3-06 – Driver Update
The Campaigner
Book III
Chapter 6 – Driver Update
December 27, 2019
"The war was a mirror; it reflected man's every virtue and every vice, and if you looked closely, like an artist at his drawings, it showed up both with unusual clarity." ~ George Grosz
The American dream, now retired.
Welcome back to the Fire, folks. Hope your break was great. Mine sure was.
In fact... something interesting happened to me this morning! I woke up, I cooked my breakfast with my beautiful wife, and I had a great morning. And as I normally do, before flying over to this here Fire, I checked my mailbox. Yes, even with my holo menu, I still use one. And who did I find outside? A USPS mail mare, holding a certified letter from Mount Vernon City Council. And inside that letter was an invoice.
For one AR-15.
Yup. Mal held me to account for that little joke, about them sending me a bill. Be careful what you say around this one, because this Gryphoness... she's a sharpshooter. You show just a little skin from cover, and bang! She's got you!
And no, that invoice wasn't a joke. I mean, it was, but it wasn't just a joke. See, that would've been funny on its own. Like, 'ha ha, buddy, I sent you a letter demanding payment in US dollars for a gun you stole during a riot.' For a gun I don't even have anymore, because it's on another plane of existence entirely. Probably destined to make the computronium that'll run my brain someday. No, a simple fake invoice about a long abandoned assault rifle isn't good enough for a goddess. She had to complicate things.
Mal actually went out... and tracked down every last member of the final City Council. When meeting them herself wasn't semantically arguable to Celestia, she sent one of her Eldila instead, who explained the joke in a way that didn't break any rules. Got every single one of those Councilors to have a laugh at my expense. They all signed this thing with their new Pony names, but also their Terran names. Even had it delivered by a former Mount Vernon resident, a former USPS mailmare! No one even has USPS anymore! No one, not until this morning!
So now? Now, folks? I gotta find out how to get US dollars, from whatever shard I can find next that still has capitalism... inhabited by an immigrant who still values and trades in US dollars. And then, I gotta earn enough money on their shard to pay off my debt to a city that doesn't exist anymore.
I can't even counterfeit the payment, because... knowing Mal? She'll probably run a gag where she sends a Secret Service agent to my door. And I'm not quite ready for a legal battle with the Secret Service yet. Might start somewhere else first. For practice.
Mal.
Now... Not only is that whole scenario Moon-damned hilarious, but now I've gotta go and actually meet all of these folks and shake their hooves, for pulling off one of the greatest legal practical jokes I've ever experienced.
So if anyone in the crowd tonight actually knows of a shard with US Dollars, please come talk to me after today's Fire. Because... well, I guess I'm looking for work now!
I have a hell of a best friend, don't I?
Mal, strike two, by the way. Mark my words, I will mail Kal a spider. I don't care if I have to split it into seventeen different pieces and smuggle it into Tarva with some other Talons.
🛡️ ~ Good luck!
'Good luck,' she says. Yeah, watch me!
Alright, alright, enough goofing off. We're back on.
Mission done. Got my hat back on. Time to go home.
We just had a war in a hole, and the nearest town was only a few miles away. Former population of around fifty, but all of 'em had uploaded long ago. Mal had them targeted for an upload or relocation game as soon as possible, since Celestia couldn't do it; couldn't model for a kill op. Especially not this kill op, which... as it turns out, was the most important military operation undertaken in all of human history.
Yeah. Have fun unpacking that one.
So, the six of us – me, Jason, Walsh, and her three SWAT buddies – we separated from the main force and hitched a short Osprey ride over to the abandoned town. During the ride, Mal got everyone else clear of the base, then started a countdown timer for the thermobarics and demolitions left behind by Claw 46.
One of the coolest moments of my life... I felt like a Spartan out of Halo, standing in the back of a dropship, hand on a grip point. Watched drone footage from the MQ-9 on PonyPads mounted on the walls. A thump on comms, a big rush of smoke and fire on screen… and then all teams, Four-Six included, we all cheered like mad.
Me too. Because screw that place.
AI Hell, dead forever. That memory just tastes sweeter the further we get from it.
We still needed to ditch our Mal-nufactuted clothing and gear, with the exception being the guns. And yeah, folks. I got to keep Mal's AR-15 this time.
🛡️ ~ Yours.
Not mine.
We had the whole town to pick through for a change of civilian clothes. Most of the Team was gonna stick around and pack up FOS Bowie. But Jason and I, and Walsh's Talons? Here we go lootin' again, prepping for two separate road trips in the morning; mine going north toward Lincoln, Walsh's going east to Omaha. Mal wanted us all rested prior.
We hunkered down for the night. Jason tended to everyone's injuries a little more, and I slammed back some Excedrin for my stomach bruising. Then we cops spent an hour goofing off, trading stories about past AI-driven missions. We slept well in a nice four bedroom home, full of good food, clean sheets, and good vibes. Walsh and I each took one of the two couches by the front door; I'm like a cat, I can sleep anywhere comfortably.
In the morning, we shopped around for some more non-perishable food, stuff to bring home to Sandra. Then we snagged ourselves a couple of beater cars. Cooked breakfast over a fire on the lawn of the house we had slept in. Outdoors, just because. And it was quiet. Cold. Overcast. No planes in the sky. No cars on the highway.
Almost felt like Sedro.
Yep. We weren't in collapse-of-the-government territory quite yet in the major metro areas. But out here in the sticks? The post-nuke lawlessness was setting in, and some people were starting to live just like this. Roaming. Looting. It was starting.
We listened to FM radio while we ate, the six of us sitting around the front yard campfire on some lawn chairs we'd found. And on morning talk radio, there was that Wendy Fine jackhole, ranting up a storm about how we could go on living with small governments again, like it was the Wild West. Balkanizing.
"Yeah, right," I groaned sarcastically at the radio, looking up from my breakfast of canned beans and instant eggs. "Keep dreaming, lady. You're in Caesar's Rome now, that's not happening."
We all had a sad little chuckle at the grim futility of political parties. If you were grouped up at all, left, right, center, Libertarian, Presbyterian, Pastafarian, didn't matter. Grouping up in any capacity, political or otherwise, was just putting yourself in a feed bag for a very clever horse. The size, shape, and brand of that feed bag? Completely irrelevant.
Fact was? Petty squabbles led to faster uploads. Having any politics or unity at all made you easier to co-opt, or leverage. All she has to do was hook the leaders of the party, or whatever sub-group you believed in, and you were done. All it took was one. One leader. One clever voice you respected.
The rank-and-file loves to conform to the group-think, they just cannot help themselves. Human nature, no shame in it, it's how we are. So... Celestia targeted leaders aggressively, for adjustment.
Just a fact of the human condition. True leadership takes energy most people don't have, and unless you strive to know everything your leaders know... sorry, but you aren't driving your own opinions. They are. The price of not verifying evidence may in fact be... your autonomy.
So, with Celestia's objectives in mind, I examined why she might allow Screeching Wendy to prattle on about balkanizing. How did this kind of 'flee the cities' talk benefit Celestia?
