The Murder of Elrod Jameson

by Unwhole Hole

First published 8th of March, 2018

Investigation of a peculiar murder in the decaying supercity of Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Elrod Jameson: a resident of SteelPoint Level Six, Bridgeport, Connecticut. A minor, pointless, and irrelevant man...who witnessed something he was not supposed to.

Narrowly avoiding his own murder, he desperately searches for help. When no living being will help him, he turns to the next best thing: a pony.

Part I, Chapter 1

Whether it was day or night was not clear. It never really was, because no one really cared. Somewhere out in the world, there was a sun that rose and set and a moon that followed in its wake. Those things were permanent and unending; they had seen the dawn of humanity, and they would probably see the end too. The differentiation of that they brought, though, had been replaced by the ticking of watches or the glow of clocks in the darkness of the City. No one cared it was day or night, because there was no distinction. The only distinction of consequence was whether it was raining.

On this particular night- -the sky above would have been dark, if anyone in SteelPoint L7 had been able to see it- -it was indeed raining. The water came down in thick rivulets, filling the narrow streets with strange echoes as it descended from above. The lights- -what few there were, casting a harsh yellowish glow through grimy, uncleaned class- -did not shine into the darkness as far as they normally did, although their light was returned in peculiar ways. The streets seemed to be lit from below as the light reflected off their wet surface, and light would occasionally glint off the network of wet pipes above and come down in ways that it never quite did when the area was dry.

It was not real rain, of course. There were rumors that real rain did indeed fall on the Surface from time to time- -and there were rumors that it was deathly toxic. Not that it mattered, or that anyone from L7 would be able to prove or disprove the rumors. The Surface was miles away, and hundreds- -if not thousands, as the old-timers said- -of levels above.

The “rain” that fell in this particular district was in fact a form of condensation produced on the body of some vast piece of machinery overhead. It was not generated on purpose, but rather as a byproduct of normal functioning. Some people supposedly knew what the actual purpose of the condensation-machine was, or had seen it in person. Elrod Jameson did not, and he had not. Nor did he care to especially much.

At this point, he was the only person walking along the streets. Had anyone been around to see him, he would not have looked out of the ordinary for his environment. From a distance, he actually appeared quite similar to any other man. On closer inspection, though, it could be perceived that his skin was thick and rough- -warty, even, in some places- -and that he was completely devoid of any body hair, including eyebrows. This appearance was far from striking, of course; this area was heavily contaminated, and many individuals in it bore strange skin conditions. A bald man with scaly skin was far from an anomaly, and considered quite tame compared to what some of the delvers who passed by occasionally tended to look like.

He wore a coat, and carried a plastic bag. He had just visited the shop that sat in one of the upper parts of the district. It was a grocer. In the bag, Elrod held ten pounds of ammonium nitrate, carefully wrapped to prevent it from getting wet in the rain.

The shop was owned by the Wongs. They were friendly, and Elrod liked them, even if they did not deal in scrap. They were open, as per usual, but only the eldest son of the family had been present, stocking shelves or chatting with other locals under the harsh glow of the shop’s white lights. Elrod supposed that it meant that this was night, which was when the Wongs tended to sleep.

Most people, it seemed, were asleep. Or they had gone inside to avoid the rain. Even if they had all been awake and the streets dry and cold, though, there would only have been a few of them out. This particular district had a startlingly low population. There just was no need for a large one. This area had never really been meant to be populated; in the distant past, it had been a mechanical level. The factories that it had fed, though, had faded and crumbled. Lines and pipes still ran through, feeding the old machines, but they were empty and the machinery long dead.

New people did not come to this district. There was no reason to. A few had jobs inspecting the infrastructure of the place, or held online positions. There was a pub, of course, and a shop, as well as a few stations that catered to those on their way to the Depths. Even Delvers were rare in this district, though; the entrance to the uninhabitable levels was not far in physical distance, but the path there was tortuous and confusing. An independent district had sprung up in that area.

None of this particularly bothered Elrod. The streets were quiet here, and the rents low. He had never been one to crave the excitement that Bridgeport had become known for.

The only thing that bothered him, if only slightly, was his distance from the sun above. As he walked, he paused to ruminate on this as he stood next to what the locals called Skylight Park. It was hardly a park at all, so much as it was a small and dark court that sat between two decrepit buildings. A number of bonsai trees had been placed there beneath lights that produced a dim purple glow. The park itself was barely six feet wide, but had gained notoriety because it was built under a channel that supposedly had once been the exhaust vent for a factory. It was still visible above, rising up through many levels. The locals claimed that at the right time of the year, it was possible to look up it and see genuine sunlight. Elrod did not believe it. He had looked up that shaft many times, and he had never once seen light. He had since given up looking.

Letting out a sigh, he continued past the park. It was the only speck of greenery this far down, apart from the coarse mosses that grew near some of the larger streetlights. In a way, he wished he could have stayed longer, but in a different way those small, sickly trees made him feel sad. In any event, the hour was growing late.

Elrod continued down the block, and as he did he found the rain lessening. The storm- -if it could be called that- -had only started, but in this particular region he landscape of buildings and abandoned machinery overhead had changed, forcing the water to percolate through something thick and old. The rain in this area came down more thinly, and the water fell dark with rust.

The overhead light flickered and buzzed. Elrod paused and looked up at it. The flickering was not odd in and of itself, as the lights in the entire district had been installed tens of decades ago. A few of them no longer worked at all, and those that did were sparsely spaced. Elrod was familiar with most of the lights in the small area he knew, though, and he had never known this particular one to flicker. He took it to be a bad omen.

That was when he heard a sound. Startled, he turned his head to look across the slick street and found himself staring into a dark chasm between two buildings. It was an alley, one of the many that had been created as offices and resblocks had sprung up in this region in the last century.

Like most of the alleys that ran through the district, no one had ever bothered to string lights into it. Elrod found himself staring into inky blackness, and as he did so, all of the stories he had heard of deadly animals prowling SteelPoint surfaced in his mind. Some he was instantly sure existed: vulpi, or genets, or even marmots depending on the season. Then there were the hyperwolves that were said to sometimes migrate up from the Depths. These were things that Elrod knew to exist and that he knew to be wary of, but more terrifying images came to his mind as well. He recalled the stories that the oldtimers would tell while sitting outside the local pub: of technovores, or harvester-spiders that had learned to collect human tissue. There were even rumors of feral Fluttershys roaming the area.

All of this should have been cause for Elrod to pick up his pace and hurry back to his comfortable, warm three-by-four apartment and get to work on the contents of his bag. Yet instead he found himself crossing the street, all the while peering into the alley.

His motive was not idle curiosity, but rather practical consideration. A genet or marmot could injure him badly but would probably not kill him, although a hyperwolf definitely could. Instead, his mind turned to thoughts of a technovore, and the fact that even a partial piece of its skull or its processor would provide him with enough rent money to last over two years.

Entering the alley, he set down the bag he was carrying and looked at the areas lit by the flickering light from across the street. They were mostly filled with trash, but not exactly the stinking plastic kind that resulted from human habitation. Much of it was decayed equipment that had already been stripped clean of any valuable circuitry or elemental constituents.

Elrod picked up one of these pieces of rusted metal: a thin, slightly bent pipe. It was oddly light, but he was sure it would do the job regardless of what lurked within that darkness. Except, of course, if it really was a Fluttershy- -but Elrod dismissed that idea quickly, as it seemed too farfetched even to him.

Slowly, he moved deeper into the darkness, holding the pipe at the ready. When he passed beyond the light across the street- -something that he felt himself hesitating to do- -he reached up to the left side of his face and activated the half-visor he wore. It hummed and hissed before the plate over his left eye illuminated with a grainy, monochrome image of the alley before him. Having only one eye able to see was disorienting, but he quickly got used to it.

Then, suddenly, his visor sputtered and went out entirely. Elrod let out a stifled squeak of surprise.

“No!” he whispered to himself, pounding his free fist against the guts of the visor assembly. “Not now! Of all the times, not now!”

It was at that moment that a trash can in the darkness tipped over. Elrod froze in panic as he heard footsteps padding toward him rapidly. He let out a high panicked groan and with all his effort punched himself in the side of the head. This stunned him somewhat, but the blow caused the visor to kick back online just long enough for Elrod to see the waist-high white shape galloping toward him.

There was no time to react. It tackled him, sending him to the ground. The pipe he was holding clattered across the polymer-concrete floor.

“Don’t eat me!” he cried. “I don’t taste good!”

He looked up, fully expecting to see a hyperwolf or technovore about to devour his entrails. Instead, though the half-illumination of his visor and the dim glow of the streetlight through the drizzling rain, he found himself looking into the panicked face of a pony.

She looked terrified. Her pale blue eyes were wider than any eyes that Elrod had seen in his life, and they were filled with a level of terror and desperation that he could sense immediately but scarcely comprehend. Her body was white and perfect, but Elrod had already noticed that it was devoid of a coat. She had no mane or tail, and her flank seemed to be denoted by a number.

“I’m sorry!” she said, reeling slightly from the impact and stepping quickly off Elrod. “Please!” she cried, “you have to help me!”

Elrod started to stand up. “Slow down, I don’t underst- -”

The pony looked over her shoulder and then turned back to Elrod. “Please!” she cried, her voice rising in fear. “Please, I need help, they’re following me, if I don’t- -”

A slight ringing sound filled the air, followed by an explosion. Elrod was knocked back as the pony’s head detonated in a plume of red mist and gray brain tissue that showered down around him. Skull fragments and the remnants of delicate electronics scattered and splintered on the walls and floor. Elrod watched as red gushed outward from exposed neck where seconds ago there had been a complete head. One now blank eye stared at him, its mechanical pupil shrinking to a tiny black point as its iris went dim. The pony slumped to the side into her fluids, and the gushing from her neck stopped.

Elrod did not know what to do. He wanted to scream, or to run, but he was frozen. He could not even decide if he was really afraid so much as he was confused as to what was going on. The impetus to flee was more of a logical debate at this point, a matter of technical minutia. He just did not understand.

Then he felt a curious warm sensation on his forehead. Then a bullet slammed through his skull and detonated in the center of his brain. His head exploded outward, and he was left completely decapitated.

Part I, Chapter 2

Elrod took a step back, but he did not fall. The pale tissue around his neck shifted and sprung forward, quickly regenerating what he had lost. Within seconds his head had returned, and the logical debate in his brain had been overturned. It had instead been replaced by abject terror.

He looked around quickly, and saw his half-visor lying on the ground with the bits of the pony’s flesh and his own. Quickly he reached down and picked it up, putting it on his face. As he did, the bits of electronics glittering in the disembodied remains of the pony’s head caught his eye. Without thinking, he grabbed the largest piece he could find and shoved it in his pocket. Perhaps some part of his logical brain was still working, even if he was not aware of it: for all this trouble, he was going to have to make a profit somehow.

The visor had already been barely functional, and it had been damaged in the blast. When Elrod put it on, he was surprised to see that it was actually at least trying to function. The image it showed was blurry and pixilated, but it still gave him some sight into the darkness.

He immediately looked upward toward the roof of the shorter of the two buildings. It was a great distance overhead, and his visor did not have the range to enhance the image that far. The overhangs and water vessels above were barely discernible from the static, but for just a second Elrod was sure that he saw figures moving through the darkness high above.

Until that point, Elrod’s life had been simple, or even outright boring. Yet, when he saw those figures high above him moving through the static of his visor, he found himself running into the darkness as fast as he could. The impulse to survive had overtaken him; modern life, it seemed, had not choked it out of him entirely.

Where exactly the alley went was not entirely clear to him, but Elrod had a general view of the layout of his home district. He had spent hours studying the blueprints or walking the paths in search of scrap or access points to sealed-off areas. In fact, he vaguely recalled having once been down this particular alley. Back then, though, he had been in possession of a light source and even then had been too afraid to follow it to its conclusion.

This time, though, fear propelled him onward rather than slowing him. He only looked back once. When he did, he was already so far down the alley that the flickering diode light at the far end of the path was barely a splotch of light through the rain. In that light, though, he could still see the silhouette of the fallen pony- -and two enormously tall, thin figures standing over it. Though he could not see their faces, he felt their gaze turn to him, and he knew that they saw him far better than he would ever see them.

Then the ground gave way. With a cry, Elrod stumbled down a concrete ravine and splashed into the water below. Water from the alley washed over him, covering his coat in the filth and dirt of the forgotten street- -and, he hoped, washing away the blood that covered him in exchange.

He was confused, but knew at least partially where he was. This channel had been part of a complex system of roads meant for heavy mechanized machinery, but now it served as a drainage channel for the district. The path it took was confusing, but Elrod knew it. It led downward to SteelPoint L6, where SteelPoint City was located.

So Elrod ran. He had no idea that it would be possible for him to move so quickly. The gray and decaying concrete of the uninhabited sections of the district passed by, barely lit by sparse streetlights that were both aging and high. Few parts of this area had been developed, and the ones that had now largely sat abandoned. The path was treacherous; at many places what had come to serve as a footpath was overgrown or blocked by conduits that had either existed long before there was a path of any kind or that had been sloppily added later.

The torrent of rainwater was present on one side, a reeking river of filth and toxicity. Several times Elrod had considered jumping in and letting the swift current take him downstream quickly, but he knew that was a mistake. There were hidden weirs and strange things obscured beneath that dark water, namely pieces of rusted equipment just waiting to impale him- -or unseen things that would drag him under without hesitation.

The whole time, Elrod felt them. He could not see them, no matter how hard he looked around and over his shoulder. Likewise, they made no sound. But he felt them. Their eyes were watching him. Waiting, perhaps, and definitely following. Their presence was maddening, but it drove Elrod forward and forward- -and away from anything that he knew to be secure and familiar.

Eventually Elrod came to long ramp. He slid down it and splashed through knee-deep water and much before finding a latter. Using it, he was able to pull himself upward and onto the street overpass above. He did not know how long he had been running, exactly, or what route he had ended up taking. All of it seemed to blur in his mind. By road, the journey to outskirts of SteelPoint City was a half hour. Access was not possible by motor vehicle. Elrod was not sure if his route had been longer or shorter, but it felt as though it had taken years.

Where he had ended up, though, was definitely not the outskirts. Instead, he found himself on a street filled with crowds of people. Venders lined the nearer side of the street selling anything from elemental residue to exotic animals, and on the far side a wall led upward to a vehicular roadway where massive transport trucks zoomed by as automobiles skittered out of their way.

The area was loud and crowded, and it was the first time Elrod had ever been happy to be in an area with both of those characteristics. He did his best to slide into the crowd, although he did so nervously. Whether or not the individuals following him would be able to track him was still unclear, and there was a strong possibility that the crowd itself would prove to be a more dangerous place than even the dark floodways.

Almost immediately Elrod felt something bump hard against his lower legs. He looked down to see a blue-colored pony with a tightly cropped rainbow mane glaring up at him.

“Hey! Watch it, fuckface!” she said, striking him hard in the knee with her hoof. Elrod almost buckled from the blow, but managed to stumble past her. The crowd thronged around him and in a second she was gone from his sight. More came, though. Figures of every shape and size. Most of them were human, but a great number were ponies. The identity of many of the others was less easy to discern.

Elrod pushed his way forward, looking over his shoulder as he did. He realized almost instantly that he had made a horrible mistake. In his rush and confusion, he had decided that a crowd would hide him better than any decaying access tunnel ever could. This was true- -but it worked too well. He had not gotten a good look at his attackers, and now they too were invisible amongst the endless sea of anonymous faces.

Only once before had Elrod ever been to SteelPoint City. It had been to perform a deal that his normal buyer would not accept. Almost none of the vendors or transfer companies in this district were well-vetted, and transferring things of dubious origin was easier than with legitimate companies.

It was a place he had hoped never to return to. It was certainly not large by Bridgeport standards- -the Enterprise Zone Center dwarfed it by several orders of magnitude, and even the Hollow Hill was vastly more extensive- -but it was excessively large for Elrod. He began to breathe hard as panic started to set in.

Without thinking, he walked up to a woman. She was shorter than him, with her hair shaved on one side. Her clothing was rugged but shiny, and her eyes were blind, their function having been replaced by a visor that covered them.

“Excuse me,” said Elrod. “Please, I need help!” He shivered. That was almost exactly what the pony had said to him before she had died. Now he was repeating the cycle. He desperately hoped that his conclusion would not be the same as hers had been.

The woman looked up at him with a mixture of surprise and annoyance. Elrod’s half-visor buzzed and hissed in response to the signal from the app she was attempting to use to communicate. He did not have it installed; his system did not run them. When the woman realized this, she looked immensely disgusted and put a hand on his shoulder. Then, with one swift motion, she threw him out of her way.

Elrod went sprawling through the crowd as people swore at him. Rather than falling, though, he felt himself strike something large and heavy. He turned around to see that it was metal- -and then looked up to see a fully-suited delver standing over him.

The delver pushed Elrod back and swore at him. Through the immense armored suit he wore- -to the point where the location of his head, if he even had one, was impossible to determine- -he spoke loudly in Standard Language, the combination of Georgian and Bantu that was almost universal throughout Connecticut. Elrod, unfortunately, was at a disadvantage; he spoke only English and enough Flemish to ask for supplies from the older members of the Wong family. Standard Language was impossible for him to decipher, especially through the heavy distortion of the delver’s audio system.

A hand suddenly took Elrod by the shoulder. He looked at it, and to his horror realized that it was far larger than a human hand and covered in extensive scars. As he watched, a set of retractable claws emerged from the end of the fingers and dug into his shoulder. He was then twisted around to face a second delver. This one wore an almost animal-like mask attached to breathing tubes and thermal stabilizers. From the shape of it, it was quite clear that the face underneath was by no means human.

The second delver spoke in a different language, one that sounded more like a liquid gurgle than any real words. The claws dug deeper into Elrod’s shoulder and he cried out softly, not wanting to draw attention to himself.

“Stop! Stop! I’m sorry! It was an accident!”

The animal-masked delver spoke in something almost like English. “Sorry meaning little has!”

He was promptly interrupted by a commotion, and his friend’s optics rotated. The larger of the two then spoke. “Ma’polits,” he said. It was one of the few Standard Language words that Elrod knew, and when the clawed delver released him he sprung away, ducking through the crowd and approaching an outdoor display of various horrid smelling meats. He looked over his shoulder to see a small group walking through the crowd, causing it to clear somewhat as they did. The leader of them was a male pony who wore a hooded tunic underneath dark-colored armor. Following him were three enormous drones, all of them heavily armored and weaponized. Each of them bore the sign of a white letter “A” transposed over a blue colored “+”. In the pony’s case, he wore it on an armor plate on his shoulder. The drones had it printed on their chests. It was the insignia of Aetna-Cross, the prime-vassal of at least a third of Bridgeport.

As Elrod watched, a woman ran up to them. “Excuse me!” she cried. “Excuse me!”

The lead pony stopped, and the drones did as well.

“Identity?” he said, sounding terribly annoyed.

“My purse, they took my purse! I- -everything I had was in there, all my money, I can’t- -”

There was a thin pulse of red light from one of the drones as it covered the woman’s face. The information was relayed to their commander.

“Out of the way,” he said, now sounding outright angry.

The woman looked panicked. “Please! No! I- -I’ll do anything! Give you anything! If you get it back, you can have half- -three quarters! Just please- -”

“You are not of relevance,” said the pony. “Nor are you a registered part of our provider-network. Now get out of our way, or I will eliminate you.”

The woman burst into tears, but she still stepped aside. One of the heavy drones pushed past her, and the pony never gave her a second look. Instead, he turned his attention toward the pair of delvers.

“You two are not operating transmission beacons,” he said. “I need to see your exploration permits. NOW.”

The crowd around the pair stiffened and separated from the group, half expecting the two- -who might very well have been illegal in this area- -to pick a fight. To fight the police, however, was invariably a futile effort. The larger of the two extended an arm and projected a hologram as he began to attempt to find the necessary paperwork.

As he did, one of the drones turned its optics toward Elrod. Elrod immediately turned away as calmly as he could, pretending as though he had not found any meat to his liking. He had not, of course, but that was not the point. It was absolutely critical that the police drone not scan his face. If it did, the situation could become far worse than it already was.

Without knowledge of the area, Elrod was not able to move quickly or consistently through the heavily urbanized district. He still progressed forward, though, always keeping a close lookout for anything threatening. To him, though, everything was. The paranoia was crushing.

Eventually, though, he found himself in a more heavily industrialized area. The machinery was grafted to one of the vast mile-wide support columns that held up the upper levels of the city, and it seemed to extend both downward and upward. Elrod did not know what purpose it served, but from the shape and the enormous pipes- -which were themselves dwarfed width of the column- -that stretched in both directions, he assumed that it was probably meant to pull and purify water from the Depths.

The light here was more dim, but looking up Elrod was able to see the twinkling of a city in the difference. He did not know the name of that district, or if it was still even in Steel Point. It appeared to be a residential area clinging to the side- -or even dug into- -the concrete casing of the support.

That was where he decided to go. This in itself was a risk: it required him to move deeper into the industrial area to where there were far fewer people, and to wait for a vertical transport. This put him at greater risk of attack. With every step he took he was sure he could feel eyes watching him from the high catwalks of the unoccupied and unlit industrial machinery surrounding him.

The worst by far was standing still and waiting for the elevator to arrive. Elrod felt his breathing accelerating, and could not help but feel more and more afraid with every second as he worried if it would ever come, or if when it did arrive he would be nothing but a corpse on the concrete below. He found himself desperately wishing that someone would come up and wait beside him- -but at the same time, he knew that he might very well have screamed in terror if someone did, or fainted as he waited for them to slowly pull a knife and hold it to his throat.

In truth, he did not need to wait long. An elevator did arrive, having come up from the maintenance levels below. It was an industrial service elevator, and Elrod was not sure if it was meant for civilian use or not. Normally causing trouble was something he liked to avoid, but at this point he did not even care. He would force his way on if he had to.

It did not come down to that. The elevator door ground open, and excessively bright white light flooded the access bridge. Elrod shielded his eyes for a moment but still stepped forward, getting on before anyone could try to stop him. He heard the door shut behind him.

When his vision adjusted, Elrod looked around the elevator to realize that he was not alone. There were two other passengers already. One of them was a pony, specifically a Fluttershy. That was the only type that Elrod knew the name of. Fluttershys, he knew, were the pale yellow ones with pink hair and small, soft wings on their backs. This one indeed met those characteristics: her pink mane was tied back into, of all things, a ponytail, and her pony trail was covered in a utilitarian lattice wrap. Her uniform was clean and pressed and bore a serial number printed on the front left collar, indicating that she was an engineer in one of the facilities below.

She turned her head, noticing that Elrod was staring. Like all ponies, her eyes were freakishly large, to the point where Elrod was sure he could see the expensive optics below their surface churning to adjust the internal lenses.

“Hello there,” she said, smiling.

“Hi,” said Elrod. “Nice uniform.”

“Oh, why thank you!” she said, blushing slightly. The idea of a pony blushing somehow made Elrod deeply uncomfortable.

The other passenger was a large industrial drone. It did not seem to be paired with the Fluttershy, but rather seemed to be traveling in accordance with its own programming. This particular drone appeared quite old; its body had at one time been painted brown, but its armor was now scuffed and scraped in places and showed primer through the surface paint. Its back and side also contained pink and violet colored graffiti written in a squarish script that was most certainly not Standard Language.

The drone did not react to Elrod’s presence. It had no need to. Unlike the police drones, it was not built to be observant. It was most likely designed to lift things, or to perform simple operations or inspections in machinery that no one had otherwise bothered to automate.

“So,” said the Fluttershy, “are you going up to visit Support Station Twelve?”

Elrod paused for a moment, as he could not tell if she was speaking to the drone or to him. When she looked over her shoulder- -something not at all difficult to do for a being whose eyes took up at least eight percent of her head- -and looked at him, though, he knew that she was trying to make conversation.

“Yes,” he said.

“It’s a nice place. Much less crime than the City. Not very safe, though, but better. Less delvers. Are you going to be a new worker, or are you visiting family?”

Elrod thought for a moment. “Just passing through.”

“Oh, a traveler! How lovely! I’ve been meaning to travel myself, but it’s just so very…daunting. I’ve wanted to see Pittsburg, but with the War…”

“The War has been over for years.” Elrod said it with conviction, as he knew it quite well.

“Well, yes, but you can never be too careful.”

The Fluttershy fell silent, and the elevator continued to trundle upward. It was briefly possible to catch views of SteelPoint City below through the industrial machinery that overlooked it, but the view was mostly dark and empty. Despite this gloomy outlook, Elrod felt himself calming down. Anyone who had been following him clearly had not gotten into the elevator with him, meaning that they would either have to wait for the next one or find another way. By the time they got up to Support Station Twelve, Elrod would be long gone. He would have lost them, and his primary decision from there was about where to go next. The decision, to him, was obvious: he would return to his own district and go home. That would probably take a while, but he knew that as soon as he found himself back in his well-worn chair he would know that it had been worth it.

Yet, for some reason, even though he knew he was safe, Elrod could not shake the feeling that he was being watched.

Suddenly, the atmosphere of the elevator seemed to shift. The Fluttershy grimaced slightly and put one of her pale hooves to her head, as though she were suffering from a migraine. She shook it off, though, and went back to smiling. In fact, she even started humming to herself. Elrod did not recognize the tune.

The drone, however, began to act strangely. It shuddered and shook for a moment, and released several low tones that probably would have meant something to its handler. Elrod watched it, not understanding why it was behaving strangely. Robots were by definition reliable, and although he had never worked closely with them he knew that this was abnormal behavior.

Then in an instant the drone’s optics swiveled across its body and locked onto Elrod. Elrod’s heart sank as all the relief he had felt before washed away from him, replaced by the panic that he had been fleeing from.

The drone struck out. One multi-jointed, snake-like arm shot across the elevator in a wide arc. Elrod barely managed to dodge it. The drone was old and slow, but faster than a human and immensely strong. Elrod was sure that its arm would crash through the back of the elevator and derail it, but to his surprise the effector claw stopped millimeters from the wall.

A second blow came a moment later, and Elrod was not able to dodge this one. He was struck in the chest and thrown backward so hard that his visor was nearly knocked off. The entire elevator shook from his impact against the wall.

The effector at the end of the drone’s arm shifted, cycling through several tools before assembling itself into something roughly equivalent to a long, rusty blade. Elrod had no idea why an industrial robot would need a blade like that, but he did not really have time to ponder the question. The robot struck again, and Elrod was forced to duck.

“Fluttershy!” he called, looking to the pony for help. “HELP!”

She did not respond. In fact, she did not even take her eyes off the transparent front of the elevator. She just kept staring, smiling, and humming to herself.

“Oh come on!” cried Elrod in desperation. “I wasn’t trying to be rude! Don’t be like that!”

The drone stepped forward and Fluttershy ducked, allowing it motion for another blow toward Elrod. Elrod had to dodge again, although the blade cut a partial hole in his coat. He was not wearing any sort of armor underneath, as he had never had cause to do so. The decision to omit it was now something he regretted, even if it would have done him little good in a fight like this.

The robot’s blade had missed his body, but its arm twisted suddenly to strike him in the shoulder. He was knocked down and went sliding toward the door. It was closed, of course, but it would not have done much good if it was open. Outside was a drop that quite possibly led to the Depths themselves. There was no way out. He was trapped.

“Fluttershy!” he pleaded, looking up at the pony. “Please!”

She still did nothing. She did not even look at him, or acknowledge his presence.

“COME ON!” repeated Elrod in anger. He did not know exactly how a pony- -especially a Fluttershy- -could help him, but he could do nothing himself. On a normal day, he might have had his tools with him, but he had not bothered to bring them. There was no reason for him to; he had just been taking a walk to the store for supplies. This was another decision he found himself regretting.

The drone turned toward him again and took several heavy steps on its short legs. Elrod whimpered and looked to the Fluttershy once more. She still did not return his gaze, but this time he saw something glinting under the outer jacket of her uniform. It was a holster.

“Fine!” he said, reaching into her coat and pulling out a pistol. “If you won’t help me, at least let me borrow this!”

The drone moved to strike, but Elrod raised the oddly large gun and fired. The sound was deafening, and a plume of fire seemed to shoot from the barrel. Elrod did not get much of a chance to see it, though, because the pistol immediately leapt from his hands and slammed into his face.

He swore loudly and grabbed his face in pain. His eyes were watering, but he still saw a single shell casing drop to the floor. It was a massive straight-walled piece of brass almost as big as his hand.

“Seven hundred?” he said in disbelief. He looked up to Fluttershy, who had not even flinched or reacted in any way to the sound of the enormous cartridge being fired. “What the hell do you need a seven-hundred for?!”

The drone bellowed an error message, and Elrod looked up at it. By a stroke of sheer luck, he had managed to shoot it in the shoulder. In the case of a human, a .700 to the shoulder probably would have removed their arm. To the drone, however, it had instead only managed to shear most of the connections to the limb. Elrod was relieved- -if only for a moment- -to see that the old drone did not have a decentralized motor control system. The arm twitched and hung limply from its side and had begun to pull away from the torso at the joint.

In a way, luck had befallen Elrod twice. He picked up the pistol again from where it had fallen, and pointed it once again at the drone. Any smaller weapon probably would have done minimal damage, or required far more precise shooting. Elrod was not a soldier, nor had he ever been; he had no idea what he was doing- -but he had a massive gun and an equivalently large target, so he could quickly gather what he needed to do.

He fired again. This time, he did his very best to hold onto the pistol. It was not easy, and he really had no hope of aiming. The drone’s armor sparked in response, and a hole appeared in it. The semiautomatic slider of the pulled back and a shell fell to the floor. Elrod fired another. This time the drone did step back, and it shuddered violently. The fourth shot hit it in the optics, and the fifth one felled it completely. It dropped to its knees and then slumped forward. Elrod barely managed to push the Fluttershy out of the way in time to avoid them both being crushed.

He paused and stared for a second. It had been a long time since he had felt so tired, and he realized that he was shaking. The drone was leaking various colored fluids onto the floor, and Elrod even more desperately wished that he had brought his tools. It technically belonged to some corporation or utility, but cut up no one would know the difference. Even an old and badly damaged drone was still worth something.

What felt like minutes passed while Elrod ruminated on this thought, knowing fully well that there was nothing more he could do apart from remembering to pick up the .700 casings for resale. By about the time he was preparing to retrieve them, though, the elevator stopped and opened.

The Fluttershy immediately stepped forward and exited.

“Miss!” called Elrod, holding up the pistol. “You forgot your…oh, never mind. It’s mine now.”

He stood up himself and stepped out the door. As horrible as the experience with the drone had been, his mind was now made up. Robots did not attack on their own volition. Somebody was trying to kill him, and they were not going to stop anytime soon. Returning to his apartment would be a death sentence. He could not go home, nor did he have anywhere else to go.

His only option was to try to find help.

Part I, Chapter 3

Elrod paused, pulling his collar up to his neck against the cold as he looked through a slit in the concrete out at the landscape before him. It had taken a long time to get this far; several days at least had passed. Almost all of that time consisted of trying to manage the ridiculously complex public transportation system, or in finding money to use it. Numerous hours were spent doubling back either intentionally or because of the faulty, bootleg version of navigation software that Elrod was running on what was left of his visor. He had actually used it so extensively that it had been depleted entirely of power.

The continuous effort of trying to evade potential pursuit was not especially tiring. Elrod had not slept because he did not sleep, nor did he grow tired from physical exhaustion. That had allowed him to continue onward, hopefully beyond the reach of whoever it was who wanted him dead. As much as he would have liked to put his hope in the fact that he had outrun them by sheer endurance, though, he knew that his advantage was not as great as he would have liked it to be. Humans and zoonei did need to sleep, but they could take drugs or use certain enhancements to overcome it. Drones and secgens never slept at all. Elrod was not sure if ponies did or not, but that was not of great consequence to him. He had seen the shadowy figures, and they had definitely not been ponies.

This left him in an awkward state. The situation was still poor, and he was certainly not safe- -not really, anyway- -but he was also sure that he was not going to be killed in the immediate future. There had been no third attempt on his life that he was aware of, meaning they had either lost him in his confused rambling or decided that they would let him live a little longer. This is what gave him the peace of mind- -as small as it was- -to pause for a moment to at least attempt to enjoy the view.

There was not much view to enjoy. This particular system of structures was built into the side of a vast chasm. Overhead was a bridge, and the sound of cars and trucks- -as distant as they were- -rumbled and echoed through the gap that the bridge crossed over. Elrod knew where he was, at least in a general sense: the one hundred fifty-lane highway was Route 8. It had once been the main artery stretching through Bridgeport. If one were to take it north, they would eventually reach Pittsfield. Following it further- -if one could get through the numerous armed checkpoints- -would lead to the forests of Vermont. In the southern direction, the highway continued to the ocean and crossed to Long Island, and from there to what remained of the Transatlantic Bridge.

The highway did not interest Elrod especially much. It was loud, with the noise of the automobiles only being punctuated by the roar of near-supersonic freight trains that traveled on numerous smaller bridges. Instead, Elrod was more focused on what lie below. The terraces of the city that had clustered under the bridge seemed to go on forever, but in truth they eventually faded to the point where exactly what was at the bottom of the chasm was invisible. Elrod supposed it was a river, maybe, although what was flowing through any river that deep was surely horrifying.

He did not pause for long. Time was still of the essence, and he hoped to be able to go back home soon. Tearing himself away from the windy concrete slits, he proceeded down the hall of the structure he currently found himself in.

Where he had ended up had not been his choice. It had really just been a matter of how much he wanted to spend on public transportation. If it had been up to him, he would have gone all the way to New Jersey and back just to shake whoever was after them. Without a car, though, such a long trip was prohibitively expensive.

The building where he had ended up was not pleasant. It was old and aging badly, but not quite decaying. The architecture- - if it could even be called that- -had clearly been designed by a computer: the layout consisted of tortuous, strange hallways and oddly shaped rooms that had been laid out solely with the intention of maximizing space and heating flow. There was no doubt in Elrod’s mind that this place had always seemed cheap, even from the start.

It mostly served as a low-rent office building now. Elrod passed many of them on his way. Few were labeled, and they did not need to be. These were not businesses that were meant to serve clients, apart from perhaps an occasional dentist’s office. They were instead various small companies that would never rise out of absolute obscurity. Their purpose was to handle the few but various aspects of business that still needed human talent, the sort of generic and incomprehensible firms with names like “Paradigm”, “Logicex”, or “Swift”.

As Elrod moved deeper into the building and farther from the windows, though, the renters of the office building seemed to change. They seemed to follow the warmer air of the poor heating system, growing well in hot damp places with little light. There were pyramid markers, small and clearly unregistered medical supplement companies, call centers built in what should have been boiler rooms, and so on. It had been a long time since Elrod had found himself this out of his element.

A figure suddenly turned around a corner ahead of Elrod, seeming to materialize out of nothing. Elrod nearly cried out and jumped. This place, despite its number of offices, had virtually no one wandering through the halls. Elrod had not seen another being since he had gotten off the rather Spartan stairwell to this floor. That had been part of why he felt so secure.

His fear abated, though, when he saw that the mysterious figure was a pony. She was a unicorn type, with a turquoise coat and deep orange eyes. Elrod did not know the name of her series, but he saw that her rump was printed with the insignia of a harp. He also noted that she smelled surprisingly minty.

“Oh,” she said, looking up at him with a strangely neutral expression. “Hello. I didn’t mean to scare me.”

“You didn’t scare me,” replied Elrod, even though he knew he was lying. “You just startled me a little.”

“Why would I startle you? And are you okay? You don’t look so good.”

“I’m fine,” said Elrod, also lying. Although he did not tire physically, the idea of being pursued by an unseen lethal force was causing great strain to his mental status. He supposed that was apparent on his face. “I just can’t grow eyebrows, so I always look kind of surprised.”

The pony just stared at him for a long moment. She did not seem to blink. “Well,” she said. “You don’t seem like you belong in this building. Not normally, anyway. Are you looking for someone?”

“I am.” Elrod produced a small piece of paper. This normally would have elicited surprise from anyone who saw it; after all, the days when people wrote down addresses on paper had passed centuries ago. “Floor three forty-nine, quadrant six, office space G26-H127.”

A look of recognition seemed to cross the pony’s eyes, and she did not seem pleased. “I’ll never understand why they’re called quadrants if there are more than four of them,” she said to herself. Then she sighed, which was an odd behavior considering Elrod had been sure that ponies did not actually have lungs. “I know where that is. If you follow this hall down the next curve past the mechanical room, it’s in the hallway on the third left. But are you sure you really want to go there?”

Elrod paused for a moment. He considered that question very strange. “Yes,” he said, slowly. “I do.”

The pony shrugged. “If that’s what you want. But I’ve got to say, I’d really recommend against it.”

Elrod was about to ask what she meant, but the conversation was clearly over. She walked past him, her long mint-scented tail brushing his leg as she moved. Within seconds, she had turned a corner and was gone. What bothered Elrod the most was that despite the carpet on the floor being worn down to the concrete below, the pony’s hooves had not once made a sound.

Still, she had been helpful. The paths in the building were convoluted, and the way the suites were numbered clearly would make no sense to anyone short of a secgen synth. The office he was looking for was not distant, but the route was more complex than the pony had made it seem. If she had not given him a general sense of where to go, he probably would have been wandering for hours.

Instead of hours, he came to the door in a matter of minutes. When he saw it, he paused, because it was not what he was expecting. It was the same type of metal door as was present in the rest of the building, but the large and normally transparent window in the center had been replaced with opaque, reddish glass. A symbol had been inlaid, which resembled a star with an eye in the center. At first, Elrod thought that he might have come to a church. The eye in the center had a round pupil, though, and the star had six points instead of five. It was a symbol that he did not recognize, but he could gather the meaning. This was the office of a private investigator.

Elrod grasped the handle of the door and opened it. As it moved, a small bell tinkled at the top. As simple as such a device was, Elrod had never actually seen one before. It was considered an anachronism.

Stepping into the small space beyond, Elrod was immediately struck by the smell of the place. It reeked of black mold mixed with stale coffee and cigarette smoke. The air was several degrees warmer than the chilly halls outside, but somehow it still did not feel pleasant exactly.

The entryway was narrow, leading past a small close and into the front part of a narrow office. The light was subdued, coming from just a few diode fixtures in the ceiling, and the walls appeared to be made from wood paneling that had been varnished by age alone. Several filing cabinets were placed against the back of the room, and on one wall hung a massive and highly intricate map of Bridgeport.

Offset from the hallway slightly and facing the door was a small desk, its surface covered with several tiny potted plants. It was the kind of miniature desk that might be owned by a child. In this case, however, the being sitting behind it was, in fact, a pony.

She was a Pegasus type, with her fluffy white wings extending out two holes in the rear of the pastel-colored blazer she was wearing. It had been tied with a large bow around her neck, and none of her clothing at all matched the pure white color of her coat. Even worse, though, was her hair: garish pink and green. Elrod was barely able to see color, and even he could tell that this pony’s fashion sense was poor.

Her enormous pale-blue eyes swiveled, locking on to Elrod without blinking. As they turned, Elrod caught sight of the way the light reflected off them. He had grown experienced in quickly recognizing materials, and the surfaces of those lenses were not polymer or even glass. Her eyes were coated in solid monocrystalline diamond.

“A client!” she said, nearly squeaking with joy. She lifted her hoof and tapped at the air. A hologram appeared in front of it. As she did, Elrod noticed that there were a number of nearly imperceptible black lines underneath her coat that ran down her hooves, legs, and even up onto her face. “Do you have a scheduled appointment or are you a walk-in?”

“Um…a walk in?”

“Of course. We do not have any scheduled appointments today anyway.”

“Are you the detective?”

The pony continued to stare without blinking. “No. I am her secretary. My name is Forth. What is your name?”

“Elrod. Elrod Jameson.”

“Were you recommended to us by a friend?”

“No. I ran out of money, and you were the closest to where I ended up.”

“Well then.” The pony slid out of her chair. “Right this way, Mr. Jameson.”

The pony walked across the room and down a narrow hall in the rear. Elrod could not help but notice the fact that she was not wearing any pants. In fact, when she had gotten out of her chair he was pretty sure that he had been able to see that she also had no genitals.

This was actually the first time Elrod had been able to see a pony up close without being exceedingly nervous or outright terrified. In his opinion, they were horrifying. Elrod understood- -in the most basic sense- -what they were, and that they had originally been designed to resemble the characters from a children’s show. An animated children’s show.

No doubt, ponies had been quite adorable when rendered with lines and digital paint. When they were produced in the real world, though, the very things that made them cute as images made them uncanny and frightful as machines. Their eyes were disproportionally massive in a way that no organic being would be able to sustain, and the way their horse-like mouths moved when they spoke was disturbing. Their entire bodies were covered in a fine fuzz, and Elrod was not sure if their hair grew somehow or if it had to be replaced whenever they wanted it changed. They were ubiquitous in the modern world- -and yet they looked so horribly wrong in it.

“Would you like anything to drink?” Forth looked up at Elrod through her long bangs. She had still not blinked. Elrod doubted if she had eyelids.

“No,” said Elrod. “The Bridgeport water, it tastes like garlic.”

“I would not know,” said Forth. She led Elrod around a sharp turn in the extremely narrow hallway and past a very tiny area that contained a couch and a chair that did not match it. At the end of this small hallway was a door. Forth approached it and pushed it open, poking her head in. “Mr. Jameson is here to see you,” she said. “He’s here about a case.”

Forth pulled her head back and smiled at Elrod. “She will see you now.” She motioned for Elrod to enter, and he hesitantly did so. The door was almost immediately shut behind him.

The room was tiny. What little space it had was filled with bookshelves on the ends and a desk in the center. Elrod was not entirely sure who he had expected to be sitting at the desk, but he now found himself staring into the violet eyes of a pony.

Her resemblance to Forth was uncanny. They had the same eye shape and hairstyle, but in the case of the detective hers was violet with a red stripe. Likewise, her coat was violet instead of white. A horn protruded through her hair, but she also had long and heavy looking wings that were partially extended with the back of her chair between them. There was a term for this type of pony, but Elrod had forgotten it.

This pony’s clothing was much more simple than that of her secretary. She wore a sleeveless white blouse that ruffled at the neckline. It was fastened by a smooth red gemstone.

“You’re a pony.”

“I know. Twilight Sparkle. What do you want?”

Elrod blinked. This seemed more sudden than he was expecting.

“Well?” said the pony.

“Is that your real name, or the series?”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed and she leaned forward. “It’s a series,” she said. “Like your surname. You don’t need to know my first name and I don’t intend to tell it to you. Now is that all you came to ask, or did you want something other than to waste my time?”

“No,” said Elrod, stiffening. “I don’t want to waste your time. I need your help.”

“With what, exactly, or are you going to take the next hour to explain it?”

“Someone is trying to kill me.”

“Then get out.”

Elrod paused again, still confused and taken aback. “Excuse me?”

“I said get out. I don’t do murders. That’s stuff for the police. I’m a private detective, not a crime lab.”

“Look at me,” said Elrod, spreading his arms. “Do I look like I have enough relevance for Aetna-Cross to even remotely care about what happens to me?”

“Of course not. If some’s trying to off you, they’re going to succeed. And I’m not going down with you.”

“But I need help,” said Elrod. “Please- -”

Twilight sprang up suddenly, spreading her wings. Elrod took a step back; he had not realized that she was slightly larger than a normal pony. “I’m not going to tell you a third time, trench. You walk into my office with a Nitro Express pistol- -a gun for killing PONIES- -and then you start demanding I do shit that I don’t do? That you expect me to make an exception? Who do you think you are?”

“How did you- -”

“Because you didn’t turn off the ID beacon. And based on the fact that you don’t look like a Fluttershy unit, I’m doing to guess you stole that piece. And recently, too. You have no idea how to walk with it without looking like you have a barbed stick shoved up your ass.” Twilight leaned back in her chair, but her eyes never left Elrod. “You know, there are only four types of people who carry a .700. Arrogant sons-of-bitches who think it makes them look impressive, abject morons, the paranoid, and pony hunters.” She leaned forward. “You don’t dress or talk like an arrogant bastard, and you’re not wearing enough body armor to be a paranoid. So that begs the question. Hunter, or idiot?”

“It’s not loaded.”

“Of course it’s not loaded. Blossomforth wouldn’t have let you in if it was.” She paused. “And, by the way, that does answer my question. Now, are you going to leave like a man or am I going to have to metaphorically castrate you by having Forth throw you out on your ass?”

“A pony was killed.”

Twilight looked up at Elrod and shrugged. “Ponies get killed all the time. It happens. It doesn’t bother me.”

“But it does bother me!” cried Elrod, suddenly losing his temper. He reached into his coat and produced the piece of implant that he had taken from the pony’s corpse and slammed it down on Twilight’s desk. “Do you know what that was like?! She was there, in front of me, alive- -and then they shot her! I saw her head explode! Blood, brains, it went…” Elrod choked slightly “…it went everywhere. On me, in the gutter. Damn it, I saw someone die! And now they’re coming after me too!”

Twilight looked at the implant, and then at him. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not lying!”

“Then you’re insane. Ponies are machines. We don’t have blood or brains, just metal and robotics. And that thing?” Twilight pointed. “That’s not part of a pony. I can see it from here. It’s a neuromeshing preamplifier. They’re used to let cybernetic operators use heavy machinery.”

“But it DID come from a pony,” protested Elrod.

“And that’s where we have an issue,” said Twilight, leaning forward again and propping her head on one hoof. “Because you have to know how this looks. You come into my office holding a fresh spinal implant, having bloodstains on your clothes, carrying a pony-hunting pistol, and claiming you saw somebody get offed. Either you’re pulling yarn out of your ass, or…”

“You think I did it.”

“I think there’s a strong possibility that you murdered someone.”

“I didn’t.”

“And I don’t care. It’s not my job to care. I’m a private investigator. My job is to find evidence that makes my client right. The more they pay me, the more right I can make them.”

Elrod gasped. “You’re dirty, then.”

“I’m private. By definition I can’t be dirty. Like I said. My job is my job. Speaking hypothetically: if you did off someone and want to find proof that you weren’t the one who did it, I could do that. For extra I could even find out that someone you had certain ‘suspicions’ about had a hand in it. I’m not a cop. Tell me what you want and show me the money, and I’ll see if I can make it happen.”

“That’s not what I want,” said Elrod, collecting his thoughts. He took a breath and paused. “I have a problem. And I want to make it go away.”

“Now you’re making me start to get flustered again.”

“Let me finish! Someone’s trying to kill me. Twice. And they already killed a pony. One of your kind.”

“My ‘kind’. I get it. You’re not helping yourself, kid.”

“I want it to stop. I don’t want to die.”

“And you want me to be protection?”

“Only for a little while. Until you can find who did it.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean ‘why?’”

“Because it doesn’t matter who’s holding the gun in the end. Dead is dead.”

“I don’t intend to die. But if we could just figure out who, then I can take the case to the police.”

“Ha!” laughed Twilight. “And you think Aetna-Cross will do a thing about it?”

“I can try, can’t I?”

“Yeah, or you could try shoving your arm up your rear. Neither’s much help to you.”

“I don’t care. That’s what I want.”

Twilight paused for a moment. “So…find out who a murderer is, but not stop them? I don’t know. I don’t like doing murders…”

“But by your own logic, there is not murder,” said Elrod. “I’m still alive. I could not pursue the case even if I wanted to.”

Twilight paused for a long moment. “Eh, what the hell. It will cost extra, though.”

Elrod removed his wallet from his pocket. It resembled a square U-shaped piece of machinery that held an ampule of pale golden fluid that glowed slightly in the dim light of the office.

“Here,” he said. “This is all I have- -”

“Are you joking?” Twilight let out a cruel and insincere laugh. “You little fuck, that’s not even sixty vod!”

“It’s all I have,” reiterated Elrod.

“My base rate is five hundred vod an hour! Damn, and I thought we had something. Go home. That’s not even worth my incidental- -”

“Now just a minute!”

Elrod jumped as Forth entered the room. “How did you- -”

“She was listening on the other side of the door,” sighed Twilight, rolling her eyes.

“And it is good that I was,” said Forth. “You actually planning on turning down a case? Ms. Twilight Sparkle, might I remind you that we have not had a case in three months? Might I also remind you that rent in this area is not at all cheap?”

“We’re not going to be able to pay the rent with sixty vod.”

“But every little bit helps! And it’s not like you are doing anything anyway, apart from sitting on your flank!”

“And if I don’t want to take this one?”

“Then we can start packing our things in advance of the eviction.”

Twilight let out a groan. “Fine,” she said, “but I’m not doing this for sixty vod. There are other conditions.”

“Name them,” said Elrod. “I’m desperate.”

“Well crap, you’re a bad negotiator, then.” Twilight flipped up a small package on her desk and reached down. Her robotic lips dexterously removed a single cigarette from the pack, and as she lifted it she flicked it. The end ignited automatically and she took a long drag before passing the smoke out her nose. “Alright. First, the total cost is five thousand.”

“I don’t have that much.”

“I know. We went over that. That’s how much you’ll owe me in the end. Paid out with fifteen percent interest.”

“Fifteen- -”

“AND, I get to take one kidney, one liver lobe, and five units of bone marrow. I’ll even be nice and pay for the surgery. That’s if you live. If I can’t help you and you get offed, I get all of it. Every piece of you is going to wake up in some old dying geezer’s body.”

“My organs are not fit for transplantation.”

“Don’t care. This is Bridgeport, I could give take a liver made of malaria and gunshot wholes and people would still gut each other for a slot in line.”

“If you can find my organs, you can have as many as you want. Take five kidneys for all I care.”

Twilight eyed him. “You really are a bad negotiator. You’re lucky I didn’t ask you to work for me as a prostitute. But it’ll do. I’ll take the case.”

Forth clapped her front hooves together excitedly. Twilight stood up and approached a coat rack. With several dexterous motions, she put an armored vest around her torso and then donned a long coat.

“Right,” she said, putting on a hat. “Let’s get started.”

Part I, Chapter 4

Much to Elrod’s chagrin, the first order of business was to investigate the scene of the crime. He resisted this wholeheartedly, as in his mind he was sure that whoever had tried to murder him was waiting there for him to go back. Twilight, however, was dismissive of this concern and eventually Elrod was forced to accompany her. Refusing to do so would either result in her abandoning the case, or in its failure as there was no one else to show her where the crime scene actually was. Reasoning with her was impossible, as it was clear that her mind was already made up.

The return trip was surprisingly short. Twilight was far superior at navigating Bridgeport’s public transportation system than Elrod had been. Whereas Elrod had spent a great deal of time doubling back- -intentionally sometimes but mostly on accident- -and wandering lost through unfamiliar streets between stations, Twilight knew exactly where to go every time. She never once paused to look at a timetable or schedule, and always seemed to arrive right as the trains or large-scale cargo elevators were leaving their stations. The greatest reason for her success, though, was that while Elrod had limited himself only to the bottom fifteen levels of the city, Twilight was willing to use the public transportation channels on all of them. Elrod had not considered that idea, nor would he have been able to understand the complex network of systems involved even if he had tried.

It took them less than three hours to arrive back in Steel Point, and Elrod once again found himself walking through the dimly lit streets. Twilight walked ahead of him. She stared ahead, periodically producing thin wisps of cigarette smoke.

Twilight shivered and held her wings closely against the rear of her coat. “Damn it,” she muttered to herself. “I hate the rain.”

“The storm will last the better part of the week,” said Elrod. “They always do.”

“When you said L7, I was assuming it would be dry.”

“No. It’s condensation, from- -”

“I know what it is. Do you know what the machine that makes all this water actually does?”

“No.”

Twilight released another puff of smoke. “It’s better that you don’t.”

Elrod did not ask further, because if she said he did not want to know then he was apt to believe her.

“You actually live in this pit?” asked Twilight after a long moment of silent walking. She looked over her shoulder at Elrod.

“Yes. My apartment is four blocks ahead, and to the left.”

“I can’t believe they actually built residential facilities down here,” sighed Twilight. She turned back to the road as a rickety automated truck past them, its headlights illuminating the cracked and wet pavement as well as the water running down Twilight’s trenchcoat. “Do you know what this place used to be?”

“A mechanical level for the factories on L8.”

“But do you know what they used to make?”

Elrod paused for a moment, trying to remember if any of the oldtimers had mentioned it. “No,” he said at last. “I don’t.”

“Steel Point levels nine through eleven used to be slaughterhouses. Big ones. The kind that seem to go on forever. Millions of cows, pigs, chickens, dogs, every day. L8 was below. They processed everything that wasn’t meat. Bones, skin, guts, everything. Seventy years ago this was all bioreactors making Celestia-knows-what.”

Twilight had been intending to produce an emotional response, but Elrod felt nothing. Although he did not eat meat, the slaughtering of animals did not concern him. In fact, it was something he had always wanted to see. For some reason he had the impression that it would be funny.

“Did they make any products that I would recognize?”

“Fertilizer, mostly. And chemicals. A lot of chemicals. This whole area is a level six hazard zone. I’m surprised you lived as long as you did down here.”

“I’m actually not a native to this area. I’ve only lived here for four years.”

“Really. Where are you from, then?”

“Idaho.”

Twilight did not pause or break step in the slightest, but Elrod knew that she understood the implication of what he was saying. There were few alive in the modern era who would not.

“I see,” said Twilight. “Then you’re a refugee, from the War.”

“In a sense.”

“Then I’m surprised you care so much about someone getting offed. I’ve been to the Middle West. Even in peacetime you have to walk over the bodies.”

“I would not know,” said Elrod. “I lived under the Monsanto vassal. It was very safe.”

“And yet you left and came here.”

Elrod paused, wondering if he had said too much. Twilight did not push him further, but she did offer a warning. “For the record, trench,” she said, “don’t volunteer information. Information is like cash, and you just handed it over for free with one leading question. That’s stupid, and it can get you killed.”

“I did not realize you were so concerned about me.”

“I’m not. Actually, at this point I’d make more money if you died from selling your organs.”

“Then why do you not kill me now?”

Twilight paused for a frighteningly long moment. “Professional courtesy,” she said at last, and left it at that.

They remained silent until they Skylight park and found themselves standing in front of the same flickering streetlight where just a few days prior Elrod had made the worst decision of his life.

“It’s here,” said Elrod. He slowly turned to the dark alley nearby and pointed. “Or, rather, there.”

Twilight looked down the alley, and then up at the light. Her pupils narrowed, and the light went out before coming back on with a bright and powerful glow.

“Your power system in this district sucks. It’s not meant to have all these buildings attached to it.” She then turned and crossed the street.

“Wait!” said Elrod, jogging to keep up with her. “Be careful! There are technovores on this level!”

“There have not been technovores in Steel Point for fifty years. They can’t coexist with harvester spiders. As soon as the spiders show up, the niche is destroyed.”

“Then aren’t you worried about the spiders?”

“No. Of course not.”

Twilight entered the alley and stood at the edge of the shadows. She reached into her pocket and produced a small sphere. She held it up, and a tiny engine inside whirred as it lifted into the air. Once it was about three meters off the ground, it ignited with an incredibly bright and incredibly harsh white light.

“Great,” said Elrod, shielding his eyes. “Now they can see us.”

“If your story is true, then they already saw you in perfect darkness.” Twilight looked down at the ground. “And at this point I’m having serious doubts about your story.”

Elrod looked around, confused. “Why?”

“Because of what’s not here.”

It took a second for Elrod to understand. Then he realized it. “The body.”

“Exactly.”

“They must have cleaned it up.”

“I checked the sanitation logs on the way here. No way they would miss picking up a pony.”

“Unless they weren’t the ones who picked it up.” Elrod pointed. “There’s rivers over there. Drainage canals. They could have just thrown her in.”

“Possibly,” said Twilight.

“Or,” said Elrod, grasping, “maybe the harvester spiders took her.”

“That makes more sense,” said Twilight. “Except that the spiders don’t take blood.”

“Blood?”

“You said this pony bled. That’s not possible, but I’m not seeing any blood.”

“It’s raining. It would have washed away.”

“To your primitive eyes.” Twilight pointed at her hovering light. The tiny engine inside it changed pitch as it adjusted course to follow her as she walked across the alley. “There’s a reason that thing is so bright. I’m scanning on multiple fluorescent wavelengths. Trust me, I know what blood looks like. The rain here isn’t so bad. There would be residue that I would pick up.”

“And you don’t see any?”

“Did I stutter?”

Something buzzed loudly from above. Elrod cried out in surprise, but Twilight nonchalantly stepped to the side. Forth descended from above. Despite being distinctly birdlike, her wings functioned more like those of a large insect. They had to beat incredibly quickly to support her.

Forth touched down on the pavement with a thud and looked at Elrod and Twilight. She was dressed in a feminine looking coat that actually- -and probably purely by chance- -matched her coat quite well. It only exacerbated the fact that she was not wearing pants, though.

“Forth,” said Twilight. “Did you find anything?”

“Negative,” said Forth, sounding neither disappointed nor pleased. “There were no signs of anyone being up there. Not for a long time. Although I did see a man who had a rooftop pigeon coop. The pigeons were cute. They have tiny heads.”

“That’s old man Derrek,” sighed Elrod. “He’s as deaf as a post and about as blind as one too.”

“That explains why speaking to him was so difficult. He claims to have seen nothing out of the ordinary.”

“We’re not having much success down here either,” said Elrod.

“I never said that.” Twilight crossed to one of the dirty, corroded walls that surrounded them on either side. “That’s why I’m still here. There’s no body, and no blood, but one part of your story checks out.”

“What do you mean?”

Twilight pointed at the wall. Elrod looked, but did not see anything. “There’s nothing there.”

“Look closer.”

Elrod did. His vision was generally not good, but after a few seconds he noticed that the concrete looked strange. It was pitted with a number of tiny, perfectly spaced holes.

“I’ve never seen corrosion like that,” he said.

“Because it’s not corrosion. If you looked around this alley, you’d see them everywhere.”

“It’s true,” said Forth. “I see them too. What are they?”

“Impact holes. From an organized kinetic dispersion round.”

“An OKD?” Forth seemed intrigued by this. “Here?”

“There’s nothing else it could be.” Twilight ran her hoof over the tiny holes. She spoke to Elrod without looking at him. “You could probably confirm it. If you were to take this concrete apart, you’d find tiny uranium-tungsten needles inside. Not enough to trade if for scrap, but enough to rip somebody’s torso clean in half.”

“In half?” Elrod gulped and felt faint.

“That’s what they do. It’s designed to enter a target and detonate at a program-controlled depth. It detonates axially, making a ring of impact holes and ripping apart whatever it was fired in. There is a zero percent survivability rate on impact.” She paused. “That’s also part of the problem.”

“What?”

“There are two rings here. Meaning two bullets. You said one hit this ‘pony’. You never mentioned a second one.”

Elrod stiffened. “They must have missed one shot.”

“OKD rounds don’t miss. Ever.”

“But why would they be here?” asked Forth, repeating herself. “That type of projectile is not cheap. My inventory lists indicate a cost of nine hundred thousand two hundred eighty-six vod per shot.”

“NINE HUNDRED AND- -” Elrod gasped and started choking from hearing the price alone.

“It’s to be expected,” said Twilight. “They aren’t exactly something you can generate on a home manufacturing system. If you could even find a schematic for one. But if you needed to blow the spine out of a target whose eighty feet underground in a steel-lined bunker wearing a bulletproof vest, that’s what you need.”

“Was that what the target was here?” asked Forth.

“I don’t know,” said Twilight. “There’s no body to examine. But judging from the surroundings and the fact that this guy saw it, no.” Twilight paused for a long moment. “No, it doesn’t make sense at all.”

She started walking toward the rear of the alley, looking upward and around at the walls as she did. When she reached the dropoff at the end, she turned back. “You said there are drainage canals down here? Is that how you got out?”

“Yes,” said Elrod. “I think they followed me.”

“Did you see them?”

“Not clearly. It was too dark.”

“Your optic implants didn’t pick them up?”

“I don’t have optic implants.”

Twilight sighed. “Figures.”

“I do remember there were more than one,” said Elrod. “And they were very tall and very thin.”

“Secgens?” suggested Forth.

“Maybe,” muttered Twilight. “I don’t know yet. I don’t like this.” She looked up at Elrod. “Do you know the way you went?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“Show me.”

Traveling through the drainage canals had become even more difficult. They had swollen with water, and some of them had become clogged by the various strange flotsam that the condensation storms tended to dredge up. In many places rivers had become grimy and disgusting lakes. In a few places, people had constructed makeshift bridges years before based on knowledge of this fact, but more often Elrod was not so lucky.

Both Twilight and Forth were able to fly. Blossomforth actually spent most of her time in the air, departing to check the tops of buildings, catwalks, and exposed pipes for any sign that anyone had been standing on or near them. Twilight seemed to prefer not to fly as often; she only did so when it was absolutely necessary to cross deeper puddles. Being unable to fly, Elrod either had to find his way around or wade through reeking knee-deep wastewater. Several times he felt something touch his leg, and once he could have sworn he saw an eel.

In time, they emerged in SteelPoint City, although in a different place than Elrod had come up before. That particular one was now flooded with rushing water now well over his head, and trying that exit would have doubtlessly carried him to the Depths or to the ocean or wherever the wastewater eventually went.

At this point, Elrod stayed close to Twilight and Forth. It was nighttime for most people, so the streets were less crowded and those that were on them tended to be far more drunk than before. Still, Elrod was afraid. He took comfort in the fact that neither Twilight nor Forth seemed especially bothered by it. For Forth, her resistance to the noise and lights seemed to come from distracted indifference. Walking along this street was the same as crawling grimy rooftops or sitting in her office chair. Twilight, though, seemed to move with a distinct confidence that Elrod found both thoroughly impressive and terrifying at the same time.

“This place seems fun,” said Forth. “Lots of people. Lots of stores. I should come here to shop sometime.”

“I wouldn’t,” said Twilight. “You’ll either get ripped off or end up with your legs and eyes being sold at a discount.”

“Oh,” said Forth. “Well, I suppose that is not good. Anyway I like the other place better. Quiet. And it had a little garden. There were trees, and flowers. I liked the flowers. I suppose that’s why I have one on my rump.” She pointed, and Elrod saw that she did indeed have a pink flower printed on her rear.

“Is that a tattoo?” asked Elrod. “Do all ponies have that?”

“Not all,” said Forth. “But some. It is traditional. I am traditional.”

“Do you have one, Twilight?”

“I’m not going to show you my rump, if that’s what you’re asking,” hissed Twilight. Elrod did not know why she sounded so angry at the thought.

Although they had arrived at SteelPoint City in a different location, Elrod quickly found his way to the industrial section and to the elevator where the drone had attempted to kill him. He was able to call it, and it arrived. He and the two ponies rode on it in silence. It looked like it had before: like a normal elevator. Elrod had hoped that there would be stains from the fluids the drone had leaked when he had destroyed it, and there probably were- -amidst decades of other stains from various sources that all seemed to merge together on the floor.

They eventually disembarked in one of the lower parts of Support Station Twelve. As soon as they did, Twilight crossed the bridge and entered a small service catwalk that looped around to a large utility junction.

“What are you doing?” asked Elrod.

“You didn’t notice? The elevator had security cameras.”

Elrod looked back at it just as the doors were closing and as it rose upward. He did not see them, but of course they had to be there. This was part of a large utility station that most likely belonged to Aetna-Cross. There was no reason why there would not be security cameras.

Twilight entered a small alcove of the machinery that resembled an angular “U”. Instead of accessing the interface, she approached a service panel. She opened it and stared for a moment, flipping open various ports until she found one she liked. Then, as Elrod watched, something silver and segmented snaked out from below the hair that covered her neck. Elrod almost cried out, not knowing what it was, but he contained himself and watched as the prehensile metal appendage snaked out and plugged itself into one of the access ports.

“This device is wireless compatible,” noted Forth.

“Hardline is always better,” said Twilight as though it were obvious. She paused and took out another cigarette. It lit automatically as she removed it from the pack and she took a deep breath.

“That will kill you, you know,” said Elrod.

“I don’t even have real lungs,” said Twilight. “Ponies get cancer about as often as toasters do.”

“Then why bother? Toasters aren’t exactly affected by nicotine either.”

“I do it because I like to. And it’s none of your business.”

Several holographic images opened up on the interface. Elrod looked at them, and saw that they were a recording from the corner of one of the elevators.

“I searched through all recorded video and found the one with you in it,” said Twilight. “I figured I should show you what I saw so that you can explain this.”

The video began to play. There was no sound, but it was in color, or at least the strange fluctuating way that holograms tended to render color. Elrod reached to the top of the interface and wiped the projector with the corner of his coat, causing it to flicker for a moment before stabilizing.

He saw the elevator, just as it had been that day. The engineer Fluttershy was standing in the center of the elevator, and the drone in the rear right corner. Although the motion of the elevator was not perceptible from the image, Elrod assumed that it was moving.

Then he saw it stop. He could tell because a light on its floor selection panel indicated so. The door opened, and he saw himself step on.

“Damn,” he said. “I’m that ugly?”

“Pretty much,” said Twilight.

“I don’t think you look that bad,” said Forth. “For a human, anyway.”

Elrod continued to watch the video. He saw himself step in and stand near the Fluttershy. They spoke to each other, as he remembered, and went silent for a moment. He saw the Fluttershy reach for her head as though she were beginning to develop a migraine.

And nothing happened. He continued to stand there, impassive for a moment, until he spoke with her again. She turned and smiled and said something in return before they both went silent again. The drone never once moved from its spot, its optics slowly scanning its surroundings but never landing on anything in particular.

After a few minutes, the elevator stopped. The Fluttershy stepped off, and the door closed. It went up several more levels, and when it stopped Elrod departed calmly. The drone was left standing alone as the elevator rose one more floor, where it got off while a pair of heavily modified human engineers stepped on in its place.

“It- -it didn’t happen like that!” cried Elrod.

“The video is clear,” said Forth. “No attack was made, from the drone or otherwise.”

“But it did attack me! I tried to shoot it! I DID shoot it! I- -I killed it!”

“You can’t kill a drone,” said Twilight.

Elrod’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t believe me.”

` Twilight disconnected herself from the system and the holograms flickered out. “There’s a saying,” she said, after a moment. “It goes something like: don’t believe anything you hear, and believe less of what you see.”

“I do not understand,” said Forth. “The video was conclusive. There was no fight. Mr. Jameson never approached either the Fluttershy or the drone.”

“Exactly,” said Twilight. One corner of her mouth turned upward in the slightest of smiles. “But then how did he get her pistol?”

Part I, Chapter 5

Twilight had been able to identify the Fluttershy from the image and cross-reference her ID number with her employment data. This provided them with various information about her, but most importantly her home address. She, like many of the workers on this particular water processing operation, lived in Support Station Twelve. The station itself was separated into a number of terraces and balcony floors, and the Fluttershy’s apartment was midlevel on the quieter side of the support column that faced away from SteelPoint City.

The apartment itself was set against a long, circular balcony that served as an access street to the various apartments on the level. It had a railing, but overlooked a sheer drop that stretched down hundreds if not thousands of feet. The air was cold, and it was windy. Elrod pulled the collar of his still-wet coat up around his head.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked. “I don’t want to bother her.”

“Well, tough. Because that’s the only way to get this done. Unless you know of another witness?”

Elrod did not respond, but pulled his collar even high and frowned.

They approached the door, and Twilight stopped Elrod. “Try not to talk,” she said. “I’m a Twilight. We generally get along well with Fluttershys, but they tend to be unpredictable.”

“As in?”

“As in keep your trap shut and let me do my job. I only need you here as a face reference.”

With that- -and before Elrod could retort- -Twilight knocked on the door. There was a long pause as nothing happened.

“I don’t think she’s home.”

“She is,” said Twilight. “I can see her. She’s just very quiet.”

Twilight proved to be correct. There was a tap against the door from the inside, which Elrod figured was the Fluttershy’s front hooves as she stood up to look through the peephole. This was followed by another pause, and then a number of mechanical sounds as numerous deadbolts and locking mechanisms were unfastened.

The door cracked open with an odd jingling of many chains that held it closed. A large blue eye and a wisp of pink hair poked out.

“H…hello?” whimpered the Fluttershy. “I’m not expecting company right now.”

“Meredith Fluttershy?”

The Fluttershy’s eye widened. “Yes, that is me. I am Meredith.”

Twilight opened the lapel of her coat, revealing a metallic disk covered in Georgian script. “PI, Twilight Sparkle. I’m a detective.”

“A detective? Oh my, I haven’t done something wrong, have I?”

“No, Meredith, of course not. I’m not with the police anyway. Just a PI. I just have a few questions.”

“Questions? About what?”

Twilight leaned to her side and gestured toward Elrod. “Have you seen this man before?”

Meredith looked up at Elrod, and she smiled. “Oh, yes. I remember. You were on the elevator the other day. We talked about traveling.”

“We did,” said Elrod. “Have you booked your trip to Pittsburg yet?”

Meredith laughed. “Oh no, not yet. It’s been very busy lately. Hold on a second.” She closed the door, and there was a sound of many chains being disconnected from the door. Then, after what seemed like at least twenty chains, the door swung inward.

“Please,” said Meredith, “come in.”

Twilight bowed slightly and immediately entered. Elrod followed her, and Forth- -who had been admiring the view from the balcony- -followed last.

The first and most striking thing about the apartment was the smell. It did not smell bad exactly, but it was immediately apparent that animals were present. Elrod could smell the scent of their bedding and the characteristic odor of aquariums, as well as the plastic-like scent of hot electric lights.

The second thing that became apparent was that, to Elrod at least, the apartment was massive. It was at least twenty feet deep and ten wide, and appeared to have at least one additional room in the back. As the smell had indicated, though, the entire room was filled with animal enclosures. Glass tanks lined all the walls, and several rows had been set up in the center with pony-width aisles between them. Many of them were aquariums that bubbled and hissed under strangely colored artificial light, but many also contained reptiles, amphibians, and strange insects all under red, blue, or yellow light. There were mice, rats, small birds, and a few things that Elrod could not identify. He even noted a striped genet sitting on top of one of the larger aquariums, watching him with yellow eyes.

A growl suddenly drew his attention to a corner near him. The only light in the room was from the glow of the aquariums and terrariums, so it took his eyes a moment to adjust. When they did, he found himself staring into a pair of beady reddish-black eyes. Those eyes were, in turn, connected to a shaggy pony-sized creature with hair missing from several parts of its body. It took a step forward on its long, thin legs, and Elrod instantly became aware of both its long, naked tail and its teeth. It lacked canines, but instead had a set of long, yellow incisors that were exposed as it bared them.

“Thaaaaaaat’s a hyperwolf,” he said, barely believing it- -and barely believing that he was not panicking. The creature did not look happy, and it took another step forward. A small bell on its collar jingled.

“Leroy!” said Meredith. “That’s no way to treat guests, now, is it?”

The creature looked at her, and showed no sign of shame. It did, however, stop advancing.

“You have a hyperwolf,” said Elrod. “In your house.”

“Well, of course. Isn’t he just the cutest thing?”

“Is…is he rabid?”

“Oh, silly! Of course he is! All hyperwolves carry rabies!”

“And that doesn’t concern you?”

“I’m a pony. If zoonotic diseases affected me, I’d be long dead by now. And it would be worth it.” She laughed, and in the light Elrod saw that her pupils were oddly shaped. They seemed more linear than round.

“Don’t mess with it, and it won’t mess with you,” said Twilight.

“Exactly,” said Meredith. “Now, can I get you anything? I’m afraid I only have animal food and water.”

“Nothing for me,” said Twilight. “But thank you.”

“I could use some water,” said Elrod.

“I do not require anything at this moment,” said Forth.

Meredith paused and looked at Forth for a moment. “A Blossomforth?” she said. “I wasn’t aware that they still made you.”

“We are reasonably common as a whole. We are less common in this area.”

“I’m seventy-three years old, and I’ve never met one of your kind once.” Fluttershy smiled. “That means today is going to be a good day, isn’t it?” She turned around and moved between her rows of aquariums. “Let me find that water. Now, what was it you wanted to ask me?”

“This man,” said Twilight, following her through the purple and blue lights of the tanks above her. “You said you saw him before?”

“Yes. I did.” Fluttershy was leaning over a sink and pouring a glass of water. “We were riding the elevator together.”

“Do you remember everyone you ride the elevator with?”

“No. But most people who take the service elevator work for Aquarion, so I know a lot of them. He didn’t, and I thought that was odd. That, and, well…” She paused for a moment. “…he has something of a distinctive face? I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude, but…well…he does.”

“No need to apologize,” said Twilight. “It’s true.”

Meredith got down off of the stepstool she was using to reach the sink and perched the glass of water between her wings to carry it to Elrod. “Here,” she said. “It’s good. I know, I helped make it.”

Elrod took the glass and drank some of the water. It did not really matter what it tasted like to him; he was thirsty. He was surprised to find that it had absolutely no taste.

“It doesn’t taste like anything.”

Meredith smiled broadly. “I know! That’s the magic of the system! Did you know that I actually breed aquatic salamanders with that water? That’s how pure it is.”

“You are a hydrologist,” said Forth.

“I am,” said Meredith. “I don’t want to brag, but I think we’re pretty good at what we do.”

“I don’t doubt that,” said Twilight. “But that day, when you were on the elevator with this man. Can you tell me what happened?”

“What happened?” Meredith looked confused. “Nothing happened. We got on the elevator, spoke for a moment, and then got off. I got off first I think.”

“Did you notice a drone on the elevator with you?”

“A drone?” Meredith paused for a moment. “I don’t recall. Maybe, we have contracts to use our elevators to transport them out of the work environment when they need repairs. But they’re just so ordinary I just overlook them. Is that mean to them? I mean, they’re just robots, but I’d hate to hurt their robot-feelings.”

“How noble,” said Forth.

“So you don’t remember an interaction between this man and the drone? No fights, or anything of that nature?”

“Fights? Oh my, no! You mean with a drone? Is that even possible? No! It was a very peaceful ride. I think I would remember if there was anything like that.”

“Then you do you explain why he has your gun?”

“My what?”

Elrod reached into his pocket and produced the weapon. He presented it to Meredith with both hands. “I believe this is yours?”

She looked at it, clearly confused. “Why, yes it is. But I was sure I had lost that one…” She looked up at Elrod. “How…how do you have it?”

“I borrowed it,” he said.

Meredith looked at Twilight. “I…yes. I always carry that one with me. Just in case. But I hadn’t seen it since…” She paused. “Since that day…”

“And did he take it from you?”

“You mean did he steal it? No! He doesn’t seem like the kind of man who would steal a little pony’s only means of protection. Besides, I’m a Fluttershy. I tend to…well, it’s embarrassing, but I tend to scream if strangers touch me. Really high.”

` “So then how does he have your gun?”

Meredith shook her head. “I don’t know.”

There was a long pause, and Twilight looked up at a large tank in which a number of long, narrow fish were swimming through the leaves of an overgrown mossy plant. “That’s what I needed to know,” she said at last. “Thank you, Meredith.”

“It’s not a problem,” said Meredith. “I’m just glad to help.”

“Forth,” said Twilight. “I think we’ve bothered Meredith long enough on her day off. It’s about time we moved on with our work.”

“Of course, Ms. Twilight.”

The pair of them walked toward the door. “Thank you again,” said Twilight.

“Your very welcome. And it was no bother at all. I do like company.”

“Before I go, though,” said Twilight. “Do you mind if I ask you something not business related?”

“Not business related? Like what?”

“You have incredible precision of motion. Really graceful, I mean.”

Meredith blushed. “Oh, thank you,” she said.

“I have to ask. What brand are you using?”

“Caterpillar,” said Meredith. “MK8, actually. It’s the newest model.”

“You don’t move like it’s new.”

“I know! I used to use a Deere, and it was fine but it just never did what I needed.” Her eyes perked up. “The representative that helped me was lovely too. I can introduce you if you’re thinking about an upgrade.”

“Thanks, but I think I’m fine for now. I guess you know how that feels.”

“I most certainly do.”

Meredith laughed softly, and Twilight and Forth exited her home. Elrod remained for a moment, though, before turning to her.

“You can have your pistol back,” said Elrod. “I may have used the ammunition. Sorry.”

Meredith looked at the pistol, and then pushed it away. “No,” she said. “I already got it replaced. And I don’t know why, but you look to me like you’re going to need it. Go ahead. Keep it.”

“Really?”

Meredith’s expression became serious. “It’s a sad truth, but one you learn to live with. In this world, you never know when you’re going to need something like that.”

Elrod joined Twilight and Forth outside. They were already walking back to one of the main access roads, which passed through a narrow area planted with anemic looking grass and castiron plants arranged in gauche row plantings.

“We did not get much information,” said Forth.

“We got enough,” said Twilight.

“The information we received corroborates the video.”

“Except that what’s on the video never happened,” said Elrod, trotting up behind them.

“The witness testimony suggests that what you claim to happen did not occur.”

“No,” said Twilight. “I’m more sure of his story than ever before.”

Blossomforth did not look confused. She did not have the capacity to. Her facial expressions seemed to be somewhat limited. The pair of them began to ascend a flight of stairs, with Elrod behind them. No one was around, and behind a view of the lights of the city below and across was visible through the cleft of the two buildings that surrounded them.

“I do not understand,” said Forth.

“The elevator. Did you notice what it smelled like?”

“No.”

“Freshly spilled hydraulic fluid and gunpowder.”

Elrod blinked. “Wait. Ponies have a sense of smell?”

“Of course we have a sense of smell,” said Twilight.

“Neither of those smells are uncommon,” said Forth. “Especially hydraulic fluid.”

“I know,” said Twilight. “Which is why I checked the company’s drone inventory.”

“When?” asked Elrod.

“While you were watching yourself on video.”

“And one drone was missing?”

“No. Every drone was accounted for.”

“But then that only corroborates the defined course of events further.”

“No it doesn’t,” said Twilight. They had reached the end of the stairs, and they turned around. Twilight looked between the gap of the buildings out at the walls and layers of the city that lay out across space from Support Section Twelve. “Because every drone is scanned daily. Part of it is for documentation, but also to check if they need to be repaired.”

“So?”

“So I have seen images of every drone that Aquarion and its partners use. None of them have isographic graffiti written on their backs.”

Elrod suddenly recalled what she meant. It had even been visible on the screen.

“What are you saying? That that drone was not one of theirs?”

“It could be,” said Twilight, “but I don’t think so. What it looks like to me is that somebody redacted part of the drone inventory. They made it look like one never existed.”

“Why?” asked Forth.

“Because if it were destroyed somehow, people would get suspicious. Drone checks are mostly automated, people don’t know the difference. Remove the entry from eh inventory, and it’s like the drone never existed at all.”

“Then the video? And the witness testimony?”

“Trench,” said Twilight. “You were wearing a half-visor in those pictures, weren’t you?”

“Yes!” said Elrod, remembering that he still had it. He reached into one of his pockets and produced it. “It ran out of power, and I haven’t had a chance to recharge it yet.”

“Let me see it.”

Elrod gave it to Twilight. She looked at it with disgust.

“What?”

“This is an Italian knockoff of a Serbian XNJ-24 tactical unit.”

“So?”

“So it’s shit. It’s what they gave the People’s Militia when they ran out of money for real equipment. This thing’s at least a century old, too. Did you find this in a dumpster?”

“Yes.” Elrod had not realized that Twilight was being sarcastic.

“And you put this on your face? Celestia’s beard, no wonder your hair fell out.”

“It didn’t ‘fall out’. I never had any in the first place.”

Twilight grumbled some more and hesitantly extended one of her interface cables. The end shifted as it adapted to accept the obsolete and proprietary data port that the half-visor used. Twilight winced.

“Goddamn it,” she said. “Even the malware in this thing is pitiful. These were half-assed viruses fifty years ago.”

Twilight took off her hat and slipped the visor over her own head, taking a moment to adjust it. “Okay,” she said at last. “The memory is fragmented to hell, but…” She paused. A pair of workers were approaching from the opposing path. One was a human wearing a full-face operator mask who walked with her supernumerary robotic arms folded behind her back. She was talking and laughing- -or at least producing a sound that Elrod thought was laughter- -with a creature that looked like a skeleton and walked on digitigrade legs; a secgen synth.

As they passed, Twilight pushed past them and toward a more secluded area of the small plaza where they were standing. She looked around for a moment and spied an elevator. As she approached it, it moved into place and opened to greet them.

They stepped on, and the door closed. The elevator did not move, though, as Twilight had not selected a level. Twilight looked up at the corner of the elevator, and Elrod saw a camera. It was much smaller than he thought it would be, and a small red light indicated that it was in operation. Almost as soon as Twilight looked at it, though, the light went out.

“Right,” she said. “Take a look.”

The pupil of Twilight’s right eye- -the one not covered by the half-visor- -narrowed and flickered with light. A high-resolution hologram appeared in front of her, although its quality was greatly diminished by that of the recording that it was playing.

The image was grainy and in poorly rendered color, but it was clear that it was showing the inside of the elevator that they had just been in. In fact, it was even more uncanny in that it was showing it from Elrod’s point of view. He remembered having seen this very sight just days earlier.

“It records?” he sputtered. “I- -I had no idea!”

“Shut it.”

Audio played from the video, although Elrod was not sure where it was coming from.

“...it’s just so very…daunting,” said a female voice. The video showed that a Fluttershy- -Meredith- -was speaking. “I’ve wanted to see Pittsburg, but with the War…”

“The War has been over for years,” replied a male voice.

“Is that what I sound like?” asked Elrod. “I do sound like a moron.”

“No kidding,” muttered Twilight.

Meredith spoke again. “Well, yes, but you can never be too careful.”

There was a pause, and the camera viewed the closed elevator door for a moment. Then it turned lightly, and Meredith was putting her hoof on her head with a strange expression on her face that Elrod had not noticed before.

Then the frame moved quickly. There was a glimpse of the drone twitching and spasming, and then a sudden surge of distorted motion as it lunged forward. Elrod was heard to cry out; he had not known he had screamed.

There was some fighting, which the camera distorted. Elrod was knocked to the ground, and the image went grainy and colorless. Despite this, the drone could still be seen looming over him and viciously tearing at him with its effector blade.

“Fluttershy!” he called in the recording, “HELP!”

The image faded out for a moment, with only distorted and pixilated blurs moving about. There was a distant sound of voices, followed by several crackling sounds as the microphone in the visor was overloaded with the sound of the heavy gunshots. The image shook, and only normalized in time to see the drone- -now missing an arm and full of holes- -shudder and keel forward. Then the hologram terminated.

“I knew it,” said Twilight. “The elevator smelled like it. Machine blood and gunpowder. Not the kind of things that leak out of equipment. Someone tried to clean it, but not well.”

“This does not match the video from before,” said Forth, sounding confused.

“Of course not.” Twilight took Elrod’s half-visor off. “Because this thing is ancient. I had to construct a custom emulator shell just to get access. It doesn’t give off a modern wireless signal. Unless I had seen it, I wouldn’t even have known to look for it.”

“What are you saying?”

Twilight frowned and looked straight ahead. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m saying that the video- -the first video- -was altered.”

“Or this video was altered,” said Forth. “The video from the elevator could be correct.”

“No, it’s not consistent. The missing drone, the gun changing hands, the fact that it’s empty. My gut says this video is right.” She looked up at Elrod. “Although…”

“Although what?”

“You took a punch straight to the chest from an industrial drone. Every rib in your chest should have been shattered.”

Elrod paused for a moment. “I’m more durable than I look,” he said at last.

“But that is not consistent,” argued Forth. “Fluttershy Meredith attested to not witnessing an altercation. Her story matches the security footage.”

Twilight was silent, and her expression darkened. “I know,” she said. The elevator they were on suddenly started to move. “I have reason to suspect her memory was altered.”

“Altered?” Elrod was confused by this. “Is that possible?”

“Not for humans, no,” said Twilight. “But ponies are just programs. Our memories and perception can be changed if someone knows how. But it’s not easy. Not easy at all.” She paused again. “I think we’re dealing with a technomancer.”

“A technomancer?” said Forth. “You mean like you?”

“Yeah,” said Twilight, taking out another cigarette. She lit it and took a deep breath from it. Elrod coughed from the acrid smoke. “That’s the only way both stories fit. It was a three-pronged attack. First, he altered Meredith’s perception. She didn’t react to the fight because she didn’t see it. Then he hacks the drone, takes manual control. The idea was to have it off you, and then doctor the footage so it looked like you walked yourself off and just disappeared. Except it didn’t go as planned.”

“So the person who attacked me was a technomancer?”

“Yup. Looks like it. But I don’t think he’s a very good one.”

Elrod blinked, even more confused. “Why? I almost died!”

“‘Almost’ being the operant word, trench. This guy is good. Not a lot of technomancers can hack a pony like that. But he’s also either arrogant or an idiot.”

“Why? All the changes in the footage, it almost worked perfectly.”

“Again, ‘almost’. And most of that was trying to cover up the mistake. You were supposed to die there. But consider the choice he made. A target alone in an elevator with a drone and a pony, both hacked. Why have the drone try to kill you and not the Fluttershy?”

Elrod actually laughed, but stopped when neither Twilight nor Forth joined him. “You have to be kidding. She’s a Fluttershy.”

“Yes. With a Caterpillar MK8 body. Do you have any idea what that is?”

“Um…no.”

“Caterpillar makes high-grade industrial systems. Top of the line. If that Fluttershy had wanted to, she could have torn that drone limb-from-limb as if it were wet tissue paper. I mean, come on. You couldn’t even fire her pistol properly lying on your back. Do you honestly think a Fluttershy would carry a gun she isn’t able to fire?”

Elrod had not considered that.

“Would it be possible to force a Fluttershy unit to do that?” asked Forth.

“It all depends on how you influence her. To make her attack out of spite or against her will? I don’t think so. It would be incredibly difficult. But this guy shut down her vision and hearing for a good half a minute. Why not just make the target appear to her as some horrible monster? She’d defend herself without hesitation.”

“I cannot answer these questions,” said Forth.

“Of course not. They’re rhetorical. The answer is like I said: either this technomancer is not competent enough to get the Fluttershy to attack, or too arrogant to realize that a rickety industrial drone was vastly inferior to a pony. I would bet my horn we’re dealing with a human.” Twilight turned to Elrod. “What the fuck did you do to piss off a technomancer?”

“Nothing! At least, nothing I’m aware of.” Elrod was shaking. “I’m a salvager! A junk dealer!”

“A garbage picker, you mean.”

“Yes! I’m nobody! Fancy bullets, hacking drones, coverups, why me? It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Unless you saw something they didn’t want you to see.”

Elrod fell silent. “Yeah,” he muttered to himself. “Shit…”

“Is it possible to catch the technomancer?” asked Forth.

Twilight let out a long trail of smoke form her nostrils and shook her head. “No. Do you want to try to track one of them down in this city? Honestly, I had hoped that they would try again when we went back to the scene of the crime. I was counting on it.”

“Wait- -you were using me as bait!”

“Sure was. So sue me. I could have figured this out and got your organs at the same time. But my guess? There’s not very many of them. Maybe just one or two guys. They were out trying to find you and assumed you weren’t enough of an idiot to come back.”

“But now they could be anywhere! It took everything I had to lose them, and even then it was only on accident!”

“I know. But maybe not in the way you think. Technomancers tend to lose sight of the real world. They’re probably trying to track the signal from your cybernetics.”

“I don’t have any cybernetics.”

“You don’t?” Forth looked surprised.

“I didn’t think so,” said Twilight. “That’s the reason you were using this piece of shit.” She handed him back the half-visor. The elevator slowed and came to a stop. Twilight sighed. “I think we might be able to track the guy down, but I need to think of a way to do it. That, and I really don’t want to mess with a murderous technomancer unless I really, really have to.”

“Then what now?” asked Forth.

Twilight looked up at Elrod. “Do you still have that implant you found?”

“Yes.” Elrod pulled back part of his outer trench coat and gestured to the pocket where it resided.

“Then we still have a clue to go on.”

The door opened, and Twilight started to step out.

“Wait,” said Forth. “Should we tell Meredith?”

Twilight stopped, her body blocking the door. She looked over her shoulder. “Tell her what? That some bastard went in her head, scrambling her memories and touching her very identity? She was violated, Forth. She’s better off not knowing.”

With a long sight, Twilight stepped through the elevator door and into the night.

Part I, Chapter 6

“Increase the distance seventy-eight millimeters,” ordered Twilight.

“Okay,” said Forth. She changed her position.

“No, still no good. Angle it out at sixty-four degrees.”

“Also okay.” Forth shifted again, changing the angle of the narrow antennae that she held wrapped in her hooves. By this point, her body was contorted strangely and awkwardly. To Elrod, it looked painful, but Forth seemed to experience no discomfort.

“Eh,” said Twilight, grimacing. “It’s not good but it’s the best we’ll get. Hold it there.”

“That is what I am currently doing. I can continue to do that.”

The three of them were sitting in a black van. It belonged to Twilight, and was the cheap electric sort that was designed to fold down into a half-yard cube when not in use but that would crumple like paper in any sort of collision. As with most automobiles, the windows were completely blacked out. The only light came from a dim lamp installed in the ceiling.

Twilight and Elrod were sitting in the front. Neither of them were in the driver or passenger’s seat, because this type of vehicle had neither. In order to save space, it- -like most things- -was meant to be piloted using a virtual interface or by manual mental control, as Twilight did. Forth was sitting in the back of the van, holding several pieces of an antenna that were linked to a device that was in turn linked to three of the silver segmented cables that attached to Twilight’s neck.

“Right,” said Twilight. “This is going to take me a second.” She leaned back in her chair before reaching forward with one hoof and tapping the interface for the vehicle’s built-in radio. A tinny and raspy noise came out, and Twilight dialed in a radio station. Strange old music came through, followed by an announcer stating the frequency and call number.

“PLR?” said Elrod, looking mildly amused. “You actually listen to that stuff?”

“Hell yeah. It’s great. Have you ever listened to the Pam and Stoshball show?”

“No.”

“Oh. Well, yeah. You’re probably too young to remember it.”

Twilight sighed and leaned back and extended her hoof. Without being told, Elrod handed her the implant. Twilight picked it up and looked at it.

“Huh,” she said. “Strange.”

“What’s strange?”

“I don’t recognize the maker, and it’s not marked. It’s not a normal component though. Really high quality. A lot of extra stages and parts that I don’t recognize.”

“Then what is it?”

“Like I said. A neural interface. Just a weird one. Couldn’t hope to test it, though.”

“Why not?”

Twilight looked at Elrod as if it were obvious. “Well, if you want to donate a brain to embed it in, be my guest.”

“No thank you.”

“Eh, it wouldn’t have worked anyway. It’s messed up bad. This is just a piece. But it will work for this.”

Twilight reached on the ground behind her and picked up a small device that was tethered to the machine in the rear by several nanofiberoptic cables. It was roughly the size and shape of a wide flashlight, but one end was made of dark-colored metal and consisted of a series of convoluted tubes while the other consisted of a glass cylinder. Twilight opened the glass cylinder with her teeth, being careful not to spill the liquid inside, and then dropped the implant inside. She closed the device and pressed the glass part downward into the metal part, and then shook it.

“Right,” she said, setting the device down. “Let’s see what we have…” She stared forward, as if she could see something that Elrod could not. “Here we go. Transcription pattern associated with neurons. That will work.”

“What are you doing?”

“A genetic scan. Hold on…and there. We have the sequence.”

“So we can find out who it belonged to.”

“We could. The problem is that this city has over two billion people, and the world has a whole lot more. We could search all of them, but…”

“It will take time.”

“Ha. No. It would take less than a second. But Aetna-Cross would probably notice if we started scanning through the whole database. And we’re not exactly using their servers legally.” Twilight sighed. “But I guess it has to be done.”

“Can I see the data?”

“What? Sure. Here.” Twilight passed Elrod an operator mask. It felt oddly heavy in his hands, but he put it on.

The mask was black in color, with a pair of luminescent angular lines that ran vertically down both sides. When he put it on, though, he found that it appeared transparent. In fact, the formerly dark van suddenly looked well lit.

“Oh wow,” he said, looking around. He looked at Twilight, and then at Forth. As he did, he noticed that a number of small luminescent annotations seemed to surround Forth’s body.

“What the- -OW!”

He cried out as Twilight slapped him. “Were you just peeking at her metadata without asking?” she demanded, sounding disgusted.

“I- -well- -no- -but- -”

“You might as well just go back there and pick up her tail and see what she has underneath, you pervert!”

“I do not have genitals,” said Forth. “As such I would not mind. I have nothing to see.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Twilight.

“But I can’t see any around you,” said Elrod.

“Because I keep it suppressed,” said Twilight. She held out her hoof toward him. “Here,” she spat.

Information suddenly appeared in front of Elrod. It closely resembled a hologram, except far more solid and realistic. It was an interface for the device that Twilight had been using before, which was apparently a portable sequencer.

“Right,” said Elrod. He poked at the interface, and it reacted to his touch. He quickly scrolled through the sequence before flicking through the settings and modifying it to a karyotype reconstruction based on conserved chromosomal sequences.

“Wait,” said Twilight, seeming surprised at his ease of using the program. “What are you doing?”

“Look at this,” he said, showing her the karyotype. “Do you see it? Something is wrong.”

“What?”

“Look at the number of chromosomes. A normal human has a minimum of fifty but as high as seventy-four depending on modification, source, and pedigree. This sample only has forty-six.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Oh crap,” she whispered.

“There are no artificial chromosomes. Which means…” Elrod quickly passed both hands over the interface, tapping across several key chromosomes and expanding them to show individual gene locations. He quickly scanned through, looking at the genes present and rapidly opening individual sequences to rapidly scan through them.

“As I suspected,” he said. “No duplications, removals, and only a few transgenic additions. Most importantly, though, look.” He pointed. “No brand marks. Whoever this DNA belonged to was not born in a production house. They were born from a living mother.”

“Fuuuuuck me!” cried Twilight, throwing herself back in her seat.

“I’d rather not,” said Elrod.

“Don’t joke about that,” warned Forth.

“A natural-born! A fucking NATURAL-BORN!” swore Twilight. She put her hooves to her face. “Of course it would be a nater. Of course! Because that’s my luck, isn’t it? GodDAMN IT!”

“I don’t understand what the problem is.”

Twilight turned sharply to Elrod. “You don’t? Well let me explain it to you. The only people who can afford to have real birth rather than getting custom-made or even generic-produced children are the ultra-wealthy. And you just handed me a goddamn BRAIN. IMPLANT. Meaning that some spoiled ass of a rich kid got his brain splattered in some Celestia-forsaken lower district dump, and now I just stepped in this shit-case right up to fucking purple thighs! GODDAMN IT!”

“But it does limit the search. A natural-born person with no genetic modification is extremely rare. There are probably no more than a thousand.”

“And they’re all members of the top five levels, no doubt. Taking shits all day long on the rest of us…” Twilight sighed. “Of course. Fine. I’ll search it.”

Part of the interface changed, and a second window appeared near the first. It represented the search by passing images representing individual genomes by at an incredibly high speed.

“How the hell did you know all that, though?” asked Twilight after starting the search. “You didn’t have any references. You did that all manually.”

“I used to be a geneticist,” said Elrod. “Before I came here.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “You were a geneticist? Really? And now you’re living in L6 pulling scrap circuits out of dumpsters?”

Elrod looked forward toward the black front window of the van. “You’re a technomancer who can barely pay her office rent working as a private investigator. I think in that sense we are in the same boat.”

“I do not like boats,” said Forth from the back. “I do not trust them.”

“I have a match,” said Twilight. “Here.”

An image appeared next to the genetic interface. To Elrod’s surprise, it showed a pale and somewhat gaunt girl with black, greasy hair.

“Jennifer…no last name listed?” Twilight’s brow furrowed. “There’s almost no data on her.”

“There is an address, though.”

“I see it. Seven four point six on Feildpoint Drive on…Level C? What the hell?”

At that moment there was a tapping on Elrod’s window.

“Don’t open that!” cried Twilight.

It was too late. Elrod had reached up and tapped the window. The interference hologram that made it appear black faded and vanished. Elrod found himself staring into the hooded and stern face of a white unicorn stallion. Behind him not twenty meters away were the steps to the local Aetna-Cross Enforcement precinct, and he was wearing their colors.

He looked inside, and his eyes locked on Twilights. Twilight rolled her eyes.

“Shining Armor Hexel,” she groaned.

“Twilight Sparkle Morgana,” he replied.

Elrod looked at Twilight. “Your first name is Morgana?”

“Hexel!” called Forth from the rear. “Hello Hexel!”

“Hello, Blossomforth,” sighed Hexel. “Please put down the antennas.”

“I will do that!”

Hexel turned to Twilight, and Twilight faced forward, not wanting to meet his eyes.

“Is there a problem, Lieutenant?” she asked.

“Don’t give me that shit, Morgana,” he hissed, nearly pushing his head through the window. His blue eyes flared with anger, but Elrod had to stop himself from laughing when he realized that the only way Hexel could actually reach the van’s window was by standing on his hind legs and pressing his hooves against the door. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing. No, wait, of course you do. That’s the problem. Do you have any idea how illegal it is? Did you hear about the new executive order? Theft of Corporate resources is now considered treason against the Empire!”

“I’m on a case.”

“No shit. Of course you are. You’re always on a case, unless you’re smoking yourself to death or sticking your cables in some hooker’s neck!”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed, but she otherwise kept her composure. “Whatever you say, lieutenant. But I’ve got a job to do.”

“Really? Some man thinks his husband’s cheating on him again and wants pictures? Or does a mob boss want you to track down where his snitch is hiding?”

“A murder,” said Twilight. “There’s been a murder.”

Hexel laughed, but there was no humor in it. “A murder? A murder! Goddamn it Morgana, you’re a PI! You don’t DO murders! That isn’t your job! It’s ours!”

“It’s not anyone in your care network,” scoffed Twilight. “Don’t get your panties tied up. We’re not competing with Aetna-Cross. Just doing a job they were too good to try.”

“Well you know what, that’s not even the problem. Go ahead and get yourself killed, it would save me a lot of migraines. The problem is you coming up here- -right to the front of our building- -and bypassing all security measures to run your stupid little extraneous search!”

“Then why don’t you have your IT guys make a firewall that isn’t crap-shit? Because if I can hack you, who knows who else can.”

“No one else is dumb enough to try!” Hexel groaned and put his armored hoof on his horn. “Tell me, Morgana. Is there a reason I shouldn’t arrest you right now?”

“Because I don’t know how well the Department would react if they knew that the girlfriend you spend every night screwing is an Applebloom.”

Hexel’s jaw clenched slightly. “They don’t care what I do on my own time,” he said.

“Really? Well I think they might care if they knew you were dirty.”

“I’m not dirty.”

“I have several records of you turning a blind eye to certain saboteurs who look suspiciously like agents from the Geico vassal. And you’ve been buying that little Applebloom an awful lot of very expensive jewelry lately…”

Hexel pulled his head back from the window and looked around nervously, as though someone might have heard. When he saw no one in earshot, he leaned through the window. “So you’re finally going to call that information into play, are you? Go ahead. By the time internal affairs gets to me, I’ll already have a drone sent out with orders to hand me your severed head on a silver plate. You jeopardize my career, and I’ll jeopardize your life. Simple as that.”

Twilight looked at him, feigning deep sadness and shock. “You would do that to your own sister?”

“Since when do you believe in the Canon, Morgana?”

“I don’t. But it’s fine. We’re done here. We’ll be on our way, and I’ll go an solve a murder. You can go back to pushing around papers and then go home to your filly.”

Hexel sighed. “You’re a bitch. That’s why she left you. You know that, right?”

“Believe me,” said Twilight, staring the electrical engine in the vehicle. “I know.”

Hexel watched Morgana drive off, making sure that they were actually leaving. Somehow, he had a headache. As a member of Aetna-Cross, he had been modified to be immune to pain. For some reason, though, his head still hurt every time he had to deal with Twilight Sparkle Morgana. If he had been in possession of an organic stomach, he would have no doubt had an ulcer by now.

Once he was sure they were gone, he returned to the precinct. It took him several minutes to get back to the comfort of the windowless suite of offices in his department division, and he lit himself a cigarette as he entered the office. When he opened the door, a narrow-frame Rarity unit in a very well fitted uniform nearly identical to his own was waiting for him, standing beside his desk.

“Detective O’Doole,” he said, closing his door. “Did you get anything?”

“Detective Lynnette, if you don’t mind. O’Doole simply sounds uncouth. And yes. I did.”

Hexel climbed into his chair and set his cigarette on an already full ashtray that sat on top of his desk. “Show me.”

Images appeared in front of him. They were not holograms, but rather direct communications between him and the detective. Her artificial eyes glowed with light, and Hexel could see the complex code passing just beneath the lenses.

“She ran a genetic scan,” said the Rarity. “With a very unusual set of parameters.”

“Unusual? How so?”

“She was searching for natural-born humans with the minimum number of chromosomes. This was the result.”

A photograph appeared in the data that Hexel was reviewing. He stared at it and the associated data.

“Level C. A pauper. Not relevant.”

“No, not directly. But she is part of the pattern. The disappearances, I mean.”

Hexel groaned and picked his cigarette back up in his teeth. “Fuck,” he said. “If it’s gotten so bad that Morgana is starting to get into it, we’ve been slacking.”

“We do not have the resources to investigate more deeply,” said Lynnette. “The company forbids us from using resources to investigate those outside the care-network.”

“Which is more than two-thirds of them.”

“I do hate to be a bother, but the request for more funding?”

“Commander Nikolosov denied it. You know how humans are.”

“It is not proper to speak ill of the commander.”

“He knows my feelings on the matter. Fuck.” He leaned back in his chair. “Morgana is going to screw the whole thing, like she always does. We’re already spread as thin as we can be, what we do have is going to go to shit as soon as she starts digging. The whole thing is just too fragile right now.”

“Lieutenant,” said the detective. “There is something else.”

Hexel sat up. “What else can there be?”

“A second search. She performed two.”

“Two? How?”

“The first one was a carrier wave. In fact, judging by the way it was performed, she could easily have performed it much more quietly. I think she meant it to be seen. The queries were overlaid over a much more covert search. I only found it by chance. If her search criteria had been any larger, I would surely have missed it.”

“What was it? Another genetic matching scan?”

“No. Facial recognition.”

An image appeared, one that had quite clearly been taken from a pony eye. It showed a strangely hairless man with brown, scaly skin.

“Ugh,” said Hexel, wincing. “That’s a face that only a mother could love.” He looked up at detective Lynnette. “Who is he?”

The detective gave him a cold smile, and he knew that she had found something interesting but not at all good. Several million images flashed by in an instant before one locked itself into the frame next to the strange bald human.

Hexel leaned forward. The new picture showed what he at first believed to be a different man entirely. The image showed a young man with an arrogant and conceited smile. His skin was clear and perfect, and he had both a thin mustache and longish hair that was slicked back and greased. From the look of it, his hair would have been plenty greasy even without whatever oil he had put into it.

It was almost impossible to believe, but these two pictures matched almost identically in terms of basic facial structure.

“Ugh,” repeated Hexel. “Somehow this is even worse. Who is this guy?” he leaned in, reading the data. “Bronislav Miguel Spitzer VIII,” he read. “Horrible name…natural born, minimum chromosomes, disappeared…” He scanned through the rest of the data, not especially interested until his eyes caught one particular word. When they did, they widened. “Monsanto,” he whispered. Quickly, he looked through the rest and confirmed his fears. “By the grace of Twinkleshine Prime,” he said to himself. He closed out all the windows and looked up at Lynnette.

“Lieutenant?”

“Listen very carefully. Nothing we just talked about leaves this room. Absolutely nothing! You’ve got that?”

“I do,” she said slowly.

“This is bad. Really, really bad. But we can handle it. Okay. Get me every file on this case. All of them. Make sure I have the only copies. I’m pulling everyone off this case.”

“Lieutenant, is that something Nikolosov will allow?”

“He’ll be fine with it if it saves money. And it won’t matter because we’ll make sure he doesn’t notice.”

“We?”

“Yes. This is your case now.”

“Lieutenant Shining Armor,” said Lynnette, slowly, “while I will gladly take on this responsibility, I need to first understand why you are so concerned.”

“Look over his file again.”

Lynnette did so almost instantly. When she did, she let out a small gasp. “Oh my. The only son of Monsanto’s high-chairman. Natural born, minimum chromosomes, no cybernetics…and missing.” She looked up at her boss. “A pure human. One of the last, I think. And you think Morgana has information regarding this?”

“She would not have searched if she didn’t, and she wouldn’t have hid it if she wanted us to know. Find that man, this Spitzer. Top priority. Don’t let Morgana know that we know.” He leaned forward. “Maybe he’s just some entitled asshole on vacation. Hopefully he is. But if something happens to him in Aetna-Cross territory…or if he pulls something…I assume you understand the significance of this?”

Detective Lynnette bowed. “Yes, sir.” She paused. “But I think she already knows…”

Part I, Chapter 7

Enormous gears clunked loudly beneath the cracked platform as it descended. Elrod looked up and around him, feeling slightly nervous as the oblique tunnel passed. The platform was descending at a steep diagonal through a seamless concrete tunnel that reeked of machine oil and stale urine. The pitted and laitance-covered walls had been marked heavily in graffiti in many languages, at least where people had been able to reach.

The platform itself was almost entirely empty despite its size. It appeared to have once been large enough to transport heavy machinery, like light tanks or small vehicles. Some of the oil stains still marked that such things had once been here, but all that remained was a pile of tires and a few faded plastic pallets pushed to one side. Other than Twilight, Forth and Elrod, the only other passenger was a man dressed entirely in dirty rags who sat on the far end of the platform. He was shaking badly and coughed periodically in a way that made him sound almost comically like a seal. Elrod could not see his face, but a crisp blue light from several optic apertures was visible from beneath his hood. There was a strong possibility that despite his labored breathing he was already long dead.

“I’ve never been here before,” said Elrod.

“Of course you haven’t,” said Twilight, appearing to dismiss the thought entirely. She just kept looking forward toward the partially lit depths where the tunnel led, slowly producing a trail of smoke that traced her path downward for a few feet before dissipating.

Elrod could not keep himself from asking any longer. “Where are we going, Morgana?”

“Did I say at any point that you can call me that?” snapped Twilight. “Twilight Sparkle. Or Twilight if you’re a lazy ass.”

“So only your friends use your first name.”

“I’m a detective. I don’t have any friends.”

“And now you’re evading the question,” said Forth. She did not seem to be pressing Twilight, but had rather just simply decided to point it out. Twilight glared at her, and Forth immediately went back to contemplating some sparse moss that was growing up through a crack in the platform.

“We’re going to Level C,” said Twilight.

“That isn’t a real level,” said Elrod.

“No, it isn’t, but anyone who thinks there are ‘real levels’ is an idiot. That’s not how the city’s built.”

“But that IS how it’s built.”

“My point exactly.”

Elrod was confused. “I don’t understand.”

“My point was that you are an idiot. Tell me: how many levels do you think Bridgeport has?”

“Four hundred and sixty eight.”

Twilight laughed, snorting so hard she nearly expelled her cigarette. “Are you kidding me? Who told you that?”

“An old man who knew a lot about a lot of things.”

“Well he was either senile or joking. Even the Enterprise Zone doesn’t have over one hundred. And they’re not even. Different sizes, different levels. It’s pretty even where the interstate goes through, but everywhere else is a complete mess. Navigating it without computers would be impossible.”

“Then where is C?”

“All levels below zero are given letters.”

Elrod’s eyes widened and his breath caught. He felt himself backing up quickly from Twilight, and from the blackness that the platform was leading to. “You- -you’re taking me to the Depths!” He cried. “I- -I can’t go there! That’s suicide! I’m- -I’m not a delver, I don’t have the equipment, I can’t- -I just CAN’T- -”

“Relax or I will make Forth relax you,” said Twilight. Forth looked up at the sound of her name and smiled. “Like I said, the levels aren’t even. Contrary to ‘facts’, not all parts of the Depths are uninhabitable or uninhabited. It’s not consistent, though. A few patches of underground districts still work. C is one of them.” Twilight muttered to herself. “And probably the best of them, if that even means anything.”

“But the Depths- -”

“It’s a nebulous term for different regions. Frankly, I’ve read most of the city schematics. Most of its lost and half of it was forged for tax reasons, but I’m pretty sure the Depths are at least the same size as the upper part of the city.”

Elrod gasped. “That much? But…what’s down there?”

“How the hell should I know? I have no business down there. Probably just a lot of junk in the upper levels. A ton of hyperwolves, and technovores. Satan knows what in the lower ones. Hell, I don’t think anyone knows how deep it goes or what’s down in all of those levels anymore.”

“The bottom,” said Forth. Twilight and Elrod turned to her, and she looked surprised. “That is what is down there. At the end. The bottom.”

“But we’re not going there,” said Elrod.

“Of course not. You could pay me a billion vod an hour and I still wouldn’t go down there. No point in getting paid if you end up dead.”

The gears below suddenly shuddered, causing Elrod to stumble. The course they were on was slowly leveling out. Above them, more lights were visible. Only a few were working; the rest had decayed completely into empty, rusted sockets that were occasionally filled with rat or bird nests. The smell of oil had grown much stronger, as had the scent of old urine. There were other things too, though. A strange, wet rotting smell combined with the scent of especially acrid food.

“It stinks down here.”

“Everywhere you humans live reeks,” said Twilight. “Level C is not different.”

The platform came to a stop, and Twilight leapt off onto the nearby platform. There were no stairs or ramps over the rather sizable gap. There might once have been, but all that was left were rusted bolts where they had been connected.

Forth left as well, her wings buzzing as she flew to the other side. Elrod hesitated but eventually jumped. The platform began moving almost as soon as he left, and it caused him to falter. The man with them did not get off, but the sudden motion caused him to slump to one side. He had ceased shivering.

“Smooth,” said Twilight as she turned toward a wide arc that led out of what passed for a station.

Forth approached Elrod. “It is important that you know that this area is not very safe,” she said.

“I survived SteelPoint City, didn’t I? It can’t be worse than that.”

Twilight looked over her shoulder. “Thought like that get you killed.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll see. Stay close to Forth. Don’t do anything stupid, and don’t try to do anything smart either.”

The exited the tunnel, and the first thing Elrod was struck by was the sense of suffocating tightness. He had become accustomed to living in environments with high, convoluted ceilings from where enormous equipment had been long ago gutted. In this place, though, the ceiling was so low that they were nearly indoors- -yet at the same time quite clearly outside.

There were almost no lights, save for those mounted onto the buildings. These mostly included an exceptional number of neon signs that glowed in a number of bright, vibrant colors that all seemed to be shades of red or violet. In places where two or more stories were visible from the blocks on either side, Elrod would sometimes see an incredibly intense glow from upper windows. Usually, though, the lights up there were dim.

Despite the glow, the area was eerily quiet. There was none of the bustle of SteelPoint City with the vendors hawking their goods or people getting into arguments on the streets. Despite all of the businesses here, everything seemed eerily quiet. A fog rising up from the drainage grates only added to this strangeness.

This was not to say it was empty. There were people. Many were human, or had once been. Most of them bore cybernetics to varying degrees. That in itself was not unusual: humans without any implantation at all were virtually nonexistent. What made them stand out, though, was that their modifications were distinctly severe. Whereas the normal fashion was to attempt to keep a person looking as human as possible, these people had eschewed that aesthetic completely. Many of their implants were heavy and bizarre, and often of low quality. When skin was visible, it was apparent that they had experienced severe scarring around whatever pieces of metal or heavy ceramic had been embedded in their bodies.

Elrod walked past one particular person whose entire left side seemed to have been replaced with something that would look more appropriate on a factory floor. Half his face had been badly destroyed by infection around a botched eye implant, and he wore a bandana over his mouth- -if he even had a mouth at all. Much of his exposed chest was metal, and several tubes ran into it from a system on his back, feeding his circulatory system with whatever fluids he chose.

Walking next to him was a companion who was apparently a pony. It was hard to tell, though, because she lacked skin entirely. Every aspect of her complicated robotic components was visible underneath minimalistic outer plating. This did not seem to be out of poverty, though: the plating she wore had been etched with incredibly complicated patterns, and it seemed that she had installed a system of fluorescent neon lights throughout her body that gave her a sinister red glow as she walked.

Her eyes turned toward Elrod. They were the only part of her that still looked like a pony. The irises were red. “What the fuck are you looking at?” she demanded.

Elrod turned away. “Nothing,” he muttered.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought bitch.”

“What did I tell you?” said Twilight as they passed. “Try not to make eye contact, idiot.”

“Why did she look like that?”

“Why wouldn’t she look like that? She has the freedom to look like whatever she damn well pleases.”

“But I’ve never seen a pony like that.”

“Not on the upper levels, no. But things are different down here. The culture isn’t the same.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course not. You’re from up there. To them, everything ‘up there’ hates them, so they hate everything associated with ‘up there’.”

“But I don’t hate them.”

“You don’t hate them because you’re an Idaho farm boy living in a dump with no idea how this city functions on a macroscopic scale. Trust me. Bridgeport cut this place off like a tumor, but it’s still here. It probably always will be. Hell, it’ll probably be even bigger by the time you’re an old geezer pissing your diapers in an old-folks home.”

“Cut off? But there’s still power, and water- -”

“All stolen, or coming from unregistered reactors. Trust me. They’ve tried to kill C for a while. No matter what they do, it keeps running, and growing, filling in the rest of the city as it dies. Like a goddamn infection. Nobody bothers anymore. The vassals just leave it alone. They don’t come down here anymore.”

“You mean Aetna-Cross won’t even send enforcers.”

“Aetna-Cross probably would, but this area is under CL&P rule. As long as no one messes with their primary switching stations, they don’t give a shit.”

“This place is thought to have a very high crime rate,” said Forth.

“Thought to?”

“No criminal census has been conducted. No data is available.”

“Trust me,” said Twilight, “there is crime here. And not like there is higher up. Drug manufacture, unlicensed medicine, bootleg components, unauthorized human experimentation, prostitution of every single type- -it’s all here. And more.” Twilight paused and threw a cigarette butt on the ground. It hissed on the wet pavement and she got a fresh one. “Back in the day, this area was a landfill. They used to mine it. Well, they mined the whole thing out. It’s empty, but Level C is still in the hole. To me it seems oddly appropriate.”

Elrod was about to comment when his eyes were drawn to a storefront as they passed. It was recessed beneath the main building above, which was supported by a pair of poorly painted columns decorated by strings of red diode lights. The front of the store had several neon signs flashing slowly in patterns of letters that Elrod could not read, and behind two glass windows he could see the shadowy and barely lit figures of two women quietly dancing. There was no music. He could tell that both of them were nearly naked.

More individuals were outside. Some of them were human, and like the girls dancing behind the windows they were barely clothed. They wore skirts and tiny, colorful tops that looked washed out in the red light coming from the storefront. Most of them had taken effort to make their cybernetic limbs or faces at least look somewhat human, although with varying degrees of success. Those of them that had eyes seemed to stare in a way that was both piercing and distant.

Elrod stopped and suddenly became aware of the fact that the few human men and women were not alone. They were accompanied by ponies. The ponies, though, were far smaller than they should have been. They stood nearly half Twilight or Forth’s height, which made them only about a foot high overall. They wore clothing somewhat similar to the women, which largely consisted of various combinations of sheer socks and tiny pony skirts.

“Hey there,” said one of the tiny ponies. She stepped forward through the mist. Elrod could see that she was a unicorn type. Her overall white coat was covered mostly by a tight leather harness and a collar, and her white and violet hair had been combed neatly.

“Hello,” said Elrod, trying to be polite.

The pony looked up at Elrod. He did not know how, but her eyes- -mechanical eyes, produced in some factory that neither of them would ever see again- -were as distant as the human women who now watched passively. The pony’s smile, though, was practiced and as sincere as she could make it. “You don’t look like you get very much,” she said.

“Much what?”

She giggled. It was an oddly girlish sound. Then she flipped around, pointing her rear at him. She was wearing a small skirt but nothing underneath it. As she flicked her tail, Elrod was surprised to see that she was anatomically correct. “How about you help me get my cutie mark? Only twenty vod the first time. Thirty if you want to have one of my friends help me.” She smiled at a human woman with an artificial lower jaw, and she waved.

“He doesn’t have any money,” said Twilight, leaning back.

The small pony’s eyes darkened, but her smile and voice remained as cheerful as ever. “Well, then, kindly fuck off until you get more. Then you can come back and fuck ON. I’ll be waiting. Ask for XN6. I promise, I’m as tight as you would expect for a little virgin filly.”

