Cypress Zero

by Odd_Sarge

2 - Pony Engineering

“What are you?”

It was an odd question to ask of the pony you were actively crushing.

The mare atop him let the pressure off. Her voice was curious, but he could feel tinges of hostility along the edge.

Cold didn’t move. Pain was hurtling through him fast, but he had bigger concerns. “A kirin,” he wheezed.

“Liar,” the mare hissed. The hoof returned, rougher than before, and he gasped as she pushed his head into the floor. “You’re a unicorn. Engineered. Don’t even try that horn.”

Engineered? Cold wanted to ask, but he was in no position to do so. “I’m not… not…”

“Not what?”

A rasp was overtaking him. “A fighter,” he managed.

There was a pause before his ambusher moved again. Cold couldn’t tell if it was hesitation, or if she was deciding whether or not to pulp him. She came to a resolution: the mare let off his neck, but she stayed on his back, grinding her hind hooves into his jacket, and the scales beneath. Her hooves clacked sharply against the floor, just out of sight, but right by his ears. “Why were you in this thing?”

“I’m the captain. It’s my ship.” She didn’t reply. He hoped he’d correctly interpreted her. He squeezed his eyes shut, and tried to move his forelegs. They stung with discomfort. He twisted, contorting as he reached for his ear, and—

The mare stomped, and the hull cried out.

“Don’t. Move.” Spittle landed across his mane. He felt her lean down, towering over him. She licked her lips. “Listen, you need to get me out of here.”

Cold let his hooves fall limp. “Just… let me up. Please.”

“Can you get me out of here, or what?”

“I…” He chewed over his lip.

The mare huffed. She climbed down from his back. She was standing somewhere beside him now. He could feel her stare on him as he carefully pushed himself up into a sitting position. Those metal-rending hooves shuffled, and he finally got his first look at her.

“It depends,” he coughed, taking her form in.

The mare was an earth pony, and a big one at that. Her eyes had a fierce, and strange yellow gaze: her irises felt wrong. He nearly flinched as their eyes met; she was analyzing him, too. She had an apricot-toned coat, a short-cut lime mane, and a long, well-groomed tail. A black jumpsuit—studded with odd metal rivets on the back—covered most of her body, save for her forelegs. There, the black gave way to gray metal…

“Your… your hooves,” Cold muttered aghast.

The mare looked down, then back up. Her ears folded, and she lifted her head high. Her lips curled as she spoke. “Answer the question.”

Had she done this to herself? It wasn’t armor, it was the legs themselves. He stared at the forelegs as she shuffled again. They were made of layers of metal plating, whirred and buzzed, but twisted and moved like… like there were real muscles beneath. Were they prosthetic? He’d never seen prosthetics taken this far. No, these… these were replacements. “Your hooves are made of metal!”

“I know that!” she yelled back. Cold flinched hard. Her withers fell. “I know that.”

“I—you did this to yourself?” She shrank further. That was exactly the kind of response he didn’t want to see. Bile rose in his throat. “No… no, no… Why… Why would somepony mutilate you like this?”

Her posture stiffened. “I wasn’t mutilated, I…” She stopped, and frowned. “I… okay, please. I’m sorry about crushing you. But you can move this thing—this ship, you called it? I need to leave this place.” She licked her lips again. “I saw you come down through the ceiling. In the big place. Where this thing is. I know that’s a way out. You can get me out there, can’t you?”

This was too much. “…What do you think is out there?”

“I-I don’t know! I just know...” She blinked, and suddenly straightened. “Oh, oh no. I really hurt you.”

He had to admit, he was straining a little. “I’m fine,” he replied oddly. This mare was so incredibly strange. First, she assaulted him, on his own ship no less, and now she was worried she’d hurt him? Given what she’d let slip, though…

“I know you have a medbay, and I have the necessary augmentations. Let me help you.” She started toward him without so much as a break.

“What are you—” She gripped his jacket in her teeth, and—

He was slung across her back so quickly.

Dazed, and still feeling sick, he couldn’t stop her from starting at a gallop down the halls. The doors barely managed to open all the way as she ran by the stairs leading up to the central access hall, instead turning down what he knew was the path to the medbay. The final door opened, and the mare practically slid across the floor, dumping him on one of the few medical beds in the room. He’d barely even collected himself before she’d sprint across the entire vessel.