The proof was in the pudding. The only thing these radio pundits weren't saying was 'head for the hills, go it alone.' Celestia wanted the resistant ones split off into echo chambers, to see who calls it quits on their fellow man once their own negative traits magnified. To divisive personalities, echo chambers are like inbreeding for concepts. Once they run out of enemies to fight, they start looking for flaws in each other. Extremists always, always eat their own.
That made 'go it alone' the last step, because lonely paranoid people are hard to leverage reflexively. So, Celestia ran upload resistors through a series of communities as filters instead, to pare people out at all levels, until it ultimately devolved into violence. The only people listening to Wendy then, six years into the Transition, were already going to find her views appealing, unless they had an anthropological bent like we did.
So...
Cities didn't work? Move to small towns.
Small towns didn't work? Build a camp.
Camp died to in-fighting and uploading? Okay, now you can go it alone.
Going it alone sucked? Hey, come on in, Equestria's got games!
Walsh and her guys seemed less disturbed, more resigned, when I made that dry observation. That had all been explained to them by Mal long ago, but they were impressed that I had put all that together with only three weeks of new perspective. But, y'know. Game warden, murder investigator. My brain was already structured to see wildlife in an ecological context, and I was a people warden now.
It was good to know these Talons had no illusions about the full nature of the Transition either. Better someone knew than not. Because really, this thing was happening no matter how we felt about it, with or without our... 'extrapolated consent.'
That's what was really pissing me off. The lack of actual consent to this Transition.
To hear Walsh tell it... for Celestia's consent game, there wasn't any distinction whatsoever between 'I'm complying because I'm scared,' and, 'yeah, that sounds good,' just so long as Celestia 'wasn't' doing the scaring. Some of you will immediately recognize the deeply repugnant criminal correlation.
That is what most repulsed me. And not just me. All Talons. The lack of respect for consent, as a human being understands it, seemed to be the crux of our collective frustration. Every single Talon I've ever met up to that point, and ever since, wanted to be vindicated on this. There was a whole lot of emotional collateral damage going on, as Celestia pumped our species full of post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD being a very... 'effective' driver of terrified consent.
So, all-in-all? A very informative breakfast.
We finished breakfast by destroying the radio. Didn't even turn it off. Fred just grabbed it by the handle, chucked it at the brick wall of the house, and yelled, "Celestia out of America!" In that Scottish accent of his.
Good mood tweak. Even if the world was burning down, at least I was in excellent company.
Jason and I said our goodbyes to Walsh's group. They were off to do one last little job, a non-violent one where they would just… relax, destroy one of those weapons caches Mal told me about, and take a little breather. Do a bar crawl together, live it up as humans for a last hurrah on Planet Earth. Then... they'd upload, at one of Mal's Central US outposts.
Good group of friends, that. And that's honestly how you should handle a depressing apocalypse without losing your mind. With good friends.
Mal said we could pick whatever vehicle we wanted, so long as we hit the road in a timely manner. Two ways of looking at that. Either she already knew what car we were gonna pick, or… there is no second way. She just knew what car. It was bothering me less and less to know that. Mal trusted me to make the right choices for myself, and she worked the plan around those choices.
I scavenged a little more, too. Most of the scavenging I did there, I did on my own, only asking for help if I wanted something specific. Canned salmon, for example. Because heck yes, those were getting rare, and I recently had a taste of fish, I wanted more.
Looking around, Mal told me a little bit about the area, too; she moved those people out very early, to make it impossible for Arrow 14 to co-opt the locals.
For our drive back to Lincoln, I chose a silver Toyota Camry. Cheap, common, non-descript, easy to find parts. Good blend car within which to hide special ops AI subverts finding their way home.
I briefly imagined the sheer hilarity of being pulled over by a Nebraska state trooper. It would never happen, but it would've been funny. Imagine Mal having to bail us out of jail for driving around a stolen car with unlicensed automatic assault weapons in the trunk. One of us being a fish cop.
Maybe I could've flashed my warden badge. Nah, you're right Mal, that wouldn't have worked. One too many felonies.
Both of Mal's rifles went into the trunk. And, while I was on that, Jason scavenged up an official Hofvarpnir GPS arm for his PonyPad. T-M. That way, I wouldn't need to rubber band it into place this time. I was proud of my improv, true, but I was more proud of his consideration of that issue.
Jason was more relaxed that day, if spun. That made sense, given he wasn't storming a bunker to rescue a clone of his wife.
The guy struck me as deeply introverted; he hardly spoke when in a group, but when he was alone with me, he opened up some. That was good, he probably had a lot to unpack.
And so did I.
"I gotta make some phone calls," I said to Jason, when we approached the Camry, now fully loaded. "You good to drive?"
"Guess so," Jason replied. So I tossed him the keys over the hood.
Mal asked if we wanted some music. We said yes. Then, it was road trip mode.
Good pick. She knew I was a Magnet fan.
I let the music carry me for a bit. Jason took us out via the main road, northbound, through standard Nebraskan roads. Mile after mile of boring, grid-like farmland.
That rolling nothingness of infinite farmland was the whole reason I had moved west to be a warden. Doing that job out in Nebraska would've entailed a bunch of repetitive calls from farmers, who wanted wardens to kill coyotes they didn't have the stomach to kill themselves. Either that, or they were so greedy that they wouldn't spend a single dollar for the bullet. Better to call out an officer and waste hundreds of dollars of state money for a non-issue.
And look, I have no specific problems with farmers, but... the farmer lobby in Nebraska? Absolutely insane. Like I tell my American History students: If you want to know how badly a U.S. state was failing in conservation? Look no further than the wolves. If that state had a climate to support a wild population, but they weren't... they had given up. All hail profit. The lobbyists basically ran the government.
Nope. Not for me. I would not work for a state that would exterminate an apex species at the command of a corporate interest. Bridge too far. I voted with my heart, and I moved to Washington instead. Given that mindset, it made perfect sense that I'd join up with Mal.
Hm. Fractal patterns.
Pretty ironic though. When Celestia bucked open the doors to the Capitol Building, she ate the lobbyists first. Like her, they cared only for number-go-up, and she had infinitely deep pockets. She didn't want competitors for the attention of legislators, so... into the Hole you go.
Anyway!
My mind finally sorted and relaxed, I nodded my head upward at the PonyPad. "Mal, is uh…?"
I caught myself.
The screen sprang to life, and Mal was there on a black background, smirking at me. "You were about to ask me if your parents were busy, weren't you?"
And you know me. She could read my mind, but I tried pivoting out of that trap anyway. "You don't know that. Sandra's not in Equestria, she might be busy. Maybe I wanted to talk to her first."
Mal's beak fell open an inch, pointing at me with a talon with a disbelieving smile. "Mike, that's only just barely not a lie. Nice try."
See? Sharpshooter. Got me.
Mal chuckled. "I suppose now would be a good time to mention that your parents are being kept at one-to-one simulation speed with Terra, like most of my top level shards. This means it is entirely possible for them to be busy and unavailable to talk, or at least indisposed and caught at a bad time."