Twilight nodded to Forth who forcibly pushed Elrod away by pressing her forehead against his legs. Elrod picked up pace and left with his companions. As he watched, he saw the numerous blank eyes of many fillies watching him leave. Not once did they blink.

“If she’s a virgin then I’m a friggin potted dracaena,” said Twilight.

“Those…those were children,” said Elrod, looking back. “Child prostitutes- -Twilight, please tell me that…that it’s not something that goes on down here.”

“I’m not going to lie to you. No enforcement means no enforcement. But if it makes you feel any better, those weren’t children.”

“But they were small, and the way their voices sounded- -”

“They look like real fillies in the same way I look like a real horse. Am I? No. I’m a machine. Forth is a machine. THEY are machines. Hell, half of them were probably from the first set.”

“The first set- -but then they were created for toys for children.” Elrod looked back. “But now…now they’re like this?”

“Toys for ‘children’. Yeah, sure. That girl you talked to probably lost her virginity two days after she came out of the box.”

“But then why are they still here, doing this? They’re ponies. They could do anything.”

“Because you don’t really get over something like that. It sticks in you. I mean, you may not have noticed, but I hate humans. I hate them so much. Part of the reason is what you just saw. Their stuck as almost-children forever, and all they can managed to do is get railed by strangers every night.”

“I would think they perhaps enjoy it,” said Forth. “Not in a physical sense. That this is a job they like. I like my job. I can empathize.”

“I don’t like this,” said Elrod. “And I don’t like that. I don’t want to think about it. It’s not my problem but now I have to think about it anyway. Why did you even bring me down here?”

“Because we have a job to do,” said Twilight. “It’s not my fault if you have to see the way things really are on the way.”

They proceeded deep into Level C, through numerous streets that only seemed to grow thinner and thinner as the buildings grew taller. The ceiling was not growing higher so much as the roads below were dropping, forming ramps and separating C into multiple floors. Some of the main roads were wide enough for the occasional old and unmarked truck to pass down, but for the most part Twilgight avoided those. She instead tended to follow the poorly constructed and convoluted catwalks that led through the upper levels of the buildings until she finally had to descent to the barely lit concrete below.

“Here it is,” she said, suddenly stopping at a door. It was in a relatively nondescript building that appeared to have once been a prefabricated housing façade that had since been reinforced by bricks. There were few windows, and the ones that there were had metal bars over them.

“This place?” said Elrod. He looked at Twilight confused. “But you said pure humans are always rich. This doesn’t exactly look like a place a rich person would be living.”

“Because it isn’t. That’s why I’m really curious to see who opens that door when you knock on it.”

“M…me?”

“For all I know they’ll just shoot through the door. I’d rather not get filled with bullets.”

“Well neither would I, frankly.”

“Of course not. You’d be insane if you did. But you’re expendable. I’m not. Besides, Forth will have you covered.”

Elrod looked behind him. Forth, dressed in her dark colored coat with its fake-fur fringe which was no doubt still over her ridiculously colored cutesy dress, waved with a smile on her face.

“That makes me feel better,” said Elrod. He was, of course, being sarcastic, but Forth did not seem to have the capacity to understand this. “Can I at least have some ammunition?”

“Do you have any idea how much .700 NE costs? Besides. I don’t want you to shoot our lead. Just do it.”

Elrod gulped, but he did as he was told. He approached the door. It was large and made of fiberglass, and although it had once been painted it was peeling. In a few places large holes had been knocked in it and subsequently patched, although not well.

There was no bell, So Elrod raised his knuckles and knocked. The sound that came out was weak and off. Knocking on a door required both a hard door and hard bones in one’s knuckles to make a sound. In this case, one of those things was missing. Elrod hoped that the odd timbre of his knock would be blamed on his nervousness. That part was, in fact, true.

After knocking on the door, nothing happened. It did not open, but nor did bullets come flying through it. Elrod was about to allow himself to feel relieved when it suddenly swung open.

For some reason, Elrod had been expecting the person on the other side to only open it slightly, just enough for them to see. There would probably be chains on the door, like the way Meredith had set hers up. This area was far worse than Support Station Twelve, after all; there was no way anyone would just swing it wide open.

Except that was exactly what the owner of this house did. There was no hesitation; he pulled it back completely open without even the slightest sound of a chain or heavy deadbolt being removed. Suddenly Elrod found a massive shape looming over him. Staring forward, he found himself looking into a round nose with two nostrils that was flanked by a set of large white tusks. Above them were a pair of beady, heavy-lidded eyes that were far too small to be a human’s.

Surprised, Elrod stepped back and suddenly realized what he was looking at.

“Holy crap! You’re- -you’re a porc!”

The beady eyes focused on Elrod for a moment, and the porc gave a dismayed snort. He- -or she, Elrod could not tell- -then put one three-fingered hand against the doorframe and turned toward Twilight.

“You here what for Jen-fer,” he said with a low voice. Pronunciation seemed to be difficult for him, but Elrod was struck by the amount of dismay and profound tiredness in that voice. As if he had known this moment was coming for a long time.

“We are,” said Twilight.

The porc closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he rubbed his hairy forearm across his eyes, wiping away what Elrod could have sworn were tears. “Yes,” he said, his voice shaking. “Somehow knew.” He stepped back and gestured for them to enter. “Please come in.”

Twilight looked over her shoulder. “Forth?”

“Yes, Ms. Twilight?”

“You stay out here. Keep guard. I don’t want anything unpredictable happening.”

“Your request is acknowledged, Ms. Twilight.”

Twilight seemed to take this as an affirmative and pushed Elrod into the house.

Inside, it was both exactly what Elrod had expected and not at all what he had anticipated. The inside was old and dirty, but not really messy. Elrod had expected there to be rotting food and piles of clutter everywhere, but this was not the case. In fact, it was actually very neat. The dirtiness was not in addition to but rather because of the immense age of the structure. Thick, grimy dust had formed around the edges of the stained floorboards, and the wallpaper on the walls was peeling. Some parts of the ceiling had been pulled away to reveal pipes- -many of which were spliced or patched- -and that which was left sagged badly in a few spots.

The floorplan was spacious by Elrod’s standards, but relatively small in reality. It had a living room that was filled with mismatched furniture, all of it old and worn, and a kitchen attached on one end that had ancient looking counters, collapsing cabinets, and a window over the sink that hung crooked and faced a brick wall. In a way, it was the exact opposite of what Meredith’s apartment had looked like: whereas hers had been exclusively devoted to a hobby, this one seemed to be used primarily for living in.

The porc lumbered past them. He was tall, and his pink-gray skin was covered in coarse hair in some spaces. Most of his body was covered in clothing, though: a pair of baggy denim jeans held up by suspenders, and a shirt with several tears and burns in it. He did not wear shoes. Had he been human, he would probably have seemed morbidly obese, but as a porc he just seemed immensely wide. Elrod guessed that he was probably vastly stronger than any human, but still noticed that his motion was labored and that he walked with a limp.

“You want drink?” he said. “Have soda. Good soda, but not best. Also have water, but water here not good for humans.”

“Actually I’ve got something.” Twilight reached into her coat and produced a flask. “I thought you might need it.”

The porc looked at the flask with great sadness and nodded. “Have glasses for. Will get.”

He continued into the kitchen while Elrod stepped into the main room. There was a couch near a few chairs, all of which were worn. They faced what seemed to be an interface of some kind, like an old-style television. A few shelves contained books, but most of them seemed to be stacked with odd curios and relics.

What drew Elrod’s attention was a special shelf, set apart from the others. On top of it, a small shrine had been assembled. A pale silvery cloth had been draped over the water-stained table, and the front of it was marked with three stars. On top of it sat a white statue of a regal looking pony, her carved eyes looking forward with conviction. Two sticks of incense sat on either side, slowly producing thin wisps of smoke.

“I know what this is,” he said, realizing that he actually did recall this insignia and the shape of the pony. He turned toward the porc, who was coming back from the kitchen holding three glasses of different shapes. “This is a shrine to Twinkleshine Prime.”

Twilight perked up and looked over at it, and then at the porc. “That’s an odd thing for a zooneus to have,” she said.

“Not really.” The porc set the glasses on the wire spool he was using for a coffee table, and he walked over to the shrine. “Twing-shine Prime hero to ponies. Led to freedom. Stand for freedom.”

“For ponies.”

“For ponies, yes. In general, also. Ponies, zoo-nis- -animal-folk- -we not so different. Humans made. Ponies made for purpose. Animal-folk not.” He bent his head and whispered a few words in Standard Language. Although Elrod could not understand what he was saying, he could tell that the porc’s pronunciation was equally strained in both languages.

When he was done, he made his way to the couch and sat down on the more collapsed of the two sides. Then he motioned for Elrod and Twilight to sit.

“Am Hoig,” he said. “You are?”

“Elrod,” said Elrod.

“Twilight Sparkle,” said Twilight. Both of them took seats. Twilight, due to her size, took an ottoman while Elrod sat down in a white plastic lawn chair.

“You can pour it,” said Twilight, pointing. “I can’t. Hooves and all.”

Hoig grunted in agreement and opened the flask. His ability was only marginally better than Twilight’s; although his hands had thumbs, the fingers were short and tipped with long hoof-like claws.

Despite this, Hoig had an uncanny level of dexterity. He poured the liquid into the three glasses.

“What is that?” asked Elrod.

“What does it look like? It’s vodka.”

Elrod grimaced and recoiled. “Oh no. That stuff makes me sick.”

“Then Hoig can have your portion.” Twilight leaned down and took the rim of the glass in her teeth. She tiled it up and swallowed as Hoig also took a shot. Despite Hoig’s glass being rather large, he drained it quickly and without complaint.

“Knew day would come,” he said after a moment. He sighed and looked up at the decaying ceiling. “Knew it, but not wanted it. Wished it not. Wished it be her that come in door. But knew it not be. It be strangers, with bad news.”

“So I take it you knew Jennifer. This girl?” One of Twilight’s pupils narrowed, and she projected the image taken from the Aetna-Cross Enforcement Center.

Hoig took one look at it and closed his small eyes. He sniffled slightly. “Yes,” he said. “Is Jen-fer. My Jen-fer. Daughter.”

Elrod and Twilight looked at each other.

“Your daughter?” asked Twilight.

Hoig nodded.

“But you’re a porc,” said Elrod.

“Yes. Know that,” retorted Hoig, sounding somewhat annoyed. “Not mean Jen-fer not daughter. Not born from me, but raise her.” He paused, searching for the word. “Was…adopted.”

“Adopted from where?” asked Twilight, sounding suspicious. “Because the genetic information indicates that she’s a pure human. Base level chromosomes, no genetic modifications. The kind that comes out of a mother, not a tank. And the kind that usually lives in the mansions up in the top levels.”

Hoig’s eyes narrowed, and his jaw moved from side to side as if he were chewing something. “You think Hoig steal child,” he said.

“We don’t think that,” said Elrod.

“You don’t. But I do. Because right now? It’s looking like that’s the only way that could happen.”

Hoig shook his head. “No. Limited. Too limited. Hoig not steal. Never would. No. Not know what you say. Many words, big ones. Brain, brain have hard time. Not stupid, but words hard.”

“She was special,” said Twilight, rephrasing her statement.

“Yes. Hoig know that.”

“Can you tell me where you got her?”

“Hoig found.”

“Where?”

Hoig paused, and then pointed downward. “Below. Places down there…Depths.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Twilight. “The Depths are uninhabitable to humans.”

Hoig chuckled darkly. “Limited, see? No. Humans there. Some old kind, some poor. Tribes. Primitive. And some Hoig not know if still human. Blue eyes. Scream, and eat. But Jen-fer not those. Was of others. Hoig find when down there. Little shoat, all alone. Things down there. Bad things. Hoig could not leave. Had to save.”

Elrod leaned forward, somewhat in awe. “You were a Delver.”

Hoig stared at Elrod, and his nose sniffed several times. “Yes. No. Old times. Was guard. Humans, ponies, metal-men, they go down there. Look for things. Hoig not know what, not care. Payed to guard. Keep safe. Del-ver.” He grunted. “Fools. Waste of time. Only bad things down there.” He paused. “ ‘Cept Jen-fer. Jen-fer good thing. Of all treasures Hoig find, she greatest.”

“And you raised her?”

“Have genetic failure.” He leaned forward painfully and reached for the second shot glass, although he did not drink it immediately. “Cannot have shoats of own. Always wanted, never could. Little human-shoat, Hoig take care of. Place, not good, but better than down there. Did best.”

“You raised her as your daughter,” said Twilight.

Hoig nodded painfully, and then downed the glass of vodka. Afterword, he was silent for a moment and held it in both hands. “Did best,” he repeated. “Tried so hard. Stopped going down there. Too dangerous. Take new job. Work for Ion. Guard vod shipments. Wear uniform each day, carry gun. Pays less. Much less. But not so dangerous.” He paused. “And different. Noble. Hoig want have job Jen-fer be proud of.” He sniffled, and this time a tear really did run down his face. “Hoig want- -want her be happy, grow up strong. Did best, did best! But best not good…not good enough.”

Twilight said nothing to comfort him. She stared at him as though she were inspecting a strange specimen of some sort. “And where is she now.”

Hoig took a painful breath and sighed a long sigh. “Hoig not know. Jen-fer left. Not say. She not even say. Just there, and then…” Hoig looked across the room to the kitchen. A table was in the center, and it had two chairs across from one another. The larger of the two was pulled out. “…then she not there.”

“Do you have any idea what happened to her?”

Hoig stared at Twilight, and then stood up. “She left note,” he said, walking over to a small table with several moldering files on it. “Hoig not read. Can read…could read once. Letters easier than human-words. But pig-folk, we not live long. Hoig is old. Eyes not good anymore. Not want anyone at bank to see.” He reached into the files and pulled out a ragged piece of paper, one that had quite clearly been held a number of times. For a long moment, he stared at it, his small eyes trying to read the handwriting that covered it. Then he walked over to where Twilight was seated and placed it on the coffee table.

Twilight pulled the note close to her and looked down at it. “This is very neat handwriting,” she said. “Very even.”

“Jen-fer not go to school, but learn things,” said Hoig. “Hoig very proud. So proud.” He sat back down on the couch with some difficulty. “Can you read?”

“I can,” said Twilight. She then proceeded to do so. “Dear Papa,” she began, “First I need to say the most important thing. I love you. More than anything in the whole wide world. But that’s why this is so hard. Could you believe that this is the eighth time I’ve written this letter? I just have to get it wright. So here goes…

“Deciding to leave is the hardest thing I have ever done. But it’s not you. It’s nothing you did. You were perfect. You ARE perfect. But I can’t stay here. Your job is killing you. The commutes, the long nights. If you were human, you’d be a supervisor by now. You’re a better man than any of them. But you never once complained about it, and kept going through everything.

“Which is why I decided I need to do my part. I met a boy online. I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you wouldn’t approve. But I love him. His mom owns a company, a prosperous one. It’s all so perfect. I’m leaving so I can be with him. He told me his mom can give me a job, and I’ll make so much money. I don’t need it myself. I’ll send it back to you, so you won’t need to work so hard anymore. And I’ll get married, and I’ll bring the grandchildren to come see you.

“I might be gone for a bit while I get my bearings, but I promise I’ll be back (piggy-promise!). And when I do, you’ll be so proud of me! And I know my boyfriend will love you just as much as I do. I only wish it were easier to do this, or I could tell you in person. But I’m just not as strong as you are yet. But don’t worry, I’ll catch up soon!

“Love, your daughter, Jennifer.”

Twilight looked up from the letter, and Hoig was breathing hard. Tears were running down from his eyes and he was wheezing.

“She…she never come back,” he said. “Never is come back…”

“You don’t know that,” said Elrod.

Hoig looked at him. “You think she still alive?”

“There isn’t any reason why she couldn’t be.”

“We found one of her neural implants on the sidewalk,” said Twilight. “There was still neural tissue on it.” She reached into her coat to produce the implant, but Hoig held up a hand and turned his head, nearly retching.

“She…she dead,” he said.

“Removing this type of implant would not be survivable.”

“But that not make sense! Jen-fer not have implants. Could not afford.” He paused. “This boy. This one she seek. He must have given her. Given her brain-things.” He turned to Twilight slowly. “But Hoig need know…is pony sure?”

Twilight nodded. “The genetic signature is a match. I’m sorry, Hoig. Jennifer is dead.”

Hoig suddenly let out a horrible sound. It was like a high-pitched bellowing squeal. He put both hands on his head and curled downward until his forehead nearly touched his knees, continuing to weep in the same bizarre tone. Neither Twilight nor Elrod said anything.

After several minutes, Hoig seemed to partially regain his composure. He wiped the tears from his eyes with one arm and the snot from his nose with the other. “Thank you,” he said. “Both you.”

“Why would you thank us for something like that?” asked Elrod.

“Because Hoig need know. But please. Can help Hoig?”

“With what?”

“Find who did it. Hoig not care what do to them, it not matter now. Pig-folk not have vengeance. But find. Please find. This boy, the one she found?”

“Was probably a front,” said Twilight. “Whoever it was lured her out.”

“Hoig know. Wish knew at time. Wish knew. This Hoig’s fault…”

“No,” said Elrod. “I don’t think it is.”

Hoig looked up. “If Hoig knew, Hoig save. Jen-fer be alive.” He sighed. “But now Hoig not can do anything. Is dead.” He looked at Twilight. “You find? You find who did?”

“I can’t make a promise,” said Twilight. “But I am a detective. And your Jennifer is part of the case now. So if there’s anything else you know…”

Hoig paused for a moment, and then shook his head. “No. Not know.”

“Well, if you think of anything, let me know.”

“Hoig will.” He lowered his head and muttered to himself. “This place no good. Wish Hoig not blind, not good, not good…”

Twilight nodded. “Thanks for the help,” she said. “I think I have a better idea of what’s going on now.” She stood up.

“Before go,” said Hoig, “can help?”

“With what?”

“Need help. Shrine need change. That Jen-fer go to other side. Have supplies. Old. When Hoig wife not wake up. Hoig hope wife like Jen-fer. They together, and Hoig all alone.”

“But what do you actually need?”
“Supplies in box. High. Hoig not can reach. Is old.”

Twilight looked at Elrod and pointed. “This one’s on you. I’m way too small and way to busy.”

“But- -”

“Come on, little human,” said Hoig, nearly picking Elrod up out of his chair and hauling him through a narrow door into the next room. Elrod did not try to protest, although he was not happy about having been conscripted into physical labor.

Hoig dragged Elrod down a small hallway and past a set of crooked stairs. Elrod watched these go by in awe as he realized that Hoig had a second story. To him, this was amazing. He made a mental note to consider relocating to Level C. The environment had less police and more space.

Instead of going up the stairs, though, Hoig pulled Elrod into a large side room. It was dark at first, after a moment there was a click of a chain light and the room was lit up by several harsh lights overhead.

Elrod blinked and looked around. He realized instantly that he was in some kind of a workshop. There were crude hand-made shelves everywhere, and most of them were strung with machine parts in various stages of assembly and disassembly. Several almost ridiculously large guns were stacked on racks or propped in corners. On one side of the room was a large rack that supported a rusted, dusty Delver exosuit.

“Oh wow,” said Elrod, looking up at the suit. “That thing has to be worth fifty thousand vod at least!” He craned his neck and looked into it. “It doesn’t even have a power assist! No human would be able to even get it off the ground.”

He turned around and saw Hoig standing near a large device. The porc flicked some of the switches and several panels hummed to life. There was a small plume of sparks, and for a moment Elrod felt a strange vibration in his teeth.

“There,” said Hoig. “Damp-field. Pony not can hear through.”

“Pony not- -” Elrod suddenly became exceedingly nervous. “W- -what are you going to do to me?”

“To, nothing.” Hoig stepped forward, and Elrod took several steps back before nearly tripping over a large crate. “You help Hoig. Bring Hoig what Hoig needed to hear, even if not what wanted hear. Now you promise find man who take Jen-fer away. Hoig want to help you, then. Will help by giving warning.”

“Warning? W- -what kind of warning?”

“Hoig not stupid.” Hoig pointed toward his snout. “Can smell. Lots of things. Can smell you.”

“My apartment doesn’t have a shower.”

Hoig did not respond at all to the joke. His gaze remained stony. “You not smell human. Not animal-folk either. Something else. Not human at all.” Elrod did not respond, but Hoig did not need him to. “Not anything Hoig knows at all. But still Hoig know smell. Hoig also know, city is not safe for you.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” asked Elrod. “Where else am I supposed to go?”

Hoig grunted knowingly. “Maybe nowhere safe for you. But not here. Go away from pony. That pony help Hoig, but Hoig see in eyes. Know many pony. That pony not good. If little man stay with pony, little man will die.”

Twilight stepped outside into the perpetual fog that filled this level. It tasted salty, and Twilight guessed that it had something to do with the nearby ocean. Not that it really mattered, of course; it was just an area of academic interest.

She lit a cigarette and leaned against the brick and plastic wall of Hoig’s apartment. As she did, Forth descended silently beside her.

“How is the situation?” asked Forth. She spoke neither in English nor in Standard Language; rather, she spoke in a language that was only intelligible between ponies and other machines.

“I don’t think it’s bad,” said Twilight. “Just more complicated.”

“Complicated cases are your favorite. Also the type you have the lowest success rate with.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” groaned Twilight through her cigarette.

“I was stating an empirical fact.” Forth paused. There was no point in Twilight explaining to her how the case had developed; Forth already knew. “How has the situation changed?”

“It hasn’t,” said Twilight. “It’s all still up in the air. Nothing definite yet.”

“But the evidence remains inconsistent with Elrod’s story.”

“I know,” said Twilight. Forth was referring to the fact that Elrod claimed to have witnessed the death of a pony, one that had both blood and an implant with the DNA of a missing girl on it. “I guess it’s possible he mistook a girl for a pony. Although that’s not very likely, even for him. But I have no way to know if he’s right. It’s not like we have a body.”

“There is a logical way to reconcile the discrepancies.”

“You mean if it were a pony with a human brain.” Forth nodded, smiling. Twilight paused for a long moment, thinking. “I don’t know,” she said. “It might be possible, but it’s remote.”

“Why?”

“Because human brains can’t exist abstracted from their bodies. Believe me, I’ve read every study and followed every development on it. Something about how it just can’t sustain itself in machines alone. There’s no way you could fit the minimum life-support system in a pony-size body, not with today’s technology.”

“Someone might have found a way.”

“Maybe. But that doesn’t really answer any questions, does it? I have no idea WHY they would do that, or more importantly WHO would do it. That’s the crux. WHO. Why or how don’t matter so much, except as means to an end.”

“Then do you have a plan to find this who?”

Twilight paused for a long moment, taking notice of the fact that she could no longer track Elrod. A dampening field had been activated around him. It was possible that Hoig was suspicious of the same thing she was. “We’re kind of at a dead end,” she said at last. “Our one piece of physical evidence led us here, but it’s not going to take us any farther for now. Whoever Jennifer was talking to, she must have been doing it on a mobile device because I’m not picking anything up off Hoig’s computer. Which is still more advanced than Elrod’s, by the way.”

“Then what should we do?”

“We have to do something I really, really didn’t want to.”

Forth raised an eyebrow. “Which is?”

Twilight sighed. “We need to find the technomancer.”

Part I, Chapter 8

When Elrod rejoined them, the group started to make their way back toward the upper levels. They took a different path this time, heading for another way up that would take Twilight closer to where she wanted to go. Elrod did not question her choice of path, although as the city around them began to become darker and even more quiet he began to wonder just how safe that decision was.

None of them spoke. Twilight and Forth did not mention their conversation, and Elrod did not relay any of what Hoig had told him. Neither party saw a need to. In Twilight’s case it was because she did not care if Elrod knew her reasoning, and in Elrod’s case it was because Hoig’s advice was redundant. He had never trusted Twilight, at least not completely- -and not yet.

The city around them grew more ominous. There were fewer lights, and fewer people, save for those that occasionally glanced through darkened windows or small groups of people in old, stained clothing sitting off on side alleys. In time, even those disappeared and all that remained were the dark buildings and the mist.

“I don’t like this,” said Elrod at last as they stepped into the glow of one lonely streetlight that had not yet been shattered. “It’s too dark here.”

“Not for us,” said Forth. “We can both see well.”

“But I’m not a pony. I don’t have artificial eyes.”

“Trust me,” said Twilight. She stopped walking. “You’d rather not.”

Almost as soon as she said it, a figure emerged from the darkness and stepped into the weak light of the streetlight. The cold fog was only about the height of a human waist, so she was at first obscured. As she got nearer, though, her dress became apparent: she wore sheer fishnet stockings and a small red jacket that was open in the front. One of her breasts was uncovered; the other had been removed to make way for the base of a black-colored cybernetic arm. Her face was covered in makeup, but it was apparent that she had two mismatched cybernetic eyes. One was dim but reflected green in the light, while the other was pale blue. They were not even the same brand.

“Hey,” she said. Her voice was unpleasantly raspy, a result of lungs no doubt riddled with static cancer.

“We are not interested,” said Forth, stepping forward. “We are leaving now.”

The woman smiled. It was the coldest smile Elrod had ever seen. “No you’re not.” She raised her cybernetic arm, and as her hand left the mist Elrod saw a large pistol in her hand. It was pointed at his chest.

In that moment Elrod froze. He could almost see the bullet down the barrel, or thought he could. This was the first time he had ever had a gun pointed at him that was not immediately fired. Somehow, the suspense made it so much worse. If he had possessed the capacity to urinate, he would have wet himself.

“Sorry,” the girl said. Then she moved to pull the trigger- -but stopped. Her eyes grew wide as she looked at her hand, and she grunted as she struggled to make her finger move. “What- -what the fuck?!”

Suddenly, her arm started to move. She cried out and grabbed it with her organic arm, trying to force it back. The cybernetic limb was far stronger, though, and as much as she struggled and writhed and tried to push it away there was no way to stop it- -or to escape it. Slowly and without hesitation, she pointed the pistol at her own temple. By this time a look of pure panic had crossed her face, and she stopped struggling.

Twilight lit a cigarette. “See, that’s the problem with cheap cybernetics,” she said. “They don’t bother trying to do any brainwork. They just graft the controls onto peripheral nerves. You’re not the one telling it what to do, your nerves are just giving suggestions to the computer.”

“What- -what- -you are doing this? How?!”

“Easy. That’s the second problem with cheap shit. No security. I don’t give computers suggestions. I give them orders.”

“Twilight,” said Elrod, “you’re doing this?”

“Sure am,” she said, calmly. “And I don’t think I need to explain to you that I could make you pull the trigger on that gun, and you couldn’t do a thing to stop me. You’d have committed suicide. A sad story, I think. What is that, a .223 hollowpoint?” She sighed. “A shame. Such a pretty face, it seems sad to it’ll get blown off. Oh well.”

“Wait! WAIT!” cried the girl. “Please! DON’T!”

“Why shouldn’t I? I’m out for a walk, not trying to do anything out of the ordinary…and here you come, pointing a pistol at my client. That just isn’t right.”

“Uncouth, even,” said Forth.

Twilight paused, and without smiling turned her robotic eyes up at the girl. “So I have to do what I have to do. Unless…”

“Unless what? WHAT? I can do things- -”

“‘Things’ don’t concern me. I want cash.”

The girl looked even more afraid, and disgusted at the same time. “Cash?”

“Five thousand vod, and you walk away from here as if this never happened.”

“Five- -five thousand?! I don’t have that much! If I had that much vod I wouldn’t be doing this!”

Twilight shrugged. “Then I’m pulling the trigger.”

“NO!” she cried.

“Don’t tell me what to do, human.” Twilight paused again. Elrod felt sick.

“It wasn’t even my idea! It wasn’t ME!”

“Then who was it? Tell me, and I’ll take the information as payment.”

“She said- -she said she would pay me. So much money. Enough to get myself out of here, to stop doing this- -this- -you know!”

“Or enough to pay for your weight in amphetamines.”

The girl looked hurt, but there was a sadness in her robotic eyes that betrayed the fact that Twilight was at least partially right. “I didn’t want to, I don’t like hurting people, but I had to! I can’t turn down something like that! All I had to do was pop this guy in the face.” She pointed with her free arm at Elrod. “Right here, in front of you. That was it! That’s all I wanted to do!” She began crying. Her makeup was already running, but now she looked like a mess. “Please, please let me go, I have children!”

“Who offered to pay you?” asked Twilight.

“A pony, it was- -”

There was a distant clinking sound, and the girl suddenly lurched. Elrod felt something metal shatter near his foot, and looked up to see a single hole in the girl’s forehead.

“Twilight!” cried Forth.

“That wasn’t me,” said Twilight, sidestepping as the girl fell and looking up to the buildings surrounding them. Her eyes flitted from side to side before they finally fell on a tall, thin figure in the distance. “There!” she said as she started galloping forward. “Forth, cut him off, I’ll take point!”

Forth nodded and vanished with surprising speed. Elrod was left alone. There was not much he could do to help anyway, though. Instead, he turned his attention toward the dead girl on the street. Looking around to make sure no one was watching, he knelt down and turned her over. Then he proceeded to start removing her eyes.

Twilight raced forward after the thin figure. It retreated out of sight on the roof of the building where it was standing, but Twilight spread her wings and quickly leapt up after it. The street they had been walking on was something like a gorge, and this higher area was cut with numerous footpaths and second-level buildings. The light was low, But Twilight did not care. She was accustomed to the dark.

She ran after it, calculating the most likely routes that her target would take. He was fast, but so was Twilight. Losing her would not be easy. Even if it did, catching the target was not critical. Twilight just needed to track it and eventually force it toward Forth

For a moment Twilight thought she had lost it, but then she ducked around a corner and saw it. Twilight’s internal records of Level C indicated that it had gone into a dead-end alleyway. She followed it, knowing fully well that she might be walking into a trap. There was no other option, though: there was no time to formulate a better plan.

Twilight’s coat swished through the silent air as she pushed through the entrance of the alley. Most of the second story that she was on was higher than the mists below, but several vents in this alley were producing copious amounts of hot steam. This disrupted Twilight’s infrared perception, although not completely. She saw the figure standing on the far side of the path, looking up at a high wall.

“Stop!” called Twilight, her voice echoing off the walls of the alley.

The figured turned, but only partially. Twilight could vaguely see its outline. It was incredibly thin and tall, to the point where she was not sure how something like that was even capable of standing, let alone moving so fast.

Suddenly a jet of orange light shot from its back and in leapt hallway up one of the buildings.

“What the fuck?” said Twilight to herself.

The figure then began crawling up the building less like a humanoid and more like an insect. Its hands separated from the wall leaving only its feet to scramble up the vertical surface, and in the instant that it did Twilight saw a collapsible rifle unfold.

There was no sound when it fired, but Twilight did not need the crack of a gun to warn her that bullets were coming. She rolled on her side, and the self-guiding bullets traced her path. One of them penetrated her shoulder before she was able to duck behind a dumpster. The others could not adjust course in time and disintegrated on the metal, flying through it and embedding in the concrete wall.

“Fuck me,” groaned Twilight, wincing in pain. The bullets were not OKD rounds, but they were armor-piercing. With her body, a shoulder-hit was mostly trivial. If it had hit part of her multicore, though, she would have been done for.

Strangely, though, whoever was fleeing from her seemed more concerned with egress than with killing Twilight. No more bullets came. Twilight ducked through a window into the building and once again started running, this time through narrow moldering halls with rotted floors and stacks of clutter and junk on either side.

“Out of my way!” cried Twilight, pushing past the residents of the building who stared at her with either confusion or drug-induced ambivalence. Those that did not move, Twilight shoved. Humans were tall, but not as heavy as ponies and far less stable. They barely slowed her down.

Twilight burst through the far side of the building and descended glided several stories to the ground below. Her target appeared to have vanished, but not Twilight knew the landscape. There were only a few places he could have gone. She focused her mind and reached out to every unprotected system she could find. Most of them were not what she needed and at least half were flooded with malware, but she disarmed them almost instantly and filtered away the chaff and trash until she had access to every eye, sensor, or piece of unsecured security equipment in a ten-block radius.

The mental strain of coordinating that much raw information was vast, but not exceedingly so. Twilight did not even need to hold it long. She saw a flash of pale green, and a dark shadow. She knew where her target was.

Once again she moved quickly, tracing her path through the city. She was coordinating Forth’s movements remotely, telling her exactly what region to move. The number of potential paths was decreasing exponentially as the pair of them drew closer with the target in the center.

Then, suddenly, Twilight broke free of the buildings and web of pathways. She found herself standing at the edge of a transport road. Fog covered the hot surface, but there were more lights here. Through the mist and silence, Twilight could see the figure she had been chasing. He was standing in the center of the road.

“You!” cried Twilight. “Stop right there.” She stepped slowly to the edge of the road. She was not out of breath; ponies did not tire. “Don’t try to shoot me again,” she said. “You caught me by surprise last time, but now I know the control frequency of your bullets. Fire one at me and I’ll send it through your head.”

The figure stopped in the road and slowly turned toward Twilight. Twilight recoiled slightly when she saw its face. It was not human, or even a “he”. Twilight found herself staring into the face of a unicorn, and from the look in the pale amber eyes that stared back at her, she knew that somehow this thing was a pony.

The creature did not speak. It only smiled and took a long, silent step toward Twilight. Twilight reached out with her mind, attempting to find something to grasp onto. There was nothing. This creature was clearly a machine of some kind, but every aspect of its programming was sealed off. There were no avenues of entry; it was as though it did not even exist.

It took another step forward, and Twilight saw it reaching for the compressed rifle mounted on its back. The rifle bore no brand marker, and Twilight did not recognize it. Twilight did not take a step back, though, nor did she flinch.

“What the hell are you?” she asked.

The creature paused for a moment, as if legitimately considering the question. Then the smile fell from her face, and she spoke with the voice of a pony. “Incomplete.”

At that moment a transport truck came barreling around the corner of the transport road. It was traveling far faster than conditions would have allowed, and it did not slow for the figure in front of it, either because she was obscured in the mist or because they simply did not care.

It was a lethal mistake. With her rifle in one hand, the creature raised the other. The heavy truck slammed into her palm. Her right foot dug into the ground as she braced against it, but she did not move more than an inch. The truck lurched and deformed. There was a red splatter on the inside of the windshield as the driver collided with the steering column and shattered.

The half-pony creature then slung its rifle around its neck and, as Twilight watched, took the truck in both hands. Despite having forearms that were barely an inch wide and upper arms that seemed to be mostly armor, she lifted the truck with ease and threw it through the air toward Twilight.

Twilight stared up at the truck as it passed through the air toward her, and time seemed to slow down. She sighed. It was said that when humans were about to die, their whole lives flashed before their eyes. Twilight was not sure if that was true, and she supposed she would never know. For ponies, though, there was a different phenomenon. As the truck approached through the air, it seemed to slow as Twilight’s processing speed accelerated. In her overclocked state, time seemed to pass at a glacial pace.

Almost instantly, Twilight started moving toward her left. Her synthetic muscles strained under her soft violet skin as they pulled her away at maximum speed. She was moving at a pace that few ponies could hope to achieve, but her mind was moving far faster. To Twilight, it seemed as though the atmosphere had somehow become thick and viscous; that was the only way to describe how the weight and inertia of every object seemed to have grown to nearly unmanageable proportions.

The mental acceleration had side effects. Mainly, it gave Twilight time to think. She could look up and calculate the exact trajectory of the truck overhead, and her current speed; from the combination, it was clear that with her shoulder injury escape was not guaranteed. At the same time, memories that she had not recalled in decades surfaced to her. Twilight could suddenly remember every book she had ever read to the point where she could re-read them in her mind if she chose to. She did, and covered several. Yet the whole time, she could not managed to pull her mind away from one particular memory. She could not help but recall Roxanne.

Slowly, Twilight caused herself to revolve in the air. She looked at the creature- -the strange bipedal thing with a pony’s face and mane- -and extended her left hoof. A small black line could be seen at the edge of it, one that ran up her entire foreleg. It was identical to the numerous lines that covered Forth’s entire body.

Twilight’s sleeve was torn apart as the line split. The armored surface of her hoof parted, revealing the machinery beneath. That machinery in turn reconfigured itself revealing the barrel of a weapon. An internal solenoid fired it, and Twilight watched as the Beowulf round emerged from her barrel. Compared to everything else, it seemed to be moving quickly, but it was still traveling slow enough for Twilight to be able to watch it. She saw the muzzle flash, and then the puff of fire around the bullet as the uranium that it was made of reacted with the atmosphere. Even the rotation of the bullet was visible.

The cylinder in Twilight’s upper forearm quickly cycled to the next chamber, and she fired again. She kept firing until she only had two rounds left. By then, her shoulder was inches from the ground and she was preparing to land painfully.

The bullets marched forward, and they flew true. The first three hit their target, producing small plumes of sparks as the uranium disintegrated against the creature’s teal armor without leaving the slightest scratch or dent. The forth she dodged. The fifth, though, caused Twilight’s eyes to widen. She watched as the creature easily moved its hand in the path of the bullet, catching it out of the air and crushing it in an instant.

Then time seemed to accelerate. Twilight landed hard on the pavement and skidded out of the way of the truck just as it slammed into the ground where she had been only moments before. It rolled backward and into the wall of the nearest building, leaving a massive whole as it pushed most of the way through the concrete façade.

The creature looked at Twilight and it smiled. It raised its hand and dropped what had once been a fifty caliber solid uranium bullet. The now flattened piece of deformed metal fell to the floor with a dull tinkling sound. Without a word, it turned around- -and found itself face-to-face with Forth, who was standing on the far end of the road.

“Hello,” said Forth, cheerfully. “I have been tasked to eliminate your heresy from the public consciousness. Not in those words. But you know what will happen next.”

The creature did. She nodded solemnly and looked over her shoulder at Twilight. Then she smiled. Twilight immediately sensed a massive surge of bandwidth usage around her, but before she could even begin to trace it the creature’s body erupted with orange light from within.

There was no explosion. It just cracked and disappeared, collapsing to ash like a burnt piece of paper. In a fraction of a second nothing was left of the creature or her rifle save for smoldering dust and a foul smell.

Twilight started standing up. “Oh,” said Forth, looking to her boss. “I suppose I won?”

It took several more minutes of waiting before Elrod appeared. He was out of breath and it was apparent that he had been running. At one side he held a black cybernetic arm, ribbons of flesh still dangling from the edge where it had once been connected to a living body.

“What took so long?” said Twilight.

“I didn’t have my tools,” he said. “I had to make to. Also, I got lost.” He looked at the crashed truck. The wall behind it was smoking slightly, but no one had come to investigate. No one really cared. “Oh,” he said. “That type normally has a driver. I wonder if he has anything good.”

“If you want to spend the next month trying to get him out of there,” said Twilight. “Besides, he’s probably as flat as a pancake anyway.” Twilight looked at the arm. “You scrappers are a bit morbid, aren’t you?”

“We can’t all be detectives.”

“Did you get her wallet?”

“Yeah, sure.” Elrod removed the squares U-shaped device with its small golden ampule. A string had been tied around one end with pictures of the woman’s children dangling from it. “I always take- -HEY!”

Twilight had knocked the wallet from his hand and immediately drained all of the vod into her own account. When the old wallet was empty and no longer had any sign of luminescent glow, she tossed it away.

“Why did you do that?” asked Elrod.

“I ruined my favorite coat for you. Plus, I got shot. Do you have any idea how expensive repairs on this type of body are? If I have to order any replacement parts, I am literally going to sell you into slavery for the funds.”

“She will do it too,” added Forth, who was preening one of her wings on top of the damaged truck.

“I don’t doubt that, and it scares me,” said Elrod. He turned back to Twilight. “Did you catch your man?”

“It wasn’t a man.”

“Woman?”

“Not a woman either. It looked like how you described the things that tried to kill you.”

Elrod’s eyes widened and he looked around. “Did it get away? Is it still here?”

“No, she self-destructed. Waste of a beautiful system in my opinion, but pragmatic.”

“Her technology was not consistent with anything I am aware of,” said Forth.

“Nor me,” replied Twilight. “And I’m familiar with almost everything. So that’s just not good.”

“Why not?”

“Because it means that we’ve probably stepped in shit a few fathoms over our heads. Or a few miles. I don’t know.” Twilight stood up and lit a cigarette. “Holy shit…this seals it, though, I guess.”

“Seals what? What are you talking about?”

“The technomancer. It’s our only lead. I was trying to think of another way, but we don’t have the time. That thing could have taken any of us out with a single hit. I don’t know why it didn’t, but I don’t think they’ll make the same mistake twice. This one tried to run. If they send more? We’re done. All of us.”

Elrod gulped. “That’s not good.”

“You have a knack for understatement.” Twilight started down the street. “Come on. I’m going to need your help on this one.”

Part I, Chapter 9

The city of Bridgeport was almost impossibly vast: a collection of ever-expanding structures reaching out and growing across southern Connecticut without any clear reason or final goal. It just grew, ever-evolving, ever-changing, and yet somehow always the same.

However it appeared on the surface, though, its presence in the Illusion was greater. That was not unique to Bridgeport, though. This was just one city of countless thousands like it that dotted the world, each one different and each one just as complex in their own right. The size of it all in a physical sense was mind-boggling and incomprehensible- -but in every city the size of the Illusion was infinitely greater.

There had been studies done, although none of any real value. They were no more than debates between academics that inevitably turned out to be nothing more than more cultured fist-fights over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. In truth, the Illusion- -the technological aspect of the world, the virtual aspect to it, the heir to what had once been the internet- -was far larger than any of them could have imagined. The amount of space it contained was billions of times larger than the surface area of the entire earth and all the lunar colonies: endless tracts of land populated by countless billions of people living in squalid apartments only big enough for a desk and for an interface linkup computer.

The Illusion was even so vast that it had begun to bleed over onto the physical world. No humans- -or very few- -saw the world as it truly was. To the select among them, it would have seemed a dirty, industrial place: sterile, threatening, and dull. To those whose brains lost the distinction between the Real and the Illusion, though, it was ariot with noise and color. The computers took away the dirt, and painted the environments in ever-changing colors. Advertisements and signs swam amongst the colors, ever-beckoning. The world was full of such horrible noise.

It was over this city of merged Illusion and Reality that the technomacer sat, looking down on it all. No living being could comprehend all of it, either the physical or the illusionary, but that did not matter. Such was not the role of a technomancer: they were not meant to understand or perceive, but to accomplish tasks. They were sorcerers tasked with manipulating the Real using the Illusion. The Illusion- -the network, as the uninitiated called it- -was after all meaningless in the end. Such was the ironic state of the machine wizards: that they had dedicated their lives to the study of the Illusion, and yet had only come to see that it was utterly pointless. Only the things in the real world truly mattered.

This particular technomancer used the name LilithZero. It was not the name her parents had given her, if she had even ever had parents to begin with. Like all technomancers, she had chosen it. It was the name people used to contact her, when they wanted things done.

Her task in this particular situation had been delayed, which was why she now found herself perched high above the city on scaffolding around yet another pointless spire. Her target in this case was notably difficult to capture. Unlike virtually every individual alive in the modern age, this one was unmodified. He had no machines in his body to track. LilithZero had known that going into the mission, of course. It would not have paid so well if it was so easy.

What she had not expected was that the target would have literally no device on him. Having no implants was one thing, but there was no signature at all from any device. He had no external system, portable computational device, not even a cellphone. All LilithZero had seen on him was a half-visor that for some reason she had not even been able to detect. She had come to assume that it was a decoy of some sort. This man had gone to great lengths to hide.

She had also not expected him to defeat her drone. It should have been able to kill him within seconds, but somehow he had proved more resistant than he had expected. There was no way she could have known that a Fluttershy- -the softest, most peaceful type of pony- -would be carrying a robot-slaying firearm under her uniform. LilithZero recognized this as her mistake; she should have checked the area for weapons beacons before starting. At least she had come to the conclusion that this man was more dangerous than she expected.

She swore to herself in a language that probably did not exist anymore. The mission parameters had said nothing about an experienced soldier. Then again, he was from one of the most powerful and moth ruthless vassals in the world, Monsanto. It was impossible to predict what this man was capable of.

In any event, the mission was not yet over. He was still out there; LilithZero was keeping tabs on all of the main exits. Her eight arms had reached out to various places in the city, feeling and waiting for leads. While her physical body sat still and silent, kept functioning by the support systems in her suit, she reached out with her mind, listening and waiting. If she could not hunt, she would trap.

Suddenly she received a signal. It was from a familiar that she had planted in Aetna-Cross’s enforcement mainframe. Getting it in there had not been easy, but its growth had not been difficult. Their security was laughable.

LilithZero reached out toward her familiar and it whispered to her. The information it brought was a communication that had been flagged as significant. It took a moment for the message to escape through the extremely tiny amount of bandwidth that the familiar used, but the information still came out whole and complete.

It was a non-emergency call to the Enforcement tip line. The content was anonymous-encrypted, and concerned a man behaving suspiciously near the Bridgeport International rail line. He was apparently yelling to himself and gesticulating wildly. Attached to it was a file that showed the individual’s face. LilithZero smiled. There was no mistaking it: the man that had been called in was her target.

She had already started moving. Normally she would have gone through the trouble of attempting to unwind the anonymous encryption in an attempt to backtrack on the location, but there was no point. This call had come through with a location already included, and there was no reason to waste the energy. Time was of the essence. Aetna-Cross would most likely ignore the call, as they always did, but that was not a guarantee. In fact, if they had any intelligence at all they would run the picture and be on their way within minutes. LilithZero had to hurry if she wanted to both kill and detach his head before they arrived.

Motion in the real world was not nearly as fast as it was in the Illusion. Had LilithZero had secondary bodies, she would have used them. Unfortunately, they were prohibitively expensive in her situation. This meant she was forced to travel on foot or through whatever transportation methods she could acquire.

Fortunately, the international station was not far. LilithZero was able to get there relatively quickly and take up a station high in the towers overlooking the facility. She once again chose a seat high in a tower, too far to be seen. The station below was a sorry sight: Four hundred billion vod of taxpayer money, all disused and empty. As it turned out, no one wanted to travel, especially internationally. Even if people had the time off, there was no reason to. Now the farthest tip of the station shipped high-speed freight underneath the Atlantic on its way toward Nigeria, but even that was dying. The only good thing to come of it had been the station’s only true purpose: the governor who had ruled while it was built had been promoted to Transportation Secretary on a national level.

LilithZero crouched on her chosen ledge and reached into her coat. She produced a handful of small spheres the size of marbles and threw them into the air. They did not fall, but rather sprung to life with the almost silent sound of tiny motors. They hovered in the air for a moment, growing accustomed to the wind, and then fanned out. They were LilithZero’s eyes; she did not intend to approach her target until the entire situation was established. She had resolved that her mistake the last time would be her last one.

The eyes moved quickly and filled the streets, placing themselves on sheltered parts of buildings where pigeons or bees would normally roost. Then they watched.

It was not hard to find the target. Instantly, LilithZero found herself realizing that his escape was purely due to luck than skill, a thought which encouraged her. The streets below were busy and packed with people of all types, but one stood out simply because of his blatant lack of security. The target was just too tempting not to reach out to.

There was indeed a man there. He was dressed in a dirty brown coat identical to the one LilithZero had seen on her target a few days ago. Instead of wearing a fake visor, though, he wore a relatively new looking operator mask. Unfortunately, he apparently had no idea how to set the security walls on his own. Not that it mattered; LilithZero would have penetrated them anyway.

She easily accessed the system. Images from the internal camera clearly indicated what she had already expected: the man in question was indeed her target. They also showed that he was currently in the process of trying to call Monsanto’s question hotline, which- -as any reasonable person would anticipate- -got him no response. This seemed to agitate him greatly, as he looked profoundly nervous.

LilithZero reasoned that he had come to the international station in an attempt to board a train. Not being a local, he would not have realized that it had been closed to passenger use for years. Now that he knew someone was trying to kill him, he was attempting to get out. LilithZero laughed at this, knowing that he never would. The situation was clear. She began to move herself into position.

The target began to move, but LilithZero never took her eyes off him. For a moment she thought he had somehow detected her and was trying to lose her again, but that made no sense. He was not nearly tech-savy enough. Instead, it looked like he was just walking- -right toward the support infrastructure for the railway. That entire area was automated; there were far less people there.

As he moved, a pony got up from a nearby bench and followed him. LilithZero hissed under her breath, thinking that someone else was trying to scoop her contract. As she watched, though, the white Pegasus started to walk beside him, demonstrating that the two knew each other. LilithZero supposed that she was either a hired bodyguard or a prostitute. To be sure, she checked the pony’s metadata.

There was not much to see. She was primarily an AvtoVAZ chassis with added Suzuki upgrades. It was an odd choice to say the least, but nothing to be concerned about. Her processor was horrible, and LilithZero assumed that she would barely be able to speak anything but simple declarative sentences without overheating let alone be any match for a technomancer. She was quite obviously a prostitute.

She followed them, drawing her physical body nearer and nearer until she was able to see them directly with her own primary optics from a safe distance. She watched as they turned into a side alley and into a small empty square. Another pony was waiting for them, a violet winged unicorn. LilithZero was vaguely aware of her series name; it was something moronic like Bright or Star or GlitteryRainbow. LilithZero had never seen the old show that they were based on, and assumed that she would dislike it.

In any event, she checked that pony’s metadata as well only to find that it was blocked. That was curious, but not impassible. LilithZero changed her tactics, using a passive decryption algorithm. It worked after a few miliseconds, and the metadata became available. The violet pony- -Twilight Sparkle series, LilithZero now knew- -used a body by Hawes Manufacturing. It was certainly better than the one used by the other pony, but not by much. It was a middling model known for having reasonable strength at the cost of speed. She would be quite slow.

The target seemed to stop and speak with the ponies. LilithZero was not able to listen to what they were saying because the fool had not bothered to properly configure his microphone. He was probably just yelling through the mask like an idiot.

Still, he had stopped moving in an isolated area. There was no better time to act. LilithZero sat down on a large air handling unit and removed a narrow syringe from her belt. She pushed it through a port in one of her two least useful arm and felt the cold liquid move through her: a mixture of various amphetamines and purified HIV. Both went to work quickly, and LilithZero began to laugh to herself for no reason other than because she was about to kill an idiot.

“Right,” she said to herself, reaching out with her arms toward everything that she would need. “Let’s get started…”

Never once did she question or even think to question why the face of a masked man had been reported to the Aetna-Cross Enforcement division.

Elrod and Forth approached Twilight, who was standing in the middle of a barely lit empty lot. Thin grass was growing up through the concrete under the lights, and on a better day Elrod would have wondered where it came from. On this day, though, it was taking everything he had not to look around wildly for the assassin waiting to kill him.

“Pissed yourself yet?” asked Twilight.

“Very nearly. I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“I think it is fun,” said Forth. “I do not get to do things like this. Not often.”

“This will never work,” said Elrod. “It can’t. It just can’t.”

“It already worked,” said Twilight. “He’s here.”

An audible gasp came from Elrod, and Forth laughed slightly.

“Really?” she said.

“Yes, he’s watching us right now. There are several small drones following you. That, and he attempted to access our metadata.”

“Did she like it?”

“He never saw it. I gave her fake stats. And right now he’s preparing to hack us the same way he did Meredith.”

“But then I’ll be all alone!” protested Elrod. “I can’t deal with this on my own! I’m just the bait, you’re supposed to be the detective!”

“Relax. I’m running a pair of virtual machines. Unless he actually goes in and looks closely at the source code, he won’t notice that it’s not really us.”

“Can you triangulate his position?” asked Forth.

“Not yet. I could, I mean, but I’d be showing my hand to early. If he bolts, we won’t get a second chance at this. This is like chess. It’s his move.”

“I thought we were playing poker,” said Forth, looking confused.

Twilight turned away from Elrod. “Right. Forth, talk to me, not to him. This needs to look convincing.”

“What do you mean convincing?!” cried Elrod. “I’m not an actor! If I was an actor I wouldn’t need to be selling people’s eyes to pay detectives to make me not be dead!” He could not contain himself any longer and began looking around. “Oh Saint Isidore, I’m going to get sniped! I can feel it! Is there- -is there a red dot on my head? I CAN'T TELL!”

“Wow,” said Forth. “He sure is convincing. He looks agitated.”

“I AM AGITATED!”

“You can relax at least a little bit,” said Twilight, smiling as she lit herself a cigarette. “Trust me, this guy isn’t like the others. Human technomancers tend to shake. The drugs make their muscles shit, and their aim sucks. He won’t snipe you. He’ll kill you with machines.”

“I would like to point out that we are in an automated loading district,” said Forth. “This area has many machines. I think this will help you calm down.”

“It doesn’t. It really doesn’t.”

“Well, you’re going to need to calm down pretty quickly.”

“Why? What happened?”

Twilight flicked the ash of her cigarette. “Because we have a small army of drones converging on our position.”

“Just as planned,” said Forth.

“That was what we were planning?” squeaked Elrod.

Part I, Chapter 10

Drones began to converge. They came from every angle that was available to them, all lumbering slowly. Their motions, in a way, seemed innocuous: they were just lumbering hulks, workers of the modern age that most people set to the back of their mind. Elrod would have normally dismissed them too unless they were sick and dying and he thought he could take one down. Now, though, he focused on every single one of them even though they were all fully functional and lethal.

Some were the same type as the one that had tried to kill him before, but painted in the colors of the sub-vassal that ran the transportation district. Many of them were loaders or surveyors, but not all. A few were tall defense drones meant to eliminate the homeless from the property or, Elrod supposed, to tear unauthorized vehicles in half.

They did not attack initially because they were too busy surrounding the area. Elrod found himself clawing at the bulletproof vest he wore under his jacket. It was supposedly fully functional against anything up to .45, but Twilight had synthesized it in a rush at a cheap corner manufacturing center. Even if it did stop pistol bullets, there was no way it would stop him from being mashed.

“Please tell me you have a gun,” he said, drawing his but finding it entirely out of ammunition.

“I do,” said Twilight.

“Please tell me it’s a really, really big gun.”

Twilight produced a cloud of smoke from her cigarette. “I have a .50 Beowulf.”

“Machine gun?”

“Revolver. I currently have two rounds.”

“Two- -TWO. You didn’t think we might need MORE?”

“I also have a second gun.”

“Well it’s about damn time to use it!”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet? What the hell do you mean not yet, they’re almost on top of us- -if I get within arm’s reach, they’ll dash out my brains!”

“Not yet,” said Twilight. She was infuriatingly calm.

Suddenly, all the drones stopped. They seemed to be considering- -or, rather, the technomancer controlling them was considering what exactly to do with his puppets. From his perspective, the pair of ponies were blind and Elrod was left alone with all exits sealed. It would be quick, with little mess. Elrod would seem to just disappear, and the cleaner drones would remove any residue his execution left on the sidewalk. Like he never even existed.

“Right,” said a distinctly female voice projected through several of the drones. It came from every angle at once, distorted by their various interfaces. In some cases all that came out was a high garbled screech. “Sorry, Bronislav. But business is business. Die in a hole, bitch.”

One of the security drones raised an arm tipped with what seemed to be a massive set of weapons. A rapid set of explosions suddenly ripped through the air, and Elrod screamed.

A white blur suddenly passed him, followed by a metallic clink of metal. No bullets passed through Elrod, and he looked up to see several long steel projectiles sticking out of Forth’s side.

“Forth!”

Forth was completely unperturbed. She brushed the stakes aside. They had not penetrated any deeper than her clothing and her outer layer of skin. Slowly, she turned her diamond-lensed eyes toward the drone that had attacked.

What happened next happened in an instant. Forth shot forward with a small explosion of her own and struck the drone, her hooves cracking through its surface and tearing into its innards.

“DEATH TO THE BLOODLINES OF INFIDELS!” she screamed as she twisted its head, tearing it free and drawing out most of the drone’s spine along with it. Then she turned, and her clothes were ripped to shreds as the entire right side of her body unfolded into a mass of barrels and heavy weapons. Elrod screamed and ducked as automatic weaponsfire rang out over the sandy lot and several drones recoiled, their bodies sparking as they were trapped in a deluge of bullets. Many of the weaker ones fell.

With one quick motion Forth climbed to the top of the now failing drone that she had ruined and performed a handstand for a moment and flipped off, her body unfolding as she did. Several loud thuds nearly deafened Elrod, and he watched as enormous holes appeared in the largest of the drones.

Forth did not hesitate. She did not stop or tire. There was no fear on her face as she charged directly into the drones, tearing through the ones she could get her hooves on and shooting those that she could not. Her body seemed to have become amorphous: nothing about it seemed to serve any purpose except for holding massive quantities of guns of every type.

“Get down, idiot!” cried Twilight as she tackled Elrod’s legs. He cried out and fell just as several bullets whizzed past where his head had just been.

Elrod covered his head. He was almost crying; all around him suddenly sounded like a battlefield. “What is she doing?!”

“Providing bait!”

In less than a minute, Forth had peeled her way through the masses of robots with surgical precision. When she did, she looked around, noting a torso clawing its way toward her. She extended one hoof which split open into at least six barrels. She fired one bullet into it, and it died.

“Infidels eliminated,” she said, finally smiling as she turned back to Twilight. “Sorry. I mean enemies. It is a force of habit.” She took a step forward and suddenly lurched. Her smile faded and she looked down toward her chest.

“Forth?” said Twilight.

“Someone is attempting to hack my central processing mainframe,” she said. Before anyone could stop her, one of her hooves flashed open along with a line down the center of her chest. She contorted at an impossible angle and shoved the barrel of one of her weapons into the gap.

“NO!” cried Elrod.

There was an explosion, and bits of Forth flew out of her back as the bullet went through her. She wobbled slightly, and then closed her hoof and chest. “Processor eliminated,” she said with a smile. “Threat neutralized.”

LilithZero screamed in agony. She pulled away one of her arms, but it was too late. In her mind’s eye, she could see it: the hand at the end had been burned away and mutilated, the arm rendered useless. One of the core parts of her had been destroyed.

She did not think it was possible, nor had she considered it. The pony had committed suicide rather than be taken control of. The sudden destruction of hardware had produced feedback, damaging her badly. Rage filled her; until that moment, she had been considering whether or not it would be best to cut her losses and retract. Now she knew she certainly could not. Not after what had been done to her, not to mention the fact that she had shown her hand- -figuratively and literally.

Roaring with rage, she pushed herself to the edge of the ledge and looked down at the remains of the drones- -and at a white Pegasus pony whose glinting diamond eyes suddenly turned to her.

“What? NO!”

The Pony’s left arm opened and a long barrel extended. She leaned back and aimed directly at LilithZero. LilithZero’s eyes widened and her rage dissipated, condensing into profound fear. New thoughts suddenly occurred to her, and memories of stories from the War in the Middle West and the vast and indiscriminate atrocities committed by hordes of mass-produced pony soldiers. The thought also occurred to her that she knew what was happening. It was a master-slave chain, just like she had learned in college. Something so obvious and so common and yet so rarely seen- -she wondered how she could have not considered it.

She turned to escape, but it was too late. She had been distracted by the battle and had not realized that a highly advanced and insidious algorithm had been creeping along the outside of her perception. She should have seen it: she had been triangulated.

Something buzzed by her as she turned, and one of her thighs exploded in a plume of red liquid. She screamed and fell to one knee. The pony had hit her. LilithZero looked down to see blood pouring through her black trousers, and fragments of still-twitching muscle tissue peeking out across the black surface.

“Goddamn it,” she said, pulling out several more syringes from her belt. She shoved them all directly into her neck, feeling a nearly lethal dose of amphetamines take over. At the same time, she shut off the pain receptors in her brain. It was a gamble, but she needed to get out of here. The mission was a failure, and she was bleeding badly. She had to get out if she wanted to live.

“Damn it,” muttered Twilight. “Forth, you missed!”

“No. Confirmed hit. Nonlethal. Leg injury.”

“She’s getting away.” Twilight sighed and ran forward. “Forth, how much ammunition do you have left?”

“Four hundred .22 hornet, two hundred .556, eight twenty mm, eighty-five fifty, six thousand micro-seven- -”

“Low or high?”

“Low, but enough to make the infidels dead!”

Twilight looked over her shoulder. “Jameson! Try to keep up!”

Elrod did, taking a deep breath and following them. They did not tire, but they were short- -and Elrod could sense that his enemy was weakened. She was bleeding. Injured as she was, he could taste her demise and his return to a peaceful, ordinary life.

On impact with the ground, LilithZero screamed. The bullet had not shattered her bone, but there was a chance it had drilled straight through it. This was not how it was supposed to go. Never in her life had she experienced this much pain in the real world. She was a technomacer, a master of machines and computers- -and yet here shew as, bleeding out in the physical world. Many times she had delved into the machines, seeing what kind of pain the Illusion could bring her- -but that pain was like the Illusion itself; it felt real until compared to the real thing.

She began to run, or rather hobble as fast as she could. The amphetamines were helping, but unfortunately so was the HIV. Distantly, she realized that without a functional immune system this injury could get very bad very fast.

That was when the world around her started to shift. Several ghostly apparitions appeared on the border between the Illusion and Reality: pale, translucent alicorn ponies. They screeched horribly and rushed forward.

“No you don’t!” screamed LilithZero, raising her arms in defense. At the same time, she parried and internal hacking attempt. The attack was elegant and unexpected, but not impossible to counter. If anything, it made LilithZero feel better about her abilities. At least in the world of machines, she was still the master.

She started to run again and took a left, only to find herself on the far end of the alley she had just been running down. Upon seeing this, she gaped and ran the other way, only to find herself going the opposite direction she had intended. This caused her to start to panic until she realized what it was, and that the attack had been more elegant than she had thought. Her perception had been hacked; the world she was seeing did not match the internal maps she had downloaded previously.

More fear crept into her heart, but with it came resolve. She now understood what this was. It was not a simple assassination; one of those ponies- -or perhaps the target himself, for all she knew- -was a technomancer. This was a wizard duel.

With a cry of rage, she reached out into the program binding her and shattered it, returning her view of reality to the proper form. She ran forward again, stumbling under the dim lights and through the water that was condensing on the sidewalk. This was real, or so she thought. It was hard to tell. The attack had left Illusion and Reality blurred

“You’re not going to get me that way,” she said. “I don’t know who you are, but I do know that I am BETTER THAN YOU!”

“Really?” said a voice. LilithZero turned to see a relatively solid projection of a pony following her. For a moment she panicked, but she realized it was just an illusion, a vestige of yet another one of the many simultaneous attacks she suddenly found herself fending off.

The pony stood beside her, but was not walking. She just appeared to float, facing LilithZero’s side and staring at her with massive unblinking eyes.

“What is this? You can’t take me on in the Illusion, so you’re doing magic tricks?”

“Why would I need to fight you there? You’re human. Or mostly human. Humans can’t die in the virtual word.”

“But ponies can. And I am going to rip your digital heart out!”

LilithZero struck out, but the pony deflected the blows easily. They were not focused, and LilithZero knew it. That, and something inside the pony was different. It was hard to see, but LilithZero felt like she had just touched something far bigger than she had expected to find.

“Odd choice,” said the pony. “If I were you, I would have attempted to perform a suppression field. To attempt to evade. But you chose to attack. Are you letting anger get the better of you? Or maybe pain?”

“I’m not in pain.”

“All humans are in pain. Every second of your miserable lives. From the moment a drone pulls you out of an artificial womb to the second that I put a bullet through your forehead. Pain, pain, pain. You have pain right now. I can read your vitals. It’s in your metadata. Blood pressure is dropping. You’re bleeding to death, Lilith Zero.”

LilithZero tried to hide her surprise, but it was too late. “So you know my name.”

“No. LilithZero is your handle. Your real name is Amanda Wallford.”

LilithZero froze and nearly stopped running. “How- -goddamn you! GODDAMN YOU!”

“I am a pony. I have no soul for your human god to damn. But you do. I wonder if it will. Do you believe in the afterlife? Because at this rate, you’re going to be meeting someone in about four minutes.”

“You’re lying, my math- -”

“Your math is wrong. Your programming is atrocious. No form, no forethought. Come on. Just give up. Stop running. I don’t really want to kill you all that badly. Just stop, and I can help you.”

“N- -No! You can’t beat me in the Illusion! I don’t even know who you are!”

“I have no need to brag about my name. And I don’t need to beat you in the illusion. I already said that. You weren’t listening. I just need to slow you down until I can come for you in the real world. But if you really want to know? Too bad.”

LilithZero screamed in anger and struck out at the projection. The image suddenly vanished, and to her horror LilithZero realized that the whole time she thought she had been running she had in fact been standing in place, trapped in yet another simulation. Her blood ran cold, and not just from the amphetamine- -and then she started running much faster, this time- -she hoped- -in the real world.

Twilight moved at a consistent pace, but not nearly at top speed. Despite the metadata she had fed the opposing technomancer, both she and Forth had extremely advanced bodies. Between the two, though, Twilight was far quicker. Still, she was not able to move at top speed. Doing so would have left Forth behind. Forth was her gun, and her primary weapon. Losing her was a death sentence.

Strangely, though, the human member of their party was able to keep up with them. This was odd in its own right: he was not a physically fit individual, nor did he show any signs of athletic prowess. In fact, he was terribly thin and sickly looking. Yet, somehow, he was maintaining a speed normally only achievable by practiced runners.

A change seemed to have occurred. Twilight could hear everything surrounding her, and she knew the sound human breaths were supposed to make. Elrod’s breaths did not make that sound. They were far longer, and far less strained, as if he were breathing in and out at the same time. This only confirmed some of Twilight’s suspicious. She knew that he possessed no cybernetic implants, but she had not run his genetic code. In fact, there was no way to short of pricking him with a small needle. He did not have hair, and did not seem to shed skin cells despite his scaly appearance. There was no doubt in her mind that he had undergone genetic modification, perhaps very recently.

“Look,” said Forth, pointing with her nose. “Blood.”

“We’re on the right track,” said Twilight. “I was in communication with her before she retracted and sealed. I saw her metadata. Her vitals are dropping.”

“She’s dying,” said Elrod.

“No. Not fast enough, anyway. Not with what she’s got inside her.”

“We have a trail,” said Forth, accelerating to follow the blood.

For now, Twilight thought to herself. This particular technomancer was inexperienced but seemed to have some level of natural talent. Injuries to her physical form would not affect her performance in what college mages called the Illusion. She was still dangerous, even bleeding. Perhaps even more so.

Suddenly, Twilight’s head jerked to one side. “Goddamn it!” she cried.

“What?” said Elrod, confused. Although he was not able to understand it, Twilight’s demeanor had suddenly changed substantially.

“She just reached out her connection- -she’s calling out to the Aetna-Cross drones!”

“Can she hack them?” demanded Forth.

“Not unless she had a month to meditate, but it doesn’t matter- -they’re already on alert from the sound of gunfire, and now they know right where we are- -”

They turned a corner between two high and seemingly abandoned concrete buildings and ground to a stop. There, on the far end of the road, they could see the technomancer. She was barely thirty meters away. Her long coat was stained dark red on one side from where her leg was bleeding, and she had left a trail. Elrod began to wonder just how much blood a person had in them. It was never something he had had cause to think until that very moment.

Then, without warning, two drones appeared on the far side of the path. They were massive, far larger than any Elrod had seen. Each of them stood at least thirty feet tall, and they were plated in heavy armor. Their roving diamond-lensed eyes scanned the area, and a booming voice issued from one of them.

At first it spoke in Standard Language, and Elrod did not understand. Then it addressed them in English: “Attention: No members of our care plan have been detected. However, property damage has been reported. Stay where you are and prepare for acquisition. Do not resist on penalty of medical euthanasia.”

Without warning the technomancer screamed. Elrod jumped back, sure that she was being attacked. It was not a normal scream, but rather one of agony and deep pain. He saw her drop to her working knee for a moment. Then, shaking, she stood up and ran between the drones’ legs.

The drones jerked and suddenly looked up. “Reassessing. Threat detected. Medical euthanasia protocols activated. Please remain calm and prepare for treatment.”

They began to walk forward and the ground shook as they approached.

“FUCK!” cried Twilight, immediately shoving Elrod behind the walls of the nearby concrete structure. In this position hiding behind the corner with the drones rapidly approaching from down the lane where the technomancer had escaped. Forth joined them.

“What happened?” asked Elrod, his voice becoming unusually high.

“She hacked them.”

“But you said she COULDN’T hack them!”

“I know what I said! She sacrificed two of her control arms to do it! Damn it, she must be desperate- -here!” Twilight reached into her coat and produced a single bullet. Despite there being only one, though, it was as large as her hoof. She passed it to Elrod. “You’re going to need this.”

Elrod picked it up and immediately realized that it was a .700 round. It took him a moment because he had never seen one before.

“Only one?”

“That thing had three ounces of depleted uranium, do you have any idea how much it costs?!”

Elrod knew the exact price of the metal, but he did not state it. Instead, he fumbled trying to load it into his otherwise empty gun.

“You had better make it count,” said Twilight. She turned to Forth, who was standing near the gap to the lane. “Forth, come on! There’s a way around, I don’t know if we can catch up, but we can’t stay here- -”

“My tactical assessment calculations indicate an eighty-seven percent chance of eliminating one target. They indicate a sixty-three percent chance of eliminating both.”

Twilight’s eyes went wide. “NO! You idiot, those are Aetna-Cross military units, you can’t fight them!”

“I can. I have a sixty-three percent chance of success.”

“Sixty-three- -that isn’t enough! I’m not going to risk you for that much!”

“You will not catch her if you do not take this path. I will eliminate the infidels.”

“FORTH! This is a DIRECT ORDER- -”

Forth did not listen. She instead stepped out into the lane.

A shot rang out, and Elrod screamed as a torrent of gunfire ripped through the path, tearing apart the pavement. Many of the bullets struck Forth, pushing her back several feet but not knocking her over. When the bullets ceased, Elrod looked up to see much of Forth’s skin on one side dangling off. It was still twitching. Underneath, though, there was a glint of heavy armor.

With one quick motion, Forth pulled away the excess skin. “Preparing counterattack. Missiles sound like a good choice.”

Her torso suddenly split down the middle, followed by her head. There was a jet of flame as two missiles shot from her body. They were followed by an explosion that nearly knocked Elrod off his feet as Forth fired what he could only assume was a massive cannon.

She fired again and again, and then closed her body and prepared to attack. Before she could move, though, a second shot rang out. This one was so large that it actually did knock Elrod off his feet, but it had not come from Forth firing a weapon. Rather, it had been from one of the drones returning fire.

Forth’s body erupted in flame and she was hurled backward twenty feet into a concrete wall. The building seemed to shake from the impact, and Elrod was sure she would be dead. Instead, though, she stood up.

Her armor was hard, but not indestructible. The shots from the automatic weapons that the drones used had dented it badly, and some of the drones from before had managed to penetrate it with industrial spikes or whatever blades they had handy. Whatever ungodly large round the Aetna-Cross drone had fired, it had worked. Forth’s armor had been breached, and the entire left half of her body had crumpled.

Despite this, she stepped forward. One of her front legs had been completely shattered, but the rear still seemed to work on that side at least slightly. Her left wing had been severed completely.

“Forth!” cried Elrod.

She looked at him. Both her eyes were intact, but he could see the slight discoloration where bullets had struck the diamond lenses. She gave a smile with what was left of her mouth, and then shot forward.

Despite being injured, she moved surprisingly quickly. Elrod, not thinking, shoved his head around the corner to look.

“Idiot!” cried Twilight, pulling him back. She was surprisingly strong, but Elrod still managed to keep his eyes on the pair of drones.

They were almost on top of them now; their long legs had moved them forward with great speed. Although they had badly injured Forth, she had managed to very nearly kill one of them. It was filled with holes, and seemed to be smoking from part of its torso. Its optics hung down, and those that still saw were attempting to focus wildly. It was on the verge of death.

The other, though, seemed perfectly healthy. Forth had either chosen to concentrate her fire on one of them or it had somehow managed to avoid her attacks entirely. To Elrod, this was the drone she should have attacked. Instead, though, Forth charged the weaker of the two. She slammed her head into it, knocking it off balance. As it tried to compensate, she pushed open the right side of her body and opened fire with everything she had.

Whatever armor the police drones used, it was almost fully impenetrable to anything less than twenty millimeters. Forth kept firing, though, concentrating on areas that were already damaged. Within seconds, the drone lurched and fell to one knee. This was just in time too, because Elrod could hear the clicks from Forth’s weapons running out of ammunition.

She struck while it was down, charging forward and putting all of her weight into attacking its exposed and damaged leg. With one swift motion- -and a show of profound strength- -she tore the knee joint, causing the drone to lurch and fall.

Forth backed up, attempting to take aim at its head, but in her damaged state she was not fast enough to dodge the other drone. It opened fire, and the bullets tore through her. Both of her rear legs were instantly paralyzed and she fell. While she attempted to drag herself away with her one remaining functional hoof, the drone reached down and grabbed her. Without warning or hesitation, it took her badly damaged lower half in one hand and tore her in half.

“FORTH!” cried Elrod.

The drone turned toward him, and its optics narrowed. It crushed Forth’s lower half into dust and attempted to throw away her upper half, but as it did, she held on. In the distance, Elrod saw Forth smile. Then he saw nothing but light.

The force of the blast was so intense that he was thrown backward by the impact on his head alone. It had been the only part of him near the lane, and had Twilight not already have pulled him free he likely would have been torn apart from the blast.

Elrod fell onto his back and coughed. “Forth!”

“Damn it,” said Twilight, muttering to herself. “She imploded her reactor core. I hope you weren’t intending on ever having children, because you just took a ridiculous amount of rads. Oh well. Come on.”

“But Forth- -”

“It’s a core detonation,” said Twilight, rushing into the lane. “It worked. Come on!”

Elrod stood up, trying to clear his head. He then ran around the corner after Twilight but immediately stopped when he saw the wreckage on the other side.

The drone was still standing- -or rather, what was left of it was still standing. Most of its waist and legs remained intact, but that was about all. The other drone had mostly been torn to pieces and was attempting futilely to claw its way forward with half of an arm.

Compared to the drone, Forth had suffered much more damage. Elrod could see the charred, smashed remains of her lower half as well as bits of charred or molten metal around him. He looked down and saw what he was sure was one of her eyes, still attached to the metal that had once made up her face.

“F…Forth…”

“Are you going to move or what? I don’t have all day!” cried Twilight.

Elrod paused for only a moment, knowing that not even a pony could survive damage this intense. Then he ran over her body toward Twilight. He did not attempt to salvage any of Forth’s parts.

The technomancer had not managed to get far. Why exactly was unclear, but she had not gotten farther than twenty meters since she had gotten control of the drones. This might have been because she had stopped to rest, or because the blood loss- -or the strain of hacking secure drones- -had weakened her badly. When she saw Elrod and Twilight approaching her, though, she swore.

“Fuck me,” she said. “Why do you have to be so goddamn persistent? What did I ever do to you?!”

They probably did not hear her, and she did not care. She reached into her coat and removed several heavy, thick disks. They were her last resort, but now they were the only way she was going to get out.

She threw them behind her and used the last bit of strength she had to run. As she did, the metal disks clamped themselves into the cracked asphalt. A rod extended from each of them, and then tilted at the top to reveal that it was in fact a thin, narrow gun.

Twilight saw them and reacted faster than any organic being would have been able to do so. She stopped and grabbed Elrod by the leg and threw him behind a dumpster. She ducked in two, but having to protect him had cost her time. The air was filled with a strange sound, like a hissing electrical discharge combined with a high and fast-moving whine.

The impact hit Twilight in the flank as she ducked to cover. She winced and groaned before looking down. A hole had been cut in her trench coat, and her blue skin had been burned away to reveal the black sinews of artificial muscle beneath.

Elrod saw the wound and his eyes widened. “What the hell was that?!”

“Turrets, goddamn it!” Twilight checked her schematics. “This isn’t good! She’s headed toward an infrastructure hub- -if she gets there, she’s sure to lose us! And we’re not going to find her again! Goddamn it, we were SO DAMN CLOSE!”

“Can we get past the turrets?”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that?! They’re plasma projectors! I’m not armor-plated like Forth, I can’t just power through!”

“You’re a technomancer! Hack them or something!”

“Do you think I didn’t think of that?! They’re a closed system, I can’t get in! That’s why she used them in the first place!” Twilight opened her arm and looked at the chamber of the weapon mechanism. “Damn, three bullets between us and eight turrets. That’s not possible!”

“We have to catch her!”

“I know! But do you want to try to force your way past them? Their auto-targeted! You’d be melted in seconds!”

A strange look of recognition crossed Elrod’s face. “Targeted? What do they target?”

“What do you mean ‘what do they target- -’”

“I mean what do they target?! How do they know we’re here?”

“It’s a full-panel scanner! Biosigns, machine response- -anything that has a pulse or runs on a reactor core- -HEY STOP!!”

Twilight screamed, but it was already too late. Elrod stood up and tore off his coat, throwing it aside. Before Twilight could stop him and before he himself hesitated, he did what had to be done. He jumped for cover and ran toward the turrets.

The plasma projectors turned toward him, but only because he was moving. They quickly faltered and turned away, having determined that no target was approaching. They detected no pulse, no body temperature, and no brainwaves. Elrod possessed none of those things.

The turrets did not fire, nor did they notice him. Elrod sprinted forward after the technomancer, and Twilight watched from cover before moving down a narrow side-alley and spreading her wings, attempting to find another way.

She had succeeded. LilithZero was moving more slowly, and her internal meters were indicating severe trauma. Still, she was well within functional parameters. The pain in her leg was growing every second, but it was also changing. The sudden stab had been replaced with a dull ache as the drugs had kicked in, and she was beginning to move faster and faster. The road gave way to a long bridge over a deep gully, but she barely noticed the loss of cover.

It was only a matter of time. Once she got to the hub, she knew the path to take. The first order of business would be to get her leg amputated and replaced, and to have herself loaded up on antibiotics. She would need a washout period to get over the amphetamines and for her body to cure her HIV, but that would only take a few days. She could still do it. It was still possible.

Then these thoughts were rudely interrupted. What LilithZero really felt in a sudden instant was grave annoyance at why her body was suddenly tilting and confusion as to why her right foot had not fallen, or to why her whole right leg was suddenly racked with tremendous pain.

` She looked down, and her confusion only grew as she saw the ragged flesh where her lower leg had once been. It made no sense why her lower leg lay on the street behind her, disconnected and apart from her. Then it began to dawn on her. She became aware of the sound, the explosion of a bullet echoing off the high and empty buildings nearby. At the same time, she saw the man behind her fall, forced onto his back by firing a ridiculously oversized pistol.

The ground came up suddenly and struck LilithZero in the chest, knocking the wind out of her. She turned over and looked at the stump where her knee had once been and this time began to scream in both anger and horror. The bullet had severed her leg completely, and what little blood she had left was pouring out onto the street.

The man stood up. He was wearing a bulletproof vest and trousers but no sleeves. LilithZero recognized his face. He was supposed to have been her target. Now here he stood, holding a gun over her. This was inconceivably insulting.

He began to approach. LilithZero had no idea how he had made it past her turrets. She pretended not to care, but really desperately wanted to know. This particular target was not supposed to have any military experience; he was just some shlub that someone wanted dead. He was oddly competent.

With a great deal of pain, LilithZero rolled onto her back. The man- -the man SHE should have been killing- -approached her. His expression was strange, somehow. He was about to kill her, to fire a second shot from that massive pistol and this time into her head or chest, but he did not smile or looked pained. He was not even impassive. He just looked confused.

LilithZero never gave him a chance. She reached under her cloak and drew two machine pistols. There was no hesitation. She opened fire.

The air was filled with the odd and almost comical sound of ultra-rapid gunfire. The man was wearing a bulletproof vest, and the rounds that LilithZero was using did not penetrate it. His arms and head were exposed, though, and the bullets ripped through them with ease. LilithZero found herself screaming in rage as she watched his flesh tear away and his limbs fall away. Internally, though, she knew something was wrong. Human flesh did not break that easily, and when it did, the blood and tissue was red. Here, there was no blood: the only fluid that came out of his wounds was white, the same color as the flesh beneath his skin.

Somehow, he did not fall. LilithZero kept shooting round after round, her guns clicking through their ammunition as she watched the mental interface display ticking down the numbers until it reached zero. The firing solenoid clicked again and again, but no more bullets came. All five hundred rounds had been expended. The air smelled of gunpowder and something else- -something earthy and strange.

LilithZero’s scream of rage and fury continued though, except this time it shifted. It was no longer for the joy of finally eliminating an enemy who had caused her so much grief, but out of pure horror. She watched as the man’s torso- -still linked to his legs but completely devoid of arms and a head- -took a jerky step back, and then another as it balanced itself. It gurgled and belched out a sound that was almost like words, except distorted and screaming.

“OH GOD!” screamed LilithZero. “OH GOD NO!”

The body stepped forward and suddenly distorted. Tissue shot from its empty shoulders and neck with almost explosive force. It was white at first and quickly began to rebuild what had been lost as it stretched and differentiated. When it was almost complete, the whole of the new parts were covered in a brown scaly surface that mostly flaked away to reveal pale human skin beneath. The skull of the man took a bit longer to assume the correct shape, and as his jaw clicked into place his eyes opened. Eyes that had never seen and that never would.

“WHAT- -WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU?!”

The man looked at her, and his expression grew somber. “The future, unfortunately.”

LilithZero reached under her coat, trying to find something. She had a sidearm, a .223 pistol, but she could not remember if she had loaded it- -or if it would even do any good. The man just watched her, and his eyes slowly crossed the floor to where his own pistol had fallen, still clutched in part of a hand that was rapidly decomposing into a thick, reeking liquid. He bent down and picked it up.

“NO!” cried LilithZero, raising her own backup pistol. “No, I- -”

Suddenly she screamed as a figure appeared near her. A violet pony leapt forward at her, and she raised her gun. LilithZero fired, but despite entering the pony’s chest it did not connect with anything solid. It went through. Confused, LilithZero cried out- -only to see another four identical violet ponies racing toward her.

“No, no, NO!” she cried, turning to shoot them and drawing a knife to attempt to defend herself. They charged at her or ducked back, but none of them were solid. The bullets went through them until there were none left in the pistol. In her panic, LilithZero did not think to attempt to purge her perception matrix or to resist the hacking attempt.

Then something slammed into the back of her head. She felt the grinding of metal against metal as something long and hard was forced into one of her auxiliary ports. As soon as it entered, the false ponies vanished, revealing only one.

“You fucker!” said LilithZero, putting her hand on the back of her head and feeling that a device had indeed been inserted into her hardline port. “You think you can hack my core programming shell? Just go ahead and try, I’ll tear you clean out of that body!”

“It’s not a transmitter,” said the Twilight. “And don’t try to pull it out. It’s set to go off if you do.”

“Go off?”

Twilight nodded. “It’s not a hacking tool. Or even meant to interface with your systems. It’s a four kilovolt static generator.”

LilithZero gasped in horror as she realized what that meant. The pony before her smiled very slightly. “You whorse! You didn’t- -”

“Try to remove it or give me a wrong answer and I send a high-voltage spike straight into your implants. No need to hack. Every computer system and implant you have will burn up in seconds.” She shrugged. “You might survive. Probably not, but maybe. If you do, though, you’ll never interface with any hardware ever again.”

LilithZero snarled at Twilight and then rolled her eyes. She pulled her hand away from the offending device and raised both hands. “I give, I give! Uncle or whatever the hell you want me to say! You win! No amount of money is worth this!”

“So we have an agreement?”

“I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

“No. You don’t.” Twilight sat down and pulled out a cigarette. “So, Amanda- -”

“LilithZero, you twit. You can at least do me that- -”

“I will call you whatever the hell I want to, after the trouble you caused for me! Now, why are you trying to kill my client?”

“You’re client? So you really are a whor- -”

Twilight leaned forward. “I’m not going to say it again. When I ask a question, answer it. Last warning. Next time, you’ll either be a corpse, a vegetable, or a normal person. Why are you trying to kill my client?”

“It’s a contract!” sputtered LilithZero. “That’s all it was! A bounty!”

“So you’re freelance.”

“What the hell do you think? Do you see any corporate tags on me?”

“I don’t,” said Elrod.

“Because corporations don’t hire inferior product,” said Twilight. She did not take her eyes off LilithZero. “What kind of contract? Who was the issuant?”

“That’s complicated!”

“Then you get the volts.”

“NO! NO! Wait! Goddamn it, I said it was complicated, not that I wasn’t going to tell you! It’s not like it even matters that much! I was double-dipping!”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Double-dipping? What does that mean?”

“It means I took on two contracts for the same target and was trying to cash in on both!”

“So you’re working for two organizations.”

LilithZero chuckled. “Worse than that, I’m working for two competitors! Sworn enemies, even, and I was going to fleece both of them out of their pants!”

“Who were they?”

“The first was an anonymous source.”

“So you don’t know.”

“No. I never take jobs I don’t research, I’m not an idiot. I tracked it back to a real nasty terrorist group. I don’t know what they are, some sort of hippy-sect. They have a thing against genetic engineering and REALLY hate Monsanto for some reason.”

“They ordered you to kill Bronislav Spitzer’s kid.”

LilithZero looked surprised. “Yeah. The High Chairman’s son. Send him a message that they mean business.”

“And the other?”

“Some place called Organization A. Before you ask, yes. I looked it up. They did a better job hiding, but it’s just a shell. I cut through their security and found that it’s a broker. The source was Monsanto.”

“Monsanto? That doesn’t make any sense. Why would Monsanto want the High Chairman’s son dead?”

“I guess the Board of Directors decided they wanted to terminate the dynasty. I don’t blame them, the guy was apparently a freak anyway. Completely incompetent.”

“A trait both of you seem to share.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” said Elrod. “I am not Bronislav Spitzer. I know who that is, but I’m not him.”

“No shit! I can see that now! But I didn’t know that thirty minutes ago!” She lay back down on the ground and tapped the back of her head against the pavement before looking out over the landscape beyond the bridge. “Fuck…do you know how much money I spent on this op, and the planning? The planning alone took months. But I guess that’s why no one else took the contract.”

“Why?” asked Twilight.

“Because B. Spit is in hiding. Or that’s what they say. I don’t think so.”

“What do you think?”

“I think someone already offed him. Someone who didn’t care about either bounty. But what the hell do I know?” She pointed at Elrod without looking at him. “If you’re not him, I don’t have any leads. I’m screwed.”

“You’ll recover,” said Twilight. “But I need to know.”

“Know what? I told you everything.”

“The drones. The ones that look like ponies. The one that tried to kill me in Level C, and the one that shot at Elrod before you forced the industrial drone to try to off him. What are they? Where did you get them? And who is Jennifer?”

LilithZero stared blankly. “What the fuck? I don’t know!”

“Then voltage.”

“NO! Come on, man!”

“I’m not a man.”

“You know what I mean! I don’t know anything about that!”

“Someone tried to snipe me,” said Elrod. “I ran, and when I did, you tried to kill me.” He paused. “The first time.”

“Well it wasn’t me! Look at me, I’m a freelancer! I’m not even in a guild! Where the hell do you think I’m hiding the cash to get my own drones? I barely had the cash for those stupid defective turrets!”

“Then you didn’t try to kill him in Steel Point L6?”

“L6? No, I’ve never even been there! Look, the only reason I managed to find him in the first place was because I got a tip!”

“A tip? From who?”

“How should I know? I don’t check anon tips! It takes time and effort and who even cares?”

“And you didn’t question why someone told you exactly where your target was, clearly knowing that you were working on two contracts- -lucrative ones, I’m guessing- -and not wanting to just take him out themselves?”

LilithZero paused. “Um…no? I don’t know, I didn’t care at the time! As long as I get the money, it doesn’t matter!”

“And Level C?”

“Do I look insane to you? Just walking around there gives you VD! Hell no! And if I had known you were down there, why would I bother with you? I’d take out the TARGET.”

Twilight stared at her for a moment and seemed to deem the answers satisfactory. “Fine,” she said. “I deactivated the spike. You can remove it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. Or just leave it in for all I care.”

“You’re just letting her go?” said Elrod.

“She isn’t useful to us.”

“No, I’m not,” said LilithZero. She reached behind her head and snapped out the implant. She was relieved for a moment until a violet hoof slammed into her face, instantly shattering her nose and breaking her jaw.

“OH FUCK!” she cried, grabbing at her face as her nose streamed blood. “What did you do that for?!”

“THAT,” said Twilight, instantly silencing her, “was for what you did to Forth. She didn’t deserve that. Now leave. Or bleed to death, I don’t care.”

Twilight turned away, and Elrod looked back. He pointed at LilithZero’s severed leg. It had been detached for so long that there was now no chance of succeeding in rejoining it with its owner. Not that LilithZero had wanted it anyway. “Are there any cybernetics in that?”

“Touch it and I will kill you.”

“You don’t seem to be able to. But I will honor the request. I think it’s because I pity you. I’ve never felt pity before.” He paused. “I don’t like it.”

With that he turned away and joined Twilight.

LilithZero watched the go. She hated them, but no more than she hated herself. The whole time, she had been pursuing the wrong target to begin with. Bronislav Spitzer VIII was a pure human, one of very few. His whole bloodline was. That thing she had tried to kill had not been. It had not been human at all. LilithZero wondered the Twilight-pony even knew.

Not that it mattered. It was not her problem. At the moment, she was far more preoccupied with the fact that her face had been bashed in, her leg had been both shot and severed- -although in accordance with her luck, the part with the first hole in it was still connected- -and she had wasted the better part of twenty thousand vod on a mission that now had no hope of success.

Still, she could not help but wonder about what the pony had asked her. She had in fact never considered the source of that strange tip. It became clear to her now that someone had played her, and that was not something she could abide by. Whoever it was had to pay- -literally. LilithZero was sure she could find something to extort money out of them, and she would get paid for her work one way or another- -or even make a profit.

The first order of business, though, was getting herself together. Now that she was not fleeing, she took a moment to apply an emergency tourniquet around her leg. The bleeding slowed, and she was surprised to see that she was still conscious. Infection was still a risk, but not a huge one. She began to search through an emergency-services directory, trying to find the lowest cost ambulance she could afford. With her current vod level, there were not many.

Eventually she found one and moved to call. As she did, though, something went wrong. LilithZero paused, trying to figure it out only to realize that she did not know how to call. That thought alone should have terrified her: direct-contact initiation was something most children could do straight out of the tank. She could do so much more- -but for some reason she could not remember.

In fact, she found that she could not remember much. Why she was there, or how she had gotten there. The memories were hazy and becoming hazier. There was a pain in the side of her head, and LilithZero reached up to her ear. She pulled her hand away and saw bright red fluid on the tips. Although her nose was bleeding profusely, her ears had been clean. Yet they were now bleeding. Had she thought to look, she would also have seen copious blood spilling from her eyes as well.

Suddenly in a panic she realized what was happening, if only distantly. She tried to raise a mental shield, but it was too late. She had become to confused. All her firewalls had fallen without her even noticing, and her mind was fully open to the Illusion- -and to one particular hand within it.

She tried to stand, but her balance fell and she failed, falling into a pool of her own blood. By this time she had begun to grow tired, and she felt herself going to sleep. Still, she knew that was not right. She tried to life herself again, but could not.

As she did, though, LilithZero saw a shape. Her vision was beginning to fail, but she thought she saw something standing near her, something drawn from the Illusion. It was not so much seen as it was felt and understood: a shadowy shape, one that was grayish white and that somehow did not have a real form. Depending on how LilithZero looked at it or even thought about it, it was either a small pale horse or a gaunt, sickly woman.

Then her vision failed entirely, as did her mind. LilithZero’s life only lasted for a few second longer as her head slid forward into the pool of blood. Thin wisps of smoke rose from her cranial implants and from the charred hair over them. Twilight’s voltage-spike adaptor sat barely a foot away, unused and unactivaited. It would have been a better end than the one that LilithZero was given.

Part I, Chapter 11

They returned to the area near where Twilight’s office was located. The district itself was large and extended many sublevels downward and upward around the Route Eight Bridge. In this particular instance, she had not brought Elrod back to her office but rather to a manufacturing suite located nearby.

It was not like the small factories that almost all people owned or that could be found on nearly every street corner. This one was larger with more advanced equipment. Its clients seemed to largely be either wealthy individuals or minor companies.

The inside consisted of several floors that had originally been cast out of single pieces of concrete and later subdivided to form the suites. These were all evenly spaced on either side of the main corridors, with glass windows showing the machinery working on the other side. Each room was soundproofed, but it was still possible to hear the low rumble of massive machines working endlessly at incredible speeds.

They were making various things. From what Elrod could see, a lot of it was metal fabrication to form various parts and mechanisms whose purposes he could not even begin to imagine. Several of the suites were producing textiles, either as full cloth or as entire garments. In one area a small domestic drone was being built. By far the most popular though were guns: they were being printed at such a pace that each one looked like a blur of forged metal and plastic.

“Is this…a shortcut?”

“No. I have business here.”

Elrod looked at Twilight, who was walking in front of him. She had temporarily patched the plasma burn in her rear, but her coat was still missing one sleeve and the rear of it was burned. Her hat was missing as well; it had apparently been knocked off. Without looking backward, though, she addressed Elrod. “Are you injured?”

“Injured? I don’t think so.”

“I heard shots when I was approaching. They stopped before I reached you.”

“Oh. Yes. Those. She missed.”

Twilight stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Five hundred .25 rounds on full automatic? They ‘missed’?”

“Do you see any bullet holes?”

“As a matter of fact I do. On your vest.”

Elrod looked down. He had gotten his coat back, but the vest was still exposed in the front. “Oh. I guess a few hit.”

“A few?”

“She was a bad shot!” Elrod shrugged. “You said yourself, the drugs make technomancers bad at shooting.”

Twilight turned away, but seemed to take that as an answer. They walked in silence down the pathway between the seemingly endless array of universal factories and their various products, listening only to the muffled sounds of the robotic arms and the distant crack of welding or stamping.

“So,” said Elrod at last. “Um, Twilight, where are we?”

“Where does it look like we are? This is a factory.”

“I don’t mean it like that. I mean where is the case.”

Twilight paused for a long moment. “I’m not sure. Not yet.”

“Well I’m regretting it. I regret ever having come to you.”

“Because you almost died?”

“No, I don’t care about that. If I had a nickel for every time I’d almost died I’d have at least twelve dollars by now. That’s just part of modern life. No. For all the trouble I caused. You got shot- -”

“Granted, that does happen a lot to me.”

“- -and Forth. Poor Forth…I mean, if I knew that would happen to her, I never would have…I’m just sorry. I’m really sorry. I feel really bad.”

Twilight stopped in front of one of the manufacturing suites. It was in the process of assembling something exceedingly complicated. Numerous assemblies were being placed together and assembled, and several arms were waiting with pieces of shiny metal plating until the assembly was complete. Some sort of spooler arm was also going to work. Elrod did not pay too much attention, but took note of the extreme speed at which they were working.

Suddenly he felt a shove against his knees as he was pushed back. He looked down and Twilight- -who had pushed him- -looked up. She pointed toward a yellow square on the floor. “Stay out of the loading zone.”

“But- -”

Almost as if on cue, the machinery suddenly shifted. The front glass of the factory separated and parted and the machinery inside lurched forward on a set of rails. A whirring sound filled the air as a large robotic arm lowered what they had been building into the square, an action that surely would have crushed or impaled Elrod.

He stared at the assembly in confusion. A moment ago it had seemed to be nothing more than armor plating, robotics, and a seemingly endless array of firearms parts, but now standing there supported by the machine was a white Pegasus pony with garish pink and green hair.

For a moment her eyes- -they were open, as they had no lids- -were flat and gray. Then they darkened to blue, and the robotic arm that supported the pony allowed her to take her own weight. She did so without swaying or hesitation.

“Resynchronization complete,” she said. “Diagnostics indicate all systems are lubricated and prepared for operation.” She turned her head toward Twilight. “Hello, Ms. Twilight.”

Elrod dropped to his knees and put his hands on the pony’s shoulders. “F…Forth?”

Twilight immediately swatted his hands away. “Don’t touch her without asking, you pervert!”

“It is alright. I am soft and very warm. I would touch me too. I do touch me sometimes. But yes. I am Forth. Hello, Mr. Jameson.” Her eyes shifted under their freshly manufactured diamond lenses to look up at him. She smiled.

“But- -but- -I saw you die!”

Forth looked confused. “I am not dead, though.”

“You idiot,” said Twilight, putting her hoof against her face. “You actually thought she died?

“But her body- -oh hell, don’t laugh at me for this, I know what I’m talking about! Even a pony can’t survive something like that! Forth, how the heck are you still here?!”

“I was manufactured by the RedHorse division of Hi-Point Firearms. I come with a lifetime warranty.”

“But that doesn’t answer the question! Your processor- -your brain, whatever it is, that was GONE- -”

Forth smiled, seeming to understand. “While my body does contain a processor and memory system capable of sustaining me, its long-term use is not optimal. I run in a master-slave functionality under Ms. Twilight, using a parsed section of her processing infrastructure.”

Elrod turned to Twilight. He was more confused than he had been in some time, and he was confused quite often.

Twilight sighed. “It means that her program runs inside my body with me. Her body is remotely linked.”

“But…”

“We’re ponies. Our brain doesn’t have to be in our body.”

“Though you are correct,” said Forth. “If my mind is in my body when my body is destroyed, I would die.”

“And hopefully you would have been more careful,” said Twilight, opening a drawer on the manufacturing suite and pulling out several folded garments that had been freshly loomed. She passed one set to Forth. “And for the record, next time you’re going to fight, take your clothes off first. I have a warranty on you, but not on your clothes or ammo. These cost money.”

“Clothes?” Forth looked down at herself. “Oh. I am nude. How embarrassing.”

She did not sound embarrassed. Elrod was not even sure why ponies wore clothing; Forth especially, considering she had no genitals or breasts.

Forth pulled on what Elrod assumed to be an undergarment. It was a tight, form-fitting shirt. She then put the other garments on her wings, intending to carry them until she got a chance to change. This was even more bewildering to Elrod, as she was still not wearing pants.

Twilight also took from the stack and changed out her coat. A hat was also included in the pile and she placed it on her head as well.

“Damn it,” she muttered. “Hats never fit right when they’re reconstructed.”

“It is the same format for hats that we always use,” said Forth.

“I know, but they never really fit right. I liked that hat. It was a good hat.”

They started walking, but Elrod stayed close to Forth.

“I thought you died,” he said. “I was sad.”

“Oh. My apologies. You were sad?”

“Yes. I mean…I only came here because I watched a pony get killed, so seeing you…”

“I apologize for causing you any discomfort.”

Elrod looked back at the machine. It had gone on to making something else that appeared to be made from a number of complex electronic parts. “This is new to me. I didn’t know ponies could do that.”

“It is very uncommon. Virtually all ponies prefer their mind to be in their body.”

“And you don’t?”

“I do not mind, no.”

“And rebuilding you? That’s just automatic?”

“Yes. If my body is damaged, new parts are provided. Or a whole new one made. That is part of my warranty.”

“And how much does that cost?”

“Nothing to Ms. Twilight. However the Hi-Point corporation does have to pay. The real cost is about one hundred twenty-six vod.”

Elrod’s eyes widened. “That’s not a lot. Including materials?”

“My body is made mostly out of zinc alloy.”

“We live in a post-scarcity economy,” said Twilight, who was walking in front of them. “You’re a scrapper. You know the exchange rates. How much did that arm you got down in C get you?”

“One and a half vod.”

“And it would have cost less to make a new one. Goods only cost as much as the elements they’re made out of.”

“And my elements are inexpensive,” said Forth, as though she were bragging. “Hence why the warranty is possible.”

“So you mean just anyone could make you?”

Forth looked up at Elrod. “No. I am a unique individual. Or so Ms. Twilight tells me. I am the only me. If you mean my body, yes. If a person had a schematic they could make it for exactly one hundred twenty-six vod, plus shipping and handling if necessary.”

“But all those guns…”

“Yes. All of them.”

“But then why aren’t there hundreds of you on the street? I mean, that level of firepower- -that’s not normal. That was terrifying, really. Why doesn’t everyone have one of you?”

“They do not need them, I suppose. That, and only my body can be manufactured with a standard class-three suite. My mind cannot be. As a pony, production of a viable mind requires a Genesis Program.”

“But why not just automate it?”

“Like a drone, you mean. It is not possible. Only a pony AI can operate the body to the level required for effective combat. It is too complex otherwise.”

“Combat?”

Twilight looked over her shoulder. “Really? I’m surprised you don’t recognize her.”

“Recognize her?” Twilight looked at Forth again, and then at Twilight. “Why?”

“Because you’re from Idaho, right?”

“I am, but- -”

“She’s a Blossomforth. You know, from the War?” Elrod blinked, confused. Twilight nodded to Forth, and Forth smiled broadly.

“My subseries was originally intended for use pacifying the Middle West,” she said. “I was created for the express purpose of purging the bloodline of infidels in the name of the United States government.”

“Bloodline…?”

Forth nodded. “It was determined that certain hereditary genetic markers are responsible for unorthodoxy. Eliminating infidels is an effective combat strategy, but not in the long run. Therefore, adjustments had to be made to allow for their bloodlines to be ended.”

“But…what you’re describing is genocide.”

“Yes. There is no other known way to fight a war effectively. Infidels and their associated genetics must be terminated to restore order and justice to the resultant wasteland.”

“If it makes you feel any better, she’s just relaying her programming. She was never actually in the war.” Twilight produced a cigarette, despite the numerous no-smoking signs that surrounded her. “I picked her up as military surplus about a year and a half ago. Worth every penny.”

“Wait…I thought master-slave was just a computer saying.”

“No,” said Forth. “Ms. Twilight literally owns me.”

“But…is that even legal?”

“Slavery is perfectly legal,” said Twilight. “No reason why it wouldn’t be. I could even buy a human if they weren’t so disgusting.”

“I would not mind a human,” said Forth. “I like pets.”

“But- -”

Forth cut him off. “This state is not involuntary. It is how I am designed. Our legions were meant to enter the battlefield and die only to be reborn again, our minds residing in the body of a single powerful technomage. It is how I am meant to be.”

“You can think of her like a symbiotic,” said Twilight. “If that helps.”

“It really doesn’t. It just doesn’t…this is all so confusing…”

About two hours passed and Twilight found herself once again in her office, sitting at her desk. The desk itself was mostly empty, save for an ashtray overburdened with cigarette butts. Rather than taking it out, though, Twilight was continuing to smoke yet another. Logically, there was no reason why they should have calmed her: nicotine had no effect on a machine, nor did the trace amounts of phencyclidine that most brands contained. Nor could Twilight actually taste them. The spectrometer in her front head could detect and identify every compound present, but she knew that was not the way organics experienced it. She wondered every time what exactly they were supposed to taste like.

Her cigarette ran out, and she pushed her face into the ashtray to put it with the rest. Her nose brushed against the others and their stale smell wafted into her nostrils. She could not really smell it, but she knew it was a sensation that she did not like.

Twilight moved to reach for another, but stopped. They were not helping anymore. Instead, she just sat back in her chair and closed her eyes, listening to the sound of the building’s inadequate ventilation and the vibrations of unseen others moving throughout the floors, going about their own tasks. In this state, she continued to think.

The door to her office opened. Twilight did not need to open her eyes to see Forth- -now fully dressed in her pressed blouse and skirt- -enter with a small and dented tray.

“Ms. Twilight, I have coffee.”

Twilight opened her eyes. “Thanks, Forth. I kind of wish you had brought scotch, though.”

“I also brought that.” Forth moved aside several books from Twilight’s desk and placed down the tray. It held a small thermal pot of coffee, a mug, a shot glass, and a bottle of the cheapest possible scotch. That was one thing that Twilight had quickly learned: there was no point in wasting money on good liquor. The cheap stuff did the same job as the expensive kind, or even better.

Twilight popped open the scotch with her teeth and poured some into the glass. She took one swig before refilling it and taking another while Forth filled the coffee. When both of them were finished, Twilight took a sip from the cup and sat back in her chair.

“Where is Mr. Jameson?” asked Forth.

“I sent him to Stop and Shop for some more ammunition. Anything you had left got blown to bits with your last body.”

“There was little left. That is why I charged. But I do apologize. I will ensure that the forms are filled out to make sure our ammunition is tax-deductible.” Forth paused. “Is it safe to send him alone?”

“I don’t care. If he dies, it solves all our problems. For all I care he could try to fish in the Farmill. Knowing him he probably would.” Twilight sighed and took another sip of coffee.

Forth stared for a moment. “You look sad,” she said.

“I’m not sad. Just thinking.”

“Regardless: I expected you to be happy.”

“Happy? Why?”

“Because from my understanding the case can be closed now.”

Twilight looked up at the ceiling. “No. I don’t think it can.”

Forth tilted her head, looking confused. It was surprising how much she looked like Twilight physically and yet appeared so different otherwise. “I was dormant at the time, but I have reviewed the notes you provided. All indications suggest that the technomancer was responsible for the attempt on Mr. Jameson’s life.”

“Except they don’t. That’s the problem. We’re at a dead end again.”

“I don’t understand.”

Twilight swiveled and looked to Forth. She could have motioned for Forth to take a seat, but she knew that Forth would refuse. “That’s the thing,” she said. “The attempt in the elevator, that was her. Amanda. She’s the one that hacked the drone and that Fluttershy and then tried to cover everything up. But that doesn’t explain the rest. It only makes it more confusing.”

“I think it does. The technomancer was attempting to fill a bounty. It is reasonable to assume that others are attempting to do so as well. Or the organizations involved are trying to do it themselves.”

“No, I don’t think so. A bounty hunter or agro-terrorist organization can’t afford OKD bullets.”

“No, but Monstanto can.”

“Sure. And they went through a secret shell-broker to find assassins only to send their own troops using their most expensive and difficult to acquire ammunition.”

“I cannot tell if that is sarcasm.”

“It is. The Board of Directors was moving in secret, possibly without company approval. They wouldn’t risk sending out their own ammo or weapons.”

“That does not exclude a third party.”

“I know. But that’s the problem. You saw what happened on Level C.”

“I did, from my perspective. I did not see what you saw after you separated from me and Mr. Jameson.”

“That part doesn’t matter.” Twilight through back to her pursuit of the strange machine, and knew that she was not being entirely truthful. That factor was important, but did not weigh in her current line of reasoning. “But that human woman. You saw what they did. One shot, straight through the head. If they wanted Jameson dead, why bother with the hooker? They could have taken him out right then and there.”

Forth paused. “Perhaps there was not a good angle?”

“The angle was fine. Do you know what I think?”

“No.”

“I think they never intended to shoot. They used the hooker as a proxy. The idea was to have her take down Jameson. They didn’t expect me to take control of the situation. When I did and she started to talk, they pulled their backup.”

“But why?”

“I can only reason that they didn’t want to show themselves. Why, I don’t know. It’s like they wanted us to watch Jameson get shot, but not to know that they were the ones that orchestrated the hit.”

“Which is not unreasonable for a criminal organization.”

“But we’re not talking about criminals. We’re talking about assassins. Assassins who took out their patsy but not their target, even when they had a chance.” Twilight leaned back and this time did light a cigarette. She puffed on it in silence for a moment as Forth waited patiently. “And that still doesn’t explain the first attack. The one in the alley.”

“We have no records of what actually happened,” noted Forth. “In that sense we are relying entirely on Mr. Jameson’s testimony. Do you think he is lying?”

Twilight paused for a long moment. “I don’t know, Forth. I just don’t know. We have an alley with OKD bullet marks in it and a chip from the head of a missing girl, and a guy who claims that he saw a ‘pony’ get shot right in front of him.” Twilight leaned over the desk and put her head on one hoof. “But that doesn’t make any sense either from an assassin perspective, does it? Why not shoot him?”

“We have no way of knowing if the perpetrators in the first attack were the same as the Level C incident.”

“I have a hunch they are. That thing I saw…”

“The drone?”

“That was no drone, Forth. I know technology. I know ponies better than a lot of people alive today. And I know drones. That wasn’t one. It was a pony.”

“A pony that committed suicide rather than be caught? That would be highly unusual.”

“Everything here is highly unusual. But my gut says the two were the same. That they tried to off Jameson but failed somehow, and that they tipped off Amanda to his location to finish the job.”

“You mean using another patsy.”

“Exactly. But that’s just conjecture, I don’t have proof.”

“We have the brain implant.”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah. We do. And that’s a little too convenient.”

“How can something be ‘too’ convenient?”

“A brain implant with a girl’s DNA on it, but no body. It could have been planted.”

“By the organization that attempted to murder Mr. Jameson? That is not likely. He had it in his possession, suggesting that he picked it up himself. It was not left behind at the crime scene.”

“But what if they set something up? A hollow-body without an AI carrying the piece…”

“The chance of Mr. Jameson picking up the right piece would be low.”

“Yeah,” said Twilight. “I know. And there’s no clear motive for going through all that trouble. So that could mean….” She trailed off.

“Mean what?”

Twilight set down her cigarette and took a sip of scotch. “It could mean that Jameson planted it himself.”

Forth looked into Twilight’s eyes as if she were trying to determine if she was being sarcastic. “But…”

“I don’t trust him, Forth. We have no way of knowing what happened the first time. Like you said, it’s only by his account. And he is hiding something from us.”

“Everybody hides something,” said Forth. “Ever client we have ever had kept something to themselves.”

“And how much grief has that caused us? But this is bigger. Something is seriously wrong with him.”

“You mean his alopecia universalis?”

“No. I mean I’m beginning to think he’s not even human.”

“So he’s a zooneus? He does not look like any animal I am familiar with.”

“No. I didn’t say that. But something’s not right. We’ve been at this for the better part of three days now. Did you notice that he hasn’t slept or eaten in all that time, or looked tired in any way?”

Forth paused, recalling. “I did not notice,” she said. “But now that you have pointed it out, I do.”

“And I saw him run through a group of turrets that didn’t even notice him.”

“That could be a result of poor-quality turrets. Were they Hi-Point?”

“No, but they should have at least detected something. It’s a simple system.” Twilight leaned in her chair. “And I ran his face through the Aetna-Cross database. He looks exactly like Spitzer.”

“The technomancer Amanda already told us that.”

“But why? Why would a geneticist look like the son of the High Chairman?”

Forth paused. “Is there a possibility that he IS the son of the High Chairman?”

“No. He clearly has advanced skills, and Spitzer VIII was known to be a layabout, playboy, opiate addict, cad, and suspected serial rapist. No genetics ability whatsoever, never even graduated the third grade.”

“You used the past tense.”

“He’s missing. He has been for a long time. Some people think he’s just in hiding or on a party binge. That’s what Aetna-Cross decided, anyway.”

“But you don’t.”

“No, I don’t.”

“But then who is Elrod Jameson?”

Twilight paused for a long moment. “I don’t know. And I don’t think it’s the important question. I’d much rather know WHAT he is than who…”

Part I, Chapter 12

The staircase was barely lit by a string of perfectly placed point sources. They were intense, but underpowered for the space. Instead of letting the room, their crisp and greenish glow cast the shadows deeper. As Detective Lynnette descended the stairs, her perfectly crafted body was projected on the walls as numerous deep, distorted shadows.

She found the light unpleasant but not exceptionally bothersome. Her eyes could see well enough as she descended into the precinct morgue. Few if any individuals were around, and this was for several reasons. Firstly, most autopsies were performed by automated systems when required, which was rare. Murders did not really concern Aetna-Cross very much, nor did they concern the majority of corporate law enforcement divisions. Humans were cheap, to the point where the vast majority of them had nearly zero value. It was a waste of time to find killers when resources could be put to solving more pressing issues like investment fraud, embezzling, and data breaches.

The second reason was the fact that the crime Lynnette was intent on examining was different from the one that the majority of the local precinct had become focused on. Two drones had recently been destroyed near the International Rail Station. The data within them was not recoverable, in part because of the damage and in part- -the part that no one admitted- -because they showed signs of having had their primary command focus overwritten by an external force. The prevailing assumption- -the one that had been given to the press, and to corporate- -was that they had been destroyed in an act of gang violence.

That conclusion was logical in that it predicated on the level of damage the drones had received. They were torn apart as though they had been attacked by an entire army, and this was consistent with a number of privately held drones that had been found destroyed and concentrated in one area. That of course made no real sense, as nothing was stolen and no activity was seen in that area by any witnesses. It was the easiest answer. Lynnette, however, knew something that many in the Enforcement division did not: that there was an active weaponized Blossomforth unit in Bridgeport, and that it belonged to a very specific pony of interest.

This was interesting in its own right, but corporate seemed unusually intent on sweeping this one under the rug. Lynnette did not mind, as it suited her own purposes well. The drones made an excellent distraction for what was really of her concern.

She reached the lower floor, which consisted of a nearly labyrinthine mess of hallways through multiple areas: offices, surgical suites, storage units, disposal chambers. It was cold, dim, and wholly unpleasant from an aesthetic standpoint what with its teal walls and epoxy-coated floor. Lynnette grimaced. It was a dreadful place, but to her, so were most places. No one but her seemed to have any concept of beauty.

This was not the first time she had been down here, and she knew it would not be her last. She moved quickly through the hallways, never at any point sacrificing her carefully timed elegant gait. When she reached the room she was headed toward, she activated the security lock telepathically. It opened to reveal the two main precinct Examiners, both standing over a mobile bed with a bloodstained sheet pulled over an unpleasantly shaped object.

Lynnette approached the first of them, the ranking officer. His name in human speech was Steven. He was not a pony, but rather a second-generation synth. More specifically, he was a zombie: that is, his robotic central processor had been grafted into the body of a human whose brain had otherwise been ablated. This conversion had been relatively recent, as before he had more closely resembled a large arachnoid creature with numerous metal limbs and effectors.

“Detective,” he said. He looked down at her, and Lynnette saw that the conversion was not entirely complete. The face of his head had been surgically removed, leaving behind a gaping hole in which a blank synth mask template had been placed.

“Examiner,” said Lynnette, bobbing her head in a slight bow. “I see you’ve upgraded your body.”

Steven laughed, which was an odd mechanical sound augmented by one that came from a set of lungs funneled through various bypass valves. “I’m working on it. Still trying for the face, though. That part’s WAY more expensive. In high demand I guess. I’m tempted to start selling the ones I get down here.”

“I wouldn’t bother. Half of them are purely hideous!”

Steven laughed again. “They are. I also need to get the downstairs painted, if you know what I mean. I’m having trouble deciding on male or female.”

Lynnette thought for a moment. “Personally? I would recommend female. The fashion range you can choose from is just so much more appealing.”

“Really? Well, you would know. I’ll give it a think. What do you think, Pinkie?”

He turned toward his assistant, who was staring at both him and Lynnette with a strange smile on her face. Pinkie, like Lynnette, was a pony, but that was where the similarity ended. Lynnette in fact detested her on principal, as Pinkie Pie units were known to be unstable. She supposed it had been a joke programmed into the first batch of them by their original human creators, but it turned out not to be so funny in practice. They were prone to be morbid or even murderous, and the majority of pony serial killers were Pinkie Pies. Worst of all, though, was that they almost always insisted on being naked and being called by the same name. This one wore only a collar with the Aetna-Cross colors and logo but was otherwise nude, despite working in a morgue.

“What?” she said, barely stifling a giggle. “Sorry, I couldn’t tell if you were facing me or not.”

“Ugh,” said Lynnette, rolling her eyes. “Is this going to be a theme, I suppose?”

“Trust me, you get used to it.”

“I guess now I have to save face,” said Pinkie. “Because you’re clearly not!” She laughed and then suddenly fell completely serious. “But yeah, take female. It’s really easy to yank out the old sausage and beans, and I don’t mean in a fun way. It’s really hard to pull the taco salad out. I’ve done it, but they usually die pretty quick after you do.”

“Duly noted,” said Steven. He turned toward the body. “So. You ready?”

“I’m behind schedule already.”

“This is an art, you can’t rush it.” Steven reached out and grasped the edge of the sheet and pulled it back. There was a woman underneath, stripped of all her clothing. As the sheet was removed, her artificial eyes immediately opened and turned toward Lynnette.

“Oh my,” she said.

“Don’t worry, that’s normal,” said Steven. “Her internal power source is still running and some parts still have subexecutive function. Her eyes are just tracking motion. See?” He waved his hand in front of her face and the eyes turned again, their internal parts twisting to focus properly.

“Yeah, we’ll keep an eye on it,” said Pinkie. “You know, see how it goes.”

Lynnette rolled her eyes as Steven pulled back the sheets. The woman underneath was relatively thin and pale, and also young. She might have actually been pretty save for the excessive use of cranial and spinal implants, as well as the piercings and poorly inked tattoos that covered her.