There was another pneumatic hiss, but it came from the mare. Cold looked to her in alarm as one of her metal hooves pressed into his side. She was staring somewhere past him, and a thin reflection of blue danced across her eyes. “Hold still,” she ordered.

Below her hoof, a stinging sensation cut into him, and she pulled his jacket back over it.

“Painkiller,” she stated before turning toward the medical cabinets. Despite the electronic locks on them, they opened immediately for her. She paused for another moment, seeming to analyze his stores, then reached into a cabinet. With whatever she had obtained, she moved to an empty counter, rearing up and tilting her head down to work. The whole time, Cold stared at her.

It wasn’t often he felt fear, but this mare was proving to be too much for him.

He was laying prone, but as he started to climb down from the bed, the mare’s ears swiveled his way. “Stay where you are. I need a moment.”

Cold figured he didn’t have much of a choice.

True to her word, she returned without having to see to the cabinets again. “Take off your jacket.”

The jacket came off, and he gently set it aside. He looked to the mare. He could see she was holding a cloth, slathered with whatever mixture she’d created. Clearly she’d been intending on using it, but now she had her lips pursed, and was glancing over his back.

“You have scales here as well,” she said pointedly. She looked him in the eyes. “Why did they not protect you?”

“I… Well, your hooves are very…” he glanced again. “Different.”

“Stop talking about my hooves.”

“But—”

“You have scales. If your scales can’t protect you, then why do you have scales?”

He didn’t know what to say next. Again, he went with the truth. “I was born with them.”

It was a simple enough answer, but it caught the mare off-guard. The authority slipped from her tone. “Born with them?”

“Yes. Like I told you before, I’m a kirin.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“You…” Cold bristled. His confusion had reached a new high. “Who are you?”

She looked away, and rose the rag to his back, rubbing the mix in-between his scales. It was much less graceful, and much more rough than he believed she’d intended. “My name is Fokienia.”

A name. He could work with that. “Fokienia. That’s a lovely name.” Being honest had helped him so far.

Fokienia slowed in her ministrations. “Thank you?”

“My name is Searing Cold. You can call me Cold if you’d like.” She seemed awkward now. He didn’t blame her; he had thought he’d felt some fear during her ambush, and her actions seemed to line up with it. “How much do you know about where you live?”

“…Not a lot. The only times I’ve been up here in this place is when I’ve…” Her voice fell away, and she stopped completely.

“You’re running from somepony, aren’t you?” He looked at her. “Fokienia?”

“Yes…” She pulled her neck back and met Cold’s gaze. “But you can’t tell anypony.”

“Why not?” He tried to not sound threatening. It wasn’t difficult for the kirin.

Both of her metal hooves had been leaning on him, and they sank deeper. He powered through the pain. “They always bring me back.”

“Who does?”

“Somepony named Concord. They always call for her. And then… they get me.”

Cold froze. Fokienia noticed.

“You’re… you’re not working with her, right?”

Something was off. Very off.

“Fokienia… Concord is the security administration responsible for Cypress.”

She was an adult. She’d clearly grown up here. She had to be kidding. The anxiety lurking beneath him was now at a boiling point. Ponies were easy for him to read, and this mare…

“Concord isn’t a pony?”

This mare wasn’t a criminal on-the-run. She was a filly in a grown mare's body.

“You need a data-bank. Right now.”

Any notions of fearing Fokienia immediately left Cold. Knowledge was something that the princesses made sure was free, and accessible to all. To think that somepony could be this sheltered was an impossibility. A failing of the Crown. He had to fix this. It was his responsibility.

“Hey!” Fokienia squeaked as Cold slid from the bed.

“Walk with me.” He slung his jacket over his withers, and looked Fokienia dead in the eye. “You need to know.”

To her credit, she followed after him. Surprisingly, her hooves didn’t crack against the floor. It appeared she could be gentle while walking on those metal hooves. “Need to know what?”

“Everything.”

She went quiet instantly.

Cold continued down the hall. His quarters had a computer that could integrate with the station network.

It occurred to him that he now had some room to breathe, and ask questions of his own.

But if Concord was possibly looking for her…

“Did anypony see you get onboard?” He figured that was safe enough to ask.

“Just you.”

He raised a brow. “I never saw you.”

“You didn’t? You were looking right at me when you were leaving this place. This ship, I mean.”

She was referring to when he’d docked earlier: that was the last time he’d left the Waste Peddler. “You used the elevator?”