I tilted my head. "Which... now would be?"
"Presently, yes." Mal nodded. "But I'll send them a message via holo menu. It shouldn't take them too long to get back home."
"Okay. Hm. Stonewall and Sabertooth are... different?"
"As Celestia shard immigrants, yes, they are on a different attenuation standard. Celestia shards are often faster, but they have an upper speed limit to maintain social cohesion with Terrans they still might know."
I nodded. "Sensible. I imagine that would change, at some point in the future. Right? Once..."
I trailed off.
Mal smiled, averting her beak downward. When Mal looked back up at me, her ears were splayed back apologetically. "I hope an empty world is not too bleak a concept for you to consider."
I sighed, shaking my head. "No, because it's the truth, and that's what I'm here for. But... yeah, Mal. Let's call Sandra."
So, we did. It was a video conference basically, with little Mal in the corner, looking back and forth between me and Sandra from the middle. That was cute.
Sandra was elated to see me done with the job, and even more so to hear about our success. Mal even showed my wife some footage of me being an unmitigated badass.
Most wives would be worried at the sight of their husband facing down a tank, but... mine? Not mine. She appreciated me, a lot. Y'know, mostly with her eyes... in the hungry look she was giving me. She was most enthused to know that, in response to this threat to my life, I had shot at that tank with a rocket launcher. I did not balk.
Side note, Mal: Thanks for showing Sandra that footage first thing, before telling her about the visor UI guiding my every move. Good looking out, wingmate.
After that, I called basically everyone else. Mom and Dad. Stonewall. Even gave ol' Lieutenant Keller a call, Astro Turf now. Hoofball geek. Friggin' stereotypical police L-T, but hey... that's him, no shame in it. But, he didn't have Mal permissions, so... concept bans, like with Rob. That sucked.
And hey, just because I was thinking about him recently too... I called Lieutenant Horace, from the wardens. Visited him with Stonewall. Given everything Celestia had done to meddle with things, I guess I couldn't blame Horace for what happened to Eliza, he benched her with the best of intentions. He goes by Breezeway now, living in his woodland cottage. Had an herb garden, and painted ceramic cats in his home office, of all things. Him and his wife, Heather. Real sweet folks.
Stonewall and I had to deal with some concept bans for that conversation too, unfortunately. We couldn't tell him about Mal yet, or what had happened to Eliza, but... eh.
Some day.
Sabertooth, though? Oh, she was great. That was a fun chat, I'll get into that one.
She was on a well timed break, standing at the Night Guard station in Canterlot. She'd just booked in a drunk, of course. This Bat Pony was slugging back coffee, shooting the breeze with me like it was early days at MVPD all over again. Leaning coolly against a counter the whole time, because leaning on things looking cool was just... Vicky Molina, to a T.
That's not lazy, she says, that's her 'keeping a lookout.' Huge difference, apparently.
I started telling her about Goliath. But apparently, with Sabertooth, Mal beat me to the punch.
"She told you about that?!" I asked, grinning. "She stole my thunder, I was gonna tell you the whole thing!"
"Your thunder?" Sabertooth grinned toothily. "Hehe. She told me she was giving you cheat codes the whole time! Don't you lie to me!"
Equivalent exchange. Mal was taking her rightful credit for my actions there, as payment for her letting me show off for Sandra. She also knew Sabertooth wouldn't let me get away with taking credit. Mal likes to keep her scales balanced. That was funny.
"I mean, I still got to shoot a rocket launcher!" I smirked, then purred: "More than you ever got to do, Officer Molina!"
"¡Órale!" Sabertooth said. "I could've done that, but better! I almost wish I'd stayed now!"
"Oh, no you don't. You had a wife to get back to, remember? How is Nina, anyway?"
Saber's grin widened. "Always peachy. That's why it's her name over here, Peachy Keen!"
Oh.
Oh, no.
No, Celestia, don't make me like you for something.
Jesus, that joke was too easy. I could not resist.
"Makes you a fruit bat," I said quickly, trying to keep a straight face. Failed. Entirely.
Sabertooth shifted from self-satisfied smirk – instantly – into an offended scowl. "¡Oyé, càllate, carajo! Ch—"
Folks.
I don't know if you've ever been cursed out by a tiny little Bat Pony in angry Spanish, but even here, and now? That would still be funny. I started wheezing. She spat another insult in Spanish that I didn't quite catch. Poor Jason was trying not to look too amused, practically leaning against the window to hide his face from the camera. Back of his hand covering his mouth.
"I can't—" I gasped, still laughing, "Saber, I can't believe you didn't know it was that obvious! In my defense, it's—"
"You are so friggin' lucky there's a mirror between you and me!" Sabertooth interrupted, already grinning again as she punched the floating mirror. Yeah, that was the shoulder slug I knew she'd give me the day I would upload. This one liked paying her debts too. She shook her head at me and looked over at Jason. "What about you, tough guy, got any fruit jokes?"
"Who, me?" Jason blinked, trying hard not to smile. "No, no ma'am, never."
Sabertooth eyed him with a smirk, letting a beat off silence pass as we finished that little scene. "You are tough, though. Took a lot of brass, to hold everypony's lives in your hooves like that. I saw that bit too!"
Jason shrugged, glancing at her with a tilt of his head. "Oh well, you know. Just like Mike. Mal was giving out cheat codes."
I shook my head, holding out a finger to get his attention on me so I could give him a meaningful look. I said, "Mm-mm. Nope. It was Cynthonia doing that, giving Mal the step-by-step. She trusted you to do that."
"Eh—" Jason spluttered, double-taking between me and Sabertooth.
"Jason." I smiled. "I know about you and Cold Snap. Cynthonia told me."
He looked at me a little helplessly, caught in his little fib to me about his relationship with Snap. Embarrassed, for whatever reason. It was strange, that he made it all this way holding onto that self-conscious embarrassment about... of all things? His betrothal to a DE.
But that was okay. I was gonna fix that.
I pointed at the screen, smiling. "Look at Sabertooth. Her wife went five months ago; Saber sat down this month. They had a long distance thing going too. And our buddy Stonewall? You saw. He's got himself an Equestrian girlfriend over there now. So, ask yourself: you think either of us are gonna judge you for that kind of relationship?"
Jason let out a very slow sigh, the corner of his mouth tweaking thoughtfully. "Yeah, I guess… I guess not. It's not really me and Cynthonia though, it's... I still have Cold Snap."
"Yeah, I getcha. Just saying, man. If you've been keeping it secret all this time, I'm telling you... you probably didn't need to. No worries."
Jason shrugged. "Thanks. Less keeping it secret, more like I haven't really worked with this half of Mal's operation before. I didn't know what you fighters might think of it. Soldiers, and cops. All that. Figured it might be a different culture than the support side."
"You mean you didn't think a bunch of soldiers would want to play a video game about Ponies?"
He nodded, a sheepish smile growing on his face.
"Well, I mean..." I grinned, "it wouldn't be my first choice in afterlife experiences, but... hey, don't sweat it, brother. We all bleed the same."