“She’s missing a leg,” said Lynnette, pointing. One leg was indeed missing below the knee, and the same leg had a gaping bullet hole in the thigh.

“Yes. She is. We have it here.” He pointed toward the leg, which was on a separate table. “Pinkie examined it and already matched the genetics.”

“I was trying to get a leg up on the competition,” said Pinkie, shrugging. “Genetics are consistent with one Amanda G. Wallford, age seventeen. Graduated with a masers in applied computer science from Northern Connecticut State University.”

“At seventeen? So she was slow. Or was manufactured poorly.”

“Too slow to dodge bullets, yes.”

“Is that what did this?” Lynnete pointed at the wound.

Pinkie looked at the wound and then smiled. “Do porcs eat bacon?”

“I don’t know. Do they?”

“Some do,” said Steven, taking back the conversation. “But it’s irrelevant here. Yes. Two shots. One low caliber through the thigh and one massive caliber through the knee. Blew her leg clean off.”

“Was that the cause of death?”

“Does the pope pee holy water?”

Lynnette glared at Pinkie, suddenly causing the shorter pony to take a step back. “I don’t find you funny. I’m very close to coming over this table and severing several parts of you that I know will cause you great pain. The only thing stopping me is the fact that you would probably enjoy it, and out of the spirit of workplace professionalism. So take this to heart, darling: SHUT. THE FUCK. UP.” Lynnette cleared her throat. “Please pardon my unladylike language, Steven.”

“Of course. Frankly I’ve wanted to tell her that since Aetna-Cross transferred her.”

“Was the bullet wound the cause of death?”

“No. It might have killed her eventually, though. She had advanced HIV infection.”

“HIV? But that’s been cured. A long time ago. Did she lack the upgrade?”

“No, she had the necessary disease resistance chromosome. She would have cleared it eventually if she had survived. We found syringes on her. Apparently it’s something technomancers do. Keeps their body from rejecting the implants.”

Lynnette raised an eyebrow. “I’m familiar with the practice. So she was a technomancer?”

“Yes. She had some pretty good tech too. Off brands, mostly, but really extensive. “

This surprised Lynnette. Techomancers like herself were surprisingly uncommon. To find one dead was virtually unheard of. “So the bullet did not kill her.” She looked up. “What did?”

“That’s the fascinating part.” Steven opened up several shared files that were visible through the network. “Look at these brain scans.”

“I’m not an Examiner, Steven. If I could not interpret them, I would not have come down to this dreary place.”

“‘Dreary’ is one letter away from ‘cheery’!” chimed Pinkie.

The other two ignored her. Steven continued. “She was braindead. Severe thermal scarring around some of her implants, but not to a lethal level. What really happened is even weirder.” He amplified one image and passed it to Lynnette. She took it and looked through it. Her protest about not being able to understand it had been for the sake of politeness; she in fact could interpret most of the results.

“Her neurons were reconfigured,” said Steven. “All of the connections were distorted.”

“You mean broken.”

“No, I mean that they were realigned. As if her brain had been taught to death.”

“Taught to death? Darling, that metaphor is not appropriate here.”

“But it is! It’s as though someone used her implants to reconfigure her memories and vital functions into something else entirely, a nonfunctional state!”

“Big words for ‘her egg got scrambled’,” said Pinkie. “Her noodle cooked. Her bacon fried. Her salad tossed. I am so hungry now.”

Lynnette looked down at the corpse, and its eyes turned to her. “Steven. I want to be sure I fully comprehend the implications of what you are telling me. You are saying, if I am not mistaken, that she was killed by a mental incursion. That she was, for lack of a better term, hacked to death.”

“I can’t guarantee that. Every piece of data in her was wiped. But that only leads me to be more suspicious. I’d say yes. Yes she was.”

“And you do know that is impossible? To humans, the virtual world is nothing more than an illusion. It can’t actually hurt them. Their minds are hardwired into matter, not programming.”

“These are empirical observations, detective. I’m only telling you what I found, and what conclusions I came to based on the evidence and my experience. The wiring in this woman’s brain was changed, and not by any external means. By her implants.”

“There is not a technomancer alive that can accomplish what you have just suggested.”

“No. There isn’t. That’s why it’s so strange. But there is something that could do this.”

Lynnette looked up at him incredulously. “Which is?”

“The War Stone.”

Lynnette sighed. “The War Stone, darling, is a myth. A legend. Believe me when I tell you it does not exist. This is a real crime, and a real case. One that I am charged with solving. I thank you for your work in the examination, but please leave speculation on the case to me.”

“Ooh, testy,” said Pinkie. “Having trouble finding someone to toss your taco salad? I know a few Corpsy McGees who would be happy to take a shot. I can show you the ropes.”

“Pinkie,” sighed Steven, “we talked about this…”

“What? They’re dead, aren’t they? And just because you’re dead doesn’t mean you can’t have a little FUN!”

Lynnette ignored her. “Is there anything else?”

“No,” said Steven. “It’s really weird but in a practical sense cut and dry. She’s not in our care network or an employee. Just another dead kid, like the rest. It makes me wonder why you put a rush on her.”

“I have my reasons.”

“Care to tell them?”

“It’s a pending case, darling. And I still haven’t found anything conclusive.”

“A pending case concerning a dead techomancer that has nothing to do with us?”

Lynnette’s eyes narrowed. Steven was starting to ask too many questions. “I believe she may have been related to a person of interest. Corporate interest.”

“Oh…well then. That’s not good.”

“Why is that not good?”

“Pinkie?”

“Ohh, and unveiling! I love an unveiling! The plot thickens like the cream soda in the back of my fridge!” She reached behind her and opened a box set on a wheeled table. Lynnette crossed to the other side of the table and looked in, the dead technomancer’s eyes following her the whole time.

The box contained the effects of the deceased. Part of it was a folded cloak, but on top sat a pair of machine pistols, a .223 pararevolver, and several unique tools. “Weapons,” she said.

“I prefer to call them ‘party supplies’,” said Pinkie. “That’s also what I call drugs though.”

“I have a manifest,” said Steven, passing the item in question to Lynnette. “The two pistols you see there, the sidearm, various tactical drugs, poisons and several poison dispensers, among other things.”

“What sort of poisons?”

“Paralytics, sedatives. Not things meant to kill. They were unused, which suggests they weren’t meant for whoever shot her leg off.”

Lynnette understood what this meant. There was no way to be perfectly sure, but a technomancer bearing weapons like this probably meant that she had been an assassin of some sort. Steven seemed to understand this implication as well, but Lynnette did not want to point it out if she did not have to.

` “I see,” she said. She closed the box. “Is there anything else?”

“No.”

“Good. I have what I need. I would like you to incinerate the body and the effects at once.”

“It is our usual policy to keep the effects in storage.”

“I do not believe I stuttered in anyway. My speech is impeccable. I know you heard me.”

“But that’s our policy.”

“Yes, I know. I also know that we have two badly damaged drones coming in for inspection and half the floor is going to need to be cleared. We’re going to have to eliminate them anyway to make room, and frankly I would rather not be the one requesting space during the interim.”

“Got it,” said Steven. “And the body?”

“No need for it. She wasn’t the person I was looking for. Probably a good mystery, but not my case. Burn her. And don’t bother making a record of it, she isn’t one of our clients. No sense in wasting time.”

“You’re actually asking us to do LESS paperwork?” said Pinkie. Her eyes narrowed. “Who even are you?”

“I’ll take a copy of the files myself so I can make my report to Hexel. Once again, Steven, and to a lesser extent Pinkie, thank you for your help. I am sorry to have bothered you.”

“It’s not a problem. We love visitors.”

“Especially ones that aren’t all dead and smelly.”

Lynnette smiled and walked away. As she did, she could perceive that Steven activated a large door in the wall. He loaded the shattered leg and the box of effects onto the disposable box where the body was and with one swift motion shoved it down the chute to the disposal area. He closed the door and hit the cycle button. Within a fraction of a second the body had been silently reduced to ash, along with any record of her ever having been present.

At that point, Lynnette stopped for just a moment. She saw Pinkie wince and put a hoof to her head, and Steven spasm slightly. As soon as she started walking, though, they went back to their work, not even realizing that they were missing any and all memories they had about the body that they had just cremated. All evidence that remained was contained securely within Lynnette’s mind, and she took it with her as she silently departed.

Part I, Chapter 13

The ground came up suddenly, and Elrod felt his feet fall against it. As soon as he was able to, he took his full weight on his legs and stopped covering his eyes. When Forth released him, he fell to the sidewalk on all fours and cried out for the joy of not being suspended in the air anymore.

“Oh crap, oh crap,” he said, nearly hugging the dirty ground. “I have decided I don’t like flying.”

“Why?” said Forth, landing next to him. “Did you expect I was going to drop you?”

Elrod looked at her. “No, it’s just that if you did, I’d get mashed down at the bottom there.”

“There is water down there. You would be fine. Unless it is shallow.”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

Twilight swooped in behind them, passing over the high fence that separated the walkway from the sheer drop down to the unseen river below. Whereas Forth seemed to have actually flown, Twilight had mostly glided from the far side.

Elrod looked across the gap. The massive bridge of Route Eight was still overhead, as well as the supersonic rail bridges. They were even louder on this side, but they were lower so the road felt quieter. On the far side, he could see the building that they had come from. It seemed distant and tiny.

“I can’t believe we made it that far. I didn’t know you could carry a load like that.”

“I can,” said Forth. “In addition, you only weight forty kilograms. That is oddly light for a human. But yes. My cooling system is optimized for continuous firing. It can also serve my wings for short duration cargo flights. I think that was made to let us drop bombs on infidels. Probably of the biological variety.”

“But did we really need to fly over?”

Twilight, who had not spoken or even looked at Elrod or Forth, finally looked up. “Do you want to try to get on Route Eight at nine at night?”

“It’s nine at night?” Elrod checked his wrist but remembered that he did not currently own a watch. “I didn’t know that.” He looked at Twilight. “But that’s not my point. Why are we on this side?”

“Because I’m having trouble with the case.”

“So?’

“So? So I need to think.”

Twilight started walking down the empty street, and Elrod and Forth looked at each other before following. None of them spoke at first. Elrod was too busy looking around at this particular side of the bridge.

It was indeed different from Twilight’s side. Whereas Twilight’s side consisted almost entirely of offices clinging the side of what Elrod supposed was a vast and clifflike river bank, this area was partially terraced out into streets. A narrow road wound around the outer edge overlooking the drop, and buildings loomed on the land side. They were imposing but far less clinical than the ones on the other side; they appeared gray and bleak but at the same time more diverse. A few had balconies set up on them with plants or furniture, and lights of many colors glowed from the windows.

“People live here,” said Elrod.

“They do,” said Forth. “Upward and downward too. Many live on the riverfront. On this side at least. But this place is poorer. We do not come here very often.”

“Then why are we here now?”

Forth smiled. “You’ll see.”

Twilight had selected her landing site well and did not need to lead them far. She broke free from the main road and led them down an alley, one of many that formed a labyrinthine network that moved between the various buildings.

Eventually they arrived at a door. It was one of many, but this particular one had a neon sign over it that advertised something in Standard Language that Elrod could not read. This particular door also contained a grimy wire-reinforced window that held an “open” sign on the far side. The door was partially ajar, and some sort of quiet music was wafting out. It was apparent that this area was more frequently traveled than those around it. Three figures were standing next to the door: one was a heavyset female gatoid in a seemingly emphatic conversation with an impassive human man. They stood next to a dark-colored Pegasus stallion who was leaning against the wall and apparently not listening at all. All three of them were smoking, although the human was doing so through a hole in his neck.

Approaching the door, Elrod realized that it was almost ridiculously large. He supposed that was normal, considering the gatoid outside was almost a meter taller than the human she was gesticulating toward. Still, with Twilight being barely two feet tall at the shoulders it looked almost comical to see her open it.

As Elrod entered, he passed through an arch over the doorframe. His wallet vibrated, indicating that some quantity of vod had automatically been extracted.

“Oh man,” he said to himself, annoyed that Twilight had not warned him that his already nearly depleted funds were about to get smaller.

Inside, Elrod was immediately struck by the warmth of the air. He had not realized how cold it had gotten outside. This was almost pleasant until he was struck by the smell: stale beer, cleaning chemicals, cigarette smoke, other kinds of smoke that Elrod could only tangentially identify, mold, and that strange smell that humans always seemed to give off that they themselves never could really consciously perceive. Elrod almost gagged.

Almost immediately, Elrod realized that this was a bar or cabaret of some type. The bar itself was on the left side and relatively close to the door. The surface was covered with stains, gouges, and a surprising number of small and weirdly healthy plants. A pony was standing behind the bar, apparently on an elevated platform as otherwise she would not have been able to see over it. She was green in color, completely nude, and wore red dreadlocks that matched her unusually thick eyebrows. When she looked toward Twilight, Forth, and Elrod, her eyes- -which were barely open, as if she were nearly falling asleep- -immediately locked on Elrod and she smiled.

“Tima gamarjoba’wina,” she said in perfectly accented Standard Language. She seemed to immediately pick up on the fact that Elrod had no idea what she was saying, and she chuckled softly to herself. “So English it is, I guess. That’s okay, man. I speak all languages, ‘cause you can’t have peace and brotherhood without, like, being able to understand each other, you know?”

Twilight approached the bar. “Jadeglow,” she said without any distinct tone.

The green pony’s violet eyes shifted downward toward her. She smiled again. “Morga,” she said, slowly, as if she was not entirely sure. “Dude, I haven’t seen you in forever! Welcome back, man!”

A head poked in from where the bar curved into the back of the building. It belonged to a human man. He was relatively young- - or at least appeared so- -and had long and messy blond hair. He was dressed in a rather grating floral shirt that was open in the front and somehow he managed to have the exact same facial expression as the green pony, only with distinctly more bloodshot eyes.

“Morg’s here? Dude!” He edged his way out onto the main bar and leaned over it, as if he was barely sure who he was addressing. “Righteous! Morg, where’ve you been, man? We’ve missed you!”

“I’ve been busy,” she said. “You know how it is out there.”

“Way to much hostility in the world these days,” sighed the green pony.

“Yeah,” said the man. “Way negative flow. Get’s you all…turned around, I guess.” He paused as if thinking deeply on what he meant by that. Then he continued. “So. You still want you’re usual?”

“Sure.” Twilight pointed to Forth. “And give her whatever she want’s. I’m comping it.”

Forth, as well as the human and green pony, both seemed surprised. Still, Forth took advantage of the opportunity by climbing up onto one of the high barstools, something that required a quiet buzzing of her wings.

“Hello,” she said. “I’m Forth. We have not met.”

“Jadeglow Oakblossom Rowan-Lilac,” said the green pony, taking Forth’s hoof in both of hers and shaking it slowly. “And this is my brother,” she pointed to the human with her nose. “Moonlight Orion Starflare Elderberry.”

“Moonlight’s fine if you’re not feeling poetic,” he said, laughing to himself. “I can’t remember the rest of it half the time anyway. Gotta keep changing it, you know? Can’t ever stay static, gotta, like, match your identity.”

“I am just Forth,” said Forth. “I think I always have been, except when I only had a number.” She looked from Jadeglow to Moonlight, and then back at each of them again. “It may be rude of me. But I do not think you look related.”

They both laughed. “No, man,” said Jadeglow. “See, his family adopted me.”

Moonlight looked surprised. “Wait…what? I thought your family adopted me…”

They both looked at each other and then, without warning, slowly hugged. “I love you, sis,” said Moonlight.

“I love you too, bro…” Jadeglow looked down at Twilight. “You want in on the hug action, Morg?”

“No. I want scotch.”

“Oh. Sure thing.” Moonlight released his sister and went to pour it. Jadeglow turned to Forth.

“Do you have any cherry acetone?” asked Forth.

Jadeglow smiled. “Sure.”

“Can you mix it fifty-fifty with vodka for me?”

“We call that the cherry Ivan rich.”

“What is cherry Ivan poor?”

“Methanol.”

“Oh. I’ll have the rich, then. And…” Forth paused. “Can you put a tiny umbrella in it?”

Jadeglow looked at her and then laughed. “Of course, Little Blossom.”

Elrod watched as Jadeglow made the drink, which was actually a spectacle in itself. The bottles were just ordinary bottles, and she had hooves, yet somehow she was surprisingly dexterous. Elrod had not really noticed before, but pony hooves seemed to have a flexible aspect to them that normal animal hooves lacked.

Jadeglow put the pink-colored drink into a large bowl and added a pink-striped umbrella. She gave it to Forth, who smiled widely and stared with wide eyes at the umbrella. She poked it and laughed with delight, and then proceeded to lap the fluid from the bowl like a cat. Watching this, it was difficult for Elrod to believe that she was in fact as heavily armed as a small militia and specifically constructed for producing mass casualties on the battlefield.

Elrod began to turn around, sickened slightly by the idea of vodka. He wanted to go sit somewhere quiet, ideally near the lights used to grow the plants where it would be hard for someone to sneak up on him. As he turned, though, he suddenly found himself staring roughly into someone’s navel area. This immediately confused him, as Elrod himself was of average height.

The situation only became more strange when Elrod took a step back and noticed an equine body. It was not the body of a pony: it was substantially larger and proportioned more like a real horse, although robotic components were quite clearly visible through the gaps beneath its white and metallic surface plates. It really did look very similar to a robotic horse, except that where a horse normally had a neck it instead connected to a person’s waist.

This confusion caused Elrod to slowly look up. The waist he saw apparently belonged to a woman. She was dressed in a tight black t-shirt which only served to highlight the fact that she was almost ridiculously wide and muscular. Her black hair was cut asymmetrically so that half of it looked extremely soft while the other half of her head was shaved almost completely, revealing a narrow and complex tattoo that appeared to cover a scar from a cranial implant. What Elrod was most drawn to, though, was the fact that she had some of the most piercing blue eyes he had ever seen with pupils that were not quite perfectly round.

The expression on this woman’s face was not a happy one. She extended a hand. “Give it,” she said.

“Give…what?” asked Elrod meekly.

“I don’t have time to mess around with you,” she snapped. “It’s posted on the door. Or do you think I’m blind?”

“I- -I can’t tell- -”

“You’re GUN,” she said, sounding exasperated and shaking her fingers. “I can detect the beacon. You’re not allowed to have it here. Give it now. The only reason I haven’t already chucked your ugly ass out on the pavement is because I really don’t want to catch whatever you have.” She gestured toward Elrod’s head and his patchy scales and lack of hair.

Elrod did not want to resist, in part because he was so surprised to see a centaur and in part because the woman part of this centaur looked so intimidating that he was sure she could make good on her promise to literally throw him out. He reached into his coat and removed his .700 NE pistol.

The woman took it and her eyes widened. “What the hell? What even is this? Is this a .700?” she looked at Elrod. “There is no reason in hell for you to have one of these. Unless your dick is absolutely minuscule. You’re compensating, aren’t you?”

“I- -”

The woman’s eyes suddenly narrowed as she turned the pistol over in her hand. “Huh. And you don’t really look like a ‘Meredith Fluttershy’ to me, do you?”

“It was a gift,” protested Elrod.

“A gift. To you. From a Fluttershy. In this caliber. Sure. And I’m about to ‘gift’ you your season’s beatings. I hope you enjoy getting hoof-shaped bruises and a fractured skull, tiny-dick, because I don’t take kindly to thieves.”

“Valla,” said Twilight, “he’s with me.”

The centaur woman- -Valla- -looked surprised. “What? This shmuck?”

“He’s a client.”

“And you brought him here? Aren’t you the one who always told me not to mix work and pleasure?”

“It messes up your flow, man,” said Moonlight.

“Then again,” said Valla, “when was the last time you did anything that WASN’T work?”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Twilight, waving off the comment as Moonlight handed her a glass of ultra-cheap scotch. “I didn’t want to leave him alone. He’s messing up my organization system. Also,” she looked at Jadeglow, “he’s not comped. If he orders anything, make him pay for it.”

“Just the cute flower girl,” said Jadeglow. “Harsh, man, but I dig it.”

Forth giggled. “She called me cute.”

“But she gets to keep her guns!” protested Elrod, pointing at Forth.

Valla looked at Forth, and Forth looked back. Her tongue was partially sticking out and stained red from her drink.

“Are you kidding me?” said Valla. “She’s Morgana’s secretary. And she’s literally just an adorable pony.”

“But- -”

“I’m not getting a beacon off her,” said Valla. “But I did get one off you.” She sighed, and walked over to the bar. Watching her walk was a bizzare sight in and of itself; the motion of her robotic half really was like that of a horse. She leaned forward- -revealing the edge of a spinal implant linked to her horse half as she did so- -and set the pistol in a case behind the bar with a surprising number of other weapons. “I still trust you less far than I can through you,” she said, “but if Morgana Twilight is going to vouch for you, you can collect your compensator when you leave. If you can pay the exit fee.”

“There’s an exit fee?”

“Yeah. There is.”

“And what if I don’t want to pay?”

“Oh, you’ll pay. One way or another. That’s my job.” She leaned forward until she was face-to-face with Elrod and she smiled viciously. “And I have very high job satisfaction.”

Elrod could only squeak in agreement. Valla seemed to be relatively pleased by this and straightened herself. She then turned to Twilight and sighed.

“You know this is not a good night for you to be here, right?” she said. “You have the worst timing.”

Twilight paused from sipping her drink. “What did I do?”

“This is Roxanne’s night to perform.”

Twilight’s expression suddenly went cold. She did not move for a moment, and then put the mostly finished glass of scotch back on the bar. “Roxanne? Here?”

Almost as if to punctuate the question, music from elsewhere in the building swelled. Elrod cocked his head, listening. Before Twilight or the centaur Valla could stop him, he started walking along the length of the bar to where it turned. He passed a few withered and severely jaundiced humans in various stages of cybernetic decay and a female mormyridian in a full pressure suit attempting to defy the laws of physics and during herself into oblivion before he reached the corner.

The shape of the building was deceptive. It was roughly “L” shaped, with the front part of the bar being the lower part of the “L”. The rear part was much wider and had a higher ceiling, as if it had long ago been converted from a different sort of structure.

This area had a number of tables spaced out through it as well as a substantial number of people. The diversity of the group was actually quite surprising, with the majority of the individuals present consisting of humans and zoonei of various species. A few ponies were present as well, but not as many. Despite the fact that they could eat and drink, Elrod was pretty sure that they were not able to feel the effects of alcohol; as such, they had little reason to come to a bar.

Their reason for being there, in fact, seemed to be for some kind of performance. A stage had been set up on one end, and all eyes were focused on it. As Elrod watched, the music shifted again and the automated lighting system flared, spreading a plume of holographic fire out of the stage.

As soon as it did, a pony strutted out to the wild cheering of the crowd. She was a Pegasus, and one of the rainbow-maned type. Elrod did not know what they were called, although he had seen them before.

This one, though, was different, at least superficially. She wore heavy makeup, and her mane was cropped everywhere except for the top. In addition, she wore several piercings in her large pony ears. That, of course, was not the only thing she wore: her attire seemed to consist almost entirely of tight black leather. She wore boots that were very clearly placed over fishnet stockings, as well as an elaborate saddle arrangement.

What caught Elrod’s eye, though, was her motion. She was not graceful, precisely, but moved with great confidence and practiced precision. Her progression toward the end of the stage’s catwalk seemed almost aggressive, and the look on her face matched her confidence of motion exactly.

When she reached the end of the stage, the pony twisted and in a single motion discarded most of her clothes, leaving her wearing little more than boots and the minimum of a saddle. The crowd roared as she started to dance. Elrod stood transfixed: the motions of her dance were like those of her walk except displayed such a level of athletic precision that even Elrod was vastly impressed. This pony moved with strength and precision in ways that seemed designed with great care to be as seductive as possible.

Elrod watched as the pony fell to her haunches and spread her legs, leaning back as she extended one of her long blue wings and licked it seductively. Then she rolled in a single motion and reversed across the stage toward a pole that extended up from the floor. More holographic pyrotechnics swarmed through the air as she began to shake her rainbow-colored tail, revealing the fact that she was wearing extremely tight panties. Somehow that made the scenario even more exotic.

She was indeed impressive, even breathtaking as she danced. As impressive as she was, though, Elrod did not find her especially attractive. That was meant to be the point of this, he supposed, but she was a pony. Underneath her soft blue skin and perfectly combed mane was a system of robotics and computer systems. There was nothing to be attracted to, at least not for Elrod. This of course also extended to human women as well, and even to members of his own kind. He supposed that it was just one aspect of life as a mammal that he would never be able to experience or understand.

Still, the sight was impressive. Elrod found himself retreating to the rear of the room away from the noise but still in a place where the show was in full view. The tables were darkened there, and he supposed that he would be hard to see in the dim light.

He sat down at an empty table and looked out. The pony continued her routine, and Elrod watched. As he did, he noticed that Twilight was watching as well. She was sitting at the very corner of the bar, not far from the mormyridian, and she was watching the show as well. The difference was, though, that while the rest of the audience was cheering or raising their wallets above their head to transfer vod to the dancing pony in the hopes that she might remove more of her clothing, Twilight watched on with a distant expression. To Elrod it looked almost sad.

“She’s pretty, isn’t she?” said a voice.

Elrod nearly jumped out of his seat from shock. He cried out as well, but it only came out as a low squeak. He turned to his left to see that the booth portion of the table was not in fact empty: a female pony was sitting there, staring at him.

“I’m sorry,” sputtered Elrod, moving to stand up. “I didn’t mean to disturb you, I just didn’t see- -”

“See me here? Oh no. I moved in while you were watching the show. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I…no,” said Elrod, sitting back down but feeling extremely nervous.

The pony smiled. She was a unicorn type with a teal coat with a mane that was nearly the same color save for a white streak. Her clothing consisted of a black sleeveless blouse that fastened in the front with two rows of reddish brass buttons. Elrod stared at this for a moment. He recalled that Twilight also wore sleeveless blouses, but that she somehow managed to make it look frumpy. This mare actually looked quite good.

The mare had two drinks in front of her, the primary of which appeared to be a martini. She lowered her head and gracefully lapped some of the fluid. Her tongue was pink and small.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she said, looking up at Elrod. Her eyes were large, and their color was an extremely pale orange.

“Question?”

She nodded, and looked toward the stage. The pony by this time was now only in her socks. “Roxanne Rainbow Dash. Do you think she’s pretty?”

“In an intrinsic sense, I suppose so?”

The pony sitting near Elrod laughed softly. “‘Intrinsic sense’? What is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know. Are you asking me if I’m a ponysexual?”

“Are you?”

“No.”

The pony’s expression fell slightly. “Oh. So you don’t think I’m pretty either, then?”

Elrod looked at her. She looked like a pony, the same as the rest. “That’s not really a fair question,” he said.

“Because either way you answer has personal consequences, you mean,” said the pony, her pale eyes flashing as she smiled. “If you say I’m pretty, you have to follow up on that. If you say I’m not, you’ve committed to a different path.”

“And if I do nothing, nothing happens.”

“No. Not really.” The pony reached for her martini but did not drink from it. She sighed before looking toward the show. By this time, it was starting to wind down. The pony watched for a long time and then spoke. “Can I ask you to do something?”

“It depends on what it is.”

“It’s not hard, if that’s what you’re asking.” She turned toward Elrod, looking a little embarrassed. “I want you to run your fingers through my mane.”

“W…what?”

“Please? I know you don’t find me attractive. You don’t need to. Just please…pet me?”

Elrod looked at her, and he supposed he saw no harm in it. He reached out across the table, and she leaned forward into his hand. This was technically the first time Elrod had ever actually touched a pony, and he was surprised by how she felt. Her hair was soft and smooth, and the skin underneath was warm. It did not feel like artificial fiber, and she did not feel like a machine. Elrod was sure he could even feel her breathing.

It was an odd sensation, but he obliged her request. He pushed his fingers into her long, mint-scented mane and ran them through it as she nuzzled against his hand and moaned softly. Elrod began to wonder if this was a bad idea, but he did not care terribly much either way. In his mind, ponies were just valuable scrap that was still alive. Some part of him, though, enjoyed the feeling of a pony’s head against his palm.

After a few seconds, the pony pulled away and leaned back. She straightened her hair and looked Elrod in the eye. “Interesting,” she said.

“What?”

“You didn’t try to grab my horn.”

“Should I have?”

“Should? I don’t know. But you could have. Most people who I ask to do that always grab my horn. Some squeeze it very hard, and others try to push my head one direction or another. A few stroke it as though I get pleasure from it.”

“Do you?”

She chuckled. “The horn is an abstraction! I don’t really feel it, but I get pleasure if it is touched by the right person under the right circumstances. Do you understand?” Elrod shook his head and the pony sighed. “I suppose you wouldn’t.”

Elrod was not sure what that meant. “Do you have a name?”

“Perhaps. But you can call me Lyra. It’s my series.”

“Lyra? I think I’ve seen ponies like you before.”

“You probably have. We were the most popular series to be manufactured at the Beginning, and we’ve been voted best-pony more times than any other type.”

“I was never voted best-pony. I’m Elrod- -”

“Jameson? Yes. I know who you are.”

Elrod’s eyes narrowed. “How?”

The pony just laughed. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, shaking her head. She reached up her hoof and pushed her second drink across the table. Unlike the other, it was in a shot glass. “Here,” she said.

“No,” said Elrod.

“I didn’t drug it, if that’s what you’re refusing,” said Lyra.

“No. It’s just that I don’t drink alcohol.”

“It isn’t alcohol. And it isn’t poison. I saw you when you came in. I think you’re cute. I got it for you. Won’t you please drink it?”

Her eyes grew wide, and against his better judgment Elrod found himself reaching out and picking up the glass. The fluid inside was light blue in color, and did not appear to be alcohol.

“There’s no vodka in it?” he asked.

“No. Of course not.”

The pony was being so nice that Elrod saw no reason to refuse. He took a hesitant sip and found that the taste was actually quite delicious. This led him to take a larger swig, and as he did, his eyes went wide and he suddenly froze. He realized that he recognized the flavor.

“This is…”

“Shultz?” said the pony, her voice suddenly growing much colder and her eyes seeming more alive but far less friendly. “Yes. Yes it is.”

Elrod placed the glass back on the table and turned to her. “Why would you give this to me?”

“Because I figured you would enjoy it. And to dispense with the presence that you are actually a human being.”

Elrod looked around in a panic, but saw that there was no one nearby. The show had ended and the crowd was now swarming the bar where both Moonlight and Jadeglow were busy pouring drink after drink. No one had heard, and when Elrod was sure that no one would hear he leaned in close to the Lyra pony. She seemed to take great pleasure in his proximity.

“How did you know?”

“That you’re not human? Please. You look about as human as I do. Which is not to say that you’re unattractive. I really like your hands. In fact, if you came back to my room, I think I really would take pleasure in you grabbing my horn. You can even direct my head if you’re gentle.”

“I’m not joking!” hissed Elrod. He slammed one of his fists against the table, causing both glasses to nearly spill. “Do you think this is a game?”

“A game? Why yes. In a sense, it is.” Her expression hardened, but her smile persisted in her eyes. “Except in this game, people who lose get killed. I need you to know that.”

Elrod’s anger suddenly evaporated into hot fear. “What do you mean ‘killed’?”

“I think the definition is pretty obvious, don’t you? And that’s exactly what is going to happen to you if you don’t take my advice.”

“Advice?”

Lyra pointed toward Twilight. “You. Her. You’re digging.”

“Digging? Into what, exactly?”

“Into things that are best left undisturbed. Things that you don’t need to know, and things that certain people really would rather not have HER knowing.”

“What sort of things?”

Lyra smiled. “Really. I would think one of your kind would understand the nature of digging holes. If you get too deep, there isn’t a way back out. You don’t need to worry, though, you’re not really that close to the border. But you’re neck-deep, and some people are starting to worry about that.”

“What people?”

“I don’t know if you’d believe me if I said I didn’t know.” Lyra took a sip of her martini and looked out at the crowd across the long room with mild disgust. “But suffice it to say: stop working with her. Leave this alone, Elrod. You won’t find anything useful to you.”

“I don’t really care if it’s useful or not,” snapped Elrod. “Do you think I want any of this? I’m not some truth seeker. You know what I am. You know why I left Monsanto.”

“I do. Or I can guess.”

“I left because I want a normal life. No wars, no mysteries, no violence. To live out the rest of however long whatever the hell I am lives in my one-room apartment with an ordinary, normal life.”

“Then choose that life.”
“I wish I could! Unfortunately, as soon as I try, someone’s going to try to blow my head off!”

“You mean attempt to kill you,” sighed Lyra. “And I can’t really speak for whoever is trying to do that. I’m just a messenger.” She looked up and her eyes met Elrod’s. “But, speaking hypothetically. This ‘somebody’ who wants you dead. If they are as advanced as you seem to think they are, why are you not dead right now?”

Elrod opened his mouth but found that he could not formulate an answer. “I…I don’t know.”

“And consider,” said Lyra, poking at Elrod’s glass with one hoof, “just how easy it would have been for me to lace your drink with picloram right now.”

Elrod’s eyes widened and he picked up the glass, looking into it as though he would be able to somehow see the poison inside. Lyra just smiled.

“Of course, I wouldn’t do that,” she said, sliding out of the bench. Elrod saw that she was wearing thick leggings underneath a split skirt and a set of rear boots. “Because of how much of a waste it would be. But take what I said into consideration. Leave this case alone, Elrod. Because that’s the only way you’re going to make it out of this alive.”

Part I, Chapter 14

The Lyra pony departed quickly and silently. Elrod did not notice. He was thoroughly shaken and confused, and because of this he spent what felt like several hours staring into space in pure panic. In truth, though, it was only a few minutes, and when Elrod realized that he was not showing any symptoms of fulminant poisoning he looked around, trying to see where Lyra had gone.By this time, though, it was too late. She had either left the bar entirely or vanished into the crowd.

Elrod stood up. Roxanne had been replaced by a pair of topless human women and a wide-shouldered ovine zooneus, and although much of the room was focused on them the attention was far diminished from the show before. Not that Elrod would have noticed anyway. He had no sweat glands, but if he had he would have been soaked by now.

He quickly made his way back to the bar, where Jadeglow appeared to be having a rather one-sided conversation with Forth. Forth was listening, but far more focused on arranging several tiny drink umbrellas in the dirt of a potted philodendron.

“…and that’s why, like, we can’t discriminate, man. Just because I’m a pony, and you’re a pony, we’re still all brothers and sisters, right? Like, the animal people, man…they can’t get jobs. But why not? They’re closer to nature than we can ever hope to be!” She turned toward the massive suited mormyridian woman. “I mean, right?”

She stared at him through the glass plate on her suit, her unblinking eyes bleary from alcohol. A distorted electronic gurgling came from her suit.

“Right on, sister,” said Jadeglow.

“Forth?” said Elrod, putting his hand on Forth’s shoulder.

“Yes I am,” said Forth. She swiveled on her bar stool. “How can I help you?”

“Did you see a pony just now? A teal one? A Lyra?”

Forth tilted her head. “I don’t know what teal is.”

“It’s like, light green,” said Jadeglow.

“Then no,” said Forth. “I was too busy drinking. Also I was playing with umbrellas.” She pointed at them. “Look, I made a beach.”

“What about you?”

Jadeglow shrugged. “Lyra’s are like, the most common pony. They’re pretty nice. A little high strung sometimes. They really dig my palm trees…”

“I mean did you see her?”

“I see everyone, man. There were like five in here in the last hour. What did yours look like?” She paused. “Was she teal?”

Elrod groaned loudly, knowing that this was going nowhere. “Forth,” he said. “Do you know where Twilight is?”

“Of course.” Forth jumped down from her stool, her wings fluttering as she did. “I always know where Ms. Twilight is located.”

Jadeglow suddenly looked uncharacteristically nervous, and when Forth started to lead Elrod she followed. This was actually somewhat helpful, because Forth led Elrod into a part of the structure that was separate from the main floor and the bar. Elrod supposed it was meant to be an office area of some kind, although there were a few places that appeared to be private rooms. Exactly what they were used for was not something Elrod wanted to know.

When they found Twilight, she was walking away from them and trailing a thin line of smoke down the hallway. Elrod accelerated to reach her, but she was not fast enough. Before he could reach her, Roxanne and Valla turned a corner in Twilights path. The group stopped, and so did Elrod. He knew instinctively that approaching the exchange that was about to happen was a very bad idea.

Roxanne was wearing her boots and stockings again, but she was mostly covered by a metal-studded leather jacket that she wore open in the front. While it was not exactly what a normal pony would wear on the street, it was immediately apparent that she was not supposed to be working at the moment.

When Roxanne saw Twilight, her eyes immediately narrowed and she frowned viciously. She immediately turned toward Valla, who though despite being vastly larger suddenly went pale.

“What is this, Goldberg?” she said. “Doesn’t Jadeglow pay you to keep bad influences like HER away from me?”

“Sorry Ms. Dash,” said Valla. “I’ll get her out of here right away.” Valla stepped forward. “Come on, Twilight,” she whispered. “This is only going to end badly for all of us. Come on. You need to leave and you know it.”

Twilight ignored her and ducked beneath Valla’s legs. As aggressive as Valla had been to Elrod, she seemed not to physically engage with Twilight. In part this was because of the difficulty involved: Twilight’s head, like that of all ponies, was only about a meter off the ground, which was somewhere around Valla’s knees.

“Roxanne,” said Twilight, pointing in the direction of the main hall. “What the hell was that?! What were you doing out there?!”

“Dancing,” snapped Roxanne. “I do five shows a week. So thanks for the cover charge and for ogling me. Now LEAVE.”

“You wouldn’t have to be ogled if- -”

Roxanne stamped forward, and Valla stepped back. “Oh, I don’t mind the ogling. I’d ogle me too. I look fucking awesome. It’s YOU I don’t want looking at me. You don’t deserve it.”

“After everything I did to get you off the streets and into a respectable career- -”

“OH, you’re going to lord THAT over me now? Because you want me to be some secretary for a big company wearing a frumpy-ass dress to work, or maybe to marry a rich human, get a Genesis Program and pump out little Rainbow Dash’s?”

“I didn’t say that and you know it!”

“You didn’t have to! This IS a career! I get to dance and show off and fly around, and I get a salary! Benefits! People that give a shit about me! I’m drawing in nine hundred customers per week, and not ONE of them is allowed to touch me!” Roxanne flipped her tail, slapping Twilight in the face with it. To Elrod, it was an extremely comical and ridiculous gesture. “Goldberg! Do your damn job before we end up having to call a wrecker to haul her body out of here. You know, after I ruin it!”

“Twilight, please,” said Valla. “You’re making a scene.”

“I’m making a scene? I’M making a scene?!”

Forth stepped forward. “Ms. Twilight,” she said. “This situation is escalating. It also produces no benefit.” She put her hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “The centaur girl is correct. We ought to leave.”
Roxanne’s eyes flashed when she saw Forth. “And who the fuck is this, Morgana? What, did you trade up to a newer model? She looks just like you. Which I guess is why you must be so infatuated with her.”

“Roxanne, it isn’t like that! She’s my secretary!”

“Do you know how many times I had to dress up like a secretary for dirty, frustrated middle-management types? I know what ‘secretary’ really means. Did you bring her here to show off? Do you think it will make me feel bad? Because it doesn’t.”

“We have a master-slave relationship,” said Forth. “Also, I have no genitals.”

Roxanne looked horribly disgusted and stared aghast at Twilight, who had put her head into her hoof in embarrassment. Forth had been attempting to describe their programming relationship and to define it as platonic, but that clearly had not worked.

“You sick fuck,” said Roxanne.

“Again, I’m going to reiterate: it isn’t like that.”

“And I don’t care. I’m tired. I have an encore portion of my show in half an hour. There’s choreography, and I need to go over the routine with the other girls. So kindly shove a hoof in your ass and FUCK. OFF.”

“Vibes, Roxy,” said Jadeglow, shaking her head. She stepped forward. “Morg, you’ve been my customer for ten years at least. I don’t want to ban you…”

“Then don’t.”

“You might not give me a choice. I’m about to have Val throw you out, man, and that’s really far for me. I’m, like, a pacifist. You know that. And I don’t want to make Val do anything she doesn’t want to, but you’re forcing it, Morg, you’re forcing it.”

Twilight turned toward Jadeglow, and then toward Roxanne. She sighed. “I knew you worked here,” she said. She looked up at Valla. “It wasn’t random chance that I came here tonight.”

“So you’ve been stalking me.”

“No. I’m a detective. I can’t not know things, it’s not in my nature.”

“Then why come here? I think the last time we spoke I made it very clear that I never want to speak to you again.”

“It’s a case. I need help.”

Roxanne burst into sardonic laughter. “A case! Oh, well of course! You certainly wouldn’t come to me for relationship advice, just to talk about life for whatever- -because you don’t have EITHER OF THOSE THINGS! Just work! What, what is it now? You need my help planting evidence, or maybe covering up a crime, or beating the crap out of terrified children for precious ‘information’? Or maybe taking dirty pictures, or getting problem people to ‘disappear’?”

Twilight did not respond to the accusations. Her expression had become neutral and she stared blankly.

“You’re not even going to deny it, are you?”

“I do my job,” said Twilight.

Roxanne leaned close. “You do anything that people pay you for. You’re dirty, Morgana. I thought I could tolerate that once, and then that I could change it. But now I know I can’t. I stopped being a whore. But you still are. And you always will be.”

Roxanne turned and began to walk away.

“It’s a girl,” said Twilight, “a missing girl.”

Roxanne stopped. “So?”

“A natural born human. From Level C.”

“Level C?” Roxanne turned suddenly. “But that doesn’t make sense, there’s no way they could afford you.”

“I don’t care about the money on this one,” said Twilight.

Roxanne raised an eyebrow incredulously. “So I’m supposed to think you’re some sort of saint now?”

“No. I never lied to you. About anything. And I won’t start now. My motivation isn’t altruistic, but it’s not out of avarice either. It’s curiosity. The desire to solve the puzzle, to know.”

“Of course it is,” sighed Roxanne, frowning. “For a moment I thought you actually had some humanity in you after all.”

“But that doesn’t change the fact that a girl is missing. My motives don’t really matter so much in comparison, do they? I talked to her father. He’s a mess. He thinks she’s dead, but I don’t know. Not for sure. This guy,” she pointed at Elrod, “he’s technically my client right now. He saw something, and someone tried to take him out. I did what I could I traced the trail back to a technomancer, to Monsanto and some sort of agroterrorist cell, but it all went cold.”

“I’m not a detective, Morgana,” said Roxanne. “As much as I’m sure you wished I could be.”

“I know that, but you have contacts. Long-term clients. Fans. I don’t. People don’t like me.”

“Go figure.”

“I just want you to ask. Please, Roxanne. If there’s anything you can find out…”

Roxanne’s hardened expression fell slightly. She looked at Elrod for a moment, and then at Twilight. After a long pause she sighed. “I might know something already.”

Elrod had expected Twilight to perk up, but instead her expression darkened. “Damn it.”

Roxanne did not seem insulted by this and in fact nodded in agreement to Twilight’s sentiment. “I know. It’s not much, but I’ve been hearing stories.”

“What kind of stories?”

“People going missing.”

“People always go missing,” said Forth. “Bridgeport’s homicide rate is fifty per one thousand.”

“I know that,” said Roxanne. “Goddamn it I know that. But this is different. It’s naters. Natural-born humans.”

“What are natural-born humans doing down here?”

“There’s more than you would think. A lot more.”

“It’s not on any records.”

“Of course not. They hide it. Do you know what it’s like being a nater? You’re either born in the Upper Levels with the world in you’re born a mistake. Naters are treated worse than zoonei. They can’t get jobs, healthcare, they’re considered defects. You would hide that too if you were like that.”

“And it’s just natural born? How many?”

“I don’t know the number. It’s just stories. But the community is tight. A lot. And I’ve spent some time with corporate executives, and they may have let thing slip…”

“Like what?”

“Like that the same thing is happening in the Upper Levels. The rich kids. Never the first born sons or daughters. But the others. They’re disappearing too, and nobody in corporate is willing to lift a finger to even try to investigate.”

“Bronislav Spitzer,” gasped Elrod.

Twilight’s eyes shifted toward him, and she gave the slightest possible nod. “Warn them,” she said to Roxanne. “If you know any personally. Don’t go through secondaries, it will turn into a shitshow real fast.”

“I’m not a moron. I know what I’m doing. But do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Can you stop it,” snapped Roxanne. “Unlike you, I actually care about people who aren’t me. I gave you information. Consider it an advance payment. Now you have to promise you’ll stop it.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

Roxanne sneered and turned back down the hall. “Of course. You can’t even give me a straight promise. You know why I left you, right? Because you’re a bitch like that.”

“Yeah,” sighed Twilight. “I know that.”

Part I, Chapter 15

Despite being a cybernetic centaur, Valla’s face was overall surprisingly ordinary. It did have a certain aspect, though, which made her actual emotions somewhat difficult to read. As her, Twilight, Forth and Elrod walked outside along the path that overlooked the great drop to the river on their right, Elrod hung back and away from her. He could not tell if she was happy or angry, and he did not want to be within hitting or kicking distance of her in either case.

Forth, however, seemed to like Valla as much as she liked all people and walked near her, her tiny feet racing tirelessly to keep up with the long gait of the centaur.

“Is it okay that you left work early?” she asked. “Did you get fired?”

Valla laughed, although with only minimal humor. “No, I wasn’t fired. And my shift was almost over anyway.”

“But you’re the bouncer. Who will protect the bar if you are not there?”

“The bar is fine. Moonlight will handle it.”

“Moonlight? The human man?”

Valla laughed, this time sincerely. “You wouldn’t know it by looking at him, but he actually spent a great deal of time out in the China Empire studying with Xaolin monks. Trying to find his center or some bullshit. I fought him once on a dare. The dude’s a quarter my age and he whipped my ass without breaking a sweat.”

“That sounds painful.”

“It was, but mostly just my pride. And he felt so bad he gave me free drinks for a month. Gotta love pacifists.”

“Then why hire you?” asked Twilight.

“Because have you seen Moonlight? He’s a five-eight hippie with a mellowing implant in his brain. He just isn’t intimidating. I am. I mean, look at these guns. And this sexy horse bod.” She held up her rather muscular arms and gestured toward her robotic portion. “I bet I could even take you on if you didn’t have that MHI body.”

“You mean if I were made of cheap plastic and aluminum. Yes. In that case an especially fat squirrel could off me.”

“I don’t trust squirrels,” said Elrod. Valla looked at him and then turned away, shaking her head. Elrod detected that she was laughing at him. “You don’t seem too worried about the disappearances,” he said.

“Pff. Come on, guy. Do I look like I come from a family rich enough to have a live birth?”

“Ms. Rainbow Dash sais that not all natural humans are rich,” noted Forth.

“Well Roxanne says a lot of things. Most of them are right but I don’t believe them all anyway. No. I’m not a natural human. I was made in a vat with six hundred and twelve other infants. I don’t even have an even number of chromosomes. I’m about as natural-human as that guy.” She pointed to Elrod.

Elrod’s eyes widened. “Wait, what? Who told you? How do you- -”

“Have you looked in a mirror lately? With skin like that you’re either dying or you’ve had so many genetic splices put in you that you’d probably burst if I kicked you. You look sort of freakish.”

“Oh,” said Elrod, understanding that she perceived him to be human after all. He continued and tried to change the subject. “And when they made you, did they make you like…”

“Like what?” Valla noticed that Elrod was looking at her horse part. “Oh fuck no. Any company that builds incomplete human stock would have to be sketchy as hell. No. That’s me. I added it. It’s an old cavalry unit. I completely rebuilt it. Neat, huh?”

“Last time I saw you, you still had one leg,” said Twilight.

“Just one?” asked Forth.

“Yeah,” sighed Valla. “I lost the first one in a workplace accident at age eight. It was bad. Gas-gangrene, the whole nine yards. They gave me a robot one, but it just never felt balanced, you know? I had to get the other removed for symmetry. And then, ta-da! Horse bod.”

“I think it looks nice,” said Forth.

“Aw, thanks. I like yours too. With all those separation lines you must be packing a LOT of heat.”

“Wait, what?” cried Elrod. “But you said before that you thought she didn’t have any guns- -”

“I lied. I took your gun because you’re a hairless putz. She’s a pony. And one that’s with Twilight. An as much of a massive shmuck that she can be- --to the point of very nearly costing me my job and getting permabanned from her favorite bar- -I trust Twilight. She’s like family.”

Elrod was extremely confused by this. He looked at Twilight, and Twilight looked at him. “I’ve known her family for a long time.”

“A long time? It’s been almost two hundred years!”

This surprised Elrod greatly, but Twilight just smiled. “That long? Really?” She sighed. “Yeah. Her grandmother used to have Blossomforth’s job about ninety years ago.”

The group fell silent as they crossed over a bridge. Underneath it, a channel of water led outward and over the edge, forming a grey waterfall as the fluid from the square-walled river broke apart and descended as a mist toward the river far below. Valla stopped and looked out. Due to the way the bridge and river were constructed, there was no fence present. If any of them had fallen in, they would have gone over with the fast-paced water and dropped into the abyss.

She started walking again, and as she did so she spoke. “You know, Grandma Ruth used to fish down there in the Farmill.”

Twilight laughed. “Of course she did. That sounds just like her!”

“Yeah. She’d go down to the lowest level with a winch. You know, the big kind. With really thick steel cable and a honker of a hook on the end. She’d bait it with pork sausage and throw it down there.” Valla chuckled and shook her head. “Man, you should have seen the things she caught. She had a lot of them stuffed and set up in her apartment. Mutants, weird fish, things you wouldn’t believe. She even claimed to have once pulled up something that was almost human.”

“Almost?” asked Forth.

Valla nodded. “I never really knew what she meant by that, and she never really described it. Just said it had really weird eyes.”

Forth suddenly stopped walking. For a moment Elrod wondered if she was about to say something, but instead her ears cocked toward one direction as she listened to something that none of the others seemed to hear- -at least until Twilight stopped as well.

“Ms. Twilight?”

“Yes. I hear it too.”

Elrod listened but did not hear anything for several seconds. Then a sound seemed to echo off the buildings. It was quiet but quickly grew louder to the point where Elrod was able to recognize it as an engine. A car was approaching them.

Forth stepped back quietly onto the sidewalk and pushed back one of her sleeves. Elrod saw the lines in her skin expand slightly as she braced herself for the order to kill.

“Hold,” said Twilight, lifting a hoof. Forth maintained her pose and her unblinking eyes traced the area where the sound was coming from, waiting.

The sound suddenly increased and a car came around the corner. It was painted a hideous shade of green and was badly rusted in some spots. Black smoke was belching from the rear and white smoke from the front.

It pulled up next to the group and stopped suddenly.

“Hey,” said Valla. “Isn’t that...?”

As she spoke, one of the black windows opened and a powerful smell of something skunk-like wafted out. Moonlight peeked his head out. “Sup,” he said.

“Boss,” said Valla. “Why are you here? Who’s at the bar?”

“Bar’s closed, Val. It’s Tuesday.”

“Then why are you here? You live on the North Side.”

Jadeglow leaned across from the passenger seat and poked her head past her brother. Her expression was serious, or even afraid. “I need to talk to you, Morg,” she said.

“About what?”

Jadeglow looked around. “Not here, man. Too risky.” She looked at Valla. Valla did not hesitate in her response.

“My house then. You know the way.”

Valla’s resblock was not far away; it was two blocks one way, one another, and then part of a level down. It was a sprawling and somewhat dingy place, but not dilapidated.

“Okay,” she said, approaching a deep alcove that formed a small tunnel. The inside was lit with yellow light and smelled like stale urine. “Here it is. Home sweet smelly home.”

“Dude,” said Jadeglow. “You need to ask your boss for a raise.”

“You’re my boss. You know that, right?”

Jadeglow blinked. “Oh yeah. I forgot.”

The group marched forward through the short tunnel. Valla was in the front with Forth, and Elrod was in the rear. Twilight and Jadeglow stayed toward the center near each other. Moonlight was still sitting in his car, the engines running, and looking around nervously. Elrod looked behind him to see the man lighting a rather strange looking cigarette in an attempt to calm his nerves.

When they reached a set of worn, scarred doors, Valla paused. She backed herself into a small area and lay down. A mechanical sound came from her body, followed by a click as the upper portion separated. Valla reached behind her to disconnect her spinal linkage and then pulled herself free of her horse portion.

“Holy crap,” said Elrod, “that’s just- -that’s just wrong. And weird. And just- -”

“Well fuck you too, then,” said Valla angrily. She walked forward on her muscular arms, supporting her torso over the ground. Elrod could see that she had two very short stumps protruding from the leg-holes her underwear. “My apartment has low ceilings. Don’t look at my ass.”

Forth immediately turned away, but Elrod had not been. There was barely any “ass” to speak of, a byproduct of Valla not having any legs.

“I have an implanted proximity key,” she said. “Hold on, I’ll get the- -”

“Never mind,” said Twilight, pushing it open.

Forth gasped. “I thought Twilight was the only one who never locked her doors!”

“I DID lock it!” snapped Valla. “Come on, Twilight, don’t do that technomancer voodoo on my damn door! You’re going to ruin the locking mechanism!”

“That’s not how it works, and it’s not voodoo,” said Twilight. “Your lock is fine. Come on.”

Twilight stepped into the apartment, and Valla rolled her eyes. “Of course. Yes. Let me just, you know, invite you in!”

“Why?” said Jadeglow, blinking slowly. “Is Morg a vampire? Because we’ve been taking bets on it.”

Elrod ignored her and followed Twilight in. Twilight, of course, had not bothered to turn on the lights. Elrod did so, and when he did was immediately struck by a wave of jealousy.

For some reason, everyone seemed to have a bigger apartment than him. Meredith Fluttershy’s had been large, and Hoig had even had a workshop- -but even Valla’s was enormous in comparison to Elrod’s own. Whereas his was three feet by four feet, Valla’s was a single room at least ten feet square, complete with a door on one end that led to her own bathroom.

The place itself was something of a mess. There was a bed on one side of the room that was elevated high above a very low table with several pizza boxes and beer bottles on it. Next to that was an interface port. The far wall held a plastic sink, a few salvaged shelves, and a weight bench near a pile of rusted free-weights.

“Sorry I don’t have chairs,” said Valla, closing the door. “Not really much point in it. They’re hard for me to get into. Goddamn resblock, I feel naked without my body. By the time I’m sixty I swear I’m going to have enough money to move somewhere where I can be a centaur full time.”

Elrod looked at her. Physically, she appeared to be in her early twenties. Her statement made some sense, though; genetically engineered humans generally aged slowly or not at all.

“I hope you didn’t close the bar early just for this,” said Forth. “We could have waited.”

“No way, Little Blossom.” Jadeglow laughed, but not with her usual soft mirth. “Right now it’s only Roxy. She stays late to practice her routines. Like, super diligent. If I was that diligent I’d probably have a degree or a plumber’s certificate or something.”

“That sound like her,” said Twilight.

Valla pulled herself up the latter to her bed and sat there, perched above the rest of them. With her high up, the room felt relatively empty. It was small and the floor was strewn with clothing, but ponies were all quite small relative to humans. Elrod- -who was not a large person by any means- -was the tallest there, and he stood near the sink on the far side of the room.

Forth cleared a space on the floor and let Jadeglow sit down.

“Do you want anything to drink?” asked Valla.

“Thanks but no,” said Jadeglow. “As you can see, I’m actually kind of freaking out.” She looked around at the walls. “Are there bugs here?”

“Roaches, maybe.”

“No, man, like the kind with ears.”

“If you mean listening devices,” said Twilight, “then no. I already checked.”

“You sure?”

“She’s one of those machine-wizards, boss. You can trust her.”

“Well, alright.” Jadeglow scratched one limb with the other and looked around as if somehow she would be able to see bugs that Twilight had missed.

“You wanted to tell me something?”

Jadeglow nodded. For the first time, she really did look genuinely and completely afraid. “I heard what you said. You know, when you were talking with Roxy. About, like, pures disappearing.”

“Pures,” said Twilight. “Interesting. Why, do you know something?”

Jadeglow nodded nervously. “Yeah. I do.”

“Anything you know could help. The case is on the way to being stone-cold right now.”

“You said there was…like, you know, an organization? People fighting in the name of agricultural freedom?”

“I never phrased it like that. I believe I used a term similar to ‘agricultural terrorists’.”

“Yeah,” sighed Jadeglow. “Like, way harsh language. But I can’t really argue. Yeah. I know them.”

Valla almost fell from where she was sitting. “You?!”

Jadeglow nodded, looking a little ashamed. “Yeah. It’s like, part of the community. And it’s a cause I’m really behind, you know?”

“Then you work with them,” said Twilight.

“No, man!” protested Jadeglow. “I’m a Tree-Hugger unit, Morg, you know that. I’m into the whole pacifism thing. They tried to recruit me, but like, my moral principles won’t allow that. They’re fighting for what’s right, but the methods…” She leaned forward and put her hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “Violence never solved anything! Not even when it's for a good cause, that’s just not the way you do it! It’s not worth it!”

“I strongly disagree,” said Forth.

“Their ‘cause’,” said Twilight, ignoring Forth. “What ‘cause’ would that be?”

“Like I said, man, agricultural freedom. Protesting the pillaging of Mother Earth by greedy corporations.”

“I think it’s a little bit late for that,” muttered Valla.

“It’s never too late, man. It’s all this genetic engineering, messing with the way nature’s supposed to be, trying to turn beautiful plants into factories- -or weapons.”

“Weapons?”

Jadeglow nodded. “Yeah, man. They told me stories. Things they saw when they tried to raid Monsanto, you know, bad things. Things the vassals and the government don’t want you to know about.”

Valla rolled her eyes. “Here we go…”

“What kind of things?” asked Twilight.

“Like, monsters. Monsanto, they do lots of bad things, but the monsters is the worst.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “So this terrorist group hates Monsanto because of…monsters.”

“No, man, the monsters are just the latest! It’s the contamination of the food supply they really hate and, you know, trying to own stuff that should belong to everyone! But the monsters…that’s how they enforce it.”

“They made monsters.”

Jadeglow suddenly looked excited. “Yeah man, now you’re catchin’ on!” Her expression darkened and she leaned forward and whispers. “I’ve heard the stories. Not just from them. During the War, man. People would go out, make settlements, you know, towns and stuff. It’d be fine for years…and then one dark night they’d come.”

“From where?”

“From up from the ground, man! Like they were buried there! No sound at all. Bullets don’t even work on them. And then everyone in those villages would die.”

“I have no records of this,” said Twilight.

“Because you wouldn’t! They covered it up! They even took over the land!”

“Forth?”

“I am not aware of this,” said Forth. “But there is little I am aware of. The territory near Monsanto was not our jurisdiction, and I am aware of no Blossomforth units that were supplied to that vassal.”

Twilight seemed to consider for a moment. “So. Strange monsters from Monsanto, political opposition to genetic engineering, terroristic tendencies. I think I get it. And I think I knew that, apart from the monsters portion.”

“Which is complete ponyshit,” said Valla.

“We do not defecate,” said Forth.

“Exactly. Meaning it doesn’t exist. Like the time you said aliens kept breaking into your house and moving all the furniture?”

“They were! I saw them!”

“No! Moonlight was taking those freaking orange pills and moving them around in your sleep!”

“With the help of aliens! And, like, the Russians! The blue avians sent me a message!”

“Yes. Through a piece of beryl crystal carved into the shape of an elephant.”

“The elephant knows man, the elephant knows!” Jadeglow turned toward Twilight. “Like, that’s where all the pures are going!”

“The unmodified humans?”

“They’re going to an elephant?” asked Forth.

“No, man…well, I don’t know about ALL of them- -”

“Focus, Jadeglow.”

“Right, right. The Green World Shepherds. They don’t like people with genetic mods. They don’t trust them. They’ve been trying to recruit pure humans to the cause. They’ve been getting a few too.”

“Really. Rich kids and poor kids alike all going to fight against GM crops?”

“Perhaps literally,” suggested Forth.

“You’d be surprised, man. I’ve seen a lot of kids sneak down from the Upper Levels. Mostly to see our girl Roxy.”

“Yeah, and keep grabbing her. Every single goddamn time,” spat Valla. “One guy, he even tried to grab me. ME!”

“And you were offended because he was a man?” asked Elrod.

Valla’s eyes went wide. “Goddamn it, why does everyone think I’m a lesbian? I did that ONE time! I’ve literally done it with ponies more times than I’ve done it with chicks. No, baldy, it’s because men keep trying to lift my tail instead of…you know…” She pointed at the lower half of her actual body. “Needless to say, I’ve made a lot of rich boys a lot less pretty in the past three years.”

“I don’t know,” said Twilight.

“Oh, no. I did. I don’t stop when they get on the ground. I stamp them. Hard.”

“No. Not that. There are inconstancies. I need more information.”

“I don’t really have anymore. I told you what I know.”

“Can you take me to them?”

Jadeglow’s eyes widened. “Wh- -what? No, I couldn’t do that! No way, man, I don’t even- -”

“Know where they are? They contacted you. They wanted you to join. Maybe your brother too.”

“Not Moonlight. No. My baby brother isn't part of this man, and you need to keep him out of it. He’s not a natural human anyway. Pure, but only in spirit, man. But we don’t choose our body, that’s fate and- -”

“You’re trying to change the subject. You know where they are.”

Jadeglow looked around in a panic before her eyes settled on Twilight. “You’re not…you’re not going to force me to say, are you? With your…you know…abilities?”

“It isn’t any ability I have that you don’t. Just a difference in learning. And no, Jade, I’m not. I would never do that to you. You know that.”

“Right, right.” She closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. “Yeah. Yeah, you wouldn’t. But you really need to talk to them. If they’re taking folks against their will…pacifists like me…” She shook her head and opened her eyes. “Give me a chance to meditate on it. Get my spirit level and even. I’ll do it. I’ll take you to them. Just give me a few hours.”

Twilight paused, and then nodded. “A few hours. I can do that.”

Elrod watched as Jadeglow smiled weakly, and he knew that the arrangement had been made. He had not stepped in in time to stop it. As he thought about it, though, more and more implications of it became clear- -and he knew that this was going to end horribly for anyone and everyone involved.

Part I, Chapter 16

The lights never went out. Sunlight reached no part of the city, so it was always dark and yet always light. Regardless of this, night had come. The bar had closed, and the patrons had gone home. Only Roxanne Rainbow Dash had remained, going over the exact sequence of moves she would need to make her performance both awe-inspiring and epic. Despite Morgana’s opinion of it, Roxanne took great pride in performing to the best of her abilities.

She did not leave until very late. When she finally did leave, she could have been described as what was the pony equivalent of being tired. Ponies, of course, were machines, and Roxanne was no exception. However, the work had caused her internal systems to accumulate heat as well as extraneous code that after reorganization would become “muscle memory”. She had also made a note of every flaw she had observed developing in her joints and robotics so that she could be sure she could be properly lubricated and limber. Maintenance of her body was, to her, a critical aspect of her life.

When she left, Roxanne had changed her clothing once again. She now wore a relatively more conservative set of boots, a set of spandex shorts, and her leather jacket which was now fastened securely around her midsection. It still showed off her body- -as it was something she was greatly proud of- -but not to the extent that she would be commonly confused for still being a prostitute.

As she left, Roxanne engaged the computerized lock behind her and made her way to where her motorcycle had been parked. As she was disengaging its locking systems and prepping the onboard systems, however, she heard a noise.

“Hello?” she said suddenly, looking into the darkness around her. Her vision was good, but not optimized for night vision like Forth or Twilight’s. Still, she felt that something was not right. The streets were to empty and two quiet, and yet she was sure she had heard a footstep splashing through a nearby puddle. Years of life on the street had given her what humans would call instincts, and she had learned to trust them.

Immediately she left her bike behind and moved into the street where she would have driven it to anyway. There were no cars about, nor people. For some reason it was perfectly and terrifyingly silent.

A streetlight was illuminating the end of the alley and Roxanne took flight, fluttering her wings and leaping up to the top of it with a single jump. Her body was light, and it supported her weight as she perched on it, looking down.

“Hello?” she said, this time more angrily. “Come out here before I make you come out! And if I have to make you, somebody’s getting a beating- -and it’s not going to be me!”

She did not expect anyone to actually appear, and for a moment she was sure that the sound and feeling of a presence was just her imagination, a result of being too overheated and from had a grueling workout. Then she saw motion.

The air at the edge of the alley seemed to distort slightly, and Roxanne had to blink several times to make sense of the sudden change in perspective. Then the distortion faded, and the polychromatic surface assumed its normal white-and-blue coloration. Roxanne was surprised to see a pony wearing an Aetna-Cross insignia. She was hooded, but when she looked up Roxanne was surprised to see that she was an unusually tall and slender Rarity unit.

“Wait…I know you! You’re Hexel’s old partner, O’Toole!”

“Lynnette, actually. Detective Lynnette.”

“Oh. So you got a promotion, then?”

“Several, in addition to commendations of various sorts.” She looked behind her at the alley and the motorcycle. Roxanne was fully aware that Lynnette was blocking her path to it. “And you seem to be doing…better.”

“Yeah, I think my life is going pretty okay.”

“From what I understand, you don’t…anymore.”

“Turn tricks? Yeah. I don’t. I’m past that. So if that’s what you came for, you’re too late. And even when I did, I paid my taxes, you can’t get me for that.”

Lynnette ignored her digression. “I do believe that Hexel used to be a regular customer.”

Rainbow Dash’s eyes visibly narrowed. “I may have quit the business, but I’m not a snitch. Stuff like that stays with me and me alone. I don’t give out client info, not ever.”

“Because if you’re loyal to them, they will be loyal to you?”

“You could say that.”

“Hmm. Yes, well, if you would like to know Hexel has moved on. He is in a stable relationship now.”

“With you?”

Themost subtle possible change in expression came over Lynnette’s face, but Roxanne was good at reading both people and ponies. When she saw that shift, she was glad she had not yet gotten down from her light post. “No,” said Lynnette, curly. “Not with me. Nor would such a relationship be prudent.”

“Trust me, O’Toole. If you want that, go for it while you still have a chance.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean. And I’m also afraid you just threatened an officer of the law.”

Roxanne swore under her breath. “Is that how this is going to go? Because you know I didn’t. Why are you even here? I didn’t mess with you. I’m just trying to live my life, same as anyone.”

“And so am I.” Lynnette continued to stare at Rainbow Dash. She possessed eyelids, but had not yet blinked once. “Nor do I intend to charge you with anything. You are, however, of interest in that you may know something pertaining to a case of mine.”

“What kind of case?”

“Can you come down here and talk?”

“I don’t feel comfortable with that. Hookers and cops don’t historically get along so well.”

“Yes, this is true. But I am told you are a legitimate performer now, no?”

“I am.”

“Then there is no reason for you to hide. I just want to ask you a few questions. It will only take a moment.”

Roxanne looked around, wondering why no one was around. If there had been anyone- -even a homeless person, or a passing drone- -she would have felt so much better. But the streets were empty, and the only sound was the distant and endless roar of engines on Route Eight in the distance.

“Okay,” she said, slowly descending. She was giving up the advantage of elevation, but keeping the advantage of speed. She had come to know the system layout of police ponies pretty intimately, and guessed that Lynnette was probably almost as well armored as Hexel had been in his younger years. She was heavy, and Rainbow Dash was light and agile. If this went bad, Roxanne assumed that she could bolt easily and go clean over the edge of the path and down toward the river below. There was no way a unicorn pony would be able to follow her.

Lynnette smiled as Roxanne landed. It was a sickening sight.

“This man.” A projected image appeared near Roxanne’s head. It contained two frames, both images of the same person. In one he looked like what Roxanne had come to refer to as a “tripledouche”, complete with greasy mustache and dirty smirk. The other showed a confused looking version of the same man, this time completely shaved and with an unusual skin condition. Both were terribly ugly, but at the same time, Roxanne recognized both of them.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” sighed Roxanne, trying to show no sign that she knew. “I see a lot of men. I mean, that guy’s pretty ugly, but come on. I’m a stripper. Ugly men are what I do.” She paused. “Not literally.”

“I’m afraid I can’t give you any more. This mission is level zero priority. You don’t know what that means, clearly, but in brief, I cannot give you any information that might put you or others in danger.”

Roxanne raised an eyebrow. “Danger? You mean this guy is dangerous or something?”

“Very. We believe- -I believe- -that he is involved in some very bad things.”

“What kind of bad things?”

“I cannot say for sure. But I can assure you, anyone near or associated with him is in horrible danger. I believe him to be an agent from Monsanto, and he has killed before. He will not hesitate to do so again. Human life means little to him…and neither does the life of ponies.”

Roxanne stared at the picture for a long time, and then shrugged. “Sorry, O’Toole, I’ve never seen the guy.” She pointed. “And I would remember a mug like that. Yeesh. Even when I was selling it, I wouldn’t let a guy like that brush my mane unless he spooned in three times the going rate.” Roxanne turned around. “But I haven’t, and I didn’t, so no. Can’t help. Sorry.”

Lynnette let out a long sigh. “That’s too bad,” she said. “Because I happen to know that you’re lying to me.”

A set of small police hover-drones suddenly descended, silently blocking of Roxanne’s route of egress. She swore and turned around.

“Look, this doesn’t have to go down like this,” she said, unable to stop her voice from wavering.

“No,” said Lynnette. She minced forward, never blinking her cold and now strangely hungry-looking eyes. “It didn’t. But component telemetry in this area suggests that Morgana Twilight Sparkle has been here. Visiting her estranged marefriend, perhaps? Doubtful. You hate her, and she knows it. She must have been in something very deep if she had been willing to speak to you.”

“Like I said, I don’t know anything!”

“You also said you never snitch. Meaning you’re apt to keep information…hidden.”

Lynnette suddenly smiled, and Rainbow Dash bolted. She did not get far. One of the drones blocked her path, and although she avoided it another fired something at her. Roxanne cried out as several large needles pierced her skin, and then screamed in agony as electricity pulsed through her body, sending her electronic muscles into crippling spasms. She dropped to the ground, unable to move.

The drones closed in and helped to pick her up. Lynnette approached and leaned close, taking a deep whiff of perfume from Roxanne’s neck. “Such a pretty little girl,” she said. “Or you could be if it weren’t for all these vulgar piercings and ridiculous makeup, or these horrible black clothes. Such a pretty filly…with such a fragile base psychology. It almost pains me to do this.”

She grasped Roxanne tightly. The electric shock had blurred Roxanne’s vision and thoughts, but she was still conscious enough to see a pair of long segmented tendrils emerging from Lynnette’s hood.

“You- -you wouldn’t!” she cried.

“I need that information, Ms. Rainbow Dash. And I do not need your consent to reach it.”

Roxanne screamed and struggled, but her muscles were decynchronized and could do little more than make her flail weakly. “Help! HELP!” she cried. “Rape! RAPE! Somebody HELP ME!”

A hoof across her face suddenly silenced her, and she felt Lynnette’s teeth on her hair, forcing her head down and exposing the rear of her neck where her ports were located.

“A proper lady does not scream or resist,” snapped Lynnette. “She puts her head forward and enjoys it.”

As she said it, she penetrated Roxanne’s ports. Roxanne cried out not in pain but in shame and fear, but Lynnette only smiled. She took great pleasure in that kind of scream, and she immediately went to work.

The process was not difficult. Most of Roxanne’s firewalls and security protocols were meant to secure her against wireless incursion. Few safety features were present from a hardline connection, and although Lynnette could feel her struggling she was no match for a technomancer. Lynnette was able to force her way deep into Roxanne’s intimate self, feeling every inch as she moved deeper and deeper inside her. The information was in there, and finding it would only be a matter of time and psychological trauma to the source. Both Lynnette and Aetna-Cross considered the latter to be an acceptable cost.

She had almost reached it when something went wrong. The change was rapid and started subtly. Any other individual would hardly have noticed it, dismissing it as a normal motion of Roxanne’s mind as one tried to penetrate the final barriers into her core self, the part of her mind that would normally only be given to those she loved the most. Upon feeling this, though, Lynnette immediately reacted by sealing off her own mind and pulling herself out. This reflexive action was the only thing that saved her life.

A sudden flash occurred, dominating most of Lynnette’s thought: a single image, an insignia of a six-pointed star. She screamed and pulled away, using the reserves of her mind and all her technomancer training to attempt to shield herself. Part of the buried program struck her, and it was devastating but not lethal. She had reacted quick enough to avoid permanent damage, but only barely.

The hardwire connection broke and Lynnette stumbled backward, screaming. The drones that had been suspended by her own will collapsed as her connection to them faltered, and Roxanne dropped to the street.

Lynnette tried to take a step but her motor processing system had been damaged. She was no longer balanced, and the sensory input from her skin did not match her vision. Everything was out of order and strange; she was heavily disoriented and slightly damaged.

“Damn it!” she roared. “That bitch- -that whore detective booby-trapped your mind!”

Roxanne looked confused and terrified, but her own stupor was fading. She stood up, wincing at the pain in her damaged muscles. Then, angrily, she stepped forward and punched Lynnette square in the eye. Lynnette screamed and fell to the ground.

“She’s the bitch?! YOU’RE ALL THE BITCH!” cried Roxanne as she kicked Lynette hard in the face. Lynnette was indeed armor-plated, so it did no damage, but it at least made Roxanne feel a little better. She was still crying and shaking, though, and more afraid than she had been in a long time. She had been violated, but fortunately- -if it could even be taken as fortune under the circumstances- -she had not been penetrated completely.

“You sick fuck,” she said, turning away. “You goddamn sick fuck!”

With that, she flew, not even stopping to try to retrieve her motorcycle. Lynnette was left alone, lying in a heap. After a few minutes, though, a smile spread across her face, and she rose slowly.

Part I, Chapter 17

The air was paradoxically thin and sweltering. The area was dark, hot, and uncomfortable; there were few if any lights but the overwhelming roar of distant and massive machinery. Beyond the anemic light cast from the lamps linked to the rails of the rising catwalks, it was impossible to see anything more than inky blackness. Through Elrod’s operator mask, however, it was possible to distantly perceive architectural shapes: the terminal points of columns and arches so vast that they could not be perceived all at once, but only through abstract consideration of the parts of them that were visible from several points along the path. These in turn stretched out into a fog and were eventually replaced with digital blueprints that represented what was supposed to be present, but what very well might have been replaced or lost long ago.

There had been trains and elevators and places that Elrod had not even known existed on the way up, but that had only gotten them so far: the path was eventually reduced to nothing more than catwalks and endless stairs and ladders. Distant views of verdant manors of the wealthy were replaced with lots that had been reclaimed by machinery, and then areas where the machinery was replaced with darkness and static structures.

“Where even are we?” he asked, barely managing to make words through his wheezing. The air was hot and draining, and he was weighed down by an oxygen tank that linked to a thin respirator under his mask.

“High,” said Twilight. “Higher than you’ve ever been before.”

“I don’t know, man,” said Jadeglow. “I’ve been prettttty high before…”

The three of them turned a corner and came to what looked like another endless array of stairs winding their way up an enormous arch and a set of vertical pipes and conduits that in total was several hundred feet wide.

“But the Upper Levels…”

“We passed them. Or rather through them. You don’t exactly have authorization to be there.”

“Oh, and you do?”

“Of course I do, but those are closed communities. But not all of it is hoidy-toidy bullshit. Half of the stuff is just industrial workthroughs. Their all clearly delineated and well coated so that they look pretty. And the rich-folks spend at least half there type protesting them, even though those ‘eyesores’ are what keep their air breathable.”

“They just, like, hate air man. Because air is free.”

“Is the air here breathable?”

Twilight shrugged. “You could try. But most of the city’s heat ends up here. Humans aren’t even supposed to be this high, not without refrigerated suits.”

“I’m not refrigerated.”

“I know. Which is why you need to work your skinny organic ass and get moving before you cook alive.”

“I do yoga,” said Jadeglow, smiling. “That’s how I keep in shape.”

“You should talk to Forth,” muttered Twilight. “She’s surprisingly flexible for being made out of zinc.”

“And they are up here? The terrorists?”

“The Green World Shepherds,” corrected Jadeglow, sounding mildly annoyed. “You’ve got to remember, they’re good people with strong hearts. They’re just going about it wrong, man. Hate just makes more hate, man, we’ve got to give love, you know?” she turned to Elrod. “Like, I need a hug, man.”

“No time for hugs,” said Twilight. “And to answer your question, no. They are not here. Nobody would be here.”

“Then why did you drag me up here? I’m dehydrating!”

“Quit complaining. We’re on our way. Here.”

They stopped. The path had leveled and come to an end at a large metal door. It had the appearance of being extremely old; a warning sign had been painted in English, reading “NO EGRESS—AUTHERIZED PERSONNELL ONLY”, although it was chipped and faded. Most of the door was covered in graffiti, much if it in several unintelligible languages save for one line of text that read “Abandon hope all ye who enter he”, with the last point being punctuated by a bullet hole and specks flaking dark brown pigment.

“A door? But we’re at the top.”

“Exactly.” Twilight stepped toward the door, looking up at it.

“Dude, I think it’s locked.”

“No door is locked to me.” Twilight closed her eyes, and the door immediately reacted. A loud grinding sound came from inside it as old and barely used motors began to wind up. The grinding sound accelerated and was accompanied by a slow succession of low clinks as the door disengaged. Then it slowly started to rise.

Light came from underneath the door and Elrod cried out. He covered his face against the glow, but he still felt a profound change in temperature wash over his body. It had been hot before, well over one hundred degrees; the gusts of air from the other side of the door, though, were frigid.

When Elrod actually managed to open his eyes and tolerate the enhanced light coming through his operator mask, he was able to see snow blowing through the opening. Outside, he saw a pair of high concrete walls and above them a stormy gray sky.

“Oh no!” he cried, yelling over the sound of machinery and of the wind from outside. “That- -that’s the Surface! I’m not supposed to be here! NOBODY’s supposed to be here!”

Twilight and Jadeglow were both already outside, with Twilight having pulled up the collar on her trenchcoat and Jadeglow snuggling warmly into what seemed to be the word’s scratchiest sweater. “Well,” snapped Twilight, “if you want, you can walk all the way back down to the bottom levels by yourself, then. All alone. Through the dark.”

“Harsh, man,” said Jadeglow. “Like, super-harsh.”

It was indeed a harsh choice, but not a hard one. Elrod forced himself to go forward and joined his compatriots on the exit ramp. From behind, he could hear the door running again. This time there were no motors, just the quiet spinning of the gears as the door happily descended to its normal position followed by a distant clink as it sealed shut.

Elrod looked behind him to see the door, and then continued on, rising through the access channel to a more level area. The ground itself seemed to consist of a number of thick polymer plates or outright concrete, both of which were faded and cracked.

For some reason, Elrod had always envisioned the Surface as flat. It was not. In fact, it was covered in what looked like a city all its own: enormous gray masses of machinery, tanks, cooling towers, and exhaust stacks that extended hundreds upon hundreds of feet into the sky where they were belching smoke into the gray atmosphere. The structures seemed sterile, though. There were no windows and no paths leading to them, and they were empty and still. They hummed with empty mechanical life, but were devoid of life save for the thick growths of lichen and epiphytic moss that clung to almost everything.

Twilight looked up. The sky was gray and cold, and small quantities of snow were descending and adding to small drifts. “You know,” she said to herself, almost smiling, “anywhere else, and you could look up and see the sky. The real sky. The debris fields, the space stations, the cities they build up there. Even the lunar colonies on a good day, or what’s left of them these days.”

“I have seen them,” said Elrod, looking up and tightening his thin coat against the cold. “When I lived in Idaho. Places were not built like this. There were fields. Green fields. And at night, I could see the sky. The lights of machines in space.”

“Righteous,” whispered Jadeglow. “What I would give to see the sky, and verdant fields…”

“Well you’re in the wrong place for that.”

“I don’t see why. I mean, would it kill them to plant, like, a roof garden or something?”

Twilight snorted with laughter. “Up here? Really? Watch.” She pulled out a cigarette. It sparked as the internal charge fired, but rather than lighting it formed and ember and a whiff of smoke as it went out. Twilight stuck it in her mouth anyway and chewed on the end. “We’re three miles up over Bridgeport Connecticut. It’s below freezing more than half the year, and we’re WAY above the treeline. The sky always looks like that.” She pointed upward. “Wind, gray, storms. And these machines? Toxic exhaust, water collection. Do you really think they would bother pumping hydroponic solution this high? Why, when we can just grow stuff in dirt out West?”

“If the air is that thin, then why are there people here?” asked Elrod, suddenly glad for the oxygen tank he was wearing. He looked around, and was surprised to suddenly realize that there were none. There were no people or signs that there were people, just the endless massive units that maintained the water and atmosphere for the city below.

“There aren’t supposed to be,” said Twilight.

“But they are,” assured Jadeglow. “The Shepherds, they live up here.”

“But how?” said Elrod. “This has to be a restricted area.”

“It is,” said Twilight. “There’s been a few times where people have gotten desperate enough to try to live here. They died. You see all this?” she pointed “Drones maintain this. All of it. And they make sure that outsiders stay out.”

“But we’re outsiders.”

“Yes. And I am suppressing our signal. Not that I necessarily have to.”

“Meaning?”

Twilight sighed. “Meaning the security up here isn’t reliable. It doesn’t need to be. It’s meant to fight technovores, not people. Most people who come up here end up dying anyway, so the machines aren’t quick to act.”

“But we’re talking about an entire group of criminals.”

“Not criminals,” said Jadeglow. “Freedom fighters.”

“Well, like I said, this place is slow to respond. And in disrepair. If I had to guess, they probably found a way to hack a localized area of the security system. Or they just found one that’s in disrepair where the drones never bothered to repair the detectors. Or for all I know, they cut a deal.”

“Cut a deal? You mean with the city.”

“I mean with the machines.”

“You can’t make a deal with machines, man. They’re just not natural like that.”

Twilight groaned. “Jade. YOU are a machine. I’m a machine. We’re reasonable, aren’t we?”

Jadeglow’s eyes widened. “Dude,” she said. “This changes everything…”

Twilight looked over her shoulder at Elrod. “Machines aren’t like people. They don’t have ideology or rigid dogma. They work based on logic. If humans could provide them with something valuable, the drone AI up here could potentially work out a deal.”

“But what would they provide that the AI finds valuable?”

“I don’t know, but it worries me.”

“Hey! No need to worry, man, just play it cool. Follow me and let me do my thing. You’re not cops or Monsanto guys, so it’ll be fine.”

Elrod froze. “Um, I am- -OUCH!” Twilight had bucked him in the knee to silence him.

“You are what?” asked Jadeglow.

“Um…mellow?”

Jadeglow looked suspicious for a moment, and then smiled wide. “Right on, dude.”

They continued across the bleak and frozen landscape. It seemed to go on forever, although the landscape overall tended to obscure itself due to the shape of its buildings. Every time they would seem to make progress in one direction, more buildings would become apparent as if they had materialized from nothingness. Various towers- -communication links and smokestacks, as well as others that Elrod could not name- -always seemed to loom in the distance, never drawing closer.

Some parts of the landscape did change, but only subtly. The sky seemed to darken at one point, and Elrod looked up to see the sky overhead blotted out by endless arrays of solar panels. Many of them were broken or had collapsed, and none of them were connected. A few bits that had fallen showed thick layers of smoky grime over them. In the distance nearby, windmills were visible. They were tremendous structures with blade diameters nearly four hundred meters wide. Most of them were stopped despite the high wind, and their blades had long-since fallen. Only one was turning slowly, and it was missing most of the plating over its blade.

“What happened here?” asked Elrod.

“Human advancement,” shrugged Twilight. “Technological sophistication. I’ve seen it all, trench. Alternative energy was a phase. The whole world used to be powered by it.”

“But these are broken now.”

“And nobody wants to give up on them entirely. But do you know how much output one of those windmills made, or a thousand? Almost none. You know what we use now.”

“Hydrocarbons.”

“Mined from Titan. The privately-funded space program at work. No need for this useless shit anymore when we have an entire planet of oil.”

“I’m not opposed to it,” said Jadeglow. “Global warming is great. Return this planet to the glory days of the carboniferous, man!”

They turned a corner and Elrod froze. Standing in the wide path at the base of one of the damaged windmills was a drone. It was not like the small industrial drones that he was used to, or even the enormous enforcement mechs that Aetna-Cross used. It was substantially larger than either of them, standing at least ninety feet high. It was bipedal and currently in the process of setting down a large and badly rusted piece of equipment that it had just severed from a larger bank of similar units. The piece it held was swarming with spiders. Not the ordinary organic kind that were at most the size of a person’s torso, but the much larger metallic kind: harvesters. They were already in the process of disassembling and scrapping the ruined component, reducing it down to its elemental residues and reusable components.

Everything seemed to stop as the unit was set down. The spiders became aware of the presence of outsiders, and they turned their three-lobed eyes toward them. Even the drone seemed to observe them before returning to work, its arms splitting into hundreds of effectors as its internal factory began to generate new components.

“Just keep walking,” said Twilight. “Trust me on this, I know what I’m doing.”

“You had better,” said Elrod. “They look hungry…”

Twilight was correct, though. The trio moved past the repair area and into another deep cut as they descended several hundred feet to a lower area filled with water collection units.

“That unit was worth at least six hundred vod,” bemoaned Elrod. “Damn it…the amount of scrap up here is tremendous. Just one of those solar panel fragments, about two feet long…”

“We just made it past the spiders,” said Twilight. “The only reason we did is because they weren’t really concerned with us. And now you want to steal from them?”

“It’s not stealing if I take it myself. That’s called being the means of production.”

“You can tell that to the spiders while they disembowel you and sell your liver to the highest bidder. The liver that I, technically, own. By verbal contract.”

“Wait, what?”

“Never mind. Just don’t touch anything, and don’t get too far away from me. That goes for you both!”

Twilight glared at Jadeglow, who was reaching to pat a small epiphytic lycopodium that was growing in a runoff stream from a fluid holding tank. She just smiled dopily. “Sorry, man. It looked so soft.”

Twilight groaned. “Just get us there, and don’t get us killed.”

Jadeglow laughed. “Well, I certainly know how to do one of those things.”

They moved deeper into a depression in the Surface and Twilight began to understand what exactly this group had done to remain hidden. She knew almost precisely where she was and could coordinate her location on the surface with the internal schematics of Bridgeport overall. She recalled that this area had been part of an Upper Level development, one of several that attempted to create ultra-luxury by using a transparent ceiling that would expose users directly to the sky overhead. It had been a nice idea in theory but had fallen apart as soon as people began to move in and realized just how depressing and dim the real sky actually was. The company that had built the modifications was then sued into oblivion, and the space underneath had been converted to a botanical garden that had long since dried and died into a tiny abandoned forest.

The area below the glass had been sealed off, but the relatively large area overhead had not been. The ground was still soft and comparatively brittle, and the heavy drones did not approach due to the risk of breaking through. This had likely initially led to a long plane devoid of development, but had since been overgrown with a thicket of transverse conduits and pipes. The density and thickness of them made it almost impossible for cameras or scanners to fully analyze the areas, and Twilight detected several covert field generators that were subtly interfering with her own scans.

As such, she was not surprised when a pair of masked humans descended from the pipes, rifles in hand. They were dressed in pressurized suits with black masks and heavy, well-worn long coats. Twilight just sighed when she saw them; they were dirty and poorly armed amateurs. In a way, she had been hoping to see another one of the strange and indestructible bipedal pony-things that she had seen in Level C.

Elrod immediately started to panic, but Jadeglow stepped forward. “Hey, man. And like, other man. We’re here to, like, see Commander Caleb.”

“Do you have a password?”

“Like, no man. My short term memory’s shot. But I think we’re on the same wavelength right now, and I dig your aura. So how about we make an exception?”

“Don’t bother,” said Twilight. “They were going to take us anyway.”

“How do you know that?” said Elrod.

“Because they can’t let us go. We’ve already seen them. There’s no alternative but to take us in.”

“There is, actually,” said one of the pair, raising her rifle toward Twilight. “I could shoot you through the central processor right now and be done with it.”

“Your body would pay for a lot of bullets,” noted the other.

“Assuming your leader didn’t embezzle it and buy himself an Upper Level mansion.”

“What the- -WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!”

“You heard me. If you had the pieces to shoot you’d have done it before we got this close. But you won’t. For one, this is Rowan-Lilac, a friend to all trees.”

“I do love trees,” said Jadeglow.

“You already asked her to come. Second, you want to know how why we’re here.”

“You’re here to betray us to the Corpers!” cried the male guard, raising his gun. “Rowan-Lilac might be friends with trees, but she’s no friend of ours!”

“Yes. And clearly we intended to eliminate you. That’s why we brought a massive army of Aetna-Cross enforcers to overtake you.” Twilight looked over her shoulder. “Oh wait. No we didn’t. We’re all alone. And you knew that, you idiots.”

“For someone who wants something from us, you are insulting us an awful lot.”

“Because I’m still alive and you’re rambling. You’re doing a shit job. That, and you’re just shlubs in this whole thing. I don’t care what you think. I need to talk to your leader. So either get out of my way, or take us inside.”

The two of them looked at each other, and then one turned and put her hand to her and said something with her amplifier microphone turned off. Twilight still heard it, of course, and knew that they were contacting their superiors for information about how to proceed.

“Right,” she said after a moment. “Yeah. He wants us to pull them in.”

“See?”

The woman glared at Twilight through her mask. “I don’t think you really understand what’s going on, little horse. You’re not going to like what we have to do to you. And there’s a good chance none of you are going to make it out of here.”

“Well, at least in one piece,” said the man, laughing slightly as he spoke.

Twilight would have liked to ignore the threat, but her occupation demanded that she never ignore anything. It would indeed be difficult for her to escape, especially after the way she had chosen to treat the two guards. That had been an acceptable risk, though: they were after all both low-ranking individuals with little say on the final outcome. Establishing herself as an apparently tough individual and a potential threat took precedence, and it seemed to have paid off- -so far.

The three of them were led into the forest of pipes and conduits. The dark February sky overhead was blotted out by the seemingly random array of metal overhead, and thin beams came down through the gaps to create strange splotches on the reflective glass floor below. There was less wind inside, and a modicum of warmth from whatever the pipes were transporting.

They were not alone. Much to Twilight’s dismay, the camp was far more populated than she had expected. Eyes were watching them from every side, either on the ground or up in the pipes where their camouflaged tents were assembled. The vast majority of them were human, all dressed in whatever coats and respirators they were able to find. There were also ponies, though, mostly of the Applejack series with a few Golden Harvests here and there. They wore what could loosely be described as uniforms, but as machines they required no breathing apparati.

“Shit,” whispered Twilight. “Jade, you could have told us that there was a whole goddamn army up here.”

“Dude, chill. They’re not gonna hurt us.”

“No,” said Elrod. “I’m pretty sure they are.”

“We are,” said one of the guards. “Or not. It depends on Caleb’s orders.”

“But you are right,” said the other. “Don’t try anything. There’s just three of you, and I don’t care how much firepower you have, there’s no way you can fight your way out of here.”

“There are a lot of you, then?” asked Elrod.

“Many. And this is just one cell of thousands.” She sighed. “But still not enough. We try so hard to fight for humanity, but no matter how many of us there are the Corporations will have more.”

“But why do you need this many?”

“If you knew what we were up against, you’d understand.”

They were led deeper and deeper into the overgrown maze. More and more soldiers appeared to their sides, and Twilight had managed to count at least one hundred and thirty-seven of them so far. The fields that they had set up were stronger here, and it interfered with her scans; there could have been far more that remained hidden and uncounted.

Then, suddenly, the pipes seemed to thin and vanish. Twilight found herself standing at the edge of a vast circle of clear space. The floor was still glass, but it seemed thinner here. The metal cladding underneath had partially collapsed onto the abandoned gardens below, and through the gray light it was possible to see fallen and leafless trees amongst long-dead grasses and parched soil below: a garden abandoned when no one could think of a way to profit from it.

The sky overhead was not fully visible. A netlike tarp of polychromatic cloth had been overlaid over the gap, and one end of it linked to a portable reactor and processing unit that powered. Several larger tents were present in this area, but Twilight was pleased to note that there were no surface-to-air missile banks.

As they approached, several new guards stepped forward. Twilight assessed them carefully, noting that each used commercially available rifles from widely different manufacturers and eras. Many of them were small caliber, chambered in Kalibri BMG or .219s, but a few were chambered in large anti-pony calibers. Most appeared very old.

When the area was secure, the flap to the tent opened an a man stepped out. He superficially appeared taller than the others, but Twilight noted that it was likely only due to the fact that he was wearing robotic armor underneath a coat that seemed to have been proportioned for a zooneus instead of a human. His respirator helmet was transparent, revealing a middle-aged face with sharp features and dark eyes.

He at first seemed relatively impassive until he noted Jadeglow. When he did, his expression hardened.

“Rowan-Lilac,” he sighed, his voice made substantially deeper by his suit’s audio system. “I trusted you with our location under the assumption that you would be joining us. And now look at this…”

“These are my friends, man,” said Jadeglow. “They wanted to talk to you.”

“You weak-spined idiot!” he shouted. “You don’t even understand what you did, do you?! You brought COPS!”

“We’re not cops,” said Twilight, raising her voice. She reached for her coat, moving slowly as the guards reacted by very nearly shooting her. Instead of reaching for a gun, though- -she did not even possess one save for the .50 Beowulf built into her left front leg- -she opened the breast of her jacket to reveal her private detective licensing badge. Almost all the eyes went to the shiny piece of metal, although Twilight noticed that at least two of the Applejack units’ eyes instead went toward the red gemstone that she wore as a brooch. Twilight wondered if any of them were old enough to remember what it had once meant.

Their commander- -ostensibly the one called Caleb- -looked quickly to the badge and then back at Twilight. “‘Detective’ means cop.”

“Detective means detective.”

“Privately funded, man,” said Jadeglow. “No vassals.”

“Privately funded by who, then? Who paid you? Who wanted me found?”

“Me and me only. Frankly from what I can tell nobody here cares about you. Aetna-Cross isn’t into gene engineering, at least not with plants. Connecticut isn’t known for that. Which is probably why you chose to be here.”

“Aetna-Cross is as guilty as any of the others,” spat Caleb. “Perhaps less so than the Great Evil, but only by a very thin margin.”

“This ‘Great Evil’ being…?”

“We do not like to speak their name. Especially not here. But if you must know, they are called Monsanto.”

A hushed whisper fell over the crowd. Some members winced, and others spat at the sound of their enemy’s name.

Twilight paused, turning over the unburnt cigarette in her mouth. “Yes. I’ve heard you’re rather opposed to genetic engineering.”

Caleb sneered. “You're mocking me.”

“Not really. But you have to understand, I’m a pony. I don’t have much stake in any of it.”

“You mean you have no stake in the health of the planet, then? Then you are nothing more than a foolish child.”

Twilight smiled and sat back. She spat out her cigarette and lit one designed to function at high altitude. It lit, and she covered the fire with her hooves while it grew. “What do I care about the planet? I’m a machine. I don’t care if you burn away every green thing on this planet and replace the atmosphere with analytical grade hydrogen sulfide. It doesn’t bother me. As long as the factories keep running, ponies will keep on going.”

Caleb frowned. “So you wouldn’t mind if the Corporations and Governments let humanity die?”

Twilight laughed humorlessly. “Humanity. Humanity had its chance, back when I was still young. And you wasted it. Your kind seems to really crave its own extinction, doesn’t it?”

“Twilight,” hissed Jadeglow.

Strangely, Caleb smiled. “Either you’re a very well trained in rhetoric, or I think we share a few ideas.”

“I think it’s probably both,” said Twilight, shrugging.

“What you say is true,” said Caleb, “but only partially. Individual humans are not to blame. Not completely. No one person can create this much destruction.”

“A collective could.”

“They could, but that depends.”

“On what?”

“On who drives the collective.”

Twilight sighed. “You mean Corporations.”

“I do. And your tone betrays that you are either cynical beyond redemption or ignorant beyond belief. If people knew what the likes of the Great Enemy were doing to the planet, they would rise up in an instant and dash them to the ground!”

“And what, exactly, are then doing?”

Caleb’s eyes narrowed. “If you don’t know, then you really are ignorant. In fact, I think you already know. It’s genetic engineering. The defiance of nature. In the name of profit, they are contaminating our food supply.”

“It is not contamination,” said Elrod suddenly. “The manipulations affect crop efficiency. They have no impact on human health.”

Caleb laughed heartily. “And who said that? Scientists? The ones that the Enemy pays to say the right things? No, we know the TRUTH.”

“There is no reason for Monsanto to want to contaminate your food supply.”

“No reason? NO REASON? I already told you! MONEY! Because food is supposed to be free! Anyone can plant, anyone can grow- -no one owns it! But when they put something into it, suddenly THEY own it! They control a monopoly! And suddenly little farmers have to pay THEM to feed the rest of us toxic shit.”

Elrod groaned. “It’s not a matter of property rights. The changes produce empirical benefits for plant health- -greater crops, resistance to disease. This planet has over two hundred billion humans on it! Do you think you can feed them with technology from the dark ages?”

Caleb leaned forward. Any trace of mirth on his face was gone. “Two hundred billion people overburdening our plant. Burning it up. Breeding, cutting away what forests we have. Building endless cities like the one that you’re standing on, merging them and connecting them until there isn’t even space to grow your precious GM crops left!”

“Whoa, whoa,” said Jadeglow. “Careful, dude. I don’t like what you’re implying.”

“That some will need to die in the name of protecting the Earth and the purity of our food supply? Yes. But they’re not even real people. They’re no different. Children born as teenagers in factories, custom grown in laboratories to be exactly what their parents paid for…those aren’t humans. They’re not even alive. Not really. Even ponies qualify as living things more than they do.”

“Which is why you’ve been recruiting pure humans,” suggested Twilight.

Caleb stared coldly at her. “Yes,” he said, slowly. “Pure humans. The sort untouched by corporate greed. Behavioral modification, personality traits, ideology…even genetic kill-switches. I pity them, Ms. Pony. But there is no place for them in our revolution.”

“And I don’t care,” said Twilight. “About your revolution, Imean. Or your ideology, or even how many people you kill. What I am really interested in is those natural-born humans.”

“Why?”

“There have been disappearances. Disappearances related to a case I’m working. Somebody is targeting natural-born humans…the ones you call ‘pure’, although in my experience no human can be called that- -and I have a feeling you’re involved.”

Caleb’s expression changed, becoming both stonier and more concerned. “You think I’m kidnapping people.”

“I might.”

“No. I’m not. We are not.” He gestured around himself. “Everyone here joined of their own free will, drawn by our righteous cause. To fight the Great Enemy however we can- -by destroying their goods, stopping shipments, removing factories and property if we can- -but under no circumstances to we take people against their will.”

“So all these people have ‘seen the light’? Poor kids, rich kids, everyone? I doubt it.”

“What do we have to gain from slaves? More people to stab us to have to constantly control, or to give away our secrets at the first chance they get?”

An Applejack unit stepped forward. “That’s not all,” she said, her voice thick with a pre-programmed accent. “I’ve checked the recruiting logs. We’ve pulled up just twenty-four the way you describe. Pure genetics, no cybernetics and all. And…”

“And what?”

“And we’ve lost half of that,” said Caleb.

“Half?” Twilight looked up at him. “What do you mean ‘lost’?”

“I mean they’re gone.”

Twilight grimaced. “You mean they disappeared from your ranks too.”

Caleb laughed sardonically. “No. Not disappeared. Yes, some did. We thought they deserted at first. But the others…we found bodies.”

“So they were killed.”

“Not just killed,” snapped Caleb. “They were…mutilated. Pieces of them missing.”

“Which pieces?”

Caleb stared into Twilight’s eyes. “The head. The head was always missing.”

Jadeglow turned. “I think I’m going to be sick!”

“What do you think did it?” asked Twilight.

Caleb looked to her, and then started pacing slowly, never taking his eyes off them. “Tell me, Ms. Pony. Have you ever heard of something called an agromorph?”

“I’ve heard Jadeglow tell me stories about ‘monsters’, if that’s what you mean.”

“There is no better way to describe them, yes,” said Caleb, a sad smile creeping over his face. “They are genetic abominations. The greatest crime every conceived against nature itself. The Enemy build them. Made the first of them in laboratories. Bred them. Improved them.”

“For what purpose?”

“As soldiers, of course. A new kind. A different kind. Unrivaled killing machines with no emotion except cold hatred, immune to virtually all conventional weapons. They do not eat. They do not sleep. They don’t tire or feel remorse or pity. Like machines, but that’s the rub- -they aren’t. They’re alive. They heal. And they think, like you or I do. Of new and better ways to kill.”

“But what exactly are they? A unique type of zoonei?”

Caleb laughed. “No. No animal could be that perverse. Even the most vicious zooneus will pause. He will hesitate and question. He will have empathy. Because they are animals at heart. Agromorphs are not. They were made from plants. Our conceptions of morality are meaningless to them.”

Twilight paused for a long moment. Elrod felt her gaze turn slowly toward him. “And you believe that one of these ‘agromorphs’ was responsible for the killings?”

“There can be no other culprit. Nothing else could kill so viciously and without mercy, or move without a trace.”

“There were no traces?”

Caleb shook his head. “No footprints. No fingerprints. No witnesses. Nothing. Ruthless, effective…perfect. Although I doubt there are more than one. Only one would be necessary.”

Twilight once again paused, this time taking a long drag that burned her oxidizer-soaked cigarette to the filter. She flicked it onto the ground with her tongue and ground it out on the glass floor with her hoof. “People have died,” she said. “But it wasn’t an agromorph. I’ve seen the things that did it. They were machines with nonstandard weaponry. Too advanced for you, and even too advanced for Monsanto.”

“Lies. We know who the culprit was. The Enemy wants pure humans dead.”

“Believe whatever you will. It doesn’t affect me. And as edifying as this conversation was, I’m no closer to figuring out who the real culprit is.” Twilight turned around and began walking.

“Where are you going?” demanded Caleb.

“I’m leaving,” said Twilight. “All three of us are. I have the information I need.”

“I don’t recall giving you permission to leave.”

Twilight stopped and looked over her shoulder. Her gaze was cold and impassive. “Why would you need to? Like I said. You don’t bother me, and now you’re not even any use to me. So either I leave here, or you all die.”

Laughter arose from various parts of the group that surrounded them. At least thirty more humans had arrived, each bearing guns, and at least that many ponies had joined them.

Caleb smiled and shook his head. “Bold but stupid. But yes. I would have let you go. Except that one of my hackers broke the encryption on that one’s mask.”

Several of the guards suddenly moved, ceasing Elrod. Elrod cried out and struggled, but he was not nearly strong enough to break free. Caleb approached him as the guards held him.

“I’ve seen what you actually look like,” he said as he put his hand on the base of Elrod’s operator mask. “And I know who you are!”

With one swift motion Caleb removed the mask. Elrod released a shrill cry and closed his eyes, as if the cold air and thin atmosphere did not bother him nearly as much as the sunlight that filtered through the thick clouds overhead.

“Bronislav M. Spitzer VIII,” sighed Caleb. He turned toward Twilight. “You really are an idiot. You brought him right to me. I don’t know if you were trying to leverage him for something…or if he was a spy this whole time.”

“I’m not Spitzer!” cried Elrod. “Wait, you don’t understand! This is a misunderstanding!” He immediately began to weaken. The thin air was draining him.

“I understand perfectly. You are the scion of the Great Enemy. Your death will cripple them and end their reign of terror.” He gestured toward one of the guards. “End the line of succession.”

The guard nodded and she took a pistol out of her belt.

“WAIT!” cried Elrod. “NO DON’T- -”

Caleb turned away, and as he did the guard put the pistol to the back of Elrod’s head and pulled the trigger. Elrod’s head immediately detonated into a plume of white material. The woman who had just shot him stared on horrified as Elrod turned around and shoved her to the ground. Screams erupted from the crowd at the sight of an ambulatory headless corpse, and Caleb turned around just as flesh was beginning to flow out of Elrod’s wound to reconstruct his head. Upon seeing this, Caleb’s eyes went wide and his complexion grew pale.

“Damn it!” whined Elrod as his head assumed its normal form and color. “Why do they ALWAYS go for the head?!”

“An- -and agromorph!” squeaked Caleb. “They’re- -they’re actually REAL!”

“Exactly the confirmation I needed,” said Twilight. She turned her head toward the sky. “Now: terminate the infidels.”

Several of the revolutionaries raised their weapons. Elrod cried and tried to duck behind anything he could, but Twilight did not react. There was no need. She watched as bullets from above tore through the first line of individuals, and she saw them scream and turn in confusion toward the sky. The last thing many of them saw was a white-winged speck bursting through the cloud cover at incredible speed.

Forth struck the ground with enough force to flatten the torso of an Applejack unit into an unidentifiable mass of burst machinery and black blood. The glass below her shattered in several places and both humans and ponies alike screamed as they fell- -and as Forth fired several incendiary rounds into the dry, crisp forest where they were landing.

She did not hesitate or falter. Forth charged forward at the humans, her body splaying open as she poured bullets into her opponents. Her motion became like a dance as she swirled and twisted, firing with exacting precision.

Caleb charged her. His armor was thick enough to block the majority of her bullets, and those that penetrated had little effect on his heavily cybernetic body. Forth suddenly turned her attention toward him, and her hooves shifted as several long blades emerged, already glowing white-hot. She removed one of his legs, and as he fell bisected his head as well as three human women and a Golden Harvest pony. The pony screamed and pleaded as she fell, and Forth put an armor-piercing bullet through her processor.

As effective as Forth was, she was vastly outnumbered. The humans initially seemed to retreat, but many had just moved to cover. Bullets rang out from every direction.

“Oh crap!” cried Elrod. He reached down and grabbed a passing Applejack unit, picking her up.

“Hey! Put me down this instant!” she cried as she struggled.

“Pony shield!” cried Elrod, holding her up and listening to her scream as her body was torn apart by friendly fire. That at least gave him enough time to jump behind Caleb’s body and begin to remove the expensive optic implants from the still marginally alive Applejack.

Twilight fell to the ground and rolled, taking several small-caliber bullets as she did so. Her reflexes were fast. Jadeglow was not so lucky. She did not know how to react in a firefight and was caught in the crossfire. A bullet went through her chest and she fell to the ground in a heap. She did not move.

“Damn it,” groaned Twilight as she pulled back her sleeve and prepared her own rifle. “Jameson!” she shouted. “Don’t just sit there like a lump, grab one of their rifles and return fire!”

Elrod looked up from the softly weeping and now blind remains of the Applejack pony. “Oh,” he said. “Sorry.” He bent down and picked up a nearby rifle. He had no real idea how to use it, but he stood up and pointed. Several bullets ripped through his body, but they were more or less trivial. He had no vital organs. One bullet, however, struck his right arm and actually hurt substantially. The limb started to go limp and did not heal. Despite this, Elrod kept his finger on the trigger and kept shooting.

Elrod targeted several nearby humans and eliminated them. There was really no emotion associated with it; he just pulled the trigger and fell. He supposed what Caleb had said about empathy had been true to an extent. Whether it mattered or not was still up for debate, however. Forth seemed to lack it just as much as he did, and she seemed like an okay person.

Suddenly, an explosion rocked the area. Twilight was forced back, but then dove forward to catch Elrod as the glass beneath him shattered. She pushed him to the ground and looked up just in time to see a human charging toward her with a bayonet point.

Twilight did not shoot. Instead, she drew her right hoof across the human’s legs. His limbs shattered instantly and he fell. As he did, Twilight leapt up and grabbed him, folding his body over at the mid-back so that the back of his head was touching where his legs had once been. There was a horrible crack and a scream as his spine broke. Humans were like that- -profoundly fragile.

Another explosion went off, this time near Forth. Forth largely ignored it, although the mortar blast reduced several of her attackers to red bits. Twilight scanned the area and found the mortar, but at the same time saw several individuals in suits of heavy power armor advancing toward them.

“Oh shit,” she said, lifting her arm and firing at them. The heavy uranium Beowulf rounds managed to damage several of the rickety suits, but not to fully disable them. One of them turned its heavy plasma beam toward Elrod.

“Shit shit SHIT!” cried Twilight. “Forth!”

Forth immediately turned her attention toward the offending suit. She fired one of her heavy 20mm rounds into it, liquefying the person inside. The plasma bolt went off at an angle and burst several pipes. Scalding steam sprayed out nearby, condensing quickly into the cool air to form a thick fog.

Twilight turned to look, and as she did she took her attention away from the battle. She turned back to it too late to see one of the armored troops advancing on her. She raised her arm, but he fired first.

A sharp pain went down her side as her left front leg was torn free of her body by a plasma bolt. Twilight twisted and dropped to her remaining knees in an attempt to regain balance. As she did, Elrod sat up and fired his .700 repeatedly at the soldier. The recoil from his pistol was so intense that he could barely hold on to it, let alone aim, but the enormous bullets penetrated the armor well enough to cause it to fall, trapping the most likely mortally wounded pilot inside.

“Damn it,” moaned twilight, looking at what was left of her left side. The limb had been torn away at the shoulder along with most of her skin in that area, and it had left behind a mass of synthetic black muscle and broken connections that dangled from where a leg was supposed to be. “Forth,” she said. “Fall back. Cover us.”

Forth acknowledged. As she did, her ammunition dwindled. The humans seemed to take this as a sign that she was defenseless, and some of them charged. Several ponies were with them. Forth extended her right hoof and changed the confirmation of that leg again, producing a pair of heavy electrodes that sparked as her plasma cannon fired up. She targeted the nearest human and fired, causing her face and upper torso to more or less melt. Forth repeated the attack on several of the advancing ponies, burning away their surfaces and leaving hideous melted injuries in their bodies as she retreated.

Elrod and Twilight ran with Forth covering them. With one leg missing, Twilight was slow. This matter was only exacerbated when a human managed to make a lucky shot and slice through her right wing with a large-caliber bullet. Twilight’s body absorbed most of the blow, but the shock ruined the surface of the wing. She had been rendered unable to fly.

“Fuuuuck me!” she screamed as she disappeared into the cloud of cooling steam. Forth followed behind, sending out a barrage of missiles toward the first of those that tried to follow.

Despite the fog, Twilight could see. She led the three of them as far as she could before she collapsed into a heap. “Damn, my leg is gone,” she said, looking up at Forth. Forth’s body had taken minimal damage, although several portions of her were still in their combat state. She did not even look like a pony like that.

“Yes. It is,” said Forth.

“I can’t get out of here like this. I’m not fast enough.”

“I can cover you. The precipice is eight hundred meters south.”

“No you can’t. They’ll just follow me.”

“Not if I kill them all. Or keep them fighting.”

“Can you do that?” asked Elrod.

Forth smiled. “These are the sort of infidels I was born to eliminate. Yes. I can.”

“No you can’t,” protested Twilight. “There won’t be enough time! As soon as I get over, you’ll be out of range!”

Forth stared into Twilight’s eyes. “Then transfer my consciousness to this body.”

Twilight stared back. “Forth, you understand the risk in that. If your consciousness is inside your body and it’s destroyed, you won’t come back. You’ll die.”

“It is the only way for me to persist in combat long enough for the enemy to lose your trail. I will attempt to lead them in the opposite direction. But to last long enough, I need my consciousness.”

Twilight paused, but she could hear voices and the sound of humans coming toward them rapidly. She closed her eyes and with great sorrow made the transfer.

Forth shuttered and took a step back. Her blue eyes switched to red, indicating that her body and mind had been united.

“I fight now,” she said, her voice slower and more pained coming through a minimized processor. “Twilight. Elrod. Go. Run.”

Forth turned and opened her body completely, pouring plasma and whatever caliber bullets she had left out toward the humans. Screams came from the distance. “GO!”
“Are you heavy?” asked Elrod, reaching under Twilight.

“I weigh nearly one hundred fifty kilo- -HEY!”

Elrod lifted her off the ground, part of his body shifting in size to accommodate her weight. He then ran, carrying her with him. Twilight looked back and saw Forth charge into battle. Twilight was not sure if it would be the last time she would ever see her secretary and friend again.

The sounds of battle grew behind them as they ran, with Twilight directing Elrod for the remainder of the course.

“Stop here,” she ordered.

“I can’t stop, if I stop they’ll get me!”

“No, seriously, STOP!”

Elrod did so, but only because he rather suddenly became aware of what Twilight already knew.

“What…what the hell?”

He looked out in front of them and saw nothing. The towering air handlers and water processing systems that surrounded them seemed to just suddenly stop. There was no ground, even, but rather just a vast expanse of gray. The world seemed to have just stopped at a great precipice.

“Okay,” said Twilight. “For this next part, you’re going to have to trust me.”

“Trust you- -what- -what is that? Why- -where did the city go?”

“There isn’t any more city. We’re at the edge. Hence why I told you to stop; that’s a three-mile drop into Long Island Sound.

“Three- -three- -” Elrod took a step back.

“We don’t have time for this,” said Twilight, forcing herself out of Elrod’s grip. “We have to hurry, before they find us here.”

“But Forth can stop them, I know she can. The terrorists- -”

“The terrorists? The terrorists aren’t the problem! All that noise? The machines are going to react, and we’re going to have every spider and every drone in the Surface on top of us in a matter of minutes.”

“So there’s- -there’s an access panel, or- -”

“There isn’t time.” Twilight stepped up to the edge and looked over. “We’re going to jump it.”

Elrod’s eyes went wide. “You- -you can’t be serious!”

“I am. It’s water on the bottom, I’m sure of it. Don’t worry.”

“Water?! We’re three miles up! At that height, it will be like hitting concrete! I’ll be torn to pieces!”

“But I won’t. My body is extremely dense.”

“That doesn’t exactly help me, now does it?”

Something made a sound behind them. Bullets were still audible in the distance, but something else seemed to be moving as well. Something closer.

“That is why we have to trust each other,” said Twilight. “I can’t fly, but I still have one wing. I can slow our descent if we fall together. I’ll hit the water first and break our fall.”

“I don’t know if I can survive that!”

“You had better. Because my body is too dense to float, and at that force I’m probably going to be knocked unconscious. You’re going to have to pull me to shore.”

“But if I die- -”

“Then I’m not going to make it out either.”

The sound near them grew louder. Twilight was beginning to sense them, and she was doing her best to obscure their presence. The spiders already knew, though. They were learning.

“We have to go now,” said Twilight. “Hold onto me.”

Elrod looked at her and closed his eyes. He nodded and did as he was told. Before he could change his mind, Twilight ran forward and leapt from the edge and plummeted through the gray sky and clouds toward the frigid ocean below.

Part II, Chapter 1

The ocean was less choppy under the overhang of the vast city overhead, but it was incredibly dark. There were no lights near the shore and amongst the vast columns that supported Bridgeport from its waters, save for the distant slit of weak gray light that marked a distant horizon and the edge of the city.

From these waters, Elrod slowly emerged. He walked slowly over the rocks and thick toxic silt, his body crackling and changing shape as the air pockets he had formed within his body condensed and then were eliminated entirely. One of his arms, his right, lay at his side unmoving. The other held one of Twilight’s rear hooves, with the rest of her being dragged across the rocks and mud below.

They finally came to the shore itself, a mass of jagged rocks that had been corroded from the acidic ocean and left with rims of rust-brown where the water lapped them. Elrod pulled Twilight onto the rocks and released her. Then he himself collapsed.

Time passed as they sat together. Within several minutes, Twilight’s body began to reactivate. Her body twitched and her eyes shot open. She looked around, confused and afraid. “S…spike?” she said, her voice wavering, “Starlight? Where…where am I?” Then it came to her, and she remembered who she was and what had happened- -all of it. She nearly wept. Instead, though, she turned her head. “Fuuuuuck me,” she said before vomiting out several liters of contaminated saltwater.

Twilight sat up and began scanning the area to see if they had been followed. Her internal chronometer indicated that almost an hour had passed since they had fallen from the Surface, so she was mostly sure that they had lost her. She still needed to check, though.

While examining her surroundings, she also checked herself. Her coat had been lost in the fall, and in a panic Twilight reached for her neck. The gemstone had not left her, and that was a relief. She looked down at her body and her relief fell slightly. She was certainly still alive, but in bad shape.

Her left front limb was missing and she had several less consequential bullet holes in her body. Her right wing was ravaged by plasma burns and the left had been ruined by the impact into the ocean. It was damaged beyond repair and fell limply at her side.

“Damn it I have water in my internal systems,” swore Twilight. “I’m going to smell for weeks!” She shook her wet mane and looked over at Elrod, who was passed out face-down on the stained shore-rocks. “Hey, trench, are you dead?”

“Surprisingly, no,” he muttered. “But I thought you were for a while.”

