, but the second was found, and even in a format compatible with the phase dampener’ issue number. A minor issue was that to prevent it from choking, it was necessary to allow Cursory Streak's flight.

Third one was confirmed which severely limited Storm's options.

She didn’t explain the real reason, but did so with the short 'You passed the background check', which was also generally true. Cursory asked not to interfere with the flight anymore — this is too cruel and extreme a measure, she added, with blinking blue eyes, and while the obvious attempt to establish personal contact did not work, Storm was told that there was not enough processing power to stop the flight anyway, so she nodded to the request.

Because as a last resort, a promise can and should be broken. Faraway Storm, the seventh out of the six, knew that for sure.

The mention of ‘Guiding Starfall-TX’ was not good news either. Not so much its direct threat — a suit was isolating her even from the moonlight, and all the more it could protect her from toxic chemical compounds — but as a sign of extremely high access levels. Definitely greater than my own, she noted for herself, worried that there may be more in the operation than she knows about.

"So, in fact, you left yourself only the ability to see through lies? Aside from survival measures for the S-sectors. To note, even I currently would be avoiding these. Was everything else not that important?" Storm clarified, incurring technical truth to see if she will be caught on that and thus deduce on limits of the ability. In a formal interrogation, such questions would have been unacceptable, but now they were in a different setting.

"Uh-huh. My honor, too. Oaths and treaties must be respected," Cursory Streak replied.

"Okay, that was the first time. What about the second one?" Faraway Storm inquired.

The young pegasus did not answer at once; she flapped her wings, but at least didn’t take off. “That's an impolite question,” she said reluctantly.

Storm went ahead of her, turned on the road into a more inhabited sector and continued to walk backwards, looking directly at Cursory, "And yet I am repeating it."

"What for?" Cursory grunted.

“A pony who decided to use 'Starfall' on herself more than once, and not sell it for a status gain, is a very interesting pony,” Storm answered almost honestly.

"So what?" muttered Cursory, still with a tone closely guarded. She looked to the side, avoiding direct eye contact.

Storm thought about it and nodded, “Okay. I, too, would not share all the secrets. But I'll tell you this, and then you decide. I worked for a long time with those who used addictive drugs…"

"What?" Cursory stopped dead in her tracks with a sudden question.

Solid Line took a few steps toward her and stared at Storm as well. Solid Line, unlike her friend, for all the time under the light of the bright Blue Moon — the suit held up for now, and the influence remained well below the safety threshold — not once complained about the lack of magic. But now Solid also looked as if demanding an answer, and this answer had to be presented in any case, whether Storm liked it or not — a look all too familiar to Storm... but not from the moonlit ponies.

Storm felt baffled by this reaction. What exactly has she said wrong? Maybe something she thought? Maybe– she quickly checked up the phase dampener — telepathy remained neutralized, albeit the device was closing to its demise.

Solid Line's green eyes glittered in the bluish darkness, like foreseeing stones, but unlike them, this look did not center the mind and did not give any clues. Strictly the opposite.

Even more puzzled, Storm asked back, stalling for time, “What do you mean? Drugs. Strongly addictive. Often transported through smuggling. Addictive means addictive. So there you get consumers who are willing to pay for the next shot because it is necessary for their brains…"

She paused, noting that — for the first time in this walk — they not only look at her, but also see her. Solid was still impenetrable, Cursory looked at her with pity and horror. The pegasus was not crying, but this bend of slightly open grayish-white wings, was not a sign of aggression or superiority — these wings trembled.

"So. Everything else will wait for now,” Cursory said decisively, "While we are walking — we are still going to the city, right?.. Tell me about this place where you are from. After that we will shelter you and find you a place to sleep and a job for a start. Feel free to take a leave from this awful place too! I promise, I’ll be right there if you need me.”

Storm frantically rewinded the conversation to the point where it went astray. With nothing better, she latched to a keyword, “Tell me like I am four years old, what’s up with addictive drugs?”

“They don’t happen, period,” Cursory was first to answer there again, “Maybe in some forsaken holes where the moonlight never happens. Not among us. No substance can do that with a person. I mean– I hear the notion, I understand, but this can’t happen outside of penny dreadfuls. This,” she smiled, “was an exception of a separate Word. You’re miserable otherwise.”

“Oh, that’s not too bad. We have treatments, I can show you a photo of a few ponies who were there,” Storm smiled back, still a little tense but getting it now - just another of Moons’ peculiar decisions. Alright.

She formed a query to the main database up above. She recalled the pony as she spoke the name: Minute Earnings, a life support engineer; indeed petite they had a dry sense of humor which hadn’t left them even in the throes of withdrawal.

The base sent back a few imprecise guesses but not one she asked for. Storm’s heart sank.

She sent another request, a frantic one, pointed she wants a living operator this time, "What's with the drugs here?! Addictives, not medicines!"

The answer did not come immediately.

"There is no such thing. Are you sure?" The local coordinator of the operation asked her in a polite and quiet voice.

"Get me Sapphire on the wire!" Storm snapped.

After a pause too long for an urgent answer and too short for times when everything is going well, the voice of Sapphire, the coordinator from her own cell said, "We have no data on addictive chemicals. Addictive sports, gaming, sure. Behaviour and habits, too. No chems or medicines. What's up?"

There was a chance that this was a simple army joke or a test, but Storm chose the worst option, "Sapphire, your reality is sorely lacking. For me, not only addictive chemicals do exist, they made me suffer. So, among you, in the center, is now a source of moonlight, and you have become moonlit, as are all the ponies here down below. Return to your cell immediately. I will continue the assignment. The decontamination team will arrive. And if worst comes to worst, I like you, for a long time now."

She cut the connection with the center that was now obviously contaminated by moonlight and, therefore, by Moons’ distorted reality, dialed the decons' call code — one of six memorized by heart — and returned her attention to Cursory and Solid, who in the meantime got closer. The cat, having calmed down, laid down on her back without returning to the owner, and this was troubling too.

Storm nodded to them, “Okay, I'll tell you. Just don't look like that. Nothing too bad is happening,” she pulled out another half-truth without visible reaction from Cursory Streak, "There are places where Moons' light does not reach…"

Comments

[Numinos]

Interesting indeed... I'm now even less sure about rules and laws by witch those worlds are operating. Sounds like Moons have reality-breaking/twisting radiation in them. I mean they were bending laws of physics before, and different sectors have different rules and environments but that they actively change people... It's scary.

[Cloud Ring]

10776271
Basically, yes, There were some lines on 'Moons change the world', and there we have faction that tries to separate itself from this influence.