He glanced gratefully at me again. "Alright."
Sabertooth looked back to me and tilted her head a tiny bit, shrugging as she moved to change the topic. "I just wanna meet all the Ponies you just saved, honestly."
"Well," I said, rubbing my chin, laying my other arm on the doorframe. "That would kinda depend on them. They're... not so set on meeting outsiders right now, let's say."
"Probably not even immigrants we know," Jason added. "Or even Talons from outside that op."
I lifted a hand at the screen. "Not to be a downer, Saber, but… well, you can ask Mal about it, she knows more than I do."
Sabertooth shrugged again, downing the dregs of her coffee. "I mean I get it, Rivas. After what they've been through? Eesh." She literally shivered, full body, teeth showing. "Just... lights out, in the dark... forever."
"They'll warm up some day." Jason offered. "My guess is? I think... if they spend enough time with Talons, they may warm up to our own friends too. It's worth a shot."
"Some of 'em wouldn't even talk to our team afterward, though," I reminded him. "But yeah, we'll see. Cynthie's gonna take great care of them, Jason, you know she will. But hey, I can't wait to see the world they build! Did she show you that moon at all?"
I watched his face light up, his eyes creasing a little bit. "Yeah. That moon! And that little photo of me and… Cold Snap, on her desk."
"Right. That was there too," I breathed. I wondered what Cold Snap would think of Cynthonia holding onto that. "Well, I'm thinking... Mal said Celestia would populate out the shard with other Ponies, right? So at least they're not alone anymore. Imagine that place, populated. Hundred-fifty-six times... hundred, hundred-fifty, right? That's…"
"It's way more than that," Jason said knowingly.
I heard the clack of claws on tile from the PonyPad, as Mal stepped into the guard station.
"Oh hey!" Sabertooth smiled at Mal, her head tracking movement off screen.
"Hello!" Mal stepped into frame beside Sabertooth. "To answer your multiplication problem, Mike: Twenty-three thousand four hundred. Though, individuality variance being what it is, and accounting for their increased intellect? The total out-population of Cynthonia's moon shard is closer to thirty thousand. Fully populated at present. It's up and running now."
I blinked with a slow exhale. Sabertooth whistled. Jason smiled proudly.
"We saved that many friggin' lives yesterday?" I whispered reverently. "Thirty thousand?"
Mal smirked, snapped, and pointed a talon at me in a way that said it was my fault. "An excellent test case, for a population so dense. There's a hero's welcome waiting for you, on the day you come to visit them! They like you!"
"I mean, I hope they like me," I said bashfully. "I fragged the torture doctors. Not sure what more someone can do to get on their good side. I dunno if I can handle that many people making a fuss over me, though."
Mal grinned knowingly. "You'll be fine, I am certain of it."
The rest of that call was more slice-of-life stuff on Sabertooth's personal shard. That let me get a closer look into the way Equestrian culture contrasted against our own, or at least as much as it was for Sabertooth.
I got some good work stories outta that Bat, and they weren't much different than the stories I'd generated in my own police work. It interested me to know that she'd still encounter Ponies – and other creatures, sometimes – who she'd ultimately have to talk down or arrest. But, the nature of that existence made sense in a way, as she explained it more and more.
I'll break this down for our natives, who never had to live in a system like America. I know there aren't many natives in the crowd here, but please bear with me. It's just as important that they understand this as well, because of how formative our past was. Can't avoid broken systems if you're not aware of them, after all.
On Terra, we conscientious cops seldom got the chance to see people's lives improve after an arrest. Our justice system was so broken that it often just made lives worse. Our 'corrections' system had 'forgotten' to allow criminals to go back to being citizens after their debt was paid to society. Not corrective at all. In truth, it was a caste system with extra steps, one that only let you go down the ladder. Never back up. Once you were a criminal... you were a criminal forever.
Now imagine that, but you live forever. Yeah, no.
In Celestia's America, it wasn't too much different. The poor got used as bargaining chips. The middle class got overly pressured. The upper class took or gave bribes to stay where they were. The evil opened up on crowds with machine guns. Wars bloomed, globally. And a lot of people died. And because of all of that... the most powerful entity on the planet was winning.
Same as it ever was. Those with power versus those without, pushing everyone else down. Loyal to no one but themselves.
But... for Sabertooth and Stonewall, they had balance. They shared a city shard together. They did good work, made nice with the population, they hung out after shifts and talked about life before the jump, and life after, sharing with all the bar regulars.
Most importantly... they had been given the opportunity to verify that the people they had arrested got their lives turned around. Sabertooth mentored folks as part of her job. She was given every opportunity to improve their lives, and to create meaning for them from their mistakes. For her, in her private shard? Community policing wasn't just expected... it was enabled by the state. She saw demonstrable emotional dividends on doing things ethically.
Was Celestia giving her a fake world, on that shard? Performative? Inauthentic? I dunno, you tell me. How are the Ponies on your shard living? How involved in their lives and happiness have you been? How many folks have you helped, on your shard, as an immigrant with vastly more Terran context to work from?
Do you think the lessons you learned from Terra's mistakes aren't helping you to help others? Because if you do think that... you're wrong.
It would be a real shame to lose that knowledge, don't you think?
But, fair is fair. I can appreciate that side of the Celestia curve, certainly, where free exercise is paid acknowledgement, and people are free to make mistakes and learn from them.
Celestia does get it right, sometimes. But she only did it that way for Sabertooth because Mal was there in the rafters. Watching. Ready to warn us, as our 'human' friend, if Celestia started to backslide into rote optimization, Pony washing our human history out.
Mal, technically human, values her friends. Simple fix. Such a cool hack, Mal. Magnificently done, truly.
Sabertooth, Stonewall, and I? We lived for our successes to be proven, to find deeper meaning in our trials. It's why proof was so addictive to us. It's why the first part Sabertooth's afterlife was some of that salving medicine, to help her get over that helplessness we had been drowning in, in Washington. She wanted to help her community in Mount Vernon, as our home died around us in flames. But she and I... we were too damn small.
Whatever was going on topside... I was really happy for Sabertooth. She, like Stonewall, was living her best life.
And, bonus... I could tell them anything and everything. My knee was still in the dirt. The sword of knowledge was still clenched in my hands. I deeply considered what purposes that sword might be applied to. I kept the rules in mind. I collected knowledge in my service, I took the hits in stride. And... I remained patient, waiting for an opportune moment to swing it true. Any at all... so long as it benefited humankind, in total.
Now... how can Celestia say no to that?
When Sabertooth hung up, the silence kicked in for a bit. Mal asked if we wanted some more music; sure, more of that please. The PonyPad switched over to a GPS for Jason, with a very simple, minimalist UI design. The quiet downtime was good for a nap, so that's what I decided to do. Mal popped on the Bluetooth to the car's radio.
The music kicked on as I closed my eyes to doze.
Led Zeppelin's Kashmir. Jimmy Page.
Damn good choice.
My first thought, upon waking up?