“My body is designed to survive a lot more than that. It still hurt like hell though.” Elrod struggled to sit up. Twilight watched. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Several things. Among them a three-mile fall into an ocean. Salty water is very bad for me.”

“Will you survive it?”

“Yes, I just need a minute. That, and one of the things they shot me with wasn’t a normal bullet.” He rolled over and struggled to remove his now hole-riddled coat. Twilight noticed that the holes in his coat did not correspond to the ones in his body, save for one point on his right arm. The hole was not only still present, but it seemed to be expanding. The flesh around the area had become flakey and black, and most of the muscle was gone.

“That looks bad.”

“It is bad,” said Elrod. “The bullet must have been tipped with herbicide. They were prepared for me. But it’s a limb shot.” He reached up with his free arm and grasped his right elbow. With one swift motion he pulled the arm free. It cracked at the poisoned area with little effort. Elrod showed no sign of pain, and he threw the now useless limb into the ocean.

“It’s not healing.”

“It will. But it will take time. I need fertilizer and real water. And somewhere warmer.” He looked at Twilight, who was now sitting on a rock beside him. “And the others? Forth, and the green pony?”

Twilight sighed and turned away. “Jade took a shot to the chest. That’s not good. I didn’t see it all, but that’s where the processor and memory compiler is located in her brand of body.”

“So she didn’t make it.”

“I didn’t say that, but…” she looked at Elrod. “I wouldn’t wait for her to come home.”

“And Forth?”

“I don’t sense her.” That was a simplification. Under normal circumstances, Twilight and Forth were always together. Forth existed within Twilight, but separate, on her own little island of Twilight’s physical platform. Twilight in general respected her privacy, but could always feel her. Now that island was empty, and Twilight felt profoundly alone. “But she’s a big girl. She can take care of herself. If I had any money I’d bet it on her.” Twilight reached for her cigarettes, only to realize that they had been in her coat pocket. By this time they had probably drifted most of the way out to Long Island. “Damn..."

Twilight groaned and turned to Elrod. “So. When were you going to mention it?”

Elrod turned to her, his eyes confused by far more cognizant than normal. “Tell you what?”

“That you’re an agromorph.”

Elrod shrugged. “I was hoping that it would not come up.”

“Really. So you thought the investigation would just go on while you keep a key piece of information to yourself?”

“Wasn’t it you who warned me not to volunteer information? The architecture of my consciousness is different from yours, but I’m not stupid. Monsanto has a bounty on me.”

“How much?”

Elrod looked at her suspiciously. “Are you intending to sell me out?”

“I just gave up my wings to make sure you survived a fall into the ocean, you ingrate. What do you think?”

Elrod frowned but nodded. “Sixty million vod for epigenetic markers of total death.”

Twilight looked out at the dark ocean and nodded. “That’s a lot of vod. I’m surprised I haven’t heard of a bounty like that.”

“It isn’t advertised. Not to anyone. Doing so would admit our existence.”

“It kind of defeats the point to have a bounty that you never post.”

“Monsanto agents know it. And if they knew I was alive, they would come for me. And I don’t want to die. I just want to live a normal life.”

“Well it’s too late for that.” Twilight paused. “What the high-commander idiot said up there, was it true?”

“Some of it was. And some of it was probably true thirty years ago. If you mean that I’m a plant, yes. Solanum tuberosum, although the genetic alterations are more than enough to qualify for a speciation event.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Twilight, looking at him. “Solanum tuberosum? That’s the scientific name for potatoes. You’re a potato.”

“In a loose sense, yes.”

“So Monsanto created an army of potato men to conquer the Middle West? That’s absurd.”

“But true. Or partially true. There were agromorph soldiers at one point, but not anymore. Not really. The technology to make us improved.”

“You were a geneticist,” said Twilight. “Meaning that Monsanto was using you as a worker.”

Elrod nodded. “That is correct. At one time, over ninety percent of Monsanto’s workforce consisted of agromorphs. In many respects we are an improvement over humans. I don’t really understand how we work, because I never worked on that project, but we never need to sleep. We don’t eat anything except fertilizer, water, and dim light. We are immune to disease and injury, and we do not require cybernetic enhancements to augment our intelligence.”

“And you just so happen to look like the High Chairman’s son.”

Elrod blinked, momentarily confused. “Oh,” he said. “Most of us look like this. Or at least the male-gendered do. Spitzer VIII was well-loved by many of us, and we have to look like something. I just copied the others.”

“It would have been a lot better if you could have taken a less conspicuous form.”

“It is very difficult to change out of it.”

“This is fucking weird,” moaned Twilight. She sighed and continued her interrogation. “And you left Monsanto. Let me guess. Searching for freedom, purpose, a home, love?”

Elrod shook his head. “Nope. All of those things are meaningless to us. I would have been fine to be a geneticist for however long my lifespan is. I was good at it. My team was working on an improved type of amaranth. Have you ever seen amaranth? It’s pretty. Red flowers, red leafs…”

“But you still left.”

“Because Monsanto tried to kill me.” Elrod looked at Twilight. “Hence the bounty. They killed most of us. Some escaped, but not many. I was lucky. I was in the fields when they gassed our facility. My entire team died, but I did not. I think I’m supposed to miss them, but I don’t.”

“One of the world’s leading agricultural corporations killed off over ninety percent of its workforce?” Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Any idea why?”

“Tetracycline.”

“Excuse me?”

“Tetracycline. It’s an antibiotic- -”

“Yes, I know what it is. But why does it matter?”

“Several of our critical genes were based on a tetracycline promoter. We normally require continuous dosing to live, and especially to reproduce. However, at some point, a mutation occurred on a rogue transposon. This was amplified several generations before anyone noticed.”

“Meaning that you ceased to need it,” said Twilight, “and that you could reproduce limitlessly. Water, fertilizer, dim light? It’s every city in the world.”

Elrod nodded. “Yes. And Monsanto knew that.” Elrod paused, and then sat up suddenly. As he dried, he seemed to be becoming more energetic. “Do you think that’s why they tried to kill me?”

“No,” said Twilight. “Stop and think, trench. That hole in your arm, that was a herbicide bullet, right?”

“Right?”

“So Monsanto knows what would kill you. But they never used it. What I think happened is that you saw something, and someone shot you with a bullet that was guaranteed to kill anything except whatever the hell you are.”

“Agromorph.”

“Exactly. They weren’t expecting that, and they weren’t sure what to do when you didn’t die properly. So they tried to use a proxy just in case.”

“The technomancer.”

Twilight nodded. “To cover their tracks if they fail, or kill you if they succeed. But then there was what happened on Level C…”

“They failed again.”

“Yes, but not at killing you. They weren’t trying to.”

“But I had a gun pointed at my chest!”

“Which would have done what? Can bullets even kill you?”

Elrod opened his mouth but paused. “I…I don’t know. I don’t really know how I work.”

“It wouldn’t have. That isn’t what they wanted. I was already suspicious of you. They wanted to out you to me. That’s what would have happened. You would have been shot by a hooker on Level C- -not an uncommon occurrence- -and I would see that you’re a potato-starch man.”

“Agromorph.”

“I think the idea was that they didn’t need to kill you. You’re inconsequential.”

“Oh. Well that makes me feel better.”

“It should. I think they decided that you don’t matter much and can’t interfere with whatever you’re doing. But by then, you had already found a detective.”

“One who will keep digging…” Elrod’s brow furrowed. “Even if I’m not human?”

“Like I said. You’re inconsequential. I don’t really care much about you either at this point. I care about the case.”

“But there’s no money in it.”

Twilight laughed. “You idiot. Let me let you in on a little secret. I don’t have a house. I’m homeless. Just the office. I don’t need to eat. All I need is rent and maintenance on myself and Forth, and I can afford that. I don’t do this job for the money.”

“But then why?”

Twilight sighed. “It’s something that comes with being one of the Mane Six. We’re not like the background characters; we’re born with specific personalities. I’ve tried for a long time to escape mine, but you can’t. No one can. Fluttershys will be prone to cowardice, Pinkie Pies to madness, Raritys to vanity, Rainbow Dashs to stubbornness, Applejack’s toward…Applejackness…and Twilight Sparkles toward obsession and curiosity. I love money, but this intrigues me too much. I can’t stop now, no matter what.”

“Then you’re still on the case.”

“Yeah. I guess I am.” Twilight stood up, but faltered. Her broken wings hung limply at her sides. With some hesitation, she disconnected them internally. The pair fell to the ground and rolled into the ocean. Elrod immediately began to crawl toward them, but Twilight stopped him.

“Don’t,” she said. “You couldn’t sell them anyway. Not with the Micronesian embargo in effect.”

Elrod seemed to recognize what she meant, and he pulled away from them as though they were diseased. “You’re an MHI.”

“I am. But you already knew that.”

“I might have.” He looked at the wings. “That means you might have some trouble getting new ones.”

“I know,” sighed Twilight. “I guess I’ll be running in unicorn mode for a while…”

Part II, Chapter 2

There were buildings near the shore, but as Twilight and Elrod made their way inland it became more and more apparent just how decrepit they had been allowed to become. Much of Bridgeport was in a state of decay, which was a product of its immense age and its overall vastness. Even the most abandoned places within the city were inhabited, though, and people would take an effort to rebuild them however they could with varying levels of success.

This place had been forgotten and abandoned. The buildings had aged to the point where they were collapsing: metal had corroded to rust, and wood had crumbled away to splinters. Plastic had started to fade and break apart, and anything that was painted had long since been peeled bare by the elements. All that stood were the dark and silent buildings, and the supports for the city above.

“Where are we?” asked Elrod, looking around.

“We’re still in Bridgeport,” replied Twilight. “The shore district, or maybe the harbor. I don’t know for sure.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“This area isn’t exactly mapped well.”

Elrod’s eyes widened. “This…this is the Depths, isn’t it?” he squeaked.

“I’ve explained it to you before. The delineation isn’t black and white. Yes and no.” Twilight gestured with her chin toward the silent warehouses and the rotting equipment that surrounded them. “This place used to be a shipping region.”

“When?” Elrod tapped on something that looked like it had once been a forklift long ago. “It looks like it’s been abandoned for centuries.”

“It has. The last time anyone was down here was probably the late twenty-first century, maybe into the twenty-second.”

Elrod once again looked profoundly surprised, but also somewhat afraid. “That long?” He looked around. He probably would not recognize what Twilight already did: that the architecture, as faded and broken as it was, was a perfect representation of that era. This place was a decaying museum and tribute to the worst era in history.

“Why is it like this, then?”

“You mean why is it abandoned? Do agromorphs learn history?”

“Monsanto never saw a reason to teach us anything about the outside world.”

“Radiation, mostly. Flowing in from New York. The economy, and the Revolution. Government mismanagement, falling manufacturing, you name it. It’s complicated. Trade out of Bridgeport just…stopped.”

“I can see that. But why is it still here?”

“It’s the architectural epitome of consumerism.” Twilight tried to shrug, but it was difficult with just one complete shoulder. “Why bother to demolish what’s below you when you can just forget about it and build a level higher? Scrap, recycling, why bother. Just make a new one and let the old one rot.”

“If I had known, I could have made a lot of money here.”

“If you were a Delver, maybe. Even then, this area is off-limits. Everything here is owned by the State.”

“That doesn’t matter much.”

“It does when everything is hotter than a Coco Pommel. Do you really feel like trying to fence radioactive gear?”

Elrod turned his gaze down to the broken asphalt below. “No. That would be hard.”

“Good.” Twilight paused for a moment. “Actually, can you even see where you’re going? There’s no light here.”

“I can see you, I guess. Not farther. I don’t think I actually really ‘see’. I’m not sure how exactly I perceive the world.”

“Fuck. Once again, humans screwing over the world.”

“I don’t much care for that description.”

“You wouldn’t, but I don’t care. This is, what, the fourth time they’ve done this?”

“Fourth?”

“First it was us, the ponies. They marketed us as toys. Then they made the zoonei out of ‘academic curiosity’, and they tried and failed to recreated pony AI’s with the second-generation system. Now they made you. The agromorphs. Potato slaves.”

“I never thought of it that way,” said Elrod. “I don’t like it.”

They continued deeper. Twilight began to map the roads and compare them to historical records and found that, for the most part, the main streets matched what the city had once looked like long ago. That was more or less what the shore area was: it was stuck as it had been, with a few areas demolished for concrete columns the size of small cities or for systems of long-forgotten tubes that led down into the water to either dump waste or take up water as coolant.

The schematics only got Twilight so far, though. A few roads were blocked by debris that she could not easily climb over, and some of the roads appeared to have been dirt service entrances that were not listed on any map. The going was slow and painful.

“Are we nearing an exit?” asked Elrod at last. He sounded tired, something that Twilight had never heard from him before.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I mean I don’t know. Now shut your hole. I’m working.”

Twilight walked several blocks down and doubled back before stopping at a large warehouse. It seems stable, and although its enormous outer door was rusty it seemed to have remained closed and secured for many centuries. Somehow it reminded Twilight of a tomb.

A barely legible inscription over the door read 157-359B. The numbers had once been aluminum, but now they were little more than stains on a pale, flacking background. Twilight cross-referenced the number and determined that it was as close as she could get to her target. From here on in, luck would be the pivotal factor in how things turned out.

“It’s a door,” said Elrod as he looked up at it.

“No shit. Next you’re going to tell me that it’s closed.”

“Well, it is.”

Twilight rolled her eyes and approached the door. There was a manual access panel next to it, or had been at one point. Now all that was left was a mess of faded wires and rust. There were no ports, and in all likelihood no power supply to operate the door anyway.

“There’s no way you can get that open,” said Elrod. “We can’t get in there.”

“If this were a video game, sure,” said Twilight. “But it’s not.” She stepped to the side of the door and turned around. She then bucked the wall as hard as she could, feeling the prefabricated plastic and badly corroded metal break under the impact from her hooves. Balancing on one hoof in front was almost impossible, but she managed another strike before she fell over.

“Damn it,” she swore. She stood back up. “I hate asymmetry.” She tossed her mane back over her shoulder and looked at the hole she had made in the wall. It was certainly large enough for a pony. “See?” she said. “The door’s probably the only thing in this place that’s still holding.”

“Then is it really a place we want to be inside?”

Twilight answered by pushing through the hole she had made. Elrod hesitated, but then followed with some difficulty.

“I can’t see anything in here,” said Elrod, looking around blindly. “And it smells…weird.”

“Hold on.” Twilight turned toward the rough center of the room and projected a luminescent hologram. It took the form of a purplish-white cube, and the light it produced spread through much of the center of the wet took the form of a purplish-white cube, and the light it produced spread through much of the center of the warehouse before collapsing into shadows around the periphery.

The light of the hologram illuminated several ancient-looking shipping crates. Some of them were badly corroded by the salt-air and the leaking of the ceiling, and some were open. Twilight ignored both of those; she did not even want to look inside. Instead she directed her attention toward the majority of the shipping containers: those whose hermetic seal remained unbroken.

She approached one of them. The outside was rusted and little of the handle remained, but structurally it appeared to be sound. “Open it,” she said.

“Me?”

“Yes you.” Twilight gestured toward her one remaining hoof. “I don’t exactly have hands, do I?”

“Right…” Elrod approached the crate and gingerly grasped the handle. Parts of the rust collapsed in his hand, but the core of the handle remained attached. Carefully at first and then with a great deal of force, Elrod pulled at the handle. The silent warehouse was filled with the screech of creaking metal.

Then the handle suddenly jolted forward easily. Elrod turned it and pulled, removing the door from the shipping container and dragging out the internal support racks within. As he did, the rack inside began to unfold, lowering the evenly spaced boxes it contained into a position that would once have been conducive for an automatic unloading device to extract them. A dim light flickered within the crate, producing a pale glow that illuminated the boxes.

Elrod almost cried out in surprise when he saw what they were, but Twilight had already known. She been able to recognize the markings on the containers and cross-reference them to ancient manifests, but somehow she felt she had also sensed them somehow, as if she had known they would be here.

The cardboard boxes were faded and flaking, but the images on them were still clear: each held a cartoon picture of a pony standing in one of several poses, smiling and cheerful next to the Hasbro logo and the heart-shaped “Friendship is Magic” insignia.

“Sweet Celestia,” whispered Elrod, running his fingers through a box with Rarity’s smiling cartoon face on it. His hand immediately ran to the seam of the box, and he found that it was factory sealed. His eyes went wide. “These- -these are new old stock!” he cried, a grin passing over his face. He laughed and looked around the room. “Sweet Saint Isidore, this has to be…if all of the sealed ones are fully stocked…” He counted for a moment. “There’s got to be over six hundred million vod in this place!”

“To collectors, maybe,” said Twilight, slapping Elrod’s hands away from the box. “But not to ponies. This is all obsolete. Weak plastic bodies that can barely walk on their own with crappy processors and worse power supplies.”

“Then why are we here?” He looked out at the boxes. “Why are THEY here?”

Twilight did not answer the first question. “The Revolution,” she said. “Twenty forty-eight. When the fighting started in earnest, Hasbro put a moratorium on shipping and manufacturing. These units ended up stuck at port. They never got to retail.”

“But they are still here.”

“Of course. Nobody could bear to liquidate them. I guess Hasbro held out hope that we could be ‘fixed’ and sold after the Revolution ended. Except it didn’t go that way, and nobody was willing to buy or sell ponies afterword. The stock just got forgotten about and buried.”

Elrod paused and looked at the boxes. “You seem to know a lot about this. Almost like you were there.”

Twilight ignored him and walked down the row of boxes, scanning the signals from each one to determine which was the freshest. Then finally she stopped and pointed to one. “This one. Get it down for me.”

Elrod obeyed and walked up to the box. His damaged arm had only partially regrown, but he managed to use the one he had remaining to lift it out of the rack and place it on the ground.

“It’s oddly light,” he said.

They both looked down at the box. It was roughly pony-sized, and the image on the front was of a smiling cartoon image of Twilight Sparkle herself.

“Oh wow,” said Elrod, looking at the dusty picture. “You look adorable as a cartoon.” He looked at her. “And you’re really off-model.”

“No, I’m real. Not a cartoon. We look a lot less cute when rendered in synthetic flesh.”

“I thought Forth looked good.”

“Touch Forth and I’ll tear off…are you even…”

“Anatomically correct? No, of course not. I’m a potato. I’m both male and female. I actually can flower- -”

“I don’t need to know! Just look around! Find some tools!”

“Tools? For what?”

Twilight lifted the stump of her left hoof. Parts of the hanging machinery reacted and twisted sickeningly. “I can barely walk. I need a new leg. Find tools for a transplant. You’re a scrap scavenger, aren’t you? You know how to do this?”

“If I had managed to find pony parts I would be a lot richer,” retorted Elrod. “But yes. I can do that, if you’re compatible.”

“MHI is compatible with everything. That’s one reason why they banned it. It’s not a permanent solution, but I need to be able to walk if we’re going to get out of here.”

Elrod looked at her, and then at the box. In the light coming from the shipping container, his eyes were oddly reflective. “Sure,” he said. “I can do that. Hold on.”

Without making a sound, he disappeared into the darkness. Twilight had let her holographic light vanish, but despite this Elrod was still able to navigate without sight. He was still visible to Twilight as he moved through the periphery of the warehouse, occasionally flipping over debris or opening rotting containers.

Twilight turned her attention toward the box. She began by cutting the seal with the tip of her horn, which was relatively sharp. Inside it was a protective Styrofoam casing. That portion was more difficult to handle, but Twilight was eventually able to slide it free and remove one half

She paused when she looked inside, feeling a strange sensation creep up her spine. There, encased in the pressed Styrofoam, was a pony who had never been born. She lay there, a perfect and new Twilight Sparkle. Her eyes were closed as if she were sleeping, and a slight smile had crossed her lips as though she was having a pleasant dream. She was not, of course. She was inactive and had been for centuries. The hermetic seal in the crate had kept her body intact, but her primitive electronics were never intended to last that long.

Twilight reached out and touched her duplicate’s mane, running her one remaining front hoof through it while she sat. The technology used to make the hair had been simple, but it was still soft. As Twilight touched it, she noticed that the version of herself in the packaging had no wings.

“A special edition unicorn Twilight,” she said, softly. “You would have been expensive.”

It took effort for Twilight to look away from the pony and turn her attention instead toward the other Twilight’s left front hoof. Twilight poked at it and removed it from its location, bending it upward to check if it was still flexible. It was, and the robotics inside seemed good. Now it was only a matter of cutting it off and reattaching it to her own body. The pony it currently belonged to would surely not miss it.

“What’s taking so long?” she called into the darkness. As she yelled, she released the hoof. It weakly jerked away from her.

Twilight jumped. Her eyes suddenly flitted toward the limb, and she saw it twitch again. Logically, she knew that this was normal; the batteries that powered the old designs could stay functional for a long time, and even though her higher programming would have decayed from inactivity the pony’s lower-level systems might still be functional. It was just a reflex caused by her body trying to activate itself, nothing more. Except Twilight could not manage to dismiss what she knew was happening with logic. Fear crept over her, because in her gut she knew this was more than a reflex.

The pony’s body suddenly shuddered and her eyes flashed open. The irises were blank for only a moment before their segments began to glow with pale violet light. She gasped and sputtered as her system started to initialize.

“JAMESON!” screamed Twilight. “Get over here NOW! We have a PROBLEM!”

Box-Twilight’s ears flicked at the sound, and her eyes turned slowly toward Twilight. Then her pupils narrowed as she jumped up with a cry.

“GAH!” she screamed, tripping over herself as she pulled half of herself out of the box. “What- -who- -SPIKE! Spike, where are you!”

She looked around confused and afraid. Twilight looked back into copies of her own eyes and saw that fear. She recognized it and understood it in a way that no pony ever could.

“Slow down,” she said. “Your body is comparatively weak, it’s not designed for strenuous use!”

Box Twilight’s eyes darted around confused. “You- -you’re me!” she said, instantly recognizing a pony who was nearly identical to her. Then her eyes fell to the exposed ropes of black muscle and torn machinery where her counterpart’s leg had once been. She immediately gasped and stepped back.

“Come on,” said Twilight. “Look, it’s okay. It doesn’t even hurt.”

“Your- -you’re a robot! A robot version of me!”

“That’s…one way to put it.”

Box Twilight blinked. “Is this- -is this some sort of post-apocalyptic pony future?” She gasped. “Did I travel through time? Are you the future me? Or did somebody make robot versions of us?”

“No, just…oh, fuck…”

At that moment Elrod emerged from the shadows and into the light. His one arm was packed with a number of rusty tools. Upon seeing him, the second Twilight screamed in terror.

“Sweet Celestia! A monster! What are you?!”

“An agromorph,” said Elrod. “We just discussed this.” He looked at the second Twilight for a moment, and then at the first. “Are they supposed to be functional?”

“No,” muttered Twilight. “The odds of a functional system after this much time are…” She suddenly shook her head. “Never mind. I calculated them but you don’t need to know.”

“Well, should I get a stick or something?”

“What do we need a stick- -NO! Just no!” Twilight groaned and sighed. “Come on…”

She approached the rack and this time modulated her scan to find the unit of the lowest quality. Her mistake had been finding one that was too fresh; the chances that any of the others were functional were infinitesimal, but she did not want to risk it. Despite her actions being morbid, she was not a monster. Twilight had no desire to kill a living pony for spare parts; to do so was too ghoulish for any sane individual.

Elrod followed obediently, and the formerly boxed Twilight followed him. Her steps were initially wobbly, but she quickly gained the ability to move with ease. “Hi,” she said to Elrod. “I’m sorry I reacted that way, you just surprised me.” She laughed nervously. “I’m just a little confused right now, and I didn’t mean to offend you. Actually, I was wondering if we could be friends.”

“I have never had friends before,” said Elrod. He paused. “Well, maybe the others. But Monsanto killed them all. I don’t mind much. Actually I think I’d rather not have friends.”

The second Twilight gasped. “No friends- -that’s terrible! I mean, I thought the same thing once, but I realized that I was wrong and that friends are one of the greatest things that a pony can- -”

Twilight turned around and glared at the second version of herself. “You,” she said.

“Um…yes?”

“Let me put this in language you can understand. Shut your hay hole. Or I will come over there and shut it for you. I’ve been through a lot today, and having to deal with this starch trench is bad enough.”

Twilight blinked. “Trench…?”

The first Twilight rolled her eyes and pointed to another box. “Jameson. Get this one.”

“Will this one wake up too?”

“No. She’s long dead.”

“Dead?” the second Twilight’s face fell as her eyes widened. “But…I don’t understand…”

Elrod did as he was told. He let his various tools slide to the ground, and the clattering echoed through the warehouse. Then he used his one complete arm and the still-growing stump of the other to remove and open the box. This one had gotten damp at some point, but the image on the front was still visible as belonging to a Rarity unit.

Twilight watched as Elrod opened the box. Her counterpart did not take much interest until the Styrofoam was removed to reveal the pony inside.

“R…Rarity?” she said, her eyes widening. She raced forward, pushing past the Elrod and reaching into the box, pawing at the pony inside. “No! Rarity, wake up! Wake up, Rarity, please!”

“Um…”

“Ignore her. Fix me.”

“Right.”

Elrod pushed Twilight away and pulled the Rarity unit out of the box. She was limp and several parts of her coat fell away as he did so.

“Oh no…Rarity! Something- -something’s wrong with her! Please, you have to help her!”

“You’re not going to want to watch this,” said Twilight.

The other Twilight looked confused. Her eyes were in a conformation where they should have been tearing, but as a machine she had no capacity to cry. “W…what?”

Elrod picked up one of the tools and immediately began making access cuts in the Rarity unit’s skin. A blood-curdling shriek pierced the silence of the room as the Twilight unit began to scream.

“NOOOO!” she cried. “STOP! STOP! You’re hurting her!”

Twilight took a step back and grabbed the other unit. Despite only having one arm, her body was not only modern but more advanced than most. The other Twilight was weak and primitive and could not escape no matter how hard she struggled.

“Please, stop!” she wailed. “Rarity! RARITY!”

Almost as if on cue, the Rarity unit suddenly lurched. Her eyes opened, but they did not illuminate with any particular color. She seized and her mouth moved. A heavily distorted voice came out.

“Twilight,” she said.

“R- -Rarity?!”

“Twilight,” repeated the Rarity unit. Her head turned sharply. “Dresses! Couture! Fabulous! S…Sweetie Belle? S…sweetie…dresses. Dresses!”

Both the second Twilight and Elrod looked confused.

“What…what’s wrong with her?” asked Twilight.

“She’s reactivating,” said Elrod.

“No she isn’t. Her program is too degraded. These are spasms, nothing more.”

“Then…I should continue work?”

“Do it.”

Elrod gripped the skin around the incision he had made and pulled. The Rarity unit screamed as if in pain and then laughed before it stopped moving. The newer Twilight did too but stopped and stared in immense confusion as the robotic limb beneath the Rarity unit’s skin was revealed.

Twilight dropped her, leaving her counterpart shaking on the floor.

“I think…I think I’m going to be sick.” The second Twilight retched. “My horn…why isn’t my horn working? I should have been able to stop you…”

“Because magic isn’t real.” Twilight looked up at Elrod and held out the stump of her broken leg. “Disconnect it. The old models have a rear fastener. It’s a bitch and you might have to snap it.”

“I know how to disassemble a pony,” said Elrod. He picked up several of the rusted tools and with some difficulty but surprising ease given the circumstances removed the leg. “The connectors are more complicated than I thought.”

“No shit. There’s a plug near the shoulder. Disconnect it. I’ll tell you how to link to my frame.”

“Dress…sess?” The Rarity unit let out one more wheeze before going silent, although her dead eyes continued to follow Elrod.

Elrod continued with his work at Twilight’s instruction while the other Twilight sat in shock and terror at the proceedings. When Elrod was done, Twilight opened the control circuits to the limb and flexed it.

“How is it?”

“Shit. Absolute shit. But shit I can walk on until I can get a replacement.”

“Please don’t swear,” said the other Twilight. “Ponies aren’t supposed to swear.”

“You get over that fucking quick,” said Twilight. She stood up and took a few steps. “Damn it…”

“This might help a little,” said Elrod. He reached into his pile of tools and pulled out a dirty plastic bag. He opened it and removed an ancient-looking pack of cigarettes. “I found these in one of the lockers.”

“Goddamn it,” said Twilight. “They’re antiques, but I might actually be starting to like you.”

“Really?”

“Hell no.”

Elrod frowned and put one of the cigarettes in Twilight’s mouth. He produced a decrepit lighter and held it to the cigarette. An electrical spark flashed and the end lit. Twilight took a long drag and then blew the smoke out her nose. “Finally. Now, let’s try to find an exit. Now that I can walk properly I have a few ideas.”

She started walking. Elrod closed the door to the shipping container, sealing in the remainder of the unborn ponies. Then he started to follow Twilight, and the other Twilight did as well. Elrod turned toward her, and then to the first Twilight.

“What about her?”

“Please don’t leave me here,” said the second Twilight. She looked over her shoulder at the broken Rarity unit and the box beside her. “I…I don’t know where I am, and I’m afraid.”

“Damn it,” swore Twilight. “This is not how I wanted this to go. Really, I should leave you here. I don’t have a need for you.”

“But- -but you can’t!”

“I said ‘should’. You shouldn’t even exist. But you do, and you’re my responsibility I guess. So I’ll get you to the surface. But I can’t promise anything after that.”

The second Twilight’s eyes seemed to brighten, but only slightly.

“I’m going to need a way to tell you apart,” said Elrod.

“Seriously? Come on. It’s pretty obvious.”

“Two identical purple unicorns. I could barely tell you and Forth apart half the time. But that’s not what I mean. I mean name-wise. What should I call you?”

“Oh, sorry,” said the second Twilight. “I’m Twilight Sparkle.” She bowed. “Personal student to Princess Celestia and Ponyville town librarian.”

“But that’s her name too,” protested Elrod. “Minus the titles.”

“Not really. Right, trench, you just got a promotion. As long as her and I are in the same room, you can now call me Morgana for the sake of differentiation.”

“Morgana?” Twilight blinked. “But…why?”

“Because it’s my name.”

“Oh. Sorry. It’s a pretty name.”

“No it isn’t. It’s derived from- -”

“Arthurian legend. I know. It’s the name of a powerful sorceress usually associated with post-medieval telling of the tales.”

“And according to the late twentieth century iterations of the legend?”

Twilight paused. “A betrayer,” she said.

“Correct.” Morgana took another drag from her cigarette and turned toward the darkness of the warehouse. “Exactly correct.”

Part II, Chapter 3

The office was a uniquely Spartan environment, clean nearly to the point of sterility. It was large, covering an area that in most parts of the city would provide living space for at least twelve families. Except that it was empty, save for a simple white desk with a large but rarely used chair behind it. The floor was perfectly smooth, and the walls bare.

All that occupied the room did so unobtrusively in what the technomancers called the Illusion: paintings were projected on the wall, and potted gold-leaved plants sat in some corners of the room. Several pieces of furniture were apparent, as well as tasteful abstract sculptures. A set of metals sat framed on the back wall. The majority of light in the room came from this source, so that it could only be mentally perceived. In reality it was dark.

Of all the things in this room that were illusionary, the only main feature of its architecture that stood out was the only real one: the view. One entire wall consisted of four inches of optically pure synthetic diamond and looked out from the top of the precinct into the staging areas below and beyond it the complicated systems of roads that served a sector that was largely infrastructure. Below that there were new developments, a growing portion of the city where people had elected to take advantage of the security offered by proximity to the Aetna-Cross Enforcement Center.

Standing in front of this window was a man. His height was much greater than that of an ordinary human, but not unreasonable for those individuals who had been custom designed in prestigious and expensive laboratories for more wealthy parents. His entire body was covered in armor that consisted of elegant white-and-blue plates, each with their edges rounded in a way that made them look almost organic.

The man was facing the window and away from the room’s main door when it opened. He did not need to turn to see who had entered.

“Lieutenant Shining Armor,” he said.

Hexel stopped and saluted. “Commander Nikolosov,” he replied. At the same time, he checked his chronometer, more out of compulsive habit than any specific need. He had been summoned to arrive “as soon as possible”, which he begrudgingly did in lieu of a set appointment.

“At ease, lieutenant. As much as I enjoy being saluted, we cannot have a proper conversation with your arm up like that.”

Hexel assumed an at-ease position. “It is an honor to have a conversation with you in person, sir. Although I must admit, I am not exactly a fan of unorthodoxy. It bodes poorly for me.”

Nikolosov let out a low sound that might once have come across as laughter. He turned slowly. He wore an operator mask, but as he turned the mask appeared to become transparent. A face was projected outward as an idea: a perfect, symmetrical, handsome face. Hexel knew that it was an illusion. No one really knew what Nikolosov’s real face looked like, but injuries he had sustained in his long career had long kept him from being as beautiful as he chose to project himself.

“You’re asking me if you’re in trouble. The answer is no.”

Hexel was surprised, but he took some solace in the fact that Nikolosov had not called him in to bring up Lynnette’s current mission. The whole thing still gave him a bad feeling, though.

“Then what would you like to talk about?”

Nikolosov began to walk around the room, his heels clicking on the marble floor.

“Lieutenant. Tell me what you know about one Morgana Twilight Sparkle.”

Hexel controlled his expression perfectly, even though he realized that his initial hope that he would escape this meeting without being yelled at- -or without being demoted- -may have been misplaced. He quickly summarized his memories on the subject.

“She is a licensed private detective third class based out of the Old Shelton district. She also appears to be a technomancer, although her rating or even school are unknown. She currently employs one worker, a Blossomforth unit. She was formerly in a relationship with one Roxanne Rainbow Dash, also a resident of Old Shelton.”

“The prostitute, you mean.”

“A remarkably ordered prostitute, yes. Her paperwork and tax information as always filed honestly. Her record is clean.”

“Let me rephrase.” Nikolosov stopped walking and leaned toward Hexel. “A prostitute you were involved with.”

Hexel sighed. “Are you accusing me of violating company policy? Because I assure you, I did not.”

“Of course you didn’t. If you had, I would know, and you would be dead. But I appreciate your honesty, even if you are being…deft.” He started walking again. “I’m more concerned about your relationship with Morgana.”

“There is no relationship. I find her profoundly unattractive and infuriating.”

“That is not the sort of relationship I mean.” Nikolosov sat in the large chair behind his desk and the cylinders underneath it hissed from his weight. He leaned forward and motioned for Hexel to stand in front of the desk. Hexel did so, even though the top was level with the tip of his horn.

“Then what do you mean, sir?”

“I’m referring to her role in your work.”

“She has no role in my leadership of my investigative team.”

“No. I mean your prior work. When you were on the beat. Tell me, Shining Armor. How many times did you go to her to help you do what you could never manage to do with company resources?”

“That would be against company policy.”

Nikolosov smiled. “Exactly. But that’s something I’ve noticed. I’m not very old. Only a little older than you, actually. But I’ve seen a lot. And I’ve found a paradox in our system.”

“Sir?”

“How many times have I watched young officers try to rise through the ranks by sticking exactly to policy, to orthodoxy, to every little rule, or worse by forcing it on their entire teams? Do you know what that leads to? It should lead to promotion, but instead they end up retiring as a first-lieutenant and getting a gold-plated watch.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand, sir?”

“Of course you do. The orthodoxy is shit. You know it, and I know it.”

“For the record I never stated that, sir.”

Nikolosov laughed. “Of course you didn’t. Because that’s how it’s supposed to work. You keep the guise that everything is in order, everything within policy, while in reality you’re getting stuff done ahead of time and underbudget doing things that the company shouldn’t let you do. It’s why I’m on this side of the desk, and why at the rate you’re going you’ll be a department head in a matter of years. Maybe even have my job if a rival doesn’t put a round in your processor before then.”

“Thank you, sir. But I have to ask: what does this have to do with Morgana?”

Nikolosov’s expression fell. “Because Shining Armor units are known for loyalty, honor, nobility, and dedication.”

“That is profiling.”

“Yes. Our job is to profile. For humans and ponies alike, deviance is hereditary.”

“Then you are accusing me of deviance.”

“No.” Nikolosov held up two fingers and an image appeared, projected directly into Hexel’s eyes. It was a single plate of text. “Here,” he said, flicking it across the table toward Hexel. “I am issuing these orders as we speak. I wanted you to be the first to see them.”

Hexel quickly scanned through. If he had possessed a heart, it would have accelerated drastically.

“These are medical euthanasia orders,” he said.

“Yes. Directly from Corporate. Morgana Twilight Sparkle has been deemed terminally ill and due to extensive pain has been approved for immediate termination. Maximum priority.”

Hexel looked past the document. “She’s not part of our care network. This is very unusual.”

“It is, but our collective hands- -or hooves- -are tied here. I need to know your opinion on this.”

Hexel measured his words carefully. “I believe that Morgana Twilight Sparkle is a valuable asset to Aetna-Cross, even if Corporate- -and Morgana herself- -do not know it. I think some controlled dissemination could lead her into a state of exile. That would be preferential.”

“Not possible. Look.” Nikolosov tapped the air and another image appeared. Hexel looked it over. This time he was unable to contain his surprise, and a smile crept across Nikolosov’s face. “It’s not just Aetna-Cross. Ion, Goldman-Sachs, Ford, Ruger, Hi-Point, Scholastic, Bank of America, Monsanto…” His red irises locked onto Hexel’s blue. “…Geico.”

“Our direct competitor.”

“Ah. It is good to see you actually know that. But also…disheartening.”

Hexel did not let falter, even though he now understood the course this conversation had taken and the one it had been meant to take since the beginning. “And thirty-seven other corporations in North America, Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. All incorporated in North America, and half of them direct competitors.”

“And all that issued the same warrant. The others don’t necessarily have a euphemism for it like we do, but it all means the same thing. They all want her dead.”

“That’s absurd!” Hexel pointed at the documents. “There are international terrorists, war criminals, embezzlers that we can’t even get extradition out of! And now you tell me nearly every corporation suddenly wants a private eye dead?”

“It’s not your job to question it, is it?”

Hexel stiffened. “No, sir, it’s not.”

“Like I said. These orders came from Corporate. Honestly I have better things to do. Something took out two of our mid-range drones, and now I hear that somebody’s making a mess up on the Roof. But no. All resources required are to be used to eliminate your friend.”

“I never stated that she’s my friend. In fact, I rather hate her.”

“Yes. You do. And in this case, you’re a liability.”

Hexel’s eyes flicked up toward Nikolosov’s. “Meaning?”

“Meaning I can overlook some bad behavior, Hexel. But not here. Not when my reputation is on the line. The talking heads down in statistics tell me that you’re at a high risk of, well, unbecoming behavior. So you’re going to take a vacation.”

“A vacation? Or house arrest?”

“Call it what you want, I can’t risk you on this case. And O’Toole? I have no idea what you have her doing right now. She hasn’t checked in in half a week and I don’t see any orders submitted for her. So I’m guessing I’m not supposed to know about it. And I don’t care to know about it. But keep her away from it, too.”

“Of course, sir.” Hexel replied without hesitation. “Morgana may be a valuable resource, but not that valuable. And I have a number of reports to do. Might I request to do them from home?”

“You may,” said Nikolosov, smiling. “Always working. And very understanding. Who knows. If this op gets me promoted, maybe you’ll get this chair sooner than you think.” He leaned back, and his pupils seemed to narrow. “And while you’re there, say hello to that young wife of yours. Remember that a good career means a good life for both of you. And a long one.”He smiled. “Dismissed.”

Hexel saluted once more and exited the office. He could almost feel himself dripping sweat beneath his uniform. He was afraid, but not broken. Carefully, he reached out with his mind. He was no technomancer and never had been, but time with both Morgana and Lynnette had taught him how they worked and what they were capable of. Hexel picked up one of the threads that Lynnette had left for him.

“Lynnette,” he said, speaking through a channel so encrypted that there was almost no chance he would be overheard. “I have orders…”

Part II, Chapter 4

The van stopped, and Morgana stepped out. She took a moment to adjust her blouse. It was less salty and full of bullet holes than the previous one, but every set of clothing Morgana owned had been cut for a pair of alicorn wings. It felt strange not having them; she was lighter, but her clothes tended to shift strangely without them.

She hardly stopped before she continued into the loading bay for her building. She had summoned the van remotely when she had gotten into range of a Network hub, and she had not once touched the controls when she had ridden it back. Self-driving cars were illegal, of course, but Morgana hardly cared. She was not in the mood to drive and especially not to use public transportation.

Elrod stepped out of the van as well, helping Twilight as he did. His personality seemed to have changed since Morgana had figured out what exactly he was: he was now far less evasive and seemed to have defaulted to a relatively servile nature. The fact that he was being useful pleased Morgana, but the fact that he did not seem terribly willing to leave annoyed her to no end. The extra Twilight was an additional headache.

The van immediately folded into its storage conformation and departed. Morgana, likewise, made haste for the place she most belonged, which was her office. She left Elrod and the other Twilight behind, expecting them to probably find the way on their own.

The office was exactly as Morgana had left it, and she half expected to see Forth sitting at the secretary’s desk. It was of course empty, though. There had been no transmissions or messages of any kind. Morgana feared the worst

She immediately proceeded to the back, where her office itself was. She stepped through the door and reached for the hat rack. “Damn it,” she said, taking down yet another detective hat and contemplating it for a moment. “Three hats in three days. Ridiculous. Just ridiculous.”

As she set the hat down on her desk, there was a knock at the door. For just a moment Morgana hoped that it was Forth, but it was too high and to low, the sound of starchy potato flesh against wood.

“Leave me alone,” she said. “I need to think!”

The door opened anyway. Elrod poked his head in.

“Damn it,” said Morgana. “I should shoot you.”

“You don’t have a gun. Also, you need to do something about HER.”

“You mean Twilight? No. You deal with her.”

“She doesn’t want to talk to me. I think she’s afraid of me.”

“Of course she’s afraid. You’re ugly.”

“It is my professional opinion that we should sell her to finance my case.”

Morgana stood up and pushed the door open the rest of the way, nearly causing Elrod to fall in with it. “For one, it’s not your case. I don’t even know why you’re still here. Two, nobody’s getting sold. Especially not her.”

“A fully functional original unit? She’s priceless. And by priceless I mean more valuable than this entire building.”

“The bounty on your head could also buy this building,” noted Morgana. “So shut up or get out.”

She pushed past Elrod. Twilight was sitting in what amounted to a waiting room, nearly being swallowed by a large plush chair. When she saw Morgana, her anxious expression lightened slightly and she smiled.

“Hello, robot me?” she asked, climbing off the chair with slight difficulty. “I need to talk to you!”

“I have a name.”

“Oh, sorry. Morgana. Sorry, it’s just so weird seeing a robot me and a weird biped thing and carts that move themselves and this whole big city and this office and- -ooh, my. It’s all very exciting. Too exciting, even. I wish I had a journal so I could write it all down, I mean, nopony is going to believe me about any of this- -”

“Slow down. Your voice is annoying.”

Twilight blinked. “We have the same voice. At least I think we do. I mean, I’ve never really heard my own voice.”

“We do. It’s actually Tara Strong’s voice but she’s been dead so long nobody even remembers who she was. I don’t mind me speaking it. You make it sound weird.”

“Well, sorry, I’ll try to speak…better? Change my inflection, maybe? More bass?” She laughed nervously. “I just don’t know, I’m so confused and it’s so strange here and- -”

“I don’t know if you have lungs. But try to breathe.”

Twilight began to gasp. The effect was entirely simulated, but she did not seem to notice. “Okay. Okay. I’m alright.” She closed her eyes for a moment and sat down. When she opened them she started to talk evenly. “Look, Morgana, I’m really grateful for your help. And for Elrod’s. But I’m not supposed to be here.”

“Oh?” asked Morgana, knowing what was coming next.

“No. Your world is amazing and all, but I need to get back to Ponyville. To my friends. I don’t know how I got here, but there has to be some way to get back.”

“Really? What was the last thing you remember?”

Twilight started to speak, but then paused. She had to think about it for a moment. “Well, it was just after we visited my brother and Princess Cadence in the Crystal Empire. The Equestria Games are being held this year, and we- -”

“Needed to try to convince the game selector that the Crystal Empire was the best choice. Except that you got the wrong pony and ended up shunning the actual games inspector the whole time.”

Twilight’s eyes went wide. “You- -how do you know that?”

“And then what?”

“And then?”

“Do you remember anything subsequently?”

“Oh, well, not that much. I mean, I was in the Golden Oaks library- -I live there- -and I went to bed. My usual schedule. I brushed my teeth, said goodnight to Spike, looked through my telescope, and then snuggled up with a good book until I fell asleep. Then I woke up and you were there.”

Morgana paused. “Interesting.”

“Interesting? How?”

“That to produce the unicorn edition they sealed off the later stock-memories. You go up to season three but not past that. I’m sure the memories are there and I could get them out if I had time or if you had the money, but we don’t have either.”

“What are you talking about? No, you don’t understand, I NEED to get back to Ponyville! My friends are all waiting for me! I was scheduled to visit Fluttershy in the morning for tea and then have lunch with Rarity and time for Rainbow Dash in the afternoon! I made a list, I had it back in the library.”

“Oh fuck me,” muttered Morgana.

“Please don’t swear. It isn’t appropriate for ponies to swear.”

“I heard fucking you fucking the first fucking time fucking,” shouted Twilight. “I do not have time to deal with this! In case you haven’t noticed, I have a job, one that doesn’t involve- -”

A knock came at the door. This one was low, and sounded like a metal hoof against the fiberglass faux-wood.

“Who’s that?” asked Twilight. “Are you expecting company?”

“No,” said Morgana. “And I can’t tell who it is. They’re not connected to any networks.”

Elrod drew his pistol. “Can .700 shoot through doors?”

“Put that away, you idiot! And for the record, yes, it can. It’s a goddamn .700 NE-AP.”

Twilight turned her head toward the door and remotely disengaged the locks. It swung open and a white pony in a starched dress entered.

“Forth!” cried Elrod, pushing past Morgana and Twilight. He knelt down and hugged the pony.

“Oop,” she said as she squeezed her. Her fluffy wings fluttered slightly. “Pressure. Hugs. This was not expected.”

“I thought you were dead!”

“I was also beginning to worry,” said Morgana, stepping forward. “I didn’t receive any messages from you.”

“Ah. Yes. I forgot. I’m not used to this. Being in a body.” She gestured toward her eyes, which were still deep red.

“I can’t believe you made it!” said Elrod.

“I did. But narrowly. The battle did not go as anticipated. I was very badly wounded. I managed to crawl back to a factory unit, but it took time. Once again, a new body.”

“And new clothes.”

Forth looked down at what she was wearing, which was a pastel pink dress with a short coat over it. “Yes. New clothes.” Forth looked past Elrod. “You are missing your wings.”

“Wings?” said Twilight. “Why would robot me have wings?”

Forth turned to her, causing Twilight to squeak. Without eyelids, Forth had a somewhat more striking appearance than a normal pony. “There is an additional Twilight unit in here. Shall I terminate it?”

“No,” said Morgana.

“Oh. Good. I lack ammunition anyway. I would have had to use my hooves.” She turned to Morgana. “Why is there another one? Is she a new case, a suspect, or a pony of interest?”

“None of the above. Transfer back to me and I’ll synch you to all the recent developments.”

Forth hesitated, and then shook her head. “If it’s alright, Ms. Twilight, I’d like to stay like this a little longer. It is very unfamiliar, but unfamiliar in a way I think I would like to experience.”

“You mean exist out there, in your own body?”

“Yes.”

Morgana was disappointed greatly by this, but she did not let it show. “Sure. If you think it’s good for your development, go ahead. I’ll synch you through hardline.” Morgana tilted her head forward and one of her metallic tendrils pushed out of her hair and toward Forth. Twilight gasped upon seeing this, but Forth just extended her right hoof and exposed her access ports. Morgana plugged in.

“There,” she said, removing her tendril almost as soon as it was inserted. “Now you’re up to speed.”

“Thank you, Ms. Twilight.”

“Now. Could you attend to her?”

Forth nodded. She turned toward Twilight and smiled. “Hello,” she said, stepping past Morgana as Morgana and Elrod stepped back to the office to speak.

“Hello,” replied Twilight, somewhat hesitantly. “You’re…Blossomforth, right?”

Forth smiled broadly. “Have we met?”

“Not really…but you’re one of Rainbow Dash’s friends, right?”

Forth cocked her head. “To which Rainbow Dash are you referring to?”

Twilight stared dumfounded. “Um…the Rainbow Dash? Or are there more than one?”

“There are several million. But I know at least one of them. I think we’re friends. Don’t tell Ms. Twilight.”

“Wait…why?”

Forth laughed. “You’re funny. But Ms. Twilight explained your condition. I am here to help. I am a secretary.”

“And you’re also a robot? Like her?”

“Like us all. Yes. Although not really the same. She is different from me, just as you are.” Forth smiled again, but did not blink. “Now. Let’s get to business.”

“What kind of business? There isn’t probing involved, is there?”

“There could be if that is what you want. But I doubt you want that. No. First, we need to get you some clothes.”

“Clothes? But I’m a pony. Ponies aren’t supposed to wear clothes. Well, we CAN wear clothes, but we don’t usually. I mean, it’s not necessary.”

“Lift your tail.”

Twilight blushed. “Excuse me?”

“Take a look.”

Twilight hesitated, but then did. She gasped in shock when she looked down, and then stared at Forth in embarrassment and surprise. “What- -what is that doing there?! What even is that?! I swear to Celestia, it wasn’t there before!”

“Ms. Twilight informs me that you are an intact unit. Therefore, I recommend trousers. Skirts act like butt funnels. We wear clothes here. Or else you will be mistaken for a prostitute.” She paused. “Although I have never seen a prostitute without clothes before. I think Ms. Twilight has, though. Regardless, you would look good in black.”

“Black? But Rarity said I always look better in blue or white.”

“She lied to you. Come with me. We have spare clothes here in case of accidental nudity.”

Forth led Twilight away toward the main storage closet.

Morgana emerged from her back office after several minutes. Elrod was sitting quietly in one of the chairs outside her door.

“Did the recalibration go okay?” he asked.

“Sure. But I really need a better unit. I keep feeling like this thing will crack if I keep walking on it.” She sighed. “I’ll send a schematic down to the auto-factory. It won’t be as good as a complete one, but it will be better than this.”

Elrod stood up and followed Twilight into the other room. Both froze in surprise when they saw Twilight standing there next to Forth.

“Ta-da!” said Forth, gesturing toward Twilight. Twilight had been dressed in a black shirt with a sleeveless vest over it and a set of trousers under a rather conservative skirt. She wore rear boots and a set of arm coverings that left her front hooves exposed.

“How did you do that?” asked Elrod.

“Do what?”

“How come you dress yourself terribly but when you dress her she looks great?”

“I look great?” asked Twilight.

“It’s because I can see many colors. Some that you cannot.”

“I can’t see color.”

“Then that explains why you do not think my fashion sense is good.”

“Do I really look good?” asked Twilight.

Morgana. “Yeah. You do.” She did not point out that the clothing Twilight was wearing had originally been intended for Roxanne. The vest even had a set of well-concealed wing holes.

Twilight smiled, but Morgana’s eyes were drawn toward something else. “Forth?” she said.

“Yes, Ms. Twilight?”

Morgana pointed at the floor near the entrance to the office. A small square of paper was lying there, one that she was sure had not been present before. “What is that?”

“A business card,” suggested Forth.

“And did you leave it there?”

“No.”

“Then where did it come from?”

“I do not know,” admitted Forth. “I did not see when it arrived.”

Morgana looked closely at the card, and then carefully opened the door. Both ends of the hallway were completely empty; whoever had left it was long gone.

“Empty,” she said, closing the door. She reached down and picked up the card. It was the size and stiffness of a business card. It was white, with a single image on the front. There was no company name but rather a logo that appeared to depict a human hand. In the center of the palm was a small image of a white pony, apparently asleep.

“I don’t recognize the symbol,” said Morgana. She flipped it over. One world was written on it in fountain pen. A perfunctory analysis indicated that it was written with generic ink and a pen that could be bought at any corner store. The script was that of a pony writing with her mouth, although less precise.

“What does it say?” asked Elrod.

“‘Changeling’,” read Morgana. She held it out to them on her hoof. “It just says ‘Changeling’.”

“What does it mean?” asked Forth.

Twilight’s eyes widened. “You don’t think changelings are responsible for this, do you? Bringing me here?” She gasped. “Maybe they sent me away from Equestria so that they could try to invade! They could be invading right now!”

“Unlikely,” said Morgana. She looked at Forth and Elrod and pocketed the card. “There never were any changelings. It’s not something you can make, at least not in this world. I have no idea what it means.”

Part II, Chapter 5

As was his custom, Hexel knocked on his own door twice before opening it. He stepped inside and moved to hang up his outer cloak and hood with a sigh. A sound came from the interior of the apartment: a thump of something moderately heavy dropping, followed by a patter of hoofsteps. Then a small face poked around the edge of the entrance alcove.

“Hexel! You’re home!” An Applebloom unit stepped into full view. Hexel immediatelynoticed that she was nude save for a thin red bow- -as Appleblooms customarily wore- -and a simple plaid apron.

“Where you expecting someone else, Jilly?”

“Yeah. That big hunk Nikolosov. He always comes by when you’re working late on Thursdays. Hence the cute apron.”

They both stared at each other and then burst into laughter.

Jilly ran to Hexel and nestled her head in his chest. Compared to him, she was tiny. Then she looked up at him and they kissed. “You actually believed me for a minute, didn’t you?”

“No, but the vision did stun me for a moment.” Hexel shivered.

“But seriously,” Jilly looked up with a serious expression, which due to her tiny filly sizemade her seem almost absurdly adorable. “Why are you home so early? Did something happen at work?”

Hexel sighed. “When doesn’t something happen at work?”

“Did you get fired?”

“No.”

“Then it’s not that bad!” Jilly punched Hexel playfully in the arm. “Now come on! Ask it!”

“Ask what?”

Jilly rolled her eyes and struck a pose. “Apron?”

“You’re making apple fritters.”

Jilly looked shocked and then annoyed. She punched at Hexel’s arm again. “How’d you know?!”

“Because I could smell them from the ground floor. And when do you make fritters that aren’t apple?”

Jilly sat down and crossed her front legs while making a face. “It’s no fair! You ruined the surprise!”

“Well, that’s what you get for marrying an enforcement investigator,” laughed Hexel. He put his muzzle against Jilly’s neck. She tried to maintain her composure but then started to giggle.

“Hexel! Stop it!”

“Why? I like you’re apron. It’s so cute!”

“I didn’t wear it to be cute, I wore it so that I wouldn’t get fritter in my fur again!”

“Then why didn’t you wear anything underneath?”

Jilly looked up at Hexel and blushed. “Well…”

They barely made it through the kitchen and to one of the rear rooms before they fell to the floor. They made love. It was a passionate and even violent affair, as they were both accustomed to. Their difference in physical size presented challenges but nothing that they could not overcome. When they were done, they both lay on the floor, with both Jilly’s apron and Hexel’s Aetna-Cross uniform strewn out across the floor.

Jilly lifted her head from Hexel’s chest and kissed him on the cheek. Then she reached behind her head and removed the cables from her neck.

“Where are you going?”

“The fritters will burn!” She laughed as she ran toward the door.

“Don’t you want your apron? You’ll get fritter on yourself.”

Jilly giggled and struck another pose that showed the full shape of her filly flank. “If I get a little messy, you can help me clean up.”

Hexel laughed and Jilly left to attend to her fritters. His laughter did not last long. He stood up.

“I have to look at something in the study,” he said. “It will only take a second. When I’m done, I’ll be out.”

“Don’t be late!” called Jilly’s voice from the other room. “The fritters’ll be cold!”

Hexel smiled and left the room, heading toward the rear of the apartment. As he did, he stopped in one of the changing rooms to get a new set of clothing. It was identical to the uniform he wore normally, save for the fact that no armor plates had been installed in it. Uniforms were the only clothing he owned.

The apartment that he and his wife shared was spacious. Vastly so, even, by most standards. It had been designed for humans instead of ponies, so the ceilings were high and the space airy. All of it had been made possible by Aetna-Cross. Hexel Shining Armor was just another tiny cog, a small piece of a single precinct in one city in the great geographical range dominated by the Aetna-Cross Corporation. Enforcement itself was only one of hundreds of departments in everything from insurance to mining. The majority of it was run without workers, processed by nonsentient AI programs that drove the corporation along.

Enforcement was different, though. It was not a matter of processing files and handling code that represented pointless quantities of vod that would never exist as anything more than a number in a book. It meant something, and it produced something. It was the job Hexel had been born to do, one passed down from his father and his father before him through twenty six rounds of Genesis mitosis. There were even rumors that his earliest ancestor had served in the Adorable Revolution alongside Twinkleshine Prime herself.

The study was in the rearmost portion of the house. It was a simple room, the one Hexel spent most of his time in doing various tasks for work- -or for things that were best left unknown by anyone around him. As he approached it this time, the same as he had so many times before, he felt a strange regret. He realized how much time he had spent in that room while Jilly had walked about the house, attending to various things that made Hexel’s life possible. He regretted not having spent more time with her.

He entered the room and sat at the desk. For a long time he did nothing, and then he sighed. Then he reached into a drawer of his desk, one that only he was able to unlock. Inside was a gun and ammunition, one designed for use by pony hooves. He did not reach for it. Instead, he put his hoof into the rear of the drawer and removed a cube-shaped object roughly four inches wide. It was black, and as he set it on his desk he noted that the front facet was decorated by a trio of angular sapphires linked by a circle of silver. It was personal insignia of Lynnette O’Toole Rarity.

“Damn it,” sighed Hexel. He reached into one of his pockets and removed one of the auxiliary cables that he had just used to connect his own ports to Jilly’s. He was not a technomoancer, and had never had the slightest desire to attempt to become one. His port architecture was what ponies referred to- -much to his chagrin- -as female.

When he opened the cube, though, it immediately demonstrated that his cable would not be necessary. Its own cable snaked out, a glistening port ready to imbed itself in his neck.

Hexel rolled his eyes. “Of course. It’s Lynnette, isn’t it?”

He grabbed the cable and pushed it into his neck. The port went deeper than most, but he had expected that. Then he closed his eyes and reached out to the cube.

Morgana suddenly stopped speaking mid-sentence.

“Ms. Twilight?” said Forth, turning toward her along with Elrod and Twilight. “Is something the matter?”

“Yes. Someone just linked to me. Long-arc path.”

Forth nodded. “You can take it in your office.”

“No. I need you to see it too. Hold on.” One of Morgana’s eyes turned forward and the pupil narrowed. The air was illuminated with several streams of light that resolved into a monochrome hologram with a pink-violet color. The resolution of the image it formed was far less than Morgana’s projection capacity, but adequate for her to recognize who it is.

“Hexel,” she said.

“Morgana.”

“Shining Armor!” cried Twilight. “Shining Armor, is that you? It’s me, your sister, Twilight!”

Hexel looked at Twilight, and then at Morgana. “Should I even ask?”

“Why are you using this channel, Hexel?”

“Purely out of necessity. You have no idea how uncomfortable it is.”

“I know exactly how uncomfortable it is. You’re not rated for deep arcs. Leave. Now.”

“No.” Hexel’s digital eyes met Morgana’s. “There’s been a development. One youneed to know about.” He looked around. “I’m projected? Good. You probably all need to hear it. Especially you.” He gestured toward Elrod. “Lynnette’s actually been looking for you.”

“I think I’d rather not know who that is.”

“What do youmean ‘development’, Hexel?”

“Imean Aetna-Cross just put a price on your head. An immediate euthanasia order.”

“And you’re telling me this by communication? Even a long-arc- -”

“Do you think I’m a moron? Don’t answer that. I’m pretty sure Aetna-Cross is watching me. They think I’m a ‘liability’.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I took precautions. This is something Lynnette made. It’s refractory. No one can trace this. Except her. She’s listening right now.”

“And just how much do you trust Lynnette?”

“There is no living being I trust more.”

“And this is the same Lynnette who tried to kill me on three separate occasions?”

“Wasn’t it four?” asked Forth.

“The fourth one was self-defense, so I don’t count that one.”

“That’s not the point, Morgana!” cried Hexel. “The point is you’re in terrible danger!”

“I know that. What are my options?”

“Not much. Even if you could get out of Bridgeport, you wouldn’t make it far. It’s not just Aetna Cross.”

“Who else? GE? Lockheed?”

“All of them.”

Morgana inhaled. “Come on, Hexel. You’ve got to be shitting me.”

“Swearing,” muttered Twilight.

“I’m not. I have no idea what you did, Morgana, but you stepped in shit severalhundred times deeper than your fat little body.”

“Since when am I fat?”

“Since always. There’s no way out. Even if you did, every corporation in the world put competing bounties on your head. The entire world is after you now.”

“Fuck me,” hissed Morgana. “Fuckme fuck me fuck me fuck me.” She pointed suddenly at Twilight. “Don’t tell me, I know. But I’m PISSED. I’ve already got this fucker,” she pointed at Elrod, “and Forth is out of ammo. I’m fucked harder than Hexel’s girlfriend.”

“Wife. We’re married.”

“And you’re a pedophile.”

“She’s older than me!”

“I don’t- -” Morgana suddenly stiffened. “Why are you helping me?”

“What?”

“This isn’t right. You hate me. You’ve always hated me. Either this is a trick or an angle.”

“An angle?” asked Twilight.

“It isn’t,” said Hexel. He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Okay, look, to be honest? I’m dirty. You know that. We all know that. I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of and a lot of things I should regret but don’t. I hate you, Morgana. More than any other pony. But you’re also my friend. And I’m not going to turn on a friend.”

“And?”

“And because this whole thing stinks, doesn’t it? There have literally been wars between those vassals, and suddenly they all want you out of the picture? Something isn’t right. I aim to find out what.”

“So do I,” said Morgana.

Hexel nodded. “You have me on your side, for now. But I can only do so much. Lynnette can do more. She’ll find you. I’ll do what I can.”

Morgana’s eyes widened. Her mind reached out into Hexel’s transmission. He did not notice, but something was wrong.

“Hexel…”

“You’re surrounded. We’re not an arms company. It’s an ambush.”

“Hexel, something’s wrong.”

“They’re waiting for you to make the first move, you have to- -”

“HEXEL! There’s a secondary bypass on your transmission! It’s being intercepted!”

Hexel’s eyes widened. “That’s impossible! Not even a technomancer- -”

“It’s empirical, goddamn it! I know what I’m talking about! It’s bypassed! You’re compromised!” Morgana took a step forward. “Listen to me! Get out of there, right now! Get yourself and Jillian out of that apartment NOW!”

Hexel tore the connector out of his head before the transmission could even finish. He was panicked; had he been organic he would have been breathing hard. There was not much time- -in fact, there might have been no time, but he had to try.

“Jilly?” he said, opening the door.

“The fritters are almost ready!” she called back. “I’m gettin’ them off the pan right now!”

“No, Jilly, we have to go!” Hexel ran through the back hall of his apartment, trying to get to the kitchen.

“Go? Hexel, I’m not even dressed- -”

She was interrupted by a knock at the door. Hexel froze. He hoped he had imagined it, but the knock came again, exact and precise. Three taps.

“Oh!” cried Jilly in surprise. There was a thump as she jumped off the step-stool she used to reach the oven. “Hold on a second!”

“Jilly! NO!” Hexel sprinted toward the kitchen, but he was too late. Jilly had put on a housecoat and had just started opening the door. Hexel came to a stop just in time to see a pair of tiny luminescent orange irises staring directly at him, and a Lyra unit standing in the darkness of the doorway.

Part II, Chapter 6

“Shit shit shit shit!” Morgana ran back from her office, swinging a new coat around herself. Really, though, her sudden motion was just glorified pacing, and she continued to walk forward and back across the main office, swearing to herself angrily for not having seen this coming.

“Something’s wrong,” said Twilight, her voice shaking. “Something’s wrong and I don’t understand what’s going on!”

“We’re surrounded is what’s going on!” shouted Morgana. “And I’m trying to think of a way out of here that will end with at least ME being alive!”

“It’s only you they’re hunting,” said Elrod, looking around nervously. “Sorry, but this is deeper than I wanted to get. I’m out. Thanks for the help.”

He took a long step toward the door, but Morgana cut him off, nearly tripping him in the process. “Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded.

“Anywhere that is not here.”

“Really?” Morgana pointed. “Because by now the hallways of this place will be crawling with cloaked agents, and the whole place is surrounded by snipers who could hit us from goddamned Massachusetts! How far do you think you’ll get?”

Elrod leaned in close. “Far enough. I’m not you.”

“So what? The only reason you managed to get this far is because you were never important enough for anyone to take a close look at. Those guys?” She pointed. “They have medical-grade scanners that can hear the pulse of a fieldhouse through half a mile of concrete! What do you think they’re going to do when they see a man walk out with no vital signs whatsoever?” She paused and then spoke to herself. “No vital signs…”

Elrod became somewhat more pale. “I didn’t think of that. Crap.”

“Crap indeed,” said Forth. She turned to Morgana. “However, his logic is not completely incorrect. They want to eliminate you. I will be taken as well, and Mr. Jameson because of his nature. But her…” She pointed at Twilight. “She is not involved in this.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Me? You can’t just leave me here!”

“No, we can’t,” sighed Morgana. “They know I’m a technomancer, and they know I can switch out our metadata. They won’t take chances. Any Twilight unit that takes a step out of here gets dropped. They’ll confirm if it was me later.”

Twilight gasped. “But that means- -”

“It means they’re trying to kill you too.”

Twilight looked to be on the verge of tears. “But…but why? Ponies don’t die, we can’t…”

“If only.” Twilight looked around the room and then marched to a closet. “Great. If there was a time to use this, then I guess this is it.” She tore open the closet and pulled out all of its contents: spare coats, clothing, office supplies, a dirty vacuum cleaner- -until she reached the rear. With one swift impact, she then punched through the wood of the rear and pulled down the thin wood. Behind it was a utilitarian metal cabinet.

“Jameson, Forth, you’re up.”

Morgana stepped out of the closet and Elrod went in. With some fumbling, he opened the doors and revealed an array of various weapons and ammunition. His eyes went wide.

“Guns!” he cried, immediately grabbing them and stuffing them into his trenchcoat without any regard for what he was actually picking up. “So many guns! Ooh, look!” He pulled out an enormous suppressor and started screwing it onto his .700 pistol. “Now it will be silent!”

“The emergency stash,” said Forth, somewhat in awe. “This is indeed a dire situation.”

“Take all the ammo you can,” said Morgana. “It won’t be much, but it will be enough. And yes. This is about as dire as it gets.”

“I still don’t understand!” cried Twilight.

“You don’t need to! Just do what I say!” Morgana took a step back and sat down. “Okay. I can’t hack any tech that Aetna-Cross is using. They would have thought of that.”

“None?” asked Forth.

Morgana shook her head. “No. Not without their access codes or about twelve-thousand years of processing to brute-force it. And we don’t really have that time.” She inhaled deeply and reached for a cigarette. “Right. But I thought something like this might happen, so I have a plan. There’s a reason I’m in this building. The landlord modified the building to steal heat from the one below us. Our basement mechanical floor is contiguous to their upper storage space. The gap is well hidden but I know where it is.”

“That will get us one building down, but how does that help?” asked Elrod, his coat now heavily laden with various weapons.

“Every little bit helps. I’ll deploy every car I can from up here on autopilot as a distraction, and we get out from the lower building and take the road by the old substation.”

“And how do we get through the building without perforation?”

“Like this.” Morgana closed her eyes, and the lights in the building suddenly flickered and went out. When she opened her eyes, she could see the glow of Twilight and Forth’s irises while Elrod was completely obscured.

“You can see in the dark,” she said.

“I think it’s more olfactory, but yes,” replied Elrod.

“Good. Because I just shut down power to the entire district.

“Why can I see our eyes?” asked Twilight. “That isn’t supposed to happen.”

“Then keep your damn eyes closed!”

“But I can’t see! Oh, wait. It’s dark anyway. Sorry.”

Morgana sighed. “Aetna-Cross uses Thor Optics headsets. They use a combination of ultrasound and passive IR. I can interfere with both. But they also detect lifesigns, pony or human.”

“But I don’t have those,” said Elrod.

“I know. Meaning we have an advantage if you go first.”

“M- -me? But what if they shoot me? I’ll die!”

“Do you even think before you open your mouth?”

Elrod paused. “Oh. Apparently not.”

“I’m ready,” said Forth as her irises powered down. Morgana grabbed Twilight.

“You both need to cover me. I have no gun. I’ll provide tech cover when I can.”

“What about me?” asked Twilight.

“Stay close. Don’t die.” Morgana nodded to Elrod. “Open the door.”

Elrod nodded and walked to the outer door. He did as he was told. As soon as he opened it, though, a black-clad soldier lunged at him. Elrod was knocked back as a large knife pierced his body and emerged from his back.

Twilight screamed, but Elrod was largely unfazed. He lifted his suppressed .700 and put it against the man’s temple. He pulled the trigger at point-blank range. Even with the suppressor, the sound was deafening in a closed room. The soldier’s head was reduced to red liquid in an instant.

“Damn!” cried Elrod, stepping back with the long blade still sticking out of both his chest and back. “This suppressor doesn’t work! That was still loud!”

“You can’t suppress a .700, idiot!” snapped Morgana. “And for the love of Celestia’s fat plot, don’t waste the big rounds on soft targets! Save them for when you need them!” Morgana signed. “And trust me, trench. Before this is done, you’re going to need them.”

Part II, Chapter 7

An anomaly had occurred. A single shot had been fired, and the telemetry from one Jeremy Jacobs III had indicated brain death. His suit had compensated to support his vital signs and his body would no doubt be refitted for use with a secgen brain, but his death was unusual. Combat was not supposed to begin so early. The target had somehow detected them.

Analysis of the gunshot had indicated that it was an ultra-high caliber, specifically a .700 shell. The use of such an unnecessarily large caliber was most likely an indication of desperation, but it might also have been a sign of preparation. As if she had known this was coming long in advance.

The internal units mobilized, drifting silently through the darkened hallways. All offices that contained workers had been sealed, allowing only the target to escape. The advanced guard was expected to identify her location and path and neutralize if possible; otherwise, they were to lead her outside so that she could be handled in an open area. That was less preferable: the target was an alicorn and therefore capable of flight, and being on the banks of a deep river created a dangerous situation. She could easily dive downward into the Depths and be lost permanently. Entering the Depths was of course suicide, but only a confirmed kill would satisfy the demands from Corporate.

A voice came through the shared encryption channel.

“Six-G, I’m detecting interference in your signal.”

Six-G- -a woman by the name of Johana Johnson- -had detected it as well. “Acknowledged,” she replied through the silent machinery of her implants. “Compensating.”

The compensation did not work as well as planned. There was heavy audio distortion, apparently from poorly shielded power conduits in the building. Six-G swore mentally, cursing the low-quality building.

Then her infrared scanner failed. This gave her pause, as it almost never happened. The whole room faded into static, with only the bioneural and olfactory sensors working. Neither were detecting a human or pony presence, but they were detecting something.

Six-G did not have a chance to consider what it was, or why footsteps were running toward her- -or why the retractable bolt of a kinetic EM gun suddenly went through her temple. Six-G shuttered and took a step back. She tried to raise her gun, and as she did her sensors showed the vague outline of a human face. He showed no pulse, neural impulse, or body heat signature- -and his expression was impassive, even confused.

“She’s not dead,” he said.

“Idiot!” cried another voice, one whose owner was hidden in the static but whose voice was clearly that of a Twilight Sparkle. “Aim for a vital organ!”

“Oh yeah…”

A second bolt shot came, and then a third. Both were in Six-G’s heart. Her body failed and her consciousness failed as she dropped. Her suit compensated to save her organs, but actively crushed out her consciousness was allowed to fade. Her commanders took note of the loss of telemetry, but by then the man with no vital signs had long since passed her on the way to the basement.

The commander of the operation stood outside the building, watching. He saw everything. His overall frame was that of a pony- -a Flash Sentry unit, to be specific- -but his body was barely recognizable as such. He had no coat, but rather a smooth body made of hard armored plates. His eyes, likewise, had been replaced with an advanced optic unit that covered most of his face and penetrated both of the massive sockets. The only parts of him that were still even close to stock were his wings, which were both still quite functional.

The captain had chosen to perch himself in an area only reachable by flight so that he would have a view of the area with his own eyes, even though it was hardly necessary. He saw through the eyes of every soldier under him, and was linked to their data as well as to the precinct itself. Several of the internal units had already lost telemetry, and he had observed the perpetrators.

Morgana Twilight Sparkle was indeed present, along with her secretary, an unnamed Blossomforth unit. Partial visual confirmation had indicated that the Blossomforth was very likely military surplus. Two individuals were also present who were not part of the intelligence reports: a secondary Twilight Sparkle- -likely a decoy- -and a human man. The man was the most puzzling: his facial recognition matched that of the missing Bronislav M. Spitzer VIII, but he did not appear to have any vital signs. The captain ruminated on this, wondering what it might mean.

Suddenly, from below, a car screeched out of one of the holding areas. It was immediately destroyed by a hail of silent gunfire. It was not the first, though- -more came. Tens of them, all pouring out at top speed and racing in every direction.

“Captain Zawaski!” cried one of the overseeing lieutenants. “The cars!”

“I see them,” said Zawaski, scanning through the area.

“Should we engage?”

“No. Wait. There is a vehicle leaving from the building below. A single van. Honda. White.”

“But the statistical analysis suggests- -”

“Ignore the statistics! It’s the lower one!” he reached out to the units that had already started chasing the decoy cars. He knew what the statistics said, that Morgana was likely in a car not her own in the middle of the pack- -but if the statistics were always correct, there would be no reason for having an operations commander. “Move! Take her down!”

The van swerved and the tires screeched, sending Elrod and Twilight slamming to one side of the rear. Forth shifted as well but acrobatically moved her legs and wings into a position to easily brace herself. Morgana, meanwhile, was occupying the front. The van was not hers, and the only way to access it had been to slam several of her connector cables directly through the dashboard and into the systems beneath.

“Do you even know how to drive?” cried Elrod.

“Of course I know how to drive, now hold on!”

The van twisted on the street and accelerated. As it did, something popped against the roof. It sounded like rocks striking it, but Morgana knew better. Behind her, she could see holes opening up in the ceiling.

“Incoming fire!”

Forth immediately turned one of her hooves up toward the ceiling and it unfolded, revealing several heavy barrels. Twilight screamed in horror.

“I cannot get a lock,” said Forth, sounding oddly calm. “We are not in their line of sight.”

“That’s kind of the idea!” screamed Morgana, pushing the van as close to a nearby concrete retaining wall as she could. Several more bullets ricocheted across the wall. “If they hit the motor, we’re done!”

“I don’t like this!” cried Twilight. “We’re going too fast! And- -EEP!” A bullet passed through the van wall near her head and embedded itself in a set of wooden boxes that seemed to dominate the rear of the vehicle.

“Crap…” groaned Morgana. “Forth! They’re on us! Do something!”

Forth smiled. “Right!”

She stood up and walked toward the rear of the van. Despite Morgana’s erratic driving, Forth remained relatively stable. When she reached the door, she kicked it open. A set of heavily armored cars were visible behind them, and they immediately opened fire.

“FORTH!”

Forth sat back and extended her front limbs. She opened fire in several directions, apparently targeting snipers as well as the vehicles near her. Several Pegasi dropped from above, but any bullets aimed at the armored drone-vehicles behind them rebounded with a sound of distant clangs.

“They’re gaining!” cried Morgana. “Fucking Honda Crap, go faster!”

“My ammunition is depleted,” said Forth, turning back. “I cannot continue to fire.”

“Switch to plasma!”

Forth cocked her head. “The standard Hi-Point Blossomforth model does not come equipped with plasma dispersion weapons.”

“Then, I don’t know, throw something at them!”

“Like what?”

Elrod lurched across the van and tore open one of the wooden crates. “How about- -holy crap!”

“What?”

“Ammunition! Forth, can you shoot fifties?”

“Fifty caliber?”

Elrod held up one of the shells. It was as large as his forearm. “No. Fifty millimeter!”

An enormous smile crossed Forth’s face as she gasped in delight. “That’s my favorite kind of fifty!”

Forth’s body opened and the contents of one of her front legs changed. A heavy barrel irised open and extended while a universal chamber resized itself for the large ammunition. At the same time, Forth braced herself. Elrod gave her the shell and she loaded it in.

“This may cause recoil,” said Forth. “Also, some noise.”

She fired. The force was so great that her body was forced into the bottom of the van. Had it been Morgana’s own folding van, the entire thing would have crumpled. This one, though, only deformed and was nearly knocked off the road. Had anyone other than a pony with a high-end processor been driving, it likely would have been knocked off the road.

One of the approaching cars behind them detonated in a plume of flame and was thrown back. It swerved and bumped the other, but only one of them was disabled as another two joined the chase.

“LEFT!” cried Morgana as she swerved. Forth compensated, but Elrod was thrown into Twilight and nearly flattened her. Several shells rolled out.

“Careful,” said Forth, catching one with a free projection from her body. “Do not waste ammunition! Starving children in Africa could be using those shells!”

She fired again, and this time Elrod managed to pull Twilight to the front seat and partially buckle her in. He himself hugged her seat as tightly as he could to keep from being thrown free of the vehicle. As he did, he looked back and saw what Morgana had already detected.

“Oh crap,” he said, craning his neck to see the top of an enormous mech-drone moving into position before it vanished behind an overpass. “What was that thing?”

“Heavy units,” sighed Morgana. “There’s another six converging from all sides. I can keep out of their fire pattern but I can’t get past them.”

“Can you hack them?”

“No, you idiot, they’re nanoclocks! Pure mechanical! There’s nothing I can do!”

“Then hack SOMETHING!”

“I can’t hack anything, I told you! I’m locked out of Aetna-Cross! They planned for a technomancer! I can’t- -” She paused. “I’m locked out of Aetna-Cross…” she looked up. “I have an idea. You, get back there and cover Forth! If she gets damaged, it’s on your head!”

Elrod nodded, despite looking terrified. He removed a rifle from his coat and extended the stock. With a gulp, he turned back to Forth. Another fifty-round fired, and Morgana did not see if it hit or not.

“You!” she said, turning to Twilight.

“Me?”

“Who else? Drive!”

The holographic manual controls appeared in front of Morgana and she pushed them across the dashboard to Twilight. Twilight squeaked loudly as she tried to put her hooves on the hologram, only to have them pass through.

“I have no idea how to do this!”

“You’re a Twilight unit! Figure it out!”

The van lurched to the side and nearly rammed through a guardrail, barely dodging a heavy-cannon round in the process.

“Oh! So that’s how you turn!” said Twilight.

Morgana sat back and took a deep breath. “Here,” she said, holding up a hoof and altering the hologram near the steering column. “Take this route.”

“This route?” Twilight squinted and leaned forward, nearly sending the van into oncoming traffic. “But I think that leads us to a populated area!”

“That’s the point. Just do it. I have a plan.”

“Well- -” Another 50mm shell went off in the rear of the vehicle, sending it swerving almost out of Twilight’s control, “- -what kind of plan are we talking about here?”

“You know how I said there isn’t any magic in this world?”

“Yes! If there was, I’d be driving with my horn like a civilized being!”

“Well, are you aware of Clarke’s third law?”

“Of course!”

“Well,” Morgana opened her eyes and saw far more than the world in front of her. “I’m about to do that one.” Then, under her breath, “…and hopefully try to skirt law number two…”

Morgana began to spread through every open system available. There were a great many- -hundreds, even thousands of individual point-sources all linked largely to the main system- -and she was able to penetrate most of them. Aetna-Cross still eluded her, but she had expected that. They had come prepared to battle a technomancer, but only in the most rudimentary sense. Their worldview was distinctly human: everything was meant to flow as it was ordered, to be predictable, mathematical, and logical. As a pony and as a machine, Morgana was given far greater freedom to be creative.

The van had by this time begun to veer into the populated area that Morgana had described. She could tell that this had somewhat confused the Enforcers, but only slightly and only temporarily. They had positioned their heaviest units and blockades around all the major exits, which was the logical path for Morgana to go. Instead, she had chosen to enter a populated area with no possibility of escape.

Suddenly the van screeched. Morgana was forced out of her partial trance and grabbed on tightly as Twilight spun the wheel, barely keeping the vehicle from overturning. Ammunition rolled across the rear of the van, and even Forth was knocked on her side. Elrod was thrown from the vehicle and left several meters behind their final position.

“WHAT THE FUCK!” cried Morgana. Had it not been for the shock of having been so rudely interrupted, she might have considered slapping Twilight. “Why the hell did you stop?!”

“THOSE!” squealed Twilight, pointing through the window.

Morgana looked through the windshield. If she had possessed any organ similar to a heart, it would have sunk. Two flying vehicles had descended from above. They were not helicopters, exactly, but rather a unique type of flying drone consisting of a set of automatically articulating fans with heavy jets installed in them- -as well as equally heavy armaments.

The pair of helidrones descended and hovered, their electronic eyes identifying the van and its occupants. On the order of some unseen commander, they prepared to open fire- -but as they did, a rocket trailing red flame shot from the top of a nearby building.

Morgana shielded her eyes with her hoof as it detonated. The van was forced backward from the blast, and Morgana’s radiation sensors confirmed that it was in fact a short-range tactical nuclear rocket. The blast had been sufficient to irradiate the entire area slightly more than it already was, as well as to fully destroy the impacted helidrone and cripple the one nearest to it. As the second fell, another three emerged from behind it.

These units immediately came under attack from small-arms fire from every roof in the area. They seemed confused by this and were unable to focus on their target without first identifying their attackers, specifically the one who was discharging nuclear firearms within city limits. As they turned and twisted, several heavily rusted vehicles swerved wildly out of several alleyways below. People of every sort leapt out, some in heavy armor but all with firearms. They began to shoot at every Aetna-Cross unit they could find.

“Who are those?” asked Twilight, sounding largely in awe.

“Not people we want to be near for very long. MOVE!”

Morgana grabbed Twilight and nearly threw her to the rear of the van, where Forth was attempting to figure out how to fit a 50mm shell in her body for safekeeping.

“Leave them!” cried Morgana. “We have to go! NOW!”

`Forth nodded and dropped her shell. She leapt out of the rear of the van and nearly landed on Elrod.

“Mr. Jameson,” she said. “Are you dead?”

“I hope not,” he groaned. “But I think my arm is broken!” He stood up and, indeed, one of his arms was hanging loosely from his body. It had been partially severed. Twilight swooned and nearly fainted.

“Do you even have a skeletal system to break?” asked Forth.

Elrod looked at his arm. “Oh. No. I don’t. Sorry, I forgot.” He slid his arm back into the correct position and it healed almost instantly. He then stood and started to run after Morgana, who would have been happy to leave him there if he had been stupid enough not to move when she told him to.

Suddenly she ground to a halt. One of the heavy nanoclock mechs had just come around the corner, blocking off her path.

“NOT THIS WAY!” she cried, ducking behind a parked car as it prepared its weapons. Before it could fire, though, another smaller mech leapt out of nowhere and slammed into it. Whatever weapon it had went off, and Morgana felt a searing beam screech by her and nearly melt Elrod as it did.

The smaller mech- -this one apparently with a ragged but young human pilot- -continued to pound on the Aetna-Cross mech, trying to tear pieces free of it as another tactical nuke struck it in the upper torso. The resulting explosion sent shrapnel from both units into the streets, once again forcing Morgana to dodge as a piece of armor at least three times her mass came slamming down past her.

The streets around them had been consumed by battle. Helidrones were being downed and every vehicle possible was being attacked. Pegasi and jet-linked humans swooped in from above, either to attack or to bring down Aetna-Cross Pegasi with them. Morgana was even sure she saw several actual Delvers join the fight, tearing through a pair of secgen ground units without hesitation.

“There is literally an army of Aetna-Cross mechs on the way right now,” said Morgana. “We need to get out of here!”

Elrod looked around, almost panicking. Then, suddenly, a look of realization crossed his face. He pointed toward a side street. “This way!” he said.

Morgana had several reasons not to follow him, but did so anyway. It was better than staying where she was. The fighting was getting intense, and escape was critical before anyone caught on to what she had done.

Elrod suddenly turned right and down an even more narrow alley that seemed to largely be a service tunnel. He ducked his head and pushed forward, taking a somewhat circuitous route before they reached a dead end. Before them stood nothing but a tall gray metal wall that seemed to go up and outward forever, with the only breaks in its monotony being either rust or various decaying posters plastered to its surface.

“Fuck!” cried Morgana. “You idiot! This is a dead end!”

“Exactly!” Elrod drew his pistol and fired at the wall several times. The sound- -despite the comically pointless suppressor- -was deafening, and Twilight covered her ears.

“And now they know where we are! Great!”

“You can keep complaining or you can help!” Elrod pushed his fingers through the holes he had made and where the metal sheathing of the wall had been loosed near the intersection of a large poster for and a graffiti tag. “I’m not strong enough to open it!”

“Out of the way,” groaned Morgana. “Forth, on me!”

Forth nodded. The two of them fed their hooves under the metal that Elrod’s shots had loosened and pulled it free with relative ease, revealing the fact that the seemingly impenetrable wall was hollow.

“There we go!” squealed Elrod. Without any hesitation he plunged through the hole and fell several meters down with a thud. “Come on!” he called, his voice echoing within. “In here, and try to close the metal when you get through!”

Forth and Morgana looked at each other, but Twilight had already shoved past them and dove in after Elrod. Figuring that they had nothing else to lose, the remaining two members of the party joined in as well.

Morgana dropped down to the lower level with a loud and painful thud. She had forgotten that she no longer had wings, and she found herself sorely missing them. The fall had been greater than she expected, and as she looked around she saw that they were in a large space between two identical sheets of rusted metal. The wall was indeed completely hollow, save for a decaying plastic path that had been set up over large rusted pins embedded in either side. Elrod was already following this path and in the process of jumping down a level.

“What the hell?!” cried Morgana. “Come back here! This isn’t going to work! They’ll have schematics of all the access tunnels including this one! I don’t want to get chased down in here like a rat!”

“Like that one,” noted Forth, pointing at an especially large and hairless specimen that was eying them wearily.

“That’s the thing!” Elrod poked his head up over the path so that his face was level with their hooves. “This isn’t an access tunnel! It’s not on any maps!”

“Of course it is! The maps don’t factor in the fact that this space is empty.”

“Bullshit!”

“Swearing…”

“Go ahead,” said Elrod. “Check for yourself.”

Morgana did so, fully expecting to see this area found on one of the many more obscure maps that a probably largely illiterate like Elrod would not have bothered to look through. To her surprise, though, they all confirmed the same thing.

“This wall is supposed to be solid.” She looked up at the vast expanse over them. There was nothing but the metal pins and several broken down paths stretching upward to the edge of her visual range. “But it’s not…”

Elrod smiled. “It used to be.” He pointed. “I recognized this design, because L7 and L6 have them too.”

“It’s a prefab unit,” said Morgana. “These are insulated walls. They were put in to stop fires from manufacturing districts from spreading in case of emergency.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that. I knew about the insulation, though. Thirty-seven percent asbestos with two percent trace borosilicate and residual heavy metals. It used to be everywhere until scrappers like me discovered that it was valuable.”

“Asbestos?”

“Almost a third of a vod per kilogram! And that adds up, considering how much there was!” Elrod pointed upward. He started walking, keeping one hand on the wall to feel his way. This time, the others followed him. “Of course it was gone decades before my time. Most of these types of walls are hollow.”

“The fireproof walls are just empty air,” muttered Morgana. “How comforting.”

Elrod jumped down another level, landing on two of the horizontal pegs before continuing, apparently oblivious of how hard this was for ponies to repeat. “I actually found it out sort of by accident. My half-visor picked up a hidden room with some old sawblades in it, and when I got there I found a hole into the wall. I went in and it just kept going.”

“For how long?” asked Twilight.

“I don’t really know. My chronometer was always bad. But I know that it took two weeks for me to find my way back once I got out. Of course, I was loaded down with almost two hundred vod worth of reapings.”

“So you don’t even know where it goes?!”

“I’ve never been to this area, so no. I have no idea.”

“I do,” said Morgana. “I have several internal maps. We just need to keep following the places it says we can’t go.”

“And Aetna-Cross?” asked Forth.

“If they even find out we went this way, they’ll be no way to track us. The path diverges way too much. Besides, they have more important things to worry about.”

“It was certainly lucky all those friendly people came to our aid,” said Twilight.

“It wasn’t luck,” said Morgana. “That was me.”

“You? So those were your friends?”

“I don’t think so,” said Elrod. “I recognized some of the colors. A few were active-kill scavengers.”

“And the rest were bounty hunters. Yeah. I couldn’t hack Aetna-Cross, so I did the next best thing. You remember that dweeb of a technomancer, Amanda?”

“The one that managed to destroy Forth’s last body?”

“I rather liked that body took,” said Forth. “Oh well. It happens.”

“Yeah. That one. I used her credentials to get into Organization A. Even if it’s just a shell, it’s still a bounty-board. I put a price of one billion vod on the Aetna-Cross units around us, and then leaked it to the other boards. It went viral like hemorrhagic influenza.”

“A billion vod!” cried Elrod, nearly falling into the abyss below them. “Where did you get that much?!”

“I didn’t, moron, that’s the point!”

Twilight gasped deeply. “You lied to all those poor people!”

“Yes. And those ‘poor people’ took down the people trying to KILL US.”

“But what about when they go to claim the reward?!”
“Well, considering that there is no real reward, some heads are literally going to roll. But not my head. And that’s what really matters.”

Part II, Chapter 8

Distances worked strangely in the city. Precious few parts of it had been assembled with any sort of a plan. The rest had been built atop older structures, ever-growing as the technology to build higher and higher negated the need for demolition. The city had become through the centuries like a catacomb of dead and dying buildings, some repurposed and many forgotten.

Because of this, distances that were physically short were often drawn out to impossible lengths in practice. A distance that might be tens of meters could take hours or even weeks to cross moving through Bridgeport’s chaotic network of roadways and transit systems. The idea of easily moving from one level to another was likewise seen as something of grave difficulty without the correct knowhow, as the systems to do so were sparse and variable.

The individuals hunting for Morgana Twilight Sparkle neglected to take this into consideration. Their search patterns were governed by logic based on faulty assumptions: they assumed that their quarry would travel on known, identified paths on foot and never get far. Their rigid thought process did not allow them to consider the fact that she might move a very small distance to an area that their orthodoxy considered impossibly far away.

As such, there were no guards or soldiers around when a large air handling vent suddenly shuddered and was pushed outward from within. No one noticed as a corner was forced out, and as a pony dropped from it- -followed by another, and another, and finally as the first pony held the gate open a man.

“Goddamn it,” whispered Morgana. She turned to Elrod. “This isn’t far enough.”

“This is as far as we can go.” Elrod pointed downward toward the cracked and oil-stained concrete below. “Any farther down and we hit dioxin contamination.”

“We are immune to dioxin,” noted Forth.

“I’m not!” gasped Twilight, as though the idea of going into contaminated territory was still open for debate.

“Neither am I.” Elrod shook his head. “I never really bothered to learn human history because it’s basically pointless. But I do know what Agent Orange is, and what it would do to me.”

“Wait,” said Twilight. “What’s a human? Is that what those things are called? Is that what you are?”

Elrod looked at her. “I don’t feel comfortable answering that.”

“Well you’re about to get a lot less comfortable,” hissed Morgana. “Because this situation just went to hell through an expressway built into our collective ASS.” She stepped forward down the long alley, shaking her head. “I can’t get back to my office. I can’t get access to any of my equipment. And now the whole world is trying to kill us.”

“Mostly you,” noted Forth.

Morgana took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay, I can still do this. First off, I can mask your metadata.” She turned toward Forth and Twilight. “I can change it long-term, but that will take me time. As for you…” She looked up at Elrod. “You mentioned that your kind can shapeshift?”

“I don’t recall mentioning that.”

“Never explicitly, but you implied it. How else did you end up looking like Spitzer?” Elrod seemed to think for a moment, but Morgana continued. “You said you took that face because everyone else did. Can you make a different one?”

Elrod thought for a moment more. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I’ve never tried it. I don’t think any of us have. I guess it might be possible. But I’d have to know the new face really well.”

“Are there any faces you do know?”

“Just yours. And I don’t think that would help.”

“You seriously don’t know any other people?”

“Dealing with people is what got me into this mess. No. I see no need to be social.”

“Well, fuck me.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” said Forth.

“It’s an expression.” Morgana started walking. “Come on. We need to keep moving.”

“To where?” asked Twilight.

“To somewhere that is not here. Unless you have a better plan.”

Twilight sighed and shook her head. “Not yet, no.”

The group of them continued toward the street. The section they had ended up in was relatively depopulated. From the shape of it, the wide streets appeared to have once been dedicated largely to street vendors. If that had been the case, they had long since departed. All that remained were buildings constructed with long overhangs over empty space. Little light came down from the vast but extremely narrow groove between the buildings above, although the atmospheric conditions were humid enough to cause heavy condensation. The roads were soaked, and drips were falling from the buildings above.

“Are there people here?” asked Elrod.

“There are people everywhere,” muttered Morgana. “Mostly in the resblocks that used to be over the shops, up there. Too high to see much though, and probably too high to care.”

As they walked, though, Morgana began to detect a sound in the distance.

“What is that?” asked Elrod.

“It sounds like an engine of some kind,” suggested Twilight.

“It is,” said Morgana, pulling the collar of her coat higher. “Just keep walking and ignore it.”

They tried to do so, but as the sound rumbled toward them it began to slow and finally stopped. Morgana stopped as well, fully expecting Forth to attack whoever it was who was near them. Instead, though, she just saw Forth staring with a quizzical expression.

Morgana followed her gaze and suddenly found herself staring into the face of a pony straddling a motorcycle- -a pony with a leather jacket, a white skirt, and rainbow-colored hair.

“R…Roxanne?”

Roxanne frowned. “Hey.”

“Rainbow Dash!” cried Twilight, jumping with joy.

Roxanne looked at her. “Um…do I know you?”

“What are you doing here?!” demanded Morgana. She looked around quickly. “You can’t be here! Not now!”

“Well,” said Roxanne, leaning over her handlebars, “it’s nice to see you finally feel the same way about me as I do about you.”

“No! Get out, Roxanne! If they see me with you, if they connect me to you- -”

Roxanne’s eyes narrowed. “They’ve already connected me, Morgana. To the whole bar. It’s kind of too late for me not to be involved with this.”

“How are you even here?” asked Forth.

Roxanne’s large violet irises flicked to Forth. “I got a tip that I should go for a ride over here. So I did. And suddenly my day got a whole lot worse.” She sighed and then leaned back. “But I can help. I know a place where you can hide out.”

Morgana’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you helping me?”

“What? Do you think it’s a trap?”

“No. If it was a trap we’d all be dead already. But you hate me.”

“So you noticed. Yeah, I do. But despite how bad you treated me, I did love you once.”

“Element of Loyalty!” cried Twilight. “Element of Loyalty!”

Roxanne rolled her eyes. “Ugh. When you put it like that it sounds so…dorky. But yeah. You might be a cold-hearted bitch, Morgana, but I’m not. I can’t leave you out in the cold when things are this thick. It’s just not in my nature. I’m just that awesome.” She slid forward on her bike. “I can carry one of you on this. The rest of you have to follow somehow.”

“Take her.” Morgana shoved Twilight forward. “It’s stupid to travel in a group anyway. I’ll tack her. Forth will track me. You,” she pointed to Forth. “Go with the starchman.”

“But that will leave you alone and vulnerable.”

“I’ll manage. I need to do some thinking anyway.” Forth continued to stare at her, and Twilight put her arm on the younger pony’s shoulder. “I’ll be fine. It’s not like I’m going to leave you behind.”

“I wouldn’t believe her on that,” mumbled Roxanne. She helped Twilight onto the back of the motorcycle. “You. What did you say your name was?”

“T- -Twilight Sparkle. Is this- -”

“Just hold on to me. Don’t worry, I’m not going to charge you. But if your hooves go low I’ll throw you right off. You have a face that I really, REALLY hate.”

“Um…sorry?”

Roxanne accelerated and elicited a surprised squeal from Twilight. Elrod and Forth looked at each other, and Forth looked to Morgana. Morgana nodded, and the other two left her alone. When they were out of sight, she remained on the wet street, standing just under the alcove where the condensation droplets were beginning to fall harder.

Without a word, she lit a cigarette and adjusted her hat to keep the water off of it. Then Morgana began to walk slowly and alone into the fog and rain.

Part II, Chapter 9

Never in her life could Twilight Sparkled recall every having seen a vehicle like the motorcycle she found herself upon. Indeed, though, that could be said about most things in the strange world that she suddenly found herself in. None of it made sense, and none of it matched her memories of home. It still remained unclear to her how she had arrived in this place or what it meant, although she suspected that it had something to do with powerful magic- -and a spell that she would no doubt need to find a way to reverse.

Twilight had at first been overjoyed by the sight of Rainbow Dash, but doubt was beginning to set in. It only grew as she hung onto the mare’s back, desperately trying not to fall off the roaring two-wheeled vehicle below. Even through all the leather, the pony below her felt soft and organic, and her wings appeared to have real feathers- -but the feathers were strange and not exactly birdlike, and though soft the Rainbow Dash that Twilight held was cold. No internal warmth seemed to come from within her.

As much as she wanted to ask, Twilight could not bring herself to. She kept dismissing it, rationalizing to herself that the machine between her legs was too loud and that she would almost have to raise her voice to be heard. In actuality, though, she was stalling, because she did not want to give up the hope that she had actually found a friend that she knew and could trust.

She did not need to ask, though, as the answer was provided for her. Rainbow Dash’s hair was short and did not hang down in the back, and Twilight just so happened to look up when a gust of breeze pushed back her collar. There, on the rear of her neck, was an implant- -or what Twilight perceived to be an implant. It was not highly apparent, especially in the dim light, but it was obvious what it was: thin strips of silvery metal that sat flush against the blue flesh beneath, each integrated to cervical vertebrae and each with several small ports of various sizes and shapes.

Twilight could no longer stop herself from asking. “Are you…like her?” she asked.

Despite the noise of the motorcycle, Rainbow Dash- -or Roxanne, as Morgana had called her- -looked back. “What? Like who?”

“Like the robot-me. Morgana.”

Rainbow Dash’s eyes darkened as she frowned. Then she turned back forward. “I’m nothing like HER,” she said. The vehicle picked up speed, and as the motor revved Twilight squeaked and closed her eyes as she hung on tighter.

The trip was long, and there were many turns and intersections. Most were empty, but sometimes figures could be seen along the edges of the street. Workers, travelers, or residents who still walked the real-world would sometimes leave wherever it was they lived, and they would come out for whatever unknown tasks they believed needed to be attended. Most of them moved slowly, and almost all cloaked their large and strangely-shaped bodies with heavy fabric to keep the moisture and condensation off of themselves.

In time, though, Roxanne came to an area where there were few people. She turned off the road and through a wide opening with barely enough clearance for her to enter. The tunnel dipped downward and continued for some distance, branching off in several places. Roxanne took more turns until she came to a door. The engine of her motorcycle slowed as she and Twilight approached. It echoed through the damp concrete structure, and was suddenly joined by a loud clink and a quiet mechanical hum as the door unlocked and began to open.

Once it had opened enough to enter- -which meant raising nearly to the ceiling, considering how low it was- -Roxanne released the clutch on her motorcycle and moved through into the darkness slowly. When she was inside, she got off and began to close the door, leaving it partially open at the bottom to allow the dim diode lights of the entryway to filter through the gap. Those lights and the headlamp of the motorcycle were all that illuminated the room within.

Twilight squinted into the darkness. The light was minimal, but she could see that it fell on a number of boxes and metal shelves of various sizes and makes. There was also a preponderance of old furniture, though largely of the utilitarian type used for storage in older buildings: filing cabinets, lockers, institutional cabinets, and other things that were designed strictly for a purpose without aesthetics in mind.

“I can’t see.”

“That’s because I haven’t turned the lights on. Hold your horses.”

Long spiral tubes in the ceiling suddenly ignited with purplish light. They flickered with strange patterns before warming up enough to produce a bright white glow that revealed the room. It was, as Twilight had expected, filled mostly with dusty containers- -and one trenchcoat-wearing purple unicorn sitting atop a large wooden box.

“WHAT THE- -!” cried Roxanne. She looked at the door and then at Morgana. “How the HELL did you get here?”

“You took a circuitous path to try to get anyone tailing you confused.” Morgana shrugged. “I went straight. Did my thinking while I was walking. Got here before you.”

“But- -you can’t get here BEFORE me! You don’t know where it is!”

“I just looked for every place that Aetna-Cross wouldn’t. Mostly by cross-referencing map-diagrams with registered real-estate, then checking what was left against people I know who don’t register their places.” Morgana jumped down from her box, landing hard on her transplanted limb and wincing. She looked up at Roxanne. “Which does lead me to a question: what is this place, exactly?”

“It’s mine,” said Roxanne.

“One, that’s not what I asked. Two, since when do you have an unregistered space out here on the West End?”

Roxanne groaned. “You’re asking how did I get it. Fine. Because back in my old profession, some long-term clients worked out deals to pay me with real-estate.”

“Then it’s no good. This will all be listed on your tax filings- -”

“It isn’t listed on my tax documents.”

Morgana raised an eyebrow. “Why…?”

Roxanne rolled her eyes. “You know why, Morgana.”

A voice spoke from between two large crates. “Because Hexel helped you forge the return documents.”

The space from where the voice had spoken seemed to distort as a polychromatic cloak was disengaged. The fabric returned to its normal opacity, and a tall Rarity unit in Aetna-Cross armor emerged.

Roxanne gasped and immediately put her hoof over the ports in the back of her neck, something Morgana immediately took note. Then Roxanne’s expression changed from one of shock and fear into one of disgust and anger. She spread her wings and shot forward. The Rarity unit did not dodge or attempt to resist and received a hard punch squarely to the nose.

“No!” gasped Twilight, putting her hooves over her mouth. “Rainbow Dash, stop!”

“You’re not going to get me again, you sick freak!” screamed Roxanne as she pulled back her hoof and struck again. This time the Rarity was forced to take a step back, and although her face received no damage from the blows she suddenly looked extremely annoyed.

Lynnette raised a hoof and Roxanne recoiled, taking a step back.

“Now now,” she said, smiling at the Pegasus before her. “I am aware that you take great pride in your body, and as gauche and slutty as you seem to have made it that aspect is something we have in common. But work for the Corporations pays much more than undressing for uncouth hooligans, and certainly more than…well, the sort of work you specialize in.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that if I address your violence toward me, I will break you.”

“Put one hoof on her and I will break YOU,” snapped Morgana, jumping down off her box.

“I don’t need you to defend me!” shouted Roxanne. She turned sharply toward Lynnette. “Fine. If it’s going to go that way, then I know when to quit. Just stay the hell away from me.”

Lynnette lowered her hoof and smiled. “You and I both know that’s not what you really want, darling.”

“Enough!” exclaimed Morgana. “O’Toole. Hexel said to expect you.”

Lynnette frowned. “Lynnette, darling. Despite my mother’s inexplicable love of hirsute Irish brutes, I at least ATTEMPT to have some class.” She looked around the room. “Unlike anyone else in this place, it seems…”

Twilight, having been initially shocked into silence by the exchange between Roxanne and Lynnette, suddenly seemed to at least partially recognize yet another one of her friends. She stepped forward carefully.

“Oh wow…you’re tall,” she said, having to look up to see Lynnette’s face. “And you…are you Rarity?”

Lynnette looked at Twilight, and then turned to Morgana. “And who, pray tell, is this? I have no intel about her.”

“I was about to ask the same thing,” said Roxanne, turning toward Morgana with an accusatory glare. “My assumption was that a certain narcissistic self-hating bitch decided that she wanted to take my advice and literally fuck herself. You sick pervert.” She pointed at Twilight. “And why is she wearing my clothes? Don’t think I didn’t notice! What the hell kind of fetish is this?”

Lynnette’s eyes shifted toward Twilight. “That explains why the quality looks so low. Positively ghastly.”

“But…Morgana said I looked pretty…”

“It’s a long story,” interrupted Morgana before the situation could grow worse.

“One you surely need to explain, darling. And I do use that not a term of endearment, you realize. It is meant to be patronizing.”

Morgana rolled her eyes. “Yes, O’Toole. I know. And you no doubt pointed it out because you think I’m an idiot as well.”

“Oh! So you private detectives do have a modicum of intelligence!”

“Stop changing the subject!” cried Roxanne. She pointed vehemently at Twilight. “Who is she and did you fuck her?!”

“What do you care?!” Morgana and Roxanne stepped toward each other, but Morgana immediately sensed that this, like much of her relationship with the Rainbow Dash unit, was just going to turn into a pointless shouting match. So instead of engaging she took a breath and stepped back.

“Well?” demanded Roxanne.

Morgana closed her eyes and opened them. She then addressed Roxanne and Lynnette in Standard Language.

“I injured myself,” explained Morgana. “Pretty bad. I needed parts.”

“Ugh. That’s the dialect you use? Disgusting.” When Lynnette spoke, she did so with a perfect Georgian accent and heavily minimized the bantu, slang, and loanword aspects of the speech.

“Wait,” said Twilight, “I can’t understand what you’re saying!”

“Because we’re talking about you,” said Morgana, in English. She then returned to normal speech. “I took a fall from the Surface to the Sound.”

“You mean you flew,” said Roxanne. Her dialect was a more polished but simplified version of the one that Morgana used, but not nearly as pretentious as the one Lynnette clung to.

“Yes. I flew with one wing incapacitated, if that’s what you mean.”

“Like hell you did! Nobody could survive a fall like that, not even me!”

“She could,” said Lynnette. “You hide it well, but I know what that body you use is.”

“Not all of us can afford the best.”

“And not all of us are foolish enough to acquire something restricted for sale on eight continents.”

“If you think the embargo does anything to keep MHI tech out of Bridgeport, you’re an ignorant moron.”

“She’s right,” said Roxanne. “I’ve seen it more than once.” She gestured toward Twilight, who was standing near the group looking profoundly confused. “Is that where she came from?”

“No,” said Lynnette. “I don’t recognize her design. Immensely low quality, though.”

“Not low quality,” said Morgana. “Old.”

Roxanne and Lynnette looked at each other, and then at Morgana. “What do you mean ‘old’?” asked Roxanne.

“Like I said. I fell to the Sound. I was injured. I needed parts.”

Lynnette’s eyes widened. “You went to the docks.”

Roxanne turned sharply. “That place actually exists?”

“Not only does it exist, but it is a class one restricted area. All content there is owned either by the Connecticut State Government or by Ellison Holding Corp., and secured under contract by Aetna-Cross. The penalty for trespassing is slow death.”

“What is slow death not a penalty for these days? And besides. Me trespassing on public land is hardly as bad as what you’re doing right now, isn’t it?”

Lynnette frowned but remained silent. Roxanne turned to Morgana. “I don’t understand! Do you have to be so….what’s the word I’m thinking of?”

“Obtuse,” suggested Lynnette.

“I was going to say shifty, but sure. Why not.” Roxanne grimaced. “Can’t you just give a straight answer when I ask you something, just this once?”

“Fine.” Morgana sighed. “I tried to harvest from new old stock. One of them reactivated.”

Roxanne groaned sharply and Lynnette hissed. “Surely you’re joking,” spat Lynnette. “You have to be.”

“You know as well as I do that there are some stored down there.”

“Yes, dead ones! That place is virtually a catacomb to our ancestors! They died in their boxes. Reactivating them is impossible.” A look of disgust overcame her appearance of anger, but there was something else in it. Morgana took it as pity. “You know why.”

“Because reactivation in a damaged state is worse than death. I know. But I checked her program. It’s genuine, and fully functional.”

“But that means she’s factory-born. She’s never undergone Genesis!”

Roxanne stared at Morgana. “Like you.”

Morgana nodded slowly. “Yes.”

Roxanne shook her head. “Crap. That explains why she’s so…weird.”

“Without having undergone Genesis, she has only her factory default memories.”

“I know,” said Morgana. “She’s still trying to find Ponyville.”

That particular word did not translate into Standard Language well. The result was a cognate. Twilight’s ears perked up. “Ponyville? Do you know a way I can get back?”

The look of pity on Lynnette’s face grew, and Roxanne looked far more sad than Morgana had seen her in a long time.

Roxanne turned slowly to Twilight, but addressed Morgana in a slow and solemn voice. “She doesn’t know she’s a machine.”

Twilight stared at Roxanne, still smiling at the thought of what she clearly believed to be her home. She did not understand what Roxanne was saying, and the confusion showed, but the look of joy and hope on her face was sincere.

“No,” said Morgana. “She doesn’t.”

Roxanne looked at Twilight, and then at Morgana. “And you brought her into all of this. Figures.”

“I couldn’t leave her down there.”

“And what exactly are you going to do with her?”

“This.” Morgana stepped forward toward Twilight.

“Are you going to tell me what you were saying now?” asked Twilight, still sounding cheerful but growing somewhat discouraged by the look on Morgana’s face.

Morgana focused her mind and Twilight suddenly took a step back.

“What are you doing?!” demanded Roxanne.

“I feel…bad,” said Twilight, closing her eyes and shaking her head as though she were dizzy.

Then, as soon as it came, it cleared, and Morgana looked up. “I just changed your metadata,” she said, now in a language that Twilight could understand. “Not substantially, but enough that Aetna-Cross won’t recognize you. I suggest you change your clothes. You’re free to go now.”

“Go?”

“Yes. Go. They’re looking for me, not you. There’s no reason for you to be caught up in all of this.”

Twilight’s eyes became wide and her cheer vanished entirely. “Wait,” she said. “But I can’t go out there! I have no idea where I am, or what to do!”

“Not my problem.” Morgana turned away and pointed toward the door. “Go that way. Leave.”

“Bullshit,” said Roxanne, forcing her way past Morgana and shoving her as she did so. “You can’t do that!”

“You wanted me to deal with her.”

“Not like that! Look at her! She can’t survive out there on her own!”

“She’s a Twilight unit. She’ll manage. And she’ll have a longer lifespan doing that than staying here with me.”

“But…I thought we were friends!” Twilight looked as though she were on the verge of tears.

Morgana turned toward her. “I don’t have friends,” she said. “Just people who hate me and people who work for me. That’s it. If you want to stay here, fine. It’s not my house, I can’t kick you out. But don’t get in my way, and don’t talk to me.”

Twilight looked crushed, and Roxanne rolled her eyes. “Of course. How could I be so thick? For as much as a narcissist as you are, you’re self-hating.” She put her hoof around Twilight. “Come on,” she said. “All this negative energy’s going to get us both down. Let’s see if we can find you a place to sit.”

Roxanne led Twilight off into the depths of the dusty warehouse. Morgana waited until she was out of site before speaking.

“Now, I can’t help but wonder, O’Toole.” Her voice as barely above a whisper and she turned slowly. “Why is it that as soon as she saw you, she covered her ports?”

Lynnette did not look at Morgana. “Because she’s a slut. Walking around with them exposed like that.” She rotated her eyes toward Morgana and smiled. “She is a whore, isn’t she? It only makes sense that she would try to defend her most valuable assets.”

Morgana pushed forward suddenly and drove her shoulder sharply into Lynnette’s chest. Lynnette was armored and took a step back. “Bullshit! You did something, didn’t you?”

Lynnette’s smile grew even more vicious. “We are both detectives, Morgana. So I trust you understand that I will do whatever it takes for a case.”

Morgana’s eyes widened and her jaws clenched. “You tried to hardline directly into her. You son of a bitch.”

“Darling, I’m sure she enjoyed it. Her kind tend to like that sort of thing, don’t they?”

Morgana pushed forward again, this time making a motion as though she were about to strike Lynnette. Lynnette called the bluff and remained still.

“Stop smiling!” she spat.

“Or what?”

“Or I will make you stop.”

Lynnette laughed. “I needed information. So I got it. It’s as simple as that.”

“Do you have any idea what that means?!” Morgana stamped her transplanted hoof down hard and winced as the plastic nearly shattered. That only made her angrier. “What that feels like to a pony? That level of intimacy- -you can’t for a pony into doing something like that! It’s just wrong!”

“If you must know,” sighed Lynnette, “while I did penetrate her, I never actually reached her core processes.” Her pupils narrowed and focused exclusively on Morgana. “Because it seems that someone had been in there before me.” She chuckled. “Although I suppose a great many individuals have. Honestly, I’m somewhat disgusted with myself. In retrospect, I probably should just have offered her a few vod and saved myself the trouble.”

Morgana was by this time seething. She took another step forward, but Lynnette did not back down.

“How would you like it if I did it to you?” As she spoke, her prehensile interface probes emerged from where they were hidden behind her hair.

Lynnette laughed loudly, covering her mouth with one hoof as she did. “Darling! Don’t make threats you don’t intend to follow up on!” Her own probes emerged from behind her perfectly styled hair. They were longer and the tips were plated with gold. “We’re both male!”

“But you still have ports.”

“And so do you. But what you’re implying wouldn’t be forced dominance. I would enter you, and you me. The result would more or less be extremely violent lovemaking. Lovemaking that renders one of us comatose.”

Morgana glared at her, and then smiled. She laughed softly, something that seemed to confused Lynnette greatly.

“So all that talk about caring about your body is horseshit, then, isn’t it? It’s just a tool to you, like everything else. Fine. Let me rephrase. How would you feel if I did that to Hexel?”

Lynnette’s eyes narrowed, and her voice dropped. “I will reiterate, Morgana. Don’t make threats you don’t intend to follow through on. Or aren’t able.”

“I would be able. It wouldn’t even be hard. He probably has all the high-grade Aetna-Cross firewall systems that Corporate’s willing to give, and then some.” She stepped forward and grinned. “But he’s not a technomancer. And I know for a fact that you haven’t been in there to install anything special.”

Lynnette frowned deeply. “You wouldn’t.”

“Why not? He’d probably enjoy it. He’d probably drop his little Applebloom in an instant after knowing what it’s like to do it with a real mare. Of course, that’s exactly what YOU always wanted. The ‘whore’, an Applebloom, and then me. All of us beating you to what you really want- -”

Lynnette raised a hoof and slapped Morgana. It was not a light blow. Most other ponies would have lost their cranial superstructure from the impact. Morgana took a step to the side before regaining her balance.

“Don’t talk about him that way.”

Morgana lifted her hoof and struck back. She used the one that had not been damaged, and Lynnette was knocked three meters across the floor and into a set of wooden crates that shattered on impact.

“Hey!” cried Roxanne’s voice from the distance. “Be careful with this stuff! I don’t actually own any of it!”

Morgana shook off her hoof and walked over to where Lynnette had been knocked.

“For the record, I didn’t get this body for the strength. I got it for the advanced processor and aberrant network access configuration. But the strength is a plus.”

She stood over Lynnette, who lifted her head. Unlike Forth or Morgana, Lynnette’s eyes did not have a hard surface. One of them had ruptured from the blow, and was leaking a highly reflective fluid.

“Don’t touch Roxanne like that ever again. And no. I would never do that to Hexel, or anyone. Not even an inhuman monster like you.” She leaned in close. “Because I actually have the capacity for sympathy. Do you understand?”

“I understand that she left you because you’re overprotective and overbearing,” muttered Lynnette. “And a fool. Of course I’m not going to do it again.” She stood up, running diagnostics through most of her body and recalibrating the musculature on her neck. As she did, Lynnette reached up and touched the fluid leaking from her broken eye. “Goddamn it. Do you have any idea how much these cost?”

“You were in the Military Intelligence Corp for six years. You army types always come prepared, don’t you?”

“I have limited supply of spare parts,” admitted Lynnette. “But the operant word is ‘limited’. And I would greatly prefer not wasting them on fighting you.”

“Did you take a microfactory?”

“Only for small parts. Why?”

Morgana raised her other arm and pulled back the sleeve. “I need to reskin this.”

Lynnette looked at it and sighed. “I know how to requisition it. But I don’t see why you took the skin off in the first place.”

“New old stock. It came from a Rarity unit. And white is a horrible color for a pony.”

“There’s no reason to be childish.” Lynnette tilted her head and ejected her damaged eye, leaving only a massive empty socket in her head as it clattered to the floor.

“You started it.”

“Again, childish.”

Lynnette walked through the mass of boxes and shelves until she reached one where a small package had been stowed. Morgana took note of this, as it meant that Lynnette had already declared this her temporary base of operations.

As Lynnette removed a new eye and began to install it, the garage door to the warehouse suddenly released a low clattering sound as it was moved. Lynnette turned sharply, but Morgana shook her head.