“The elevator? Oh, no, I climbed up on where the um, ship was touching the ground. There were some doors I had to hack open, but they weren’t very secure.”

The landing gear. Of course. “That’s why you were in the ventilation system?”

“Ventilation system? I thought they were maintenance tunnels.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. “I… I guess they kind of are.”

“Anyways, after you left, I saw some ponies come by. They made an awful lot of noise, and there were a bunch of them. At first I thought you sent them after me, but none of them were you, so I just stayed out of sight.”

“What were they doing?”

“Well, they weren’t looking for me, and they weren’t armed.” The word seemed to stick with her. “They opened some of the bigger doors, and took some things with them.”

And that was his delivery. Everything she’d mentioned checked out; it supported the suspicions he’d developed so far. “But how did you see all of that if you were hiding?”

“I can detect movement through walls.” Cold stopped, and looked at her again. She blinked at him, and frowned. “What? I’m not lying.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe her. It was that she was so uninformed, but so dangerous.

And she didn’t know.

“…Sorry, I believe you.” He turned away, and resumed his previous pace.

When they made it to the cabins and the door to his quarters, Fokienia had more to say. “That door isn’t electronically locked.”

Cold nodded, and spoke as if she were just another passenger commenting about it. “It’s mechanical, and enchanted.”

Her mouth popped into an ‘o’ shape. “You can do that?”

“Er, well I can’t. But yes, ponies can enchant mechanical devices.”

“I thought that technology and magic weren’t supposed to be combined.”

Cold shook his head. “We’ve relied on exactly that to bring us to where we are today.” He raised a hoof to the door, pressed into the notch, and it opened like usual. Fokienia was left slack-jawed by the display. “We’ve just gotten better at… doing the technology part without the help of magic. This is pretty much an antique I keep around for looks.”

“Antique? But it’s incredible…” One of her hooves went up to the inner frame of the door. She closed her eyes.

Cold had stepped into the room, but he stopped to watch the earth pony.

Darkly, he noted that now would be the perfect time to shut the door on her, and alert the authorities. But when he saw her standing there, with a hoof from an uncertain future pressed to a forgotten relic of the past, he saw a mare who was telling the truth, and actively seeking it the only way she knew how. She deserved to know more about the history of the world she was living in, and he doubted Concord would give her the chance.

As she continued to hold her hoof to the door, silence seeped in. Cold winced. He left his jacket on his cot, and trot back over to her. “Fokienia?”

She opened her eyes. “Huh? Oh, right.” Sheepishly, she stepped in. The door shut behind her, and she gasped, jumping forward a few hooves.

Cold tried his best not to laugh. He gestured at his desk. The empty synthetic-polymer frame just needed something to fill it. “Tell me you at least know what a computer is.”

Having recovered from her slight scare, a pinch of amusement filled her. “Yeah, I do.” She rolled her eyes. “And before you even ask, I know what a data-bank is…”

“Well, that’s good.” She wasn’t hopeless. He trot over to the empty monitor frame, and waved it to life. The digital interface filled the space, and the actual computer below the desk hummed. “I hope that also means you can read.” He scrawled through the screen, and gave it a moment to connect to the network. It did so without error. A few more taps, and the station’s public data-vault was at their hooves.

Fokienia sat down at the terminal, and stared. “This… isn’t what I’m normally used to.” Cautiously, she raised a hoof, and tried typing a few letters. “I can just put in whatever I want?” She looked to Cold, seemingly asking for permission.

Cold gave her an earnest smile, and sat down beside her. “I recommend ‘Concord’, first.”

She timidly tapped. Twice. “…Can you spell that for me?”

And that was where they started.

---

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

It was all so wrong.

And yet, so right.

Fokienia looked over at the sleeping ‘kirin.’ He’d been drained from a mixture of opiates, and a squeeze of sleep deprivation. It was to her benefit, but she hadn’t intended for it to happen: he could have stayed awake if he chose to. For whatever reason, he’d given her the implication that he trusted her to to not do anything hostile while he slept. Was it in his nature, or had he been programmed that way?

She turned back to the monitor and typed in ‘kirin’.

As with the previous dozens of searches and hyperlink bouncing, the results were clear, unredacted, and informative.

She scrolled, absorbing the text and media voraciously. There was so much. So much to learn. So much to unlearn. In truth, there was too much. Fokienia needed something more truncated.

She tightened her search to ‘kirin history’.