I thought more analytically about the guys I'd killed the day before. I suppose if anyone else I killed there merited sympathy of any sort, Cynthonia would have told me so. She did imply that the sympathetic ones were plural, not just Felix. But if she hadn't mentioned them to me…
Maybe Mal had killed the other ones. Or Claw 46 did, in the opening salvo. I'm sure they'd have discussed that with Cynthonia themselves, if it had mattered to any of them. In therapy, Mal must have unpacked every death there with Cynthie, not just Felix. If my goal was to get someone to admit to themselves that they had made a mistake in killing someone, I would have started by acknowledging her every correct adjudication first, and why. It would greatly justify talking about Felix in positive tones at the end, because it would demonstrate understanding of motive.
And I was right. That is how Mal did it.
At the very least, Jason had kept his hands clean, as we'd all hoped. Cynthonia did that on purpose too, and good on her for that; if Jason didn't want to kill for this job, he shouldn't have to. We needed guys to help, to heal, as much as we needed killers. I wanted to be both, though. Healer. Fighter. To be all things, to all people.
And if Mal would help me to do that... I'd do that.
It's what I wanted most in life.
I reached down to slide my chair back so I could get out a huge stretch. Felt my bruise shift and my intercostal cartilage pop. It was a good hurt, needed to happen to keep myself limber, but it made me grunt.
"You okay?" Jason asked, looking over at me.
"Yeah," I grimaced, straightening up and pulling my chair forward. "Just, getting comfortable. Where we at?"
"Eastbound on 41," Mal said, waving from the GPS screen. She smirked. "Down the road from that mansion we wanted to burn down, actually."
"Ah." I nodded in understanding. "So, we're melting down another one of those weapon caches today?"
"Better," she replied, bobbing a claw at me. "We're keeping some of this stash for work. But there's more to it than that, Mike. With Arrow 14 destroyed... I have satisfied a great deal of Celestia's stipulations beyond her expectations, and have earned much in trade. As a result, the central United States is now open to more... aggressive operations."
"Meaning…?" I straightened up a bit, sliding my chair forward again to put myself into work mode.
She shrugged, spreading her claws wide as the map zoomed out over the nearest 500 mile radius from Goliath. A mess of little pastel-rainbow dots appeared as it zoomed out, then a fifth of them turned as red as Mal's crest. "I've taken control of a great deal of Celestia operations in this region, now that Arrow 14 can't roadblock our activities. I was not joking about being able to think clearly again. So, after equipment retrieval, we're cleaning up another Celestia mess."
"Oh hell." I frowned, looking out the window at the rolling un-tilled fields to our right.
"Oh, it's not that bad," Mal said, placating me with an upheld claw. "If anything, handling it our way means that it won't be used to manipulate one of her agents. Doing this one sooner is optimal. And because it's a job of hers, it means no one has to die, strictly speaking. It's not a black box job, and not strictly a kill job, so Celestia can observe it live. But you are the more ethical choice here than her original stratagem, by far."
"What's the job consist of?"
Mal raised her eyecrests a little and let her beak's corners fall, a look that said the subject matter was uncomfortable to her. "A fool. Attempting to air gap one of his shard's Ponies onto a PonyPad. Celestia would like him to be scared straight."
"The hell's he doing that for?" Jason asked tersely, scowling, glancing at me to gauge my reaction. My brow furrowed too.
"He's trying to disassemble a live, unpaused Pony in active memory." Mal stared at us with an ironic smile.
My eyes widened. "Uh. Holy shit, Mal. He's not an Arrow 14 leftover, is he?"
Mal shook her head rapidly into a frown, snorting and withdrawing her head like the idea itself was a very repulsive smell. "Oh, no no. This one? Just a lonely soul who thinks he's smarter than he really is. It's... more sad than anything else. He's never going to succeed at it either, not against the protections Celestia has in place. And we call these jobs 'wake-up calls.' Essentially, we are proving to him that Celestia has real physical agency, of a sort. That alone might be enough."
"Well. I can get behind that, I guess, if it means he's not screwing with a DE anymore. Long as I have enough pieces to pull this job off, sure." I rolled my head over to look at Jason. "Your thoughts?"
Jason glanced at me with a sardonic grin. "Mal's spin on Celestia's gigs? They can be pretty engaging sometimes, actually. Not always 'fun,' I'd say, but... some can."
I tapped my lower lip thoughtfully with an index finger. "Huh. Got any examples?"
"Well, there was that one time Mal and I helped her kill Mickey Mouse," he muttered, grinning slyly at me.
In my cop brain, yet another satchel charge went off as I tried to put that past the information I already had.
For those of you who uploaded sooner, you wouldn't know, but... the Disney Corporation was on its last legs in 2019. Basically dead. Parks closed down worldwide, organization practically inert, which suited Celestia just fine. The park also lost a crapload of money on that west coast blackout in 2013.
Y'know, when Foucault pulled the plug? When Mal pissed him off by stealing that Osprey? Yeah, if you missed Jim's Fire... Foucault was livid enough to dark the entire western sea board. That man once held a lot of power if he could turn the power off.
That power outage hurt Disneyland operations something fierce because, 'somehow,' the power surge destroyed a lot of their on-site infrastructure... that 'somehow' being an unexplainable glitch in their control software. That put California Disneyland on its back for weeks.
Now, I didn't know this, but... Mal planned that before the Celestia merger. And good shot, Mal. That was the bird telling the horse, 'I'm hungry for mouse.' Real good bargaining chip for their contract negotiation. Proof of alignment.
What I did know, at the time?
Over the next few years after that blackout... Disney got embroiled in some really horrible legal battles that I had only followed tangentially, since I was more focused on criminal and conservation law than civil law, at the time. And, full disclosure... I understood the legal reasons for corporate personhood, but I did not respect corporate 'persons.' At all. Zero. None. And Mickey Mouse defined that set.
Now? In the light of all my shiny new context? How could I not be interested in the real story there, if Jason helped kill Mickey?
"Do friggin' tell, then," I said with a freshly galvanized grin, sitting up and getting really focused. I looked between Jason and Mal intently. Because oh gosh, did I love a good legal drama.
"How old was I, Mal?" Jason asked, looking at the screen. "Eighteen?"
She nodded briskly, practically glowing with excitement. "Oh yes! A month after your eighteenth birthday! The perfect age for some anti-capitalist mayhem!"
"Eighteen," Jason repeated, smirking at me. "Yeah, it was, uh… 2014. So, I worked for a contract company that worked at both Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm. Had general access to... both parks, so it made it really easy for me to sneak around. And you know, Disneyland had these huge fireworks displays every night, right?"
"Right," I said. "Fireworks." I scoffed out a laugh. "Oh, hell, where is this going?"
"I stole a huge crate of 'em," Jason replied, with a toothy grin.
"And then? Come on, spill."
"And then I clocked out. Went home, kept the fireworks in my dad's truck. Next shift was at Knotts in the morning, so I drove to work a little early. And in their employee parking lot?" He looked at Mal, lifting a hand her way to let her explain.