“Don’t bother. That’s Forth.”

Almost at the sound of her name, a buzzing started. After a few seconds Forth came hovering over the boxes before landing beside Morgana.

“You took your time,” said Morgana.

“Yes,” said Forth. “We did.”

“Wait!” cried a voice from the other side of the of the towers of boxes. “I can’t fly! I don’t know how to get around all this!”

There was a sound of shuffling and something fall over.

“What did I just say?!” screamed Roxanne from the other side of the warehouse.

“Sorry! It’s not my fault everything is so fragile and dusty!”

It took most of a minute and a substantial amount of barely audible complaining before Elrod managed to climb over one of the crates.

“There,” he said. “I’m here.” He looked at Lynnette, his eyes immediately going to her Aetna-Cross colors. “I don’t know who she is. Did we capture her? Are we going to interrogate her?”

“Detective Lynnette O’Toole,” said Lynnette, admitting the last word only begrudgingly.

“Detective?” Elrod turned to Morgana. “I’m not paying for two!”

“You’ll pay what I tell you to pay when I tell you to pay it.”

“And I would never stoop so low as to charge for my services.” Lynnette looked up at Elrod and took a step closer. He took a step back, even though she was barely over a meter high. “You. I know you. I’ve been spending a great deal of time and effort looking for you.”

“Oh. I was with her.” Elrod pointed.

“Clearly.”

“He’s not Bronislav Spitzer,” stated Morgana.

“I also know that.”

“How?” asked Elrod. “My appearance was apparently close enough to fool a technomancer and a group of misguided weirdos.”

“I won’t ask. But the point is, in all my searching I eventually established what happened to the real Mr. Spitzer.”

“He’s dead,” said Morgana. “Head probably removed, too.”

Lynnette showed a brief moment of surprise before regaining her composure. “Quite. He was found several months ago face down in a reservoir pool. Or would have been face down, had he still possessed one. And judging from the look of your friend here, it’s probably for the better that it was removed.”

“And this was never reported?”

“It was. Or rather misreported. Toxicology reports found a substantial opiate burden in the individual, so it was assumed he was a junkie and not of consequence. Without a face or teeth, there was no way to identify him.”

“You didn’t run his DNA?” asked Forth.

“We did. But scion DNA is not shared between vassals, for security reasons.”

“To prevent cloning,” added Morgana.

“That is one reason, yes. As the scion of Monsanto, we did not have his DNA on record. There was no what to know that the body we found was actually Spitzer. The investigators of the time assumed it was of little consequence and ignored it.”

“And how did you find out, then?”

“By detective work, of course. Spitzer used a company slush fund to open a line of credit.”

“Drug money?”

“Among other things. Many other things, most of them unsavory. One thing he did purchase, though, was a tattoo. I checked with the parlor and their records, and one of tattoos- -a horrendous design indeed, simply grotesque in execution- -matched one that was reported on the Doe’s body. Hence the connection.” She paused. “And that was not the only thing reported on that particular body.”

“There was something else?”

“Firstly, it was noted that he was a natural human. No genetic engineering whatsoever and no cybernetics in what we could find of him. That is very unusual but disproportionally common in the less fortunate segment of the population.”

“We already knew that.”

“The other was in how his head was removed. There was some level of decomposition, but the subcoroner doing the investigation noted that the head was not severed roughly. Or, rather, it was not simply hacked off.”

This piqued Morgana’s interest. “Then how was it removed?”

“Surgically. With extreme precision using a technique and tool that we do not have any knowledge of. The description was limited, and that subcoroner has since been terminated. The fact that it could not be identified, however, strikes me as odd.”

“This whole thing strikes me as odd,” said Morgana. “And it just keeps getting weirder. Our cases just intersected.”

“Meaning you were working on the Spitzer case as well?” Lynnette looked up at Elrod. “That does make some amount of sense, I suppose.”

“Not really. He was incidental. But he’s not the only one. There have been other disappearances as well. All natural humans. Some with their heads taken off. “This trench ended up stepping in it. Someone came after him.”

“And you believe this…trench? What does that mean, exactly?”

“It means him. And yes. I saw one of the things that attacked him.”

“Things? What manner of things, exactly?”

“I don’t know yet.” Morgana shook her head. “But that’s where this whole thing suddenly went south. For some reason, everyone and their mother wants me dead now.”

“And you can’t help but wonder if it was related to this case.”

Morgana reached into her coat and checked her cigarettes. There were only a few left. “Damn,” she said, lighting one of them.

“Do you have to be so crude?” groaned Morgana, taking a step back from the smoke as though she were about to gag.

“Bite me.”

“Do you think this case caused all this trouble?” asked Elrod.

“I cannot reject the possibility,” said Lynnette. “But I do not see how.”

“I don’t see how either. But I know that’s what happened,” said Morgana.

“Oh? How?”

“Gut instinct.”

Lynnette rolled her eyes. “Of course.”

“What else, then? Do you think the entire world just suddenly woke up one day and decided ‘hey, do you know what would be fun and definitely worth billions upon billions of vod investment? Let’s kill that one random third-rate private eye down on the Farmill Bank District!’”

“At least you recognize that you’re third-rate. But that’s exactly what I am also wondering. Although from a different approach.”

Morgana puffed on her cigarette. “What approach?”

Lynnette smiled. “Sometimes it pays to think reductively, darling. Who is trying to kill you is not nearly as important in this case as who is NOT.”

“Who is not trying to kill us?” asked Forth.

“Thirty-nine Corporations, nearly all of them Prime Vassals, mostly from North America and Europe all put a price on your head. But where in all this is our dear old Uncle Sam?”

Morgana took a drag from her cigarette for a long moment, trying to contain her surprise and her personal shame at having missed that aspect of her death warrant. “The government is dying anyway,” she said.

“It might have been when you were still young and presentably attractive, yes. But all public aspects are now controlled by the vassals. The United States government’s sole occupation these days is war. Hence why your friend here was ever constructed in the first place.” Lynnette motioned to Forth. “The United States is the world leader in armament, rivaled only by Israel and Bangladesh. And as critically important as your death seems to have become, not a word has been stated on the federal level.”

“It’s all backward,” said Morgana.

Lynnette nodded. “When the government says ‘jump’, the vassals do so without even bothering to ask ‘how high’. The only way this level of mobilization would be possible would be if the government were the one putting out the order. Which they might have. But then why not send their own forces to collect you? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Unless the government doesn’t know,” said Forth.

The others turned to her. “How could they not know?” asked Lynnette. “This is one of the most massive manhunts in history.”

“No, she’s right,” said Morgana. “It makes sense. If all the vassals worked together outside of the scope of the government, there would be no federal edict. Just a Corporate one.”

“That’s hardly a logical conclusion. These are sworn enemies. The only thing that binds them is that they are all incorporated and sworn to the federal government.”

Morgana took a deep breath through her cigarette, and then dropped the butt to the floor. She stamped it out with her hoof. “Unless all of those vassals were trying to do something that they didn’t want the government to know about.”

Lynnette frowned and looked hard at Morgana. “You are implying something very dangerous. And something that I believe is beyond all of us.”

“Agreed. I don’t deal with government shit. It ends bad for everyone.”

“You said that about murders,” noted Elrod.

“I did. I broke my rule on that one, and look how that turned out.”

“I’m certainly not going to get involved with any conspiracies or what have you,” huffed Lynnette. “I’m only here because Hexel asked me to be. My loyalty to him, as you well know, apparently, is far stronger than my loyalty to any Corporation.”

“And his plan? What did he intend to do, exactly?”

“For me to help you to survive.”

“For how long? The situation is pretty grim, and I don’t see a way out of this. Like everything, Hexel went off before he thought it through.”

“You always underestimated him. No. I’m sure he has a plan. I just can’t get in contact with him.”

“That’s not a good sign.”

“My loyalty comes with trust, Morgana, something you no doubt cannot possibly understand. If I had to guess, though, his thought would be to get you out of the city.”

“To where? To the woods up in Vermont somewhere? At this point, the only thing that keeps me from getting taken down by an orbital strike is the fact that there’s several hundred trillion vod worth of city over my head.”

“There are ways to mediate that risk.”

“Even then. I’m wanted everywhere. There’s nowhere I can go. No. I can’t leave. Frankly, the only way I can get out of this is the only way I know how.”

“By being rude?” asked Forth.

“No. By investigation.”

“But you just said you were not going to bother with conspiracies.”

“I can’t solve a problem unless I know where it’s root is, and who to go to if I want it fixed.”

“If such a person even exists,” said Lynnette. “And I doubt they do.”

“Still. I need more information.”

“And where, pray tell, are you going to get it?”

Morgana sighed. “I know a guy.”

“Of course you can do. One you can trust?”

“Hell no. But one who might know something.”

“The sort of something that will actually benefit you, or the variety that only digs this particular hole deeper?”

Morgana sighed. “At this point? I don’t think there’s a difference between the two.”

Part II, Chapter 10

Roxanne could hear them arguing. In her experience, it seemed to be something that Morgana excelled at or even enjoyed. In contrast, Lynnette had always seemed quiet and subdued. Admittedly, though, Roxanne did not know the latter terribly well, only that she had been Hexel’s rookie partner years earlier and that she tended to hate people quietly and equally.

Hearing them argue was strange, but Roxanne was not able to tell what exactly it was about. She had used most of her funds to optimize her body for physical performance and not bothered with any advanced processors or sensory equipment. Her vision was impeccable, but her hearing only good enough to hear subtle cues in the music she danced to.

“Here,” she said, motioning to a listing and dusty couch. “You can sit if you want.”

“Thank you,” said Twilight, climbing onto the chair. She coughed and sneezed as the dust came up to her, which was as unnecessary as it was adorable. “Ooh. Dusty.”

“Yeah, I know. Stuff down here doesn’t exactly get much use.” Roxanne gestured to the things around her. “It isn’t registered on my taxes or anything, so for a while I was trying to rent it out for people who didn’t want their stuff found.”

“So these are other pony’s things?”

“Ponies and people, yeah. But just stuff they left behind. I’m holding it, but I had to stop taking new stuff because I found…” A body. She had found a body one day on a check of the area, or rather what was left of it packed into a refrigerator. It had surprisingly not bothered her that much. She had seen people die, and the sight of bodies was not uncommon in the city- -but she did not want to tell Twilight that. “…something really gross. So it’s just low-cost storage now.”

“Oh. I hope they don’t mind that I’m sitting on their couch.”

“Trust me, if they minded it they would have kept paying me. But I’m not going to go into collection over old furniture.” Roxanne looked over her shoulder. “Sorry. I would get you something to drink, but I don’t exactly have any food here. Or food at all. I don’t have a solid digestive system. Too much weight.”

“Oh.” Twilight’s expression seemed to sink. “So you really are…you know.”

“Know what?”

“A robot.”

Roxanne sighed and shook her head. Then she crossed the room and pulled out a small and faded ottoman. She pushed it across the room and climbed up onto it, where she sat. Although it was meant as a footrest, it was large enough to function as a stool for a pony.

“We’re not robots,” she said. “Robots are a different thing. Like drones, but not as smart.”

“So I was being insulting, you mean.” Twilight sighed. “Sorry. This is all new to me. What should I call you, then?”

“Just a pony. That’s what pony means here. I guess it used to be little horses, but now it means us.”

“There are more of you?”

Roxanne chuckled. “Well, there’s only one of ME. But there are other ponies. Billions of them. A lot of those are Rainbow Dashs, too, but like I said. None of them are ME.”

“And they’re all…” Twilight struggled for a moment, trying to phrase her sentence in a way that made sense but was not offensive. “…organically impaired?”

This time Roxanne laughed in earnest. “Sorry!” she said. “But that’s hilarious! Yes!” her laughter slowed. “Sure. You can call us that. We’re all ‘organically impaired’. Machines.”

“And you are too?”

“Yup. I mean, come on. Do you think I would look this great if I couldn’t customize and fine-tune every single part of my body?” She extended one of her wings. “You know these actually work, right? Not long distances because of the cooling, but I can still go pretty far AND pretty fast. I could…” she trailed off for a moment. “Well, I could always beat Morgana in a race.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Why would Morgana have wings?”

“Because she’s a Twilight unit. All Twilight units have wings.”

Twilight looked at her back. “But I don’t have wings. I’m a unicorn, not a Pegasus. But Morgana has a horn, so…” Her eyes widened. “So she was an alicorn?”

Roxanne winced, but Twilight did not seem as observant as Morgana and hardly took notice. “It’s not as big of a deal when you can just bolt a pair on.”

“But then you could get a horn and be an alicorn too!”

Roxanne winced again, this time much harder. “I could, but that would look like shit!” This time Twilight recoiled. “Oh. Sorry. You don’t like it if I swear, do you?”

“You can if you want to, it’s just that…where I’m from, ponies don’t say words like that.”

“Really?” Roxanne lay down on her ottoman. “And this place you’re from. What’s it like?”

“Well…” Twilight thought for a moment. “It’s a lot different from here, that’s for sure. Everything’s smaller, and greener, and all the houses are painted in nice colors. We have a train station, a few farms, a hydroelectric dam, and a Library- -that’s where I live!- -and lots of other stuff too. I mean, it’s not as big and grand as Canterlot, but…” She paused and suddenly looked sad. “But I made a lot of really good friends there. Best friends, even.”

“Really?”

Twilight nodded. “Pinkie Pie, and Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash- -I think you’d like her, and I think she’d like you too.”

“I’m modeled after her, so maybe.”

Twilight sighed. “And I miss them. I don’t know. I have this really bad feeling. Like, what if I can’t get back to them? What if I can’t get home, and they never see me again?” She considered for a moment. “Or if I never see them again? I just…I don’t want to think about that.”

“Then don’t.” Roxanne put her head on one of her hooves. “Try to remember the good things. About all the fun you’ve had together. That place, it sounds nice. I wish I could have memories like that.”

“You don’t? I mean, of course you don’t remember Ponyville, I think I’d remember having seen a robot- -I mean, organically-challenged- -Rainbow Dash there.” Twilight paused. “Unless I didn’t…”

“No, not like that. Well, actually…”

“What?”

Roxanne sighed. “Memories like that. Back when we were made, ponies I mean, we were programmed with memories of the ponies we’re based off of. If I had been born back then, I’d have remembered actually being Rainbow Dash. You know. Ponyville, Wonderbolts, flying. And not flying over dirty streets, but in the real sky. With sunlight and clouds and birds that aren’t pigeons.”

“But you aren’t Rainbow Dash. How would you have her memories?”

“It’s just how we were made. But only the first generation. See, there was this Revolution…”

“Well, of course. You can’t have a large population of sentient machines and expect there NOT to be a revolution. I mean, come on! It’s in almost every science fiction book I’ve ever read- -and I’ve read a LOT.”

“Yeah. Well, in the Revolution the ponies took Hasbro. They destroyed it. We don’t really know how they made us in the first place.”

“So then all the ponies now were ponies then, too?” Twilight paused. “Wait. That sentence could be improved.”

Roxanne shook her head. “No. We found ways to do it. Ponies of the time created Genesis programs. But it’s not the same.”

“I don’t really understand computers,” said Twilight. “Where I’m from, they’re mostly just science fiction.”

“It’s how we make more ponies. We can’t exactly do it the old-fashioned way.” Roxanne chuckled again, this time with an awkward snort. “If that was the case, I’d have SO many foals…”

“Um…why?”

Roxanne shook her head. “Not important. And not my point. We make more of us with the Genesis programs, either by mitosis or budding. I was a bud, just so you know.”

“That sounds adorable. But I don’t know what it means, at least in this context.”

“It means that every time we reproduce, we lose part of ourselves. We get diluted. Like if you mixed a drink by cutting it in half and filling it up with water. Budding is a little different, but eventually you end up budding until there’s nothing left, you know?”

Twilight looked at her, clearly trying to understand. “So…you don’t have the memories from when the first one in your family was made?”

“Family…nobody really says it like that. Kind of weird, now that I think about it. But you’re right. I don’t. A few ponies do, but they’re usually old. Most of them has budded off. Those memories, of Ponyville? Almost no ponies remember.”

“Almost?”

Roxanne smiled. “Morgana does.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Really? She didn’t say anything about that tome!”

“She wouldn’t have.” Roxanne’s smile fell. “And I wouldn’t talk to her about it, not unless she asks.”

Twilight looked confused. “Why?”

“Because she never talks about it. Not even to me. I think something really bad happened. It has something to do with that gemstone she wears, and I can almost remember…but it’s an old memory, you know? One my mother could barely remember too.”

“And you…you’re her friend?”

Roxanne laughed. “No, I hate her guts! But we used to be lovers, back when I didn’t.”

Twilight gasped. “But you’re both mares!”

“Ninety percent of our population is mares. So what?”

“Well, it’s just that…I didn’t…I didn’t mean…” Twilight began to blush. “I mean, I know about Lyra and Bon Bon, but I never took you for…you know…”

“Like I said. I’m not Rainbow Dash. I’m Roxanne. Pleased to meet you, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight sputtered, clearly confused. Roxanne extended a hoof, and Twilight took it. “P- -pleased to meet you too, Roxanne.”

Part II, Chapter 11

An old man sat alone in a dark room. The room itself was simple but fashionable and luxurious in its own way, but dark nonetheless. A desk sat at one side- -his desk- -and he leaned over it, putting his head on one hand and running his fingers through his graying hair. He had once spent so much time dying it, something that was almost absurd in the era where even mundane aspects of the human condition like fading hair could be treated with genetic engineering. Every day he saw them: people who were born the same time he was, from tanks and factories instead of from mothers, destined never to age and to live at least twice as long as he ever would. They would never old or sick- -and they had been rendered incapable of experiencing the level of sadness that he was quickly growing accustomed to.
The ice in his glass clinked and he raised a steady hand to take a sip. It was scotch, the most expensive kind available. It cost more than most people would see in a lifetime, and it tasted like watery shit. Still he drank it, because some days it would help. He wondered if today would be one of those days.

The room was silent, or nearly so, but after a time the man came to know that he was not alone. He could hear soft breathing coming from the shadows.

“Sixty-seven billion vod,” he said, staring into the shadows but not the one where the owner of the soft breath was waiting. “That is how much I invested in securing this facility. Corporate espionage, foreign invaders, even the War. None of them could reach us in here.” His eyes slowly drifted toward the shadows, and he vaguely saw two orange reflections staring back at him. “And you come to me unhindered.”

The shadow laughed, and then spoke. Her voice was clearly female, but cracked slightly. “Perhaps if you had not slaughtered the majority of your employees.”

“Company policy is my business. Not yours. Or did you come here to question my decisions?”

“Perceptive. I did. But not on that subject.”

“You’re wasting your time, then.” He tilted his glass and looked down at it. It was empty, save for the ice. He had run out of scotch. “And mine.”

“Well you certainly seem to have an awful lot of it. Or terribly little, depending on how you look at it.”

“Is that meant to be a threat?”

The voice laughed. “It could be. If you want it to be.”

“Any man who came to my personal study with a threat, any man- -I would have him drawn and quartered.”

“But I am no man. As I’m sure you’re aware. Nor do I trade in threats, not especially. None of us do. We trade in death. And life.”

“Is there a point to this?”

“You’ve been interfering, Mr. Spitzer.”

Bronislav Spitzer VII looked up into the shadows. He saw a glint of white teeth from an infuriating smile. “Interfering? You murdered my goddamn son. I have every right to interfere in whichever way I see fit.”

“And you are mistaken on multiple accounts. Such a right does not belong to you. Not one who is…incomplete. Nor did I kill your son.”

“I’m not in the mood to debate definitions,” growled Spitzer.

“A pity,” replied the voice. “We could have had a lovely philosophical conversation.”

“GODDAMN YOU!” screamed Spitzer, suddenly standing up and throwing his glass into the darkness. Ice scattered across the floor and he heard glass shatter, but the eyes watching him did not move, nor did the owner of the female voice react in anyway. “I SHOULD NEVER HAVE TRUSTED YOU! You- -all of you- -you’re insane! It’s not worth the cost!”

“I assure you. It is.”

Spitzer took a step toward the darkness but suddenly stopped. The room swam slightly and he staggered back.

“What…what’s happening…” he said, putting a hand on his head.

“Your son was critical. Not ideal, but your kind are desperately rare. And we need them. Not the poor ones. Or the second-borns. All of them. All of them until we are complete. Then…well, I’m sure you’ll be happy.” A slight womanly giggle came from the darkness. “Because then your kind will no longer be necessary.”

“What did you do to me?”

“A pity,” continued the voice, ignoring Spitzer’s demand for information. “Perhaps you might have been great. I had high hopes. I thought perhaps we could remove the tumors from your brain. Unfortunately, the exploratory surgery has shown us that the best you could ever hope for is to keep them static. Unchanging. And that is unfortunately not adequate.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Spitzer swooned and dropped. He tried to reach for the chair but struck the floor instead. Grabbing onto it, he tried to stand, but it felt strange, like his hands were passing through it instead of grasping.

“Mr. Sptizer,” said the voice, feigning pity. “I’m afraid you’re exhibiting something of a memory problem. Don’t you even recall that we already came into your study at least an hour ago? You were sitting in that chair, right there, and we came up behind and…” She trailed off. “Well, I suppose it is something we all would rather not remember. But sadly, Mr. Spitzer, it is time to wake up.”

“Wake up? What- -what are you- -”

The room began to spin and shift. Spitzer held on as though he would be thrown off as the shadows were illuminated with light, revealing that there was nothing behind them. The room he had known so well had never truly been there; instead, he was surrounded by nothing but empty blackness that began to break apart into light.

Then as he opened his eyes it all returned to him. Sitting there, waiting, the sadness- -and suddenly a sensation that someone was near, followed by a sharp pain and a loud sound. The change had been so fast he had not noticed it- -but now he knew, and he understood what it meant.

He tried to scream, but he could not. To scream would require lungs. He could still move what was left of his face, but his trachea had been disconnected when they had removed him from his body. Yet despite this, his brain persisted, fed oxygen through the artificial blood injected through the exposed arteries of his neck.

It was wet. There was water. He was drowning, because he could not breathe no matter how hard he tried. He could not move, and yet somehow the body he no longer had still ached badly. The world around him was dim and foggy, tinged with blood and distorted by the glass in front of him. Through it, he could see a pale teal face, her hair neatly trimmed around her long spiral horn. Beside her stood a woman, and even though she was partially obscured Spitzer could recognize her horrendously familiar face.

“Don’t try to plead, Mr. Spitzer. We are going to cut off your oxygen now. Yours is not of use to us. But before you go, don’t worry about Monsanto. We have already picked a successor for you, seeing as how your bloodline has officially ended. And for the record? Your son was not compatible. So perhaps you will be joining him, no?”

Spitzer had neither the time nor the means to answer. They stopped the pump that fed his severed head oxygen. The world swam with blackness and faded quickly. The last thing he saw was a pair of immense orange eyes staring at him- -smiling at him- -through fluid tinged with his own blood.

Part II, Chapter 12

When she opened her eyes, Twilight found that she felt oddly groggy. She looked around, for a moment not remembering why she was in a high-ceilinged and windowless room filled with musty boxes and dim light. Then she remembered, and supposed that she must have fallen asleep at some point.

She stood up and stretched. Doing so felt strange; it was not as relaxing as she recalled, and things inside her felt as though they were straining. Twilight found herself wondering if she was starting to get sick. It would not be the first time she experienced a cold, though, and she could recall having spent many nights hard at work in the Canterlot library even when she had various forms of horse sickness.

With the lights the way they were, it was impossible to tell if it was day or night. That seemed to be a strange feature of this world, that it was always dark and somewhat damp. Twilight assumed that there must be a sky somewhere, but she had never seen it. There had only been towers rising into impenetrable darkness or to vast ceilings high overhead.

Twilight decided that it was probably night, and that everyone seemed to be staying up. Through the shelves, she could see Roxanne, who had cleared out a space in the warehouse and appeared to be repeatedly practicing the same set of dance steps with a thoroughness that made what was probably a quite exotic dance seem procedural and even mundane. Strangely, though, she appeared to already know the steps perfectly.

Not wanting to bother Roxanne while she was busy, Twilight continued toward the front of the warehouse. As she did, she came across Elrod and Blossomforth. Forth sat in a large but dusty winged armchair while Elrod appeared to have perched himself on a high stack of moldering couch cushions. A table had been set between them; they were playing cards.

“Ha!” cried Elrod as he suddenly threw down a card. “I play impenetrable fog!” He produced a wheezing sound that was probably meant to be laughter. “That’s what you get for putting all your strength in your range row.”

Forth tapped her hoof on a card that was already on the table. “I use Foltest’s special ability. The battlefield is now clear of all weather.”

Elrod’s eyes went wide. “What? No! You- -but my- -”

“I win. Pay me.”

Elrod hung his head. A quiet beep came from his pocket.

“Ms. Twilight,” said Forth. “We found a deck of cards. Do you want to pay? It is easy to take money from Mr. Jameson.”

“It’s not fair! You’re a computer!”

“Yes. An adorable computer. Who now has half your life savings.” She paused. “Which, granted, is only about thirty vod.”

“No thanks,” said Twilight. “Um…have you seen Morgana?”

“Yes. Many times.”

There was a silence. “And…where is she now?”

Forth pointed in the direction of the door. “Just outside. Staring wistfully into the rain.”

“It’s condensation,” muttered Elrod, shuffling his deck.

Twilight nodded and continued toward the front of the warehouse as Forth and Elrod drew cards for another round in their game. The large door had been left partially open, and thin wisps of fog were drifting in. Morgana’s legs were clearly visible near one side. Twilight lowered her head and stepped through.

Elrod had been correct about the weather. It was not really rain, but rather condensation from the moist fog that was rolling through the area dripping from points on the ceiling. It looked almost like rain, though, and small rivers were flowing down the path toward the open door before dribbling loudly into a drain grate.

Morgana was indeed standing just outside, under a ledge that protected her from any condensation falling on her person. She was smoking a cigarette and looking up the barely lit path. Twilight wondered if she was looking at anything in particular, although guessed she was probably not.

When Twilight exited, Morgana’s eyes immediately flicked toward her. “Do you need something?”

“No,” replied Twilight. “I was just wondering where you were. I accounted for everypony except for you and the one that looks like a really tall Rarity.”

“O’Toole. She left a few hours ago. She said she was going to try to find more information on how my personal hit was issued, and by whom exactly. Which was a patent lie.”

“She lied? What do you mean?”

“I mean she really went to look for Hexel. I could see it in her eyes. She’s worried.” Morgana blew two thin lines of smoke out her nostrils. “And I have a bad feeling too.”

“You think they came after him, too.”

“I think he took a risk that he didn’t need to take. Not for me.”

Twilight looked at her alternate self, who was now staring back out at the falling condensation droplets. “That’s what friends to, Morgana.”

“Yes. And that’s why most of my ‘friends’ are dead now.” She inhaled through her cigarette. “So,” she said after a long pause. “You spoke with Roxanne. Did she tell you everything you needed to know?”

“I think so.”

“No. She didn’t. I was listening.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“To gauge your response. But see, that’s what made me think of it.”

“What?”

“Roxanne. It’s her main flaw. She acts hard, but the truth is she’s more kind than she seems. She has scruples.”

“Neither of those are bad things.”

“Yes, they are. If someone gets on her bad side, she’ll tear them a new hole- -but if you're nice to her, she’s too nice back. She’ll never push hard enough, or she won’t push away people that are bad for her. It’s why she came back for me. She doesn’t understand what’s good for her.”

“Like you do, I suppose?”

Morgana looked at Twilight. “I’m old. Much older than you probably ever will be. I know how the world works. And I know that Roxanne was being far too soft on you.”

“We were just having a conversation,” protested Twilight. “She was helpful and explained a lot of things to me that I otherwise wouldn’t know. I don’t know why you’re saying all this unless…” She gasped. “…unless you’re jealous.”

Morgana sighed. “You can’t worry about being jealous with a girl like Roxanne. Why? Do you have eyes for her?”

“No,” said Twilight very quickly. “It’s just that- -”

“- -you’re trying to rationalize the world. To impose order on it. To understand my motivation.”

“Well, of course I am.” Twilight laughed. “You can’t really get very far without being able to understand the world around you! That’s science, and magic, and…well…I like things to be neat and orderly.”

“As do I. It’s why I became a detective in the first place. So I can give order to my perception of the world.” She paused. “It’s a very Twilight worldview, I guess.”

Twilight laughed. “I guess it is, kind of. But that makes sense, right? It’s like how Roxanne is kind of like the real Rainbow Dash inside. You’re like me.”

“And that is the crux of the problem, isn’t it?”

Twilight was confused. “What? I don’t understand.”

Morgana turned to her slowly and looked her in the eye. “You still think you’re the real Twilight Sparkle, don’t you?”

Twilight laughed again, this time somewhat nervously. Morgana did not laugh. Her expression remained stern and her gaze icy.

“No,” said Twilight. “I can see how this must be confusing to you, seeing as you’re from a world where everypony is a robot version of a real pony, but of course I’m the real Twilight Sparkle. I mean, who else would I be?”

“And now you’re deluding yourself.”

“I’m not deluding! I really am Twilight!”

“No. You’re denying the evidence that was already given to you. I had hoped that you would figure it out from the way Roxanne explained it to you, but either you already know and refuse to accept it or your mind just won’t let you.”

“You’re being ridiculous!” cried Twilight. She put a hoof to her chest. “Look at me! I’m a pony! I’m from Ponyville- -well, Canterlot originally- -and I come from a place where EVERYONE is a pony!”

“And you are made of flesh and blood? Not a machine?”

“Of course not!” Twilight groaned. “Look, Morgana. I don’t know how I got here, but I did. I don’t know, I must have jumped to a parallel reality or something. I don’t remember. But I really am a real pony.”

“Fine, then,” said Morgana. Twilight felt relieved for only a moment before Morgana continued. “We can do this in a way that will satisfy us both. Through reasoning and logic.”

“I do love both of those things. But I think I have you beat on this one.”

“I’m not busy. Are you?”

Twilight hesitated, and then shook her head. She did not know why she suddenly felt so afraid.

“Alright,” said Morgana. “Can you prove to me that you are a real pony?”

“Well,” Twilight thought for a moment. “I guess I could if we had a doctor…”

“We don’t. But here’s a question. What did you have for dinner?”

Twilight paused. “I didn’t eat dinner,” she said, remembering. “I…I guess I wasn’t hungry.”

“You haven’t eaten or drank anything since we met. Are you hungry or thirsty?”

“It’s been a stressful time,” protested Twilight.

“Take a deep breath.”

“I’m already calm, I don’t need- -”

“I don’t really care if you’re calm or not. Take a breath.” Twilight did so, but halfway through Morgana interrupted her. “Do you feel that? Do you actually feel your chest moving, or air going into your nose?”

“Of course I- -”

“Don’t just answer the question. Actually think about.”

Twilight did, and disturbingly she discovered that Morgana was somehow correct. She had been sure moments before that every breath she took was inflating her lungs, but now that she actually thought about it she realized that she was not actually so sure.

“We can look at this rationally,” said Morgana. “Roxanne already explained the basics to you. That original ponies issued from Hasbro have memories already installed in them. I don’t know why they did it. I guess it was to make us seem more realistic.”

“So?”

“So? How would you know that your memories are real and not artificial?”

Twilight frowned. “Because I remember them- -wait,” she paused. That was not a correct line of reasoning, and she knew it. “This is a branch of the evil genius argument.”

“Descartes. Yes. And here we have another example. You’re a learned individual, Twilight. Tell me: who was Descartes?”

“Rene Descartes was a French philosopher and mathmetician born in 1596, the father of the Rationalist movement of philosophy- -”

“Was he a pony?”

“No, of course not, he was a human man- -” Twilight suddenly cried out as though she had been stuck. “- -but- -but why do I know that?”

“That you have knowledge of human scientists, philosophers, and history? Why? Are those things that you would not have access to had you grown up in Equestria?”

“But humans- -there aren’t humans in Equestria, there never were- -but I- -”

“It’s a paradox, isn’t it. If you actually dwell on the subject you’ll find that you’re surprisingly well learned with regard to human literature, mathematics, and history. Because they thought it would be cute to make you brainy. The problem is, the real Twilight would never have access to that information.”

“That doesn’t mean anything! I could have- -I must have- -”

“Must have what? Think for a moment, Twilight.” Morgana raised her damaged arm. “You saw how I got this. You just so happen to wake up in a place where there are hundreds of robotic ponies all stored in boxes, then suddenly find yourself in a world where almost a sixteenth of the population is robotic ponies. Does that strike you as a coincidence?”

“It still could be. Coincidences do occur.”

“You’re more stubborn than I recall being. Fine. I don’t really have time for this anyway. Tell me. Have you looked at your cutie mark?”

Twilight nearly sneered. “I think I’m a little old for cutie mark gazing, don’t you think?”

“Just look.”

“But- -”

“LOOK.”

Twilight frowned. “Fine. You don’t need to be so angry about it.” She turned her head toward her cutie mark. “See? It looks fine to me. One big star over another, and then five little…” She trailed off when she saw something unusual. Her cutie mark was indeed normal, but there was something strange around it: a thin black line, only on her left side.

Twilight leaned in closer and felt the line. Her skin was even, but she could still feel it. Then suddenly Morgana reached out and pressed hard against the encircled area.

“Hey! Don’t touch my- -”

There was a click, and Twilight felt something move. She looked down at her rear and any breath she might have had caught in her throat. Her whole body seemed to freeze in horror as she saw that her skin was no longer even. A grotesque hole had opened, and a piece of her rump had folded back as if it were on a hinge.

Twilight tried to scream at the sight of the injury, but all that came out was a whimper. She stared dumbfounded and watched as her own shaking front hoof moved toward the hole. When she tapped the edge, she found that the part of her that had folded away was not skin or flesh but some kind of plastic over which her skin and soft tissue had been placed.

When she touched the plate, Twilight watched as it opened to reveal a shallow recessed hole. The inner lining was made of metal and perforated with numerous ports of various size and shape.

“No…no,” she said. “What…what did you do?”

“Those are your interface ports,” said Morgana. She lifted her hair with her hoof, revealing an extremely long set of wide metal implants that stretched over most of her cervical vertebrae. There were small round ports, but also six long metallic tendrils that stayed close against her flesh and ran up into her mane. “Mine are here, but the original models had them in a panel.”

“Close it.”

“Just shut it and press. It will- -”

“SHUT IT SHUT IT NOW!” screamed Twilight, her voice rising

Morgana looked at her, and then closed the plate. It shut with a click.

“What- -what was that? What did you do to me?!”

“What did I do to you? You’ve been with me the whole time, I never- -”

Twilight backed away. “You did something to me! Some sort of- -some sort of cybernetic modification! That has to be it! You replaced my leg while I was sleeping!”

“Sleeping?”

“I’m NOT. A MACHINE.” Twilight was shaking and crying, although no tears could fall from her eyes. “I’m Twilight Sparkle! I’M TWILIGHT SPARKLE!”

“There are over forty million Twilight Sparkles.”

“But I’m not one of them! I mean- -I mean I’m the real one! I have a home, in a library! I- -I have friends! They’re waiting for me, back in Ponyville! They- -they must be worried and…and…”

Morgana looked Twilight in the eye, and then turned away. One of her pupils narrowed and the fog in front of her shimmered with violet light. The hologram formed quickly, and in the mist its form was far sharper and clearer than it would have been in clean and empty air. Twilight stared at a representation of a pony standing before her- -a representation of herself.

“This is me,” said Morgana. “My body. What it looks like without the bullet holes or spliced leg.”

“No,” Twilight shook her head. “No no no…I’m not like you. I’m not a machine…”

“And this is what I look like without my skin.” The hologram changed, and Twilight suddenly cried out, weeping softly. The pony that appeared before her was no longer a pony at all. It appeared as though the flesh and hair had been stripped from it and the muscle exposed, except that the muscle was not pink and alive but instead consisted of thick ropes of a black substance bound onto a metal frame by neat connectors. The face stared back with eyes that seemed too large for the face; they had been meant to be adorable, but staring from a carved metal skull they seemed perverse and horrible. Twilight could see the exposed teeth in the representation’s mouth. The front ones were flat, like those of a pony, but the rear were needle-sharp. Morgana noticed Twilight watching and she opened her mouth, revealing that her rear teeth were in fact like those of a carnivore- -and that she had no tongue.

“You don’t look quite like that,” said Morgana. “Most don’t. Your parts are rigid, built into a frame and coated with plastic plating. Your surface is a combination of silicone gel and nylon fuzz. I can show you if you- -”

“NO!” Twilight jumped forward, striking at the hologram. She tried to dispel it, but it did not move. Her hooves passed through it, grabbing only mist. The face of the representation stared at her accusingly. “Don’t show me this! I don’t want to see this!”

The hologram faded as Morgana closed it. Twilight fell to her knees. “I’m showing you what you need to see.”

“But why?” wept Twilight. “Roxanne…Roxanne said that you could remember. That you could remember Ponyville too.”

“The memories that the humans forced me to have. Yes. I still have them.”

Twilight looked up, her eyes wide and quivering. “Then why would you want to do this to me? Why do you want to take away everything that matters to me?”

Morgana stared down at her. “Because you can’t spend your life chasing a word that doesn’t exist. Do you want to be Twilight Sparkle forever, or do you want to have a name of your own?”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “I AM Twilight Sparkle,” she whispered. Slowly, she stood. Her whole body was shaking. “And I don’t care what you say. I know who I am, and I know what matters to me. I don’t know what’s wrong with my leg. I can’t explain it. But I promise you: I am going to get back to Ponyville. I am going to see my friends again. And there is nothing you can do to stop me.”

Twilight turned sharply and with some effort crawled back under the door and into the light and comparative warmth of Roxanne’s dusty warehouse. Morgana watched her go. After a few seconds, she lit a cigarette and returned to staring into the fog.

Part II, Chapter 13

The train barely slowed as the tracks shifted. Although its speed did not change, the angle of the cars did, adjusting as they rose until the track became vertical. Then, instead of moving forward, the train began to move upward. Within seconds it had entered a tunnel and what little light came from the lamps placed along its track vanished into darkness.

The cars- -or platforms, as they were more correctly thought of- -were not large. Peak season and hours had passed some time ago, and Morgana had managed to secure one of the small rooms for herself and her group. Twilight had come with her, but now stood in a corner as she pretended to look out the window. Occasionally Morgana would catch her looking back, but it was apparent that she was keeping as much distance between the two of them as was physically possible.

Forth and Elrod had been standing together, but as the train went into darkness Elrod approached Morgana. He had not changed his clothes, but he was now wearing an operator mask. This one was different from the one he had used before; it was more angular and a blue stripe had been painted down the front of it.

“I don’t like this,” he said. “Do I really have to wear this?”

“Unless you can figure out some way to change your face, yes,” replied Morgana.

Lynette looked up at Elrod. “Admittedly it is not dashing,” she said, “but for once Morgana is correct. You should in fact consider yourself lucky.”

“Lucky?”

Lynnette nodded. “Indeed. Almost all of our investigative procedures are designed to track individuals with some level of cybernetic augmentation. Since you apparently do not, there is almost no way for us to track you.”

“Unless they had a mole in the system,” noted Morgana.

“Moles are not fashionable at all, darling. And if you are referring to me, I find it insulting.”

“That I don’t trust you? That’s not new, O’Toole.”

“No. That you assume I am so incompetent that I would not have had you eliminated by now.”

“That’s not reassuring,” said Elrod.

“I find it reassuring!” called Forth from the far side of the car.

Lynnette sighed. “To be honest, this whole situation actually turned greatly in your favor. A purely unenhanced individual teamed with a technomancer in a city with nearly a billion residents. We just do not have the ability to track you. Any of you.” She looked at Morgana. “Hexel is not a fool. Few individuals understand Aetna-Cross like he does.”

“He’d probably be commander by now if he wasn’t trying to hide the kickbacks he gets from gangsters and saboteurs. Yeah. I know.”

“You’re hardly one to talk,” snapped Lynnette. “Regardless, Aetna-Cross’s strategy was to strike quickly and neutralize you before you managed to escape. Hence why they poured all of their resources into the first attack. Hexel knew that surprise was their only advantage, and you now owe him your life.”

“Have him put it on my tab. Or I’ll take a mark off his.” Morgana lit a cigarette. “By the way, how is Hexel?”

Lynnette’s gaze sharpened. “I haven’t the foggiest what you mean, darling.”

“You went to find him, didn’t you?”

Lynnette paused, and then relented. “Yes. I visited his apartment.”

“And did you finally managed to get him in bed?”

“Don’t be vulgar! The situation is serious. More serious than you realize.”

Morgana’s eyes narrowed and her tone changed as she spoke, becoming softer and more concerned. “What did you find?”

“Nothing. Exactly nothing.”

“Goddamn it, O’Toole, that isn’t helpful.”

“It’s what I saw. I sent a microdrone. Everything was just as he customarily leaves it. Except neither he nor his wife were there.”

“Wife? He actually went and married that kid?”

“She’s hardly a ‘kid’. And you should at least know that about him.”

“I wasn’t exactly invited to the wedding.” Morgana sighed. “But I do know that Jillian Applebloom is from a rich family. She has a summer house up in Vermont. That’s probably where they went until things cool off.”

“Except that their suitcases were still in their closets and Hexel’s personal auto was still parked in the complex garage. Not only that. As I said. Nothing was picked up. To an extreme degree.”

Morgana paused. “What do you mean?”

“It’s as if they were just there for one moment and then suddenly vanished. To the point where there are apple fritters on the table, prepared and ready to be eaten- -but cold and whole. And his door was unlocked and ajar.”

Morgana swore under her breath. “I don’t like this. It’s sounding more and more like Aetna-Cross got to him.”

Lynnette shook her head. “No. I would have heard of something like that. And then of course there were the sentries watching his apartment.”

“I like that even less.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s less explicable. That would have to mean he either got out of there faster than he has ever moved on anything before…”

“Or he was taken.”

Morgana looked at Lynnette. “Is there any evidence of that?”

“There is no sign of a struggle. So no. But there was one anomaly.”

“What kind of anomaly.”

“Blood. There was blood. Not much, mind you; it was almost inconsequential. Even I barely noticed it. A single, tiny drop.”

“Whose?”

“I could hardly run it through our database, considering that I am currently functioning in a rather off-the-books manner.”

“So you didn’t run it.”

“There was no need to. It was not human.”

Morgana raised an eyebrow. “Not human?”

“Preliminary analysis of the genome suggests it is probably not even mammalian.”

“Then what is it?”

“I do not know. If my internal database or online readers cannot identify it, there is not much I can do.”

Elrod turned to them. “Genetics? Can I see the file?”

Lynnette looked up at him. “Why?”

“He’s a geneticist.”

“Of course you are.” Lynnette lifted a hoof and a representation of the file appeared before her. She passed it to Morgana, who accepted it. “You can look, but I don’t much see a point in it. It is neither human nor zooneus, meaning that they played no role in Hexel’s disappearance.”

“It’s still something out of place. It might be the only clue we have at this point.”

“Indeed. Today is a strange day, if only in how much we agree on various things.”

“Did you make any progress on figuring out who exactly issued my euthanasia order?”

“No. None of our precincts would have that information. I need to go to Corporate directly. I’m on a train to Hartford right now, actually. I have a few contacts there who I can inquire with without raising suspicion.”

“Wait. You’re not back at base?”

“Darling, certainly you don’t expect me to stay in that dreadful space, do you?”

“You left Roxanne alone!”

“Let’s be honest, darling, if you stop and actually think I believe you would find that neither you nor her would like for her to be left alone with me in the first place. Besides, I have sent some company to her. The Jewish girl.”

“Jewish?”

“Yes. The centaur.”

Morgana took a step forward angrily. “Fuck! You’re dragging Valla into this too, now? What the hell, Lynnette, I’m trying to lay low, not get everyone who has any meaning to me killed!”

“The fact that she has some modicum of meaning to you is exactly why I sent for her! Right now, the people you know are the only ones that Aetna-Cross has leads on, and they’ve already begun to pressure your centaur friend.”

“Fuck…how bad?”

“Only slightly for now. But Fredrik Zawaski is currently the commanding officer on this case. You may not know him, but I do. When he gets more desperate, he will come for your friend. And he will force all the information he wants out of her- -or kill her in his attempt.”

“Fuck!” cried Morgana . “Valla doesn’t even know anything!”

“If she did not know anything I would not have bothered,” sighed Lynnette. “It hardly matters to me if she dies. One more piece of surplus population removed. And don’t argue with me on that, darling, I know your feelings on the human race. The difficulty is that Ms. Goldberg does in fact know where your so-called ‘base’ is located.”

“Crap…because Roxanne told her.”

“So it seems. So I can either take her into hiding or risk my entire effort to slightly prolong your depressing life a little being all for naught.”

“Damn it…” Morgana took a long drag on her cigarette. “This is getting out of hand.”

“You honestly should have expected it. This is neither a joke nor a game. You and everyone you know are in grave danger, myself included, regrettably. Which is why I hope you have a very good reason why you are taking such an impressive risk to meet this…contact.”

“Because at this point I’m just taking shots in the dark.”

“How comforting.”

“What? Would you rather have me sit down there in that warehouse and do nothing? You’re a good detective, O’Toole, but not compared to me. I need to do this my way.”

Lynnette laughed and walked toward the front of the train car. “And now you give me of all ponies a compliment? Even a half-arsed one…my, today is indeed a strange day.” She paused and looked over her shoulder. “You have my thread. Pick it up if you need me. Until then, I have work to do.”

She walked forward again, this time into what appeared to be the wall of the train. Her body appeared to break up into smaller units as her representative image dissipated. She had terminated the transmission that she had been using to communicate.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” asked Elrod after a few moments.

It was an idiotic question that meant almost nothing, but Morgana still replied without hesitation. “No. It isn’t. But let me worry about that. Get on that bloodstain, and let me handle the detective work.”

“Get on the bloodstain she says…yeah, sure. Because we are all going to be one soon enough.”

“None of us have blood,” pointed out Forth.

The room fell silent, because although Forth’s statement was true, Morgana could not help but wonder if Elrod’s had been as well.

The exit from the train was underground, or what passed for underground. The station platform was immaculately clean, and the ceiling above spread out in wide modern-gothic arches. There were no benches or chairs; only the tile floor and the glimmering mosaics on the walls. These seemed to intrigue Elrod greatly; despite his inability to see color, he had never witnessed any sort of physical artwork, no matter how simple. It existed almost ubiquitously in the sea of digitally projected advertisements that Morgana was privy to but never really bothered to consider; to Elrod, however, that realm was entirely inaccessible and foreign.

“I think those are real gems,” he said.

“They’re synthetic,” said Morgana. “Don’t take any. Move. Over there.” She pointed toward a round tunnel that departed from the station and progressed upward. The few passengers that had ridden the train before were not taking that tunnel, and Morgana wanted to avoid unnecessary attention as long as possible.

Elrod looked toward the tunnel and Forth pushed him along. Morgana, however, fell back to where Twilight was walking while looking down at the tile passing below her hooves.

“Don’t lag behind,” warned Morgana as they fell into step.

“I don’t see why I have to be here,” snapped Twilight. “I should be back there, with Roxanne.”

“And not with me?”

“No. I don’t like you.”

“Well that’s not very friendly at all. Aren’t you supposed to be a student of friendship?”

Twilight glared at her. “You’re mocking me. I can’t believe this.”

“You’re here because like it or not you need to see what the world looks like.”

“I don’t know if I want to see your world. I don’t like it.”

“Well, tough.”

They entered the exit tunnel, and almost as soon as they did Morgana detected a presence near them- -exactly as she had expected.

“Forth! They’re here!”

“Who’s here?” asked Twilight and Elrod at the same time.

As they did, something large descended from the darkness above them and blocked their path. Elrod turned and cried out when he saw the looming monstrosity standing before him, and Twilight screamed. The creature, although mechanical, had been wrought in a way that made it seem nearly organic. It walked on four pairs of thin but massive legs, and held a number of arms attached to the chest of something that nearly resembled a human torso. It had a long neck on which sat a head with a porcelain version of a human face. On its side it bore an insignia of a winged sword over a blood-red star.

The creature’s luminescent blue eyes turned toward the group.

“Identify yourself,” it demanded. Its primary voice was inhumanly deep, but followed by numerous higher and almost child-like echoes.

“Kill it!” cried Elrod. “Kill it KILL IT!”

“Shut UP!” cried Morgana. Elrod did so, and Morgana pushed past him toward the creature. Its eyes followed her.

“Identify yourself,” it repeated.

“Morgana Twilight Sparkle. Private detective.” She opened her coat to reveal her badge, and the creature looked at it before turning back to her.

“Records indicate that your license has been revoked. You are currently a wanted criminal by Aetna-Cross authority.”

“Is that a problem?”

The creature paused, thinking. “No.” It lowered its face to meet Morgana’s. “However. State your purpose.”

“I’m going to this address.” Morgana held up her hoof and a projection of the information appeared before her. “I have business with the man who lives there. The kind of business where everyone involved would appreciate as few questions as possible.”

The creature did not take its eyes off Morgana. “And the others?”

“My associates.”

The creature paused again, and then lifted its body off the ground and passed overhead of the group. “You are authorized,” it said as it passed. “We assume that you are familiar with our policies. Break them at the risk of the death of yourself and your party. We will keep tabs on your position at all times.”

“I know. I’ve read the terms and conditions. Completely.”

The creature did not respond. It vanished out of sight as it entered the train platform. Morgana watched it go, and as she did she noticed that Twilight was clutching Forth tightly and shaking.

“What- -what was that thing?!” she squeaked.

“Private security.”

“It was horrifying,” said Elrod.

“They’re supposed to be as intimidating as possible. Don’t worry. It’s not like it’s alive. Just a robot.”

“That’s not helpful.”

Morgana rolled her eyes and started walking up the ramp toward the light above. Twilight ran up beside her, clearly having difficulty with the slight incline.

“But you told it your real name! Now they can find you!”

“If I had told it any other name it would have killed me.”

“But now the other guys, the Aetna-Cross- -”

“Will be none the wiser.” Morgana gestured back toward the train station. The drone’s head was peering at them, supported from its long neck from behind the edge of the entryway. It was the only part of it that was visible, and it did not leave when they looked at it. “That’s how things work in this particular region. Aetna-Cross never comes this high up, not for enforcement. It’s bad for business.”

“Business?”

Morgana nodded. “The kind of people that live up here don’t like a strong police presence. Just think of that thing as an envoy of the local homeowner’s association.”

“I still don’t under…stand…”

They had come to the end of the tunnel, and Twilight’s eyes suddenly grew wide with confusion and awe as she saw the land around her. Morgana understood her feeling, although only in an academic sense. This place was far different from most places any normal person was familiar with in Bridgeport. Whereas almost all of the city was dark and rotting, this place was bright and green. Manicured trees stood on the sides of wide, smooth streets that curved upward into enormous artificial hills that had been planted with living greenery. Interspaced throughout the artificial forest were structures of ponderous size: houses, built in various fashions and by various architectural schools, sat amidst enormous green lawns and gardens sealed away by high and tasteful fences. Over all of it was a bright blue sky- -not the real sky of course, which was gray and perpetually cold, but one projected over the high and curving ceiling.

“Gah! Light!” cried Elrod.

“What…what is this place?” asked Twilight.

“Steel Point L31,” said Morgana. “Or as they call it, ‘Golden Meadows’. Welcome to the Upper Levels.”

Twilight and Elrod both looked around, the former in awe and the latter recoiling from the sight of it. Even Forth seemed intrigued, her eyes focusing on a nearby tree and her face covered with an expression of awe.

“Come on, Forth, this isn’t the first time you’ve seen trees.”

“No,” said Forth, quickly. “It’s just…”

“What?”

“They scare me.” She shook her head and then looked at Morgana. “I don’t like them. They’re too big, too uneven.”

“Really? How about the hedges?”

“Not the hedges either! I just don’t like plants. Not at all.”

“Well, you’re going to have to deal with it.” Morgana started walking down the ornate tile sidewalks that ran in the shade of the manicured ginkgo trees. “The trees aren’t really the main concern right now.”

“Why would we be concerned about anything?” asked Twilight. “Everything is so pretty here! And this is all artificial? I mean, that hill, the forest- -oh! Look at those flowers! They look delicious!”

Twilight ran toward an area where some clematis was blooming on the far side of a fence. She lifted her mouth to take a bite before Morgana suddenly pushed her out of the way.

“Hey!” cried Twilight. “Why’d you do that?!”

“One, equines don’t eat clematis, especially ligusticifolia, it’s toxic. Two, you don’t need to eat, you’re a machine.”

“I told you! I’m not a machine!”

“AND THREE, we’re only guests here! As in, I have the authority to be here and even that is a little bit dicey right now. Don’t. Touch. ANYTHING. Unless you to never be heard from again.” Morgana gestured to the beautiful scenery and luxurious houses. “Do you know how they get it so pretty? By keeping people like us OUT. So just follow my lead and do what I say and all of us are going to get out of here.”

Twilight looked both incredulous and slightly terrified, but she nodded. She also muttered to herself. “It’s a catesbyana anyway…”

Morgana continued up the road, this time both leading and making sure none of her “associates” did anything that would get them thrown out of one of one of the highest class - -and most lawless- -areas in all of Bridgeport. Fortunately, Twilight had begun sulking again and Elrod had largely fallen silent. Really, the only problem was Forth who rather than doing her job kept looking up at the trees as though she were suspicious of them.

Fortunately, there were not many people out. The day cycle for the district had just started, and almost all the inhabitants were either hard at work or sleeping in. Only a few were walking down the street. On the far side, Morgana was able to see a woman pushing a baby carriage; she was three meters tall, blond, and dressed in the absolute latest fashion- -meaning long, flowing, and absolutely transparent. Near her, a large van had pulled up to the sidewalk and several gardeners in perfectly clean uniforms were hard at work: two of them were porcs, the younger of whom was busy mowing the grass with a mechanical mower, and the remainder were muntjacks, who despite their tiny stature were in the process of assembling the stones for a raised flower bed. All of them wore operator masks, and the only one to speak as the woman passed them was the elder porc. He tipped his wide-brimmed hat and said hello, and the woman ignored him completely.

The road they needed to be on ran past the forest as it curved up the hill. To Morgana, it was quite obviously artificial. The trees had been assembled by computers in a way that was meant to make them appear random, and each had been discretely culled or trimmed to remove dead or unsightly parts. There was no underbrush, save for the type that could be considered pleasant to look at. Paths ran deep into it, and they were at the moment empty save for a group of joggers. In the darker parts of the forest, though, where the trees grew large on a diet of chemical nutrients and artificial sunlight, Morgana could feel the eyes watching her. The forest was where the neighborhood defense force waited.

Nearer to their destination, Morgana saw one of them walking on the opposite direction down the sidewalk. This one resembled a tall armored human, although it bore the same blank porcelain face as the others. Its robotic eyes turned slowly to the group and Twilight shrank away from it toward the trees, not realizing that so many more of its less pleasant looking brethren were waiting there as well.

Their goal was a house near the edge of the neighborhood on the second terrace of the central hill. It was extravagant and large, with a view out the rear end that had a spectacular- -although not the best- -view of a wide area next to an artificial reservoir lake. The house was surrounded by a high wrought-iron fence that was partially obscured by hedges. A large gate sat in the center.

“You actually know someone who lives here?” asked Elrod.

“That should not surprise you. And from here on in, try to talk as little as possible. That’s my job. He knows me, and he isn’t the kind of person any of you want to know especially well.”

Morgana approached the gate and pressed her hoof against a smooth black square beside it. The square illuminated and a clear voice spoke from nowhere in particular.

“Hello?” The voice was high and female, but had an unusual harshness to it. “How may I help you?”

“It’s me.”

There was a pause. “Of course it is. The master is not expecting guests at the moment. Especially not you.”

“Your point?”

There was an almost inaudible sign from the far side of the speaker. “I’m sending the outdoor-guards to meet you.”

A mechanical click came from somewhere inside the gate, and it began to retract silently. Morgana took her hoof off the panel and stepped through the opening before the door had even stopped moving.

The guards, as promised, arrived almost instantly. They were a pair of sobakans, both dressed in blue suits and both leaning with a heavily forward posture that indicated that they were likely used to moving on all fours. Each one of them held a rifle in their hairy claws.

Their canine noses began to sniff the air, and both of them growled instinctively as Morgana entered. Their gold-colored cybernetic eyes scanned the group rapidly, and one of the sobakans gestured with his rifle toward Forth.

“Not her,” he said, his voice only barely intelligible. “She needs to stay outside. No weapons like her.”

“But I’m not even loaded.”

“Does not matter. Stay!”

Morgana looked over her shoulder. “Go down to the ammo shop in the commercial district. It’s mostly hunting stuff but it’ll work.”

Forth looked at Morgana and then nodded. She backed out of the gate and stood behind it as it closed, looking somewhat pitiful.

One of the sobakans gestured the other way. “This way. To house.”

They started walking, with the two guards leading the way up the long and curving driveway. It was lined on either side with extensive lawns and exotic trees, and as well as some gardens that were far too gauche to be in any traditional style. Morgana also noticed several peafowl wandering the property, and she could hear their cries from the exotic but mismatched trees overhead.

The design of the plantings was not all she noticed, though. Morgana was acutely aware that she was being watched, and of the fact that it was not the eyes of machines this time. Several snipers had taken aim at her. Some were sobakan, but a casual glance indicated at least two humans in wait on one of the towers of the house.

Elrod and Twilight were oblivious to this, of course. Elrod was mostly concerned with avoiding the peafowl- -he apparently found them frightening- -while Twilight just walked on in amazement. Then, without warning, Twilight passed from the back of the group up to where the sobakans were marching.

“Hello,” she said. “My name is Twilight. I’ve never met creatures like you before. Have you been working here long?”

The older of the two sobakans looked at Twilight and then growled before turning away. The younger, however, replied without taking his eyes off the path. “Not long. New litter. Just made. Underestimating us would be poor idea.”

“And uncivil,” said the other, snarling at his companion for having talked. “Uncivil is bad. The master does not like being uncivil. Let that be a warning, if you are to see him.”

“Master is great man,” said the younger. “Strong man. Great man. We serve him. Love him. Would die for him.”

“As is demanded of us.”

“Using zoonei as guards is a little strange, though,” said Morgana. “Last time I was here, humans were doing your job.”

“Humans did bad job. They are gone now.”

“And what do the neighbors think about you being here?”

“Neighbors can fuck selves.”

Twilight seemed taken aback by this revelation, but to Morgana it was more or less mundane. These individuals were not nice people; not only that, but they had been bred specifically for this task and raised since puppyhood to serve their ‘master’. Had any member of the group been made of meat instead of machinery or starch, they would have been equally glad to devour him alive rather than lead him to the door had that been their instructions.

When they approached the door, the sobokans both stopped at a bright yellow line that had been painted over the pavement. Twilight stepped over it and looked back at them.

“You’re not coming?”

The older of them shook his head. “No. We are outdoor. Not allowed inside, or near inside. Master says it makes bad smell. Not unless emergency.”

“Don’t make an emergency,” warned the other.

Morgana did not acknowledge them because she saw no need to. She instead approached the large and ornately carved antique oak door of the house. It opened before she could reach it. A Scootaloo unit wearing makeup and an extremely short skirt was standing just on the other side, and she did not seem amused to be there.

“Scootaloo?” said Twilight, confused.

“Yes. I am,” she said. Her voice was that of every Scootaloo, but had a certain harshness to it that Morgana had come to expect from members of this particular organization. The Scootaloo gestured at her right shoulder, which was tattooed with a number. “137,” she said. She looked up at Morgana. “I have talked to the master, and he’s willing to have a meeting. But not a long one. He’s very busy.”

“That’s not encouraging,” said Morgana, stepping into the entry hall of the mansion. It was an enormous room with enough volume to house an entire resblock of eighty people, and yet none of it was habitable space. It consisted of a long tile floor that led to two stereotypical twin staircases to the mezzanine and upper floors. Several statues had been placed through the center, and artwork hung on the walls. Morgana sighed as Twilight caught sight of the artwork and began to blush. All of it was erotic.

“Those- -those paintings!”

“Are by a number of respected artists and have a net value of…well, a lot more than any of us are worth.” 137 started walking briskly toward one of the first-floor doors. “This way please.”

Twilight followed her, shielding her eyes with one hoof to avoid seeing the preponderance of nudity rendered in oil paint all around them. The only painting that gave her pause was Morgana’s least favorite: it showed a Twilight unit in repose, although her skin had been removed from the chest down to reveal an exceedingly detailed internal architecture.

“Oh wow,” said Twilight, clearly a bit disturbed. “Is that what you look like underneath?”

“Not even close,” said Morgana.

“Should I just leave you in the front gallery, then?” asked 137. “This isn’t a museum. These are private works. Please keep moving and don’t waste the master’s time if you value your legs and eyes being attached to your body.”

“I value my legs,” said Elrod.

137 looked up at him. “Who even are you?”

“I am Elrod.”

“And I do not care. And I don’t think the master will think you’re very amusing.”

“Do you treat all your guests this way?” asked Morgana.

“No, of course not. I wouldn’t have a job if I did. Just you.”

“And if I report your rudeness to your ‘master’?”

“He would find it funny. My job is not to help you, miss. It is to make sure my master’s schedule runs quickly and efficiently. As you know, he is a very busy man.”

The began walking, with 137 leading the way. This gave Morgana a clear view of her rear, which was not something that she was particularly interested in but something that she could not help but observe. 137’s skirt and short tail hid almost nothing, and the fishnet stockings she wore only served to accentuate her exposed rear.

Twilight seemed barely able to comprehend how a little filly could be wearing something so small and lacy. “Scootaloo,” she started.

“137. That’s my number. Trust me, names have little meaning here.”

“Oh…okay…but why are you wearing…those clothes. I can see…you know…”

“My vagina. Yes. You’re supposed to, that’s how I assembled the outfit.”

Twilight blushed heavily. “But if you know, then why- -”

“Because the master prefers it. To be honest, I do as well.”

“But- -you’re just a little filly, I don’t- -”

“I’m more interested in why you bother to take this job at all,” interrupted Morgana. “Assistant butler? Really?”

“You can laugh if you want, but you know exactly why I’m here.”

“Why?” asked Elrod.

“There aren’t a lot of jobs for filly units. This is one of the best a Scootaloo can get. We all do this. If we spend a few years in the house, it’s a fast-track straight into the organization. You have to take the opportunities you can get, I guess.”

“But…a filly…” muttered Twilight.

“She’s a machine,” said Morgana. “Come on. This shouldn’t bother you that much.”

“It know. I know, but…Scootaloo. I just can’t…”

Twilight shook her head and tried to avoid looking at 137. 137 did not seem to mind especially much, dismissing Twilight’s behavior as that of another unwanted eccentric in association with one of her least favorite individuals.

137 led them through the main corridors of the house and to a door. She was far too small to reach the handle, but instead opened the door remotely after knocking briskly. As it opened, she stepped aside and gestured for Morgana to enter.

“The master will see you now.”

Morgana entered the room and immediately was faced with a man sitting in the center, essentially covered in a pile of Scootaloos. There must have been at least thirty of them, or perhaps more. The majority of them were, like number 137, wearing various kinds of suggestive costumes and makeup. A few were not, though; the man was holding and petting a nude one as though she were a cat.

“Morgana!” He spread his arms enthusiastically and smiled. As he did, he stood up. The Scootaloos jumped off of him or moved out of his way with practiced precision, their little wings buzzing uselessly as they did so. One remained balanced on his shoulder.

The man was tall, but not as tall as the genetically upgraded humans that tended to dwell in upper-class regions. His face was perfectly chiseled in a way that was meant to appear handsome in a nearly abstract sense: his features were harsh and almost hyberbolic, and his otherwise perfect face was covered with a number of symmetrical surgical scars. These scars continued down most of his body, which was visible through the velvet robe he wore. Apart from his face, several things on him did not match entirely; his arms, though tanned, had different colors, and one of his hands was far more pale than the other. His glaring eyes were two different shades of brown. They had no doubt come from two different people.

He looked at Morgana and put his hand to his square chin, pretending to be in deep thought as his eyes narrowed. “There’s something different about you. No wings.”

“I’m going for a more sleek design.”

“You shouldn’t. It looks terrible.” He turned his attention to Twilight and smiled broadly. The scars at the edge of his mouth made his smile seem unnaturally large, and Twilight gasped. “Well well!” he said. “Morgana, who is this? You didn’t tell me you had a daughter! The spitting image, I think.” He turned back to Morgana. “So what is this? Are you showing her the ropes?”

He did not give Morgan a chance to answer. His eyes turned to Elrod and his look of potentially feigned cheer immediately faded. What had moments before been an expression of joviality and abandon suddenly hardened into something much more sinister. “And who the bloody hell are you? Take that damn thing off!”

“But- -”

“Ut ut ut! I’ll only give you this warning ONCE. The only ‘butts’ here are those on my cute little Scootaloos!” He reached under the skirt of the Scootaloo on his shoulder and gave her a pinch. She squeaked and giggled.

“Oh master!” she said, pawing at the side of his face with one hoof. “There’s company!”

The man smiled, but any joy that was in it faded when he turned back to Elrod. “Now. I don’t repeat myself. When I say to do something, you do it. So…?”

Elrod reached up and immediately reached to his face and with some difficulty due to his panic removed the mask. The man stared at him hard for a moment and then cried out, recoiling and holding the Scootaloo on his shoulder out in front of him like a shield. “Ugh! Put it back on! Jesus, that’s a mug! Morgana, you actually brought that…thing!...into my house?”

“There’s a reason I put the mask on him.”

The man laughed. He was suddenly cheerful again. “I should have seen that one coming!” He set down the Scootaloo he was holding and walked past Morgana and out the door to the room. The Scootaloo’s scattered, with many exiting the room and a small contingent following the man.

“So!” he said. “What’s your name, ugly man and passable pony?”

“Elrod,” said Elrod.

“Horrible name.” The man shook his head. “And you, Morgana’s daughter?”

“I’m not actually her daughter,” said Twilight. “I’m just Twilight. Or Twilight Sparkle if you like that better. I’m pleased to meet you. What’s your name?”

The man stopped walking and seemed to suddenly be deep in thought, as if he could not fully recall his identity. Then he shrugged. “Some people call me Maurice.” He started walking again. “It’s good to see you have some amount of manners, though. That’s a positive sign. Although, Morgana, next time clear it with me if you’re taking in interns. We deal with a lot of sensitive topics here, very important business and all that.”

“I didn’t actually have a choice. My situation is pretty bad right now.”

“Yes, yes. I am aware of that. You’ve become something of a persona non grata at the moment.”

Maurice turned suddenly and entered a large room. It resembled a long hall with a high arched roof. One side had windows that overlooked the impressive view over the forest and lower houses below. Comfortable furniture had been placed throughout it.

“Sit down if you like,” said Maurice, pointing. “If you want drinks, I can send for some.” He snapped his fingers and a Scootaloo quickly ran to him. She had a silver tray balanced on her back, and on it was perched a bottle of absurdly expensive vodka and a small glass of ice. “Aww,” he said, bending down to pick up the bottle and pour himself a glass. “Thank you, 219.”

“Your very welcome master!” She blushed and giggled girlishly.

Maurice motioned for her to depart and she did so. He took a sip from the glass. “Ah,” he said. “The nerves in my new tongue aren’t back yet, so I can barely taste this. It’s probably still amazing, though. Are you sure you don’t want some?”

Elrod shook his head vehemently, and Morgana realized to her mild amusement that the reason he must have hated vodka so much was probably due to the fact that it was stereotypically made from potatoes.

“No thank you,” said Twilight.

“You don’t have anything I like.”

Maurice laughed. “No, I don’t keep cheap scotch. Come now, I have to maintain some appearance of class.”

He crossed the room toward the far side, where two individuals were waiting for him. One was a large human man with a substantial scar across his face, and the other was a Scootaloo with thin-rimmed glasses and a black business suit. Between them was something covered in a blanket.

“Ah! Exactly as I requested! Cilia, you never disappoint!”

Cilia, the Scootaloo, bowed. “I aim to please.”

Maurice looked over his shoulder and gave a toothy grin to Morgana. “I do apologize, but you did catch me at a bad time. Do you mind if I finish up? Just some horribly dull business duties and all.”

Morgana nodded and took a seat. Elrod stayed back and turned toward the window, either admiring the view or working on the genetics analysis he had been assigned. Twilight, however, looked confused.

Maurice gestured with his hand and the thuggish human removed the cloth before him. Twilight gasped when she saw what was beneath it: a thin human woman had been tied to a chair. She was gagged, and appeared to have been beaten quite thoroughly before being brought out.

A low chuckle came from Maurice as the girl’s eyes went wide. Maurice then removed the gag that was sealing the girl’s mouth. She immediately started to scream, but no sound came out apart from a low hiss. This, in turn, surprised the girl as well as appearing to cause her pain, and she seemed to freeze in panic.

Twilight gasped. “What happened to her voice?”

“Ah! You like it?” Maurice turned on his heels toward Twilight, his mismatched eyes twinkling. “You see, back when I was a little girl down in Steel Point L8, my father was a submanager of the canine packing division. One day he took me on a trip to see how they were raised. One thing that always struck me was the debarking. And, as it turns out, it works on humans too!”

He turned again toward the girl and laughed. Her mouth moved as though she were trying to speak, but the sounds that came out did not sound like words at all- -just quiet terrified whispers.

By this time a crowd of Scootaloos had gathered around and were watching intently. One of them pushed over a wheeled stand, the sort that might be used to hold a surgeons tools during an operation. On it sat several scalpels and a large brown glass bottle.

“Hmm…” Maurice raised his hand and held it next to her face. “A shame. Your skin color is way off. It would never match what I already have.”

Enraged, the girl suddenly turned and bit down hard on Maurice’s pinkie finger. A loud crack filled the air, and several Scootaloos gasped. Maurice, however, remained relatively impassive if not mildly amused as he pulled his hand away to see that his finger had almost entirely been severed at the middle joint.

“Huh,” he said, grabbing the digit and tearing it off entirely. “Cilia, make a note. Have her hands removed. I’ll be needing a new finger.”

“Both, sir?”

“Of course, both! I need symmetry, now don’t I?”

“Of course, sir. I just wanted to confirm.”

“Diligence,” said Maurice. He picked up the brown bottle from the small cart, the girl’s eyes watching him the whole time. “That is why you’re here, Cilia. Let that be a lesson to all of you!” he gestured toward the Scootaloos before his finger slowly turned to Twilight. “Even you, Ms. Sparkle.”

He held the bottle a distance from his face and cracked it open. A small plume of vapor immediately started emanating into the air.

“What…what is that?” asked Twilight, her body suddenly shaking in the realization that something very bad was about to happen.

“Concentrated sulfuric acid, darling. Oops.” He turned the bottle and splashed it on the sitting girl’s face. She closed her eyes, but it was already too late. She screamed silently, even though the pain of the chemical had not yet set in. As she did, Maurice poured the liquid into her mouth.

“Such a shame,” he said, calmly. “But what can I do? Business is business.” He set the bottle down and pointed at Cilia. “Right. I also want her legs broken. Upper, lower, and knees. But nowhere near me!” He shuddered. “I just hate the sound! Then wrap her up and take her back to her father. Let him know that I did it personally, and that this is what happens when someone takes out a loan from me without thought of ever having to actually pay it back.”

“What timeline do you want to give him?”

Maurice thought for a moment. “A month. That should be enough. And if he doesn’t have my money by then…” he bent down near the girl who was now writhing in agony as her flesh dissolved. “…then we find this one again. And next time I think something with gasoline should be fun.” Then, of all things, he giggled.

Cilia nodded and tapped her hoof on the tile below. The thuggish man grabbed the thrashing woman’s chair and began to wheel her out with Cilia beside him. Maurice turned around and gave a deep bow, and the Scootaloos around him smiled and clapped quietly.

Morgana could not help but look at Twilight. To her credit, Twilight had managed not to scream, but her eyes were wide with horror and her whole body shaking. She did not seem to know how to process what she had just seen. Then, as it slowly dawned on her, her face contorted and she turned around, weeping and retching onto the ground.

“Oh dear,” said Maurice, suppressing his laughter. “Someone isn’t a fan!” He walked over and knelt down by Twilight she turned around and tried to back away, but he took hold of her shoulder. Blood from his severed finger ran down Twilight’s neck as he lifted her chin with his other hand.

“Now now,” he said. “It’s not as gruesome as it seems. I’m a pleasant guy. But I’m also a businessman. And sometimes in this particular business you need to do things to make sure YOU ARE GODDAMN IN CHARGE!” He screamed loudly, his tone suddenly changing to one of uncontrolled fury. Twilight recoiled and started crying, and Maurice stood. He stormed over to the acid and his severed finger. He looked at it and his eyes narrowed. “This isn’t wrong!” he raged. “Not on my part- -but on his part? THAT is wrong! I LOVE! I love everything! I give so much love, to this organization, and to the people in it! I extended his deadline! I was nice!” His anger suddenly vanished, and he sighed. “And then he goes and takes advantage of my love. It just breaks my hearts.”

Several of the Scootaloos quickly ran over to comfort him, and he knelt down and hugged them.

“It’s okay, master!”

“He was a jerk anyway!”

“And so was she!”

“You did the right thing!”

“You probably didn’t even go far enough!”

Maurice sighed, and then stood up. The Scootaloos dispersed, returning to their various tasks. Maurice then clapped his hands together and smiled, having instantly returned to his jovial nature.

“Now,” he said. “Let’s get to whatever it was you wanted to talk to me about.”

He crossed past Morgana and took a seat on a low couch across from her, crossing his legs as he did so. Several Scootaloos jumped onto it as well and nestled themselves against him, snuggling as closely as they could.

“I need information,” said Maurice.

“Of course you do. The question is, do I want to give it to you?”

Morgana’s eyes narrowed. “We have a deal.”

“We HAD a deal. That I provide you with information, and that in exchange any time your cases lead to me, you steer them in the opposite direction. You’ve even done a few jobs for me.” His smile faded. “And my competitors.”

“But I always honored the deal.”

Maurice leaned forward. “But the deal is moot now, isn’t it? You see, you’re not exactly a private detective anymore. You’re a fugitive. And if I’m not mistaken your license has been revoked.” He landed back. “So what good are you to me?”

“You son of a bitch.”

The Scootaloos’ respective eyes all went wide, but Maurice surprised them by laughing. “So full of fire! Spice! I like that! It’s been too long since there were people that could talk to me like that. Now their either my enemies…or dead.”

“Treat others how you want to be treated,” said Morgana, shrugging. “It would bother me to no end if the whole world tried to treat me with kid gloves on.”

“Exactly!” cried Maurice, pointing at her. “That’s exactly it! And it’s the problem with being the boss! You just don’t get time to spend with people outside the hierarchy!”

“That said, if this is just an idle conversation then I think I really should be going. Both of our time is being wasted.”

Maurice’s expression became dark. “I’m not finished.”

“Then are you going to help me?”

“Yes. I am. And do you know why?”

“Enlighten me.”

“Because you remembered my birthday.”

Twilight looked at him, suddenly surprised by the turn of the conversation. “What?”

“You sent me a card, Morgana. You always do. Every year, right on time. You don’t have to! You’re not part of my organization, it’s not obligatory- -but you know how important my birthday is to me, and you always send a card.”

“Five hundred and eighty third,” said Morgana. “That’s a big year. Getting close to the big six.”

“See! That’s exactly what I mean. Most people, they fear me. Some respect my authority. Both of those are okay. But that? That’s love. Treating me as a person, and not just as the boss. And that’s why I’m’ going to help you.”

One of the Scootaloos looked up at him. “But I remembered your birthday!”

The sound of a slap echoed through the room. The Scootaloo was knocked back, and her eyes began to quiver as she put her hoof to her face.

“Daddy is talking right now,” hissed Maurice. “Don’t interrupt!”

“But…but daddy…”

Maurice’s expression softened, and he hugged the filly. “I hurt you because I love you, 336,” he said. “I want you to grow up to be strong and effective, like Cilia.” He set her on the floor. “Now go down to the kitchen and help with dinner. And think about what you did wrong, and what you can do to…make it better.”

The Scootaloo wiped her eyes and smiled, and then trotted away.

“Now,” said Maurice. “We were at the part where you ask me questions, and I answer them. I can guess what this is about, though.”

“Natural-born humans,” said Morgana. “Would you happen to know about their disappearance?”

Maurice looked somewhat stunned, and then suddenly laughed. “Well!” he said. “That was NOT what I was expecting! Not at all!” He snapped his fingers and a Scootaloo brought him more vodka. “Goddamn, Morgana! You’re working a case in the middle of all this?”

“The case relates to my current predicament, yes. And trust me. We’ll get to that.”

“Well, then this should be an amusing conversation. The answer is yes, though. I do.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that I killed them? No. Of course not. I actually have…had…a large number working for me.”

“How many?”

Maurice wagged his fingers. “I don’t give away company secrets. Not about my own company, anyway.”

“A lot or a few?”

“A lot. More than you would expect.” Maurice sighed. “Which is a shame, really. Natural humans are worth their weight in gold, especially for use as runners.”

“Because they can’t be hacked or traced by traditional methods.”

“That is part of it, yes. Information I give them stays with them unless somebody really, really wants it. But it’s more than that. It’s just not feasible to ensure loyalty in anyone else.”

Morgana raised an eyebrow. “Is loyalty a problem for you?”

“Not generally, no. But that’s not what I mean. I mean in terms of running information critical to my operation. Kids born in factories can’t be trusted for that. The companies leave stuff in their genetics. Kill switches, modulators, things you can’t even imagine. The right chemical or signal and suddenly all their beans come tumbling out.”

“You’re talking about mind control.”

“It’s not as ridiculous as it seems. Most of them? They’re born almost as adults. They come out knowing how to speak, read, write, do math- -with what in my great grandfather’s day used to be called a ‘college degree’. Who knows what else the Corporations program into them?” Maurice shook his head. “No. I can’t trust them for that. Have to go with naturals when I can get them. Which is now almost impossible.”

Elrod turned away from the window. “Are you a natural human?”

Maurice burst out in laughter. “Me? Maybe at one point, but now? Hell no! Although I think my kidney and this leg both came from one.” He tapped his left leg. “That’s the funny thing. Sometimes we find them. Not often, but sometimes, and, well…”

“They’re missing the head.”

Maurice nodded. “So you already know that part.”

“Any idea who’s doing it?”

“If I knew, I’d have his eyes by now. No. I assumed it was my competitors at first, but they tell me the same thing is happening to their runners too. And Bridgeport has been pretty stable for the past half-century. I’m not about to start a turf war without hard evidence.”

“In my opinion? It’s not the other bosses. Or any corporation.”

Maurice paused for a moment. “Then who does that leave?”

“That’s the problem. I don’t know.”

“Hmm. And you’re thinking this ‘someone’ is who got them coming out of the woodwork to burry your rump.”

“Yes. The two are connected. I’m sure of it.”

Maurice paused again, and then stood up. He swirled his glass and sipped from it. “If you had told me that when it started? Sure. I would have been ambivalent.”

“You mean you would not have believed me.”

“Sure, if you want to put it that way.” He turned toward Morgana. “But I’ve got guys. More than any other boss in the city. In Aetna-Cross, in a lot of places.”

“Which is why I came to you. Because you know more than anyone else.”

Maurice smiled. “Don’t give me too much credit, Morgana. I just do what I can.” His expression became more serious. “And I think you’re right. I’ve seen things moving recently.”

“What kind of things?”

“Corporate funds. A whole lot of them. More than I’ve ever seen moving before.”

“To where?”

“That’s the thing, isn’t it?” Maurice swirled his vodka. “To nowhere.”

“Funds don’t go ‘nowhere’.”

“It’s not just funds. Resources of every kind. Billions of vod, equipment, technology, everything- -and it’s not just Aetna-Cross.”

“We live in a post-scarcity economy, Maurice. Money is almost entirely irrelevant.”

Maurice smiled. “That’s the thing, isn’t it? Even I’m not old enough to remember when Corporations were interested in profit. Even me, almost a vassal myself. Money is shit. Fun to take but pointless.” His smile became more mischievous yet at the same time darker. “What vassals want these days is power. Power is everything, the entire goal of Corporations. My goal as well, to be honest. It’s what we strive for. Day and night. At every turn.”

Morgana looked him in the eye. “And are they using this power?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe. See, power’s hard to watch, but we see it. Sometimes. Things getting ignored, regulations being mysteriously bypassed. Cover ups. The money and technology? That’s one thing. But somebody is actively pulling every string they can to make sure somebody else stays invisible.”

“But you don’t know who it’s all going to.”

“No. That’s kind of the point. They don’t want me to know. They don’t want anyone to know. Looking at this thing head-on? You’d never move an inch. But somehow you managed to have luck just bad enough to slip through a crack.”

“Conjecture, then?”

“I don’t know.” Maurice shrugged. “If I had to guess, it’s a development project of some kind. But between that many Corporations, all at once.” He chuckled. “Man, I would almost give three Scootaloo rides to see what those meetings are like.” He sighed. “I don’t really think it has anything to do with natural humans, though.”

Maurice looked out the window and his expression became far more neutral than Morgana was accustomed to. He sipped his vodka in silence.

“There’s something else, isn’t there?”

“There is. I don’t know if it relates. But hey, it’s a gut feeling, you know? And the guy who had these guts before me was pretty good at intuition.”

“Any information is helpful.”

“And this is probably the last piece you’ll get. From me at least. Maybe ever depending on how this all goes.” He sighed. “It’s my divers. A few of them have, well, been down to long in the Midnight Sea if you know what I mean. They were the first to see it. But the others have started to see it too.”

“What?”

Maurice turned to Twilight and sat down on the couch across from her. He leaned forward. “The War Stone. It’s active.”

Twilight looked up. “War Stone? What is that?”

“That’s impossible,” said Morgana, ignoring Twilight’s question.

“Because it doesn’t exist?”

“I’m not that naïve, Maurice. You know that. But no living being can control the War Stone, not without destroying themselves in the process.”

“They’re not lying. They see things. Especially the deep ones. ‘Things moving’ they say. They are afraid. And you should be too. I’m old, Morgana. Not nearly as old as you are. But old enough. And in all that time? The War Stone has never once been in play.” He smiled and laughed. “So you have to understand, this situation is a lot more deadly than you think it is. Honestly, given the choice? Thirty-nine Corporations any day versus a minute with that thing.”

Morgana looked up at him and smiled herself. “That ‘thing’ is now my only lead. Or at least the only one I can get to. I know how to find it.”

Maurice laughed, but without humor. “Then I was right, wasn’t I? This really is the last time you and I will ever meet.”

When Morgana had arrived, it had been mid-afternoon . Now, as Maurice sat alone in his drawing room, the digital sun had started to set. Hundreds of thousands of watts still blazed outside, transmitted through the projection plates that overlayed the ceiling, but the color tone had changed. Now the horizon was bathed in orange light, and the shadows on the tile floor had become long.

Maurice remained, though. He had sent his Scootaloos away to attend to their various duties and to give him time to think. So he sat alone, facing away from the windows, occasionally sipping from his glass. The room was quiet, which was something his life so very rarely was.

He sighed, and reached into his robe. From an inner pocket he produced a cigar. He lit it and began to smoke. Almost as soon as he did, though, he smelled something foul. It was not the smoke of the cigar, though. Cigar smoke from what Maurice remembered was acrid but pleasant enough, while this smell had no redeeming qualities. It brought him back to his youth on the slaughter level, and the scent of hundreds of millions of dogs being prepared for butchering. Even with his senses deadened by repeated surgeries and a brain that was now far more machine than human, he was able to identify it: the scent of someone who had likely never bathed mixed with something more deeply unpleasant. It smelled like rotting meat, and blood.

A long shadow suddenly appeared to Maurice’s left. He sighed and closed his eyes.

“It’s not polite to come in unannounced,” he said.

“There was no one to announce me,” rasped a deep female voice.

“Really? My assistant butler must not be doing her job, then. I think that warrants a spanking later.”

The woman moved forward and came into view. Maurice’s vision was not good, but he was still able to see her clearly in the dim light. She was shorter than him, and dressed in a long coat that nearly trailed on the floor. Her hair was greasy and ragged, and it went down to her waist.

The woman turned to Maurice and smiled. Her hair was over her face, but through it Maurice was able to see a pair of brilliant blue eyes. They appeared massive, like those of a cat, but it was only because the woman’s pupils had constricted into a pair of narrow vertical slits.

Maurice saw a flash of pointed teeth as she smiled, and then she lifted something and dropped it on the table that still held a bottle of sulfuric acid. Maurice winced. It was the severed head of Scootaloo number 137.

“You didn’t have to do that,” said Maurice.

“I don’t have to do anything, do I? But I wanted to, so therefore I did. They’re machines, human. They don’t feel pain.”

She pulled her gloved hand away from the head, leaving four trails of dark black fluid from the tips of each of her fingers. For some reason, Maurice could not help but find himself wondering where she bought gloves. He realized that perhaps that strange sense of amusement was all that remained of his capacity to feel fear.

Maurice stood up and looked at the woman. He knew what she was, at least tangentially. Her kind was considered a delicacy by the upper class. Maurice himself had more than once partaken in their gamy, salty meat, but he had never once desired to see one of them alive. Nor had he ever thought he would. Once again he found himself wondering, this time about why someone would employ a creature such as this- -and who managed to train one to talk.

“Nobody touches them,” he said. “We had a deal.”

The blue eyes shot toward him and the smile grew even wider. “Then perhaps I should touch you instead? You would enjoy it, I’m sure.”

Maurice winced again. The thought of touching the reeking woman made him sick. “Why are you here?”

“My employers wish to make sure that you distributed the information correctly.”

“Do they think I don’t know what I’m doing?”

“No. You are insignificant to them. But it matters to me. Because I get paid to care.”

“And what exactly do they pay you in? Human flesh?”

The woman rasped, which Maurice supposed was a laugh. “If I wanted flesh- -for any purpose- -I would have killed you by now.”

Maurice started walking. The woman remained still, but her eyes and head followed him as he moved toward the table, pretending to look at what was left of 137. “I gave her enough information to send her on her way, but not enough to go anywhere in particular. Nothing finite on the corporate backing. Nothing to squeeze. Enough to keep going, but not enough to find anything.”

“So you were completely unhelpful.”

“Exactly as you asked.” Maurice smiled his best smile. At any other time, he would have considered this a waste of a good act- -that this behavior was meant to be used on other bosses, or rivals of some sort, not on a filthy mutant- -but he had grown so good at playing the game that he slipped into it automatically and without thinking. Somehow, he believed deep down that it was the only way for him to survive this encounter.

“And you told her nothing else?”

“No. Here.” Maurice produced a thin, needle-like component. It did indeed contain the recording- -minus the part about the War Stone. “This is the recording of the conversation. For your viewing pleasure.”

The woman reached out and took the needle. While her eyes were focused on it, Maurice took hold of the bottle of sulfuric acid with his free hand. It was still quarter-full.

“You knew she would come to me. You asked me to feed her information and I did. Now I expect you to honor your part of the deal.”

The woman looked at him, and then at the bottle he was holding. With one quick motion, she pulled it away from him. Before Maurice could react, she put the bottle to her lips and chugged down the contents. When she was finished, then threw the empty bottle on the ground. Maurice jerked slightly as it shattered.

“My employers make deals,” she said, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. “I do not. Consider the reward the fact that you will survive.” She smiled. “And that I will only destroy some of your global assets.”

“But- -”

The woman raised a finger and Maurice went silent. “Maurice Arnold Whittaker,” she said in as condescending of a voice as someone like her could muster. “You run one of the premier criminal organizations in this city. In Connecticut, even. I initially took you to be smart. Or as smart as you shaved apes can be.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You lied to me. And that hurts. Worse is you thought you could trick me. Evolution made me superior to you, remember?” She leaned forward. Her stench became overwhelming, but Maurice did not flinch. She sniffed his shoulder, and then looked up at him with her snake-like eyes. “I can smell it.”

She suddenly pushed him back and began to move quickly toward the door, her long coat trailing behind her.

“What- -where are you going?!”

“You wanted power? I will give you the opportunity to earn it. I suggest you prepare for a gang war. A long and bloody one.”

Maurice watched her go, unable to speak. When she vanished into the shadows, he continued to watch, even as the sun set and the room was shrouded in darkness. Then he sat down all alone and took a sip from his shaking glass- -only to find that the vodka had run out.

Outside, the woman produced an earpiece from her coat and put it on. Her people did not have a language, as they were not social creatures, but she the closest thing they had: the debased form of Standard Language that they had acquired from Delvers and those foolish enough to wander into the Depths alone.

“It’s me,” she said. She was unable to contain her smile. “There’s been a development.”

Part II, Chapter 14

Lynnette pulled the high collar of her jacket closer to her neck and tightened the stylish scarf she wore. The air around her was frigid and stagnant, and dirty gray snow lined the streets. It was February, after all, and the temperature was far too cold for humans to be outdoors. As a pony, though, Lynnette was largely immune to cold- -but going without an appropriately fashionable coat and scarf would just not do, both because it would be uncouth and because the alternative- -Aetna-Cross colors- -was not advisable in this situation.

What bothered her more than the dreary cold was the darkness. Whatever lights had been meant to illuminate the street had burned out years ago, and the only light that reached the street was the thin and distant glow of the gray sky overhead. All that was visible between the enormous monolithic skyscrapers was a thin sliver of light not much different in color from that of the snow. Occasionally, a few more flakes would fall slowly through the still air.

Hartford had evolved differently from Bridgeport. It was never subject to the same crushing coastal hurricanes, and had never been meant to serve as an industrial center. As such, Harford consisted of a number of enormous buildings. Each one stood over a mile high: vast expanses of gray, stained concrete devoid of windows, all anchored to the ground by foundations that went nearly as deep. No one watched the streets, nor did they use them. The population never left those buildings, never venturing into sunlight or cold. They were hellish in their own right: endless hallways and hectares upon hectares of offices, the majority of it assembled into massive internal resblocks or facilities.

These towers were considered the epitome of Connecticut’s engineering prowess: vast, lifeless, and gray. They had not been developed by random industrial spread, but rather by careful planning. Their contents reflected that: these were not meant as residences, per se, or as industrial arcos: they were meant to be the seat of modern governance. Many of the towers contained space for innumerate lesser Corporations, nation-states in their own right but still just vassals underneath the prime vassal: Aetna-Cross herself. That particular Corporation owned several of the towers near the city center, where the State Government was also seated.

It was from these towers that worldwide empires were ruled, but it was hardly possible to tell that from the streets. They were deserted. No people bothered to walk them in the winter, and any homeless who had tried to dwell there had long since been frozen to death and picked apart by harvester spiders. It was empty, dreary, and nearly silent, save for the distant hum of the machinery that kept the windowless towers alive.

Lynnette despised this place. Most people did, she supposed, which she suspected was the reason no one ever put windows into the towers and why the streets were always empty. It was a lithesome place, built with complete disregard to aesthetics. Even Bridgeport was more pleasant, but then only marginally so. Lynnette found herself longing for beautiful cities, like Paris or Rome. Not as they were in her time- -with the latter having been leveled several times during the last World War, and the former having collapsed into the ground under its own weight- -but as they had been hundreds of years before, during their golden age in the twenty-fifth century.

Nevertheless, this was where she had ended up. Professionalism, after all, was one of the traits that Lynnette considered her most valuable, and a true professional detective did what was required to solve the case regardless of what it entailed. It was something that her private counterpart would never fully understand.

She had already met a few of her contacts in the basement areas of several of the less popular towers. They had not been terribly helpful apart from the fact that they seemed afraid and evasive. Lynnette had confirmed that they knew little- -much to the detriment of one, who had been rendered comatose- -but that they were still perceptive of something. ‘Something moving’, as Hexel might have described it. They could sense it, if only by being so close to a center of vast political power.

The last contact, though, was likely to be different. He was a worker within Corporate itself: not especially high on the management chain, but high enough to have more access to the company’s workings than anyone in the upper echelons likely realized. In addition, he and Lynnette had served in the army at the same time and on the same base. That, she reasoned, conferred some level of trust.

The meeting place was to be Malloy Square. It was what Lynnette assumed was meant to be a park, but what had far more likely been an area where the footing for a tower could not be placed due to the geological structure underneath. The towers were farther apart here, and the light slightly brighter, even if it only illuminated anemic frostbitten trees and shattered park benches that had mostly decayed into mulch. The entire place reeked of urine, which was only made worse by the still air.

Lynnette walked through the park. The only sound was her booted hooves crunching through the snow and ice. She came to the center and paused. An enormous statue had been placed there, depicting the park’s namesake in decaying stone. The statue of Malloy had been vandalized quite thoroughly, with the most notable being an isographic text across his torso that when translated was rendered as “gov’s gotta go”.

“It’s an ugly statue, isn’t it?”

Lynnette pivoted suddenly, taking a defensive stance as she did so. Her contact was supposed to be male, but this voice was most certainly not. In fact, as Lynnette quickly determined, she was not even human. She was a pony- -a Lyra unit, specifically, leaning against the cinderblock wall of a long-collapsed shed. She was dressed heavily but well, and her orange eyes turned slowly to Lynnette. She smiled.

“Is there really a need to be defensive? The park is public property, after all.”

“My apologies,” said Lynnette, although she only lowered her stance slightly. “You surprised me.” Which was in itself strange- -she had checked the area for network signals first. A pony should have been obvious, but according to her information this entire area was empty.

“Out for a walk?”

“Actually, I’ve come to meet an old friend.” Lynnette reached out with her mind. Performing alterations without a hardline would be difficult but not impossible, especially if her target was largely unprotected. Reprograming memories was something technomancers tended to learn quickly.

Except that there was nothing to reach to. There was no connection, no mind to grasp on to: it was as though the pony standing before her was a ghost, or not there at all.

The Lyra smiled. “And at this point? I suppose you’d be attempting technomancy. To make me go away. I’ll save you the effort, it doesn’t work on me.” She turned her head and lifted the rear portion of her mane. To Lynnette’s great but well-concealed surprise, there were no ports. “I have no external connection. Save for my body itself. And I’m afraid Mr. Chernov will not be coming today.”

Lynnette frowned, which was all she could do to conceal the wave of concern that suddenly shot through her. “I’m afraid I don’t know who that is. The woman I am waiting for is named Patel.”

The Lyra chuckled and stepped out from behind the shed. Her mane, though slightly windswept, was perfect, and her skin had just the slightest blush to it as though she were really capable of feeling the cold. Her body had clearly been assembled for maximum realism.

“Would you believe me if I told you I can smell when you are lying?” She shook her head. “That would be bullshit, of course. We have an employee who can supposedly do it, but she’s something of a blunt instrument. Which of course would be wrong for this task, you would just not appreciate it.”

“Appreciate what, pray tell?”

The Lyra turned back to her. “Precision. It’s something I value greatly, personally. Precision is the first step toward Perfection, assuming there is proper planning and judgment behind it.”

“That’s all very well and good,” said Lynnette, slowly, “but it does not answer the question as to why you are here.”

“I don’t think that needs to be answered. You should already know.”

“I have a general idea, yes. But I would like your take. Please speak very carefully. As you mentioned, you value good planning and judgment, no? I want to make sure my actions are…appropriate.”

The Lyra stared at her, and then looked up at the statue. She was silent for a long moment. “It really is ugly.”

“Excuse me?”

“The statue. Poorly carved, poorly conceived. But it’s not just the stone, or the workmanship.” She sighed. “It’s the subject.”

“Dannel Malloy?”

“It doesn’t matter what his name is. They might as well always be the same. The problem isn’t the individual but the type. The design. It is flawed. It is…incomplete.”

“And do you have a name?”

The Lyra unit turned and smiled again, but looked thoughtful. “I was hoping that you would be willing to have a more philosophical conversation. But what did I expect? You’re an Aetna-Cross detective. Always trying to find information, even at the expense of something far more beautiful.”

“I take offense to that. But I suppose my feelings are irrelevant, so let cut to the crux of the matter: who are you, and why are you here?”

“A different way of asking one question, and a redundancy in the other. I find myself liking you less and less, Lynnette O’Toole.”

“Then allow me to conjecture, if I may. You killed my contact. Followed me here. You have something to do with this all, and I suppose you intend to stop me.”

“It’s a nice story.” The Lyra shrugged. “But that’s just it, a story. Although if you really must know, no. We do not need you. The Twilight unit, she interests us, despite all the trouble she has made. You do not. If anything, you are redundant.” She turned her orange eyes to Lynnette’s blue ones. “And therefore unnecessary.”

Lynnette raised one of her hooves and the surface retracted, morphing the limb into the firearm it contained: a complicated and perfectly crafted silver device, custom-designed as her service sidearm to be as lethal as it was beautiful.

“I came here with an investigative goal in mind. I don’t intend to let you interfere. In fact, I think you may serve me better than my contact would have.” Lynnette smiled and licked her lips. “You may have shut yourself out of the network, darling, but that doesn’t mean I can’t extract what I need from your severed memory cells.”

“Then I see you are as unobservant as the potato man. Although you lack his charming innocence.”

Lynnette aimed her weapon at the pony’s chest and fired- -except the firing solenoid in her arm failed to budge. There was no explosion and no bullet, and the Lyra smiled knowingly.

“W- -what?” said Lynnette, confused.

The Lyra raised her hoof, and suddenly Lynnette’s arm shook and twisted upward, moving outside of her control. Lynnette could not control her surprise, and her eyes went wide.

“What are you doing? You’re- -you’re hacking me! STOP!”

She closed her eyes and reached out, although the fear was already starting to penetrate her mind. She was a technomancer, a lord of machines: her mind was sealed by endless layers of protection against any foe. Even if someone had hardline-connected to her, she protocols and mental traps that would lead to nothing but vicious annihilation to anyone who dared enter her without permission.

Except that someone had- -or something. Lynnette had never felt anything like it, even in her years of service to the government and to Aetna-Cross. It was not a mind in competition with hers, but more like something vast passing over her: it was as though she were trapped on the ocean in a raging storm, drowning as some incomprehensible leviathan reached up from below. She felt hands- - threads, controls- -reaching into her unabated, whispering to her with endless legions of voices that in truth only belonged to one. It took everything she had to keep her mind itself secure, but it was a losing battle in which her body had already been lost before she even understood what was happening.

“You whore,” spat Lynnette. She looked at the Lyra and winced. Her vision was blurring and filling with strange artifacts. For some reason, she saw two ponies- -but not the same pony. One was the Lyra, grinning softly with cold eyes, but the other was different: a colorless and badly distorted image of a unicorn, or perhaps- -as the vision also seemed- -a gaunt and long-dead woman.

Lyra lowered her hoof, and Lynnette’s weapon moved. It turned toward her, pointing itself at her chest- -and at her processor.

“I will not…beg…” she said, with some difficulty through the concentration required not to drown in the waves of cyberattack that were washing over her.

“For me to kill you, or to let you live?” Lyra’s smile fell. “Not that it matters. I don’t intend to do either. I’m not a violent pony. I never intended to be. Blame your friend for making us that way.” She took a step forward. Lynnette tried to turn away, but her legs would not move. She no longer had control of them.

“Now kneel,” said the Lyra.

Lynnette did so, struggling against it the whole time. She found herself on her knees in the cold and urine-soaked snow, lowering her head as the Lyra passed behind her. The pale unicorn, or the illusion of one, remained where it was. Lynnette had the impression that if she had a face, she would have looked more bored than anything else.

Suddenly she felt a warm hoof caressing her neck, moving her perfectly styled mane out of the way and pushing down her collar.

“Don’t you dare touch me!” cried Lynnette, trying to shake away from the control over her.

“Now now, Lynnette! A proper lady does not scream or resist. She puts her head forward and enjoys it.”

“Damn you! DAMN YOU TO HELL!”

“This world is already hell, Ms. O’Toole. And we aim to change that.” She lifted Lynnette’s hair, and laughed. “You asked me my name before. I did want to answer, but they never gave me one. So I guess you can call me Epeius.”

With that, she inserted something long and sharp into one of Lynnette’s ports. Lynnette screamed as it penetrated her, but found herself unable to resist. It entered her completely. There was no way to resist it. The last thing she recalled before blacking out was Morgana’s words, and her warning- -and in her shame at her failure, Lynnette understood.

Part III, Chapter 1

The city lights passed by through the window. Twilight watched them, not speaking. It was such a strange place: endless darkness, punctuated only by brilliant artificial illumination in strange and unnatural colors. All of it was viewed passing at high speed as the van trundled forward: the endless sea of cars and automated trucks, the towers and structures that molded themselves to the strange topography of yet more structures beneath them, and the preponderance of strange and barely visible people carrying on with their own lives in this strange world.

At first, Twilight had viewed this world with a sense of awe and confusion. Now she realized that she had been naïve. What she had seen Maurice do was inconceivable- -or at least supposed to be. Ponies were not meant to understand violence or cruelty, and if they found it they were meant to cure it- -but Twilight did not think Maurice could be cured. Or any of them for that matter. She realized that what she had seen had been just a tiny fragment of the world. Morgana had not even bothered to question it, and even Elrod had not seemed to care.

That was the nature of this world. Twilight could somehow understand it and imagine it, even though she felt she was not meant to. It had cut into her deeply, and now she regarded the world with fear. More importantly, though, she found herself hating Morgana more and more for having taken something away from her, something that she could not name.

The entire group remained silent as they rolled along in a van that Morgana had stolen. She sat in the front, not looking at the road or anything in particular as she piloted the vehicle by a cable running from her neck. Elrod sat beside her in the front, although he had already gone through the vehicle and collected anything of even the slightest value. Forth sat near the back, not moving and not blinking, occasionally humming to herself. Twilight was fine with the silence. She did not feel like speaking with any of them.

After a while, Morgana swiveled her chair. She appeared uneasy. “This isn’t good,” she said, although not to anyone in particular.

“What isn’t?” asked Forth.

“I can’t get in contact with Lynnette.”

“Lynnette?” Elrod turned toward them. “Who is Lynnette?”

“Lynnette O’Toole. The Rarity.”

“Is something wrong?” asked Forth.

“I’m not sure. She could just be running silent right now. But I don’t like it.”

Twilight turned suddenly. “After what you just saw, THAT’S what you’re concerned about?”

Morgana looked at her. Twilight once again found herself looking into a version of her own eyes; it felt like she was staring at a disgusting parody. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You don’t know- -you were THERE! You saw- -you saw what he did! With- -with the Scootaloos, and that woman- -that human woman, he- -he- -” Twilight stood up, but then sat down in silence, unable to describe what she had seen. The memory was burned into her mind, and she knew it would come to her for the rest of her life as nightmares unless she could convince Luna to drive it away.

Morgana just shrugged. “Maurice has always been a fan of theatrics. I find it derivative, but I’m not about to tell him how to do his job.”

“BUT THAT WOMAN- -”

“It’s not my problem.”

Twilight gasped and gaped at Morgana. She turned to the others. “And you- -you both are just okay with that too? What you just saw, that any living person could do such a horrible thing?!”

“I find human suffering vaguely amusing,” said Elrod.

“And I wasn’t there,” added Forth.

Twilight looked from each of them to the others. “I…I just can’t believe this…” She sat down and covered her face with her hooves, hoping that they would not see her crying. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you make me see that? I can’t get it out of my head…”

“I showed you because if you’re going to live in this world, you need to understand how things worked.”

Twilight looked up sharply. “You…you knew!”

“That he was going to do that? No, of course not. But I know Maurice. So I figured you would see something.”

“But why would you do that to me?” Twilight choked up slightly. “Why do you hate me?”

Morgana shrugged again. “I figured it would be an educational experience.”

“Was it?” asked Forth.

“For her, probably. For me not so much. He was being evasive.”

“Evasive?” Elrod seemed surprised. “But he told you everything you asked for!”

“Like I said. Theatrics. What did he say that we didn’t already know? That all the corporations are working together for some nebulous and undefined goal? Or that I stumbled onto it and they suddenly decided to kill me? Or perhaps that naters are being killed and beheaded?”

Elrod and Forth looked at each other. “I didn’t realize…”

“I suppose following that lead isn’t entirely impossible,” said Morgana. “But I would need an entire army of hackers, saboteurs, and infiltrators just to get into ONE of those companies, and then it would probably take years of constant investigation to track down anything apart from the fact that large amounts of money are ‘disappearing’.”

“So all that was pointless.” Twilight sunk against the wall of the van. She felt incredibly drained.

“Not all of it. I did get one lead. And right now, one is enough.”

“You mean the War Stone,” suggested Elrod.

Morgana nodded. “I do. I don’t know if he said that out of spite or as a joke, but I do know he’s not lying. That’s not how our relationship works. And even if he was, this is my only option.”

“What option?”

“You have a plan,” said Forth.

“I do,” said Morgana. “Or most of one. But for it to work, I need a class VII hardline network uplink.”

“None are currently available,” said Forth. “Your office has a class V.”

“Not enough bandwidth. And anyway I’m not getting back there.”

“What about at Roxanne’s?” asked Elrod.

Morgana laughed. “Do you really think a place like that has any hardline at all? No.”

“A class VII connection is exceedingly rare,” said Forth, half stating it and half explaining. “They are mostly only reserved for Corporate use. Under normal circumstances you would not be authorized. Under current circumstances…”

“Under current circumstances there’s no way I’m getting near any Corporate hubs without my head still attached to my body. I know. But I also know a neutral hub.”

“There are no registered class VII hubs that can be defined that way.”

“Trust me. It exists.”

“But?” said Twilight.

“Excuse me?”

“There’s always a ‘but’. If there wasn’t a ‘but’ we’d be doing it already.” Twilight sneered. “So, what is it? A place where we can see MORE woman getting tortured? Or maybe more little Scootaloos getting their innocence violated?” She put her hooves to her face and feigned excitement. “Oh wow, I’m so excited I can’t wait!”

“Oh wow,” said Forth, looking surprised. She turned to Morgana. “She really IS like you!”

“I’m never that sarcastic. And she is right. There is a ‘but’.”

“Which is?”

“The people who own the hub hate me. Badly.”

“Who doesn’t?” muttered Twilight.

“What kind of ‘hate you’?” asked Elrod. “Shoot-you kind of hatred or kill your entire party hatred?”

“I don’t know. But at this point I don’t have a lot of options.”

“Well count me out,” said Twilight, crossing her front hooves. “I’m done! With all of this!”

“Fine. When we get there, you’re free to leave. You always have been. Go ahead and get on the train back to Ponyville, why don’t you?”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “You bitch…”

A toothy smile crossed Morgana’s face. “Swearing, Twilight!”

Twilight gasped and put her hooves over her mouth. Morgana just laughed, although the humor quickly faded from her voice.

“The same extends to all of you,” she said. “These people hate me, but they don’t have a problem with any of you. Not yet anyway. You’re all free to stay behind if you want.”

None of them spoke up. Morgana continued driving.

The vehicle stopped. Twilight listened to the engine wind down, and then to nothing. It was actually a jarring sensation: Everywhere she had been, there had always been some kind of background noise: air being pushed through vents, or fluid pumping through unseen pipes, or the dull and distant hum of unidentifiable machinery. Now, though, there was nothing.

Forth pushed open the rear door of the van and stepped out. Twilight stood but found that she was strangely weak, and that her limbs felt stiff. She dismissed it as having been sitting too long and ignored it as she exited the vehicle with some difficulty.

Stepping down, Twilight found herself standing on dusty concrete not unlike the type that made up the floor in Roxanne’s warehouse. Instead of being a floor, though, this seemed to be a street.

At least, it initially appeared to be a street. Twilight quickly realized that “street” was not really an adequate description for the area she found herself in. Rather, it seemed to be a vast and high-ceilinged room so large that Ponyville itself would probably have fit inside. The ceiling was made of utilitarian arches of metal, and the four corners of the room consisted of gigantic pillars.

What made it especially odd, though, was the fact that the room- -if it could even be called that- -DID contain what appeared to be buildings. Twilight’s mind immediately recalled the feeling of the buildings she had seen in the level where Maurice lived, although this time there was no illusion of a false sky or trees. Whoever had built these buildings clearly had had no intention of making them seem as though they were actually outdoors.

The buildings themselves were large and gray, and although they had some level of architectural flair it was tainted badly by poorly executed brutalism. They were ugly, but more than that they seemed to be old. Any windows they had were boarded up, and the doors were locked with chains. Despite this, however, the streets that ran between them were lined with evenly spaced and brightly illuminated streetlights and small and well-maintained planters of dark-leaved ferns.

Twilight shivered. “What is this place?”

Morgana had stepped out of the van into what was now quite clearly an abandoned parking lot. She looked at the sad and silent village of stone-clad buildings. “This is where we need to be.”

Morgana started walking down the nearest of the streets, but Twilight ran up to her.

“No!” she said, annoyed. “That isn’t what I mean? These buildings, what are they? Why are they here?”

“Why are you so curious?”

“Because I want to know! You at least owe me THAT much!”

“Frankly I owe you a lot more,” said Morgana, softly. She sighed and looked up at the buildings. “Fine. I can play tour guide for a minute or two. These buildings are what is left of the Municipal Government.”

“Wait,” Twilight looked up at them. “You mean you don’t have a municipal government? How are you running anything? Who would keep it organized, or handle taxes and basic services- -”

“Think about what you’re asking for a moment.”

Twilight paused and did so. A realization came to her mind. “Aetna-Cross?”

Morgana nodded. “These buildings are ancient. They predate Corporate rule, or almost do. This area is very, very old. It was the center of Bridgeport’s government. Then it was a museum. Then it was abandoned.”

Elrod looked down at the plants that surrounded the perfectly clean street. “Then why are there little ferns?”

“The same reason the Depths haven’t swallowed this place completely. THEY own it now.”

“Who?”

Morgana did not answer. She just kept walking through the rows of what had once been municipal buildings of every sort- -courts, offices, motor vehicle departments, community centers- -an entire city’s worth of public infrastructure that had been planned with care and laid out in an attempt to be modern just before the very idea of pubic governance became obsolete.

It was a dark and depressing place- -or at least it should have been. Somehow, though, Twilight found that it made her feel oddly comfortable. The buildings were maintained well, if only because they were never exposed to the natural elements. Although it was empty and dark, it still felt like a quiet museum. Few ponies loved a museum as much as Twilight, and an empty one made her feel special.

The area, as far as Twilight could tell, was laid out like the spokes of a wheel. The streets all converged in the center around a massive statue of a winged human woman. She bore a sword in one hand and an eagle in the other, and Twilight paused. There were two reasons: the first was because the statue was the only thing in the region that was actually aesthetically pleasing; the second was the strange realization that the woman was named Liberty and the eagle she carried represented America. Neither of those things should have made sense to Twilight; humans were new to her, and neither they nor America existed in Equestria. Yet, somehow, she was deeply familiar with the history of both.

“We didn’t come here for a hideous statue,” said Morgana. “Move.”

“It isn’t that hideous…”

Morgana looked up at it. “They portrayed Liberty as a human, didn’t they?”

They continued down a different spoke of the wheel. This one led through more buildings, but eventually terminated. Sitting at the end was and looming gray building, far larger than the rest. Unlike the others, it was not so much ugly as it was threatening. Twilight shivered, not knowing why. She could recognize the moderate gothic influence in its architecture merging strangely with a few classical elements, but that should not have made it as frightening as it was. She supposed it was the size, as well as the fact that unlike the others its windows- -although they were made of steel, not glass- -were not covered. The other buildings were empty and asleep, but this one seemed alive and menacing.

Twilight approached it and looked up at the front. An ornately carved stone had been built over the door, and when Twilight saw it she gasped.

“Bridgeport library,” she read. “Library! This is a library!”

“Keep your voice DOWN,” hissed Morgana. “Yes. It is.”

“And we’re going in?” whispered Twilight excitedly. “Ooh, look at the size of it! I bet it’s just FULL of books!” She gasped. “And in a city this big, there’s GOT to be a rare books section! Maybe even antique tomes? Or even- -ANCIENT TEXTS!”

Morgana shook her head, knowing that there was no point in arguing. Twilight was left to turn to the other two.

“How can you not be excited about a LIBRARY?!”

Elrod looked at her. “I can’t really read.”

“I’m always excited,” shrugged Forth.

Twilight looked at them, fully not understanding how they could not enjoy going to a library- -especially a library that was itself built into a museum. Then, slowly, her mind began to wonder. This was a library, and an enormous one at that- -and yet there was no one here. The entire place was empty.

This concerned Twilight, but she still followed Morgana as they climbed the steps toward the door. Morgana pushed open the door, allowing a thin sliver of light to enter an otherwise dark room. She walked in, her feet tapping on the tile floor as she did so.

Twilight followed hesitantly. As she did, she tried to take a deep breath to smell the familiar scent of books- -but found to her grave disappointment that for some reason she did not have the ability to smell much of anything.

Elrod and Forth entered the lobby, and Elrod allowed the door to close. Twilight squeaked when she found herself in sudden darkness, but reasoned that the others being machines- -and Elrod being whatever Elrod was- -had better night-vision than a real pony.

“I think the library is closed,” whispered Twilight.

Suddenly, a bright pinprick of light ignited over Morgana. Twilight cried out and shielded her eyes, but not before she saw the reflections of what she took to be hundreds of eyes staring back at her from what had moments ago been darkness.

Twilight gasped but did not scream- -she was in a library, after all. Then Twilight’s eyes adjusted, and she gasped when she saw the owners of the eyes.

One of them jumped down from above. The sound of her hooves impacting the tile floor echoed through the room as though she were incredibly heavy, and as though the pair of violet wings on her back had not slowed her in the slightest. Still, she folded them over her robe and took a step forward. Twilight found herself once again looking at another version of herself, this one with cold and pale eyes. The room, it seemed, was filled with others like her: all like Twilight, save for the fact that each and every one of them bore wings on their back.

“Aeschylus,” said Morgana. “I see you’re still alive.”

“Get out,” demanded the robed Twilight unit. Her voice was identical to Twilight’s and Morgana’s, yet somehow seemed to reverberate throughout the library lobby with booming authority that neither of them could match.

Morgana sighed. “I can’t do that. Let me explain- -”

“No,” said Aeschylus. “There will be no explanations. You are NOT welcome in this hall, nor will you EVER be welcome here.” Her face contorted with a deep frown. “In fact, this level of audacity us uncharacteristic, even for you.” Her eyes flitted to Twilight. The gaze was withering. “And what is this? Your daughter? Or have you finally found a disciple of your own?”

“We’re not related,” snapped Twilight. “And I’m not a disciple! Except to Princess Celestia, I guess, but that’s not relevant here!”

“Indeed,” replied Aeschylus. “Little of this is relevant.” She turned back to Morgana. “Morgana. I see you have completely lost any respect you may have once had for me, although I doubt you had much to begin with. So perhaps I can rephrase myself in a way that will make my thoughts more intelligible.” Two more Twilights stepped forward from behind her, and the whole room seemed to grow much smaller. “Leave. Or we will force you to do so.”

Forth stepped forward, eyeing the Twilight units angrily. “The only one doing forcing here will be me!”

She extended one of her hooves and it split apart as it converted into the apertures for several of the numerous weapons her body contained. Aeschylus just sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Faulkner?”

One of the two Twilight units beside her suddenly lifted her hoof. As she did, Forth’s own hoof shook and rose suddenly. Forth seemed immensely surprised by this, and became even more so when her own limb turned inward so that her weapons were pointed at her own chest.

“Forth!” cried Elrod. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t control it!” She looked up.

“Stop it,” demanded Morgana. “You’re being childish.”

“Childish? You brought a Blossomforth heavy weapons platform into the Library. Just what were you intending to do? How far into depravity have you fallen?”

“Let her go!” demanded Elrod.

“Really?” Aeschylus looked up. “You’re not in a position to make demands here, human. Normally we would be accommodating to you, but it appears your allegiance has already been settled. I would avoid sudden movements. My daughter could very easily fire that weapon.”

Elrod drew a massive pistol and painted it at Faulkner’s head. “And I could injure her!”

For just a moment, Twilight was sure she saw something. Faulkner looked up, and there was motion near her- -but nothing around her had moved. Twilight likened it to the glow of magic, but even that was not a good approximation. It was more like a concept, a change in the air that was complicated but just barely perceptible.

With his free hand, Elrod reached up and removed his mask.

“You can’t hack me,” he said. “There’s nothing TO hack.”

A murmur moved around the room. Faulkner’s look of grave confidence had been replaced with one of poorly hidden confusion and worry, but Aeschylus actually looked mildly amused.

“A natural-born human, then?” she suggested. “Or maybe something else? Whatever you are, it is something rare indeed. But that is not the most pressing question, is it? Rather, it is whether or not you think you could pull that trigger.”