Some kind of algorithm completed her query for her, and a notification made clear what had happened. Apparently, she hadn’t been the first to type that on this terminal. Her heart dropped, and she looked at the bedridden kirin again. What had he said his name was? Searing Cold. Yes, Cold. That was his name. He had seemed knowledgeable on so much, but here it seemed he’d gone looking for history as if he didn’t know it. Had all he’d said and done been part of a ruse?

The words archived here would paint a better picture. They’d guided her so far, and she had no reason to believe that anything on this data-bank was fabricated to mislead her.

…There was a lot here about peacemaking, much of it secondary, but some of it primary. Their tribe had a history of ‘seeing the best in ponies’, as one document noted. Natural-born diplomats. Fokienia found it an apt description for Searing Cold; he’d talked her out of an ambush, all by talking about her hooves.

And still, she was left wondering if she could truly trust him.

The computer didn’t have any answers for that.

She pushed herself onto all fours, and walked over to the sleeping kirin. Her ears twitched, and she tilted her head. There was some kind of sound coming from him.

…Was that music?

As she leaned closer, she could hear it. Yes, there was music. There was an intriguingly minuscule device in his ear, burrowed like one of her own implants, but not burrowed at all. From it, a soft song played. Why was he listening to music as he slept? It didn’t make sense; she couldn’t bear to hear things while falling asleep, unless it was a constant sound, something she could grow used to. And this music was far from a simple, constant sound. It didn’t seem like a very threat-aware thing to do.

She left him undisturbed for the moment, and trot to the door.

“How does this work…?” she mumbled. Awkwardly, she put a hoof to the notch in the door. She carefully centered it in the gap, and tried to turn.

The mechanism didn’t budge.

Her hoof slowly sank back to the floor. The kirin had locked it. Or had he? Maybe she was just operating it wrong.

Her lips peeled back, and she tried again.

Nothing.

Fokienia looked around the room. There were a few furnishings, but not much else. She took note of a vent on the ceiling. She could escape through there if she had to.

She shook herself, and returned to the computer. What was she thinking? She was safe, here. And it was much more easy to breathe than where she’d spent the last few days. She shuddered, and pushed the memories away.

Again, she sat. The search for ‘kirin history’ was still there. She grimaced, and typed something else in: ‘enchanting’.

Now this was a rabbit hole. It distracted her immediately.

Like many of the articles that addressed magic, it only served to deepen her curiosity. She had never seen much magic in her life, at least nothing as complicated as enchantments. With enchanting, it looked as if anything technology could do was rendered-obsolete. Why bother with technology when magic could do everything it could do, but much more cleanly?

The answers began to appear when her searches shifted to matters of health.

Healing magic didn’t exist.

“What?” she croaked, quietly at first. She pulled up another article on the archive, and the allegedly ‘accredited’ pony behind the facts made the same point again. A shaky breath escaped her. “…What?”

Healing magic didn’t exist.

“No… please.” No… it couldn’t be right. She tried again. “Please.” Again. Hyperlink. Search. Hyperlink. Hyperlink.

Healing magic didn’t exist.

Fokienia’s heart beat in her chest. Achingly. It… she… they…

A tremble overtook her lip, and she craned downward. The shaking shook down into her core, and a choked sob extracted itself forcefully from her. She couldn’t be fixed. She was broken, torn apart, remolded. And she could never be fixed. A pervasive wave of nausea swept her, and she almost found comfort in it. There was a sense of grounding to the feeling. She was still equine. Still a pony.

Her neurostimulator calmed it. That nausea was a disruption to her focus. An urge to be suppressed. The byproduct of a natural chemical reaction that required culling. She was programmed to feel senseless, and they made sure she was close.

She wanted to vomit, but the technology wouldn’t let her.

Fokienia breathed laboriously. Heaving, bursts of breath. There was no need for the action, but it was a bodily function she could control. Control was good. Controlling herself was powerful.

And so was controlling others, her training reminded her.

She wanted to scream.

She swung her head to look at the kirin. He was still sleeping peacefully.

She snapped back to the monitor, and typed feverishly.

‘Augmentations’.

The dialog box stuttered. “Null query.”

‘Bioengineering’.

“Null query.”

‘Fokienia’.

“Null query.”

‘Zero’.

Nothing. Nolla. Naught.

Null in all but name.

Null.

Null.

Null.

She wasn’t real, she was nothing. She wasn’t pony, she wasn’t equine. She was nothing.

Null.

Null.