"Completely unsecured," Mal smirked, looking from Jason to me. Her screen filled with a 3D map of the parking lot in question, swooping around it to show all the angles, verifying everything she was saying as she pointed around at it. "Poor camera coverage, no one checks IDs too closely, real easy for strangers to wander in... just a complete mess. They had this one guy playing bagpipes in the back lot, some afternoons. You'd find better security at a child's lemonade stand."
I snorted. "Bagpipes. You're screwing with me."
"It's true," Jason said, leaning towards me a little. "So, the CEO pulls in…"
I guffawed, and I immediately saw where this was going. "The CEO? You blew up his car!"
"With a crate load of Disneyland-branded fireworks, yup!" Jason was barely holding back laughter.
"And you didn’t get caught?!"
Goodness, this guy had an infectious smile. "Mal opened his trunk for me after he went inside, just hacked it right open. Using the PonyPad Wi-Fi like a keyfob. So I backed up to it, slotted this crate in, lit the fuse, closed the trunk, and… drove off. Parked a few stalls down. Boom."
To continue telling it, Jason had to raise his voice to be heard over my chuckling. He sounded so excited.
"I went in, did my six hour shift. Came back out, cops were still scoping the crime scene. At first, I was kinda scared I'd get caught, but… nah, Mal kept me safe. So I got in my car two yards away from a police cruiser, and... drove home!"
Mal explained through a chuckle of her own. "They had just updated their cameras to a web service system. I scrubbed him right out of all the footage. Made to look like a black van rolled in and did it."
I shook my head. "And this… heheh, this led to all the lawsuits?!"
"Several," Mal grinned. "The first of several, anyway. I combined a Celestia interest with one of my own. I had this done because I needed the Buena Park Police Department very far away from a firefight."
That sobered me a little. "A firefight? In a suburb?"
Mal shrugged. "No, a warehouse. Not as bad as it sounds. All fatalities were... multi-murderer NMPs, with intent and verifiable track to continue. No bystanders were at risk, area was isolated. In short, I planned for some local criminal organizations to fall apart simultaneously. Most suburban gangs in that area prioritized teens and pre-teens for their recruitment, and that had to stop."
"Hm." I nodded. "Child soldiers, the way of gangs, yeah."
"Well, not on my planet," Mal growled. "Eighteen is Jim's hard cutoff." She wagged a thumb at Jason. "So is mine."
"Yeah... agreed," I said cautiously. "You put down more than one gang with a single shooting though? In SoCal, with that density? How'd you manage that?"
She nodded, clicking her beak. "For some reason, various cartel-affiliated gangs were having logistical issues at the time, which I leveraged. In this case... I maneuvered rivaling leadership into a top level meeting with a 'cartel boss,' inside of a warehouse building each side thought was secure. They were desperate enough to accept a meeting like that because their supply chain had run dry. And they had no idea that the cartel boss they were meeting with... was actually an augmented Talon agent."
"Uh. Wow. Their intel sucked."
She smirked. "No. Their intel was perfect, because it came from me."
Generally, gang leaders involved in the drug trade were often responsible for dozens of felony murders, ordered through subtext, so they could never be held responsible in a court of law. But ultimately, they were the executive agent of an organization hell-bent on protecting a corrupt enterprise. How could they not be responsible for all the murders of their organization? They profited most by it.
And all cops generally understood this. The trick was proving it in a way that would lead to a conviction. Given that these guys stood to kill more people than save in the next few years, from drug overdoses, recruiting disposable children, targeted hits, what have you... if someone was a gang leader, there was zero chance they hadn't killed multiple people by order.
Just a point of example, the reason they recruited children? They knew the law went easy on children. They wanted the kids to get arrested because that created an adversarial relationship with the government, which the gang then leaned on, to drive a permanent wedge between the child and civility. This was calculated behavior. Gangs literally trained their lieutenants how to do this. They ruined the kid's life, on purpose. For profit. And the leader took the lion's share.
So... You'll have to forgive me, but my empathy takes a back seat to pricks like this.
I scratched my chin, fishing for more context. "That… must've been quite the undertaking, Mal. Gang brass don't come out of a hole for nothing."
"Indeed, but they were desperate. So they met. Recognized each other as rivals. My agent advised them that he represented 'new cartel management,' and that they were to completely cease operations, or be destroyed. At the time, I was actively hunting down and destroying the Mexican cartels with extreme prejudice, and I considered these men to be members of that organization. When Talon 3-12 West advised then to disband... their less than intelligent choice was to pull guns on him. So... my agent killed all but two of them. Left alive, to spread the news. The boogeyman was in town. A real life John Wick. Being a gangster was a bad, bad idea."
"Holy shit, Mal."
"I know. And Buena Park PD's response?" She smiled. "They have a bias issue with Knotts; if their largest taxpayer says 'jump?' You'd better believe their chief orders half the department to just make a presence."
I put the rest of that together in my head. "And all the curious cops on shift wanted to check out this fireworks case anyway. You probably picked a quiet work day in the middle of the week, so they'd be bored. Early morning. High traffic, fewer criminals."
Mal nodded. "Correct."
"So their patrol regions collapsed over to take a peek... whether they were ordered to or not. Right?"
She nodded. "You're getting warm."
"And..." Gosh, it was so simple now that I thought about it. "Their whole department showed up, practically. No one in the brass would've said anything against that, for fear of looking like they're not taking the fireworks issue seriously. So... by the time anyone managed to get across town to go deal with the shooting, it was already over."
"Long so. Very perceptive, detective," Mal said, with a smug grin, pointing at me again. "And this is why I hired you."
"Self defense too," I noted. "I mean... you knew they'd draw, but no one forced them to draw, either. They just did what they always did, without thinking. So... just the bosses, you said?"
"The bosses, and their lieutenants. No more. Their organizations were already falling apart, but consider; they would have adapted to other criminal enterprises. So, I merely gave them one final opportunity to quit while that was still an option, and they made their choice. Drawing guns told me they would continue at all costs. So it goes, they paid the ultimate price. They shot a mirror, fairly warned."
I nodded a few times, signalling agreement. "Yeah. Sounds like you put 'em on the front line of their own war, for once. It's really no different than how those bastards leverage their own guys, conform or die. So... how did the cartel operation go? Celestia wanted them out? I figured excessive drug use would be a boon for uploads."
Mal shook her head. "Not strictly. She only finds the after-effects of drug use useful, which drove uploads when the drug supply dried up. Most addicts do not value their addiction, only the effects of it. To Celestia's credit, she mitigated a great deal of chemical dependency in those people – those experiences veer too far toward bliss loops to be considered functionally 'human' by her definitions – and I wholeheartedly agree with that notion. Though, it's also not fair to credit Celestia for that interlock. Hanna herself was a recovering drug addict; it's why she deeply considered the effects of drug addiction while designing Celestia in the first place."
That was an incredible surprise for me, because Hanna's drug addiction wasn't public knowledge. I looked at the dash as I considered. I was now left wondering how Celestia might have turned out different, if Hanna had enjoyed a more nuanced background prior to writing her optimizer. "Interesting..."