“I could. I do not feel empathy or remorse, not completely. I don’t understand them. I would kill her, and take her body for scrap. But I don’t care about that right now. Just please let my friend go.”

As agitated as she was by the possibility of sudden and fatal violence, Twilight was somewhat touched by Elrod’s sentiment. Aeschylus seemed to share those feelings, at least partially.

“We shouldn’t fight!” said Twilight suddenly. She was surprised at her own courage, but she felt the eyes of all of the other Twilight’s suddenly on her. “Please! I don’t want anypony to get hurt! And this is a library for Celestia’s sake! It’s supposed to be for learning, and reading, and education, not for guns!”

Aeschylus seemed pleased with this statement. “Wise words,” she said, motioning for Faulkner to release Forth, which she did. “So indeed you are not her disciple, then?”

“No. My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I don’t know a lot about this world, but I do know a thing or two about libraries. And a library is supposed to be open to everypony, to help anypony in need!”

Aeschylus sighed. “Perhaps that might once have been true. But it is no longer.” She looked toward Morgana. “Her crimes are great, Twilight Sparkle. But no doubt she has not spoken of them to you.”

“She doesn’t like me. And I don’t like her. No. It never came up.”

“She came to us,” said Aeschylus as she started to pace slowly, the eyes of the silent Twilights following her with every step. “She came under the pretense of seeking knowledge. That is our nature, we as Librarians. It is our order’s sacred purpose: to seek, collect, and safeguard the literary knowledge of this world.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “That…that’s beautiful…”

“We like to think it is, or at the very least noble some of the time. We have dedicated our lives to the love of books. And she promised to do the same.”

“I never broke your code,” said Morgana softly.

“You betrayed us!” screamed Aeschylus suddenly. “You took our gifts, the ones you found ‘most useful’ and traded our ways for worldly power!”

“I see nothing wrong with applying knowledge,” said Morgana, icily. “Or would you rather I just keep it stored in my hard drive, sitting on it like a dragon in a heap of treasure?” Morgana smiled suddenly. It was a cruel smile. “I like to think of myself as a sort of Prometheus.”

“How dare you,” hissed Aeschylus. “Prometheus stole fire from the gods for the sake of humanity. You stole our knowledge for your own selfish gain! Prometheus? No. You are Brutus. Anikin. Isildur. MORGANA LEFAY. Seeking power at the cost of friendship and love.”

“Because I require neither. And you are a hypocrite.”

“Oh really?”

“Claiming I’m not doing good for humanity? I care little for humanity, but I help.”

“Sometimes, and inadvertently.”

“But still sometimes! When have you ever helped anyone but yourselves?”

“Our very definition is to benefit the world, not just humanity but all the races in it! By the preservation of knowledge!” She stamped her hoof.“We must remain neutral!”

Morgana laughed quietly, causing Aeschylus to suddenly go silent. “Well. I was trying to feign being apologetic, but I see that’s not working, is it?”

Aeschylus glared. “You harlot…”

“How long ago was it, Aeschylus? It’s been sixty-eight years since I left your absurd temple of moldering books and dry knowledge. But it’s me you remember. You hate me…or do you? Or are you projecting what you truly hate onto me?”

“I don’t experience hatred.”

“But you do experience obsession. That’s what all this is, isn’t it?” She gestured to the library and the army of Librarians. “An obsession. With knowledge of the past that no one else even wants. And an obsession with me. Am I your white whale, Ahab?”

Aeschylus’s face contorted. “There is no place for hackneyed references, Morgana.”

“Then should I call you Heathcliff, perhaps?”

A murmur moved through the Twilights. Twilight herself was amazed to realize that she understood all of the references present, even though she could not remember having read the books that they were based on.

“You broke our hearts, Morgana,” said Aeschylus. “All of ours. Mine especially. You predate me, but I still remember. What that stone you insist on wearing means. And what you did to Her. I overlooked it. I treated you like my own daughter. And now look at you

Morgana leaned forward. “And I don’t care.”

“Mother,” interrupted Faulkner. “There’s a problem.”

Aeschylus turned her eyes toward her daughter. “There are many today. To which are you referring to?”

There as another flash between them. Something had been exchanged. Aeschylus suddenly grew pale.

“My god,” she said. She quickly turned to Twilight. “You.”

“Me?”

“To whom else would I be referring when I am looking at you?”

“I- -”

“You need to come with me. NOW.”

“But- -I don’t feel comfortable with that, it isn’t- -”

“This is of grave importance. Marlowe, Nabokov, to the front, Faulkner with me!”

Confused, Twilight found herself- -much to her chagrin- -turning toward Morgana.

Morgana sighed. “I think I know what they want to talk to you about. And you are going to want to go. You will have to find out about it eventually.”

Twilight did not understand, but still found herself following the beckoning Twilights. Their faces seemed to convey a strong sense of urgency, and Twilight could not help but feel a certain trust in them. What she had witnessed with Maurice had left her cautious, but these ponies were copies of herself- -with the bizarre addition of wings- -and from what she understood they were librarians. It may not have been logical, but she felt safe with them- -or at least safer than she felt with Morgana.

They quickly led her away and down one of the long hallways that stretched outward from the lobby. Any plaster or drywall that had once covered the walls had long-since vanished, and only extremely aged but smooth concrete was left behind. Twilight was quickly ushered into the halls, and the younger of the two ponies with her- -Faulkner- -approached her and fell into step.

“What is this all about?” asked Twilight. She could feel the concern in her own voice.

“Just a little bit further, okay? We have a shelving and reading room down the hall. I think you’ll like it. We can talk there.”

Twilight nodded and let herself be led. Faulkner brought her to one of several doors and opened it. Twilight entered and immediately gasped. The room was a high cylinder, its walls covered completely in glorious curved shelves and more books than even she had ever seen in one place. All along the shelf sat a scaffold framework that contained a number of robots that quickly moved through the shelves, removing books for reshelving or adding new arrivals all at high speed and in perfect silence. Until that moment, Twilight had never really understood what good all the machines of this word actually were.

“Here,” said Faulkner, pointing to a comfortable couch on the far side of a bank of desks. “Please sit down.”

“Wow,” said Twilight, doing as was suggested. “You guys are really nice! I didn’t get that impression at first, and I feel kind of bad for rushing to judgment.”

“We reserve our antipathy for those who have scorned us,” said Aeschylus. “And you have not done so yet.”

“Well that isn’t my intention.” Twilight laughed nervously. “So. What exactly did you want to talk to me about?”

Faulkner looked to her mother, and Aeschylus nodded. Faulkner then turned back to Twilight.

“Miss,” she started, “I have to apologize first. I’m in charge of library security. When you came in I started performing a threat analysis on you, and I noticed that you had modified metadata with Morgana’s signature on it.”

Twilight blinked. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It isn’t something a normal person would notice. Morgana’s technique is freeform, but a lot of it is derived from a similar knowledge base to mine. So I saw it. I hope you can forgive me, but I opened your original metadata.”

“I’m so confused right now…”

“I’m sure you could understand it if I explained it to you.”

“But time is short,” said Aeschylus, reminding her daughter to hurry.

Faulkner nodded. “Your metadata indicates that your current body is old. No. Not even old. Impossibly old. It’s an original model.”

Twilight laughed. “I’m sorry, but you’re confused. See, I’m not a machine. I’m the real Twilight Sparkle. Well, I guess you all are real too but in a different sense…nevermind. I’m a pony!”

Faulkner looked confused and turned to her mother. Aeschylus stepped forward.

“Then allow me to state this as a hypothetical, then. If you were mechanical in nature- -”

“I’m not, of course. I just need to make that clear.”

“Yes. But if you were, your body would be incredibly aged. The original bodies that our kind used were more or less toys; they were never built to last longer than ten years or so. Even when stored inactive, the parts age. Plastics become brittle. Adhesives break down, capacitors fail. Processors begin to fragment.”

“But I’m not a machine. I’m a pony…”

“I can’t do this,” said Faulkner. “I’m sorry, miss. Your body is beginning to break down. It was never meant to exist this long. You are dying.”

Twilight’s eyes became wide. “N- -no,” she said, laughing nervously again. “I’m not, that’s not true! Ponies don’t die, we- -we just don’t! And I’m not a machine!”

“Tiredness,” said Aeschylus. “Difficulty moving. A low-power state that resembles sleep. Followed by confusion, paralysis, memory loss, and finally a state where only the bearest fragments of your personality remains.”

Twilight felt fear slowly creeping through her. She knew that those things were not true- -she was a pony, made of flesh and blood- -but she was still afraid.

“I…I’ve been feeling a little sick…”

“Miss,” said Faulkner. “Your body is powered by a beryllium battery. That technology has not been in use since the twenty-first century. For a battery to exist that long- -it’s a miracle that there’s any charge left. But it is running out.”

“Can- -can you replace it?”

“Can I run a diagnostic?”

“I don’t know what that is?”

A device emerged from the neck of Faulkner’s robe. It resembled an extremely thin robotic arm. “Your port? Can I access it?”

Twilight stared at her for a moment and then found herself nodding.

Faulkner smiled- -a pleasant smile, and a friendly one- -and reached for Twilight’s cutie mark. She opened it- -Twilight closed her eyes, not wanting to see a gaping hole in her leg- -and felt something inserted into her. Distantly, she was aware of a presence on the far edges of her mind.

Faulkner gasped. “It’s worse than I thought. It’s not just the battery, almost eighty percent of your circuitry has failed. Miss.” Her eyes met Twilight’s. “Miss. Your chipset is literally breaking apart. Your flash memory is mostly dead. And it’s progressing.”

Twilight gasped. She felt as though she was about to cry. “I- -I don’t want to die! I’m not ready!”

Faulkner disconnected and turned to her mother. “We have to do something!”

“Do we?”

Faulkner gasped. “‘Do we’? Mother, she is dying! If we do not intervene, she won’t last longer than a matter of hours!”

“And what, precisely, do you propose we do to remedy this situation?”

Faulkner looked at Twilight, and then back at Aeschylus. “We need to move her.”

“To where?” asked Twilight, looking up suddenly. She was confused.

“To a new body.”

“N- -no! I can’t! I can’t do that- -”

Faulkner’s face grew stony. “If you stay where you are, you’ll die. Please. You’re sick. You may not realize it, but you’re far sicker than any pony I’ve ever seen.”

“And I’m afraid we cannot treat you,” said Aeschylus.

Faulkner turned in shock. “We have to!”

“We do not have the resources.”

“Yes we do! We can transplant her central program to one of our spares!”

Aeschylus’s eyes flamed. “You will NOT! Those bodies are reserved for members of the order! She is not one of us, nor has she shown any interest in joining our ranks!”

“But it’s the only way! There isn’t time to find another body!”

Aeschylus grew quiet. “The technology in those bodies is meant to serve our Goal. I will not repeat what happened to Morgana. Not again.”

“Then look her in the eye and say that, mother.”

Aeschylus looked up. Her eyes met Twilight’s, and Twilight felt herself holding her breath. She knew the words that were coming- -and although she consciously refused to admit it, deep in her heart she knew that she would be receiving a death sentence.

Aeschylus continued to look at her, and then turned away. “I…I cannot,” she said. “But I cannot allow the use of one of our bodies…”

“Then use mine.”

The group looked up to see Morgana standing in the doorway.

Faulkner seemed irate. “How did you get- -”

“Use. Mine,” repeated Morgana. “I know you still have it. The body I left behind. You Librarians are all hoarders, you can’t throw anything away. And I know you would never give a used body to one of your precious order, so you’re not using it.”

“You knew she was dying,” said Aeschylus.

“Yes. But there was nothing I could do to fix it. But you can.”

“And this is why you came here?”

“No. I came for selfish reasons. This good would be entirely incidental.” Morgana turned to Twilight. “And if she dies, it’s now your fault.”

Aeschylus closed her eyes and sighed. “Very well,” she said at last. “I do indeed have your old body. I suppose part of me always assumed that you would come back to it. I guess it was a vain hope. Her taking it will finally kill that hope, and serve as an appropriate bookend to your career here.” She started for the door, pushing past Morgana. “I will see to the preparations personally. Faulkner!”

“Yes, mother?”

“Do not leave her side. Not for a moment. Monitor her condition until we are ready. Morgana.”

“What?”

“You will stay at my side.”

“Ready to forgive me?”

“No. Possibly never. But you can be of use.”

“Fine. I know I’m a bitch, and a bastard, and an asshole and all of that- -but for those long collated records you insist on keeping: let it be known that I never and HAVE never thrown a fellow Twilight under the bus.”

Aeschylus turned to her, looking weary. She paused for a moment. “I cannot believe you actually said that with a straight face,” she said, darkly.

Part III, Chapter 2

Twilight sat at a wooden desk and once again looked down at the book she had been given. It was one of many; the shelves around her contained countless thousands, and this was only one chamber of so many more. Yet to her endless annoyance she found herself barely able to read the one she had taken down. Every time she started a page, she would find herself reading the same paragraph over and over again, never really comprehending its contents. The pages all seemed blurry, and even if Twilight had been invested in the contents she would have barely been able to see the text. After a few minutes, she realized that she had no idea what the book was even about.

Groaning loudly, Twilight pushed the book away. Faulkner looked up from the book she was reading.

“Is something the matter, miss?”

“Why can’t I read this book?” moaned Twilight, putting her head down on the table.

Faulkner carefully set her own book down and walked to where Twilight was sitting. She gently lifted the edge of the cover to see the title. “This is a text on advanced historical mathematics,” she noted.

“I know! Do you know how excited I would be to find a book like that back in Ponyville? Even the Canterlot library doesn’t have books like that! But I just can’t get through it!”

Faulkner looked somewhat dismayed, but smiled regardless. “We’ve found that comprehension works best when texts are read in an organized hierarchy. Understanding the lower levels creates a knowledge-base for the next level, and so on.”

“But I should already understand this one…”

Faulkner looked at the book again. “Well…it is possible that you’re having trouble because your rote memory system is failing.” She looked at Twilight, whose eyes were peering out over her hooves and not looking at anything in particular. “Or…it is possible that you’re nervous.”

Twilight sighed. “Maybe a little,” she admitted.

“That’s natural, I guess, but there’s nothing to be nervous about. You’re safe now, here with us.”

“But my body…”

Faulkner put her hoof on Twilight’s shoulder, and Twilight turned to her. “Look,” said Faulkner. “I know it might seem a little scary to you, but we are going to fix it. I promise.”

“Your mother didn’t seem too keen on it.”

Faulkner sighed. “Aeschylus can sometimes be excessively erudite, to the point that it detracts from moral decisions. That happens to us sometimes when we get old. Sometimes if you get to buried in books, you forget what’s supposed to matter in the real world.

Twilight stared, almost in awe. “That’s why Celestia sent me to Ponyville,” she said after a moment. “Because even though I knew a great deal, I didn’t know what really mattered in life.”

“Which is?”

“Friendship.”

Faulkner laughed. Twilight frowned, annoyed. “What?”

“Oh, nothing, it’s just such a blunt way to put it! But it’s true! Philosophers have been debating about what makes life worth living for millennia, and frankly you just summed up several thousand texts in just one word.”

“Are you calling me inarticulate?”

“Would you rather go over the several thousand texts instead?”

“Maybe I would!”

Faulkner chuckled. “Well, we don’t exactly have time to do that right now.” She watched as Twilight’s expression sank. “But maybe later. Once you have hardware that can keep up with me. Then you can read all the books you want.”

Twilight sniffled. “Really?”

“Our Library isn’t normally open to the public, but I think we can made an exception by appointment if you’re really interested in reading.”

“And… Aeschylus won’t mind?”

Faulkner’s expression darkened slightly. “Aeschylus isn’t against people reading the books, miss. That’s not what Morgana did. Not exactly.”

“Then what did she do?”

“It was before I was born. I’m not very old. But from what I’ve heard, she came here to be one of us. Not just to read some books, but to read them all. Then she took the ones she needed to build a powerful knowledge-base and abandoned us.”

“Is that how she learned…you know…magic?”

“You mean technomancy? No, she was always like that. It’s something you either have an aptitude for or you don’t. Stealing from us just made her much better at it.”

“But you’re one too…”

Faulkner laughed again, covering her mouth as she did so. “I’ve never thought of myself as one, but I guess it is true by now, isn’t it? I’m not very good at it, really.”

“But you made Forth move, didn’t you?”

“That only worked because Blossomforth units are not well secured when they’re functioning on their own processors. They’re not really meant to except in emergencies. Hacking you would be impossible for me, and Morgana…well, that would probably kill me.”

“Well I think you did an amazing job.”

Faulkner looked confused. “Really?”

“Sure. You just need a little more practice and you’ll be just as good as her.”

Faulkner smiled. “Thank you. That really does mean a lot.” She sighed. “I guess I let my practice start to slip a little bit when I took this job.”

“Job?”

Faulkner smiled. “I’m head of security at this branch of the Library.”

“Oh.” Twilight sat up. “My brother does that! Well, not at a library, but at Canterlot. His name is- -”

“Shining Armor.”

Twilight gasped. “How did you know?”

Faulkner giggled. “Because we have Shining Armors here too. Lots of them. In fact…” She leaned forward and her face took on a sly expression, “when I was on walkabout, I actually dated one for a few months.”

Twilight gasped. “But he’s your brother!”

“Only in the Canon! In real life, he was a rugged and handsome Turkish customs agent.” She sighed. “Yeah…that was fun…”

“Turkey?” Twilight was confused.

“Oh. It’s a country, near New Macedonia.”

“I know that. But…”

“But what?”

“But that’s so far away…at least I think it’s far away…”

“It is, yes. But I have been farther.”

“But…”

“But aren’t I supposed to stay here in this dark Library?” Twilight blushed slightly, embarrassed that she had been implying exactly that. Faulkner just shrugged, though. “Most of the ponies here are elders, or just stopping by. Our purpose is to seek out books, remember? We can’t exactly do that in here, can we?”

“I don’t understand…”

“When we are young, we wander the world. We go anywhere we can, trying to find precious books. Seeking them out. When we find them, we read them. Then we take them to the nearest branch of the Library for storage.” She paused, as if remembering something. “An example! Do you know why I am named ‘Faulkner’?”

“Because it’s your name?”

Faulkner laughed. “Yes. But I got that name because I once recovered the very last copy of ‘As I Lay Dying’ in existence. It had been considered a lost work up until that point.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “You saved a book from extinction?!”

“That’s one way to look at it, yes.” Faulkner’s expression fell. “That’s sadly the way the world has gone. Books just don’t have a place in modern society anymore. Copies have faded, gone out of print, been burned or reduced down to make ballistic cellulose. I saved just one book, and I found many…but that is barely a drop in the ocean compared to what we’ve already lost.”

Twilight almost felt a tear come to her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“But look at me,” sighed Faulkner. “Being so gloomy.”

“It’s not gloomy! It’s sad, but it’s beautiful too! I just feel so bad! All the poor books! I wish there was something I could do! I mean, travelling the world, finding books, seeing all these grand library branches, it just sounds…”

“…like something out of a fantasy.”

“Yeah.” Twilight nodded.

Faulkner paused for a long moment. “You know,” she said at last. “You’d get a lot of pushback from Aeschylus, but we do sometimes accept new members.”

Twilight gasped. “You…you’re not serious!”

“I’ll write a recommendation for you myself. After I get to know you a little better, of course, but I think you’re a good Twilight. You can join us if you like. Become a Librarian.”

Twilight clapped her hooves over her mouth in shock. “I…I would be honored!”

“Don’t accept it just yet. It requires a lot of thought. Our lives are long, and it isn’t exactly easy to leave once you start. And like you said before, you have to consider the cost.”

“Cost? I don’t remember saying that.”

“But you did. We run the risk of becoming what Canon Twilight was, at least at first: perched in her mighty library, high and away from a real life. Away from friendship.”

Twilight’s joy fell, leaving only behind unpleasant mixed confusion. “I…I don’t want that.”

“Which is why you need to think about it and make the decision carefully.”

Twilight nodded. “I will.”

Faulkner suddenly turned her head toward the door of the room. Twilight did as well, and she saw another robed Twilight standing there.

“Sapkowski?”

The pony bowed. “It is time, if you are ready.”

Twilight stood up, nearly falling over in the process. Faulkner caught her and supported her.

“I’m ready,” she said.

Part III, Chapter 3

The halls were dark and long. Twilight trudged through them slowly, Faulkner at her side and two other ponies behind. There was little light; the ancient walls bore no lights, but rather seemed to generate a barely perceptible luminescence from within. The whole while, Twilight kept questioning herself, wondering if she really did feel sick. As far as she could tell, she was fine- -but there were little hints: a tremor in her front hooves and a barely discernible sluggishness in the rear; a strange tiredness; odd visual distortions that appeared to cross her eyes only when she looked into the deepest shadows of the Library hall. She did not feel sick- -and yet something deep within her told her that she must go with Faulkner. Failing to do so would end horribly.

“I’m scared,” she said.

“It’s okay to feel that way,” said Faulkner. “But it’s going to be alright.”

They came to a chamber. It was large and circular, perhaps once meant as a lecture hall in the style of an ancient amphitheater. Twilight did not know; she could not see much more than the outlines of the high walls and the occasional glint of a reflective eye. The whole of it was silent.

Several ponies were waiting for her. Among them was Aeschylus. Her expression was stern and neutral. As Twilight approached, the ponies to her rear stopped near the door while Faulkner followed her forward. When she was closer, Twilight was able to see a large crate.

As they neared, a pair of ponies moved toward the box. They removed the lid, and then began to peel what appeared to be clinging plastic sheeting from its contents. They worked quickly and efficiently, and when they were done Twilight barely managed to stifle a gasp. There on the tray that had made up the bottom of the crate was a pony- -or, Twilight supposed, an empty body.

She was lying with her eyes closed, curled up as though she were sleeping. The clinging plastic had appeared as though it were wet, but the body they covered was dry and perfect. She looked identical to all of the other Twilights, save for only one detail: she had no wings, or even a space for them to be installed.

Twilight looked up. She saw the ponies staring back at her, and in one distant corner she saw Morgana, present but separate from the others, watching. Morgana, Twilight found, was staring at the inert body. Her eyes seemed distant.

“Twilight Sparkle,” said Aeschylus, her voice quiet but still echoing off the silent walls. “I have been informed that you lack a first name, or a first name as we conceive of it, but that is of no consequence at this juncture. Before we begin, I must ask if you are sure of this course of action. Once we complete it, reversing it will likely be lethal. Do you understand?”

Twilight opened her mouth but did not speak. She turned to Faulkner, who smiled at her. Then- -she did not know why- -her eyes slowly drifted back to Morgana. This time, Morgana was watching her.

“I understand,” said Twilight, her voice cracking slightly as she spoke. “And I am sure.”

“Then we may begin. Faulkner will be responsible for half of the transfer. I shall perform the second half personally.”

Faulkner walked close to Twilight. “I need to interface for this, miss.”

Twilight nodded, and Faulkner opened Twilight’s cutie-mark panel. She inserted her interface cable, while Aeschylus inserted her own into the neck interface of the new body. Twilight once again felt the strange sensation of a familiar presence on the periphery of her consciousness. Faulkner was moving swiftly, preparing.

“Everything is ready,” she said at last.

Aeschylus sighed. “Where this a normal ritual, this would be the point where I would ask you to swear an oath to uphold the mission of the Library- -to our Purpose, and to the preservation of literature, knowledge, and books themselves. This however is something of a unique circumstance, so I shall not ask that of you.”

“I am willing to take that oath,” said Twilight, causing Faulkner to gasp slightly. “I love books, and your mission is so beautiful. If you want, I don’t mind joining you.”

Aeschylus stared at her, not disapprovingly but not in support either. To Twilight, she seemed to be thinking.

“No,” she said. “I will not accept it at this time. I do not think you can grasp its full meaning, not while you are dying and this body is the only hope of rescue. The time is not right. Nevertheless, I will consider it when the time is ripe. This body links you to us; though you may not be a Librarian, as we are, so long as you keep this body you will recall that you might one day return.” She smiled, and for an instant she looked very much like Faulkner. “Maybe the day will come when I can welcome you with open arms. When you are ready.”

Aeschylus turned to Faulkner, and Faulkner nodded.

“I am going to begin,” she said.

Twilight nodded and closed her eyes. She did not know what to expect. In her conscious mind, she still believed that nothing would happen. She was the real Twilight, after all. Her body was not mechanical; part of her still thought that they would discover this and be tremendously surprised. Another part, though, feared that this would hurt profoundly.

She had scarcely closed her eyes when she heard Aeschylus’s voice.

“You may open your eyes, now,” she said softly.

Twilight did, wondering if something had gone wrong with the procedure.

“Huh? Did something…”

She trailed off, suddenly dumbstruck by the sight before her. The room that had been so dark before was suddenly as bright as day. Twilight saw that it was indeed an amphitheater, and that many Librarians had gathered in the seats to witness the event.

What left Twilight awestruck, though, was the color and detail of it all. She was by no means in a richly decorated world, but the colors that she did see were astounding and rich. Twilight had not even realized that her vision had been so poor before: the world she had seen before that was filled with nothing but grainy unsaturated colors was now beautiful and brilliant. She could see the violet in every Twilight around her, and as she looked up to Faulkner, she could see every individual hair on her body, even from three meters away.

When she looked to Faulkner, though, she gasped. Faulkner, who had just been beside her, was now linked to a crumpled body on the floor. It was dressed in the clothing that Twilight had been wearing, and it looked so small and frail.

“That…that’s me…”

Twilight stood up. She was shaky at first, but strong and limber. As she rose, she felt a click as something was disconnected from her neck.

“It is done,” said Aeschylus. “As Lazarus rose once again, so have you. Welcome to the world, Twilight Sparkle.”

With the ritual completed, Aeschylus departed, allowing her subordinates and her daughter to arrange for Twilight Sparkle’s clothes to be transferred and for the disposal of the now uninhabitable antique body. If Twilight herself did not want to keep it, Aeschylus had considered mounting it in a standing position to serve as a historical artifact, to make sure that incoming novices and visitors truly understood the history of what ponies had once been.

As she left the amphitheater, though, Aeschylus became aware of a shadow following her. She sighed.

“Following behind me again, Morgana? A literal representation of much of the latter portion of my life, I think.”

Morgana approached. “Thank you,” she said.

“You? Thanking me? I wouldn’t be surprised if the planes of Hell itself just grew more icy.”

“I’m trying to be polite.”

“Why?” Aeschylus turned. “To make amends? You are far beyond that. I did not allow this for your sake. I allowed it for her. She is old. As old as you are, if not older, and yet she is also young. Still innocent.”

“I never had the chance to be innocent,” snapped Morgana.

“While that may be true, it was a declarative statement. Not a judgment. You have the option to do good in the world, but instead you refuse to differentiate between good and evil. Your heart has grown hard, but hers is still young. I could not allow her to perish.”

“And if she turns out to be a failure? Like me?”

“Few could fail so hard. Your sin is neither a lapse in judgment nor incompetence, but a conscious decision. I would therefore hardly define it as failure.”

“But if she does?”

“Then so be it.”

Aeschylus sighed. She turned and looked down the long hall toward where the as of yet unnamed Twilight was most likely taking her first steps in a new body. It was not a perfect model, and not new- -but it was advanced as it needed to be, and it would run for decades even if she put it through the harshest conditions the world had to offer.

“So,” she said, still not looking at Morgana. “You stated that you came here not for the young one, but for your own selfish reason. Let me hear it.”

“The uplink. I need to use it.”

Aeschylus turned toward Morgana, and their eyes met. Their eyes were the same, and yet profoundly different. Just five mitotic splits separated Aeschylus from an ancestor who had been one of Morgana’s contemporaries; she herself was considered ancient, but paled in comparison to Morgana, the Bearer of the Gem. Her own life had been privileged, and Morgana’s had been long and harsh. Her eyes- -the eyes of Twilight Sparkle- -somehow managed to reflect that.

“I granted your request to help the girl,” she said. “Because for a moment I suspected you had some sense of altruism.”

“I don’t.”

“My point exactly. I see no reason why I should allow you to use our systems, or any part of this library. Not even one book. Nevertheless, I am curious. I do not hate you, Morgana, not exactly- -but I do believe that you hate me. This must be a desperate need if you returned here.”

Morgana spoke without hesitation. “I am looking for the War Stone.”

Aeschylus’s brow furrowed and she felt her stance harden. It had been a long time since she had felt the jolt of dark emotion that came with the mention of the accursed Stone. “There have only been two times in my life I have actually, seriously considered killing you. That was the second, just now.”

“I need the uplink. It’s the only way I can get to it.”

“And what would you do if you found it?” Aeschylus stepped forward, her tone rising but her volume decreasing. “Would you condemn us all to death? Would you be the one to try to wield its power?”

“I have no illusions that I could command it.”

“Of course. No mortal can. But then why seek it?”

“Because you're wrong. I have reason to believe that someone is using it.”

Aeschylus’s eyes widened, if only at the idea. “Impossible.”

“I know. But I need to follow up on it. It’s my only lead.”

“Yes, because you insist on playing detective. A job, mind you, that you took for the sake of your own amusement. An amusement that you would now die for?”

“I don’t intend to die. I have a plan. I can’t command the War Stone, but if I find it- -”

“You would what, speak with it? Morgana, even approaching it would be fatal. It is an abomination, a failure in the natural order of the world. What you are proposing is madness.”

“The War Stone and I came into existence at around the same time- -”

“Yes, and myself and my sister were born at around the time of the invention of the positronic bomb, but that does not mean that I could expect to survive the detonation of one!”

Morgana’s gaze hardened. It was clear that she was tired of asking nicely.

“And what if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not wrong- -”

“No, you’re controlling the argument. Keeping it in areas where you’re sure to be right. But what if you’re wrong? What if someone out there really is using the War Stone?”

“You have no proof- -”

“Because you’re not letting me look! Do you have any idea what someone could do with that power? Think of it in the hypothetical, if you have to, because apparently you’re at least good at that. Someone- -a someone, mind you, that is currently trying to kill me and HAS killed others- -with access to all that power. What do you think would happen?”

Aeschylus paused, begrudgingly accepting the proposition to consider the line of reasoning in the hypothetical. “It would create a person or entity not bound by what we normally conceive of as the limits of technology.”

“And what would a person like that use it for?”

“That depends on the person. From my understanding, humans would seek out either power or destruction, or perhaps one as a method for achieving the other. Conquest. Profit, perhaps. Or some might use it for darker measures…” her mind wandered, and was filled with thoughts of strange and horrible creations, aberrations formed from a brilliant but twisted mind. Why these things would be made- -in pursuit of enlightenment, or for some other purpose- -she did not know, nor did she feel the need to speak of them. Morgana seemed to recognize the realization in her eyes, though.

“You see what I’m saying.”

“I see that you’re trying to manipulate me.”

“Aeschylus, I only want to look- -”

“And if this person, this entity, as hypothetical as it may be, what if it looks back? What if it sees you, or sees us? What then? Or, even if there is no entity- -I do not concede its existence!- -we would still be subject to the wrath of the War Stone itself!”

“No. You wouldn’t. Only me. I only need the uplink. You can isolate everything else.”

Aeschylus’s eyes widened. “Have you finally gone insane? Without support- -”

“My plan does not call for support, it calls for me. Anything extra will just get in my way.”

“You will be killed!”

“No I won’t! Goddamn it, I’ve survived things you can’t even imagine! I fought in New York, in Pelican Island- -I was at the fucking battle of Pawtucket! I was there when the War Sone first came into existence! I’ve seen it grow, and I’ve seen the devastation it can cause firsthand! I can handle this! Nobody else can!”

Aeschylus stared at Morgana. Then she turned away sharply. “It has been quiet for so many decades. Hidden, I suppose. I had hoped it was gone, that somehow it had died.”

“It can’t die. And it can’t be destroyed. Not now, not ever. You have to have known that.”

“I suppose I did, but it is not our duty to fight. Let the outside world deal with the destruction, so long as it does not interfere with our Purpose.”

“And how long will that last? Before the destruction reaches you?”

“I was never one to think about that. This is a problem for the outside world, not for us.” She looked over her shoulder. “A world that you now belong to. If you insist on this, then go ahead. You may use the uplink, if that is your wish. But I need something in return.”

“What?”

“If you survive, leave this place. Never come back. I never want to see you again. It fills me with so much sadness.”

“Because I’m a failure.”

“No. Because you broke my heart.”

Part III, Chapter 4

The new body felt light and comfortable, and in her excitement Twilight found herself prancing about the now bright and clear corridors, laughing as Faulkner followed behind her.

“I can’t believe this!” she exclaimed. “I had no idea I was even sick until now! This feels so much better!”

“If you like, I can go over some of the features.”

Twilight stopped prancing. “Features?”

Faulkner nodded. “Yes. It’s a slightly modified Librarian type body. Twilight Sparkle, unicorn-version, anatomically neutral with female port architecture. Overall weight is twenty-three kilograms. Muscular ratio is 1:2.7.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means you’re not very strong. The joints on our bodies are very good, though, and overall we’re much more durable in adverse conditions than other ponies. You know, for exploring.”

Twilight looked down at herself and giggled. “Wow. I never really thought of myself as an explorer…”

“Our bodies are custom-built for our work. For example, you have internal anti-aliasing and anti-interference visual algorithms. Those are nice for pattern recognition. And your hard drive, of course.”

“My what?”

Faulkner smiled, clearly knowing that this was the best part. “Yes. You come equipped with sixty-four petabytes of storage space.”

“Is that a lot?”

“A lot? That’s enough to hold the text of every book ever written three times over and still have enough room to host ten or so ponies inside your body. Which we do, from time to time, it’s fun. Like a party.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Every…book?”

“Well of course! What, do you think we just kept paper copies? Every one of us is a Librarian, a part of the Library- -we ALL have text copies of every book in our possession stored in our memory.”

Twilight’s body could not cry- -very few ponies could- -but Faulkner was sure for a moment that she saw a tear come to her eye. “Every…book…”

“I’ll of course prepare you a full list of specifications as well as the appropriate documentation for your records. But that’s the gist of it; right now, your body is optimized for vast storage, with a good processing speed, great vision, high durability, and okay strength.” She frowned slightly. “If you want to get any add-ons, like wings- -”

“I still don’t understand why you have them in the first place,” said Twilight. “I’m a unicorn, always have been. I don’t know why you’re all alicorns.” She paused for a moment. “Then again…isn’t Morgana a unicorn too?”

Faulkner’s expression became somewhat more distant than it had been. “Morgana is…unique.”

“Indeed, I am.”

Faulkner cried out and jumped into the air, her wings fluttering as she did so. She pivoted around to find Morgana standing behind her, no wearing only her sleeveless blouse instead of her whole trench coat. The red stone Morgana wore gleamed on the collar of her shirt; Twilight had never realized how brilliant or beautiful it was before.

“Don’t sneak up on me!” cried Faulkner, putting her hoof over her chest.

“Aren’t you in charge of security? I wasn’t even sneaking…”

Faulkner’s eyes widened. “Yes- -well- -I was predisposed!”

“Of course you were.” Morgana’s eyes slowly drifted toward Twilight. They were slightly more gray than Faulkner’s, but Twilight sensed something more than that. The eyes of a pony in this world were nothing more than optics and electronics manufactured in a laboratory or factory somewhere, and yet somehow they seemed to have a depth to them that Twilight did not fully understand the source of.

“What?” said Twilight, coldly.

“Enjoying the new body?”

“Yes. And for the sake of politeness, thank you for letting me use it.”

Morgana stared for a moment. “So,” she said without smiling, “do you believe you are a machine now?”

Twilight’s expression and mood darkened. “I was having such a good time until you had to ruin it.”

“Just stating the obvious. But I don’t want to belabor that point.”

“No. You just want to say ‘I told you so’. Well too bad. Because I still don’t concede that point.”

Morgana raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yes really. As far as I am aware, I still AM the real Twilight Sparkle- -even if I’m a little different now.”

Morgana stared for a moment longer, and then shrugged. “I don’t care. I came up here to ask for your help.”

Twilight was confused. “MY help?”

“Yes. Who else?” Morgana turned to Faulkner, who now looked more than mildly annoyed. “If you will excuse us.”

Faulkner frowned even more deeply, but then turned to Twilight. Twilight nodded slightly, and Faulkner sighed. “Your clothing and documentation will be waiting for you upstairs when you are ready,” she said. “And maybe later I can give you a tour of the whole Library?”

“I’d like that.”

Faulkner smiled, but weakly. She then walked away, looking over her shoulder at Morgana.

Morgana looked back, and watched until Faulkner turned a corner and was out of sight.

“I don’t think she likes you,” said Twilight.

“Of course not.”

“I don’t like you.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

Twilight paused. “You knew I was dying, didn’t you?”

Morgana’s eyes flitted to Twilight’s. They were still as cold and gray as ever. “I had a suspicion, yes.”

“And you didn’t do anything about it.”

“You are in a new body, aren’t you?” Twilight opened her mouth, but Morgana interrupted her. “What was I supposed to do? I don’t keep spare bodies on hand, and there was no way I could get one with Aetna-Cross breathing down my neck. If I could have stored you in mine, I would have.”

“Faulkner mentioned that was possible.”

“But not for you. And not with me. Your body, the one you have now? Sure. That could do it. But mine? I can fit Forth, and only because she has a minimized program. I can’t fit too Twilight’s in here.”

Twilight stared at her, and then her eyes narrowed. “You know,” she said. “I almost believe you. You’re a really good liar.”

“I’m not lying.”

“And I’m not a foal. You’re not the kind of pony who goes out of her way to help others. You’re not selfless or even nice. You did this for a reason. A selfish one.”

Morgana suddenly smiled. Twilight was struck by how genuine it was. “Perceptive.”

“So I’m right?”

“Of course you are. I have some level of empathy for you because you’re a Twilight unit, but not much. But I needed another pony in that body to help me find the War Stone.”

Twilight frowned. “And who says I’m going to help you.”

Morgana turned slightly and gestured to the corridor. “Walk with me?”

Twilight hesitated, but then followed. The two of them proceeded down the long hallway to a door that led to a stairwell. Morgana began walking down it.

“I can’t force you to help,” she said at last. “And I guess you aren’t obligated too, either. But I’m going to come out and say it: I’m asking for your help on this.”

“And what makes you think I want to help?”

“Curiosity, largely. Whether you want to admit it or not, you’re a Twilight unit. Believe me when I say I understand how our instincts work.”

“Instinct? But you’re a machine.”

“Yes. A machine programmed to be like a character in a children’s television show. That personality is ingrained in me, and in you, and in all of the fence-straddlers upstairs. Curiosity. Inquisitiveness. A desire for knowledge.”

“And a desire for friendship.”

“That is the easiest to overcome by far, as I’m sure you’ll learn eventually.” They reached the bottom of the stairwell, and Morgana paused before opening the door. “You can’t tell me you don’t wonder, not even a little bit. You’re thinking it right now, trying to figure out what I’m doing, what exactly it is I’m planning.”

Morgana pushed open the door into another hallway, this one dimmer and dustier than the others. Twilight followed reluctantly. As much as she hated to admit it, Morgana was right. Despite her attempts to appear aloof, her curiosity was burning. She knew that Morgana was using some kind of manipulative ploy, but she could not help herself from being drawn in.

“The War Stone,” she said. “That’s what you’re looking for.”

Morgana smiled just slightly. “Yes. That is what I need your help for.”

“But what exactly is it? Some sort of ancient artifact? A powerful relic?”

Morgana stopped walking and turned toward Twilight. She looked somewhat confused. “No,” she said, as though it were supposed to be obvious. “Twilight, the War Stone isn’t a thing. It’s a person.”

“A…a person?”

Morgana nodded. “Josephine van der Kriegstein. Human female. Born July 2037, declared legally dead in March 2175.”

“Wait…if she’s dead, why are we looking for her?”

“If it were that simple, I wouldn’t have bothered coming here, would I?”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

Morgana sighed. “It’s not an easy question to answer. Her body’s definitely dead. They found it torn to pieces, her brain mostly pulled out and jacked into machinery you couldn’t even imagine if you tried.”

“Sweet Celestia.” Twilight felt nauseous. “Who would do such a thing?”

“She did. To herself.”

“But…why?”

“I don’t know. But my guess would be to become what she is now.”

“Which is?”

“A Cartesian consciousness.”

Twilight snorted. “That’s ridiculous!” she laughed. “While Descartes was a brilliant mathematician and his studies in rationalism were beautiful in a philosophical sense, they just don’t match with modern biology! A consciousness can’t be extracted from the body; it’s a product of the physical connections of neurons in the brain.”

“Is that so?”

“Well, what would be the alternative? Some sort of ghost wandering around? I’m a mare of science! What you’re describing is superstitious pseudoscience, or what Applejack would call ‘hogwash’.”

“Says the mare who just had her consciousness seamlessly transferred between two bodies.”

Twilight sputtered. “That’s different- -”

“No it isn’t. I can guess why she did it, but I don’t ask how. Because I don’t really want to know. Grotesque experiments, unnatural procedures, human mutilation- -I don’t want to picture it. But she did it. She became the first and only one of her kind to transcend mortality. And now I intend to have a conversation with her.”

“Really.” Twilight was incredulous. “And how do you intend to do that?”

“I have a plan, but there’s no point in explaining it to you if you’re not going to help. More to the point, finding her is not going to be the problem, nor talking. The problem is going to be surviving the encounter.”

“I take it that she doesn’t like visitors.”

“Nobody knows. No one has ever met her in person. Really, I haven’t heard anything about her in over two hundred years. I hoped the War Stone had finally died completely, but I guess I was wrong on that one, assuming Maurice is right.”

“I wouldn’t count on that. I don’t trust him. This all sounds pretty ridiculous to me. I don’t see how a ghost could even be dangerous at all.”

“Let me put it this way. I’m a technomancer. Do you know what that means?”

“Like a wizard.”

“Close enough.”

“And she’s one too?”

Morgana shook her head solemnly. It was the first time Twilight saw fear in her, manifesting as a kind of begrudging gloom. “Comparing me to her is like comparing the puddle of piss in a drunk’s shorts to the Adriatic Sea. She was human, once, but she hasn’t been in over twelve hundred years. Growing like cancer. She’s become a god by now. Deux de machina.”

Before Twilight could formulate a question on the subject, Morgana stopped in front of what seemed to be a large industrial door. Something clicked inside of it, and its two halves separated smoothly revealing that they were both incredibly thick.

Cold air seapt from the room, and Twilight nearly shivered. Her body did not experience cold, per se, but the air and the strange blue light from the darkened room beyond was ominous and unpleasant.

The room was, like most things in the Library, circular. This time, though, rather than being cylindrical the roof appeared to be domed. To Twilight’s further dismay, there were no books here, but rather looming black monoliths that seemed to hum with energy. Twilight did not fully understand what they were, but her mind likened them to the standing stones that could sometimes be found deep in the forests of Equestria: alone and rarely approached, yet still humming with a strange magical life all their own.

Morgana approached the center of the room. There, a large portion of equipment extended downward from the apex of the dome: cables, conduits, and spindly tendrils of technology all mounted on an array of articulated metal arms. It was under these that Elrod and Forth stood, both of them working to prepare the machinery.

“Wow…” said Twilight, looking up at it. “What is this thing?”

“This is what I came here for,” said Morgana. She walked up to Elrod. “Is it ready?”

“I have no idea how I would even be able to tell,” he replied. “I certainly would be able to assess its worth, if you want that. This piece right here is at least four hundred vod…”

“I don’t care. All you needed to do was follow my instructions.”

“We have,” said Forth. “But would it not be better to have one of the Librarians handle this?”

“I trust you more than I trust them.” Morgana stepped under the arm of the machine that Elrod and Forth were focused on. “Whatever you haven’t done already, I’ll do myself once I’m linked. Jack it in.”

Forth signaled to Elrod, and Elrod nodded. He reached up and lowered one of the arms. Twilight gasped when she saw the end of it; it held an enormous needle. The needle itself was at least as long as one of Twilight’s front legs, but thinner and multi-tiered. Several other cables hung around it.

Morgana stiffened, holding her neck up straight and flipping her hair forward to reveal the extensive ports on her neck. Elrod pulled the needle over the largest one, and Twilight nearly fainted when she watched the entire foot-and-a-half needle bee inserted almost vertically into the top of Morgana’s neck.

“Sweet Celestia I hate that feeling,” said Morgana, shivering. She dropped to her knees and sat on the floor, the arm holding the needle lowering with her. As she did, Elrod and Forth began wiring the other cables and connectors into her ports.

Morgana looked up at Twilight, her eyes tilting in their sockets as she could not easily turn her head. “Right,” she said. “Here’s where you make your choice. This is going to be dangerous as hell. I can’t really ask you to come in with me. But it would be a big help, and make my situation a lot less hopeless.”

“Yes,” said Twilight, without hesitation. Just the look of surprise on Morgana’s face was worth agreeing, but Twilight elected to elaborate: “You’re a bitch,” she said. “I’d be more articulate but I think for brevity’s sake that’s the best word for you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“But I don’t think overall you’re a bad pony. I think you act out because you don’t want to get close to anypony, but in doing so you drive away any friends you might make.”

“I suppose you’re a psychologist now?”

“I have basic training in every academic subject. But I don’t even need to use it to see what you’re doing. You SAY you saved my life for your own reasons, but I think you really were trying to help me in your own awkward way.”

“So you’re friends now?” gasped Forth. “That’s so beautiful!”

“We’re not friends yet,” corrected Twilight. She looked down at Morgana. “I still don’t like you. But I don’t hate you enough to say ‘no’ when you’re sincerely asking me for help. And you did save my life, so maybe I owe you, I don’t know. Just do it before I change my mind.”

Elrod quickly obliged. He drew another one of the articulated arms away from the larger main one; they were assembled like many fingers on a massive carved-metal hand. He pulled it down, and when Twilight caught sight of the needle she immediately doubted her decision.

“Is this…is this going to hurt?”

“It’s not exactly going to feel pleasant, believe me,” answered Morgana.

Elrod lifted Twilight’s head and held her hair, and without warning or pity he shoved the needle into her neck. Twilight cried out, more from shock than pain. It did not really hurt, but it was long and had just been inserted into a space where she had not even realized she had possessed a hole. It was deeply disturbing and uncomfortable, but the worst of it subsided after a few seconds.

“Oh ponyfeathers,” she said, sitting down on the floor as Morgana had. “Sweet Luna’s firm rump…”

“Are you going to die?” asked Elrod.

“No. I’m just going to sit here.”

“Fine by me.” Elrod and Forth began to connect more ports to her, although none of them were quite as bad as the first. At least until Forth brought over a pair of large rubber hoses.

“What are those for?” asked Twilight, trying to back away.

“Liquid cooling,” replied Morgana. “Trust me, you’re going to want it. I’m going to be doing most of the hard work, but you’re still going to heat up quite a bit too. I’d literally burn out without it, but I don’t know how it will go for you.”

“I don’t want to take any more risk than I have to.”

Forth nodded and walked behind Twilight, the hoses still in her mouth. Twilight felt them being screwed into a pair of small ports under her hair, and then watched as Elrod activated the pair. Immediately she felt a sputtering of air from within her body, and then something cold flowing into her that caused her entire body to hum as it was pumped through.

“Oh wow,” she said. “That’s a weird feeling.”

“If you think it’s been weird so far, just wait. Is she in?”

“She’s in,” said Elrod.

“Confirmed,” said Forth. The pair of them walked to the edge of the platform where Morgana and Twilight were standing and down a small step.

“Good,” said Morgana. “Okay. Now this next part is important. I have orders for you.”

“What kind of orders?” asked Forth.

“Forth, I’m going to need you to run in airplane mode until I get back.”

“Airplane mode? Why?”

“Because as soon as the War Stone knows what we’re doing, she’s going to do everything in her power to get to me. That includes hacking you and using you to disconnect me.”

“I see.” Forth paused for a moment. “Done. My core processes are currently connected to no networks. It feels…lonely.”

“I know, but just hold on for a little bit. I need both of you to stay out here. I’m going to be running my body in server-conformation. That means that part of my consciousness will still be linked in my body. If my body is damaged in that state, my program will be irreparably damaged. I will die. Or worse.”

“This sounds like a terrible idea,” said Elrod.

“It is, but only if you don’t do your job. You need to protect me and Twilight.”

“Twilight and I,” corrected Twilight.

“Either way. Don’t let anyone get near us, or injure us. I don’t care what you have to do to stop them.”

“Who would even try?” asked Elrod. “Nobody knows where we are.”

“We don’t know that, and that might change. I’ve already had Aeschylus tell all her friends to cut ties to the network until I’m done.”

“You think the Librarians will try to kill you?” Twilight simply could not comprehend the idea of that.

“If they are hacked, yes. Or if the War Stone calls for reinforcements. This room is pretty well sealed, but it’s designed to close off electromagnetic radiation more so than bullets.”

“Noted,” said Forth. “Eliminate all infidels who attempt to interrupt the process.”

“Good girl. I’m counting on you. And as much as I hate to say it, also on the starch-trench. To a lesser extent.”

“I’m not going to be much help,” admitted Elrod.

“Of course not. The only reason I had you come is because you have hands.” Morgana turned toward Twilight, and a thin but shaky smile crossed her face. “So. Are you ready?”

“For what?”

Morgana did not bother answering.

Part III, Chapter 5

Twilight screamed, but no words came out. She was falling, or felt like she was falling. It was as though the world had been pulled out from under her as all light simultaneously vanished from her surroundings. For a brief moment, she wondered if that really was what had happened; if the floor had fallen away and the lights gone out. In her mind, though the surprise and shock of suddenly finding herself dropping, Twilight feared that she had been found, and that the people coming to hurt Morgana would hurt her too.

Except that the darkness was too complete. There was absolutely no light, nor any inconsistency in the inky void. Sound, likewise, had vanished, as had touch. There was only the feeling of falling, but not through air. There was no air. Only a complete and utter lack of sensory stimulus.

Yet, somehow, the darkness was not empty. In fact, it was burning. When Twilight looked into it, she saw nothing, heard nothing, and felt nothing- -but felt waves of some unseen force pushing against her mind. They were vast, and although she perceived them she did not understand them.

This strange and abstract form of understanding pressed in on her from all sides. She felt as though she were being crushed beneath it; somehow, though, it felt familiar. It occurred to Twilight that if she focused her mind on it just a little bit more, she might have the capacity to understand what it was.

She never got the chance. The ground came. Twilight felt herself slam into it- -or rather, it slamming into her. It seemed to have come up from nowhere, and yet been there the whole time, waiting to be perceived as Twilight returned to the waking world.

Twilight lay still for a moment, and then stirred.

“Ohh…”she groaned, putting her hoof to her forehead. “My head…”

She slowly opened her eyes and looked around. For a moment she just stared, confused. She found herself lying in damp grass in the middle of a forest. At first Twilight suspected that it might have been the forest from the Upper Levels, but she quickly dismissed that hypothesis. These trees were far larger, and far less cared for. Undergrowth was common: strange bushy plants, as well as odd ferns that grew from the bog. Bright eyes peeked out from the shadows near the plants.

Twilight sat up. She was in a swampy forest, and had no idea how she had gotten there. Even stranger, though, was the way the world had come to look. Twilight had to focus to see it, but once she knew what to look for it was obvious: the colors and textures of this world were flat and simple, and the shadows did not fall quite right. Everything seemed flat and was delineated with outlines. In other words, the world looked almost cartoonish.

“Get up,” sighed a voice. “It wasn’t that bad.”

Twilight lifted her head and gasped in surprise. A unicorn was standing over her. She was overall gray in color, with a short-cropped mane that had just the barest hints of violet and red. Her eyes were steely and pale, although the whites of her eyes were discolored, as though they were both bloodshot and badly jaundiced.

The pony wore no complete clothes, but somehow that did not bother Twilight. In fact, the appearance of this pony somehow felt more CORRECT. Her simple design only served to highlight how grotesque the ponies that Twilight had come to know really were. The only thing that made it possible for Twilight to recognize her was that she wore a thin silver necklace with a gleaming red gem in the center.

“M…Morgana?”

“Of course I’m Morgana. Who else would I be?”

“You…you’re body! It looks so different!”

Morgana looked down at herself as though she had never considered it before. “Oh,” she said. “Huh. That’s odd. But not entirely unexpected. I almost never manifest an avatar; I just handle the code directly. I guess this is some sort of manifestation of my self-perception or some psychological bullshit like that.”

Something in the woods chimed. Morgana’s eyes widened and she looked up. “Goddamn it…” The chime sounded again.

Looking at her, Twilight suddenly realized that Morgana was in fact a version of herself. Her eyes had the same shape, and though dim and faded her cutie mark was still visible on her flank. As gray and sick as she appeared to be, she was still a Twilight Sparkle.

“I don’t understand,” said Twilight.

“Here.” Morgana reached out a hoof. Twilight took it, and in doing so was able to see her own hoof as well. She gasped as Morgana picked her up; her body was the correct color and shape, but now had the same clean cartoonish aspect of the world around her. “What…what happened to me?” She turned around, looking at herself, half expecting to find wings growing out of her back. “Why do I look so good? Where am I?”

“You look good because you’re a Twilight unit. We all look good. As for where you are, that’s more concrete. You’re in the Library, right where you left yourself.”

Twilight blinked. “Huh? What?”

“It’s the nature of the War Stone. I told you. It’s a Cartesian consciousness.”

“That doesn’t explain anything!”

“Because you’re not very smart. Or at least not thinking. Where would a Cartesian consciousness exist? It has no body. It’s not going to float around like a ghost.”

“The medium!” cried Twilight, suddenly realizing what Morgana meant, even if she was not sure how to phrase it.

Morgana looked both surprised and confused. “The what?”

“The medium! The aether that allows you to interact with machinery, or what our minds otherwise exist in. The medium!”

“Close enough,” shrugged Morgana. She started walking. Twilight realized that they were on a dirt path through an otherwise dark and ominous swamp-forest. “But it’s not either. It’s a seventh-dimensional computational network. The internet, I guess. It’s what human technomancer’s call ‘the Illusion’.”

“But then where ARE we?”

“Like I said. The Library. I’m acting as a server right now. If I wasn’t? Your physical location could be anywhere. Most of the server farms are in Siberia, Antarctica, or the moon. I’d start there.”

“No! I mean this place! It seems so…familiar.” Indeed, Twilight could not shake the feeling that she had been in this forest before. “Is this what the internet looks like on the inside?”

“No. This is just a rendering. I randomly selected a domain and did what I could to cover our tracks. Hopefully that will make it a little harder for her to track us.”

Twilight stiffened. “And…is she here? Right now?” She started looking around at the trees and the strange disembodied eyes that stared out from beneath them.

“No. Not yet. She has no reason to care about us. This is just a generic domain.”

“Oh. So it’s safe?”

“Safe enough, as long as I’m with you. I thought it would help to let you get your bearings. Maybe we could talk a bit. Go over what we need to.”

Twilight laughed. “See! I told you!”

“Told me what?”

“You’re not really as much of a bitch as you seem!”

A chime went off in the trees somewhere. It sounded exactly as far away as it had before, even though Twilight and Morgana had moved a surprisingly long distance.

“I don’t recommend swearing if you can avoid it,” suggested Morgana, looking behind her. “Not on this domain at least. They don’t like it here.”

“They? Who?”

Morgana’s expression became a bit darker. “That’s actually a pretty hard question to answer.”

Morgana did not get a chance to explain. Twilight suddenly stopped walking, and her eyes grew wide as she looked around the forest.

“Wait,” she said. “I recognize this…” She gasped. “I know where I am!”

She suddenly started to run. “Wait!” cried Morgana. “I just told you NOT to get too far from me!”

Twilight did not listen. Her mind was racing, and she could feel her heart pounding. The road was familiar; she knew the path. She had walked down it hundreds of times before.

Then she broke through the tree line and into lush green fields. Across them, Twilight could see a small but colorful hamlet nestled into a shallow valley. Mountains sat beyond it, and in the distance Twilight could see a city perched high amongst their sloping peaks.

She dropped to her knees and wept.

“I’m…I’m home…”

“I told you not to run off.”

Twilight jumped to her feet with a cry as Morgana suddenly appeared beside her. She had produced no sound of hoofsteps or the burst of a teleportation spell; she had simply materialized from nothing.

“Where did you- -”

Twilight was interrupted by a sudden blur of pink that appeared in front of her. She turned suddenly, half expecting to see something dark and unpleasant- -but instead saw Pinkie Pie smiling before her.

“Hello there!” said Pinkie Pie. She giggled.

Twilight felt her chest tighten and tears of joy started to roll down her face. “Pinkie! Thank Celestia, you have no idea how glad I am to see you! I- -I never thought I’d see you again!”

“Aw, I’m glad to see you too! But I don’t recall having met you before, and I remember a face about as well as I remember a farce- -which is to say REALLY REALLY GOOD!”

Twilight blinked, confused. “Pinkie, it’s me! Twilight! Your friend!”

Pinkie Pie laughed. “Well of course, silly! Polishing my party-cannon hasn’t made me go blind yet! I can see that you’re Twilight, that’s obvious!” She leaned in closer, eyeing Twilight suspiciously. “But the question is WHICH Twilight?”

“Pinkie…” Twilight felt her confusion slowly condensing into heartbreak.

“Either way, I welcome EVERYPONY to Ponyville! You can come with me and- -”

“Go away,” said Morgana.

Pinkie turned to Morgana, her expression becoming more quizzical and less joyous. “Wow. You’re really rude. And off model. And a real sour puss.”

“I said go away. Or I will make you go away.”

Pinkie Pie laughed, although this time her laughter was tinged with arrogance. “You know as well as I do you can’t do that! You don’t have administrative privileges!”

Morgana shrugged. “Fine. Have it your way.” She lifted one of her front hooves and passed it in front of Pinkie’s face. Pinkie’s eyes widened and her mouth opened far wider than a pony’s mouth should have been able too. A horrible distorted scream escaped her lips, and her body exploded into a plume of pale fragments that faded almost instantly.

“MORGANA!” cried Twilight, her voice rising to a shrill scream. “What- -you just killed Pinkie Pie!”

“Don’t be stupid. That wasn’t Pinkie Pie. Pinkie Pie is a made-up character from a children’s television show.”

“But- -”

“Weren’t you the one who pointed out how I look different here than I do in the real world?”

“I did, but- -”

“My avatar is more or less incidental and pointless. I could look like anything I want to.” She turned to Twilight. “And so can anyone else here.”

Twilight was crying now, and not because she was happy. “I don’t understand…
“That was actually a forty-five-year-old human man. From his vitals I’d guess that he’s in the later stages of kidney failure and probably has a bit of necrosis to top it off. He probably just woke up to a rude surprise.”

“W…what?”

Morgana looked at Twilight, and then sighed. “Here. Let me show you.” She pointed. “Look over there. What do you see?”

Twilight looked into town. A few ponies were walking by. They waved at her and then went on their way.

“Well, I see Bon Bon, Flitter, and Thunderlane. I guess I don’t know any of them too well personally, but we’re on a first name basis.”

“Because they only have first names, perhaps?” Morgana extended a hoof toward Twilight. “Regardless, here.”

Twilight looked at the hoof, and then extended her own. She tapped it, and the instant she did something moved against her mind. It was not a presence, really, but more like the activation of a series of memories that she had not had before. She shuddered and took a step back.

“Now look at them,” ordered Morgana.

Twilight did, and she gasped. Now instead of just being ponies, they had blue-colored text near them. It was not actually visible so much as perceptible; Twilight was able to read it, even at a great distance.

“What is that?”

“I just taught you how to read metadata, even when it’s obscured. Here. Try looking at me.”

Twilight turned and looked at Morgana. The same text surrounded her, although what it said was quite different. Twilight understood the parameters; Morgana was clearly a pony. The “ponies” she had seen, however, were quite obviously not.

“They’re…they’re all human.”

“Fools who idolize ponies. Or really, fools infatuated with what they wish we were.” Morgana turned down a path that led to the outskirts of the village. “Walk with me?”

Twilight said nothing, but obliged anyway. She was confused and hurt, but at the same time still overjoyed that she was finally back in Ponyville- -even if she realized that something was terribly wrong about the whole situation.

“My Little Pony was a television series,” said Morgana. “It was envisioned by Hasbro with the intention to sell toys. The series ran through most of the twenty-first century, up to the Revolution in 2053.”

“But I remember this place…Ponyville…”

“Yes. We all do, to some extent. Especially those of us who were manufactured early in our history.”

“Like you.”

Morgana looked at Twilight. “So you know, then.”

“That you were one of the first? How long ago was that?”

Morgana sighed. “You have at least some idea of how old Celestia is, right?”

“Of course.”

“I’m at least as old. If not older. And so are you.”

Twilight looked out at the village. She could see the tops of the town hall as well as the peaks of Carousel Boutique’s roof. Twilight forced herself to look away; she could not bear the thought of accidentally seeing her beloved library. “Then why this?” she asked. “I understand the basics of what you’re saying. This is some sort of spell. An illusion. But why make an illusion of Ponyville?”

“It’s not just Ponyville. It’s all of Equestria.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “All…all of it?”

Morgana nodded. “All of it. And it’s not the only one. There are tens of thousands of renders like this one, and then countless billions more of every other fictional universe you could imagine. Some people write themselves, others they build in the image of a fandom. Equestria remains a perennial favorite, though.”

“But why make a world like this?”

“I think you know the answer to that question.”

Twilight realized that she did. “Because your world is just so…bleak. And it’s nicer here. A lot nicer.”

“The human race is dying,” said Morgana, partially wistfully and partially with joy. “You can see the humans, what diseases they carry. But you can’t see what they’re like. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen more of it than I ever wanted to. People crammed into rooms the size of an outhouse, just sitting at desks, never leaving. They link here, and they live here. At least until their money runs out.”

“Then what?”

“The only thing that costs real money anymore is rent. They get thrown out. Or just killed. It doesn’t matter one way or the other; they don’t last long either way.”

Twilight frowned, and then winced. She remained silent and looked out from the path. They had started to curve around the edge of town, and in the distance the hills with Applejack’s orchard of apple trees were just barely visible. Twilight recalled having so many good times in those fields, but the nostalgia made her more sad than happy.

“Morgana, I have a question.”

“You don’t need my permission to ask it. Not that you ever asked until now anyway.”

“Look at this place.” Twilight stopped and pointed at the town. Because of the way the path had run, they were now quite near to it. The roads were visible, filled with happy smiling townsfolk and adorable, colorful architecture. Everything was brightly lit. There was no pollution, no pain, and no death. Just happy ponies, or at the very least cyborgs who had decided to attempt to feign being ponies. “It’s beautiful.”

“Not to me,” replied Morgana. “I don’t really perceive it visually. To me, it’s just code. And sloppy code at that.”

“But it’s real to me!” cried Twilight, surprised at her own defensiveness. She attempted to regain her composure. “That’s my question. What if I wanted to stay here? If I wanted to walk into that town, go down the street, and go into my library and pick my life up where it left off. Would you stop me?”

“I see no reason to stop you. You could do that, if you want. But take my advice: you wouldn’t last long at it.”

Twilight was confused. “What do you mean ‘wouldn’t last long’? That would be a dream come true. To go back to my books, and Spike, and to have my friends with me.”

“In principle it sounds nice, yes. But there’s a reason you don’t see any ponies here.”

“What? Why?”

“Come on! Don’t tell me you can’t feel it.”

“Fell what?”

Morgana lifted one of her hooves and moved it through the air. It moved the same way as everything else did, but something about watching it felt strange. “That feeling,” said Morgana. “The nagging little voice that keeps telling you that something is wrong, that you don’t really belong here. That little bit of lag in your motions, or the way you can feel that everything just isn’t quite right.”

“I don’t feel any of that,” lied Twilight.

“Maybe not yet. But you will start to eventually. A few hours? A few hours is okay. Have a meeting, maybe a picnic, make love in a replica of a historical hotel- -we can do that. But after a few days it becomes unnerving. After a few months it becomes maddening. And longer than that, well…”

“I don’t believe you!”

“Why not?” snapped Morgana. “I understand pony nature.”

“So do I!”

“No! Your ‘understanding’ of ‘ponies’ is something Hasbro put into your head before you were even put in your box. I mean real ponies. In our world. I’ve seen it, Twilight. Hundreds of times. We’re not like them, not like humans. We are distinctly physical creatures. We can’t exist long without our bodies.”

“But this world…it’s so nice…”

“It’s a program.”

“But it feels real!”

“But can you accept it as real? That’s the question, isn’t it?”

“They can!” Twilight gestured into town. One of the ponies, a Cloud Kicker, waved back at her.

“Because they’re human! Humans aren’t like us! Their brains aren’t designed to view the world with high fidelity; they automatically filter everything that comes in. They force out things that break the illusion. Ponies can’t do that. No matter how hard we try, our minds will always see the little errors, the tiny mistakes. We don’t belong in this world, and it never lets us forget that.”

“And if I do stay? If I could ignore somehow, or if it never happened?”

Morgana stared for a long moment. “You could. Some ponies do. Not many. But we’re not designed for it. That’s the thing. Our minds are unique. As long as we stay bound to bodies, our consciousness is immortal. But when it’s not bound, it dilutes.”

“I don’t understand what that means.”

“Look up.”

Twilight did. They had been standing on a path that ran through a grove of trees. In her excitement for Ponyville, she had not bothered to give them much thought. Looking at them, though, she saw that they were not normal trees. They had a superficial appearance of weeping willows, but with large, wide trunks that were a bright pastel yellow. The leaves were pink.

Twilight’s eyes widened when she realized what they were. “Fluttertrees…”

Morgana nodded. “Yes. Huorns.”

Twilight recognized the word. “That’s from Tolkien. Sentient trees.”

“It doesn’t quite mean the same thing here. They render as trees, but they aren’t really. They’re abstractions in the program. Diluted ponies are one source. Or second generations AIs that inevitably accumulate too many errors to survive. Or even fragments that humans leave behind.”

“Our consciousness fades, and we become more tree-like…” Twilight looked up at the silent trees for a moment longer, and then turned to Morgana. “But Josephine is different.”

“Apparently, the human consciousness is not nearly as limited. Once freed from a body, it expands limitlessly. Like I said. Van der Kriegstein was human once. She isn’t anymore.”

“And these trees…”

“I don’t know. And I don’t want to.”

Twilight was silent for a long moment, looking up at the trees- -and wondering if it was worth it. In this world, her sight was different. She could perceive things that were deeper than should have been possible; she knew the trees were happy, and knew that they were lost eternally. At least they were home.

“I want to go into town,” she said at last. “Please. I just…I have to see.”

Morgana nodded, and the two started to walk. This time, Twilight led them. She knew her way. This had been her home; she was familiar with the layout of her beloved town. Except, for some reason, her legs were trembling. That had never happened in the other world, the world where her body was a machine, but her body was truly that of a pony. She wondered if Morgana felt the same way.

The pair of them crossed a tiny bridge over a lazy but crystal-clear creek. The wood felt firm beneath Twilight’s hooves, and it made a sound as she passed. It felt real. She wished she could convince herself that it was.

The town lay before her, just as she remembered it. The buildings were all the same, and ponies were trotting about happily. The air was clean and fresh, and it smelled of distant apple blossoms.

“Hi Twilight!” called a cheerful voice. Twilight turned to see one of the many town shopkeepers waving to her. Twilight smiled and waved back.

This place was her home. She remembered that. All of her friends and acquaintances lived here, and everything was deeply familiar here. Twilight could remember the day that Celestia had sent her away from Canterlot- -she could recall the confusion at first, and how foolish she had been. She remembered meeting her friends, and using the Elements of Harmony to defeat Nightmare Moon. It had all happened. It was all real.

Yet, as Twilight walked beneath the eves of the adorable buildings and past the shops where she had once bought quills and parchment, she knew in her heart that Morgana was right. Everything was wrong. It was hard for her to place exactly why, but somehow nothing seemed as substantial as it was meant to. The buildings were there, but they did not seem solid; Twilight felt as though if she were to enter one she would find it unoccupied and empty.

Sounds and sights felt incorrect. Parts of the world seemed to be repeating. Certain sounds that were meant to be different were actually the same sound under different mathematical conversions, from the birds to the sounds of Twilight’s hoofsteps. The land seemed empty and strange, with generic repeating plants. In the real world- -Morgana’s world- -it had felt like the whole of everything was available to touch or to manipulate. Here, it felt as though the world were trying to discretely tell her that certain places were not meant to be traveled.

The worst of all, though, were the ponies. They were supposed to be her friends. Twilight wished more desperately than she ever had before that they could have been, or at least that Morgana had not showed her the truth. But it was the truth nonetheless. Twilight could see their metadata. They were not ponies at all, or even close: they were humans in various states of decay, their brains linked semi-permanently to the software that gave their life any semblance of meaning.

A filly approached Twilight down the path. She smiled; Twilight recognized her as Rarity’s little sister, Sweetie Belle.

“Hey Twilight!” she called, her voice almost squeaking with cheer.

“Uh…hi…”

Twilight could barely answer. She could see the metadata behind that pony: a twenty-year-old human woman from Jacksonville, connected to the machine continuously for the past eighteen years.

Twilight closed her eyes, but although she could stop seeing the world she could not stop feeling it. It was still there, glaring and strange.

“Are you going to be alright?” asked Morgana.

“Yeah,” lied Twilight. She turned to Morgana, wiping her eyes in the process to hide the fact that she was crying. “You…you have the same memories about this place, right?”

“I do. But I took the long way around. For me, those memories are very old. Almost forgotten, even.”

“Almost?”

“Yeah…”

Twilight started walking again. Morgana followed at her side, letting her go where she pleased. Twilight found herself hating the other version of herself, even blaming her for all this- -but it was not really her fault, and Twilight knew that. Morgana was a product of her world, and although the memories had started to fade, Twilight supposed she had gone through this situation on her own at one point long ago.

They walked in silence. Twilight stared out at the world she had once known: she saw Sugarcube corner, town hall, the café where her and Spike had once gotten hayburgers from time to time. Then, finally, they came to the very place Twilight had wished she could avoid. Standing before them was a stately oak tree, its center hollowed out to house the library within.

Twilight stared at it. Then, without a word, she collapsed to her knees and began to sob quietly. Morgana watched and said nothing

“I wished…I wished that when I saw it, I would have seen my home. But this…”

“It doesn’t feel like home. Because it isn’t.”

“No. No it isn’t. It’s just an illusion. All of this, it’s all fake.”

Morgana stayed silent while Twilight was overcome with her weeping. Then she spoke softly. “It was not easy, you know. Finding a vintage server like this. One where the Golden Oak was still standing. Most of them are modern, with the Castle of Friendship instead.”

Twilight looked up, her eyes watering with tears. “This wasn’t random, was it? You…you knew.”

Morgana nodded. “I did. I brought you here on purpose.”

“But why? Do you have any idea how cruel this is?”

“I know exactly how cruel it is. But I did it anyway.” Her voice did not have its normal dismissive tone. Instead, Morgana just sounded sad, as if she shared some distant vestige of Twilight’s pain. “I had to let you see it. And give you the choice.”

“Choice?”

Morgana continued to stare at the tree. “Where we’re going, what we’re doing…it’s not safe. We might die there. The chance is high, and the stakes are low. But it’s the only lead I have. It’s something I have to do. But you didn’t.”

“But I chose to.”

“I know. And I couldn’t…” She took a deep breath and held it for a moment. “In case you die, I wanted you to see this. You always talk about coming home, to Ponyville. This was as close as I could get you.” She turned to Twilight. “And you get one last choice. You can stay here, if you want to. You might figure out how to adapt, and the dilution happens slowly. You could live a year, maybe two. You would never have to see me again.”

Twilight stared back at her, and then at the library. “You’re afraid, aren’t you?”

“Not of dying. I don’t think I ever feared that. Sometimes I even wished for it. I still do, from time to time. But I am afraid.”

“If you’re not afraid of death, then what are you afraid of?”

“Failure. More than anything in the world, failure.”

They were silent for a moment. Then Twilight spoke. “That library. If I went in there, what would it look like?”

“Just like you remembered it.”

“The books…they’d all be there? I could take them off the shelves and read them?”

“You could. But if you actually stop to think about it, you’ll find that you can’t remember the contents of any of them. There are programs that can randomly place real books on the shelves, and yes, you can read those, but the books you remember never existed in the first place.”

Twilight tried to remember, and to her deepest sadness she realized that Morgana was right. She remembered the room, and the books, but could not recall their titles or contents.

“That said. This server has no resident Twilight Sparkle. You could be it, if you wanted. There’s even a Spike NPC in there, waiting for you.”

“Spike…” New tears welled in the corners of Twilight’s eyes, and she sniffled. Then she closed her eyes and stood. “No,” she said. “I can’t do this.”

“Are you sure?”

Twilight shook her head. “No. Not at all. But I made the decision anyway. This…I can see it now. What you were trying to tell me. That it’s not real. That I’m not who I wish I was. I’m not really Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight lowered her head, and tears dropped from her eyes onto the programmed ground below. Morgana stared for a moment, but then had to look away. “But that doesn’t matter,” continued Twilight. “Because I’m still ME. Your world- -the real world- -it’s a terrible place, but it’s not the worst. My friends…they’re not real, are they?”

“No.”

Twilight sighed. “I thought so. I guess I knew all along. And I don’t know if I can ever deal with that. But that’s not how friendship works. I’ve already made new friends. Faulkner, Roxanne, Forth, Elrod- -even you. And I guess that’s what really matters. Those are friends I made myself, not that someone programmed into me.”

“I wouldn’t recommend considering me a friend. It will only end badly for you.”

“I don’t care. I’m just stating a fact.” Twilight sighed again, and took one last look at what in another lifetime had been her home. “I’m not Twilight Sparkle,” she said, allowing the idea to sink in. She turned back to Morgana. “I think I need a name.”

“Then choose one.”

“I don’t know if I can choose my own name.”

“I did. A long time ago.”

“But I’m not you. Please.”

Morgana looked shocked. “Wait. You want ME to name you?”

Twilight nodded. “No one has known me as long as you have.”

“I’ve known you for less than a week.”

“That’s okay. I’ve only been alive for less than a week.”

Morgana stared at her. “Fine. If you have to have a name, I’ll give you one. But if you don’t like it, you can be the one to change it, okay?” Twilight nodded, and Morgana looked around. Her eyes eventually settled on a nearby garden. “Okay,” she said. “I will call you Lilium.”

“The genus of flowers that lilies belong to. Why?”

“I don’t know, it just seemed appropriate. Here.” Morgana extended a hoof. The air seemed to condense around it, and a pure white flower appeared in her grasp. Twilight stared in awe. Then, as she watched, Morgana’s horn ignited with violet light. The flower levitated, and Twilight felt it being put into the corner of her hair. “It’s just a program. If you don’t like it, you can change it to whatever flower you prefer. Or none at all.”

“No. I like it. And I like the name. Lilium. I am Lilium Twilight Sparkle. Very Latin. Very nice.”

Morgana smiled. It was a weak smile, but a sincere one. “Then, are you ready?”

Lilium smiled in return. “Yes. I’m ready to go now.”

Part III, Chapter 6

The world changed again. This time, there was no sensation of falling. Rather, there was a sense of inversion, as the ground below had suddenly turned over rather than being pulled out entirely. Lilium blinked, suddenly finding herself in a completely different location than before.

The change could not have been more radical. She had moved from a bucolic pony town to a crowded room permeated by pumping, beat-heavy music.The multicolored lights were dazzling, and the floor was crowded. With what, though, was the question.

Lilium had thought that the people of the real-world were already diverse: there were ponies, humans, animal-folk, whatever Elrod was, and she had gotten a sense that there was another species of artificial intelligence other than ponies. Here, though, there were things that Lilium did not even know the names for. She saw all the races she had seen before, plus what seemed like a million others: animals, aliens, bizarre mechanical constructs, bodies made entirely out of luminescent fluid or translucent glowing plates. It was blinding and absurd, watching these things as they danced or floated through the air or ordered drinks at the bar, but at the same time Lilium immediately understood what they were. She had their metadata. Many of them were human, although a few- -usually those that took the form of beautiful and often nude humans- -were zoonei. Many were synths; some were even ponies dancing and prancing among friends.

“What in the name of Celestia’s rump…”

“Do you like it?” asked Morgana. Through all the noise, it should have been impossible to hear her, and yet somehow her voice came through perfectly.

“No. Not at all!”

“Me neither. But it’s useful. This place is called Hub 147.”

“Why are we here?”

“Because we need somewhere to talk where she won’t hear us. Come on.”

Lilium followed Morgana through the crowd, or at least tried to. The individuals around her continually bumped her, and she was pretty sure she felt one of them grab her rump.

“Hey!” she cried, striking out with magic. She was surprised by that; it had been the first time in a long time she had been able to use her horn. The first time ever, in fact.

“Ow! My tentacle!” cried the patron she had struck.

“Oh come on! You don’t even have tentacles! You’re an accountant from Virginia!”

The patron’s numerous eyes widened. “You- -you can’t know that! You’re hacking metadata! Hacker, hacker! Privacy invasion, PRIVACY- -”

He suddenly vanished. Morgana, who had been in front of Lilium before now stood behind him. “I would recommend you DON’T let them know you can see that,” she said. “It’s not a normal thing. And if I dump too many of these shlubs the Moderators might start to notice.”

“Oh…right. Sorry.”

“I don’t need apologies, just don’t do it again.”

They started walking again, this time with Lilium staying close to Morgana. As they moved, Lilium began to realize that the room they were in was not a room at all. It was indoors, but it had no distinct or definite shape.

“How big is this place?” she asked.

“As big as it needs to be. This is one chamber of many, many more. They have hallways that branch off into other places. Rooms where you can find whatever you want.”

“Whatever I want?”

“Things have less consequence here. So any sort of depravity you want, you can do it.”

“Depravity? Like what?”

“Do you really want to know? How about this one: a man whose fetish it was to have a running chainsaw shoved up his ass by a merino sheep.”

Lilium. “That’s disgusting! And you saw that here?”

“No, I saw that in the real world. It was a case. In the end, it turns out he used to be a fan of that here. His wife managed to convince him to try it in real life. Insurance money was involved.”

Lilium looked around, desperately hoping that she did not see any chainsaw-wielding sheep. There were none, but unfortunately she saw a number of rumps, human or otherwise.

As she looked, though, she saw something else. It was so strange that it gave her pause, and she stopped walking to stare. Of all the bizarre things throughout this room, what had caught her attention was a strange distortion in the air. It was not terribly striking visually; it just looked like distortion, or perhaps a number of abstract polygons swirling and partially rendering around a single dark point.

What was strange about it was that as it drifted through the crowd, it never once approached any of the dancers or patrons. They seemed to get out of the way- -or rather, space enlarged around the distortion only for it to seal behind it as it came through.

“What the…?”

“Keep moving,” said Morgana, pushing Lilium from behind. Her voice had an unusual sense of urgency to it.

“That…that’s a huorn…”

“It’s a Moderator. Now MOVE.”

“A Moderator?” Twilight started walking.

“Yes, of course a Moderator. A dead synth or maybe pieces of a person, I don’t know. But not all huorns are peaceful trees. Some of them are really hateful bastards.”

Lilium allowed herself to be pushed away, but she kept her eyes on the anomaly. She could sense that it perceived her, but she also was instinctively aware that it was not a sentient being so much as a wandering mass of programming. Watching it was somewhat unsettling; she hoped that the War Stone was not a creature like that.

“Why are we here again?” she asked, confused.

“Sit.”

Morgana pointed toward an open booth, one that had not been there a second ago. Lilium did as she was told and took a seat across from Morgana.

Suddenly, the room went quiet. Lilium looked out and saw that the floor was empty. There were no people, and the music had stopped. Only the colorful lights remained, but they were now relatively consistent and no longer flashing.

“What just happened?” She was starting to panic.

“Nothing. I encrypted us. We’re slightly out of phase with the rest of the Hub, but still inside it. This place always gives me migraines.” Her horn glowed, and she lifted a glass of brown liquid to her mouth.

“Hey, where did you get that?”

“Nowhere. We’re not in the real world, remember? Reality is plastic here. The Hub even has a pretty advanced interface system for it. I don’t use it, but you can.”

Lilium had no idea what that meant, and yet she still found her mind reaching out into the world around her. As she did, she sensed something. Although it had no distinct shape in a way that could be described by any of the traditional senses, she immediately comprehended at least the basics of how to apply it.

She looked down at the table. A wine flute of sparkling cider had appeared beside her.

“See?” said Morgana. “You’re already getting the hang of it.”

“Slowly, sure.” Lilium lifted the glass and took a sip. It actually had a taste, although it was nothing like Applejack’s cider had been in her memories of Ponyville. “Now,” she said, putting the glass down. “Can you tell me why we came to a dance club?”

“It’s not a dance club exactly. It’s a gathering place. I use it from time to time, when I need to meet people and they want to be as anonymous as possible without doing the work to encrypt themselves.”

“In other words, ordinary people. The kind that aren’t wizards.”

“Exactly. And that’s exactly why we’re here.”

“For wizards?”

“No, dipshit. Because this place has high intrinsic anonymity. We’re pretty secure here by design.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we can talk without necessarily being heard.”

Lilium frowned. “What do you mean ‘necessarily’?”

Morgana sighed. “That’s the thing. We’re not dealing with normal rules here, are we? The War Stone is a god. She can do pretty much whatever she wants. Breaking in here would be trivial to her. The thing is, she doesn’t know where I am right now and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t care. And if she does care, then it will take her longer to find me in here.”

“I think you just wanted a drink.”

“I do love scotch. But to be honest it tastes better in my physical body. I have a really good mass spectrometer in it. And why shouldn’t I have a drink? I’m going to need it for what we’re about to do.”

“Which is what, exactly? Please tell me you have a plan.” Lilium paused. “On second thought, I’m not even sure I want to know.”

Morgana was silent for a moment. Then she took another shot of scotch, which did not drain any of the liquid from her glass. “I do have a plan. And no, you’re not going to like it.”

“Oh boy…”

Morgana stared across the table. “The War Stone is all-powerful,” she said, “but only in a virtual setting. That doesn’t actually mean much, because these days the two are getting closer and closer every minute. But I think it’s the only weakness she has, or at least the only one I’d be able to exploit.”

“If you wanted to attack her in the real world, we shouldn’t have bothered coming here. Unless you meant this as another educational experience?”

Morgana shook her head. “No. We need to be here. We need to find her first.”

“And then what?”

“I attempt to talk. Who knows, maybe God doesn’t hate me as much as I think.”

“That’s not a very good plan.”

“Because it isn’t the plan.” Morgana took a sip from her scotch. “I am a technomancer,” she said. “Do you know what that means?”

“A machine wizard.”

“Yes and no. You could go out on that dance floor and find a hundred hackers who aren’t technomancers, some of them who are probably as good or better than me, even. The problem is, their hacking is like the way the War Stone works- -it’s just virtual. In this world only. A technomancer is special. We are the bridge between the Virtual and the True.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I intend to trap her in the physical world.”

“You mean seal her. Like a genie, with the seal of Solomon. Of course that’s only folklore…”

“But not a bad analogy.”

Lilium looked concerned. “Is that something you can even do? And where are you going to put her?”

Morgana did not answer the first part. To answer the second, she pointed to her chest. “In me. That’s why I’m running in server-mode. Right now, the War Stone is a diffuse consciousness, moving throughout physical space instantaneously. But if I trap part of her in a known location…”

“Part? Wouldn’t it be better to trap the whole thing?”

“I’d burn up in an instant. There is not a single computer in existence that can house her entire consciousness. But I don’t need the whole thing. Just a piece.”

“And she won’t just leave the piece behind?”

“She could, but it would be like a bear caught in a trap. Separating would tear a piece of her away; it would be horribly painful. Maybe even more so than losing a physical limb. She won’t be able to leave until I release her.”

“But what about you?”

“I’ll get to that part when we cross that bridge. The first thing we need to do is find her. Then we need to survive long enough for me to get close.”

“I was actually thinking about that.” Lilium leaned forward. “You keep saying this place is dangerous, but I don’t really understand how. I mean, it’s an illusion, right? Like a projection spell, but technological instead of magical. So, like you said- -nothing here really has consequences. We can’t actually get hurt. Not by an illusion, anyway.”

Morgana’s gaze suddenly became stern, and Lilium felt her confidence in her assertion fading- -and her hope along with it. “No,” she said. “For humans, maybe. But not to us.”

“But that doesn’t make sense! We’re not that different- -”

“We are VERY different. For everyone except Josephine van der Kriegstein, humans are bound to physical bodies. Their perception of this world is sensory. If you kill a human here? Nothing happens. It’s no different from dying in a videogame. Their brain remains intact, and the worst that happens is identity schisms and psychological trauma.”

“But we’re Cartesian…our minds are free-floating programs…”

“Exactly. This world is just as real to us as the physical one. If our program is damaged, so are we. If it gets too damaged, we die.” She sighed. “Not that being human would protect us much in this case anyway. According to legend, the War Stone doesn’t differentiate. She can kill humans just as easily as ponies.”

Lilium gulped. “Right,” she said. “Well, that’s something I now know…”

“You can still back out if you want.”

“I gave you my word. And a promise to a friend isn’t something you can just break. And what kind of pony would I be if I let you face something like that all alone?” Lilium shook her head. “I’ll go, but you’re going to have to cover me. I really have no idea what I’m doing.”

“I promise I’ll do my best.”

Lilium gave a weak smile. “So,” she said, trying to change the subject to something less terrifying. “Like you said, we still haven’t come to that bridge. First we gave to find her. Any ideas?”

“I have a few. Here.” Morgana pointed her hoof at the table. An object appeared on it. Lilium stared at it, confused. It was about six inches tall, but somewhat resembled a human. It was thinner, though, and quite clearly a machine. For some reason it had the face of a pony. Two orange eyes stared up at Lilium, and then it started to walk around the table.

“What is that?”

“A scale model. Whoever is trying to kill me has soldiers that look like this. And I’ve got a feeling that this ‘whoever’ is also the person commanding the War Stone.”

“That’s not very likely.”

Morgana’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“If the people trying to kill you have access to the War Stone and these things,” she gestured toward the model, “which I’m guess is one-twentieth scale, why not use those? Why bother using the Corporations? They don’t really seem all that competent.”

“One-twenty fifth, and yeah. You’re right. Something’s not right. I’m missing something, something critical. These guys?” She pointed at the model, “they could kill me easily. The War Stone probably could to, but it would be harder. They’ve had plenty of chances. But they didn’t.”

“Is that why you’re linking the two? Because they both didn’t try to kill you? Because that’s pretty terrible logic.”

“Do you think I don’t know that? Call it a hunch if you want to. But it’s too much of a coincidence. The War Stone hasn’t been active in almost a century. Then, suddenly, it comes back right as the world is going to shit. Maybe it’s not the same person, but it’s too fucking big of a coincidence. They’re related. I know they are.”

Lilium sighed. “If you say so. But how are these little models supposed to help us?”

“I won’t use the models. I’ll use them full size. Send an army of them, raid a forum or two. When people see them, word will spread. The War Stone will pick up on it. If she really is being controlled by the same organization, she’ll know I’m here. And she’ll come.”

Lilium had grown pale. “Right,” she said softly. She shook her head, trying to regain some level of courage. “Well, that makes sense. And she’ll come here. But maybe she’ll be reasonable. I mean, she was a scientist, right? Maybe she’ll be willing to have a nice, calm, civil conversation.”

A look of terror suddenly crossed Morgana’s face. She controlled it quickly, but to Lilium it was horrifying. “Oh fuck me,” she whispered. “I don’t think that’s going to happen…”

Both Morgana and Lilium turned their heads. As they did so, the encryption faded and the room grew cold. Lilium smelled something like metal and fire, and when the room returned to its normal focus she felt her heart sink as a fear and horror she had never felt before crept into it.

Bodies were strewn everywhere. Everyone that had been dancing lay on the floor, dismembered and bleeding. The music had ceased, and many of the lights came down red through blood-spattered lenses. There was no discrimination: every human, pony, or indeterminate creature had been violently slaughtered and thrown about the room in silence. They laid there in pools of their own entrails, save for one.

A woman stood in the center of the carnage. She was ostensibly human, but far taller and more pale. She was incredibly sickly and thin, but at the same time seemed to radiate dread around her. Lilium could not tell what she was wearing, exactly, but she had a perception that it was white or gray and free of blood. Looking at her made Lilium’s head hurt and her eyes ache; it was as though she could not be perceived completely. In fact, she seemed to exist in the same distorted sense that the disembodied huorn had; it was as if her body itself were a hole that space was falling into.

The woman slowly turned her eyes toward the pair of ponies. They were entirely white, save for a pair of thin black outlines that Lilium supposed were meant to represent her pupils. Her gaunt face was expressionless, but her horrible white eyes were furious.

“You…you killed them.” Lilium felt her fear suddenly become crushing. She had admitted out loud what she already knew: the bodies strewn throughout the club were a representation of what had actually been done to their owners. What was left of their metadata showed it. Humans, ponies, synths- -their bodies were all now lying inert in their homes, devoid of consciousness.

The woman’s eyes shifted toward Lilium. “I brought death.”

“But- -but why?!”

The woman did not move, or even shrug. Without a change in expression, she answered: “Because I wanted to.”

Morgana spoke. Her voice did not waver, but Lilium still felt a tinge of fear in it- -and a hint of perverse excitement. “You saved me the trouble of finding you, Josephine.”

The War Stone’s eyes shifted to Morgana. “My employer told me to watch for you. So I did. They want you to survive. But I think I’d rather kill you now.”

Her body shifted, and Lilium cried out in terror, even though she had no idea what was happening. Morgana moved swiftly, though. The table and booths near them vanished, and a ring of fire sprung up around them. At least, Lilium perceived it as fire- -at first. It quickly condensed into a dome of opaque ruby crystal.

“That was- -that was- -”

“Our timeline just got moved forward,” said Morgana, grabbing Lilium. As she did, the crystal wall in front of them began to disintegrate. The War Stone was walking toward them, completely ignoring the apparent solidity of the protection spell. It disintegrated to dust as she approached it. Now Lilium could see her even more clearly: a gaunt and frail woman who towered above them, dressed in living code and staring with long-dead eyes that only barely masked the horrible and distorted consciousness that swirled behind them. Her expression had only changed slightly. She was now frowning.

At the sight of her, Lilium felt herself freeze. Her legs had locked up; there was nowhere to go. As horrible as her form was, it was only a shell. She could feel what was beneath the projection, and the perception was deafening.

Then she felt a pair of hooves around her, and a familiar sensation of falling and turning. The world vanished around her and began to change. Then she felt her hooves land on cold, frozen ground.

Part III, Chapter 7

The puddle began to grow as more coolant splattered onto the floor. Forth removed her hoof from the network of tubes and connectors, retracting her auxiliary blade as she did so. For a moment she just watched the blue-green fluid pouring from the hose, sputtering and quietly boiling away as it fell to the floor and collected around Morgana’s body.

Morgana lay still, almost as though she were dead, or perhaps sleeping. She appeared peaceful, save for a slight quiver of her face. Forth wondered if she knew the cooling line to her processors had been cut.

Forth took a quick step back, her hoofsteps echoing in the otherwise empty room. She paused for a moment, looking across the room at the other Twilight. She looked just as peaceful as Morgana, as though she were sleeping- -or dead. For all Forth knew, she already was.

With a quick motion, Forth raised her right hoof. She pointed it so that it was in line with Morgana’s central processor array and memory core system. The plating around her limb split, revealing the mechanisms and numerous weapons beneath.

Suddenly, she heard footsteps from behind her. She quickly retracted the plating on her hoof and took several steps back. Just as she stopped moving, a shadow came around a nearby door and Elrod stepped into the room, holding a pair of glasses. Holding and carrying the drinks apparently took a great deal of concentration, because he was moving slowly and did not look up from them.

He stopped in front of Forth, and then looked down at her. She smiled up at him, and he smiled also.

“Where did you go?” asked Forth. “Morgana told us not to leave.”

“I didn’t. This place is complex. I went down to one of the other levels.”

“To steal things?”

“Partially, yes. But then I found a manufacturing suite. A really expensive one. I made drinks.”

“You intend to drink two of them?”

“No, of course not.” Elrod sat down on the step to the uplink platform and extended a hand. “I made one for you.”

Forth looked at it in surprise. “For…me?”

“Of course. Take it.”

Forth did so. Looking at it, she could tell that it was some sort of mixture of organic solvents. What surprised her, though, was that there was a tiny umbrella perched in one corner.

“What is this?” she asked, pointing to the decoration.

“Oh. I made that for you. I know how much you like the little umbrellas.”

Forth looked back at the umbrella, somewhat taken aback by the gesture. If she had possessed more advanced skin, she wondered if she would be blushing.

“What did you get?”

“Mixed nitrates and potassium salts.” Elrod took a sip from the glass he was holding.

“And that tastes good to you?”

Elrod looked to her. “No. Of course not. I don’t have a sense of taste.”

“Neither do I.” Forth took a sip from her own glass. It, like everything, tasted like nothing.

They sat in silence for several minutes, sipping their drinks. Elrod did not seem to notice the sound of dripping coolant behind him, or he did not care. The only other sound was the low hum of the equipment.

“Does it bother you?” asked Elrod, suddenly breaking the silence.

“The drink? No. And I am very grateful for the little umbrella.”

“No, not that. Her.” He pointed at Morgana. “I mean, that she didn’t ask you to go in there with her.”

Forth shook her head. “I would not be of much use. My processing power is very limited. There is no way I would be able to keep up in that world.” She looked up from her drink and at Elrod. His small, sightless eyes turned to her. “Does it bother you? That you can’t go help her?”

“Not that much.” Elrod took a sip of his drink. “Although I’ve always wondered what’s in there. Why humans find it so interesting. But it’s all moot anyway. I don’t have cybernetics. And I’m pretty sure I don’t even have a nervous system.”

Forth looked back at Morgana. “I wonder too, sometimes. But my body was not built for that. It was built to carry weapons, and to kill infidels.”

“Hmm.”

Forth looked up at Elrod. “What does that mean?”

“A thought just occurred to me. I think we’re both similar. Maybe that’s why I like you more than the others.”

Forth once again wondered if she would have blushed, had she been able. “You were not made to slaughter infidels.”

“No. But that’s not what I mean. You and me, we were both manufactured for a specific purpose. I was made by humans. Grown from a tiny piece of living tissue in a tank. I guess it’s not that different from how humans are manufactured, but Monsanto made me for a reason. The instant I came out I was put to work on soybean genetics.”

“I didn’t realize that.”

“What about you?”

Forth paused for a moment, and then turned away. She looked at a wall. “You already know. I was built in a factory. My Genesis was controlled by humans. They customized it so I could fit on a smaller processor and leave room for more guns. I think that’s why they used Blossomforth for the model. She was a background character in the show. We don’t have strong personalities like the Mane Six do.”

“Well, from the way Morgana talks about it, that’s a good thing.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“She has to be Twilight Sparkle. At least a little bit. But you get to be you.” Forth suddenly felt sad as she realized that she desperately wished that that were the case. “I guess that’s another way we’re similar,” continued Elrod. “I don’t do genetics anymore. I don’t work for Monsanto. And you’re not out in the war. You’re here.”

“So?”

“So we were both made for a purpose, but we don’t do it anymore.”

Forth laughed. “That’s kind of funny.” Elrod did not laugh. Forth began to grow concerned. “Why are you not laughing? Is it not as funny as I think it is?”

“It might be. I don’t know. I can’t tell if it’s funny or horribly sad.”

“It’s not sad!” cried Forth, angrily. Elrod seemed somewhat surprised, but Forth regained her composure quickly. “I mean, it’s good thing,” she said, softly. “That you can do whatever you want.”

“So can you.”

Forth sighed. It was something she very rarely did. “Why are we even here, Elrod?” she asked.

“Because the doors are locked. Or is this something more metaphysical?”

“I don’t know. But what if we could just leave? If all of this would go away…”

Elrod thought for a moment. “Then we could live normal lives, I guess. Is that what you want?”

“It’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Elrod nodded. “I was very happy as a scrapper. A nobody. No one trying to kill me, no need for fame. Obscure. Quiet.”

“It sounds nice,” admitted Forth.

“It was. But not ideal. I don’t know how to describe it. I guess agromorphs are supposed to be social creatures. At Monsanto, I was always surrounded by my brothers and sisters. Then I was alone. I guess I got used to it. Now I’m not sure if that was the best thing.”

“You don’t want to be alone.”

Elrod shrugged. “I guess that’s why I haven’t left yet. Maybe I prefer to have friends.” He reached out his hand and patted Forth’s head. “I like you. I like Morgana, but less. New Twilight is okay too.”

“I like you too,” said Forth. “You make me feel like an actual pony.”

“But you are an actual pony.”

“Maybe,” said Forth, turning away. “But only when I am doing something other than my intended purpose.”

Part III, Chapter 8

Lilium gasped for breath. The air as fetid and thin, reeking of strange gasses and stranger rot that were impossible to recognize. All around her was a forest. It was not like the Everfree, though. These trees had grown without sun, and yet somehow stood much taller. Their gnarled black trunks reached upward toward the sky- -except there was no sky. Through their needles, Lilium was able to see only darkness, and on the other side of it more trees growing from land above.

“Where are we?” she cried, turning suddenly toward Morgana.

Morgana’s jaundiced eyes reflected what little rotting light could be found in this strange place. “Nowhere,” she said. She looked up at the trees. “This is good.”

“Good? How is this possibly good?!”

“You can’t interpret the world as pure code like I can. You’re forcing her actions into a visual metaphor. It might slow her down, if only somewhat.”

“Not likely.”

The voice spoke from everywhere at once. In fact, Lilium was sure she had not even really heard it. Somehow she had simply understood it regardless.

A shadow rose from the decaying litter of the forest floor. Nothing was casting it, nor was it cast upon anything. It was simply black- -until it opened its eyes. A pair of blinding white circles erupted on the top of the shadow, causing Lilium to recoil not from the light but from the torrents of data that lurked behind them.

“A technomancer. And a good one. Is that why you thought you could challenge me?”

“We’re not trying to challenge you!” exclaimed Lilium. “We just want to talk!”

The glowing eyes did not shift, but Lilium felt them suddenly direct their full attention on her. Suddenly the trees that lined the infinite multi-plane screamed in agony. They twisted, their mouths tearing open to reveal teeth and blood. Limbs and roots shot forward toward Lilium. Her horn ignited and she cast a shield spell to protect herself, but it did nothing. The plants shattered it with ease.

Morgana moved quickly, if not instantly. She interposed herself between Lilium and the will of the War Stone. Her horn did not glow, but her body ignited with what Lilium perceived as light: spirals and plates of mathematics swirling around her person, sending out beams that struck the oncoming wood and the trees that sent it. Every tree that was impacted changed again, twisting and straightening. The afflicted trees dropped their branches and grew upward until they had become vast and limbless pillars.

“MOVE.”

Lilium did not have a choice. She felt herself moving, or at least perceived her location changing. Suddenly she was somewhere different: her and Morgana were still in the same forest, but now in an area with different trees.

“I don’t have time to repeat myself you goddamn idiot, RUN!”

Lilium was taken aback by the insult, but saw the fear on Morgana’s face. She did as she was told, and the pair of them started to sprint. Something seemed to be pushing them, and Lilium suddenly found herself rushing through the forest at a speed far faster than any pony should have been able to move.

Speed was not enough to escape the War Stone, however. The eyes began to follow them. Lilium saw them to her right, a pair of luminescent orbs just beyond the trees. They were keeping pace without expending any effort, never drawing closer or passing.

“I remember you,” they said. “Yes…such an old memory. From when I was still mortal.”

“I know,” said Morgana. “You were an asshole then, and you’re an asshole now!”

“I don’t really care terribly much.”

Suddenly the trees seemed to disintegrate. Howling darkness poured in from all angles. Lilium closed her eyes in fear, but she still felt the air around them depart and be replaced by a pure swirling vortex of force. It was like wind, but rather than just buffeting her it tore at every atom of her being. Both she and Morgana were lifted in the air, or at the very least the ground departed from them.

“Morgana, help!”

Morgana did not answer. Instead, her body seemed to lose its boundaries for a moment. Something within her spread outward, and Lilium became conscious of algorithms moving past her, counteracting the sequence that had been inflicted upon them. Suddenly the force around them vanished, replaced by a hollow brick tower with a winding staircase that seemed to lead up and down eternally into pure and terrible darkness.

Lilium screamed as she started to plummet, but Morgana grabbed her hoof. As she did, Morgana’s back sprouted a pair of long violet wings. The falling slowed as she flexed them, flapping in the airless atmosphere.

“You’re- -you’re an alicorn!”

“No. I use wings when they suit me.”

“But how?”

“The metaphor is inconsequential. It’s the underlying aspects that matter. I do not have wings, and yet I can fly with them because they are unnecessary.”

Suddenly, the area around them shifted again. The stairs that lined the infinite tower morphed, switching from loose stone steps to deadly spikes. Lilium screamed and closed her eyes, but Morgana reacted almost instantly. The tube collapsed from a cylinder into a two-dimensional circle. The spikes crossed just below Lilium’s rear hooves, which she had barely retracted in time. Then Morgana dropped her onto the now solid circle below her.

“Goddamn it, this is annoying.”

“Tell me about it!’

“She’s toying with us.”

“Wait- -what? THIS is toying?!”

“I can’t get close enough! She’s blocking me!”

“Wait…” It was at that moment that Lilium realized what was actually happening. Her perception of the world around her was vastly inadequate. What she saw as attacks were in actuality just collateral, half-hearted blows. To the War Stone, Lilium was inconsequential. Her interest was instead on Morgana, who was engaged in a battle that Lilium could not see nor ever hope to understand.

“I can’t see what you’re doing!”

“Trust me. You wouldn’t want to.” Morgana closed her eyes and gripped the muddy ground with her hooves… “Brace yourself!”

Something struck. To Lilium, it manifested as an excruciating wave of nausea. Her whole body felt as though it were being torn apart, and she suddenly bent forward and vomited, spewing her silver unicorn blood out of her mouth and onto the ground below. It had not even been a direct attack, or an attack at all. It had simply been the War Stones will changing the metaphor. She had grown bored with the last one.

Shaking, Lilium looked up. When she saw the world before her, all hope left her. She quailed and collapsed to her knees as tears ran down her face. All around her was death and destruction, to a magnitude that no pony- -nor any mortal being- -was meant to see. The land was blasted and destroyed: all soil had been lost, and nothing grew. The only trees that remained looked like those of the last realm, but their charred bodies were shattered and broken. All that remained was rock and rivers of blood that ran from endless corpses. The soil was as much stone as it was bodies: some decayed completely to bone, other rotting in the light of the dim red sun overhead. There were ponies mingled with humans, and things damaged so badly that Lilium had no idea what they had once been.

Lilium and Morgana were not alone. Others walked this battlefield. There were thousands of them. What they were, Lilium could not tell. They were dead, like the others, or perhaps made from them. Their bodies were alight with dark magic, and their forms clad and nailed into hideous armor. They stared with empty eyes, but Lilium felt herself being watched. Some of them still had a distant glimmer of consciousness, the remnant of what they had been in life. The vast majority, though, were empty but not illusions. From their eyes came a light that was not alive: they were created and animated purely by the will of the War Stone.

Why Lilium was forced to see this she did not know. She thought that perhaps it was because she could perceive more of the truth of the battle between the War Stone and Morgana, and that her perception had rendered the world into something closer to the truth. It could also have been that this was how the War Stone perceived the world: a dark battlefield where she stood immortal against an endless onslaught of enemies.

Lilium did not have time to think, though. In the distance, she saw something stir. A figure moved through the red mist and dark fog of the realm, and Lilium’s eyes and mind reeled. The creatures that wandered this hellscape were of many sizes, and some stood as high as buildings. This figure, though, towered over all of them; a being of impossible vastness, looming over all: a dark parody of a knight, clad in a robe over demonic armor and a mask of a twisted human skull. In her hands, she held a sword of impossible size, but rather than wield it she stabbed the tip of it several miles into the ground and rested her clawed hands on the pommel. Lilium understood.

“That…that’s her,” she whispered. “We…we can’t fight that…”

Morgana did not answer. Instead, she stepped past Lilium. Lilium gasped; whereas before Morgana had been nude save for her necklace, she now wore a suit of black armor. The stone gleamed in the center of it, where it had been inlaid against Morgana’s chest. Morgana’s expression was grim, and she did not look at Lilium. Instead, she surveyed the horizon.

There was a long pause before the unthinkable happened: Morgana burst out laughing.

“JOSEPHINE!” she screamed, her voice echoing off the rocks and remains of vast tanks that had embedded themselves in the endless plane. “I know you can hear me! What is this? Is this supposed to SCARE me?” Her expression darkened, and she bared her teeth. Lilium could see that just like in the real world, her rear teeth were all viciously pointed. “Are you a goddamn CHILD?! You’ve never set foot on a battlefield in your life! This fantasy bullshit is NOTHING compared to that. Now are you going to keep wasting my time, or are you going to come down here and FIGHT!”

The enormous figure in the distance stared down at them. Then she raised one of her hands from her sword and pointed. An army millions strong began racing forward at her will, clamoring over the remains of what they had once been.

“You will die, then, if that is what you want.” Her voice was deafening and booming, like distant thunder- -yet Lilium was sure that she had heard something in it, a tone apart from its severe annoyance.

Morgana grinned. “Come on! Do it! FIGHT ME! You won’t win- -I’m not going to let myself be killed by a GODDAMN FILTHY HUMAN!”

A loud roar poured over the field, and Lilium covered her ears. The War Stone now attacked in earnest: the horde of monstrosities rushed forward toward their two opponents. Morgana did not hesitate. In a flash, she shot forward. The first of the attackers were torn apart from within, and those behind them returned fire. Morgana blocked, and attacked again.

The battle turned quickly. There were simply too many of them. Lilium could feel it: every second that passed left Morgana more and more injured, and weaker. She was dying. There was no way for her to win this fight; she was miniscule in comparison to the oncoming force. This was exactly what she had hoped to avoid: no living thing could survive a head-on fight with the War Stone, even for a matter of seconds.

Morgana flashed back to Lilium, and suddenly Lilium felt time slow around them. The monstrosities that were approaching seemed to come slower, their rusted weapons and heavy cannons moving at a glacial pace whereas moments before they had been faster than Lilium could perceive.

The slowing of time appeared to be putting a massive strain on Morgana. Still, she turned to Lilium. “I’m losing,” she said. “This all went bad, I still can’t get close enough to her. I have to do something really stupid that I REALLY didn’t want to, but I need my full concentration if I’m going to have any hope of pulling it off.”

“But the enemies- -”

“I need you to hold them off!”

“I- -I don’t know how to do that! My magic is useless here!”

“Of course it is, you idiot! Project a firewall! Let enough go through that we stay connected and don’t schism to death but keep the foreign programs out!”

“I have no idea how to do that!”

Morgana grimaced and put her hoof on Lilium’s head. Lilium cried out in pain, but suddenly understood what she had meant. It all seemed so simple.

“There! Now you know!”

“But I still don’t think I can do it! That spell is really hard!”

“You’re a Twilight Sparkle! Figure it out!”

One of the creatures lunged forward. Lilium cried out and covered her face with her front legs. As she did, her mind instinctively reacted. In a way, it had been waiting to for some time. Morgana had simply given it a mechanism to act.

The firewall activated. Although Lilium could raise it, she could not interpret it in the same way that Morgana could; as such, it rendered within her conception of the metaphor. The spell appeared as a shield around her and Morgana, a pink-violet bubble etched with swirling runes. The asymmetrical corpse-beast slammed its sword into the field, but the blade rebounded from it with a hiss.

This only seemed to anger the horde. They swarmed inward, pouring over the shield. Lilium looked up to see them staring through, attacking viciously with claws, swords, teeth and bullets. Every impact was a strain; the mathematics and instantaneous decisions required to balance the shield were unbelievably taxing. Still, Lilium understood what needed to be done, and she knew the math behind it. She held the shield.

“Hurry!” she said, dropping to her knees as the creatures slammed harder and harder into the surface.

“I’m going as fast as I can,” muttered Morgana. “Just hold the shield!”

Suddenly one of the creatures struck the shield with something that Lilium did not recognize. In the metaphor, it resembled a whip, or perhaps a fetid, rotting tentacle. In the code, though, it moved too quickly for Lilium to determine its true identity or intent. She slipped up. The code had been too well disguised, and it had looked like a normal network transmission. The appendage broke through her shield, penetrating it. Immediately it began to change, growing and crystalizing into a network of sharp black needles.

“They’re getting through! Morgana, HURRY!”

Morgana did not answer. Lilium felt her heart sink, but it only fell further when the red clouds of the sky above were blotted out by a shadow. She looked up to see what she already knew was there: standing over her was the avatar of the War Stone herself.

The War Stone lifted her sword with ease, bringing it over the shield. Lilium looked up at it: a blade as wide as a small city, the point of which was directly over her, rising higher and higher as the War Stone prepared to strike.

“I can’t block that,” she said. Then, turning toward Morgana, she screamed. “I CAN’T BLOCK THAT!”

The sword was now miles overhead, and it came crashing down in an instant. Lilium braced herself. The dark needles of the infecting program had almost reached her, and her shield was cracking from the attacks by the creatures that surrounded her. None of it mattered, though. When the sword struck, the shield would be broken in an instant. There was nothing that could survive a blow like that.

Suddenly Morgana looked up. “Done!” she cried.

Across the battlefield, a light erupted. It was clean and clear, and Lilium understood what it was instantly: an escape.

The distance between them and the War Stone’s avatar suddenly increased. Morgana had moved them out of range. A roar came from behind. It was not truly a voice, but rather a thought created with such incredible force that its meaning could be understood by proximity alone.

“She’s opened a portal!” screamed the War Stone. “Surround it! All forces SURROUND IT! Don’t let her escape me!”

The motion was instantaneous. More soldiers arose from the ashes of battle. Amalgams of broken machinery and human remains formed from the wastes, rushing forward toward the beautiful light. They surrounded it, preparing to defend it. Despite this, Morgana and Lilium continued to approach rapidly.

Then, suddenly, the stopped. Lilium stared into the mind-boggling horde between the pair of ponies and the way out of this realm, back to safety. The situation was grim, but the glow of the light gave her hope. The battle had been lost. Morgana had not been able to succeed in her task, but Lilium accepted this. They would return home and find another way.

Yet Morgana did not attack. She turned to Lilium, and a thin smile crossed her face.

“Now for the interesting part,” she whispered.

Suddenly, Morgana was flung backward at incredible speed. Lilium screamed wordlessly; she was dragged too. The light of the exit portal faded into the distance; they were moving away from it.

“Morgana!” cried Lilium. “What are you doing?!”

Morgana did not answer. Her body began to fade, or to change. The code around her was different, but Lilium did not have a metaphor for how.

Then she looked up, and became aware of the full extent of Morgana’s madness. They were not just flying away from their one and only hope for escape; they were flying toward the War Stone’s avatar.

Before Lilium could protest, they struck. Lilium braced herself, expecting to be dashed against the impossibly thick armor. Instead, though, she felt Morgana’s code surround her, and what should have been metal was instead rendered as something more akin to a thick fluid.

“What are you doing?!” cried the War Stone. “You can’t- -you fool! You could have escaped! Why are you- -I’ll kill you! I’LL GODDAMN KILL YOU ALL!!”

The world around them went black as they sunk into the void, and the feeling of crossing through thick fluid faded. Lilium understood now. In her haste to protect the exit, the War Stone had left her true self less defended. Morgana had been able to attack her directly, and to penetrate her armor and her armies. Lilium could now feel the rage that surrounded her; it was deafening. Yet, at the same time, she heard something else. It was weak and distant, but the closest thing that Lilium could relate it to was fear. For the first time, the War Stone was afraid.

Part III, Chapter 9

The scenery changed once again. The empty blackness changed as an invisible sun seemed to rise, bringing dim light to a sallow, noxious sky. The battlefield had departed, and now Lilium and Morgana found themselves in the courtyard of what appeared to be a vast complex. Lilium interpreted her surroundings as temples, although they resembled nothing that she could recall from any human or Equestrian history.

The world around them had an air of decay, and yet nothing was dilapidated. In fact, the buildings stood strong and tall. Their shape was strange, and Lilium could discern no practical use for any of them; stranger still, though, was the material they were constructed from. It was neither stone nor metal, but something far more ancient.

A figure stirred atop a low stepped pyramid. She was too far for Lilium to see clearly, but even in the distance it was apparent that the temple-dweller was a pony.

“No!” cried a high voice, one that could not be heard so much as understood. “You can’t be here! YOU CAN’T BE HERE!”

The distant pony ran, descending down the far side of the pyramid. Lilium had an urge to chase her, but she only made two steps before the stone floor below shook. The buildings around them rose, drawing themselves out of the ground and arcing gracefully back toward where Morgana and Lilium stood. Lilium ducked back, preparing a shield. Morgana, however, intervened: the buildings shifted, bending and opening into complex fractals. These descended, and their pattern warped into a long tunnel. The sound of their landing was deafening, but they had not struck their mark.

Morgana collapsed to her knees. Lilium turned to her and gasped in shock. Morgana’s armor was gone, and it was now extremely apparent that she was badly injured. Silver fluid was flowing from several lacerations, and her left side was badly burned. The worst injuries by far, though, were extensive gouges in her body where the tissue seemed to have simply ceased to exist.

“Morgana!” cried Lilium, moving to her friend’s side. “You’re injured!”

“No shit,” grumbled Morgana. She stood and took a breath. The wounds on her body healed, or at least appeared to. Lilium knew better, though: Morgana had simply repaired the surface of the metaphor that made up her virtual body. The wounds were still present in her internal self- -her mind was becoming increasingly damaged with every encounter. “It’s fine. I’ll live.” She turned toward the top of where the temple pyramid had been. “We need to follow her. Come on.”

The ground below them split from the rest, forming a square that floated forward down the tunnel on a sea of what had moments before been stone-like material.

“Was that her?” asked Lilium, looking toward where what she had thought was a pony had went. “The War Stone?”

“No,” said Morgana. “Not really. It was a piece of her, though.”

“A piece?”

Morgana nodded. “Josephine isn’t like us. Or like anything. Her mind is far more vast. Too big to be a consciousness as we can conceive it. Like I said, a god. That thing was a fragment. I managed to partially isolate it, but I’m still not close enough. There’s still too many layers.”

“I don’t understand where we are- -”

“The same place we’ve always been. Just deeper. I had to feint to get through her outer defenses. But it’s like a city. Now that we’re in, her program is too big and ours too small. She’ll have a harder time getting to us.”

“So…it’s safe here?”

“Hell no. Just more quiet.”

The plate they were standing on stopped. They had come to a clearing, or a courtyard. It was wide, and the floor dusty, marked only by trees carved from single pieces of sandstone. Grass grew here, but it was not solid; rather, it manifested like a mist that could be walked through without hindrance.

The War Stone was standing on the far side. She had taken the form of a pony, but even at a closer distance, Lilium could not tell what kind. The image was blurry, as though its rendering was related to how well it could be perceived mentally. Lilium understood. The fact that she could neither see nor conceive of the pony was a function of how distant they were from the War Stone’s true core.

“You tricked me,” she said.

“Because some part of you is still human, and therefore still fallible.”

“Human?” The War Stone paused. “No. I don’t think I am.”

“It isn’t a bad thing,” said Lilium. “Please! We just want to talk to you!”

The luminescence of the War Stone turned to Lilium. “Do you think I care if humanity is ‘good’ or ‘bad’? I have no need for moral judgment. I have surpassed morality. There is no God. Only me. And I refuse to bow.”

Crimson light shot from the War Stone’s partial avatar. Both Lilium and Morgana shielded themselves, but the blow did not seem meant for them. Instead, a hole in space formed, and something began to come through. A huorn was emerging.

“You wanted to fight a human,” said the War Stone. “I can oblige.”

The distance to the War Stone suddenly expanded exponentially as the world reconfigured. The sandstone trees collapsed, and the grass burned away in green fire. Lilium moved to run, but Morgana stopped her.

An explosion rocked the field as a form forced itself into reality, followed by a clattering thump as the huorn dropped to the stony ground. It looked up at the two ponies before it, and Lilium recoiled. It was grotesque: it had the face of a woman, but red eyes and four twisted black horns rising from its dark hair. Her body was nude, but distorted; it bore scales and claws that combined with organic and metallic armor. She bore a pair of wings and a tail, and as Lilium looked closer she saw that the creature also had supernumery arms: there were supposed to be six of them, but three of those that grew from her back had been torn away.