Null.

Nothing. No history. No answers.

“Null query.”

“FOKIENIA!”

She whirled and gasped. A cloven hoof was draped over her withers. She stared into the glowing green eyes beside her.

“Sweet Blaze,” Cold swore. His jaw was locked tight. “Are… are you okay?”

“I…” She wiped at her tears. At least those were real.

The kirin settled next to her, and pulled her in wordlessly. A hug. That was equine. Distinctly pony.

Fokienia hugged back.

Cold was warm for his name. Like a fire burning from inside, out. He flinched as her metal hooves ran along his back. She decided not to blame him; she would be scared, too.

She whimpered. “Thank you, Cold.”

His muzzle brushed past her ear as he settled for resting his head on her. “You were screaming.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

The tears flowed like hot wine. Cold didn’t seem to care.

“…Do you mind if I ask what you saw?”

Nothing. “Everything.”

“You can tell me. If you’d like.”

Could she?

She closed her eyes, and focused on the world around her. A heart aside her own beat wildly. Breath came shallow. A soft song played.

“I’m… I am augmented.” It was a start she had to fight for, but the rest came easily. It always did. “That means that I am physically and neurally enhanced. I have undergone augmentation procedures for much of my operating lifetime. I have been provided ample resources for studying my abilities, and know precisely what each modification to my neurons, musculature, and limbs are capable of. I am built and trained to a play a role in critical medical operations, but can also commit to a leading role in close-quarters-combat, with a particular emphasis on lethal force. My name is Fokienia.”

She thought about what she’d been told before. It had been an odd comment at the time, but it made more sense than ever, now: she’d spoken robotically. Without emotion. But she didn’t feel emotionless, and neither did the pony wrapped around her.

“Would you like a demonstration?”

She hadn’t meant to let that slip.

It had been demanded of her.

A rending shiver went through her. It wasn’t her own.

“What? No, no demonstration… I…”

“I’m sorry.” She squeezed. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to scare you. It’s just who I am.”

What she’d become.

“What kind of pony would do this to you? You know what, forget that, it doesn’t matter right now. How long have you been… augmented?”

Fokienia was happier to answer the latter. “My whole life.”

“Celestia almighty.” That was a swear she was more acquainted with. “You… sweet spirits, I’m so, so sorry. That sounds awful.”

A justification swam up, though it was uncalled for. “It’s not all bad.”

Cold didn’t reply.

She decided to continue. “I’m stronger than them, now.”

“Stronger than who?” His heart thumped with anxiety. Fokienia felt it briefly before he pulled away to look at her face. “Concord?”

“No.” She bit her lip. “The ponies who made me this way.”

His eyes were so tired. Her inuition told her he would be fine, though.

And then her eyes saw something else.

She twisted out of his grip and stood. Cold stumbled onto his own hooves, and looked up at the larger mare. “Fokienia? What’s wrong?”

She stared at the waves, melting and drooping as they soared along. The shapes were all too familiar. They came up against the outside of the Waste Peddler, brushed against the hull, then slid downward.

The lighting in the room flickered.

Cold looked to the corner of the floor where she was staring, then back at her. His hoof shot to his ear, and his eyes widened. “Fokienia?!”

Her reply was a venomous hiss. “They’re here.”

Author's Note:

Illustration for this chapter: “Fokienia”

Comments

[Raugos]

Intriguing setting and premise with a rare sci-fi flavour. Gonna keep an eye on this for sure!

[Rambling Writer]

hyperlink bouncing

That's an excellent turn of phrase.

“Would you like a demonstration?”

She hadn’t meant to let that slip.

It had been demanded of her.

Whoof. The implications.

[Kcmichalson]

I like how Fokienia is written but I feel Cold might be a tad too trusting for a hardy spacefarer, or maybe that's just part of that Kirin diplomatic intuition.

Her inuition told her

May want to fix hers when you have the chance, though.

[Timuri]

This is an interesting start to your story. I rather like your setting so far. A good, optimistic sci-fi story that isn't based on another franchise is far too rare, with only two besides this that I've found. Unless something fairly drastic happens to negatively affect the story, this should be a fun read and something to add to that short list. Thank you for making this.

[Odd_Sarge]

11549766
Hopefully the fic holds onto its unwavering optimism: I believe in it, and I hope you do, too. Enjoy!

[redmar]

Fokiena is desperately in need of help. It seems that Searing Cold doesn't know any other kirins.