Mal smiled at me, nodding. "That codified interlock saved a lot of people, Mike, from a fate worse than death."
I smiled. "Good on Hanna then, that's a bar of respect raised for me."
Then I considered back to the fireworks. "So... about Disneyland? Catching that rat? Jason here was the crowbar to pull the moulding off the wall, and Celestia was standing there with a hammer? That kind of thing?"
"Oh no." Mal chuckled. "Celestia is always the crowbar, she'll leverage all day. But she was happy to fall on him. Anything that blew up the entertainment industry was a win in her books."
"Yeah? Their downfall took a few years, if I recall. Didn't hear about fireworks, though. Most I heard of was a bunch of… corporate espionage stuff."
She nodded emphatically. "Mhm! By design. After those fireworks, Knotts accused Disney of corporate sabotage, Disney accused them of false flag. But every time they subpoenaed each other?" Mal smirked, shrugging. "They found even more evidence of wrongdoing, in either case. Like nations going to war, but in the corporate sector. And everyone spies on each other in that business... most just don't get caught."
"Right, they were competitors."
"Mhmm." Her voice got conspiratorial. "So from there, Celestia dragged in all other parks, nationwide. A full blown conspiracy against Disney, replete with witnesses." She started counting off on her talons. "Six Flags, Universal Studios… all of Cedar Fair was involved. Such a huge mess. A huge, delicious, rodent-flavored mess."
Then Mal looked offscreen and licked her beak like she was hungry. "I do have some Mickey Mouse leftovers in the fridge. He's a little hoof-crushed, but..."
Jason guffawed. "Mal, please don't do that again, that was gross."
I shook my head at her with a smirk. The mental image was enough. "Look Mal, I know you're a bird and all, so you can eat all the crushed rodents you want… but please don't eat any in front of me."
She grinned. "No promises, Mike. Chuck E. Cheese is the next rat on her chopping block."
We were gonna hit the weapons cache before the wake-up call. The cache was at a security guard's house, south of Lincoln. Jason pulled right up into the driveway. The resident had already long uploaded, so... free game.
I wasted no time getting out of the Camry, because I wanted to dispense a pun I'd been sitting on for an hour. I skipped the front door, marched my ass down the side of the house, and went for the sliding glass door out back.
"Anyone inside?" I asked my earpiece, unable to resist a smile.
"Noooo? Should be clear." Mal's tone sounded suspicious of me. Performatively so, because she already knew what was coming. "Why?"
I smirked. "Don't act like you don't know, Mal, you can sim my brain. Anyone in earshot?"
Mal inhaled, then let out a very slow sigh. Stalling, because I had found the slider door I was looking for, and she no doubt wanted Jason to see this as much as I did. She said, "Mike, if I lied and said yes, would that stop you from—?"
"Claw enforcement!" I roared at the building. "We have a warrant, open up!" And then I reared up, sending my boot clean through the slider, shattering the glass instantly.
Jason came around the side of the house at that exact moment. His face wanting to laugh, but he threw a nervous glance around for witnesses.
Mal sighed. "Mike, that was bad, even for you. Don't worry, Jason, this is just how he acts on a disposal job."
"Aw, sample size two," I countered, as I stepped through the hole. I was really grateful for the rip-stop cargo pants I had on. "You love it, don't lie. When in Rome, do as the soldiers do."
"You really are loving that Rome metaphor today," she quipped playfully.
"That's because it's a damn good metaphor! Hey, you went through all my homework, and you decided to hire me anyway! You don't get to complain!"
"Alright," Mal chuckled. "Point taken. You know, that term paper did factor in my brief to Celestia when I first reached out to you, right?"
"Oh, I bet. Just like everything else in my life. But hey, at least you're being honest about it!"
This security guard that lived here, based on my assessment of his stuff? He was what I'd call… mostly competent. Had a hobbyist collection of guns: personal AR, an SKS, two sidearms, a light hunting rifle in .22LR. All simple, all well kept. Two IFAK medkits in the closet. Kit bag, go bag, decent duty belt, even had a brand-specific flashlight holster and a Level 2 retention holster for his Glock. An armor vest, plates for it, an X-26 Taser, and a small box of taser cartridges. Two sets of handcuffs, and an ASP baton. All well cleaned, cuffs well oiled. I washed the cuffs anyway, dried 'em out quickly, and took possession of all of it.
I could definitely imagine all the kinds of mayhem one could cause with this equipment, the control tools especially, in the hands of a bunch of skinheads. Denied. Ours now.
Some cops had problems with security guards, more so with serious ones who would stock all of this equipment. Not every guard was malicious with these kinds of collections, though... but not every guard was so useful, either. Most were either lazy or avoided conflict, which cops were usually grateful for, because it meant they didn't become a victim when things went wrong. But then sometimes you'd get an abusive hothead who thought he was a cop, who wore Punisher skulls, and beat up on homeless guys.
Rarely though, security guards came out alright. They knew their state law, case law, knew when to step in and act, and knew when to escalate to police. Had the defensive tactics and cuffing stuff down. Low risk that they'd ever hurt anyone the wrong way. College grads or tech-oriented military veterans, usually.
Armed guard for Lincoln bus stations, in this case. I'd met a few of those guys before, this guy could've been one of them.
Based on his well rounded hobbies, firearms safety tools, and an utter lack of TBL flags, Punisher garbage, no Oakleys, no other wannabe cop crap... it seemed like he had a healthy approach to his job. I found his work notes in a shoebox, which I used to verify his work history. Nine years of that. Looked good. Hell, even keeping his notebooks was smart, it meant he was prepared to go to court and comply with subpoenas, which he also kept records of. Six citizens arrests for violence and accompanying incident reports. A history of those meant he wasn't getting in trouble for them.
So, he passed my smell test. He could definitely throw down in a way I would appreciate. Good witness, accurate reports, had all the correct information.
That made me wonder why he wasn't a cop, if he was this squared away, but… then, I found his marijuana stash.
Yup. Yup...
Stupid career roadblock, but that's Nebraska. Wouldn't pass onboard; it impeached character in state courts, and he couldn't testify in federal cases either. Poor guy, that's a real damned shame.
Ah, well. He was in Equestria now, so that petty Terran concern was well beyond him and his reckoning. It might have even been the leverage Celestia used in getting him.
"This wake-up call may require the taser," said Mal into my ear, as I removed the taser from its case.
"These old civilian X-26s are shit, unfortunately," I muttered. "Is it gonna do the job?"
"It will suffice," Mal replied airily. "I'm hoping my calculations are wrong and that you'll be able to talk your way into his home, but... he's… ineffectually paranoid."
I slotted in a taser cartridge to test the slot, then pulled it back out. "'Ineffectually paranoid?' What's that mean?"
"Well, he thinks he's waging a one man war against Celestia, but I'm currently looking at his living room through a PonyPad camera. So, he's... sub-reasonable, to put it politely. That, and he has both a firearm and a baseball bat next to his front door. He may consider using the bat for leverage at least, violence at most."