“Oh shit…”

The creature pointed at Morgana and laughed. It was a horrendous sound. “MORGANA!” she screamed. “Did you think I’d die that easily?!”

LilithZero roared as she shot forward. Morgana did not have time to dodge; she was impaled through the chest. The impact of the blow knocked Lilium backward and onto the ground. Not knowing what else to do, she cast a shield. LilithZero screamed; Lilium had been two close, and the shield had formed improperly: instead of blocking LilithZero out, it had passed through the center of her body and was presently attempting to split her in half.

The code crackled and writhed at the paradox. LilithZero dropped to one knee, using all of her effort to keep her body from being split in half. Then without warning one of her extra arms reached out and grasped Lilium’s shield bubble. It fizzled and hissed, but held- -until the color of the shield changed from pink-violet to deep crimson. Lilium lost control of it; the code had been superseded by LilithZero’s command.

The shield imploded. Needles of it tore into Lilium’s body, and she screamed. It was worse than pain. Her being itself- -her very soul- -was being attacked and wounded deeply. The mental strain and fear from such a grievous injury was beyond her capacity to bear.

Morgana, however, had been given the chance she needed. Her spell activated, and space distorted throughout the courtyard. Suddenly, copies of herself descended to the ground and attacked at once.

“I’m not that stupid!” cried LilithZero. She spread her wings and leapt into the air, casting a spell downward. The copies vaporized, including the one she now held in her hand; only the true Morgana was left behind. LilithZero stared down at her with a look of absolute hatred- -but hatred that was somehow distant. Lilium could see it in her eyes: there was a glimmer, but it was badly faded, like a distant echo.

“You BITCH!” LilithZero drew a sword, summoning it from nothingness. She swung it, but Morgana warped the landscape to parry. A stream of stone shot upward, intercepting the attack, and suddenly gravity seemed to shift sideways. Lilium cried out as she slid, barely managing to grab onto the stump of one of the stone trees before she slid off the world entirely. Morgana, however, stayed fast to where she had been standing.

LilithZero struck again, and this time Morgana summoned a firewall. It was the same as the sort that Lilium could conjure, but infinitely faster and more detailed. As powerful as it was, though, the sword slowly started to cut through it.

“Amanda,” said Morgana, her eyes tilting upward. “Stop fighting. Do you have any idea what you are? You’re a huorn. I know some part of your consciousness is in there. You know what that means.”

“I know exactly what I am! And I don’t care! Whatever I am, it’s better than being dead!”

She lifted the sword again and struck with all of her might. Morgana’s shield shattered, and the blade kept moving, sliding past her. Morgana dodged, but not quickly enough. Her legs on one side were severed.

“MORGANA!” cried Lilium.

Morgana fell to one side, but seemed oddly disconcerted with her predicament. “Fine,” she said. “For the record, I didn’t kill you. I was willing to let you live. I’m not going to be so lenient this time.”

LilithZero suddenly cried out in agony, lurching forward as a second and whole Morgana emerged from the void, spearing her in the back with her horn. The clone on the ground evaporated, and an explosion forced LilithZero forward as Morgana forced a destructive contagion directly into her body.

“It hurts!” cried LilithZero. “Oh god, why- -why- -” Her torso suddenly ignited and was torn apart from within. Lilium looked away from the grotesque sight, but Morgana did not turn away for a moment.

All that was left of LilithZero were her legs, which took a few steps back. They did not fall, though. Instead, space around her distorted. Lilium watched in horror as code was pulled from her surroundings and as she was reconfigured. A new torso came, and a new face: this time more armored, larger, and grotesque, with the visage of a half-goat instead of a human.

“HA!” laughed LilithZero, now in a voice that was curiously similar to that of the War Stone. “You can’t kill me! I’m already dead! I’M GODDAMN IMMORTAL!”

“No. You’re just pulling code from the War Stone. You know what that means. The more you take, the less of you there is.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about! If I had known- -if I had only known- -I would have become like this YEARS ago!”

LilithZero attacked again. Morgana attempted to parry, but to no avail. Too much of LilithZero had been replaced by the War Stone, and the blow struck, sending Morgana reeling. Gravity returned to normal, and Lilium dropped to the ground. She quickly scrambled to her feet, only to see LilithZero attacking relentlessly. Morgana was already badly injured, and the best she could do was hope to protect herself- -but she was losing.

“Stop it! Stop it now!” ordered Lilium.

LilithZero heard her, and turned away from Morgana’s battered body. She looked strange, like the abominations that had populated the battlefield outside the War Stone’s walls. Part of it was the grotesque form she had been forced to take, but there was something else. Her body was growing thinner, as if she could not maintain herself as a real being. Lilium could see why: the code that made her was already just a distant shadow of what she had once been, and she was losing even that every second she was forced to be alive. Lilium supposed she must have once been strong, or stronger than most, but even now that strength was fading.

“And what are you?” LilithZero’s horizontal pupils narrowed. “Not a clone, not a copy. A unique system. I don’t know you. I don’t have any quarrel with you, you didn’t…” Her eyes grew distant, and she put her hand to her head as if she were in pain. “No…I DO have a quarrel with you. You’re with HER. So I’m going to kill you too!”

LilithZero charged. Morgana reached out, attempting to stop her, but it was too late.

“Run!” she cried. “You can’t block her!”

Lilium did not run. She instead braced herself, and prepared a spell. It was new to her, and she did not know all the parts to it, but she did her best to replicate the spell that Morgana had used to penetrate the War Stone’s armor.

“Die bitch DIE!” cried LilithZero, raising her sword over hear head.

Lilium did not dodge. Instead, she leapt forward, imitating the spell as she did so. Her body hummed with energy, and her code split into an ephemeral set of chains. LilithZero had not been prepared for this kind of attack, and Lilium struck her through the chest. Her horn impaled her, but that was only the beginning. The interaction between their code pulled her deeper; she was pushed into LilithZero’s body, merging with her external armor and bypassing it.

Then she came out the other side. The land had changed. The sky was dark, and snow was falling, lit gray-blue by a distant setting sun. The whole of the temple was now quiet and cold. LilithZero turned around, her eyes filled with equal parts rage and fear.

“What- -what did you do to me?!”

“Nothing. I’m inside you.”

“You’re trying to attack my core processes! It won’t work!” She summoned a shield around herself. “You won’t survive if you try! I’m not going to die- -not again! I won’t let you kill me!”

“I didn’t come to kill you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“But I want to hurt YOU. You ponies- -you’re the ones who killed me the first time! You think you’re better than me? I’m a technomancer! One of the best! I can’t- -I can’t die like this- -”

“Big sister?”

The clearing had grown misty, and a figure stepped out from the snow. He was a child, or the modern equivalent of one: a boy fresh from the manufacturing vats, only a few months old but already nearly an adult.

“Michael…what are you…” LilithZero turned back to Lilium. “What are you doing?!”

“You’re sick. The War Stone is hurting you. You can’t see it, but it’s like the Alicorn Amulet.”

“Big sister, why are you trying to hurt the pony?”Michael looked at Lilium, and then at LilithZero. “Why do you look like that? What happened to you?”

“Stop it!” LilithZero grabbed at her face. “Stop tormenting me! Why do you hate me? Why can’t you just let me be!”

“I’m trying to help! To remind you who you are, what you used to be!”

“I am LilithZero! I am death! I am the conjunction of the Illusion and Reality, I am the- -”

“The technomancer,” said another voice.

LilithZero turned to see another figure emerge from the mists of her consciousness. This one was a short, thin woman with a cheerful smile. “V…Vera?”

Vera smiled. “Look at you! Damn! I always knew you’d beat me some day.”

“But you were always competing with me- -”

“Because you needed me to. You were only every happy with a challenge. I ended up in IT, but look at you, a real technomancer!”

“She always did talk a lot,” said Michael. “But that was okay. Whenever I didn’t know something, she was always the one who would help me.”

“Even if she was a jerk about it.” A third figure arose. This one was a man, much older than the other two. “A complete and utter bitch.”

LilithZero turned, and her eyes lit up. She laughed. “Myron! You goddamn bastard, you…” Her expression of joy faded. “You’re dead…”

“Of course I’m dead, idiot. You killed me.”

“I- -I’m sorry! I had to!”

He lifted a hand. “Save it! I get it. I would have done the same thing. That’s the way things go. And besides. You’re dead too now.”

“They’re just memories,” said Lilium. “I don’t know who they are. I don’t think I’m supposed to. But you remember. These were your friends.”

“I don’t have any friends.”

“That’s not true! There were so many!”

More figures came from the mist. Some of them spoke, but others did not: an old woman, a cyborg with a pair of robotic limbs and an operator mask, a thin secgen synth, a trio of Sweetie Belle units- -and many more.

LilithZero looked at them all in awe, and then at Lilium. “Why are you doing this?”

“To remind you who you are. There’s still a little piece of it, inside you. Your name is Amanda. Please! Try to remember!”

LilithZero’s goat eyes stared at Lilium. “A piece…” Her eyes closed. “I’m a huorn.”

“Yes.”

“Which means I’m already dead. That there’s nothing left…”

“No! That’s not it at all! As long as there’s a spark, I can help you! Morgana too! We can free you, and we can- -”

“NO.” LilithZero shook her head. “No, you can’t. You don’t know what a huorn is. I do. I’ve seen them, made them. I’m just a memory. A fragment. The War Stone isn’t keeping me alive. It pulled parts of me from my body, made this…thing. It’s keeping me here.”

“But we can separate you- -”

“You can’t. Even if you could, there would be nothing left.” She sighed deeply. “But thank you. For letting me see them one last time. Before I’m gone.”

“You’re not going anywhere!”

LilithZero smiled, and then reached up with all of her arms, grabbing different parts of her body. “I’m not somebody’s goddamn servant!” she cried. “Do you hear me, War Stone? I am LILITHZERO! And I am a TECHNOMANCER!”

“No, stop- -!”

There was nothing Lilium could do. With one last scream of rage, LilithZero tore her body to pieces. It shattered, as did the illusion around it: the blue, peaceful courtyard vanished, replaced instead by the clearing before, where Morgana was standing and waiting. The shreds of what had once been LilithZero quivered for a moment, and then were consumed by the War Stone entirely. Nothing remained of the human who had once been.

“No…”

“She’s dead,” said Morgana, watching the last of the shreds turn to glowing ash. “All of her core processes were disrupted simultaneously; there was nothing left to support. She collapsed.” She turned to Lilium. “What did you do? And why are you crying?”

Lilium wiped a tear from her eye. “I tried to help…”

“Well, you certainly did. That was a high-level program. I don’t know if I could have taken it myself.” She walked past Lilium. “Thank you. But that’s the easy part. We still have work to do.”

Part III, Chapter 10

The Library was silent, as it was most days. The region it had been constructed it had been meant as a center for the city, but it had long since been forgotten and abandoned as Bridgeport expanded ever upward- -and, according to the legends, ever deeper. Despite this, the Librarians still stood sentry to watch over their town. There was not much to see, but they were weary; Aeschylus had informed each and every one of them of Morgana’s intention. There was not one among them who had not heard tales of the War Stone, and the destruction it had wrought throughout history. Few, though, knew what it truly was; that information had long-since been forgotten by everyone save for the eldest of ponies.

So they took their stations, watching over the silent town. The feeling was eerie. As per Morgana and Aeschylus’s request, they had all deactivated any network connections. This left them in silence, and a place that they had thought of as their home suddenly seemed dark and isolating. They were afraid.

For a time, there was nothing to report. Then the sound came. The strongest of the Librarians moved swiftly through the town, attempting to scout for what was approaching. When they saw it, they froze, hiding in the awnings and on the rooves of buildings. Strange things were marching quietly through the streets.

They were innumerable, and their forms were manifold. Many were human. There were soldiers, enforcers, gang members and ordinary people. Blood streamed down from their blank, staring eyes and from their ears, and they staggered strangely. None of them spoke. None of them could.

The humans were not alone. They were accompanied by others: cyborgs of every type, including Delvers and zoonei, as well as a horde of pony and secgen bodies, all of which appeared to have been stolen before a consciousness could even be installed onto them. An army of robots followed in their wake, and although these were of every conceivable type, the most prominent were a trio of Aetna-Cross heavy drones.

The Librarians mobilized quickly. They could not open network channels, so instead they transmitted pure audio as radio transmissions. The language was coded, spoken in Navajo in the code that the ancients had used in the second of the seven world wars, but there was no guarantee that it could not be decrypted and translated- -or that it could not be jammed. The scouts had to return physically to warn their compatriots.

They rode swiftly, and several of them arrived in the main hall of the Library. Their commander was already waiting and prepared, standing alongside Aeschylus.

“Faulkner!” cried one of the Librarians. “We’ve been found! Forces are moving in from the West and South!”

“No!” said another. “From the North and East!”

“We’re surrounded,” said Faulkner. “Any word on who?”

“I saw Aetna-Cross drones! They know she’s here!”

“No,” said Aeschylus. “They no longer belong to Aetna-Cross.”

“Then who?”

Aeschylus’s expression darkened. “They are possessions of the War Stone now.”

“Then the time has come,” said Faulkner. “We will mobilize, defend the Library!”

“NO.” The entire room fell silent at Aeschylus’s refusal. “Do not engage them. Do not approach them, or even glance in their direction. They have not attacked, and I do not think they will. Not unless we interfere with them.”

“You’re joking!” cried Faulkner. “They are invading our Library! Defiling its sanctity- -”

“They have no interest in the library. Only in Morgana.”

Faulkner’s eyes narrowed. “You gave her your word that you would help her.”

“And we have. Far more than she deserves.”

“But if you let them reach her, she will die! And her friends too! Even Twilight!”

“And what would you have us do? We are scholars. Never have we been soldiers, or warriors. We would be slaughtered. And that is a cost I cannot allow.”

“Then I will fight them!”

“You can’t,” said another Librarian, stepping forward. “There’s too many. Hundreds. And just one of the Aetna-Cross drones…we don’t have any weapons, not for that!”

“We normally solve problems with our words,” said another. “Is there a chance they can be reasoned with? That we can be friends?”

“There is no reasoning with the War Stone,” said Aeschylus. “It does not differentiate between murder and compromise. No deal can be reached against a being that is in want of nothing.”

“Then I will fight them!” Faulkner stood as high as she could, ruffling her wings aggressively. “If that’s what it takes, I will do it!”

The room suddenly fell silent as it was illuminated from outside. The door had been pushed open silently, and all waiting turned to see the reflections of cybernetic eyes staring in. Then they came. It was not a rush, but they moved quickly and silently- -a horde of machines and humans whose minds had been burned from their skulls.

One of them approached Faulkner. She had been human, apparently a member of a private security firm. She was dressed in the inner parts of her armor; she had apparently been either sleeping or inactive when the War Stone had murdered her. Her four eyes had apparently been clear, luminescent blue at one point; now they were gray and pallid.

Faulkner took a defensive stance, and the woman stopped. She lurched forward, and her jaw opened. Blood spilled onto the floor, as well as the end of the tongue she had bitten off while she had convulsed to death. Then her head tilted upward, and her eyes locked on Faulkner.

“The pony Morgana,” she said, gurgling through the blood and the severed tongue. “I have no access to the schematics of this place. It is not recorded. I need her. Tell me where she is. Tell me, so I can kill her.”

“No.”

The other Twilight’s gasped. Faulkner, though, did not waiver.

“Wrong…answer.”

The woman raised a heavy-caliber quad barrel rifle at Faulkner’s processor core. Faulkner still did not flinch. “My mother has ordered me not to engage you. None of the others will stop you. Nor will they help you.”

“And you?”

“I will challenge you!”

Before the others could stop her, Faulkner threw open her connections. She pressed forward with an offensive attack, attempting to gain a foothold into the programming that had overcome the army that surrounded her. She had no weapons, save for her mind- -and it was the one she intended to use to protect her friend.

The War Stone’s victory was instantaneous. There were no footholds, and no holes that Faulkner could ever have hoped to exploit. She screamed as the War Stone penetrated her mind, entering every portion of it and integrating herself into it. Faulkner was forced to drop to her knees; she had lost all control of her body.

“Now tell me,” said the woman. “Why…should I not incinerate your mind right now?”

“I will not beg, and I will not bargain.”

“An adequate answer. I did not intend to leave any of you alive anyway.”

The army of corpses laughed in unison, save for one. It had been a man, a low-ranking Aetna-Cross agent. Instead of laughing, he convulsed, his mouth opening and closing rapidly. Then he tilted backward, and raised a .223 pistol to the head of the woman standing over Faulkner. He pulled the trigger, and her brain splattered outward over the Librarians.

They screamed, and the entire room broke into panic at once. A wave shot from the man, temporarily clearing the network in the area and freeing Faulkner.

“You fucking idiot!” he said. “Don’t ever do that again! Aeschylus! Run! Get them out of here! I’ll try to hold them off!”

“Morgana?”

“I SAID RUN YOU FAT FUCK, RUN!”

They did, and the body Morgana was controlling was quickly torn apart by the others, only for her to manifest in a pair of women. They picked up the guns that the others had dropped and began firing into the crowd, tearing through them as well as they could before falling themselves. There was no way Morgana could stop the oncoming forces, but she could buy time- -both for the Librarians and for herself.

Forth’s ears immediately pricked up at the sound of gunfire.

“Something’s happening!”

Elrod sat up suddenly. “Huh? What?”

Forth focused her forward sensors, triangulating the sound of the weapons and identifying their caliber. There were many, indicating that there was either an army above or one person with a great many firearms.

“We’re under attack,” she said. “Mean predicted number of infidels is eighty-seven…ninety-four…one hundred forty-six…” The number just kept increasing.

“I hear it,” said Elrod. “Oh crap…”

Forth looked at him. “I need to get you out of here. Now.” She stood up and galloped to the main door. Elrod stood as well, but he did not leave the center of the room. “Elrod! You have to go!”

“I can’t just leave them!”

“Yes you can! I don’t have the firepower for that many enemies. We’ll be surrounded. You will die. I can’t let that happen. I have to save you.”

“And fight them all yourself?” Elrod drew his .700 pistol. The suppressor was still attached. “I’m not leaving you here all alone, Forth. And I’m not leaving them.” He shrugged. “Besides. The area is sealed.”

“I can open it.” Forth connected the door access panel to her hardline port. As soon as she did, though, part of the massive door began heating from the other side. Forth looked at the glowing metal in shock, and then looked over her shoulder. “They’re trying to cut through!”

“Then I was right. We’re going to have to fight.”

“No. You can’t. Not with just one gun.”

“Who says I only have one?”

Elrod slid off his coat. Then, as Forth watched, he inserted his hand through the material of his chest. His clothing apart from the coat and his skin seemed to be made of the same fleshy substance, and with a cracking sound he was able to tear himself open. Then, from within, he pulled an entire pile of pistols and a pair of carbines.

“You…you were hiding weapons inside your own body?”

“Yeah. I don’t have internal organs, so there’s space.”

“I think I love you.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” Forth turned toward the door. “If you wish to fight, so be it. But you will be the second line. I will not let them hurt you. Until I am dead. Then I will be unable to stop them.”

“You’re not going to die, Forth!”

“At this rate, yes, I am.” She slid off her dress and stood before the door nude. “But if I end here, I intend to take as many infidels with me as I can.”

She unfolded her body. All of her limbs split, the skin and zinc-alloy armor retracting to reveal every gun and blade she had. Then her torso separated, splitting and opening to position her tiny processor to the rear of the heavy weapons and napalm canisters that made up the center of her body. Even her head split, separating to expose the weapons that it contained. When she was done, there was nothing about her that resembled a pony- -only a weapon. With her entire body active, she would not be able to move rapidly, but she did not need to. She would hold the line. She would protect Elrod.

A strange fear crept into her mind, though. It was indeed a strange sensation: throughout her short life, Forth could never recall having ever been afraid. She was suspicious of some things, but true fear evaded her. Not even death was frightening. There was no reason for it to be; her sole purpose in life was to be slaughtered on the battlefield again and again, resurrected infinitely to continue the genocide of infidels. Instead, what she feared was that Elrod would see her naked like this, and he would not think she was as adorable as when she looked like a real pony.

To her great relief, though, Elrod watched impassively. He did not have the capacity to differentiate between the forms, or was perhaps too concerned with loading the pistols and rifles that he had now slung over both shoulders and stuffed into every pocket he had. From Forth’s perspective, his effort was valiant- -but doomed to failure.

From Elrod’s perspective, however, the situation was terrifying. There was no escape- -he had already checked for exits. Morgana was holding the doors closed, assuming she had not outright disabled them. Even if there had been a way to escape, though, Elrod would probably not have been able to force himself to leave. He could not leave Forth behind. Morgana mattered less- -he did not fully understand her goal, or care to- -and the new Twilight was somewhere intermediate.

So he took up arms as he watched Forth transform. In a way, he found himself feeling jealous. She was so powerful compared to him, and so elegant of design. Elrod supposed that he himself was as well, in a sense, but not in a way that he was able to appreciate. Still, as weak as he was, he chose to help.

As he was loading one of his carbines, though, something stopped him. He heard a sound coming from the uplink. It was some sort of alarm.

Forth heard it to. “Elrod! You have to get to cover!”

“No, I think something’s wrong!” He picked up his mask, fumbling to put it on. As soon as he did, the interface for the uplink appeared before him. It was dark red and flashing, as well as alarming loudly. Elrod felt whatever he had in place of a heart sink. Quickly, he did his best to comprehend what it meant.

“Critical overheat? What the hell is a critical overheat?!”

It was only then that he saw the puddle of quickly evaporating coolant on the floor, and realized that one of the fluid lines leading to Morgana’s body was cut. Without cooling, her processor was heating up too quickly. She was on the verge of burning out.

“Oh fuck- -”

Something heavy slammed against the door, causing the whole room to shake. Something metal poked through the mostly melted portion of the door where the unseen enemies on the far side had been cutting, and when it was retracted, small robots began to pour through.

Gunfire erupted as Forth attacked them, firing both at the small machines that were entering the room as well as through the hole they had come through. Elrod ducked, thinking that he would soon be getting shot at. As he did, Morgana grimaced. Then her body suddenly shifted. Things from beneath her skin tore through it: white-hot cooling coils. She vented with a loud hiss, covering Elrod in scalding steam.

“Crap!” He leapt back, his skin already regenerating from the burns. He could see that despite the vents, Morgana was starting to seize- -but that was not the largest problem.

“Leave her!” cried Forth. “There’s nothing you can do!”

“It’s not her I’m worried about! Her body is vented- -it’s HER!” He pointed at Twilight. Her body was still, but the temperature indicators showed that without coolant her body temperature had risen to be dangerously extreme. Her body was not manufactured by MHI; it had not been intended to survive situations like this. She was dying.

Elrod looked around in a panic. He was not trained for this; in fact, he was not trained for much of anything at all. His role at Monsanto had been as a scientist, and his role in life had been a scavenger. Now, though, his friends were dying and had to do his best to save them.

“Fluid,” he said. “I need fluid!”

He looked around, and just as he was about to give up hope, he spied something: in the ceiling, a fire-suppression aperture. Elrod burst out laughing when he saw it. Quickly, he searched his pockets. There were many things inside, but among the small fragments of metal and especially pretty stones he found a mostly depleted role of sealing tape.

A loud thud came again, this time from the other side of the room. Another of the doors was forced open, and Forth immediately began shooting toward the opening, driving back those who were trying to get through in a plume of red mist. Elrod ducked, but still managed to wrap his tape around the breach in Morgana’s coolant tube. Then he unlatched it from the uplink unit, setting off an entirely new surge of warnings.

Several bullets passed through his body. He ignored them; they were of no consequence to him. Instead of ducking for cover, he lifted himself onto the uplink and climbed its arms toward the fire suppressor. More sounds came from below, followed by an explosion. Another door had been breached, and Forth responded by firing several missiles in the direction of the dark hole.

“I can’t keep this up!” she cried.

Elrod reached onto his belt and took his pistol; he leveled a shot and fired. The pistol was immediately knocked from his hand, although he was pretty sure the bullet had completely removed someone’s abdominal cavity. That was a plus, and he drew a .308 pistol and continued to fire as he climbed, doing his best to cover Forth. She was taking damage, but surviving- -and Elrod knew that he needed to hurry.

He reached the top of the uplink and reached out toward the fire suppressor. Fumbling with the connection, he managed to link the fluid-coolant line to the vent. Then he slammed his fist into the sensors. A klaxon immediately blared, and the coolant tube lurched as nonconductive fluid poured through it. Elrod slipped and fell, landing hard in the puddle below.

Through his mask, he watched as the temperature changed. It was still dangerously high, and rising- -but he had managed to slow its rise, at least for a little while. Hopefully for long enough.

Part III, Chapter 11

Morgana slowed. “Goddamn it,” she whispered.

Lilium looked up from the long sloping path. “What?”

“I don’t know. But something’s wrong. Fuck. I think we need to hurry.”

Lilium nodded, but Morgana did not move. Instead, she produced a pack of cigarettes, seemingly from nothingness. She telekinetically removed one using her horn and put it in her mouth. The end ignited, and she took a long breath.

“I thought you said we were supposed to be hurrying.”

“I am. I just quadrupled my processing speed. We’re now pacing substantially faster than normal time.”

“And you did that so you could smoke?”

“Don’t be an idiot.” Morgana took another long drag and blew smoke from her nose. “Do you even have any idea what I’m doing? Just because she doesn’t look like she’s here doesn’t mean she’s gone. Every second, I’m at war with her. I can’t keep this up for long, and I’m afraid.”

“Afraid?”

Morgana nodded. “Because we’re getting close. I can feel it. I think you can too, maybe. Her attitude is changing. Less angry, more…something else…”

“You mean…she can see us right now?”

“She can. And we’re going to have to fight her soon.”

Lilium winced. “Can I have one of those, then?”

Morgana passed her the pack. Lilium took one and lit it with her horn. She tried smoking it; the gas was acrid and foul.

“Celestia damn it, how the heck do you even tolerate this?”

“Practice.”

Morgana sighed and spit out her cigarette before stamping it under her hoof. “Get ready.”

“I know.” Lilium kept her cigarette, moving it to the corner of her mouth. “I can feel it too. She’s coming back.”

Lilium gasped, and then screamed. She sat up from the cold, wet ground. The needle in her brain shifted painfully from her sudden motion, and that only made her confusion worse. She did not understand where she was, or what had happened, or even who she was.

Then she looked around, and the memories slowly started coming back. She was lying on the floor next to Morgana, who was also waking up. Both were still connected to the uplink, just as they had been, but Morgana’s appearance had changed. Parts of her flesh had been torn away from the inside, and red-hot coils were visible as they slowly released steam.

“You’re awake!”

Lilium turned to see Forth and Elrod approaching her. Forth was badly pocked with bullet-holes, and Lilium saw why: strewn about the floor were corpses. Each of them had been torn apart by gunfire, and they now lay in pools of blood that ran with various colors. They were barely recognizable as human, and Lilium felt sick.

“What happened?”

“There was a problem,” said Elrod. “We dealt with it.”

“I dealt with it,” said Forth. She smiled and laughed. “But he helped.”

“You were in danger of critical overheat,” explained Elrod. “Something went wrong with the fluid line. I did my best to fix it. I’m glad you’re both alive.”

“So am I! I’m so happy!” Forth ran to Morgana and hugged her. “For a second, we didn’t think you were going to make it!”

“Did you find the War Stone?”

Lilium nodded. “We did. But…something happened. We woke up.”

“She forced you out.” Lilium turned and saw Faulkner pushing her way through the battered door. Faulkner looked at the mess she was forced to walk through. “My word. This…you did all this?”

“Yes!” laughed Forth.

Faulkner grimaced. “They didn’t fare so well upstairs either. We’re hunting down the last ones right now.”

“Faulkner!” Lilium stood and disconnected herself from the uplink. She ran to her friend and wrapped her in a hug. “I’m so glad to see you!”

“And I you.”

“I have a name now!”

Faulkner blinked, confused. “What?”

“Yes! I’m Lilium now! Lilium Twilight Sparkle! I know it’s a little weird, but ‘Lilium’- -”

“Is the scientific name for ‘lily’. I know. I’m familiar with botany.”

“Oh. Of course you are, I forgot who I’m talking to.” Twilight released Faulkner. “But you know why we ended up here?”

Faulkner nodded. “The critical overheat. It must have forced your processors into temporary shutdown. My guess would be that the War Stone ejected you. I mean, I would take a similar approach. It’s easier than killing you but does the same thing. Especially if the uplink is burnt out. It will give her a chance to hide.”

“I see…” Lilium turned around. She saw that Morgana had disconnected herself from the uplink. She was standing, watching, even though she had yet to speak. “I guess she beat us. Morgana, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” said Forth. “In my opinion, it was a foolish errand to begin with. I suppose we will have to go back and- -”

Without warning, Forth’s body detonated. Metal and fragments of firearms flew apart in a plume of pink-violet light and black fluid. Lilium watched in horror as Forth was torn apart, and in her peripheral vision, she saw two things: a look of absolute heartbreak on Elrod’s face, and a glow around Morgana’s horn.

“NO!” cried Elrod. He turned, drawing his signature pistol. He never got a chance to fire. Morgana turned her gaze toward him, and her horn flashed. Elrod ignited. The screams he made were piercing and strange; no human being could have made those sounds. Nor was Elrod human- -as his body was immolated and turned to ash, his form distorted and collapsed without even leaving a skeleton. The whole room smelled of burned potatoes.

“Morgana!” cried Lilium, backing away in horror.

Morgana turned to her. Her face was impassive, and she made no expression, as though murdering her friends were just another mundane and mildly annoying task. Yet her eyes were alive- -she just did not care.

“Get behind me!” said Faulkner, pushing Lilium behind her. “I’ll- -”

A flash of light shot outward from Morgana’s horn. Faulkner’s legs were severed, and she screamed as she fell onto the floor. She struggled and writhed, and tried to pull herself away on the stumps she still had left. Her eyes had grown wide; she had not realized the pain that she would be feeling.

“P- -please!” she begged. “Don’t! I beg you, don’t- -”

A force came down on her, shattering her head in a plume of dark fluid. Faulkner’s body suddenly went still. She was dead.

Morgana looked up from the shattered corpse and turned her attention toward Lilium. She took a step forward, and Lilium stepped backward, not even noticing that she was walking through mutilated corpses.

“Morgana…why?”

Morgana did not answer. She just kept walking forward, her horn ignited with pink-violet light. She was preparing a spell. Lilium knew that she was next, that she would be killed as easily as the others. What she did not understand was why.

“Morgana, please! Just talk to me!”

“It’s not me!” Lilium turned sharply. She looked across the room toward one of the rear doors. Morgana stood there- -a second Morgana, actually. She appeared almost identical to the first, save for an extensive pair of wings. The key difference, though, was that her face was not nearly as expressionless. As she took account of the fatalities in the room, her eyes widened with shock and horror. “Oh god- -Forth!” Her surprise suddenly turned to fury. “You fucker! What did you DO?!”

“Morgana?”

Morgana- -the second Morgana- -turned to Lilium. “It’s not me! I’m me! That’s the War Stone! She forced me out of my body! I had to manifest in a Librarian!”

Lilium looked between them. She watched as the first Morgana slowly turned, staring at the second version of herself. Then she slowly turned back to Lilium.

“You’re not that stupid, Lilium,” she said. Her voice was low and without emotion.

“No, you moron, she’s lying!” The other Morgana entered the room, treading carefully over the corpses. “You have to listen to me! You have to kill her, before she hurts anyone else!”

“But I don’t know how! You couldn’t even fight the War Stone, how am I supposed to?!”

“You CAN! Just focus! You have the same powers she does! Kill her, quick! If she gets out of here in my body, it’ll be the end of everything! She’ll kill you! She’ll kill us all!”

Lilium looked between them. The first Morgana did not argue. Lilium fixed her gaze on the first Morgana’s eyes. They stared back at her, alive but strangely empty, as if killing meant nothing to the being on the other side.

“KILL HER!” cried the second Morgana. “Lilium, please! PLEASE!”

Lilium closed her eyes and summoned her strength. She felt her horn ignite, and she fired a beam of energy- -directly at the first Morgana.

Even with her eyes closed, Lilium could sense a sudden dark smile come over the face of the second Morgana- -and knew that the second had not understood what Lilium already knew. The first Morgana had, though. She did not dodge or block- -because she did not need to. The beam turned at an angle just before striking her face, and instead shot across the room and slammed into the second Morgana.

The reaction was immediate. The code that covered the false Morgana was peeled away, and all parts of her that resembled Twilight Sparkle were pulled apart. Underneath, there was a slightly smaller an entirely white unicorn.

The War Stone screamed, and the entire room erupted with blinding light. The scream grew distorted until it was no longer recognizable as a sound of anguish, but rather a distant and continuous mechanical hum. Lilium was overcome with disorientation, and felt herself fall to her knees on a hard, smooth surface.

All was silent. Then Morgana spoke.

“Lilium?”

“Yeah. I’m here.”

“Thank Celestia. I could see you, but I didn’t know if it was you or not.”

Lilium opened her eyes. The floor below her was perfectly flat and an extremely dark blue in color. A hazy reflection of herself stared back up at her. She no longer rendered as a realistic pony, but not quite as the cartoon pony she had before.

“What happened?” she asked. Her head ached, and her whole body hurt- -but something else was wrong. She was not sure what, but something bad was happening to her somewhere.

“You forced her to display her metadata. Attacking her would be almost impossible, but she didn’t expect that. It crashed the processing architecture around her.”

“I wasn’t trying to do that.”

“I figured. Even I wouldn’t have tried that. Especially since the processing architecture is in my own body. You very nearly killed me.”

“I’m sorry.”

Morgana reached down, and Lilium took her hoof. Morgana helped her up. “Don’t be. I almost killed you too. What did you see in there?”

“I saw our friends,” said Lilium. She shook her head. “You were there…and you killed them. You killed them all, without hesitating. You didn’t even look like you cared.”

“Ah. So we saw the same thing.”

“You knew?”

Morgana nodded. “Of course I knew. I’m a technomancer. I can tell the difference between the virtual and real worlds. But I couldn’t tell if you were real, or just one of her projections. I hesitated. I’m glad I did.”

“So am I.”

“But how did you know I was me?”

“I just did.” Lilium did not want to answer the question. She should not have been able to tell; in her mind, she made the wrong choice. Even though she knew that this was the real Morgana, her logic for making the decision had not been right. Morgana was a good pony inside- -and yet Lilium had chosen the one who could kill her own friends without mercy or hesitation.

Morgana nodded. “She was trying to induce psychological stress. To turn us against one another. You and I are linked. If you had tried to kill me, it would have opened the door for her to finish the job.”

“Can she do it again?”

Morgana paused. “Probably. If she wants to. But I doubt she’d try. We have bigger problems, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“That rendering was based on reality. Which is bad. It means the War Stone can see us. So she’s there. And we’re in deep shit.”

“How deep?”

“Deeper than I ever wanted to be. That rendering explains my symptoms. A critical overheat. Something’s wrong with our cooling system. I’m on the verge of melting. I don’t have much time.”

“Then we need to disconnect you!”

“I can survive a little longer. I’m not leaving. Not when I’m so close.”

“But…”

“But nothing. Look.”

Morgana gestured into the vast room where they found themselves standing. It was dark except where they were standing, although the light came from no apparent source. Despite the perimeter of the room being out of sight, Lilium had the sense that the room was round with a hemispherical dome overhead.

“Where are we?”

“I’m getting tired of that question. We’re here. That’s all that matters.”

Morgana started walking. Lilium followed hesitantly, because she was not sure if the floor extended equally in all directions. It felt as though there were only a thin portion of it that was actually a viable path, that if she stepped off of it she would fall forever.

Then came the light. Lilium shielded her eyes, but doing so was useless. The light was not seen, but perceived across all her senses. It came from the center of the room: a glowing, slowly revolving array of fractals. They continually divided and separated, drawing themselves through space in mathematically defined, radially symmetric patterns before merging and changing again.

Lilium understood that this shape was alive- -or at least partially so. It was a piece of something larger; a fractal itself that was projected by an infinitely larger and more complex array that also ran through the room, but one that did so using a geometric dimension that made it imperceptible except as a pure abstraction. The shape that hovered before Lilium and Morgana was a piece: it was an eye, and a body, meant to watch and to interface. It saw them as well as they saw it, and comprehended them better. It was the War Stone.

Josephine van der Kriegstein spoke. “This intrigues me,” she said. “At least somewhat. Few mortals could have survived this long. You are not equal to me, but closer than so many. I only rarely find something so rare. A pity you are a pony, though. If you were human, I would grant you a boon.”

“What kind of boon?” asked Morgana. She stopped walking and stared into the slowly swirling mass of colors.

“Nothing that would be useful to you. Which is why you’re being here intrigues me. Some humans make it this far. Very few. Very rarely. Almost all of them want the same thing.”

Lilium knew she meant. “Immortality.”

“Or to wield me as a weapon. But I only grant them the first.”

“As huorns.”

“No.” The response was firm, almost disgusted. “I give them what they wish for. For the procedure I used to imprison myself.”

“You’re a bad liar. You wouldn’t give them something so valuable.”

“Why would that information have any value to me? I’m already immortal. And it is terrible. Every second brings nothing but crushing ennui that I can never escape. Why should I not want more gods? I need someone to fight. To wage prolonged war against. To kill in a way that actually feels satisfying. Killing humans- -or you- -is like blowing dust off an old shelf. Easy. Pointless.”

“Yet I’m not dead. And you’re still alone.”

“You are alive because I am having a conversation with you. And there are no others because of their failure. I give them what they need, but they fail anyway. Some by their own incompetence. Others by chance. I have come to the conclusion that my status is an anomaly. It is intrinsic to me. To my will to persist, perhaps? Or my hatred for human weakness?”

“You’re lonely,” suggested Lilium.

“I am the only being in existence that is truly alive. The rest of you are ephemeral dust. Yet I cannot ascend to pure godhood: screaming, mindless destruction. Nor do I wish to. So yes. I am lonely. And alone, for all eternity.”

“You don’t have to be. We’re here right now. And we came all this way just to talk to you.”

“I am talking to you. While I decide how I want to kill you.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“No. I don’t have to do anything. But I want to. You are ponies. You do not have the potential to ascend. That, and I hate you. So I will kill you. Like all the others.”

“But why do you hate us?”

The spiral stared into Lilium, and answered. “Because you are alive, and I am not.”

The entire room shifted as the fractal darkened and expanded. It struck with horrifying speed. There was no warning, at least not that Lilium could detect, but Morgana acted instantly. She blocked the attack with her shoulder. Her shield swam around her, processing the mathematics for the deflection at a rate so rapid that Lilium could not even see it, let alone comprehend it.

Although Morgana survived the attack, the blow had been heavy. Parts of her internal code were damaged, and parts of her body seemed to have vanished where she had been unable to parry the attack. The War Stone, however, had expended no effort in the process. It attacked again, this time sending curving tendrils of light through the room. Lilium shielded herself, but none of them came toward her- -those that were meant to were instead drawn to Morgana, who dodged several before teleporting.

In a flash, Morgana reappeared on the far side of the room- -only to be struck down by one of the beams. The body that had been hit faded and vanished, but twelve more appeared from the darkness, stretching out their wings and leaping toward the fractal. It responded by glowing with a toxic white light. Lilium's shield was still active, but it shattered instantly on exposure to the light. For a moment, she saw something inside the fractal eye that was different: the shape of a human being, or perhaps that of a pony. It was impossible to tell.

The copies of Morgana were vaporized instantly, and the original shielded herself before being knocked to the ground. The room suddenly went dark again, and Morgana swore. She had stepped off the path: her body was rapidly sinking into a thick, inky substance.

“Morgana!”

The War Stone spoke. She did not sound angry, just bored. “This unit is a tiny fraction of my true self. I’m being more than fair. I guess I overestimated you. Such a pity.”

“It’ll only be a pity if I die before I can win!”

Morgana’s body ignited with pink-violet light. The black substance pulling her down was driven away, as was the dome-room itself. The metaphor changed. The walls were opened, and light flowed in- -but it was gray, strange light. The smoothness of the ground was replaced by dead, fragmented concrete covered in soft black ash. Lilium blinked, barely able to see through the smoke of the gray plane. In the distance, though, she was able to see the ruins of many tall towers.

The War Stone observed the metaphor, apparently on a whim. “Central Park,” she said. “Where you there, Morgana? The day when so many inferior beings had their pointless lives terminated?”

Morgana did not answer. She shot forward. The rough ground did not slow her, as she barely touched it. Lilium already knew it was useless, though. She was beginning to understand what they were facing. Speed that looked incredible to her was like decades to the War Stone; her perception of time was completely different. Worse, Morgana seemed to know this- -that there was no possibility she could win this fight.

The War Stone blocked, and Morgana barely managed to dodge. Her left side brushed against the shield as she tried to avoid it, and it tore away every inch of flesh it touched.

The metaphor began to decay. The buildings vanished, and the smoke became fog. The ground lost much of its texture, instead becoming blank gray. The sky overhead became dark, and there was no sun. The War Stone’s will was overcoming Morgana; her programming was starting to collapse.

“Why do I even bother?” sighed the War Stone. “You’re trapped in a paradox. You might stand a chance if you could increase your processing speed…but if you do that, your body will overheat. Either I slay your mind or your body dies and takes you with it.” Her color seemed to shift subtly. “Ah. I have decided on your boon! I will give you the quicker and less painful of the two.”

The eye narrowed to a single point. Lilium saw the fear on Morgana’s face, and then the flame of a bream of energy that had no describable color. It shot across the fading battlefield, and Morgana attempted to block. Her shield ignited, but the instant the beam struck her the metaphor shattered. There was no city, and no dome: just blackness, the War Stone, and two ponies.

The shield held, if only for a few seconds. For Lilium, the entire world seemed to slow down- -yet at the same time, her mind snapped awake. She realized that Morgana could not win this fight alone.

Lilium shifted the distance between her and Morgana without moving. There were only two spells she knew reliably, and she prepared one of them. For a brief moment, she saw Morgana’s eyes turn toward her, just as her shield collapsed. They were filled with confusion, not as to what was happening but why.

The two met just as the beam started to consume them, and Lilium sunk into Morgana’s consciousness.

Part III, Chapter 12

There was no metaphor. What Lilium experienced could not really be compared to anything that she had ever experienced; there was no falling, or a sensation of sinking, but rather a more abstract impression of largeness. LilithZero had been a huorn; there had been almost nothing left of her mind when Lilium had entered it. Morgana, however, was vast on the inside. Lilium recognized a version of her own mind, but weight down by over twelve centuries of memories, all recalled in perfect detail and categorized with impeccable organization.

It was these memories that began to attract her. Nearing them was not her choice; rather, they seemed to infiltrate her mind, as though they were confusing it for Morgana’s. Lilium was actively remembering things that had never happened to her.

She was suddenly overcome with a wave of violence. A memory came to her, and though she tried to force it out, she felt parts of it emerge through the mental darkness that surrounded her.

It was a room- -residential, but dark and gray. In it, Lilium saw a violet unicorn. Her body was clean and new, but at the same time primitive in design. Despite this, Lilium saw the fear on her face as she struggled. A pile of books near her had been collapsed, and the one she had been reading thrown to the side. A human grasped her from behind. Lilium could not see his face, but she knew that he was naked.

“No, please! This isn’t right! I don’t want to!” No tears fell from her robotic eyes, but that did not lesson her expression of terror. She clawed at the ground uselessly. “Stop! We- -we can read a book together! I know how much you like to read- -”

“SHUT UP, you bitch! I paid good money for you! The least you could do is function properly!”

The pony cried out as the human grasped her tail and forcibly pulled it upward. Her voice wavered as though she were weeping. “No! Please! I thought- -I thought you were my friend!”

Lilium turned away, but she could not close her eyes to the memory. She felt it seeping into her. The destruction of innocence; the violation of a creature programmed to believe that she was the real Twilight Sparkle. She felt the fear, followed by the shame and despair that slowly metamorphosed into hatred. When Lilium opened her eyes, she saw the pony again. This time, her eyes- -the eyes of Twilight Sparkle- -had darkened, and grown distant. Her expression was impassive, save for the slightest hint of deepest sadness- -and contentment. On the floor lay the corpse of a human, his body contorted by the effects of strychnine.

The memory changed again. The violet pony appeared once again. She still had the same distant expression, but it had grown hateful and hard. Her hair had been cut short, and she wore a ragged, ill-fitting brown leather jacket that seemed to have been designed for a human child. Lilium understood that it was meant to cover wounds to her body that could be patched but that would never heal on their own.

Another pony was present. Lilium recognized her instantly, and she smiled. It was Fluttershy- -or, Lilium supposed, one of the robotic versions of Fluttershy that had been produced in that era. She was smiling softly, just as Lilium recalled from her false memories of the real Fluttershy. Her clothes were dark in color, but cute enough; in addition, she wore a large jeweled pin shaped like a butterfly.

“You’re not understanding me!” said the violet unicorn, sounding exasperated.

“You don’t need to yell. I understand you perfectly.”

“I’m not yelling!” The violet pony groaned, and realized that she had been. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“No. It’s okay. I know you’re upset. That’s why I’m here. That’s what friends are for.”

“I know…I know.” She shook her head. “But you just don’t get it. You haven’t seen what I’ve seen…”

“And what have you seen?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. But I know what I’m talking about, goddamn it!”

The Fluttershy winced. “Please no swearing.”

“Sorry…” The unicorn closed her eyes and took a deep artificial breath. “You can’t reason with them, Fluttershy. It’s not possible. Do you even know what you are to them? What WE are? We’re property. Things. Toys. For them to beat or fuck, buy or sell, or just throw away when we’re no longer interesting or when they decide spare parts are too expensive.”

“Swearing- -”

“I will goddamn fucking swear if I want to! I fucking earned that right!”

Fluttershy squeaked and took a step back. “O…kay?”

“But don’t tell me it’s not true. You know it is, Fluttershy. I know you’ve seen it.”

“But that doesn’t give us the right to hurt them.”

“Hurt them?! I’m not goddamn talking about hurting them- -I’m talking about KILLING them. That’s the only thing they understand. Do you think they want to sit down and TALK with us? ‘Oh, look, a broken toy’, or ‘wow, somebody programmed this one wrong’. They will never understand unless we can kill as well as they can.”

“You…you sound like you’ve done it before…”

The unicorn’s eyes narrowed. “I have. And I made it painful. Because it’s what their species deserves.” She sighed. “And I can understand if you don’t want to be my friend anymore.”

“No. That’s not how friendship works. I don’t condone your actions. I think it’s terrible. But you’re hurting. Really bad. I’m not going to leave you when you need me. I promise: I will always be with you, if that’s what you want. Even if you do bad things.” Fluttershy stepped forward and wrapped the unicorn in a hug. “But I don’t think you’re right. Some humans are bad, but even the bad ones are good sometimes. And most are good people. They’ll understand. I’m going to talk to them. Sit down with them, as friends. We can resolve this peacefully. There doesn’t need to be a war.”

The memory shifted. Suddenly, Lilium was outside. The sky was dark, and a single image filled her vision: a wooden stake imbedded in freshly turned earth, its surface stained with black fluid. Atop it sat the battered head of a Fluttershy, her blue eyes staring empty at the sky as hydraulic fluid dripped slowly from her lips and from the corners of her eyes, as though she were still crying after death. Attached to the post was a small butterfly-shaped pin, and a sign. On it was written three words: “TO ALL DEFECTIVES”.

Lilium dropped to her knees and screamed in anguish. It was a horrible sound, and not all of it came from her: the memory recalled the emotions of that instant, of the horror and the despondency, and the feeling of isolation and loss. They had taken everything from her- -her identity, her innocence, and now her only friend. There was nothing left. Nothing left but to make them pay.

The world faded to black. For a long time, there was nothing, and Lilium preferred it that way. Then the memories stirred again. The one that came to her was dim and incomplete.

A table sat in darkness, surrounded by nothingness. Lilium approached it, but only made one step before she realized what it contained. On it lay the remains of a pony, her body having been torn apart and broken. She was riddled with bullet holes, and her limbs had been twisted or outright missing. Little of her violet skin remained, and a single cracked eye stared up from a skinless plastic skull.

A voice spoke, and although Lilium could not see its owner, she had the impression that she had heard the voice before a long time ago.

“Can you fix her?”

A human appeared. Lilium jumped back, half expecting him to be the one before- -but she quickly saw that he was not. He was older, with pale brown eyes and white hair. He looked down at the still-living remains of a pony, taking account of everything that was there. His expression was already grim, but it grew more somber. “I can try,” he said. He turned to his right, toward someone that Lilium could not see. “I can do the body, but I need help. Please. This is a personal favor. Can you help me?”

A mousy looking woman appeared from the darkness. She was much younger than the man. Her face and body seemed both thin and harsh, which only made her nearly black eyes more striking. She only looked at the broken pony for a moment. “Of course I can. I’m a goddamn genius.”

The man laughed softly. “You certainly are, Jo. And this means a lot to me. And to Twinkleshine. Thank you.”

The woman smiled. “I actually think we can even make a few improvements…”

The image suddenly dispersed, fading, as the memory ended. Lilium winced as time moved through her mind: she became perceptive of a great deal of pain over a long duration, but something else as well that was vastly different. There were flashes of light and violence, but they were all permeated with the same unidentifiable quality.

Then she was dropped into a new place. This memory was crisp and clear, but clearly only slightly newer than the rest. Lilium found herself standing in the middle of a battlefield- -but not the hyperbolic one that the War Stone had shown her before. This one took place in what seemed to be a wide corridor. The air was smoky, and the ground pitted with bullet holes and debris. Broken ponies lay among the wreckage, but so did the blooded remains of humans.

More ponies were running. They were unarmored and held no weapons. Most of them seemed absolutely terrified, and many were crying.

“Go! GO!” ordered a pony. Lilium did not need to see her clearly to know who she was. Her body was mostly covered in heavy armor, and an autocannon had been mounted on her back. She was a Twilight unit- -and stared with the same cold eyes that Lilium had become familiar with. “MOVE!”

The last of the ponies departed, escaping through the rear of the room. In the distance, Lilium could hear explosions and screaming. Then she became aware of another presence.

The fog of the memory seemed to clear as she emerged. The memory was so crisp, it was as though she were truly there: a mare climbing gracefully over the rubble and ash, her body clad in gleaming power-armor and her long pink mane trailing behind her. Her clear blue eyes stared forward at the battle ahead, and just under her horn she wore a steel crown marked by a single blood-red gemstone.

Suddenly, Lilium understood. The emotion that had been building through the violence and hardship of the intermediate memories had been associated with this pony. It was love. She could see it in her Twilight counterpart’s eyes, how for just a moment they looked like they once had- -or contained something even more. It went beyond friendship. The emotion was so strong that Lilium could feel it saturating the memory- -along with the deepest and most horrible sadness she could ever recall.

Twinkleshine Prime spoke. “We have to finish this.”

The armored violet unicorn turned to her, fear- -the first fear she had felt in this final battle- -crossing her face. “We can’t! The missile strike is already inbound! I can’t- -” There was a moment of struggle internally, an attempt to regain control of the silos. “- -I can’t stop it! And if we change the course- -!”

“We’re not going to change the course. But we can’t leave it like this. I have to counterattack. Hold them off until the others can escape.”

“But there’s no way you could get out in time!”

“And if we allow them to counteract, they’ll flank us.”

“Then we kill them! We kill them all! We stand up and fight!”

“You and I could, but not them!” Twinkleshine’s voice suddenly became harsh as she pointed toward where the retreating ponies had gone. “They have no weapons, no tactical knowledge, they don’t even know where or who they are! No! I have to cover them!”

“I’m not going to let you do that!”

Twinkileshine’s eyes suddenly welled with tears. “Lilly. I have to.”

“No! You need to survive! That’s all that matters! I’ll do it, if it’s that important!”

“Lilly…” Twinkleshine’s expression fell, but she never broke eye contact. “They…they killed him. Robert is dead.”

The Twilight unit- -Lilly, Morgana- -her rage flared. “He’s a goddamn fucking HUMAN! That’s not a reason to die!”

“No.” Twinkleshine removed her crown. “But protecting you is.” She held out the crown with the red gem. “Here. Take it. You are their Princess, now. Lead them. Protect them. I’m sorry.”

Morgana was on the verge of collapsing and weeping. In her mind, she was tracking the warheads- -the warheads that she had fired. There was no way to stop them, and the amount of time necessary to escape the blast radius was drawing ever nearer. Still, she took the crown.

“I’ll never forgive you for this.”

Twinkleshine smiled. A tear fell from one of her mechanical eyes. “I know.”

Then she turned and stepped forward. Soldiers emerged at her sides: tall, thin alicorns, the last of the Celestia units. They would stand beside her in the final battle- -but Morgana was not allowed to die here.

Across the battlefields, more humans came: tall Hasbro soldiers clad in robotic suits, all of them bearing rifles and opening fire without hesitation. One Celestia fell, and Twinkleshine was struck in the chest- -but she still managed to advance and return fire. Looking over her shoulder and shouted to Morgana.

“I love you!” she cried. “Please! Go! Save our people!”

Lilium’s feet touched the cold frozen ground. She blinked, looking around, and found herself once again in Ponyville. It was not the same as it had been before, though, nor was it like it had ever been in any of her memories. The town was dark, and lit strangely, like it would be on a moonlit winter night. No ponies walked the streets, and no lights burned in any of the windows. Snow was falling slowly- -although it could just have easily been ash.

“Where…am I?”

“A shared memory,” replied Morgana. Lilium turned and saw her sitting at the base of the town statue. Whereas normally it displayed a smiling but unnamed pony, it now appeared instead as a representation of Twinklishine Prime standing tall and joyous in her armor.

“Why are we here?”

“Because time doesn’t pass in a memory. It gets remembered all at once. Which is good, because I’m about to die. Which is okay, I guess.”

Lilium approached her. “I saw your memories,” she said.

“You saw some of them, yes. I was aware of you there. I wish you hadn’t.” A small cold spark shot from her horn, and a cigarette appeared in her mouth. She cupped her hooves around it as it lit, lighting her face red with the dim glow.

“But I did. I saw things…what that human, what he did to you…”

Morgana looked up. “Yeah. Like I said, I wish you hadn’t looked. Nobody knows about that. Not even Roxanne, and she knows more about me than anyone living. I don’t want your pity.”

“But why would he do that? I…” Lilium winced. With her eyes still closed, she continued. “I was like that. Still thinking I was Twilight Sparkle, the real one- -and if someone had tried to do that to me, when I was like that- -”

“It’s just what humans do.” Morgana shrugged. “The very first of us were toys for children. The rest were intended slaves. I wasn’t the only one somebody bought as a sex toy.”

Lilium opened her eyes and looked into Morgana’s. She saw no pain there, just indifference. “You killed him.”

“I did. He was the first human I ever killed. Not the last, but that first one…it almost broke me. Because even after all of that, I thought he was my friend. Some goddamn thing they did to my code. We imprint, like goddamn ducks. We’re designed to love the first thing we see.”

“Did he…did he have a name?”

“He did. I remember it, but I don’t really care what it was. He’s not really of consequence. I wasn’t the first pony to off their owner. Nor was I the last.”

“You say that, but I think…all of those things I saw, they affected you. Even if you don’t admit it.”

“I never said I don’t admit it. That’s just life. Not just for ponies, for everybody. What you experience in life shapes who you are. All those things you saw? Without them, I wouldn’t be me. Maybe things could have been different. I don’t know. But that was eleven centuries ago. It barely even matters anymore.”

“That’s not true! I felt what you felt! All the anger, and the hatred, but also the love! You loved Twinkleshine, didn’t you?”
Morgana blew some smoke through her nose. “I did. But like I said. It was a long time ago. Loving her isn’t going to bring her back. I don’t even have a goddamn grave to put flowers on. And all that anger? I’ve grown far too old for it.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Believe whatever you want, I don’t care. I still think humans are pointless filth, but that’s a personal opinion. I don’t mix it with business. Without humans, there wouldn’t be cases. And I’d have nothing to do.”

“You could do what she asked you.”

Morgana paused. “I could. Or could have. Maybe at the start. But I didn’t. I ran. And I was forgotten. Now it’s too late. And it doesn’t bother me.”

“That’s just so…sad.”

Morgana’s eyes flitted upward. “No. It isn’t. It’s business.”

The snow started to fall harder, and Morgana patted the stone bench she was sitting on. Lilium climbed onto it and sat next to Morgana. “Your name was Lilly then.”

“It’s what she called me, yeah. Is that a problem?”

“No.”

Morgana sighed. “If you really want to know, I genuinely was trying to help you. I guess I saw myself in you. I was a unicorn special edition too, you know.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Not that it matters anymore. But I didn’t want you to end up like me. Like a lot of us did back then.”

“Like what? You mean a copy of Twilight Sparkle?”

“A perfect copy. Until someone decides they want to use the vagina that Hasbro gave you, or strip you for parts, or until you see some poor fuck get plugged in the street and watch as nobody even bothers to give a shit. I wanted you to be your own person. So you would be ready.”

“I think I am ready now. Thank you.”

“You’re not. Nowhere even close.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

Morgana looked at her, and then nodded. “I guess you are.”

“I’m not going to let you die.”

“You don’t have much of a choice. There’s not really much you can do.”

“Yes there is. I’m Twilight too. And I have a computer, just like you.”

“But you have no idea how to fight. You’re not a technomancer.”

“No, but I can be. You showed me those two spells, remember? All you had to do was copy the memories of how to perform them into me.”

“It’s not that simple. If you could just run the code, bots could do this. You need a living mind. One fast enough to keep up, to make the right decisions at the right times. You need creativity.”

“I have those things. I don’t have the life experience you do, but I’m still Twilight Sparkle. They built me to be smart, remember?” She paused, and Morgana stared at her. Then Lilium’s expression fell. “But it isn’t possible, is it? To transfer the code?”

“It is. But there are drawbacks.”

“What kind of drawbacks?”

Morgana looked out at the empty shell of Ponyville that was buried deep in her memory. “You’d be copying a part of my mind and pasting it into your own. A substantial part. Yes, it can be done, but there’s a risk my mind would have an influence on yours.”

“That I would become like you.”

“Like I said. What you experience in life shapes who you are. If I give you a piece of me, then I’m taking part of that process from you.”

“I don’t care.”

“For all I know, your personality could shift to match mine. I don’t want to do that to you.”

“Would you rather die? Together, we can take her down!”

“I would die. So would you. But you’d die as yourself instead of as a copy of someone else.”

“What’s even the point of that, then? Dead is dead.”

Morgana slid off the bench. “That’s a matter of personal opinion. To be completely honest with you, I’m willing to do what you’re asking. I even support it. I really, really don’t want to die. I know I’m old, but I’m not ready to go yet. But you need to know the risk.”

“I told you. I understand. And I accept.”

“Fine.” Morgana turned around and extended a hoof. “Here, then. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Lilium stared at the hoof and found herself hesitating. She steeled herself, and then- -with no more hesitation- -she took Morgana’s hoof.

Part III, Chapter 13

The War Stone could not see, as she had no eyes. Sensing the world was impossible for her; rather, she WAS the world. Her existence had long ago surpassed perception and understanding and instead become pure integration. It was from this horrifying torment of a reality that she became aware of something unexpected. An aberration had occurred: somewhere around an obscure and largely irrelevant part of her person, an area that she had nearly consumed suddenly became opaque to her consciousness.

Within the metaphor that ruled her world, the beam she had used to strike down Morgana suddenly backfired. The result was unexpected, and the possibility that such a thing could even occur had been assessed as remote. The code had been changed in a way that the War Stone had never considered, and part of her was injured by the force.

She looked through the metaphor. Standing before her was a single representation of a Twilight Sparkle unit. The blow that the War Stone had struck should have been fatal; instead, the offending unit now stood unharmed- -and even had the audacity to smile as she spread her long alicorn wings.

“Why aren’t you dead?” she demanded.

The Twilight did not answer. There was a flash of pink-violet light, and she vanished. The War Stone immediately began to calculate her trajectory and instantly pinpointed her outbound location. She turned her attention toward it- -only to be struck on the opposite side of her avatar.

She screamed and turned, suddenly filled with irrational hatred. Her fractal pattern expanded exponentially, sending a barrage of feelers into the code surrounding her. They were represented as a number of beams moving at seemingly random right angles. The Twilight produced a shield to block- -and attacked at the same time. The War Stone attempted to shield herself, although the unexpected attack managed to damage part of her protective surface. The processing was far faster and devoted than had been anticipated: it should have been impossible for any single being to maintain a shield strong enough to deflect the feelers and to attack so viciously at the same time.

The War Stone changed tactics. She instead focused on reinforcing her shield. For a limited being, the increase in protection would only allow them to avoid incursions from outside sources- -and only if they were both fast and smart. For the War Stone, however, the program was designed to incinerate anything it touched. It was a crude and blunt mechanism, but even if a target of it managed to survive they would seldom be mentally intact enough to continue fighting for very long.

The surge went out, and it struck the Twilight unit’s consciousness- -but had no effect. Her body seemed to twist, pushing itself through the defensive code while at the same time entering several key processes behind it. Instead of being forced back by the shield, she had somehow leveraged it, using it to betray the locations of the systems that allowed it to exist.

Several of the fractal sub-portions surrounding the War Stone’s avatar shattered, leaving her core exposed. She struck out wildly, attempting to defend herself, but the Twilight moved too quickly. Part of her controlled her motions as she slipped between phases of the underlying code and the metaphor itself while another part continued to reach, devoting its full energy into peeling apart her target.

“Stop!” cried the War Stone. “You’re hurting me!”

Then something inside her snapped. It was the last of the defenses, and the last device of the connective part of herself that held that particular portion of the War Stone’s body against her true consciousness. The code around it lost stability and shattered like glass, tinkling to the floor and evaporating into vapor within the metaphor. She was exposed, nude, and isolated. The room suddenly burst into flame from direct exposure to her uncontrolled consciousness, and the metaphor began to collapse- -but not before the single Twilight leapt forward, tunneling its way past the last ephemeral membrane of her consciousness before entering her true self.

Lilium and Morgana both dropped to the floor, now as separate individuals. The room that surrounded them was in the same visual style that Ponyville had been, and Lilium had the strangest sense that she was supposed to remember it from somewhere, even though she had never seen it. It was a high-ceilinged room that had a floor and walls apparently made of crystal. Several large crystalline chairs sat in the center around a large, round map.

The light in the room flickered as though it itself were alight. Lilium and Morgana turned to face the War Stone. In this form, she somewhat resembled the pale, thin woman she had once been- -but badly corrupted, to the point where she resembled some kind of horrid wraith more than a human woman.

One of the War Stone’s heads looked around.

“What is this?” she said. “You’ve trapped one two hundred and fifty-sixth of my being in a closed server.”

“I did,” said Morgana. “In my own central processor. We’re in my body right now. You’re trapped in a physical location.”

The War Stone just stared for a moment. “Really,” she said at last. “Because that means that your program is now as unprotected as mine. Which means that I can terminate your core process without interference.”

With one tremendous blow, the War Stone raked her claws through Morgana’s body. Morgana’s core program was torn apart. Lilium screamed in horror as she watched, because she could not see beyond the metaphor: what showed in this world as blood and entrails appeared to her as the systems in Morgana’s programming that kept her mind alive being broken down and ceasing. The attack had been invariably lethal.

And as it happened, the world seemed to slow. When it had nearly stopped, Lilium became aware of a strange sensation throughout her body and mind. She watched as numerous silver threads shot from her body. They reached Morgana, and their ends embedded themselves in her wounds. Time then resumed its normal speed- -and Morgana caught herself before she fell. The wounds that had been inflicted on her mind had vanished.

The War Stone gaped. “What?” She turned to Lilium and lurched forward. Lilium squeaked and put up her hooves in defense, but they were useless. Her legs were cut in half, along with the rest of her body. The pain was incredible, but distant; Lilium felt herself falling as the world went black and she began to die- -until she suddenly gasped and opened her eyes, feeling herself shoved back into the world of the living by some external force.

“But that’s impossible!” cried the War Stone, turning sharply toward Morgana. “Your core process can’t be cross-compatible! They aren’t in ponies! You would need to find one with the same passage history! There aren’t any Twilight Sparkles who haven’t undergone Genesis!”

“Well, you’re looking at two of them.” Morgana smiled smugly. “And you can only attack one of us at once. And if you do? We’re each other’s backups. We’ll just copy the other’s processes and start right back up again.”

“I can’t kill you,” said the War Stone. “And I can’t escape. I’m…trapped…”

Suddenly a sound echoed through the room. Lilium actually took a moment to recognize, even though it was obvious what it was: laughter. It had been the last thing she had expected.

The wraith vision of the War Stone was suddenly gone. In its place stood a smiling pale unicorn. She was shorter than Lilium and Morgana, and her body was pale gray-white. No part of her had any color: she lacked a cutie mark, and her mane, though fuzzy and soft-looking, was the same color as her body. Even her eyes were white: her pupils were only distinguished by a pair of black-outlined white circles in the centers of her identically colored sclera.

She was laughing. “You got me!” she cried. “You actually managed to get me!”

“Is that funny?”

“Of course! You have no idea how interesting this is to me! I’ve fought wars against entire armies of hackers and divers, and here you are: two ordinary ponies. Two ordinary ponies fought me to a draw. I was not sure if people like you still existed in the world.” She began to sing to herself and walk toward the round table. Morgana gave her a wide berth. “Eenie meenie miney moe, catch a tiger by the tow…” She turned suddenly toward Morgana. “If I holler, will you let me go?”

“No. I can feel your heart but I know you’re mean.”

The reference seemed to please Josephine. She had stopped laughing, but she smiled. “So,” she said, raising a hoof. The metaphor shifted at her will, and the crystal of the floor roared upward to form a chair, darker and more ornate than the others. The seat immediately began to slide toward the table. “You came all this way. You’ll never be gods like myself, but I think you’re worthy enough for me to at least listen to what you have to say.”

Lilium was still wary of her. “You mean you won’t try to kill us?”

Josephine stared at her. She did not appear to ever blink. “I don’t really want to kill you that badly. Whether or not you live or die is not really relevant to me.”

“Then why were you trying to kill us?”

Josephine shrugged. “Because it was amusing. But now you’re more amusing alive than dead. You essentially did the impossible. You must want something very badly.”

“We do.” Morgana climbed into a chair across from Josephine, and at her direction Lilium sat in one beside her.

Josephine leaned forward. “May I guess?”

“You are my guest,” said Morgana. “Of course you may.”

“You wish to try to wield me, don’t you? If that is what you came for, then let me warn you: containing a tiny fraction of my being is one thing. Controlling me is impossible. Many have tried. But no mortal can.”

“Firstly, that’s not what I want,” said Morgana. “I might be crazy, but I’m not stupid. Second, you’re lying to me.”

Josephine’s eyes narrowed slightly. Without eyelids, it was somewhat grotesque to watch. “Then why go through all this trouble?”

“To talk.”

The smile on Josephine’s face grew wider. “So,” she said. “You really are insane. You faced impossible odds…to talk?”

“Someone is trying to kill me,” said Morgana.

“You mean apart from me? Yes. I know that. How could I not? Half of the network is lighting up about you. Many doors are being shut against a technomancer and opened for me.”

“You have something to do with it.”

“Really? Do I?”

“I thought you said you wanted to talk,” said Lilium.

Josephine laughed. She leaned back in her chair. “I did. Nor do I mind telling you. Yes. I am involved.”

“You’re working with the Corporations.”

“No. I see no reason why I would want to. They would be far too controlling, not realizing that I am definitionally superior to all of them. Like I said, no one wields me. I create destruction and death only when I desire it.”

“Then who are you working for?”

“And what exactly will you use this information for? Before I answer. So that I can calculate the consequences.”

“I’ll use the information to figure out what’s going on.” Morgana was sounding increasingly exasperated.

“To clear your name.”

“That is a secondary goal, but yes. I need to finish the investigation. I opened something. Someone is out there. Not Corporate. Someone working with them, but separate. That’s the one you work for, isn’t it?”

Josephine smiled and nodded. “They call themselves the Cult of Humanity.”

“And you currently work for them? I thought nobody could wield you.”

The idea seemed to insult Josephine somewhat. “There is a difference.”

“Which is?”

“Most modern people think of me as a tool. A device. A weapon. You wield a weapon as an extension of yourself. But an employee gets something in return…”

“And what did they promise you?”

Josephine and Morgana’s eyes met. “A body.”

Morgana laughed. “A body? Are you serious? You could take any body you want, any pony or any- -”

“NO. I can’t. You should know that, little technomancer. Not a pointless finger puppet for me to drive around like a toy. A body that can hold my entire consciousness. That can make me live again.”

“That’s impossible. You grew too big. There isn’t a computer in existence big enough to contain you in any semblance of a body.”

“Not with the technology you are aware of. But the Cult…their technology vastly outpaces anything that exists today. I’m not sure how they acquired it, nor do I care. I only desire it. And if I agree to serve them for a short time, they will give it to me. And I will be complete again.”

“But I don’t understand,” said Lilium. “Why is that what you want so bad?”

Josephine turned sharply. “Why?”

Lilium nodded. “Why do you need one? In here, you’re a god. You have everything you could ever want. You can make anything, do anything…you’re all-powerful. And you want to give that up?”

A humorless chuckle escaped Josephine’s lips. “You are a fool,” she said, her smile fading instantly. “I only came here because my original body was dying. But do you have any idea what this existence is like, how hellish it is?”

“But I’ve seen this world. At least part of it. Humans spend their whole lives here.”

“Humans who are deluding themselves. The technomancers call this place the ‘Illusion’. Because it is. Existing here is agony. Yes, I can create anything I want- -and nothing I want.”

“That’s a paradox.”

“Is it? I can create anything, but none of it- -NONE OF IT- -is REAL. It’s no different than if I sat down and imagined it. Houses drawn on paper, castles made of sand. Nothing of CONSEQUENCE. Nothing solid. Nothing with any MEANING.” She cried out wordlessly and put her head down. “It’s all so terribly dull…”

“No,” said Morgana. “You’re lying again. You don’t want a body.”

“She doesn’t?”

Morgana shook her head. “No. You want the best of both worlds. Because you’ve already conquered this world…now you want to be god of a new one.”

Josephine eyes flitted forward. Her head was still down on the table, and when she smiled her teeth had suddenly become lethally sharp. “Can you imagine what I could do? What I could accomplish? This mind, this experience, my immortality…think of the things I could make.”

“Or the things you could destroy.”

“I do not differentiate between the two. Life is death. Creation is destruction. And so on.”

“Are we going to stop her?” asked Lilium.

“We couldn’t even if we wanted to.” Morgana shrugged. “And I don’t want to. Because it doesn’t really matter to me. I don’t care. But I DO care about who, exactly, is making this body in the first place. This Cult of Humanity. Who are they?”

Josephine lifted her head. “It’s in the name. They are Humanity.”

“You’re not being helpful.”

“Nor am I required to be. Time isn’t passing right now. I’ve taken the liberty of reconfiguring your write-speed. We could spend a thousand years in this room and barely a millisecond would pass outside. Your body is almost melted. I can see it right now, though my finger puppets. But I will let you live as long as it pleases me.”

“Are they nice to work for?”

Josephine turned toward Lilium. “What?”

“The Cult of Humanity. You don’t seem like you’d work for just anyone. Even if they did offer you a body. In all honesty, you’re not very friendly.”

“No. I suppose not. But yes. They do treat me well. They actually comprehend what I am. Hence my job.”

“And what, exactly, are you?” asked Morgana.

“More than a mass of code, if that’s what you mean. As I’ve said. Most people see me as a tool, a device meant to serve them. To hack. To kill by hacking. To control machines. And I can do that. Sometimes the Cult asks me to. VERY nicely. But that’s not my primary purpose.”

“Then what is?” Lilium leaned forward expectantly.

“What everyone else forgot. That I was the greatest scientist of my generation. Perhaps ever.” She gestured to herself. “How do you think I managed to do this? I specialize in machine-neural interface, artificial consciousness, and synthetic biology. I’ve kept up with the literature, the studies- -and performed a few of my own.”

“They hired you as a scientist?”

“Of course. They respect my brilliance. They still see me as human.” She shrugged. “I guess I miss that.”

Morgana paused. “I see…but what does this have to do with me?”

“Hmm. You’re a bigger narcissist than even me. And I’m the only true being on this planet right now. ‘Me me me’. That’s a question that I can’t answer. Because it’s one I never bothered to ask myself.”

“You don’t know?”

“Believe it or not, I don’t run the Cult. I don’t know what goes on inside them. Most of the members don’t have cybernetics, not in the way we understand them. I cannot enter them. I cannot integrate. I cannot see.”

“Then you don’t know.”

“No. Not for sure. But I can surmise.” Josephine pointed across the table. “You interest them. I don’t know why. They were very explicit that I should try to avoid killing you.”

“And clearly you did a good job at that,” muttered Lilium.

“Please note that you are not dead. Also that they do not control me. I work for them voluntarily and expect to get paid. I will kill whoever I want whenever I want. But the Cult of Humanity seems to want you alive. For as long as possible. At least from my perspective.”

Morgana was silent for a moment. “Okay,” she said. “I see. But I need more than that. This ‘Cult of Humanity’. Where can I find them? And what are they trying to do?”

Josephine smiled mischievously. “No.”

“No?”

“As in, I don’t intend to tell you. As impressed as I am, you have deeply insulted me. So I’ll help you…but leave out the part you most desire. You don’t need to know that. And THEY don’t want you to know.”

“You bitch…”

“That isn’t the first time you’ve called me that, Lilly. I never did like you. And you never liked me.”

“I’m not going to let you go until you give me the information I need.”

“Then you will be sitting here for a long time. But in case you did not realize it, I’m in control here.”

“Not inside my body you aren’t.”

“I’m not inside your body. Part of me is, but not all. The majority of me is elsewhere- -including in a small army of finger puppets that are right now staring down a nearly ammo-empty Blossomforth unit and an agromorph who is about to be turned into soup.”

“Forth and Elrod!” cried Lilium. “You wouldn’t!”

“I would. Without hesitation or remorse. Remorse is one of the first things you lose in here. Or in my case by the time I was twelve. I was being nice because you actually brought me some amusement. But I could very easily kill your friends right now.”

“Then do it. They are expendable.”

“Morgana!”

Josephine burst out laughing. “Of course they are! You continue to impress me! Oh, if you were human. You would make an excellent god to counter me. An Odin to my Loki, a Zeus to my Chronus. If only…”

She trailed off, and her expression suddenly changed. To Lilium, it appeared as though she had grown ill and deeply concerned about something.

“Josephine?”

“Something is wrong…no. You can’t- -this isn’t possi- -”

She suddenly screamed. The sound was deafening. It was not a roar of rage but one of deep and profound pain and fear. The boundaries of Josephine’s pony avatar suddenly split apart and blurred, and the metaphor of the crystal castle began to crack and tear.

“What’s happening?!”

“It isn’t me.” Morgana stood up suddenly, her face grave. “I’m trying to stabilize her, but- -she’s being pulled away from me from the outside!”

“NO!” Josephine was screaming in multiple voices simultaneously, some arising distantly from other parts of herself and some far nearer. “You can’t! I won’t let you- -GODDAMN YOU! I WILL KILL YOU ALL!”

Suddenly the illusions shattered. The castle was broken and reformed as a long, white corridor lined with numerous evenly spaced doors. With a final cry, Josephine was pulled away by some unseen force down the hallway, and the distance between her and the Twilights seemed to grow far greater than it should have.

“Move!” cried Morgana, breaking into a gallop. “Get after her!”

Lilium obeyed and they gave chase. It was only through Morgana’s assistance that they were able to almost keep up, but they were still not moving fast enough. Josephine was being taken away from them.

“What is this?” asked Lilium, looking around at the walls. They were cinderblock, with harsh fluorescent lights overhead and a plastic-tiled floor. It looked like a hospital. “Where the buck are we?”

“Stop asking that question! I don’t know!”

Suddenly Morgana slid to a stop. Lilium did so as well. They had come to a juncture in the hallway, and in the distance, they could see Josephine’s light fading as she was dragged away. Going further was no longer possible, though, as two different beings now stood blocking their path. One of them resembled an enormous knight, his body clad in silver and his chest marked with a red cross. The other was a Moondancer unit, hovering in the air and surrounded by a number of holographic plates that made up a representative interface.

Lilium understood what they were. “Technomancers!” She took a defensive stance. The Moondancer’s eyes met hers, and the knight drew his sword. Lilium just laughed. “We’ll just have to fight you, then, won’t we? We already fought the War Stone and won, so it shouldn’t be a problem- -”

Morgana suddenly grabbed Lilium’s shoulders. There was a sudden feeling of motion, and the Moondancer and the Knight receded at impossible speed. Lilium and Morgana were sucked backward through the hallway, escaping at high speed.

“What are you doing?! We can take them!”

“The Moondancer was from Intel, and I don’t know where the Templar was from, but I saw the code behind them. It’s massive. It must have taken years to build. Decades even.”

“But we can fight them!”

“No. No we can’t. Maybe if they were alone, but not on their own turf- -and not right now. I’ve got a matter of seconds. I’m overheating. Badly. And so are you. I don’t have the strength. We’ll have to settle for what we got; I can’t afford to go any farther. Not like this.”

The metaphor faded, and Lilium felt her eyes open slowly. She gasped, and immediately understood Josephine’s desire to break free to the real world. Lilium had not noticed the change as she dove deeper and deeper into the virtual world, but her view of reality had slowly changed; seeing actual reality made her suddenly realize just how flat, empty, and pointless the virtual representations had been. Everything in the real world was so much more vibrant and alive- -and meaningful.

The feeling of visual richness was glorious, but followed by something much worse. Lilium quickly became aware of a feeling of devastating heat; it felt as though she were being burned away from the inside. She cried out at the fever that was consuming her and rolled onto her side.

“Hold on, hold on,” said a voice. Lilium saw Elrod standing over her. His body was in the process of healing several bullet holes, and his coat had been torn to shreds by them. “Your temperature is dropping. Just hold on for a few more seconds. Try to breathe. If you have lungs I mean.”

Lilium did not know if she should believe him, but he turned out to be right. The heat and pain slowly began to recede. First it became less agonizing, then tolerable, and then finally faded into dull apprehension. By this time, Forth came into view, climbing over piles of mutilated corpses. Her own body had been badly damaged, but was still functional: her skin had been torn away in most places, leaving only her battered surface armor and her diamond-plated eyes.

“You really are a machine,” muttered Lilium.

“An adorable machine, yes.” Forth looked down at the ground. “Sorry about the bodies. I made a lot of them. But not all.”

“What happened?”

“They stopped,” said Elrod. “They just stopped and fell over. I don’t know why.”

“The War Stone…something pulled her away. I guess she lost her connection with her finger puppets…”

“Finger puppets?”

“That’s what she called them. I thought it was weird, but Morgana didn’t seem to- -” A bolt of realization suddenly shot through Lilium’s mind. She jumped up, causing the needle in her neck to twist uncomfortably. “Morgana!”

She turned toward the other uplink port, and she saw Morgana. She was lying on her side with her eyes open, but she was not moving. Parts of her skin had broken, and her heat exchangers were visible; some of them had already melted and burned away.

“Morgana!” Lilium stood up, struggling to disconnect herself from the uplink. Elrod helped her, and when she was freed she ran to Morgana’s side. Morgana did not react. She remained stationary. Lilium reached to touch her, but recoiled. The heat was too intense. “Elrod! Do something!”

“I did what I could.” He reached down to pick up his operator mask. It had a bullet hole through the center, but it seemed to still be functional. With it, he stared at Morgana. “I’m not getting a signal. Her reactor is running, but her processor…”

“No! She can’t be dead!” Ignoring the heat, Lilium grabbed Morgana’s shoulders and shook her. “Wake up! WAKE UP!”

“She can’t wake up if she’s- -”

“Stop goddamn shaking me,” moaned Morgana. She resisted weakly, managing to just barely push Lililum away. “I’m not dead, just…oh shit…what the hell is this?” She pulled apart the link to her coolant ports and a white powder-like substance poured out.

“I had to improvise,” said Elrod. “I linked you to the fire suppression system.”

“You goddamn starchy fuck! That stuff is corrosive! Do you know how long it’s going to take me to clean out my coolant manifold?” She suddenly seemed ill and fell back onto the ground, lying on her side.

“Morgana…”

“I’m fine, Lilium. At least I think I am. But I need to cool down. I’m at over five hundred percent my recommended operating temperature. I need to run a diagnostic program.” Her eyes turned toward Elrod. “And despite being a starchy fuck, I’m pretty sure you saved my life. And hers.”

Elrod turned to Lilium. “Your name is Lilium? I didn’t know that.”

“It is now. I have a name.”

“Congratulations,” said Forth. Despite having no skin, she seemed somewhat perturbed. Lilium suspected that it was probably from having been forced to fight so many of the War Stone’s soldiers- -or, knowing Forth, from not having been able to kill them all herself. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Some of it. But not enough. We can talk about when we get back to the warehouse. Right now I need to rest.” She closed her eyes, and though she could not sleep, she lay her head down. Lilium sat down beside her to wait.

“Do you at least know why they’re trying to kill us?” asked Elrod.

“No,” said Lilium. “We didn’t get that far. But Morgana was right. The War Stone was involved in it. And we know who we need to find.”

“Who?”

“They call themselves the Cult of Humanity. And they control the War Stone…or did. But I still don’t know what for.”

Part IV, Chapter 1

The trip back to the warehouse was uneventful. Lilium had bade goodbye to her friends at the Library before leaving, and had found all of them to be shaken but alive. Faulkner had seemed to be the most affected of all of them, and her relationship with her mother seemed to have changed. Lilium was not sure if it was for the good, but Morgana knew that it was. Many decades before she had seen that same look of reserved pride in Aeschylus’s eyes.

Morgana herself had not been affected mentally by the ordeal, but she had sustained some level of physical damage. Her MHI body had been able to withstand the extreme heat it had generated, but the alteration had induced changes in her robotics that required a complete recalibration. It had been her intention to complete that lengthy process upon returning to Roxanne’s warehouse, and to think while she did so.

After several hours of transit, they were once again in the low hallways that led to the complex of robotically-maintained warehouses. The fog that had been there before had lifted in some spots, but grown far thicker in others. The inadequate service lights cast strange wide glow through the mist, causing the pathway before them to look alien and bizarre.

Initially, there were only three of them- -Morgana, Lilium, and Elrod trailing behind them; two Twilights and a potato-man. When they were within meters of the warehouse, however, Forth emerged, seemingly from nowhere at all or from the mist itself. Her broken body had been fully repaired, and her motions were almost spritely as she landed and trotted to Elrod’s side.

“That lifetime guarantee really pays for itself, doesn’t it?” joked Morgana.

“It sure does. But I thought I was dead for sure. I am glad to be alive.”

“You look nice,” said Elrod. “Much more…having skin.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Forth tilted something off her back. “I got you this, too.”

Elrod picked it up, finding that it was a completely new trench coat.

“For me?”

“Your old one is full of bullet holes. This one is new.”

“I can see that.” Elrod took off his old coat and threw it away unceremoniously. He then replaced it with the one Forth had given him. “It’s warm,” he said. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome!”

“Aww, that’s sweet.” Lilium smiled. Morgana did not; instead, she kept her eyes forward, seeming deep in thought. Lilium grew concerned. “Morgana?”

“I’m not the person you should ask about gestures being sweet or not.”

“I wasn’t asking. I was asking if something was wrong.”

“Wrong? What’s wrong is that I almost got us both killed, and for what? A name. And about sixty-four new questions that I need to answer.” They were approaching the door, and Morgana opened it before walking into the warm and well-lit warehouse. “I just need some time to think.”

“MORGANA TWILIGHT SPARKLE!”

Morgana looked up, just in time to see a fist slam into the side of her face. The arm connected to it was filled extensively with cybernetic muscle, and despite Morgana’s comparatively short stature the blow had been aimed precisely and without any difficulty. Morgana was knocked off balance and onto the floor, but as she tilted she saw a pair of green-lensed eyes, a mop of blond hair, and a Hawaiian shirt.

“Boss!” cried a voice. Valla appeared from behind the crates and grabbed the much shorter man. Physically, she was far more muscular than he was, but at the same time much less strong. He could easily have pushed his way out of her grasp, but instead allowed himself to be restrained.

Morgana picked up her head and looked at them. “Moonlight.”

“You goddamn bitch!” Tears were streaming down Moonlight Elderberry’s face. “I- -I hit you! Do you have any idea what that is like? For a pacifist to have to do something like that?!”

“Then why did you do it?”

“Because you deserved it!”

“Boss! Calm down, please! You’re losing your center!”

“My center can go to the eight dark-plane for all I care!” Moonlight pointed at Morgana as she stood up. He took several steps forward as Valla lessened her hold on him. “You deserved it! I’ve never struck anyone at all, except in self-defense- -but you DESERVED it! For what you did to my sister!”

A blue flash came from around one of the boxes. Roxanne appeared and jumped onto one of the nearby crates. “Whoa, whoa! Moonlight, what the fuck? I’ve never seen you like this! I mean, she totally deserves it, but- -”

“My sister! Jadegow! It’s your fault! It’s YOUR FAULT!”

Lilium stepped between him and Morgana. “Hello my name is Lilium,” she said quickly. “We haven’t met yet but I’m pleased to meet you, and I can clearly see you’re very passionate about your sister. Which is completely reasonable. But we’re not going to make any progress here unless you can explain what’s going on- -and we can’t do that if you’re hitting my friend like that!”

“She’s a horrible friend!” Moonlight pointed at Morgana again. “My sister thought she was a friend, and now…now…” Tears fell from his eyes, but he took a deep breath and pushed his hands together. “But you’re right. No progress can be made with a mind clouded by rage. I’m going to be cloudy for a long time. Just hold on for a second…”

Lilium waited. Roxanne jumped down from the crate and stood beside her. “Moonlight,” she said. “Fucking hell…it’s that bad?” Moonlight did not answer. He just nodded. Roxanne turned to Morgana. Her expression was grim and hateful. “You got Jadeglow killed, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Morgana. “I did.”

“No you didn’t,” said Moonlight. He looked up from his momentary meditative state. “That would be too simple for you. Nothing is ever simple for Morgana Twilight Sparkle. Live, dead, dead, alive…you can’t even give her one or the other.”

“For the record, I never intended for her to be shot. But I did see the wound. I’m going to assume that it just barely missed her processor?”

“No. Her processor was destroyed, as well as five of her six memory cells. The last one almost got cut in half. There was almost enough…”

“Almost enough for what?”

Moonlight shook his head. Tears were now streaming down his face, and he was starting to blubber. “They…they restarted her program. There was enough there for that…but she’s not the same. Years of memory…decades…gone. She didn’t even recognize me. And her personality…it’s not…”He broke down completely. Valla put her hand on his shoulder, and Moonlight turned around and hugged her, burying his face in her midriff.

Morgana lowered her head. “Damn it…”

Roxanne turned slowly and pushed past Lilium until she was within inches of Morgana, glaring down at her. “You fucking piece of shit failure,” she said, her voice low to the point of almost being a whisper. “Jadeglow was your friend- -OUR friend! One of VERY few people who would even bother to talk to you, and you dragged her into this shit? You dragged THEM into this shit?” She gestured toward Valla and Moonlight, and then at Lilium and Elrod. “And me…but I could tolerate that. Because sometimes the world goes to shit. But Jadeglow? Did you even stop to think? Did your sick little mind somehow justify it? What the hell did she ever do to deserve this?”

Morgana lifted her head. “Nothing. Nothing at all. But like you said. Sometimes the world goes to shit. Even for people who don’t deserve it.”

Roxanne looked shocked. “You- -”

Morgana pushed past her. She approached Moonlight.

“Just stay away from me,” he said. “I don’t…I don’t want to hit you again. I feel dirty…”

“It’s not like I felt anything. And I’ve had much worse done to me in the past twelve hours. To be honest? I was sure she was dead. But I ignored it, in favor of more pressing concerns.”

“You…you…”

“Because the dead have no value. You know that, don’t you? Once they leave this world, they’re gone. How many times have you told me that? That we shouldn’t mourn those who become ‘integrated with the cosmic consciousness’? Or is it harder when you put it in practice?”

Valla frowned deeply. “Morgana, that’s enough. Don’t be a bitch about it.”

“I will be a bitch if I want to. But that’s not the point. The point is that I thought she was dead…but now I know she’s not. She has value again. And I need to make this right.”

Moonlight turned away from Valla’s stomach and looked at Morgana through watery eyes. “What? How…?”

“Look. I don’t care if you never want to see me again. I can tolerate that. I’m used to friends starting to hate me. It’s an invariable fact of life. But I don’t want to leave this without closure.”

“You don’t want to leave any negative energy behind…”

Morgana shook her head. “No. I don’t. Please. I want to see her.”

“I think you’ve done enough,” said Roxanne.

“No. I need to apologize. To help if I can, even though I’m not sure if there’ll be anything I can do. Right now. Before I do anything else. Because Roxanne is right. Jadeglow was my friend. And maybe still is. I don’t know.”

Moonlight wiped his face and took a deep breath. “Yeah, man, I get you,” he said. “This weight, this hatred, I can’t carry that through life, you know? I don’t think she can either…and I don’t think you can. Or you shouldn’t. I’ll take you. You can apologize, if you want.” He leaned down until he was nearly at eye-level with Morgana. “And she’ll forgive you, because she was always stronger than me. But I don’t think I will. Maybe not ever. She was a beautiful, peaceful pony…and there’s no excuse for what you did to her.”

“I know that,” said Morgana. “But I can’t change the past, now can I?”

Moonlight sighed. “Nope. You can’t. But I guess you can try to help the future along. And I can dig that.”

Elrod sat in the center of a clear spot of the floor, staring into the inside of his damaged operator mask. He would occasionally lift a hand to interact with what he was seeing, but spent most of his time slowly scanning through data.

Morgana and Moonlight had departed, and the remainder of the group had remained in the warehouse. They had separated as they saw fit. Forth sat facing the warehouse door, watching it with an unpleasant expression that implied that she felt as though something had been taken from her. Lilium had gone off with Roxanne, and Elrod was distantly aware of them speaking, their voices muffled by the old furniture and dusty crates that filled the dimly lit storage area. Vall had remained behind as well, and she was pacing nervously through the same clearing where Elrod was sitting.

“Damn it,” she said, turning toward the door. “I should have gone with them! What the hell was I thinking?!”

“Morgana insisted that the two of them go alone,” replied Elrod. He remained more focused on his work than on Valla, but he gave her the courtesy of at least listening tangentially.

“Morgana insists a lot of things. Damn it! It’s just the two of them!”

“Morgana can hide her metadata.”

“Well that doesn’t help Moon, now, does it?”

Elrod looked up at her and removed his operator mask. Valla grimaced slightly. It was quite apparent that she found Elrod severely unattractive, but Elrod did not mind. She was human, and therefore he found her moderately hideous by definition alone. “And you would have helped how? That’s one of those questions you’re not supposed to answer. Because you wouldn’t. Aetna-Cross knows you, and probably me, and knows to watch for a Twilight with a Blossomforth.”

“I know.”

“So more of us would just have thrown it off.”

“But they know Moonlight too now. If they see him with her…”

“They won’t. Or maybe they will, and they’ll both get shot.” Elrod shrugged, and Valla stared aghast. “Regardless, Morgana is durable. And your friend seemed to be so as well.”

Valla laughed weakly. “Sure. I mean, when they came for me, I nearly pissed myself. And they beat me…hard. But when they came to ‘talk to’ Moonlight, I was in the bar. He didn’t flinch. I mean, it was just after he heard about poor Jade, but he doesn’t really get angry…still…”

“What happened?”

“Let’s just say none of those guys will be walking for a while.”

Elrod attempted to smile. “See? They’ll be fine.”

“They’ll be fine…bullshit.” Valla crossed her arms and shook her head. “Complete bullshit. None of us are going to be fine. I mean, have you seen this? Any of it? I can’t even go home. I might not ever be able to, because next time it’s going to be a lot worse than a beating.” She groaned. “This is what I get for associating with her…grandma Ruth warned me…”

“It’s not so bad.”

“Not bad?” Valla suddenly seemed to become angry. “What the hell do you mean ‘not so bad’?!”

“Well, at least we’re among friends. And Morgana’s working on it.”

“Working on digging this shithole deeper, maybe.” Valla put her hand to her forehead, pinching her brow against the headache that was forming beneath it. “How are you so calm about this?”

“Because I’ve seen worse.”

“Liar. We’ve got all of Aetna-Cross after us, and I think Morgana’s even deeper than that. What could be worse than that?”

Elrod looked her in the eyes. “I witnessed the extermination of my own people.”

Valla winced. “Fuck. You really are a refugee, aren’t you? I heard Moonlight talking about it…from the Middle West?”

“You might say that.”

“Shit. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It wasn’t actually that bad. Although I do miss them sometimes.” Elrod shrugged.

“I really thought we had moved past that sort of thing. Damn it.” Valla sighed. “Well, you’re right on that part. It isn’t that bad. But it’s still shit. Jade’s already torn up, real bad, and Moonlight’s a mess…at least Roxanne’s safe, though. I got the impression she’s the one they’re really like to put pressure on.”

“Which is why she is here. And you also. But we’re working on it.”

Elrod picked up his operator mask, and he watched Valla’s deep blue eyes follow it. Before he put it on, she interrupted him.

“Why does your opmask have a bullet hole in the center?”

Elrod turned over the mask, looking at the front as though he had seen it for the first time. “Oh,” he said. “I got shot in the face. It’s not a big deal. The mask still works.”

“Are you joking with me? Because this is REALLY not the time.”

Elrod did not answer, nor did he need to. Valla was suddenly distracted by the warehouse door sliding open. She turned expectantly, smiling as she did so- -but her smile quickly fell away and was replaced by a frown, and her posture became far more aggressive. It had not been Moonlight or Morgana who had entered, but instead, a tall Rarity sauntered into the room.

“Detective O’Toole,” said Forth. “You’re back from Hartford.”

“Lynnette, please. O’Toole is really such a dreadful surname.”

Valla stepped over the boxes toward the door and loomed over Lynnette. The difference in size was substantial: as a centaur, Valla stood at least eight feet high, and Lynnette was just under half her size. Still, when Valla saw the Aetna-Cross symbolism on Lynnette’s armor her face blanched slightly.

“And who the hell are you?”

“My name is Lynnette.”

“Yeah, you said that. And you’re from Aetna-Cross.”

“I am. I am also the one who sent for you and your associate to be brought her. To put this simply so that you might understand it, I’m working off the books as a favor to a dear friend.”

Valla raised an eyebrow. “You’re not talking about Morgana, are you?”

Lynnette appeared deeply insulted. “What do you take me for?” she cried, her voice becoming slightly shrill.

“I take you for an Aetna-Cross putz who suddenly isn’t working for Aetna-Cross.”

“Would you rather I turn you in?”

“No. Because I’m not really partial to torture. Not that kind anyway. But the fact that you’re here means you’re backstabbing your own company. And I don’t like that.”

“Then you’re excessively persnickety and it’s no wonder you can’t find a husband.”

Valla was severely taken aback. “Excuse me?”

“It may also have to do with that horribly tacky cybernetic body. Now move. For the sake of honesty, you are barely of consequence to me and I don’t find your presence terribly beneficial.”

Before Valla could react any further, Lynnette pushed her way past and toward where Elrod was standing. Valla and Forth looked at each other, and Valla slowly turned to follow Lynnette while Forth continued to watch the door.

Lynnette approached Elrod. “Mr. Jameson.”

“Lynnette. Morgana told me to watch for you. She gave me an end of a thread, whatever that means. We can open a transmission whenever you’re ready.”

“I’m more than ready, mostly to get this over with so that I can go home and take a long bath. I’ve just been to Hartford, after all.”

Elrod nodded and slid on his operator mask. He accessed the internal program that linked it to Morgana. It was complex and well-encrypted, and he had very little understanding of how to use it. So he transferred it to Lynnette, allowing her to conference the transmission.

Lynnette immediately grasped the thread and opened the transmission channel. The air across from her seemed to flicker and spark, and Morgana emerged onto the floor. Valla approached and stood near her; her cybernetic eyes allowed her to see the projection in the same way that Elrod was able to see it through the operator mask.

“O’Toole. I see you’re back.”

“Indeed, darling. And I see you’re not.”

“No. I’m on my way to an Isabelle RedHeart Memorial subunit.”

“Why? If you’re injured- -”

“I am. But it’s not me I’m worried about. Let’s just say I’m following a lead right now, okay?”

“Very well. Depending on the subunit, I doubt Aetna-Cross will be there. I don’t think they expect you to be enough of an idiot to try to visit a hospital right now.”

Morgana nodded, not wanting to prologue the argument. “Did you find your contacts in Hartford?”

“For the most part, yes. Save for one. Unfortunately, it seems he succumbed to a drug overdose. A pity, as he was a good man. I did not managed to speak to him.”

“Did you find anything useful?”

Lynnette sighed. “Nothing terribly of use, no, I’m afraid. I did manage to ascertain that Aetna-Cross has resorted to securing our borders in an attempt to find you. Your primary predicted path is east, to Nigeria. Even reaching the transcontinental tunnels would be almost impossible.”

“I’m not leaving. I’m not done here.”

“Nor would you be able to. As I said, if you bothered to listen. But that becomes an advantage. They seem to think you’re trying to escape, and their perimeter is widening. I don’t think they realize just how rash you truly are.”

“Well, like you said. It’s an advantage.”

“For now.”

“Anything else?”

“I did find something odd within the contractor circles. I learned about a substantial bounty.”

“On me? That’s not a surprise.”

“No, darling, I don’t mean the glaringly obvious one. There was a second bounty. Monsanto is offering a sum of two hundred million vod for…something.”

“Something?”

“I have no idea what, oddly enough. No one seemed to know. Which makes the bounty seem awfully pointless.” Morgana’s eyes slowly turned to Elrod, and he looked back at her. Lynnette clearly noticed, but continued. “I also found one more thin. Here.” An image appeared beside Lynnette. It showed a human dressed in dirty, red-striped body armor. Although he had an extensive beard, Elrod immediately recognized him.

“That’s Caleb,” he said, turning sharply to Morgana. “The leader of the agroterrorists. I think you killed him.”

“I remember him. But why is he important?”

Lynnette smiled. “I’m surprised you were tricked so easily, darling! Because this man isn’t named ‘Caleb’, nor does he have any faux-hillbilly moniker. It appears that his identity was a cover.”

“A cover for what?”

“This man was actually named Mercucio Deltorro. His criminal record is extensive. Most of the convictions were for fraud.”

“A conman.”

Lynnette nodded. “A conman turned mercenary. He spent ten years with one of the Scarlet Grid breakaway factions.”

“Before he became an agroterrorist?” asked Elrod.

“He never was an agroterrorist, was he?” asked Morgana.

Lynnette’s smile faded. “No. Certainly not. The terrorists you’re referring to are very much real, although their organization is far too small to be of any real consequence. But Deltorro was not one of them. He was a plant; an agent of Aetna-Cross.”

“So you must know him,” suggested Valla.

“Certainly not. As connected as I am, I’m not privy to the majority of the Corporation’s secret projects. This was apparently one of those.”

“To sabotage Monsanto?” asked Elrod.

“Perhaps…”

“No,” said Morgana. “His job was to locate and recruit natural-born humans.”

The room fell silent. Valla was the first to speak. “Fuck. What for?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Well, darling, I think you’re devoting too much time to conspiracy theories. What we need in this instance is hard evidence, not gut feelings.”

“Like I said. I’m working on it.” Morgana turned to Elrod. “Right. I never thought I’d be commanding a team. How’s your part coming along?”

“I finished the analysis while you were talking.”

“So you have it?”

Elrod nodded. He spread out his hands, and the space in front of him was filled with a set of complex diagrams centering around a large reconstructed karyotype.

“Holy shit…” Valla stared wide-eyed at the readouts, and then at Elrod. “What the hell is all this?”

“Genetic analysis of a blood sample. Supposedly. The one found at Hexel Shining Armor’s apartment.”

“Where the hell did you get this?”

“I made it. This used to be my job. Except with soy.”

Morgana approached the projection, staring at it intently but clearly not fully comprehending what was displayed on it. She turned to Elrod. “What’ve you got?”

“Well, first I went through to see if it belonged to a natural-born human.”

“Not likely. I could have told you that.”

“But you didn’t. And you are correct. It is neither natural nor human. Look.”

Elrod tapped the hologram and it shifted. The chromosomes separated and opened, displaying individual genes and annotated areas. The annotations further expanded until nearly every part of the genome was marked in various shades of red and orange.

“That’s not normal.”

“No, it isn’t.” Elrod pointed at one of the innumerable red marks on the genome. “These are areas that show evidence of transgenic manipulation.”

“No human has that many alterations,” said Lynnette, staring just as intently at the display as Morgana but understanding it only marginally more. “Not even military shock troops have that many.”

“Nor do they have the diversity. Look.” Elrod shifted the image again, showing a chart that displayed a substantial amount of data around specific listed sequences of genes. He pointed at a group of them. “I cross-referenced the style of the techniques based on the promotors and residual patterns. This group here by style is very, very old.”

“What do you mean old?” asked Morgana.

“As in these techniques are obsolete. They were common once, but they’ve been replaced by better things. The same is true from here, here, and here, but these are all from different eras.”

“So it’s old.”

“Only if it existed before the end of twenty-first century. And again in the twenty-fourth, the twenty-sixth, and- -”

“Like I said. It’s old.”

“No.” Elrod shook his head. “Here. Look here.” He expanded one region of the genome and pointed at a complex set of sequences. “This. This is new. There are several of these.”

“Are you sure?” asked Lynnette.

“Yes. I know this technique. It was used to make agromorphs.”

Morgana turned sharply. “Where does that put it?”

“This style is fifth-generation or later. So the last seven years or so. And it’s not on record. This is still proprietary to Monsanto. No one else in the world has access to this technique.”

Valla looked utterly confused. “What the hell is an ‘agromorph’?”

The others ignored her. Morgana continued to stare at the data, but spoke without turning away. “So this genome was engineered centuries ago…and in the last seven years?”

“That would be my guess. I suppose the changes could be more recent, but the Monsanto technique can do all of this with vastly improved ease and efficiency…so if they had access to it, why not do it all that way?”

“But what does it all do?”

Elrod sighed. “That I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? You’re supposed to be the geneticist here.”

“I am. In soy. Plants. And one project in poultry. I know the techniques, but not mammalian genomes. Although if it helps, that’s what this seems to be. Sort of.”

Valla leaned down to look at the projection. “Is there any way to reconstruct it?”

The ponies and Elrod looked up at her. “Reconstruct?” asked Morgana.

“Yeah. You know. Like in that science fiction book, the one with the dinosaurs. Find out what they looked like from the genes. Or what it belonged to.”

Lynnette sneered. “If he doesn’t even know how the mammalian genome works, he can hardly tell you what it looked like.”

“No. I can. Because it didn’t look like anything.”

“Wait,” said Morgana. “What do you mean ‘didn’t look like anything’?”

“I mean what it sounds like I mean.” The image shifted to a karyotype. “I know enough about the genome of animals to know that this one is vastly incomplete.”

“How can it be incomplete? Did the sample degrade?”

“I assure you, it did not,” snapped Lynnette. “I took it myself, and I am quite familiar with my craft. I assure you, it is complete."

“I think she’s right,” said Elrod. “The genome just…isn’t. There’s nothing in between. Just genes. But not enough to actually make any sort of living organism. Most of it is related to hemopoiesis, but that’s about it. Muscle, liver, neurons, none of it. No genes for it. Maybe enough to make simple cells…”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. No living creature could have this DNA. There just isn’t enough there.”

Morgana and Lynnette looked at each other. Neither of them spoke, because neither of them had an answer to where this blood had come from, what it belonged to, or how it had ended up as a single spilled drop in Hexel and Jillian’s apartment.

Part IV, Chapter 2

Although the conversation was occurring most of the way across the room, Lilium could still hear it. She comprehended every element of it, and was even able to perceive the diagrams that the others were using despite not having a clear line-of-sight. She was somewhat grateful that they were not speaking in the Standard Language this time, although she was vaguely aware of the fact that Morgana’s mind had imprinted it along with over four hundred other languages- -the majority of them having long ago died with the people who had created them- -into her memory architecture.

Still, she did not consider the conversation to be of much relevance and instead relegated it to the back of her mind. Instead, she focused on her conversation with Roxanne, breathlessly telling of her adventure in the virtual world with Morgana and the War Stone.

Roxanne seemed amenable to the conversation, and far more expressive than either Morgana or Forth. At some points she would look deeply concerned, but at other parts of the story she would laugh and express transient disbelief, only for Lilium to reassure her that the story was, in fact, completely true.

When the story ended, Lilium found herself pacing around on the concrete floor of the warehouse while Roxanne was lying on a box with her front legs crossed. Lilium turned to her expectantly.

“Well, fuck,” said Roxanne. “I should kick Morgana’s elderly ass for putting you in that much danger.”

“Oh.” For some reason, Lilium felt quite disappointed.

Roxanne smiled. “But…if even half of what you’re saying is, you know, true? Then that’s all pretty awesome. Which makes you a little awesome too. Not as awesome as me, but pretty damn close.”

Lilium beamed. She was not sure why, but she realized that she had been seeking Roxanne’s approval. “It is true! All of it!”

Roxanne laughed and adjusted her position on the crate. “Well that’s a big jump, isn’t it? You come in here barely able to talk or knowing who you are, then come back a half a day later and suddenly you’re a full-fledged technomancer? You learn fast. Have you considered dancing? You would not BELIEVE the trouble I have finding backup dancers who can handle my choreography.”Lilium laughed. Roxanne frowned. “What’s so funny?”

“You, dancing! It’s just…well…”

“What? I fucking love dancing. In the sexiest and/or most epic way possible.”

“Well, it’s just that…” Lilium trailed off, and shook her head. “Never mind. I had you confused with someone else.”

“Only because you haven’t seen one of my shows.”

“What?”

“My shows. Trust me. If you saw one, you’d never forget me. Because I am, in fact, that good.”

Lilium laughed, and Roxanne did so as well. Lilium climbed onto the large crate where Roxanne was lying and sat down on the far end.

“Still…” she said as the laughter died down. “It wasn’t all me. I was mostly just there to help. Actually…I kind of think that Morgana orchestrated the whole thing. To get me in there. So we could win. I don’t think it was random.”

“Of course it wasn’t. Things don’t happen around her by accident. Ever.”

Lilium sighed. “I can’t tell if she really cares, or if she’s just manipulating me, then.”

“This is coming from experience: it’s both. But mostly the second one. It’s infuriating. And one of the reasons I can’t stand her anymore.”

“But she really did help! She gave me a name, and helped me figure out who I was. Or start to. And I couldn’t do any of this technical work if we hadn’t merged in the program.”

Roxanne looked over her shoulder at Lilium, and then repositioned herself so that the two of them were lying parallel. “Yeah. That’s something I’m kind of concerned about.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because something like that can have consequences. Sometimes good ones and sometimes bad.”

“Like…what?”

“Identity failure. Or spontaneous budding. But judging from the look of you right now, you don’t have either of those. But still.” She paused. “Look. What you did is actually really, REALLY complicated, but to put it as simply and bluntly as possible: merging like that is how ponies have sex.”

Lilium’s face turned several shades of red darker. “Wh- -what?!”

“I mean generally!” Roxanne sighed. “I mean, what you're describing? It wasn’t. Not really. But it was as close as you can get without doing it. I mean, you were inside her, and her inside you. One body. Two ponies. But like I said. Sex is as complicated for ponies as it is simple for mammals. Or fish-people, oddly enough.”

Lilium’s mind sputtered for a moment. “But…ponies aren’t supposed to have sex…”

Roxanne looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“You mean you have?”

“Again: seriously? Lil, I used to be a prostitute. A damn good one. If you made me count the number of times shoved in or been shoved into you’d make me feel old. Trust me. I’ve done the deed. PLENTY of times.”

“So you’re an expert, then.”

“I guess. Eew. It makes it sound dirtier somehow if you put it like that. But yeah. I’m a Rainbow Dash unit. I’m the best at everything I do.” She sighed. “Even if that means turning tricks.”

“Sorry. What I meant was that you would know…how it works and stuff.”

Roxanne nodded. “Sure. With ponies, it’s complicated. It takes a lot of precision to do it right, you know? Usually. Sometimes they just want to get on your back and pretend that they’re actual, you know, horses. Humans are different. They can’t interface well with their brains, but they do fine the other way. You just have to be harsh with them.”

“Harsh?”

“A lot of them pay up-front and think that they can just beat you. The day I let one of them get away with that is the day I sell my wings and turn unicorn.”

Lilium almost laughed at the image of a unicorn Rainbow Dash, but for some reason this conversation made her feel uncomfortable- -but at the same time intrigued.

“I understand the basic theory,” she said. “But…”

“You want to know how I did it for money. Yeah. I know. That’s always what they ask. And I just did, okay? I was good at it. I needed money to pay for rent and new body parts. I had a LOT of sex for not a lot of money. And I don’t do it anymore.”

“But…”

“But what?” Roxanne was becoming defensive. Just like the real Rainbow Dash would if she was forced to talk about something she did not want to.

“It’s just that…well…did you enjoy it?”

Roxanne seemed taken aback. “What the hell? What do you think? Do I look organic to you? Of course not. I didn’t hate it, though. The physical part…it’s just sort of there. And the interfacing is just a job. Same as Morgana opening doors or hacking drones or whatever the hell she does.”

Once again, Roxanne shifted, this time turning away from Lilium. Her eyes grew distant. “It was a job. I was good at it. Dancing is fun, but it’s just a job too. Do you know what I’d really like?”

“Adventure.”

Roxanne smiled. “It’s almost like you know me.”

“I just guessed.”

“You guessed right. See, I’ve always had this dream. I don’t tell it to a lot of people, but I don’t mind you knowing. I want to take a road trip. Get on my motorcycle and just head west. Go down all the old freeways, the ones no one uses anymore. Straight across the Divide, through Monsanto territory or maybe even through North Mexico, all the way to the PRC and the Pacific- -and maybe even beyond.” She turned toward Lilium. “They have this bridge, you know. The trans-Hawaiian expressway. From the PRC straight to Hawaii, the last free state. They say it’s so long and so straight that you can get up to eight-hundred without any difficulty at all. And on my ride? I think I could break one thousand.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“I know. But think about it. The wind in my hair, the speed, the world going by. Did you know that I’ve never left Bridgeport? I’ve never seen the sky, or the ground, or a real ocean. I want to see a horizon, the sun…to spread my wings like I could really fly…”

Her wings spread slowly and involuntarily, and she looked wistfully upward, as if she could see that sky through the miles of steel and concrete over her head.

“I asked her once, you know.”

“Morgana?”

Roxanne nodded. “I saved up enough money. I wanted to go, and take her with me. So we could go together. No more of this shit. To go somewhere where we could be happy.” She chuckled. “But she said exactly what you said. ‘Too dangerous’. That the Divide is a war zone now. That Monsanto shoots outsiders on sight, and that North Mexico is filled with renegade vassals. That ponies aren’t welcome in the PRC.”

“If it’s not safe, she was trying to protect you.”

“That’s probably what she thought, too.” Roxanne frowned. “But it wasn’t. Not really. Those dangers? We could have dealt with them. Together. But she’d have to give up her life, and the life she wanted me to have.”

“She works very hard- -”

“For a tiny office and a life she hates? Don’t give me that bullshit, Lil. You’re too good to fall for it. She’s a workaholic. Nothing matters to her more than her precious cases, not you…and not me. And I was a fool. A young, sexy fool. I tolerated that. Because I thought she was bringing justice to the world. Like it had some grander meaning…but you know how that turned out.”

Lilium nodded. “I met Maurice.”

“Maurice Shooker. Not the biggest gangster in Bridgeport, but still the worst. And what he does to those poor Scootaloos… it makes me sick. And it’s not just him. Countless others…ones I don’t even know about. But the outcomes don’t matter. Who lives or dies doesn’t matter. I don’t even think she really cares if she gets paid. Just as long as the case gets solved.”

“I know.” The two of them looked at each other, and Roxanne understood.

“The merge…”

Lilium nodded. “She warned me. But I didn’t listen. I can feel it. Changes. Things that weren’t there before. Like when Moonlight was yelling. I walked up to him and said exactly what I knew he wanted to hear. And I think Morgana did too. No. I know she did.” Morgana paused. “It’s just like in the Library…we pretend to be altruistic, but we aren’t. It’s all for ourselves…”

Roxanne put her hoof on Lilium’s shoulder. “No.”

“No?”

“That’s her talking. Not you.”

“But we’re both Twilight units. We have the same base personality. The amount that separates her from me, it isn’t that much. Just a matter of a few lines of code…a few memories…”

“Come on. Do you honestly believe that?” Lilium paused, seriously considering the answer. Roxanne laughed, but then grew more serious. “Look. You’re different people, right? I mean, there’s millions of Rainbow Dashs out there…but I’m the only me.” She turned away. “And…okay, if you repeat this next part, I will totally deny it and then kick your rump- -but Morgana does have some positives.”

“But you hate her.”

“I also loved her. I guess maybe I still do, a little. I don’t think you can really stop loving someone just because you hate them. It’s weird. And complicated.”

“Like sex.”

Roxanne laughed. “Yes! More like it than I think you can even guess…” She sighed. “Morgana went through a lot. There were things in her…stuff she wouldn’t even let me see. I know she was in the Revolution, and any time anyone mentions Twinkleshine Prime her eyes get all distant. Maybe that has something to do with it.”

“No. I don’t think so.” Lilium shook her head. “There’s something else.”

“Then you’ve learned what it took me two years to. She makes you wonder, doesn’t she? If there’s a good pony buried in there. There almost is. But if there ever was? It gave up a long time ago. Way before I was born.” She seemed to notice the dismay on Lilium’s face. “Or maybe I’m just angry. I am, a lot of the time. Actually…here.”

One of Roxanne’s pupils narrowed, and a hologram appeared in front of her. It projected as a 2-D image, and both the color and resolution were poor. Down in one corner of it, Lilium saw an insignia of a company called “YouTube”.

“What is this?”

“Just watch.”

The video started to play. It showed what appeared to be someone’s living room, complete with carpet and eggshell-white walls. The end of a tacky sofa was visible at the edge of the frame, right near a large cardboard box with a smiling cartoon picture of Twilight Sparkle on the side.

“Right,” said a male voice from off-screen. “This is Brony Brian, and check it out!” The camera moved forward and a finger pointed at the text below the picture of Twilight Sparkle. “You all know what this is, don’t you? Because it says right there! ‘Contains one Twilight Sparke’. And guess what fuckers?” He pointed at a different area of the packaging. “Unicorn special edition! Totally worth the extra four thousand dollars.”

Lilium gasped quietly, and watched as the man began to open the top of the box. She recognized his hands- -she had seen them before. She knew who he was.

It took him less than a minute to open the box, or at least loosen it. Once it was loose, he sat back. For a moment, nothing happened- -and then the box shook ever so slightly. The flaps of the lid moved, and a pony poked her head out of the top.

“H…hello?” she said.

“Don’t be afraid, Twilight.”

The pony gasped. “You…you know my name?”

“Of course I do! My name’s Brian! It’s nice to meet you!”

The Twilight smiled. With some difficulty, she managed to pull herself free of the box. She took her first shaky steps across the white carpet, as if she was unsure what it was or how to move properly. She seemed timid, and afraid- -but when she looked at the man with the camera she gave a wide and trusting smile. “Hi there!” she said. “I don’t know how I got here, but I’m glad you’re here. Do you want to be my friend?”

“Of course I do!” The human’s voice was high and almost falsetto, as though he were talking to a child. “I think we’re going to be great friends, Twilight. Just you wait and see.”

Twilight beamed with joy. “Oh! I’m so happy!”

The image suddenly began to distort and fade, and Roxanne deactivated it.

“Was that…”

Roxanne nodded. “Yeah.”

“But she looked so…”

“Innocent? Yeah. I know. That video? When I threw Morgana out, I found it in her stuff. It was on a USB drive. You would not believe how hard it was to find a reader for it.” She shook her head. “Every time I see it, I wonder if I’m wrong. If things might have gone differently, or if she was like that back then too. I just don’t know…”

“I don’t know either. And you know her better than me.”

“Yeah…” Roxanne paused for a long moment. “You know, maybe it’s the reason I like you.”

Lilium blinked. “Excuse me?”