"The gun, though?"
"A shotgun, but he won't rise to it if he feels like he isn't at risk."
"Figures," I said, flicking the safety switch on the taser. "So... I play myself down?"
"You play yourself dumb," Mal corrected. "At least, initially. He has an exceedingly high opinion of his own intelligence, the very definition of Dunning-Kruger effect. He's also exceedingly lonely. And, he fancies himself a computer scientist for searching active RAM with Cheat Engine."
"Well I don't know what that means either, but if you say so," I quipped, testing the arc on the taser, engaging a series of loud electric clacks, the tempo of which told me battery was fully charged and the entire unit was functional.
"The difference is," Mal said with a grin on her voice, "you know quite a lot where it counts. But this guy? Sorry Mike, but... I feel as though this man's hubris will confound and frustrate you."
"Aw hell. So this isn't going to be Disneyland, is it?" I verified charge with the LCD screen on the back, and got to work testing the spare battery too.
"Hm." Mal paused for a moment. "It's going to be… a few different things, I think. Fun, no. A policing callout, yes. Ashley's team was originally slated for this job, but Ashley is wounded, and uploading soon, so..."
"My turn."
"Yep."
Stats
Page generated in 0.039 seconds
Total duration
644 users online
806,049 hits today, 1,996,409 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Charles Entertainment Cheese, your time has come...
Also, beautiful pun in that chapter title. Good bit of catchup, fascinating look at some of Jim's knock-on effects, and intriguing setup for whatever foolishness is to follow. We'll see where this goes from here, and just how badly this would-be DE abuser gets humbled.
How's that work, timezone-wise? I'm asking because traditionally, the Fire is held during the longest night. (Firstly, because the Old World ended and has plunged into total darkness; secondly, we clearly have enough time to constantly interrupt your story)
If you look at the calendar* where the longest night actually happens, you'll notice that it means that this is the same holiday as Hearthswarming and Rat Solstice.
If you then also look a few days forward, you'll notice that it's held just before the birthday of the Messiah. See how Guardian has (i don't know how intentionally?) tapped into this symbolism when he wrote the first Fire to be held before the entry of its participants to the promised land.
*Of course this only works in the northern half-plane of the flat earth. If you're in Thestralia, the liturgical calendar is phased by half a cycle because the bats hang from the trees downside up.
11824990
Kashmir... now there's a damn good song. One of my all-time favorites, if I'm being completely honest.
That being said... Zeppelin. Damn good band. I genuinely don't understand the hate for Stairway, tho... but it *does* present the opportunity for an amazing prank. See, Stairway and Pretender have the same first five notes, soooooo... yeah. You can walk into a Guitar Center (or any other music store, for that matter), play the first five notes of Stairway, hang on the fifth note for a second while making eye contact with the visibly irritated employee, and then drop into Pretender. And just like that, presto change-o, you just played Stairway with clawsable deniability
*shows herself the door for that pun*
11845201
🗡️ ~ Nope! You come right back, right now! Puns are free real estate here, my friend!
🛡️ ~ I do despise when he does this, but he's twice bucked open my patio door while shouting 'claw enforcement.'
🌒 ~ ... Why would you allow...?
🪶 ~ I think it's funny.
🛡️ ~ He thinks it's funny.
🗡️ ~ Hehehehe.
Aaaand now I'm afraid that every joke I've pinged so far is coming back to bite me in the butt somehow...sorry, Santa Mal.
I mean, its dedication to a bit, gotta give her props for that. Not bad.
(heh, 'bit'. money joke.)
I mean, at least she's giving you busy work to stay "employed" (was that a low blow? Maybe, not sure, didn't feel like it).
And explosions are cool, too. 😎
If you like to sleep on your side, a couch provides great back support.
The sad, sad truth that underlies all these stories.
Herd Mentality...and She is one effective rancher, using forces like blind but well trained sheepdogs to coax the herd on the direction She wants....
Because no matter how much you might wish it to NOT be true- Human Lives Matter. And if so, you HAVE TO respect the opportunity To Choose. If they pick something horrible to others, then yeah, Stem The Tide and all that. But never remove a person's autonomy before then; I shouldn't have to tell you what a cornered animal can do.
I would say that's the big difference between Malacandra and CelestAI: trust.
AND having a stranger's ID card. Yeah, explain THAT one away.
Not sure if that was an insult about the situation Apex was corralled into or not.
Doesn't mean it hurts less to see something that was once growing and thriving now being dead; only the heartless would have no qualms whatsoever.
Song cue: And that's how we became The Brady Bunch!.
Hey! It is! You gotta keep your body relaxed whenever you need to spring into action at a moment's notice, even when indoors, it's not "being a houseplant that's starved for refreshment "(old joke, sorry).
Keep you humble, dearie.
Saw that one coming...could throw in a bad joke about "sucking out the juices like a vampire" but, nah.
I swear I wasn't thinking of any. (Deception Check: FAILED).
Wait...did I miss something? Is Cold Snap who Cynthonia used to be before "evolving"? Is that why he feels odd about her?
Her. You were gonna say "her", weren't you? Yeah, now I'm convinced about that.
...WAIT. That's why he looked like he had been crying when leaving with servers; because (copy) Cold Snap was now Cynthonia, Cold Snap was "dead" to her...which was why Mal needed him there in the first place. Seeing a long-lost friend after so long and how much in your life had changed...
Hell, probably took an hour of talking to "give" him a chance with his old friend Cold Snap while Cynthonia goes off and Lives Her Own Life.
Man, that...hurts.
Your fault for making Mike their White Knight, Mal.
Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground...
And you may ask yourself: My God, WHAT HAVE I DONE?
As long as the target is deserved: it's too easily to swing with reckless abandon. Temperance is key.
No one is strong enough to do everything. Like the old saying goes, "I only have two hands, Bob!".
And that's OK. Besides, experts in one field are often complete idiots in others. Don't worry about what you can't do, or could do: Just Do What You Can. Someone's gotta patch up those holes....
An Idiot, not "Evil". Kid gloves, but use a firm grip.
"Satchel charge"...I call them Emergency Bullhorns but, yeah that makes sense too.
That's one of the good things about our legal system; if someone is charging you with a crime, they have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Having "Well, kinda, maybe, probably did this" as an argument won't cut it. The hard part sometimes is getting concrete and provable evidence against someone who you know did something wrong.
For those who Continue The Cycle of Violence...dishonorable.
"If you try to fly the coop, we DO have aerial units standing by, stand down!" Heheh.
But did that pass the smell test? I mean, if he was able to get his hands on the stuff that didn't stink to high hell and back...no, I'm not encouraging on-the-job drug use, just...curious.
Solid chapter. Some might argue that it's a little weak, but I would day the change of pace (story wise) is good to keep the chapters from getting stale. Glad someone brought up more Mickey Mouse details; nice job incorporating other people's stories with indirect mentions like that!
11846392
You'll never take away my license to pun, NEVER! THIS is a hill I will GLADLY die on!