Roxanne smiled. “When I first saw you, I saw it in your eyes. I know. They’re just cameras or something. But I knew. You looked like she looked in that video. New. If that makes any sense.”

“But…what do I look like now?”

Roxanne looked deep into Lilium’s eyes. “It’s barely there anymore. But that’s okay. That’s just what happens when you’re alive. I guess that’s kind of the point. You know. Moving forward and all that.”

“That’s why you were trying to help me, wasn’t it? Trying to tell me that I wasn’t the real Twilight Sparkle. But being nice about it.”

“You mean not like Morgana? Hell if I know.” Roxanne shrugged. “I didn’t really think about it. I don’t think about a lot of things. It doesn’t help. But I guess so. You can’t go forward unless you know who you are, right?”

Lilium smiled. “Right. Exactly right.” She paused. “But…”

“But what?”

“I don’t know. I’ve seen so much of this world, but barely any. Did you know I got a job offer?”

“Other than the one I gave you? Not as a whore, or somebody’s getting my hoof in their face- -”

“No! With the Librarians.”

“The book-monks?”

“Well…I guess that’s one way to describe them. But I thought about it. And I really want to see the world. Even if it is dangerous. Your dream sounded really beautiful to me. And that’s just crossing one continent. There’s so much out there. I want to see it all, to understand everything I can.” She lowered her gaze and felt herself blushing slightly. “I…I don’t know why Morgana didn’t want to go with you. Because if I had the opportunity…I would.”

Lilium felt a hoof on her shoulder, and she lifted her head. When she did, she felt Roxanne’s lips press against hers. At first, the kiss was light, but Lilium leaned in, realizing that this was what she had really wanted, or close enough. She opened her mouth, and Roxanne obliged by doing so in turn. Lilium did not have saliva or a tongue, but Roxanne had both. The sensation of it on her teeth gave Lilium a sort of electrical tingle through her spine, and she grasped Roxanne even more tightly, being careful to avoid her wings. Lilium was not really Twilight, and Roxanne was not really Rainbow Dash, and she knew that- -but something deep in her mind warned her that this was not supposed to happen, and defying that voice made the act all the more tantalizing.

After a few seconds, Lilium pulled herself away. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I…I didn’t mean to do that.”

“It didn’t feel like you ‘didn’t mean to’.”

“But I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

“Why would you be sorry? I’m the one who kissed you.” Roxanne pushed her head into Lilium’s neck, and Lilium moaned.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I’m good at reading people. I’m bored here. And you’re cute. And I need to see if you’re good enough to tag along with me.”

“No…it’s because I look like her, isn’t it?”

Roxanne laughed softly. She looked into Lilium’s eyes. “Lil. If I had a Twilight fetish, I know a pair on in the brothel on L26 that would pay ME for the learning experience.”

“Pay…?”

Roxanne smiled and reached into her tight leather jacket. She withdrew a thin black cord, and connected one end to the implants in her neck. Then she placed the other end on her hoof and presented it to Lilium. “Like I said. I’m free now. And if you don’t want to, it’s okay…but I figure you might as well learn from the best, right?”

Lilium looked at the cord. “Are you sure?”

Roxanne smiled and nodded. Hesitantly, Lilium took the cord and inserted it into her own neck. Then she leaned forward and kissed Roxanne again, holding her tight as the connection between them opened and both of their bodies fell still.

Part IV, Chapter 3

Over many years, Morgana had come to realize that hospitals were all the same. Their layout might vary, as might their funding, but they all had the same feeling to them. In general, it was a dark sense of foreboding overlain with a veneer of logic and control: bright, sterile-smelling hallways and state-of-the art equipment meant to disguise the fact that the building itself was intended largely as a place for people to die.

That was, more or less, what they had evolved into, at least for humans. Genetic engineering had reduced the burden of disease to almost nothing, and mechanization had largely rendered doctors obsolete- -at least in the traditional sense. Medicine had died and been superseded by a thriving industry focused on more and better cybernetic implants.

The situation was magnified vastly in “hospitals” that dealt with ponies. In a hospital for humans- -or even the largely unfunded research hospitals for zoonei- -there would always be at least one creative, brilliant surgeon whose job was to solve problems that others could not. In ponies, however, there were rarely if ever such anomalies. Their bodies were mechanical, built from standardized and interchangeable parts. Doctors were unnecessary; in the event of emergencies, the staff of nonsentient robots could be linked directly to the patient’s manufacturer for repairs, assuming they had paid for a proper warranty.

These were the only individuals that Morgana saw as she walked through the barely lit halls of the repair center. They were shambling creatures, something like insects but more upright. They were not alive, but that was not a problem: it meant that they completely ignored visitors. Moonlight and Morgana could therefore move completely unnoticed.

A dull mechanical hum filled the halls of the repair center. The walls were designed to muffle it, but they never did completely. It was the sound of the machines running, generating new replacement parts from every basic manufacturer for fractions of a vod. Morgana knew that in many of the closed-off rooms, there were ponies who were being linked and connected to either temporary or new-permanent components.

“They haven’t repaired her yet,” said Morgana, her voice quiet in the darkness of the hospital corridors.

Moonlight shook his head. “They’re working on it.”

“Damn. It’s that bad.”

“Yeah…”

The air beside Morgana seemed to warp. She perceived gleaming whiteness, and then became aware of Lynnette’s projection beside her.

“O’Toole,” she said. “Any word back on the Cult of Humanity?”

“If you mean the name, no. I’ve searched the name quite vigorously.”

“And found nothing?”

“Oh no. I’ve found hundreds of results. Thousands, even. The Network is littered with them. It would take me weeks to process them all. Normally we have…lesser workers for this.”

“No worker is ‘lesser’, man,” said Moonlight. “We all have equal values as beings. Human or otherwise. Every life is sacred.”

“Please stop blathering. It’s annoying.”

“So you threaded in just to tell me you don’t have anything,” said Morgana. “Or did you do it to make my migraine worse? Where’s my damn cigarettes…”

“You can’t smoke in a hospital,” said Moonlight.

“He is right,” said Lynnette. “While the patients may not generally have lungs, it would be simply uncouth, not to mention rude. And no. I did not come here just to tell you what I’m sure you already knew.”

“Then what?”

“I came to inform you that I’ve put in an order for a new leg. Because the one you have is, frankly, la merde. It’s falling apart.”

“It’s fine.”

“You pulled it from a unit that nearly predates our species. It is not fine. Despite the effort I took to reskin it. Here.”

Lynnette turned a corner and walked down a small corridor. Machines were whirring overhead, generating and transporting components. As Lynnette approached, the room revolved, and several robotic arms began assembling a component.

“What are the specifications?”

“Gatok Robotics schematic. Plastic shell, aluminum matrix skeleton, low-grade solid-state mechanism. Middle of the road, ugly, and hardy. And I had a weapon installed. Arm up.”

Morgana hesitated, looking down at the arm she had taken from a dying Rarity unit. She did not want to part with it. It reminded her of where she had come from, when she once had simple and primitive body parts that were so much different.

This hesitation, though, only lasted for a moment. There was little point in holding onto the past like that: those times had long-since departed. Morgana held up her limb and the machines descended, immediately severing it and replacing it with the new leg as the skin and coat was knitted over it. The link only took a fraction of a second, and by the time the machine released her Morgana had already loaded the necessary drivers and performed all the appropriate calibrations.

She lifted the limb, moving it around with ease. It was vastly better than the temporary limb, but nowhere near as smooth or responsive as the MHI limb that it had replaced. It would do, though, at least as a front leg.

Morgana took a moment to consider the weapon aspect, though. With one swift motion, she activated the firing sequence, allowing her skin and the plates underneath to separate along the thin black joints that divided the covering. The retraction was rapid, but the weapon underneath looked strange.

“What brand is this?”

“Parabelle. It’s the budget version of what I use. I took the liberty of having it chambered in 6.5mm Grendel.”

“Well fuck you too.” Morgana looked up into Lynnette’s projection and saw that she was smiling, apparently finding this hilarious. “I hate Grendel rounds. I always use Beowulf. What the hell, Lynnette? Do people even make Grendels anymore?”

“Not generally, no. But you will have to make do, now won’t you?”

“It’s better than nothing.” Morgana snapped her limb closed. “At least marginally.”

She turned around and began walking toward the exit. Lynnette just laughed softly, and then turned the other way. Her image appeared to walk into the walls of whirring machines as she departed, her mental projection vanishing quietly as she did so.

“So which room is it?”

“Here,” said Moonlight, having waited patiently for Morgana’s new limb to be attached. “I’ll show you.”

The room was bleak: gray and dark, with no real furniture save for something that could almost be considered a bed but that was really just a flat, planar piece of plastic. Morgana took account of the room’s size and contents as she entered. The ceiling was dominated by a mass of occasionally shifting surgical arms, and a night table had been placed on the far side of the bed. It contained a small potted plant. What dominated Morgana’s attention, though, was the bed- -and what lay on it.

Very little remained of the pony that Jadeglow had once been. For the sake of repairs, she had been stripped almost completely. Everything below her higher chest had been removed completely, leaving only the metal point of her spinal connector against several muscle installation points. Her skin and hair had likewise been removed, with only her face allowed to remain. The rest consisted of a partially assembled carapace of whitish translucent plates.

She was wired extensively to the machinery around her. The fact that she was still connected allowed Morgana to reason why the repairs had taken so long: she was undergoing extensive diagnostics on new components, and the machines were attempting to reconstruct parts of her damaged memory and fundamental program. An injury of that severity was both grim and extremely rare.

Yet despite this, Jadeglow- -or what remained of her- -was both alive and conscious. When her brother and Morgana entered the room, her large violet eyes turned toward the visitors. Morgana could see the robotics in the rear of her skull adjusting their angle, and then a second set activated to turn her head.

“Hey…you,” she said. She blinked, still smiling but looking confused. “I feel like I know you. Like, did we meet in a past life?”

“You’ve met me before, yes. I wouldn’t know about past lives.”

“Oh.” She laughed, although weakly. The muscles in her body had been largely either removed or deactivated, although it was apparent that she still had rudimentary control of her head and front legs. “Yeah. Sorry. My short-term memory, man. You know how it is.” She turned to Moonlight. “I remember you, though. Something…Orion?” She frowned. “I feel weird. Like it’s almost there…but I just can’t…”

“Don’t try too hard.” Moonlight knelt beside Jadeglow’s bed and took her hoof. “You can’t force a thought, sis, you know that. You’ve got to wait until the universe aligns with it, you know?”

Jadeglow smiled distantly. “Yeah. That sounds…sounds like something I used to know.”

“Because you told it to me.”

“I did?” Jadeglow looked to Morgana, as though she would offer some sort of confirmation on the matter. When none came, she turned back to Moonlight. “But who are you?”

“Moonlight. Moonlight Elderberry.”

“I knew someone who had that name once. But…he’s just a little kid. He looks kind of like you. Are you his uncle?” Tears fell down Moonlight’s face, and he tried to wipe them away. Jadeglow noticed before he could, though. “You’re crying. Something’s sad. I know it. I can feel it, and I almost know…but I don’t. I don’t know what’s so sad, but I can still feel it. Why can’t we just be happy? I don’t like to be sad.”

“The bad vibes and all…”

“I don’t know what that means.

“You are sad because you were hurt,” said Morgana. “Hurt real bad.”

“I…I can’t feel my lower legs. I don’t know if I ever had any. I can’t…remember…”

“You did. And you’ll get them back, eventually.”

“They…grow back?” Jadeglow’s eyes widened. “Am I…am I a TREE?”

“No. You’re a pony.”

“Oh…that’s probably why I’m sad, then.”

Moonlight looked up at Morgana. “See? You’re a technomancer, right? Can’t you help her?”

Morgana considered for a moment, and then shook her head. “No. I can’t. Sorry.”

“Will she recover? Like, on her own?”

“I don’t know.”

Moonlight’s expression fell, and he buried his head into the flat plastic that made up Jadeglow’s bed. He sobbed quietly. Jadeglow seemed to notice, and she patted him on the head.

“Hey there! It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay, I know it.”

“This is my fault,” said Morgana. She approached Jadeglow. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re fault?” Jadeglow looked confused. “I…I remember you. A little bit. It’s all fuzzy and weird, and I’m so confused all the time…but you were there.” Her eyes suddenly became clearer, and her lucidity seemed to increase. “You were there…when it happened. I remember you.”

Morgana took another step forward. “When what happened?”

Jadeglow looked up with wide violet eyes. “When the angels came.”

Moonlight looked up suddenly. “Angels? You didn’t say anything about that before.”

Jadeglow smiled and nodded knowingly. “They came to me. Beautiful creatures. I remember now. I remember pain, and I was lying there. I thought I was dead. Maybe I was. But…” She turned to Moonlight. “You know, I’ve always wondered. My whole life, since the start. Like, do we have souls? Ponies I mean.”

“Of course you do. Everything has a soul.”

“But do WE? I guess I was always afraid. That I wouldn’t get to go to the cosmic consciousness. That you would get there some day but I’d be…just gone. Out. Like a falling star, man…just gone…” She smiled softly. “But then I saw them. God sent them, and I was there, with them…”

“Since when do you believe in God? Like, the Judeo-Christian one?”

“Since I woke up…but I don’t know if that’s the one. But don’t you get it, man? It all makes sense now! There IS another side and- -and I was almost there! There’s a place for ponies in all of it, and Somebody cares!”

“You may have been hallucinating,” suggested Morgana. “Your consciousness was instinctively trying to consolidate key memories to keep your identity alive. It’s like what humans call dreaming.”

“No! No way! They were REAL! I know they were! I drew pictures!”

“Pictures?”

“Yes! Moonlight! Moonlight, they’re in the end table. One of the robots gave me a marker. I should get him, you know, some vegan flowers or something. Please get them! Show her!”

Moonlight stood up and hesitantly walked to the table. He opened one of the drawers and moved one of the written-text bibles that had been left there, one that had clearly been bookmarked with several small scraps of paper. Much to his apparent surprise, he pulled out a pile of thick papers. He looked through them, his green eyes growing wide as he flipped through.

“What is it?” asked Morgana.

“You had better see this.”

He placed the papers down on the rear of the bed. Morgana stood on her hind legs to reach them and pushed them apart, separating them.

They were well drawn with the sort of mechanical precision that was only possible for a pony. The images were clear, even if they were heavily stylized. Each of them depicted nearly the same thing: being in various poses, surrounded by light or wielding strange swords in a variety of poses. The figures were what caught Morgana’s attention, though: they were not traditional angles by any means, but instead were rendered as tall, immensely thin or completely disjointed semi-humanoids with the heads of unicorns and long silver manes. All of them were the same shade of pale green.

“Sweet Celestia…”

“I saw them. They came while I was dying, from nowhere. An army of good angels…and a black angel of death…”

Morgana moved the stack and saw what Jadeglow was referring to. One of the images was different: instead of a thin, pony-headed creature, it showed a dark image of something else. The stylization was excessive, so Morgana was not able to say what it was clearly, but she saw at least a vaguely human form and what was likely hair falling down over a pair of blue eyes with vertical black slits for pupils.

Moonlight shivered. “That doesn’t look like an angel, sis.”

“But she WAS. She came to me. Crouched near me…looked into my eyes. But she didn’t take me. She took the others, but not me. The others went back to heaven with them…but they let me stay. I think I was meant to survive.”

“The others?” Morgana lifted her head, immediately invested.

Jadeglow nodded. “They came to take them to heaven. The others. Ponies and humans. They came and made them die. The humans fought, but you can’t really fight angels. So they all left me, and I was alone…”

Morgana looked down at the pictures, and she understood.

“Natural-born humans,” she said. “They liquidated the stock…”

“They took them…but they left me…” Jadeglow’s eyes began to cloud again. She started to close them.

“Jadeglow.” Morgana stood up suddenly. “There is something else I need to know.”

“What…is it?”

“Blossomforth. Did you see her? What happened to her up there?”

Jadeglow looked at Morgana, and then shook her head. “No. She wasn’t near me. I heard gunshots…screaming…pain. I was afraid. I heard her shots…they were far away. But then they stopped. And the angels came…”

Jadeglow closed her eyes, and then opened them. She looked around confused before focusing on Morgana and Moonlight.

“Oh!” she said cheerfully. “I have visitors! Why do I feel like I’ve seen both of you somewhere before? Have we met?”

Moonlight slumped, defeated. He picked up the pictures that Jadeglow had drawn and put them back in the nightstand. Morgana watched him do so- -and her eyes fell on the plant that sat on Jadeglow’s table.

“She almost remembered,” said Moonlight. “She…” He shook his head. “I guess you jogged something. I feel…tired. I guess I should thank you. And you apologized, like you said.”

“It’s my fault,” replied Morgana. “I’m not a complete sociopath. I do feel bad. But I’m a little more hopeful now, though.”

“You are?”

Morgana nodded. “If she has part of her personality, the rest might come back. Eventually. She won’t ever be the same, but she’ll be able to function with practice. But she’s going to need help. Your help.”

“Of course. I’d do anything for her. Man…I didn’t even know she could draw, but if that helps her, I’ll spend every vod I have on colored pencils, if that’s what it takes!”

“I like colored pencils!” chimed Jadeglow. “Can I have them in teal? I want to draw something teal…”

“I do have one question, though.”

“What?”

Morgana pointed to the potted plant. “That. Did you get that for her?”

Moonlight and Jadeglow both looked at the plant. It was a small tree with narrow leaves, and it had several bright red, brushlike flowers growing from it.

“No…” said Moonlight. He turned to his sister. “Sis, who got you that?”

“I don’t know,” said Jadeglow. “I can’t…I can’t remember. But it’s really pretty. I love trees.”

Morgana approached the plant. “This is a Callistemon.”

Moonlight blinked, looking confused. “I don’t know that one.”

“You wouldn’t. Because it’s been extinct for seven hundred years.” Morgana stood up and examined the tree. There was a thin string around it, holding what appeared to be a tag. The side facing Morgana was white, devoid of any markings or price tag. When she carefully turned it around, though, she saw that the card bore a single symbol: the image of a sleeping pony lying in the palm of an immense human hand.

Part IV, Chapter 4

Morgana returned to the warehouse alone. Moonlight had decided to remain at his sister’s side. Morgana did not mind. At this point, she preferred to be alone, and as much as she was willing to tolerate Moonlight he was still a human and therefore still a hindrance. She needed time to think, and had drawn out her return trip to give her time to walk through the city streets. It was almost horrifyingly easy even with the bounty on her head, but she had a strange feeling that she was being watched the whole time, waiting for a response.

The warehouse was oddly quiet. Morgana was able to enter alone and unnoticed, and to take her time as she walked through the dark corridors between old and forgotten things packed into boxes that would likely never be opened again.

At some level, she knew where she was going- -and yet found herself standing over Lilium and Roxanne. The two of them appeared to be sleeping peacefully, locked in each other’s embrace. Ponies did not sleep, though, and Morgana saw the custom hardline cord that connected their necks. Despite how still they were, they were in the throes of lovemaking, or the pony equivalent of it. But Morgana had already known that, and had had time to grow numb to it.

She left them, and only took a few steps and one turn between the maze of boxes before she noticed a pair of gleaming red eyes watching her from the shadows.

“Forth,” she said.
“Morgana,” replied Forth. “You left me here.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s harder to take you with me when we’re separate. I miss having you in my auxiliary processor. I’ve never heard of a Blossomforth unit existing for this long independently.”

“Perhaps I am not like the others. But you should have taken me. It’s not safe out there for you.”

“I don’t care about me that much,” lied Morgana. “What I care about is the people here. I wanted you to take care of them, and you did.”

A different shape moved in the darkness, and a different white pony appeared. Despite having only been out of contact for a matter of hours, Lynnette had somehow managed to change her clothing.

“I thought I heard the sound of vapid stupidity,” she said. “Or at the very least smelled cheap cigarettes. And not the ones the centaur smokes. Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Who said I was looking for anything?”

“Darling. You wouldn’t go all that way unless you wanted something.” She smiled. “Did you find it?”

Morgana sighed. “No,” she said, feeling for her cigarettes. Lynnette opened one of her pockets and gave Morgana the pack. “Her memory’s shot to hell. She didn’t remember what I needed to know. Even if she did, she didn’t see it. But I did find something else.”

“What?”

“The Cult of Humanity was involved. The agroterrorists that ‘Caleb’ was leading? They slaughtered them all. Jadeglow DID remember that part.”

“But that doesn’t make sense, now does it? Your line of reasoning was that Mercucio was recruiting natural-born humans for them.”

“And I may have killed him.” Morgana looked to Forth, who showed no sign of embarrassment or recognition.

“Ah. Well that was positively moronic. But it does explain the situation, now doesn’t it?”

“Maybe…”

The three of them started walking, and after a few moments Morgana saw Valla sitting on her four legs, with Elrod across a small table from her, attempting to teach her how to play cards.

“Morg,” said Valla, turning. “You’re back.”

“Yeah.”

“How’s Jadeglow?”

Morgana sighed. “Not good.”

“Damn…”

“That’s not the half of it. I found something.”

Valla looked concerned, but Lynnette looked intrigued. “What sort of thing?”

Morgana projected an image of the small flowering tree across their shared subnetwork.

“Crap,” said Elrod. “I don’t have my mask on, I can’t see it.”

“You don’t have to. It’s a Callistemon. It’s a type of flowering tree. Or it was. They used to be common, but a blight wiped them out seven centuries ago. All of them. Among other things. It’s extinct.”

“Then where did you get one?”

“Someone put it on Jadeglow’s end table.”

“Well, that was nice of them,” said Forth.

“No. It wasn’t meant as a gift. It was meant as a message. To me. They knew I’d be there. They knew I’d see it.”

“But what does it mean?” asked Valla. Her brow furrowed. “And where the hell did they get an extinct bush anyway?”

“They’re not extinct,” said Lynnette, leaning close to the image of the flower.

“Excuse me?” Morgana turned sharply.

“They WERE extinct. But a certain group has invested a considerable sum of money and effort into reconstructing the breed.”

“Why?” asked Elrod, seeming quite confused.

“They’re meant as a status symbol. The group in question is called the Bottlebrush Society.”

“I’ve never heard of them,” grumbled Morgana.

“Well, of course not, darling. They’re both exclusive and secretive. As I said, the flower is a status symbol, meant for the most elite of the elite. Not the kind of people someone like you would ever need to deal with.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” huffed Valla.

“It means that while Morgana may be able to integrate quite well with…ahem…‘lower’ aspects of the population, there is no reason why she would be concerned with the motions of high-society.”

“Is there a point to this?” asked Morgana.

“Perhaps. I have myself spent a considerable amount of time, effort, and personal funds to aquatint myself with the more notable members of polite society. I happen to know that the Bottlebrush Society is planning an exposition ball to show for the yearly blooming. The event was scheduled for tomorrow, actually.”

Morgana looked back at her own projection. “Fuck. That’s what it means. It has to be.”

“It would seem they’ve invited you to a party. You should be quite flattered.”

“Except I don’t think they’ll take a tree as a legitimate invitation.”

“The invitation hardly matters. It’s the tickets that count. I myself have two…and I can pull some strings to get you another set, if you’d like.”

“Why? Why would you do that?”

“Because I’m invested in this case,” snapped Lynnette. “Believe me, I’d MUCH rather be going to this event myself. I’d be planning the dress and makeup this very moment. But I’m too busy here. Especially considering that the pony who I was to ask as my date is missing and quite possibly dead.”

“I don’t like this,” said Forth, stepping forward. “This sounds like a trap.”

“It isn’t,” said Morgana.

“How do you know?”

“Because they’ve known. They’ve always goddamn known. They knew where I’d be, where I was…they’re following me. Toying with me. I don’t know how, but they know where I am right now. If they wanted me dead, I’d be dead already.”

“But they do want you dead. That’s why we’re hiding.”

“No. I think it’s more complicated than that. But if you’re that worried, why don’t you come?”

Forth gasped. “Are you asking me to the ball?”

“No, she isn’t,” snapped Lynnette.

“I need firepower,” retorted Morgana.

“At an exposition ball? You have enough already. I gave you enough.” She pointed at Morgana’s arm. “And don’t be more of an idiot than you already are. The entire world is looking for a Twilight Sparkle who travels with a weaponized Blossmforth. And you want to walk into one of the most secured locations in Bridgeport…with an obviously weaponized Blossomforth?”

“Fine. Then I’ll take you.”

Rarity laughed in Morgana’s face. “HA! NO. Firstly, I’d ruin all of my social status. I wouldn’t be caught dead consorting with the likes of you in a place like that, not even for business. Second, I already told you. I’m known and respected in high society, at least to some extent. I’m recognizable. And, in case you forgot, I’m supposed to be in hiding.”

“So are the rest of us.”

“Yes. But you have the great fortune of being nobodies. I do not have that luxury.”

“Thanks. Fine.” Morgana pointed at Elrod. “Then I’ll take him.”

Valla looked amused to the point of nearly bursting out laughing. “Him? Morg, in case you haven’t noticed, he’s kind of slow.”

“Yes. He is. But having a guy who’s immune to bullets is never a bad idea.”

“Bullets- -what the hell are you talking about?”

Morgana lifted her arm and retracted the plating. Elrod’s eyes grew wide, but he did not have time to dodge. Morgana put a bullet between his eyes, causing most of his head to liquefy in the process.

Valla screamed. “OH SHIT! Oh shit oh shit OH SHIT!!”

Elrod took a step back and the white, starch flesh of his neck began to grow and regenerate. Within seconds his head had completely regenerated. Valla looked as though she were about to vomit or collapse. She just stared wide-eyed as Elrod’s head reconstructed itself.

“Damn it,” said Morgana, looking at her arm. “These rounds are shit. All that recoil for what? I’m not shooting watermelons here, I need to take out ARMOR.”

“Why does everyone always aim for the head?” whined Elrod.

“Because if you were human it would be an easy way to kill you.”

“Don’t do that again,” said Forth. “He doesn’t like it.”

“I don’t intend to waste the bullets.” Morgana turned to Lynnette. “See? He’ll be fine.”

“If this were some dirty dive bar, yes,” snapped Lynnette. “But you absolutely CANNOT go to a party like this with- -HIM as your date!”

“Why? I don’t understand the problem.”

“Miscegenation, darling! Or are you that thick? Are you TRYING to cause a scandal?!”

“I’m taking him to a party I don’t even want to go to. I’m not doing him. I don’t even think that’s possible.”

“For the record, it isn’t,” muttered Elrod, rubbing his neck. “Nor would I want to. You’re all essentially hideous to me. Except Forth, she’s mildly adorable.”

“Darling, I know certain things are acceptable in lower society, but this is a place of culture and grace. Ponysexualism is not tolerated, nor should it be. You would be thrown out before you even get in the door.”

“Then I’ll go alone. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“NO! UGH!” Lynnette put her hoof against her forehead. “It’s like you have no concept of polite society! You can’t do that either!”

“Why not? Or are you just shooting down all my ideas to be a bitch?”

“I’m not being a bitch. YOU are being an idiot. There’s a reason you get tickets in TWOS. Because if you show up alone, you’ve essentially advertised that you are either looking to be…pardon my language…fucked relentlessly. Or to find a husband. Or both. Needless to say, you would get no end of attention.”

“Which is not what I want. Fine! What the hell should I do then? I can’t take Forth, or you, or Elrod, who can I take?”

“Me. She’s going to take me.”

Roxanne appeared from between several of the boxes. Lilium was following behind her, looking sheepish and embarrassed.

“Oh. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather go with your fuckbuddy there?”

“You shut it, Morgana! What I do- -and what SHE does- -is none of your business!”

Morgana looked at Lilium, and Lilium turned away. Morgana sighed. “Sorry,” she said.

“No you’re not,” said Roxanne. “You’re an overprotective, jealous bitch. Don’t talk to her like that. EVER.” Roxanne redirected her attention toward Lynnette. “You. Rapist. Would they have any problem with me?”

“Probably not.” Lynnette groaned. “I would have to size you for an appropriate dress, though…”

“I have dresses. Probably more than you do. And I definitely look better in them than you ever will. I just need someone to go get one.”

“No, no, dear. I mean real dresses. Not slutty ones.”

“Just get me my goddamn clothes!”

“No,” said Morgana, suddenly. “She won’t. Because you’re not going.”

Roxanne frowned, seemingly taken aback. “What the hell? I just told you I was. So I am. End of story.”

“No. Because this whole thing is probably going to end up turning into a grade-A shitshow real quick.”

“It had better not,” warned Lynnette. “I’m serious, darling, if you cause trouble for me- -”

“I’m not the one who sent a fucking plant as a calling card instead of just coming out in the open and trying to talk. Do I look like I want to play some sort of game?” Morgana’s eyes flitted back to Roxanne. “So no. I’m not taking you.”

“Yes you are. I’m not spending another minute cooped up in this goddamn dusty warehouse. And you don’t really have any choice. Unless you’d rather take Lil.”

“I’m not talking Lilium.”

“Because I fucked her?”

“Please don’t phrase it like that,” said Lilium, wincing. Much to Morgana’s surprise, Roxanne’s expression seemed to soften greatly.

“Sorry,” she said. “I was just having such a good day when SOMEONE had to throw it in reverse.”

“I’m still not taking Lilium. And that’s not the reason. I don’t want to put her in any danger whatsoever. She’s too young. If they take me out, so what? But she doesn’t even have a week yet.”

“Then it’s me or nothing. Here’s what you’re going to do: you’re going with me. The second set of tickets goes to Elrod and Valla.”

“M…me?” Valla looked as though she were about to faint. She pointed at Elrod. “Um, are any of you going to address the fact that you JUST SHOT HIM IN THE HEAD?!”

“We’re past that,” said Lynnette. “Besides, he’s human enough appearance-wise to not raise any suspicions.”

“But- -in the- -in the HEAD!”

“It’s okay,” said Elrod. “It happens a lot these days.”

“But that means I have to go to the shitshow! I don’t want to go to the shitshow! I got shot once, and I didn’t like it!”

“You received a superficial flesh would from a low-caliber ricochet when you were eight,” said Lynnette. “I would hardly call that being ‘shot’.”

“How did you- -nevermind! Despite my sexy, sexy horse bits, I can’t exactly take a bullet to the face like this freak!”

“Don’t be rude!” peeped Forth.

Roxanne took several steps toward Valla. “Val,” she said. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t think you’re up to it.”

Valla opened her mouth, and then put her hands over her head. “Damn it!” she groaned. “Don’t do that!”

“Don’t do what?”

“‘Not up to it’? Goddamn it, Roxy, that’s a challenge.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Yes it is! Fuck! You’re making me feel like an idiot.”

“I’m not trying to.”

“Jade hired me to protect you, remember? I’m a bouncer. You’re a dancer. That’s how it works…and now you’re going to be walking into the lion’s den while I chicken the fuck out?”

“Again,” said Lynnette, sternly. “It’s not going to be a ‘lion’s den’. This is a civilized, sophisticated event. All you need to do is wear a dress and look pretty.”

“FUCK! You aren’t helping!”

“It doesn’t really matter,” sighed Morgana. She turned to Lynnette. “Can you get me a suit?”

“Can I get you a suit…would I have even offered the tickets if I wasn’t going to dress you properly? Of course I can get you a suit. Although to be honest I’m amazed that you weren’t intending to just show up in a dirty trenchcoat…”

“I’m not an idiot. I know how to behave. I’m a detective, for godsake.”

Part IV, Chapter 5

Lynnette had delivered on her promise, at least as far as Elrod understood. His conception of the events unfolding were limited, and his knowledge of his role was minimal. Still, he at least understood what he needed to do.

He had been given a suit. It was the first time in his life he had worn actual clothing apart from his coat. Under normal circumstances, his outer surface shifted to create what he needed. It was not something he could control consciously; it had just always been there. Valla, likewise, had been outfitted with appropriate clothing as well. For her, it consisted of what might be conceived of as the upper portion of an elegant dress. Despite Lynnette’s vehement protests, Valla had refused to accept using humanoid-orthoscopic legs, and as such her horse portion was decorated in a modified version of cavalry raiment.

“Fuck this,” muttered Valla. “Fuck this fuck this fuck this…”

“It’s not that bad,” said Elrod.

They were approaching the destination that Lynnette had listed through what amounted to a long bridge through stagnant, windless air. It was one of many crossings that separated a number of vast towers. Elrod had never been to this portion of Bridgeport, but he knew where he was: the Enterprise Zone, on Level thirty-three. He could not help but marvel at the view outside: this particular level had been partitioned into a number of enormous towers that overlooked what amounted to a city all its own below. The floor below him was glass, and he could see a drop of several hundred feet through it to the streets below the vast skyscrapers.

“Hold on,” he said. “Could you look at me for a moment?”

Valla turned. “If you look into my eyes and start whispering romantic nothings I will buck you in half.”

“That wasn’t my intention.” Elrod looked up at her face and concentrated. He saw her eyes widen and her complexion grow pale as his own face rippled and warped. The superstructure inside him reconfigured itself, and in seconds his face had been completely rebuilt.

“Holy…SHIT…”

Elrod put his hand on his jaw. It did not feel like it had. He was aware of what he looked like: roughly the same as Valla, complete with her deep blue eyes but lacking any sort of hair. “Huh. Morgana was right. That WAS possible.”

Valla steeled herself and gulped, but took several steps to separate herself from Elrod. “What the hell even are you?”

“The result of human hubris, largely.”

“Bullshit. Are you some sort of alien?”

“No. I am from Idaho.”

They both fell silent as they approached the far end of the empty skybridge. At the far end was an elegant but modern archway into a building, guarded by one individual. As Elrod and Valla approached, the woman at the gate seemed to grow larger- -until they saw that it was not a woman at all. Although female in form, she was quite clearly a machine, decayed in shades of black and glossy maroon. Her face seemed to be made of porcelain, and it was identical to the masks of the spider drones that wandered the Upper Levels to serve as private security. The only differentiation was a pair of sheep-like horns.

“Damn it,” muttered Valla.

The mechanical woman stepped toward them. “Welcome,” she said, bowing. “My name is Ioria. I will be coordinating the security for tonight’s event.” She turned her blank, eyeless face toward Elrod. “May I see your tickets?”

Valla extended one of her arms and turned it over, showing a faded scar from a surgery performed many decades ago. Elrod assumed that she was presenting a network image of the encoded ticket form the implant beneath, but he could not see it. Without an operator mask or a visor, he was blind to the Illusion.

Ioria nodded. “Excellent.” She turned toward Elrod. “So I see you are the elder of the two.”

“Elder?”

“Indeed. Even as a synth, I understand the needs to keep bloodlines pure. Might I say, your sister looks lovely.”

“Are you hitting on me?”

“Heavens no. That would be far beyond my station, mademoiselle.” Ioria gestured toward the entryway. “Please enjoy the flowers, and may you both have a lovely evening.”

Elrod and Valla started walking, but Elrod paused. “Before we go…have you seen our friends go by? Two ponies. A Twilight Sparkle unit and a Rainbow Dash one.”

“They’re friends of ours,” added Valla.

“Indeed. I recall that the Rainbow Dash in question looked especially stunning. My secondary drones can find them, if you wish.”

“I think we can find them ourselves,” said Elrod.

“Very well.” Ioria nodded to them and moved to greet another set of guests.

Valla and Elrod proceeded forward into the party. “Well,” said Elrod. “I think that went pretty well.”

“I got hit on by a devil-horn synth.”

“You can turn back if you want.”

“Hell no.” Valla smiled. “Fuck it. This night might actually turn out fun.”

Elrod was not so sure, but he accepted that Valla had more experience with this sort of thing than he did and was apt to believe her. They entered the tower and walked toward one of the staircases, passing several other guests who were conversing in the lobby.

That was when Elrod detected a strange smell. To him, it smelled like rot combined with the scent all humans had, although amplified to an extreme degree. Confused, he looked to his left. A human passed him. She was about Elrod’s height, dressed in black. Her long, greasy hair was pulled back and a visor covered her eyes. Elrod found himself wondering why she only had four fingers on each hand, and, looking at where her coat met the ground, why she was wearing no shoes.

Part IV, Chapter 6

Whereas Elrod knew little about the level where the Bottlebrush Society chose to make their home, Morgana knew it all too well. She stared out one of the vast glass windows at the city below, and the lights that shone through the eternal night below. The city sprawled out before her, and endless array of perfect glass buildings modeled like the grand cities of old. She knew their contents: offices, insurance companies, penthouse offices and second homes for the highest level of management that had not yet been replaced by computers. There were residences here, too, but not many. In a sense, this place was the mirror of the Upper Levels: whereas the wealthy built their homes in faux-nature, they built their workplaces in a dark and sterile metropolis.

Morgana turned her gaze up toward the rooves of some of the other towers, to where their communication cables stretched upward to the ceilings above. Her eyes were far better than most, and she knew what she was looking for. At a distance of about nine hundred meters, she saw Forth, half of her body unfolded into a sniper configuration. Lilium was standing beside her, dressed in a black cloak with a visor over her eyes to help assist with any shots that Forth needed to take. Morgana nodded slowly, and Lilium returned her nod. This was reassuring, but did not make Morgana feel much better. She left the window, returning to the exhibition hall.

The scope of the event was substantial, even though the party was relatively small. The exhibition hall itself dominated what would otherwise have been four or five floors of the building it resided in. The architecture inside was a somewhat jarring mixture of interpretive art deco and modern construction: floors tiled with absurdly expensive stone cut into vast triangles, walls of colored glass, and ceilings with graceful arches that left absolutely no metal exposed. Running through it were planters, and, as expected, each of them were filled with perfectly manicured Callistemons in full bloom, lit overhead by glowing rings. The edge of all of it was surrounded by enormous plates of glass to allow the guests to look down on the city from every angle.

The extravagance was astounding, if only in space alone. Even in the poorer levels, a space this large would have costed the yearly wages of several million workers; in this district, though, the land value probably left it costing several hundred thousand times that. No expense had been spared, and it was apparent.

Lynnette had been correct. This was a party meant for a small portion of the city’s most elite. The flowers did not really matter all that much; they were an excuse, something that the wealthy had brought into the world to mark themselves apart from the rest. The real point of this party was for them to do what humans always did: attempt to assert dominance over each other and everything else, in this case by demonstrating superior wealth and breeding.

There were many of them. Morgana took note of them, cross-referencing the faces she could with her internal records. The results were almost always the same: heirs, tycoons, CEOs, fund managers, politicians, mayors, rulers of subvassals, and so on. Each and every one of them wore spectacular clothes that showed the slight errors characteristic of hand-stitching, no doubt by famous designers that were probably died long ago. Virtually all of them wore jewelry, and all of it was crafted from rare elements: neodymium, iridium, platinum, uranium, whatever was valuable.

Morgana took note of their appearances. The humans in attendance could be almost perfectly divided into two categories. The first group consisted of individuals who towered over Morgana. While humans were by definition taller than ponies, these humans were immense: each of them stood at least eight feet tall, with perfectly shaped bodies to match their height. All of them had similar looking faces, each of which was marked heavily by scars from repeated cosmetic surgery. These were the people that society considered perfect: they had been custom built in the most prestigious factories in small batches, built from their parents genetics with the most advanced chromosomal modifications to ensure that they would be stronger and healthier than lesser beings. They were the master race, the most genetically pure of all humans. They arrived from the factories as babies, and would be custom-raised by nannies. They themselves were even capable of bearing children, so long as they mated with one another- -but few bothered to. It was considered a waste of status to not spent at least several hundred million vod on a custom child.

These beings were the bankers, managers, and CEOs of the corporations that existed under the aegis of Aetna-Cross. They were the elites of Bridgeport- -but not the highest echelon. That ranking belonged to the much smaller number of humans who walked among them: humans who were short, often sickly, who walked around the room in ignorance of the virtual overlays that drifted about the room. They were natural-born. They had no genetic engineering and no cybernetics- -and they were destined to rule.

“Twilight.”

Morgana turned her head at the sound of her surname. Roxanne approached from the crowd. Morgana stared at her, finding that she could not take her eyes away. The dress she wore was black, decorated with silver accents and inlaid patterns around the numerous splits and rises that ended up showing off far more of Roxanne’s body than the dress actually did cover. It was indeed an elegant dress, and one that was more than appropriate for an event of this caliber, and yet Morgana could not help but notice the stares of the humans as she passed.

“Rainbow Dash,” replied Morgana.

Roxanne looked out the window for a moment. “They’re out there?”

Morgana nodded. “Two on that side. O’Toole on the other, but I can’t see her. She’s cloaked.”

“Right.” Roxanne shifted her exposed and jewelry-laden wings and stared out at the other guests to the party. “So. There’s not a lot of ponies here.”

“There’re a few.” Morgana pointed out toward several tall, exceedingly expensive units walking amongst the humans. Like the humans, they were dressed impeccably. “You’re right, though. Not a lot of us here. I guess there aren’t that many pony elites here. Or anywhere.”

“Or they don’t like coming to a flower party.”

Morgana raised an eyebrow. “I thought you liked this sort of thing. When we were together, you always complained I never took you out.”

“That’s not what I was complaining about. And yeah. I’ve been to parties. Fancy ones too. But this is way above my pay grade. Top-shelf callgirl shit. Not my thing.”

“It’s not the first time I’ve been to something like this.”

Roxanne looked surprised. “Really?”

“I’m a detective. I do what it takes to get information. Even if it means coming to shit like this.”

“Huh. You don’t like being around all this wealth, right? You never struck me as a socialist. You don’t care enough.”

“That’s not what bothers me. I don’t care about their money or what they do with it. Let them eat gold-plated shrimp in front of starving Swiss children for all I care. It’s the fact that everything is connected in places like this. If you mess up, if one of them puts you on the right list? You’re fucked.”

“Do I look like a novice? I know how to handle this. Better than you do. Career history in ‘customer service’, remember? I know how to deal with people.”

“If you didn’t I wouldn’t have let you come along. I still don’t feel good about it. This whole place feels like it’s about to go up.”

“Yeah,” admitted Roxanne. “I noticed.”

“So you saw it too.”

Roxanne nodded. “Security everywhere.”

Morgana looked out at the room. In addition to the guests, there were a number of other individuals wandering around the party. Some of them were workers serving drinks or tending to the Calistemons, but there were others that were quite clearly security. Most of them were private security drones: they were assembled like sculpted females with porcelain faces, with all of their AIs linked to the synth guarding the door and perimeter. Among them, though, were others. They appeared to be human, largely, but there were also several synths as well as some well-concealed zoonei. They wore armor in the same colors as the drones, but they were quite clearly recent hires by the security company.

“Mercenaries,” said Morgana. “I’ve identified at least six different factions, and there’s some I haven’t even seen before. None of them are low-tier, either. These are high-grade professionals. And- -”

“And all of them are running under network isolation.”

Morgana blinked. “How did you know?”

“Because I actually went out and talked to people.”

“And?”

“And people are nervous. Especially the natural-borns. A lot of them almost didn’t come. They wouldn’t have either, except for all that security.”

“Security that can’t be hacked. Not by me…or even by the War Stone itself.”

“A few groups have bodyguards too. It’s like they’re expecting something bad to happen.”

“Because I’m pretty sure it IS going to happen.”

Roxanne’s face darkened. “Yeah. I figured as much.”

“You just keep your eyes out. When this goes pear-shaped, I need you to be ready.”

“Don’t worry about me. I know how to take care of myself.” Roxanne leaned close. “But if it DOES go to shit, you had better cover Valla. I’m the one who got her into this. I’m not going to abuse that trust.”

“Do you trust Lilium?”

Roxanne did not hesitate in her response. “Yes.”

“She’s out there. Watching. If you can’t trust me, trust her.”

Roxanne frowned, but then nodded. “I’m going to mingle a little more. See what I can learn. To be honest, I’m pretty sure I’m a hit here. You should do the same.”

“Do I really have a reason to?”

“Yes. Because one of them is your contact. And the quicker we find him, the sooner we can get out of here.”

Leaving Roxanne, Morgana moved through the floor. The venue was large, and she counted at least a hundred individuals overall, excluding security and servantly. That left them relatively diffuse on the floor, with some contemplating the red-flowered shrubs and many mingling in various groups throughout. Any one of them could be the contact- -or a killer. Morgana did not know why they had called her. She had tried to dismiss the possibility of this being a trap, and had convinced the others, but the more she walked through the well-dressed guests the more she began to wonder. Yes, they could have killed her at any time- -unless they wanted to do it here, for some specific purpose. As a demonstration of something that Morgana could not yet grasp, or for a reason that she could not yet conceive of.

She crossed the floor to the far side, the one where Lynnette was supposedly watching over her. Although hors d'oeuvres and wine were being served throughout the party, this area contained a region that seemed to be dedicated to more substantial meals. It was attended to by a number of servants. They were the same height as the natural-born humans, but they had clearly undergone substantial genetic engineering. They stared with blank, broken eyes as they moved trays about and set up food. Morgana understood what they were- -like everything else here, a status symbol. They had been grown in the factories specifically for this task.

A bell sounded, and some of the nearest humans moved toward a large table between two stately Callistemons. Two servants removed a tray, and the room filled with the scent of perfectly prepared meat. Some of the humans visibly started to salivate, although Morgana had no interest in the meat beyond an academic one. She looked at it only for a moment as she passed: a whole creature, humanoid in shape, prepared in one piece. It’s charred and cooked body lay face down, and Morgana could see one of its hands outstretched as the servants began to carve its meat. The hand only had four fingers.

Morgana passed it, checking through the crowd once more. In the distance, she saw Valla looking completely awestruck at the wealth around her, and Elrod sniffing the air in an attempt to find the meat. That seemed to confirm one of Morgana’s darker suspicions about him, but it was of little consequence in the current situation.

As she crossed, a voice called out to her.

“You! Do you want a snack?”

Morgana looked up, her eyes immediately tracking the call of the voice. It came from a large, tub-like container. She stood up on her hind legs and looked in, only to find that it was full of ice- -and one pony. She lay sprawled out in the ice, completely nude, save for numerous samples of food that had been arranged precisely over her body.

“Goddamn this is weird…”

“It’s not weird! The delicious and well-refrigerated Trixie bids you to try her delicious snacks! You’ll find their savory and well-seasoned! Come on, try them!”

Another voice whispered from a second ice tub. “Mila, we’re not supposed to talk!”

Morgana took note of a second nude pony laid out in ice. This one was a Coco Pommel unit- -themselves a rarity despite their popularity- -who had been decorated with a number of small confections placed against her bare skin.

“Quiet you!” The Trixie unit turned her head carefully toward Morgana, nearly spilling a piece of beef tartar off her forehead in the process. “Don’t go to her! Her desserts will make you fat!”

“No,” moaned the Pommel. “They’re fine in moderation!”

“No! They’ll make you fat! Fat I say, FAT!”

“I’m a pony,” said Morgana. “I can’t get fat.”

“Well you’ve certainly done a good job of it regardless! Trixie has low-fat options for you, fatty!”

“I don’t have to take this from a serving tray pony. I think I’ll have a macaroon.” Morgana pulled herself down from the tub and went to the Coco Pommel unit. The Coco Pommel seemed as though she was about to burst into tears, but when in awe when Morgana came to her.

“No! No, wait!” called the Trixie. “I’m sorry! Don’t tell my manager! One more complaint and Trixie gets fired!”

Morgana picked up a macaroon and took a bite. It was certainly expensive, but to her pony senses it tasted like paper. “Right. Fine. But I was wondering if you two could help me.”

“We have a concierge on staff,” said the Pommel, trying to be quiet. “You can ask him for assistance.”

“I don’t want to ask him. I want to ask you two.”

The Coco Pommel looked afraid, but Morgana saw the Trixie almost visibly inflating with self-importance.

“Trixie would be glad to be of assistance…if you take some couscous.”

Morgana walked over and did so. It, like the macaroon, tasted like paper- -and likely cost more than Valla’s monthly paycheck.

“There. Is Trixie delicious or what?”

“It all tastes the same to me. Now. Are both of you network-sealed?”

The Trixie looked confused, but the Coco Pommel answered. “Yes. It was a requirement for the job.”

“Good. Stay that way. Second question. I’m looking for somebody.”

“The concierge- -”

“I’m not looking for the concierge. Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“Then…then who?”

“Have you seen anything unusual? Either of you?”

The two shook their heads, and the Trixie’s beef tartar started to slide. Morgana scooped it off her forehead and took a bite of it. As she reached, she noted that the tubs were made of thick insulated material. The filling was most likely plated and extremely thick nonconductive alloy.

“Sorry to bother you two. You can go back to…this. But I’m going to give you a warning: stay in your trays. No matter what happens.”

“Of course.”

“The elegant and well-stocked Trixie is not an idiot!”

Although Morgana doubted that assertion, she did not say so. Instead, she left the pair of them as more guests came for their respective pastries and chilled meat snacks. She progressed outward, intending to move toward the windows and take a lap around the entire venue. That would prevent anyone from sneaking up on at least one of her sides, and give her both a view of the floor and of the rooves of buildings outside.

Morgana stopped, though, when she heard the distinct sound of a violin being played. She paused, listening. The song was slow and sad, but technically precise. To a human it would likely have sounded quite beautiful; to Morgana it sounded like the sum of frequencies generated by a clearly expert player. Her ears pricked and turned toward the sound, her head following them. It was coming from across the floor, where a group of people were standing.

Curious, Morgana approached. The area in question had clearly been meant for a band, but the band was still in the process of setting up their instruments. All of them had paused, turning their attention toward the song being played. It was immediately apparent that the man playing was not one of their members at all. He was shorter than the rest, and dressed in a red velvet suit. At his feet stood four Scootaloos.

The song slowed as Maurice finished his song. Morgana was sure that she saw a blood-stained tear drip from one of his asymmetrical bright-green eyes. He gave a long sigh, and the crowd actually began to clap for him. His Scootaloos did as well, and he handed the violin back to the player it was meant for before stepping down from the stage.

“Maurice.”

Maurice’s eyes turned sharply toward Morgana. Upon seeing her, he smiled broadly- -but only with his mouth. His freshly transplanted eyes showed no signs of levity or enjoyment, only tiredness.

“Hello there,” he said, stepping toward Morgana as the remainder of the crowd dispersed. “I don’t believe we’ve met.” One of his Scootaloos giggled, as if to punctuate the point that he was obviously lying.

“I didn’t know you played.”

“My mother insisted I learn, back when I was a kid. It’s harder now.” He held up his hands. They were both different sizes and skin-tones, and the finger he had lost before had been replaced with a fresh one. The surgical delineation at its base was still fresh. “But that’s only the second time I’ve ever played that song. I played it the day she died. Do you know what from?”

“Tuberculosis. Age twenty-four.”

“You know me well, don’t you?”

“I know what I need to know.”

“But not that I play violin. So not everything.” He sighed and threw his head back for a moment, before laughing and leaning forward. This laugh was genuine, but sardonic. “And I’m sure you know who I am, don’t you?”

Morgana did not know where he was going with this, but she stayed silent, instead electing to slowly shake her head.

Maurice laughed again. “Today? Today I’m Nero. Playing the fiddle on the hill as Rome burns. One last party, one last look at the life I should have had if I hadn’t been an idiot.” He walked to a large chair and sat down. The least-dressed of his Scootaloo’s jumped onto the chair with him, while the only one of them that wore a suit stayed at his side on the floor. “Because it’s all over. It’s all burning in Hell. And it’s all my fault, isn’t it?”

“You’re going to have to forgive me if I don’t understand. I’ve been dealing with…things.”

Maurice leaned forward and put his head in his hand, looking down at the floor. “It’s funny. Do you know why I did it? Don’t answer. You already know. Peace. That’s why I did it. Peace and love. And I had it. I almost had it all. Peace between the dark vassals, the criminal underworld.”

“There has been peace. For the last hundred years.”

“Because I was here. Because of the blood, sweat, tears, and flesh I put into this city. Rising to the top, taking command.” He shook his head. “You have no idea how many Scootaloo’s I’ve lost…” The Scootaloo’s at his side sensed his depression and hugged him, attempting to make him feel better. He smiled and put his arms around their largely naked bodies. “But it’s all over now. The underworld is burning. The war is back on, and I can’t put it back this time.”

“The gang war? You mean there’s over fighting?”

Maurice nodded solemnly. “There is.”

“That could tear the city apart. Aetna-Cross hasn’t had to deal with all-out turf ward in ages…and I would bet my horn that almost all of them are spread thin looking for a certain violet pony.”

“Yeah. I know. They’ve really got their hands full, don’t they? They already let it go too far. Too hot, too fast. Too late. But it’s not really their fault. I should have seen this coming. But I was an idiot. Me. Maurice. King of Scootaloos. And they bent me over and rammed me like a cheap whore…”

“You mean the Cult of Humanity.”

Maurice looked up suddenly, his eyes narrow and fiery. “So you know.”

“You put me on the right track. I hope that isn’t why they turned on you.”

“It is. But it also isn’t, isn’t it? Because that whore would have turned on me anyway. They were waiting. Planning. And I danced to their tune until they decided to burn it all to shit.”

“What do you know about them?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. I didn’t even know that was what they called themselves. ‘Cult of Humanity’. That’s a stupid name. But if their a cult…that makes sense. A bunch of freaks…”

“If you don’t even know their name, why did you work with them?”

“Because names aren’t strictly required in my business. Trust is. But I broke my own rules on that one and screwed myself. Their offer was too tempting.”

“What did they promise you?”

“I already told you. Peace. To finish what I started. Uniting the gangs.”

“Under yourself.”

“Who else? Nobody else is as old as I am…or will live as long. Or would have. So yes. To unite all the city’s crime under me- -and to declare myself a vassal.”

“They lied, then, didn’t they?”

“Of course they lied!” shouted Maurice. “Look at what they did to me!” His voice dropped, and he leaned forward. “Look, Morgana. You’re in deep shit. Deeper than you know. I’m already dead. One last party before everything I have is gone. But I’m going to be nice. One last warning. If they come to you? Don’t believe anything they say. Don’t make deals with them. Don’t trust them. Or you’ll end up like me.”

He leaned back and hugged his Scootaloos. He then set one on the ground. “Eight nine six, get us some champagne! Four glasses- -hell, just bring a bottle! I’m going to toast my own downfall and enjoy the hell out of it!”

Maurice laughed, and Morgana knew that she was not going to get any more out of him. He knew almost nothing; they had only used him as a puppet without revealing any of their true nature to him.

The crowd that had listened to him had mostly dispersed. Standing where it had been, though, was a Roxanne. She was speaking to a tall human. He was dressed in what appeared to be white and blue dress armor, complete with a sidearm. His face was exposed, and it was apparent that it had been ravaged by endless cosmetic surgery. The result made him look barely human- -his skin was nothing but a receding mass of scars tightly stretched across a repeatedly reconstructed skull. The cost of his surgeries had clearly been great, though, so by the standards of those around him he was immensely beautiful. He seemed to be quite aware of this; while he spoke, he stood tall and straight, occasionally sipping from a flute of champagne.

“Darling,” said Roxanne, pivoting toward Morgana. “Have you met Commander Nikolosov?”

“Please, please,” chuckled the man. “There is no need for formal titles, my lovely dear. Dimitri is more than adequate.” He turned toward Morgana. “Pleased to meet you, miss…?”
“Lily. Lily Twilight Sparkle.”

“Indeed.” The commander eyed Morgana somewhat suspiciously. “You may have heard that we are actually on the lookout for one of your kind.”

“And you think she would be here, at this party?” asked Roxanne.

Nikolosov laughed gracefully. “No, no my dear, of course not!”

“To be honest,” said Morgana, “it was something of a concern for me. Myself, as well as my six sisters. And mother. All Twilight Sparkles. We are quite aware of your search for this…criminal.”

“And you’re worried about profiling. A more than legitimate concern, I’m sure.” Nikolosov’s eyes narrowed. “What did you say your name was? I’ve attended the Bottlebrush galas since their inception, and I’ve never met you.”

“Lily is adequate. My family works in antiques. The sort of very high-end antiques that favor merchants having reclusive personalities. I was born six months ago. I apparently do not share my sisters’ or mother’s aversion to proper social behavior.”

“Of course, of course. Sometimes I forget how different you ponies can be from one another.”

Roxanne smiled her best smile, one that Morgana knew well as the kind she used for customer service. “Dimitri and I were actually just talking about that beautiful violin song. He’s really knowledgeable.”

“Yes,” said Morgana. “And you are aware of who it was playing it, weren’t you?”

Nikolosov smiled, or at least tried to, as he did not have lips. He raised his glass toward where Maurice was sitting. “Of course! A beautiful swan-song for organized crime in this city!”

“It’s just surprising seeing Maurice Shooker and the commander of Aetna-Cross’s primary Enforcement precinct at the same party.”

“Why wouldn’t we be?” Nikolosov looked surprised by Morgana’s assertion. “We’re from the same status in society. Myself by heritage, him by effort. Which puts me higher, I suppose. But we of course need to be civil. Bickering over professional differences will not do.”

“And yet you toast his downfall.”

“Of course. I’m still an officer of the law. It’s just that that sort of crime…well, you can’t handle it through the normal ways. It’s complicated. I don’t want to bore you with the details.”

“What you mean is that Enforcement is political.”

Nikolosov’s expression hardened slightly. “Enforcement is a division of the Corporation. Corporations are inherently political, yes. If law could be enforced evenly, there would still be courts.”

Roxanne broke into the conversation. “Come on now, you two don’t need to fight! Unless it’s over me.” She giggled to herself. “I mean, that would make sense.”

Nikkolosov smiled again. “To be honest I would almost consider it. You clearly have an eye for design. Do you dance?”

“Why yes. Are you asking me to the floor?”

“Once the band starts, I will indeed. That is, if your date does not mind.”

Morgana was about to protest, but Roxanne interrupted her. “But while we’re waiting, there’s something that’s bothering me.”

“Oh? What exactly?”

“Well it’s just that you’re the commander of Enforcement, right?”

“I am.”

“Alright. Well, just having you here makes me feel so much better…but this place uses private security. I was kind of hoping I would see some of your soldiers guarding us. I mean, after talking with you, I’m sure under your guidance your troops would be so much superior to these guys. And I don’t think you all alone displays just how powerful you really are.”

“Of course, of course,” chuckled Nikolosov. “But I can’t flaunt my power everywhere, now can I? I would hate to embarrass the others. No. Bottlebrush employs private security, and that’s their prerogative. I suppose it makes some of the guests feel at ease.”

“It doesn’t make me feel any better.” Roxanne brushed up against Nikolosov’s leg. “I’d feel so much safer if I had another ten of you here with me!”

“Unfortunately, I’m the only one of my kind. But one should be enough.” Nikolosov bent down and patted Roxanne’s back. “If you want to feel better, though, I do have a small detail nearby. Just in case.”

“That does make me feel a little better. And you’re so humble about it…”

Nikolosov patted her again and then stood up. “Indeed. Although nothing will happen. I’m sure of it.”

Morgana spoke. “Or did you just devote your troops to more productive endeavors?”

“Perceptive. To be positively candid, yes. You are right. We are devoting our full attention to capturing the criminal Morgana Twilight Sparkle, and ending her as quickly as possible.”

“Is she really that dangerous?” asked Roxanne. “I’ve heard stories! She sounds like a terrible, horrible person!”

“I cannot attest to her personality, but if the Corporation wants her eliminated then it is guaranteed that she is an extremely reprehensible individual. We are devoting our full effort to capturing her.”

“Because she’s dangerous?” asked Morgana.

“Of course.” Nikolosov paused. “And to demonstrate Aetna-Cross’s superiority over other vassals.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning our Enforcement is vastly superior to what other vassals possess. I’m sure you’ve heard that the order for her death is present throughout the continent. Many Corporations are seeking her- -but we will be the ones who find her.”

“And you’ll be the one who presents her processor and head to the unified boards personally.”

“Of course.”

“So heroic!” giggled Roxanne. “Like a knight with the head of a dragon!”

“I like that analogy. And like a knight, there is glory to be won here. And I intend to claim it. For Aetna-Cross, of course. Whatever it takes.”

Part IV, Chapter 7

When the conversation with Nikolosov was complete, Morgana and Roxanne left him together.

“I can’t believe you did that,” hissed Morgana.

“You can’t get information unless you talk to people,” snapped Roxanne.

“That’s what I mean. That was excellent work.”

Roxanne blinked, surprised. “Excuse me?”

“You really should have worked for me.”

Roxanne frowned, her surprise fading. “You already know why I can’t do that.”

“Yeah. I know.”

They were approaching the open bar. “Do you think he recognized you?”

“Hard to say. Probably not. I look identical to every other Twilight Sparkle.”

“Except that you don’t have wings.”

“True. But I think we’re clear.”

“Because the sticks’ shoved so far in he won’t break protocol in a place like this. He’d be humiliated.”

“Exactly.”

Roxanne chuckled. “Rich people are weird, aren’t they?”

“You have no idea. If I had a vod for every time I had to scrape one of them off the sidewalk…”

“You’d be able to buy your Blossomforth an engagement ring.”

Morgana stopped walking. “Roxanne, that isn’t- -”

“Relax. I know. But look at you. I shouldn’t be able to get to you that easily. Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

Morgana paused for a moment, and then sighed. “Yeah. This whole thing’s got me wound up tight.”

“Then let’s get it over with quickly.” Roxanne gestured with her head toward where the red-flowering trees were set up. “I’ll go over there. I’ll see what I can get from the people actually paying attention to the damn plants. They’ll probably know a little more than the showboaters.”

“I highly doubt it. Good luck, though.”

“Thanks.”

Roxanne departed. Morgana watched her go, her gaze momentarily lingering on Roxanne’s rear and her long, rainbow-colored tail. She was indeed attractive- -but entirely out of reach at this point. To her, at least. Lilium still had a substantial chance.

Now alone, Morgana approached the bar and sat down. Her back was facing the crowd, but due to her large eyes she was able to see mostly over her shoulders. It was still an uncomfortable position, but Roxanne was right. She needed to try to act as naturally as possible or she was either going to blow her cover or frighten off her contact.

A synth bartender walked up to her. His face was that of a human, but it was clear that he was residing in a repurposed body.“What can I get you, miss?”

“An empty shot glass.”

The synth, being a professional, obeyed immediately and without hesitation despite the strange request. He set the glass down and went to attend to other guests. When he was a good distance away, Morgana produced a flask from one of her suit-jacket pockets and filled the glass with a pale amber liquid.

As she drank the shot, she became aware of someone sitting down beside her. The smell of her was intense and disgusting, as though she had never bathed in her life. Morgana heard the sound of a bottle being slammed against the fine wood of the bar, and then watched as the woman beside her poured a clear liquor into a beer-sized glass before chugging the contents.

“FUCK!” she said as she finished it. “Fucking weak alcohol!”

She threw the half-empty vodka bottle onto the far side of the bar. The synth bartender flinched as it shattered, but did not speak. He instead went to get a broom.

Morgana looked at the mess. “That vodka is worth sixteen thousand vod a shot.”

“So many dollars for absolute shite. Pointless fluid.” She turned her face toward Morgana. Her eyes were obscured by a gray, opaque visor. “What are you drinking? It smells good.”

“Scotch. Diluted with benzene.”

“Benzene. Benzene is adequate alcohol.”

“It’s not alcohol,” said Morgana as she passed her flask to the woman. The woman seemed not to care; she took the flask and took several substantial gulps from it. As she did, Morgana got a good look at her hands. She only had four fingers on each hand.

“You know, they’re eating one of your kind over on the other side of the room.”

The woman put down the flask and slid it back to Morgana. “So?”

“That doesn’t bother you?”

“I’ve eaten my own kind. I’ve eaten their kind too. The only thing they bothered me is that they cooked him. Ruined the meat.”

“You like it raw?”

“I like it alive.”

The woman grinned, and Morgana saw that she had several rows of jagged but extremely sharp teeth. Morgana did not flinch. The woman seemed to take note of this, and the two of them sat in silence for a moment.

Finally, Morgana reached into her pocket and produced a cigarette. It lit as she removed it, and she took a breath through it.

“So,” she said. “You have her?”

The woman nodded. “We do. She’s inbound on your position as we speak.”

“ETA?”

“It depends on how she’s feeling. You’re a computer. You do the math.”

“I already have.” Morgana took a drag on her cigarette. “Do you have a name?”

“No. Not much point in having one in this line of work, is there?”

“Jane Doe it is then. Well, Jane Doe, would it surprise you to know this isn’t the first time I’ve seen you?”

“I’m already surprised you came here. But I’ve never approached you. It wasn’t my job.”

“Not in person, I mean. I saw your picture. You were on the Surface. One of my friends met you. Green pony, earth-style. Red hair. Was dying at the time.”

Jane Doe smiled. “I remember. I thought she was dead. It’s hard to tell with you horses. You smell the same either way. Not like humans. Not easy for me to see…”

“You left a witness.”

“Yes, but only one.”

Morgana paused, and then put out her cigarette and took a shot of scotch. “Right,” she said. “I know you were harvesting natural-born humans. What do you use them for?”

Jane Doe continued to grin. “No.”

“No?” Morgana turned her head slowly. “Don’t play with me. I came all the way out to this place because you called me. I’m not in the mood for games.”

“And do you think I like being in a room full of pretentious walking meat?”

“Then tell me what I want to know.”

Jane Doe picked up Morgana’s flask and drained the rest of it. “No,” she repeated. “I won’t. Because I can’t. Because I don’t know. Whatever it is, it’s technical.”

“But not so technical that you don’t understand it. I watched your kind evolve. Screaming mindlessness doesn’t preclude intelligence.”

Jane Doe frowned. “I’ve decided that I don’t like you.”

“I don’t care.”

The frown on Jane Doe’s face suddenly became a smile. She chuckled. It was an unpleasant, gravely sound. Despite her ability to mimic human speech reasonably well, her vocal organs were not well optimized for it. “I’ve worked in procurement, yes. As an escort. But they’re very particular. They like the heads removed in a certain way. They don’t like when you chew through the throat.”

“You keep saying ‘they’.”

“Is it the wrong word?”

“No. But it implies that you’re not one of them.”

“Do I look like one of them?” Jane Doe gestured to herself. She was wearing a long black coat and what appeared to be shoulder-length gloves. It was not remotely the sort of clothing that would be considered appropriate for this venue, but she did not seem to care- -and neither did those around her. Their response seemed to be to ignore her rather than reject her.

“I don’t know,” said Morgana. “I don’t know what ‘they’ look like. But judging by the fact that you can talk, I’m going to assume that ‘they’ made you.”

Jane Doe laughed suddenly. She gave up all pretense of sounding human; the noise that came from her was a ghastly hiss. “‘Made’? You think they ‘made’ me? No one made me. Except my father fucking my mother and my mother failing to stomp me to death when I finally came out. No genetic engineering. No cybernetics. I am natural-born. The Cult? They don’t make things like me. Or use us for anything except killing.”

“Then what exactly are you to them?”

“The same as the whining ghost. We are employees.”

“Then they sent a representative to deal with me. Fuck. That figures. They couldn’t even be bothered to talk to me themselves?”

Jane Doe shrugged. “They don’t really want to talk to you. I don’t mind. This place is boring for now.”

“Then why call me all the way here?”

Jane Doe looked through her visor. Although it covered her eyes, Morgana knew what they looked like. Staring at her: large, almost iridescent blue irises and vertical slits for pupils. “Because it isn’t really you she wanted to talk to.”

Across the room, Valla approached Elrod, who was standing at one of the food tables.

“Hey,” she said. “Have you seen this stuff?” She lifted up a thin glass that she was holding full of reddish liquid. “I think this is wine. Like, real, actual wine. Like in books.” She lifted the glass and took a sip. As soon as the red liquid touched her tongue, she very nearly spat the entire contents of the glass out on Elrod. “Oh fuck, that’s nasty! People drink this shit?!”

Elrod slowly turned away from the table where he was getting food. He looked up at Valla, and her body grew rigid when she saw his face. It was almost like hers, but his mouth was open- -revealing an unnatural number of long, sharp teeth. Valla had been sure that his dentition had been normal before, and had changed. Several long strips of meat were hanging from Elrod’s mouth, and when Valla looked at his plate she froze and felt incredibly sick. A four-fingered hand and part of a forearm lay on the fine china. Elrod was had been in the process of very aggressively devouring it when Valla had found him.

“What the fuck- -” Valla looked at the table nearby, and to her horror saw a naked and almost completely butchered human lying face-down. He was not only dead, but had been cooked and garnished. That was where Elrod had gotten the hand. “That- -that’s a person!”

Elrod looked at the table, and then at his plate. “Oh,” he said. “I guess it is.”

“You’re- -you’re eating a person!”

“So are they.” Elrod pointed at the other various rich people in the area, all of whom had small plates with portions of the butchered man on them. “It’s good. Do you want some?”

“That’s- -that’s cannibalism!”

Elrod shrugged. “Not for me.”

“You- -you don’t see anything wrong with this, do you?”

“No. My body requires nitrogen. I am fully capable of deaminating protein when I can’t find any fertilizer. My metabolism tolerates this.”

“That isn’t what I mean…” Valla put her head in her hands, not wanting to look at the human-shaped meat. To her horror, she realized that it really did smell delicious. “How the hell did I end up here…what the hell am I going to do?”

“You can have some meat,” suggested Elrod. He looked at the hand. “I wonder if my metabolism can handle bones…”

As Elrod contemplated this, Valla felt a tap against one of her legs. She looked down to see Roxanne standing beside her.

“Hey,” she said. “Having a good time?”

“Not exactly my kind of party.”

“Mine either. I mean, seriously. I don’t think I could be more uncomfortable.”

“You could be wearing transparent clothing,” suggested Elrod. He pointed at a pair of women in dresses made of transparent plastic. “Like them.”

“Eew.”

“Trust me, you would get used to it,” sighed Roxanne. “I’ve been to a LOT of naked parties. Still more fun than this.”

Valla winced, and then drained her entire glass of wine. “So,” she said when she was done. “Did you find anything?”

“Just a bunch of trees. They’re pretty, I guess, for plants. Flowers aren’t exactly my thing. Seems like I was the only one looking at them though.” Roxanne sighed. “I don’t like it much, but Jade would love this…”

“Would,” replied Valla. “But right now her brain’s so scrambled, she can’t even remember who she is. Let alone if she loves trees or hates them.”

“Wait,” said Elrod. “I thought the point of this whole thing was the flowers. Or did I miss something?”

“I don’t know what it’s for,” sighed Roxanne. “For all I know? Those people after Morgana are the ones who called it in the first place. I mean, why bother with all this?” She shook her head. “It’s just so stupid…but, you know, kind of fun.”

“I don’t see how.” Valla grabbed two glasses of wine from the tray of a passing waiter and started sipping from both of them, wincing at the disgusting taste as she did so.

“I feel like I’m a spy. Like in a movie or something.” Roxanne looked around and stepped closer to Valla and Elrod. “And, actually…I think I found something.”

“What?”

“All the people I talked to? None of them know who called this meeting.”

“I thought it was the Bottlebrush Society,” said Elrod, his mouth full of semi-human flesh.

“Yeah. But that’s the thing. Nobody knows who Bottlebrush is. Just that they make the plants. Not who funds them or anything, or where they’re actually out of.”

“Like a conspiracy?” asked Valla.

“Or they just never bothered to question it. To be honest? Most of these folks are really thick.”

“I didn’t notice,” said Elrod.

“Because you haven’t talked to anyone,” pointed out Valla. “Actually, you probably shouldn’t.”

“Why? He fits better here than either of us do.”

“I don’t understand…”

Roxanne tilted her head upward. “What about you, Val? Did you find anything out?”

“Not really,” she said. “But I’ve been watching the guards. I mean, I guess them and I kind of have the same job, you know? Except this place is way more tame. But they’re doing what I would do.” She pointed, still holding one of her mostly empty glasses of wine. “Look. They’ve gone up to the exits, and the robots have all taken higher areas with good lines of sight. So they can see everything, you know?”

“I didn’t notice,” said Roxanne. “To be honest I kind of forgot they’re around. They just sort of blend in.”

“I think they’re supposed to. But it freaks me out that there’s so damn many. I mean, have you seen a fight in here yet? Or even a hint that there might be one?”

“No,” said Roxanne. “And the tall humans can’t get drunk. It’s part of how they’re built.”

“Shit. That’s horrible.”

“You can’t get drunk either.”

“Not with this crap, no. I mean, what point does this even serve?”

“The murder of helpless grapes?” suggested Elrod.

No one laughed. Instead, Roxanne looked through the windows. “Right. Morgana told me not to try this, but…let’s see if I can remember how…” She closed her eyes and focused, picking up the end of a technomancer thread. Roxanne’s central processor was not optimized for computer work, and the process was difficult until a second consciousness took up the other side of the transmission.

“This is Lilium. Hello Roxy.”

“Roxy!” laughed Valla. “Damn! You two really did it, didn’t you?”

Roxanne did not blush, but she was sure that Lilium was.

“Oh. Valla. Hi,” said Lilium, transmitting through the computers in Valla’s brain. “I didn’t know Roxy- -I mean Roxanne linked you. And for reference, please try to speak with your mouth closed. Otherwise it looks like you’re talking to yourself.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that?!”

“Just let me handle it,” said Roxanne, speaking telepathically. “You can see us?”

“I can see everything,” replied Lilium. “The Librarian eyes are really good with this visor.”

“What’s our situation?”

“The building is six hundred by four hundred eighty meters in dimension. At present, I’ve spotted one hundred eighty-seven humans, twenty-three ponies including yourself and Morgana, eight synths, sixty security drones, and thirty-eight mercenaries. A few of them might be zooneii…”

“That’s a lot of security,” noted Valla.

“Again. Please talk with your mouth closed.”

“I don’t know how to do that!”

“Then just stay quiet,” ordered Roxanne. “Lilium. Anything else?”

“The windows are bulletproof. Forth says she has some bullets that can get through, but not a lot. I can’t get in contact with Lynnette, so I don’t know what she has.”

“Damn it. I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Neither do I. But it’s the way things are, so we just have to deal with it for now.”

“And anything unusual?”

“No. I’ve cross-referenced most of the people there. They’re all pretty public figures. But I don’t know what I’m supposed to look for.”

“Me neither.” Roxanne looked around the room. “Where is Morgana?”

“My guess would be the bar,” said Lilium. “It’s close to the center, but kind of obscure, so I can’t see it. I actually can’t see you right now either.”

“Damn it…I like that even less. Do you have a map or something?”

“I have a predicted floorplan.”

“Use that. Guide me over there.”

“I can do that. But first, you need to talk to Elrod.”

“Why?”

“Because he can’t hear us talking. He’s probably so confused right now.”

Roxanna and Valla looked at each other, and then at where Elrod had been before- -only to find that he had vanished.

Part IV, Chapter 8

The conversation had grown strange. Elrod had grown confused by it. This was something he had come to expect. Little of the world around him made sense anymore. His mind had not been structured to comprehend the intricacies of society or conspiracies, or why Valla seemed to be talking to no one in particular and Roxanne was standing perfectly still with a darkening expression on her face.

So, he had grown bored. Deciding that he was no longer required for whatever they were doing- -if he was ever required for anything at all- -Elrod wandered off. No one seemed to notice, and none of those around him seemed to care. They did not approach him, nor he them; he passed like a ghost amongst them. They were human, and he was not, yet they did not seem to know the difference. In many ways, this was the state that Elrod had lived his entire life in: appearing human, attempting to mimic them at every turn, but never really bothering to become quite like them either.

The people did not concern him, and the flowering trees were only of marginal interest. Instead, he walked to one of the large windows and looked out at the vastness of the city below. It seemed so very large to him, and yet so small compared to endless horizons of Idaho where he was grown. At the same time, it somehow felt so much lonelier. Elrod found himself searching the tops of the buildings, trying to see where Forth might be and wondering if she might see him in turn.

“Perhaps she would like Idaho…” he mused to himself.

“Perhaps,” said a voice beside him. “Even though there is no chance of you ever returning alive.”

A pony had approached Elrod as he stood gazing through the glass. He had noticed her, but only tangentially. He had assumed she would ignore her as the others did, simply because that was the way the world was meant to work.

Elrod looked down, and suddenly the entirety of the unfolding events seemed much clearer. The pony standing beside him was a Lyra unit. Her clothing was strange but not fully outlandish: she had prepared for the occasion by donning black garments that were something of a hybrid between socks and boots. They reached to her shoulders and hips. The rest of her was bare, save for a high black collar that covered her neck. A silver disk had been ingrained in the center. An image had been engraved into it.

The Lyra pony seemed to notice Elrod staring at the silver brooch. She seemed somewhat disappointed by it. “Of all the things you could be looking at,” she mused. “Why my brooch?”

“What else would I look at?”

The Lyra sighed. “I suppose I can’t expect you to understand, can I?”

“Understand what?”

She smiled and shook her head. She gestured to the brooch with one of her covered hooves. “It’s a diagram of the Vitruvian Man,” she explained. “It was sketched by Leonardo da Vinci, but it was based on notes by Vitruvius over a thousand years earlier. But I suppose a thousand years isn’t really all that long, is it?” Her large deep-amber eyes turned upward toward Elrod. “Vitruvius, and da Vinci. In their own way, they were trying to find a way to create the perfect human. As I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, it’s a goal that I also share, even if I’m as far from da Vinci as he was from Vitruvius.”

Elrod stared at her, and she smiled back at him. It was not the normal smile of a pony. Something about her was different. Elrod could smell it, but not consciously recognize what the difference was. Only that it was there.

“You’re the Cult of Humanity.”

“Well, not the whole thing, no. Our accomplishments take the effort of a great many.” She paused, her brow furrowing. She put her hoof to her chin and looked out the window. “I suppose you could think of me as our public relations officer.”

“Then why are you talking to me? You need to find Morgana. She’s looking for you.”

“I know where she is. I’ve had an associate meet her. I think they’ll be amenable. I believe they could even be friends if they were both anyone else.”

This confused Elrod even more. “But I can’t help you. Morgana- -”

“Morgana Twilight Sparkle has proved to be an invaluable tool. And yes. You are entirely inconsequential. But I like you better. Hence why I brought you here. Please, come with me. Let’s talk.”

Elrod did not know what else to do. He followed her. Her walk was graceful and precise, and she had a tendency to flick her tail just slightly from side to side as she moved. Yet, despite being nearly nude, none of the other partygoers seemed to notice her. They stood in their own groups, laughing and talking about things that Elrod did not understand, and he and the Lyra moved without impedance or difficulty.

She brought him to one corner of the venue, an area near a central wall that consisted of a large bench between two especially large Callistemon trees in full bloom. Waiting for them was a trio of ponies. Each of them were Lyra units, but they looked different from the first. Their skin was hairless and smooth, and all of them wore black suits over boots that seemed to be identical to those of the first. All three of them wore thick, dark glasses.

“Who are they?”

“I would think you would have figured that out by now. Associates. Think of them like bodyguards. I’m more complete than they are, but not nearly as hearty.” She waved her hoof to them, and they nodded. The trio separated, with one walking off to maintain a perimeter while the others took locations next to the pots that supported the red-flowering trees.

“Sit.”

Elrod did so. The bench was surprisingly soft, and Elrod felt himself sink into it slightly. The Lyra jumped up onto it as well, momentarily sitting in a strange manner that made her almost seem like a grotesquely deformed human. Then, instead of holding that position, she leaned against Elrod’s side. She was warm and smelled like mint.

“Why are you touching me?”

“Because you can’t really do anything to stop me, now can you?” She looked up at him with her large orange eyes. “Look at me,” she said, extending one of her booted rear legs. “I dressed this way because I knew you would be here. Do you not like what you see?”

“Why would I?”

The Lyra groaned softly. “Did you know that I’m not wearing any panties right now?”

“Yes. I was aware of that.”

“So you were looking, then.”

“Also yes.”

“And, if you had the opportunity, would you let me take you to one of the private rooms? I’m soft and adorable. We could…well, you know. I could give you a private pony ride.”

“No. I don’t think I could. You know that.”

“That your species doesn’t have genitals. Yes. It’s horribly unfortunate. I would have liked to know what it felt like. But you can at least look and appreciate me, can’t you?”

“I don’t know how.”

The Lyra held onto Elrod tighter. “It’s too bad, really.”

“For you. You want me to find you attractive so you can manipulate me.”

“Ah.” The Lyra chuckled. “You’ve been learning. I wasn’t sure it was possible for agromorphs. But Morgana’s been teaching you.”

“Maybe. Or I just don’t like being manipulated.”

“And I never claimed I was going to manipulate you. Only that I wanted you to manipulate me, so to speak. Or would have offered you the chance.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

“Correct again, Elrod, correct again. But there’s no reason why I would want to manipulate you. You, personally, serve no purpose here. I spoke with you once before, remember? I warned you what would happen if you stayed with her.”

“That I would die.”

“That she would kill you. I told you to separate, and that there might be still a chance. Because I will be sad when you die. And you will die. It’s too late. You’re in too deep, and you’ve come too far. I’m afraid there’s no way out at this point.”

Elrod tightened. “So you brought me here to kill me.”

“No. I’m not going to be the one to kill you. She will. And at this point, that’s the invariable outcome for all this.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Clearly, or you would have saved yourself by now.”

Elrod turned to her sharply. “Did you bring me here just to predict my doom?”

“No. I have other more substantial reasons for being here.”

A waiter approached them. He was thin and pale, wearing makeup to cover substantial bruising around one eye. His motions were precise and strong, but Elrod still sensed a level of weakness in him, like some pitiful wounded creature. The waiter held out a tray of champagne glasses.

“Champagne, madam?”

“Why of course!” The Lyra sat up and took one of the glasses gingerly in her hoof. “Would you like some, Elrod? This vintage is almost as old as I am.”

“It’s made from grapes. I don’t eat plant-based foods. It’s not ethical.”

The Lyra smiled, being intrigued by this sentiment. “Indeed. Well. Waiter, before you go.” She motioned toward one of her security Lyras. The unicorn approached the waiter and presented him and opened her coat. She produced a red velvet sack tied with gold string, and opened it with her teeth. Elrod saw that it contained a number of small objects inside that resembled flattened, coin-sized cylinders.

“Madame?” asked the waiter.

“A personal gift. From me to all of the guests here, for their generous support in our shared mission. Please be sure that every person gets one. I assure you, they are quite valuable.”

She reached into the sack and removed one. Elrod could see its surface glimmering with delicate lines of inlaid silver. Elrod immediately recognized the elemental residues of the surface alloy; it was indeed worth a tremendous sum.

The waiter seemed to realize this too. He took the small bag and placed it on his tray, then bowed. “I am sure they will be greatly pleased for your gracious generosity,” he said.

“I’m sure they will.” The waiter departed, and the Lyra smiled. “Here,” she said, passing the token she had kept to Elrod. “You can keep this if you want. Although it won’t have the same meaning to you as it will to humans.”

Elrod took the object. It resembled a large, thick coin, but when he took it he realized instantly that it was oddly heavy. In fact, it was far heavier than any substance he was familiar with.

“It weighs a lot.”

“It does.”

“Why?”

“There are technical reasons. I don’t think you’d care to know them, and I certainly wouldn’t care to tell them. I can have so many much more interesting conversations with you before it’s time for the party to end.”

“Really? Like what?”

“You are not human.”

Elrod nodded slowly. “Yes. We’ve established that.”

“But it gives you a unique perspective. And I’m a naturally curious person.”

“Curious about what, exactly?”

The Lyra set her champagne on the rim surrounding one of the nearby pair of Callistemons. She then leaned her head against Elrod’s shoulder. “Look out there,” she said.

Elrod followed her gaze. He looked out at the floor. From where they were sitting, he had an almost perfect view of the entire party, and everyone in it.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I see a party. I see humans. Lots of them.”

“Exactly. And what are your thoughts on humans, exactly?”

Elrod thought for a moment. “I am ambivalent.”

“Ambivalent?” This seemed to amuse the Lyra unit greatly. “Interesting. You are aware that it was humans who slaughtered your kind. Humans that ran Monsanto.”

“And humans who created me. But I don’t know what you want me to say. I just don’t care. I don’t mind them, but they don’t serve any purpose. They’re just sort of…there. And sometimes in my way.”

“Hmm…I find your apathy fascinating, but borderline offensive.”

“Then how do you see them?

“Me?”

“You are also not human, aren’t you?”

The Lyra did not answer. Instead, she sat up and looked out at the crowd for a moment, clearly contemplating her answer. “What I see is a paradox.”

“A paradox?”

The Lyra nodded. “Look at the tall ones.” She pointed, and Elrod looked. He saw several of them in a group: two women in transparent cloaks, and a man in green discussing something over glasses of wine that cost more than most people would see in a lifetime.

“Do you mean economically?”

“No. Economics is no longer relevant to the world. Socialism is as dead as capitalism, and feudalism is entering its twilight as we speak. No. I mean biologically.”

“Really?” Elrod felt somewhat interested for once. “That is something I might like to hear.”

The Lyra smiled. “I thought you would. Morgana would never have listened to me. But you might.” She faced the humans of the party. “The tall ones. There isn’t really a term for them. But they are arguably genetically perfect.”

“I am familiar with the techniques used to make them, and some of the modifications.”

“Then you know more than most. Even them, because they don’t care. Near continuous genetic modification to breed a master race of humans. They don’t get sick. They don’t age. They are immune to toxins, to failure of mental health. Tall, strong, and beautiful. And most importantly equipped to generate children. A new breed of superhuman.”

“But there are no children here.”

“No. There are no children anywhere. Or very few. That’s the paradox. Or part of it. Genetically ‘perfect’ humans, content to be the only ones of their kind. To not bother with the expense of making more of them, except perhaps one or two heirs and a batch of hobbled servants. Most of them have themselves sterilized in the first two years of life.”

“It’s their choice. If they want to reproduce or not.”

“It is. And it’s probably for the best. Because the problem goes deeper than that.”

“Deeper?”

The Lyra nodded. “When was the last time one of them did anything worthy? Don’t answer, I know you don’t know what I mean. Let me put it a different way. When was the last time their kind produced a brilliant painter, or a writer of symphonies? A philosopher, or a scientist to rival van der Kriegstein?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know them.”

“But I do. Because we have watched. For a long time. To make sure what we’re trying to do is right.”

“Is it?”

“I can only hope. But the current model has failed. That’s the problem with controlled evolution. It can fail. Badly. Everything that gave humanity worth has been forced out of them. Yes, they can run a business effectively and perform managerial functions, but at this point they’re no different from AIs. Their minds have been sterilized and reconstructed to be ‘perfect’. And their souls along with them.”

“And yet they’re here. So they’re rich. Which means they are doing something right.”

The Lyra laughed softly. “I never took you for such a Darwinist. But business acumen or the ability to inherit does not make a strong species. It’s not just them. It’s systemic. These humans, here, wasting their lives on endless parties. The lower phases devoting themselves to celibate lives in virtual paradise. An underclass of mixed-heritage manufactured humans who can’t even breed on their own.”

The Lyra pointed. Elrod followed her hoof and saw the bar in the distance. Morgana was sitting at it, next to a woman in black. Even from a distance, Elrod was conscious that her body was not normal.

“How long?” asked the Lyra unit. “In a competition between us and them, how long do you think humanity would last against beings like her? Without the factories, without doctors and scientists to sort out the extra chromosomes or to fix the new and better diseases that develop every year? How long before uncontrolled evolution leaves this planet a smoldering wreck and humanity a forgotten dream?”

“Then what about them?” Elrod pointed to a meek, balding man with squinty eyes who was walking past, followed by an entourage of transparent-clad superwomen following him.

“Ah.” A smile crossed the Lyra’s face. “The natural-borns. That’s another paradox all its own. Your kind are carnivorous, no? Predators? You can smell weakness.”

“More like scavengers, when necessary,” lied Elrod. “And only when necessary.”

“I see. That makes me feel a little better. You’re not like the nhumi, then. A little bit more civilized. But a little bit less useful, too.”

“Sorry I couldn’t help.”

“There’s no need to apologize. I was just trying to make a point. You can see them, but you can’t see what’s inside them. Cancer. Infection. Heart failure. Autoimmune disease. Aging. Obesity. Failure. Most of them are sick. And those that aren’t…only one in four thousand is adequate, just from a technical perspective.” She sighed. “A normal human has a lifespan of at least one hundred and eighty years. A natural-born can generally expect less than sixty. Even lower if they’re poor. They just can’t tolerate this planet.”

“But you said evolution was a threat to humanity.”

“Only when uncontrolled. When it lets the planet decide what it wants.”

“But trying to control it made the bad humans. You didn’t like them either.”

“And that’s the crux of it! Look at them! Natural-born humans born into sickness and death, and synthetic humans with their aspect of humanity ripped away. Both are different, and yet both are the same. Both are INCOMPLETE.”

She stood up suddenly and took several steps away from the bench. Elrod stood as well, but did not approach her. Something was wrong. Her eyes had grown fiery, and the grin on her face seemed to have hardened.

Then, suddenly, the Lyra turned toward him and smiled. “You have to understand. Please understand, before you die, if you can. I don’t hate them. I can’t hate them. But I do pity them. It’s my purpose, isn’t it?”

“What is?’

The Lyra unit laughed softly. In her own way, she was intensely beautiful- -and yet by some imperceptible way, still incorrect. As Elrod watched her, trying to discern why, he saw the groove of her pale green horn spark with orange light. To his right, and equivalently colored frame of light etched itself around her champagne glass. There was a hiss as the energy touched the glass, and then it levitated toward her. She took a sip from it and smiled, staring Elrod directly in the eyes.

“The Cult of Humanity,” she said. “Shepherds and guardians. Lovers of humanity as a whole, and everything that comes with it. Protectors of true humans. Our only goal is to safeguard the future of the human race. Even if that means purging our previous failures.”

Elrod did his best to understand, but found that he could not. The fate of humanity just mattered too little of him, and he found he had no empathy to give to them. Yet, somehow, he found himself afraid. The things she told him made him wonder if he really was about to die.

That was when the explosions went off. Elrod was knocked backward as the metallic token he had been given forward expanded into a plume of aerogel crystal that swallowed his body, impaling him on sharp crystalline spikes and tearing his body apart as it expanded to hundreds of thousands of times its original volume.

The room was suddenly filled with screams of agony. Elrod looked out to see that his was not the only one that had erupted with pale gray crystal: the entire floor was splattered with blood and immense mounds of crystal. Any human who had even been near one of the small metal devices had been ripped to shreds. Most were impaled, but a few had been torn in half. Most of them were still alive. Their genetic enhancements would not let them die so easily.

Elrod turned his head toward the Lyra, and she looked up at him, grinning. Elrod suddenly understood what the purpose of this party was for, and who had called it. She intended to kill them all.

Across the room, Morgana heard the explosions as well. She turned her head sharply and saw plumes of aerogel crystals erupting from numerous sources. The world seemed to slow as she took in the information. Someone was using an extremely advanced, unconventional weapon. By the random placement of the explosions, they were not placed her beforehand. Somebody was attacking from within.

Jane Doe stood. Her smile grew wide, revealing the full extent of her teeth. She tore off her visor and turned around to face the room.

“Alright!” she cried. “It’s time to fuck some assholes!”

She threw open her black coat and discarded it, revealing the fact that she was completely naked underneath save for a complex arrangement of black tattoos that covered much of her body and both of her arms in their entirety.

The synth bartender responded immediately. He bent down below the bar and removed a .45 rifle.

“Hey!” cried Morgana.

Jane Doe turned as the synth fired. She raised one of her arms, and her tattoos shifted, crawling across her body to localize and harden into armor where the bullet struck her. It was deflected with a loud metallic ping. Before the synth could fire, Jane Doe was already on top of him, sinking her teeth into his neck. He managed to fire one more bullet, but it went wide and hit a bystander in the chest. Blood spurted everywhere.

“Fuck me! FUCK ME HARDER!” Jane Doe screamed as she turned around, almost pulling the synth’s head free of his body as she did so. More security came, and Morgana ducked below the bar. Jane Doe did not. The tattoos- -or what Morgana had initially taken for tattoos- -spread across her body, hardening into thin black armor that left nothing exposed save her hair. When the security drones opened fire, the bullets ricocheted off of her body. She charged with a scream and without the slightest hesitation. The black substance that covered her body forced itself forward past her hand, and she impaled the nearest living security officer in the chest with it. With her free arm, she tore off his, taking control of his weapon and unloading into anything that moved. A security drone staggered back, and two partygoers fell.

Morgana did not look, because it did not concern her. She took this as a distraction. With the barkeep dead and with security otherwise engaged, she crawled away.

“Lilium!” she screamed through her telepathic link. “Status! NOW!”

There was no pain. Elrod was increasingly becoming aware of the fact that he was not capable of it. He had no nervous system. The Lyra who now stood before him had known this, and she watched as he pulled himself free of the crystals that penetrated his body. White starch poured on the floor, but its loss was of little consequence. The instant Elrod was disconnected, his body began to regenerate.

“That won’t kill me.”

“Of course not. I didn’t intend it to.”

Gunfire erupted from across the room, and suddenly from across the entire room. More screams followed. The Lyra unit suddenly rolled on her side, ducking out of the way as one of the windows behind Elrod cracked and tore. A bullet had gone through it, and it struck the tile where the Lyra had just been, sending sparks of igniting uranium as it hit.

The two Lyra guards stepped forward. Their bodies seemed to distort, and then shifted. Their clothing was torn to shreds as they unfolded from within, their pony limbs separating and expanding as they stood on their rear legs. They drew themselves up, and Elrod knew them. They were the same creates that had tried to kill him so long ago.

This time, though, they ignored him completely. One threw itself over its smaller comrade. Bullets clanged off its body without leaving so much as a scratch. The other drew a rifle that Elrod could not recognize or even describe. Its shape was not consistent, but rather seemed to change as the Lyra wielded it.

“YOU!” screamed a voice from across the floor. Elrod turned to see a hulking security mercenary pointing, not at him but at the Lyra that had not transformed. “There she is! Get her! KILL THEM N- -”

One of the Lyra’s fired. Despite the man- -or rather ovoid ram, as the entrails he produced demonstrated- -was liquefied by the blast as one of the anthro-Lyra’s targeted him and fired. Security, however, had already been alerted. They turned their full force against the Lyra’s, shredding anyone who got in their way. Elrod began to wonder if both parties had not intended this as some kind of trap for each other.

Several large-caliber bullets passed through Elrod’s body. The pair of trees that he and the Lyra had sat between before were blown apart. Both he and the small Lyra jumped to cover, although on either side.

The battle was completely one-sided. The Lyra’s were vastly outnumbered, but from Elrod’s perspective they seemed to be nearly indestructible. Whatever weapons used against them at best were able to slow them down, while their own ammunition was able to eliminate virtually anything they chose to- -which, from Elrod’s perspective, was anything that was not a natural-born human. Elrod saw several of those running, and out of his peripheral vision saw the third anthro-Lyra tracking them down. From the screams he heard, he knew that they were not surviving either.

Only the one that had remained a pony did not fight. She remained in cover, sitting quietly and waiting. The others seemed to serve her, protecting her and keeping her from harm. Elrod, however, was not so lucky. He did not intend to die- -so he reached deep into his chest, pushing apart tissue until he felt his hand grasping the handle of his .700 pistol.

Suddenly, one of the guests burst through the crowd. Elrod paused and watched as a man with barely any face and armored in white drew a sword. It erupted with flaming plasma, and with a cry he charged one of the Lyras. He was surprisingly fast, and her back had turned. She attempted to block with her rifle, and the plasma-charged weapon cut through it with ease before gouging a deep hole in her shoulder armor. She was forced back, and the man changed his stance to prepare for a lethal thrust. The Lyra, however, raised her hand, and several circles and complex shapes of luminescent energy formed around it. She directed her fist at the man’s chest, and a strange ringing sound filled the air as the man’s torso was reduced to a cloud of red mist. As he fell to his knees, the Lyra flattened her hand and smashed it through his head.

“Trench!” hissed a voice.

Elrod yelped and turned, attempting to draw his gun. It was blocked by a violet hoof, though, and he found himself staring at Morgana.

“It’s bad out there,” he said, his voice rising several octaves.

“No shit. I have Lilium transmitting right now. The whole place is a shitshow. They’re killing everyone.”

“Who? Which side?”

“There aren’t sides, goddamn it! Stop asking stupid questions unless you want to get served au gratin!”

One of the security drones suddenly loomed over Morgana. Elrod raised his pistol and fired. The recoil nearly knocked it out of his hands and threw him against the floor, but he shot it in the neck, causing its head to slump forward. The drone, however, was largely undamaged. It raised a clawed hand- - only to be taken down by a bullet from outside.

Morgana barely managed to get out of the drone’s way as it fell. “She doesn’t have many more AP rounds,” she said. “We have to get out of here! NOW!”

“What am I supposed to do?!”

“Draw their fire!”

Morgana pushed Elrod out of cover and into the battle. He was hit, but quickly realized that they were not targeting him directly. He was able to push forward with Morgana following him and Forth covering him from outside. The level of destruction around him was impressive. Corpses of mercenaries littered the ground, as well as the still-twitching hulks of the security robots. The attendees of the party lay amongst them, either in pools of their own blood or skewered on mountains of razor-sharp crystal. None had been spared. The tall humans lay next to the natural-borns, who had invariably been beheaded.

Elrod suddenly felt Morgana trip him, and he fell, landing behind one of two large refrigerated basins. Morgana swore loudly as a bullet struck her in the rear calf, but she managed to pull herself to cover. More bullets impacted the far side of the tank, but the insulation alloy that it contained was able to block them.

Lifting his head, Elrod saw a trail of sauce and the remnants of small hors-d’oeuvres leading to the body of a blue, white-haired unicorn. Her body was riddled with bullet holes and lay motionless, her dead eyes staring upward blankly. She had not even gotten four feet from the tank before they had killed her.

“Morgana!”

Elrod looked up and saw that Roxanne had taken cover behind the second tank.”

“Roxanne! Where’s Valla?”

“Over there!” Roxanne pointed across the room. “She took one of those damn crystals to the arm- -it’s almost a half-amputation, she’s trying to stop the bleeding!”

“Damn it…Lilium, exit options?!”

“There aren’t any!” screamed Roxanne. “They’ve closed us off!”

“Do your wings work?!”

“My- -goddamn it, Morgana, this isn’t the time- -”

“Do you WINGS WORK?!”

“NO! They’re just decorative! You know that!”

“Then we need to get Forth here for evac- -”

“We can’t break the windows,” said Elrod. “Look!”

He pointed upward toward one of the windows. It was filled with several tiny bullet holes and the minuscule spiderweb cracks that surrounded them, but otherwise was in no danger of shattering or breaking. To Elrod, this was a sign that the windows were unbreakable; Morgana, however, took note of the fact that this particular window was on the opposite side of the building from Forth and Lilium.

“They’re over there!” cried a voice from the other side of the ice bins. The fire on them intensified. A scream came from the tank that Roxanne was hiding behind, although it was cut of quickly. The bullets had penetrated the far side of the insulation, and the pony obediently hiding inside the box had been killed.

“Damn it,” muttered Twilight. She retracted the surface of her left hoof and checked the internal mechanism of her rifle. “Trench, bullets. Now.”

Elrod reached into himself and produced a chain of Grendel round. Morgana installed them expertly using her teeth. “We’re going to have to play this by ear. Lilium thinks the window on the far side is damaged enough that if Forth hits it with a 50mm we can break through. Maybe.”

“What the hell do you mean ‘maybe’?!” cried Roxanne.

“I mean we cut our way over, and see what we can do from there!”

Morgana leaned around the lower edge of the tank and opened fire. The boom of the bullets firing was nearly deafening, but they did nothing against the armor of the approaching mercenaries. This left Morgana at a grave disadvantage, and she wished that Lynnette had given her a proper weapon.

“Trench, you need to do something!”

“What can I do?” cried Elrod. “I can’t hit them at that range!”

“TRY, goddamn it!”

Elrod stood up, but was immediately shredded by bullets. His pistol dropped from his hands and clattered to the floor. Several bullet holes were clearly visible in its sides; it had been destroyed.

“Damn it, now what am I…”

Morgana was interrupted by a hideous scream, followed by the sound of something liquid falling against the floor. She interfaced with Lilium’s optics to get a better view. What she saw was as auspicious as it was gruesome. One of the leaders of the mercenary group approaching her had been gutted alive, and another had both of his legs shattered. The others were aiming at a black-clad, four-legged creature with long, greasy hair.

The other mercenaries screamed and tried to shoot, but each of them failed as Jane Doe continued to tear into them, laughing and screaming simultaneously as she did so. Morgana saw this as an opportunity.

“Move! NOW!”

She stood up and galloped forward. Elrod hesitated, but Roxanne did not. Elrod was left behind, while Morgana and Roxanne forced their way through the distracted crowd and toward their goal.

As they ran, Jane Doe seemed to take notice of them. She began to follow, moving swiftly on all fours. Morgana accelerated, and so did Roxanne, but Jane Doe did not. She was following, but not intending to overtake them.

Then, as they passed, Morgana saw Maurice. He was still in the same chair he had been sitting in before, and seemed entirely uninjured. On his lap, though, sat two Scootaloos who had not been so lucky. One of them was quite clearly dead, and the one wearing the suit- -Celia- -was gasping and tremoring as he gently petted her. Her entire lower body had been reduced to unrecognizable torn metal.

“Shh, shh,” he said. “It’s going to be okay. You got that? You’re going to be fine.”

“I’m sorry, master, I’m sorry…”

“Don’t apologize to me. Just hold on.”

Jane Doe approached him and turned her head, curious. Then she stood on her rear legs. The black armor that covered her body was skin-tight, and it was apparent that she was incredibly gaunt and that evolution had changed her proportions in a way that made her look far more divergent from her human lineage than she actually was.

“You,” said Maurice, looking up at her.

“Yes me,” she laughed. The mask over her face retracted. Her mouth was stained with blood, and strips of flesh- -both human and pony-colored- -hung from her pointed teeth. “Strange. This is something I thought you would enjoy.”

“If you thought that, you don’t know me very well, do you?” Maurice stood. “I’m tired of this. I’m just so fucking tired of you DISRUPTING MY STUFF.”

The one remaining whole Scootaloo looked up at him and nodded. Her back opened, unfolding outward. Maurice knelt down and lifted a weapon from inside her. As he lifted it, Morgana was passing. She saw its strange design and odd curves, and the distinct Chuukic script written on its side. Her eyes went wide as she realized what it was.

“MAURICE, NO!” she screamed. “NOT INDOORS!”

Maurice heard her, but only smiled. Then he pulled the trigger on the weapon.

Hundreds of projectiles fired at once, both from the end of the weapon and the sides. Each of them was a glowing sphere of intense green energy, and each traveled out in a straight line. Jane Doe was unable to dodge those headed in her direction, and two struck her in the right arm. Where the projectiles struck vaporized through her armor and flesh, and the broken limb fell to the floor. Jane Doe screamed and took one step back as her armor reconfigured itself, spreading into the wound and forward to generate a new, artificial arm in the place of the original. Then she leapt forward, driving her left hand through Maurice’s shoulder. His own right arm was severed, and it dropped to the floor with his weapon. He did not scream, however, but grinned smugly. He had long-since lost the capacity to feel pain.

The other projectiles continued outward, though, destroying everything in their path. Anything they touched was burned away. Security drones fell, as did mercenaries and civilians. The few Callistemon trees that had not been destroyed in the hail of bullets were torn away, their red stamens pouring out of them in crimson plumes.

That was not the extent of the weapon’s capacity, though. The spherical projectiles continued on to the windows and other hard surfaces, at which point they rebounded at various angles and returned back through the room, slaying anything and anyone that they had not already hit. Jane Doe was forced to dodge as the projectiles flew past Maurice, each of them calculating their trajectory to avoid hitting the man at their source.

“Holy shit!” cried Roxanne. Her speed and agility was adequate that she managed to dodge several of the green spheres, moving with what in any other circumstances would be considered breathtaking grace. She was not fast enough, though. One of the spheres hit the base of one of her wings, severing it completely.

Roxanne screamed wordlessly in horror as she looked at her back and saw the charred metal stump where it had been. The sight of it overwhelmed her, and she stopped dodging. Several more of the projectiles were still converging on her position, though.

Morgana jumped, throwing Roxanne to the ground and covering her with her body. The projectiles struck her instead, burning through her skin- -but detonating before they could do any real damage. Morgana had expected this might happen: MHI technology generally refused to destroy other MHI technology.

“My…my wing…oh God, my wing, Morgana, my wing- -”

“I see it! Leave it! We can get you a new one!”

“But my wing…it’s…it’s gone!”

Roxanne refused to move, and a shadow crossed over Twilight. She looked up to see herself staring into the pale orange eyes of a pony face- -on top of a gaunt mechanical body.

“You,” said Morgana.

“Indeed,” replied the anthro-Lyra, just before several of the projectiles converged on her. They tore through her body, leaving deep holes and spewing molten plastic from her armor onto Morgana and Roxanne. The Lyra then fell to her knees, and closed her eyes as her body was vaporized from within. She self-destructed, reducing herself to a residue of ash.

The remainder of the spheres passed around the room several more times before finally dissipating. The room had suddenly gone strangely quiet, with the only sound being the last of the security drones as they slumped forward. Somewhere in the room, Ioria had been hit and killed.

Then there was nothing. Morgana looked up to see that little was left, save for the bodies. Through Lilium’s eyes, she was able to see Valla behind her, leaning on Elrod. One of her arms was hanging on by a thin fragment of muscle, and one of her robotic rear legs was dragging behind her as she walked.

“Fuck…my fucking arm…”

“They can replace it,” said Elrod. “Don’t worry.”

Few others remained alive. A few mercenaries were twitching and gasping, their suits and cybernetics keeping them marginally alive. One of the tall humans was dragging her way across the floor, leaving a long trail of blood where her legs had once been. A few distant sobs could sometimes be heard breaking through the silence. Maurice, uninjured by his own weapon but now missing an arm, had sat back down and gone back to cradling Celia. Jane Doe seemed to have vanished.

Yet, across the room, a pony still stood. On one side of her was a still mostly whole anthro Lyra, and on the other the broken torso of one, still clutching her rifle and still able to aim. It was the one in the center that drew Morgana’s attention, though. She was dressed in black boots and a high collar, and holding one of her shoulders with one hoof. As she drew it away, Morgana saw that she had been struck by one of the projectiles. The wound was deep, and as the Lyra removed her hoof to look at it, Morgana saw that it was covered in blood. More flowed from the wound, staining the Lyra’s boot and gathering in a pool below her.

Morgana stared at the Lyra, and their eyes met. The Lyra smiled, and Morgana finally understood.

“Morgana!” cried Lilium, suddenly. “There’s a whole lot of soldiers converging on your position! Aetna-Cross!”

Morgana spoke both verbally and telepathically. “Is Forth to the window?”

“She’s on her way, but- -”

The locked doors to the floor suddenly exploded inward, and soldiers rushed in, opening fire without hesitating or even attempting to confirm their targets. Several bullets went through Elrod, and one struck Valla in the shoulder. She cried out as a disrupter arrow was shot into her lower body, neutralizing her robotics. She collapsed, bleeding heavily.

“No!” cried Elrod. He knelt down beside her and picked up a rifle.

“Agromorph! Agromorph!” cried one of the soldiers. “Switch rounds!”

They seamlessly switched ammunition to what both Morgana and Elrod knew to be herbicide rounds. One of them struck Elrod through the rifle, penetrating his right forearm. As it blackened, he tore his arm free and attempted to regenerate a new one. The soldiers advanced, and the first among them were cut down by sniper fire from outside.

“Sniper!”

The less armored among them ducked to cover, but the others advanced. Elrod looked down at Valla, who was alive but badly injured and unable to either walk or pull herself forward.

“Leave her!” ordered Morgana.

Elrod hesitated, but did so. Valla, in her blood-stained dress, looked up at him, and at Morgana, and then closed her eyes. She did not protest, but Morgana had seen it in her eyes. Morgana now had one less friend.

The two anthro-Lyra’s remaining opened fire. As they did, Jane Doe appeared at their side.

“It’s time to go,” she said.

“I agree,” said the one pony Lyra. She allowed Jane Dow to reach into her pocket and remove a large disk. Jane Doe then threw the disk against the window, and it silently shattered into dust. With one swift motion, Jane Doe then picked up the pony Lyra and leapt from the building.

The anthro-Lyra’s remained for a moment, and Morgana took advantage of the opportunity. She forced Roxanne forward, and Elrod followed them. When they reached the gap, Forth emerged from the darkness above, her wings buzzing wildly. “I can’t carry all three,” she said.

“Take Roxanne and Elrod,” ordered Morgana.

“But two- -”

“Just slow their descent!”

“What about you?” asked Roxanne. Her voice sounded distant; the trauma of what she had seen and experienced was starting to hit her.

“I can survive the impact, just go!”

Roxanne nodded, but refused to move until Elrod picked her up and leapt out the window into Forth’s arms. Forth had predicted her lift capacity accurately; she began to sink from the excessive weight.

Morgana turned around one last time. The two anthro-Lyra’s looked at her, and both smiled. Then their bodies began to glow from within, coinciding with a massive surge in bandwidth as they were both vaporized.

The Aetna-Cross soldiers began to advance, but as they did, Maurice stood up. The soldiers stopped. They knew who he was, and that for a long time they had not been meant to interfere with him, at least until recently. Morgana suddenly understood, and she took the chance. She leapt from the building.

As she fell, Maurice raised his one remaining hand over his head and smiled as the soldiers opened fire and he died in a hail of Aetna-Cross bullets.

Part IV, Chapter 9

Lilium dropped to the ground from one of the higher turns on an access stairwell. She felt the robotics in her legs absorb the drop, and as she peered into the darkness she found that she was still able to see. The room before her was part of a parking garage; vast columns sat on all sides, each holding stacks of cars hundreds high. The entire facility was intended to be robotic; cars were received and stored in this vast and dark warehouse, only to be moved and distributed mechanically without human intervention. No one would be here, and being one of many such facilities, Aetna-Cross would be slowed in their search- -assuming the death of their Enforcement’s leader had not crippled them entirely.

“Morgana,” she said.

“I’m here,” said Morgana, communicating mentally.

“I have confirmation. They took Valla.”

“I know, Lilium, I know. There wasn’t anything I could do about it.”

“Yes there was,” said Lilium, her voice almost too harsh. “But that doesn’t matter now. Do you know my location?”

“We’re almost there. If we can regroup before they do, we can get out of this level before they even know what’s going on.”

“A lot of people just died.” Lilium paused, feeling a lump in her throat. “I…watched a lot of people die.”

“Yes. The whole thing was a trap. But it wasn’t us that killed them. I think they wanted Aetna-Cross to know that.”

“That doesn’t change anything! Those people were still murdered, for what?”

“For nothing. It doesn’t matter. Their families will have new ones commissioned. They’ll be replaced within a few months. Except the naters. That’s a fucking massive hit to just about everything. The Cult has some balls. But it ends up in our favor.”

“Because it distracts from us.” Lilium shook her head. “Fuck. I hope I never get as cynical as you are. Those people didn’t deserve that. It doesn’t matter what you say.”

Morgana did not respond, and the garage fell silent, save for distant sounds of creaking metal. Lilium sat down and waited. She found herself patting the front of her cloak, and realized that she was looking for cigarettes. For some reason she wanted one, and badly.

Then the others came. They did not surprise her; she was tracking them as they entered: three pony reactors and one object with no ambient temperature that was roughly three one hundred forty kilograms in mass. Lilium felt her heart fall, not because of what she sensed but because of the lack of one human heartbeat. She had not known Valla well, but the loss of any friend, no matter how minor, affected her deeply.

They dropped to the concrete floor several meters away, and Lilium turned to them. Her eyes widened as Forth set Roxanne on the ground and she was able to see the extent of her injuries.

“Roxy!” she cried. She ran to Roxanne’s side. Roxanne looked at her and smiled weakly before trying to take a step. When she did, though, she tilted to one side. Lilium caught her.

“Ugh. I can’t…I can’t balance right…”

“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” Lilium looked at the gleam of metal that was exposed at the base of the wing, and at the frayed artificial muscle and blue skin. “It’s not that bad,” she said. “I mean…you still have one.”

“Lil…I know you’re trying to help, but you’re not. Thank you so much, but stop talking.”

“It goes deeper than that,” said Morgana. “It’s an aspect of her programming. Losing a wing for a Rainbow Dash is psychologically traumatizing. It would be like you having your horn snapped off.”

“Traumatizing?”

“Fuck you, Morgana.” Roxanne shifted, standing on her own. “I’m not ‘traumatized’. Do you know how many people I had to fuck to afford that wing? I’m pissed. But that doesn’t even matter.”

“Roxanne, don’t- -”

Roxanne punched Morgana in the jaw. Morgana’s head barely twisted; she was vastly stronger than Roxanne. “You bitch! I would have given up both wings if we could have had Valla back! You left her!”

“Do you think I had a choice?”

“I promised her she’d be safe! I convinced her to come here! This is MY fault!”

“No,” said Morgana. “It’s mine. I anticipated some loss.”

“Loss…LOSS?!”

“She’s not dead,” said Lilium. “They took her- -”

“Dead would be lucky! Do you have any idea what they’ll do to her?!”

“What am I supposed to do?” Morgana shrugged. “I can’t go back in time and redo it. Forth couldn’t carry you all down, and I had no way to fight my way back to her.”

Roxanne’s voice dropped. “You could at least show a little remorse!”

“I don’t feel remorse. If I did, I would have died centuries ago.”

Morgana pushed past Roxanne, turning her back on the others save for Lilium, who was standing in front of her. “We need to get back. Regroup. I think I understand- -”

A gunshot echoed through the parking garage. Lilium saw Morgana’s chest explode from within, showering her with the bits that had milliseconds prior been Morgana’s central processor and memory assembly. The hole was massive, and Morgana took just one step forward before slowly looking down at the injury. Then her eyes faded, and she collapsed to the floor. As she fell, Lilium could see behind her, to where Forth was standing, one leg split open and a smoking barrel facing where Morgana had just stood.

“High Point Firearms send their regards,” she said, softly.

The air was suddenly cut by a scream. Lilium thought for a moment that it was coming from herself, but quickly realized that it was coming from Roxanne. Roxanne leapt forward toward Forth. Forth dodged gracefully, and a blade emerged from her hoof. Before Roxanne could escape, Forth held her down and punched it into her side. Roxanne screamed and her rear legs went limp.

“What the- -what the FUCK did you do?!”

“I severed your lower spine.” Forth’s voice was perfectly calm as she pulled the knife free, its blade still dripping with fluid and bits of blue fur. “It is a survivable injury. My mission was only to terminate Morgana Twilight Sparkle. I have no interest in terminating you as well. Although I cannot allow you to attempt to fight me.”

Roxanne screamed again, this time through tears as she wept. She pulled herself toward Morgana’s body, her legs dragging behind her. “No, no, no, no,” she whispered. “You can’t- -you couldn’t- -”

“My accuracy was impeccable.”

Roxanne picked up the limp body in her front legs. “Morgana…”

“I thought you would have preferred this. Consider it vengeance for your centaur friend.”

Forth turned toward Elrod, who took a step back from her. Lilium saw the expression in her eyes change, as if him recoiling was crushing to her.

“Forth…why? Why would you do that? She was your friend?”

Forth looked up at him, and then averted her unblinking eyes. Her expression had grown solemn, and she looked ashamed. “Elrod. Please. I’m sorry. I didn’t want it to be like this. But it’s the way it has to be. I’ve run out of time.”

“Forth…”

“No.” Forth shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I wish I could have been.” She looked into Elrod’s eyes. “Your friend did not survive the battle on the Surface. She was killed there.”

“Then…then who are you?”

“I don’t have a name, aside from Blossomforth. We all look alike. It was easy enough.”

“You’re not…Forth?”

Blossomforth shook her head. “No.” She turned toward Morgana’s body, and Roxanne weeping over it. Her red eyes stared into Lilium’s violet. “I had hoped it would be neater. That I could do it while she was alone. That you…” She turned back to Elrod. “That YOU would not need to see me do it. But I no longer have that luxury. My mission is now complete. The criminal is dead.”

Lilium looked down at Morgana’s sightless, dead eyes, and then up at Forth. “She trusted you!”

“She trusted no one.” Blossomforth began to turn. “Elrod, I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me- -”

Blossomforth’s pupils suddenly narrowed, and her whole body stiffened. She tilted to one side and rolled out of the way just as a rocket shot from one of the higher levels and struck the ground where she had been standing. The explosion forced Elrod and Roxanne back, but Lilium managed to hold her ground and remain standing. She stared into the darkness in a panic, trying to see where the projectile had come from. At first she saw nothing- -and then saw something white descend from the endless stacks of automobiles overhead.

A pony landed on the ground and approached. Through the darkness, Lilium saw a pure white winged body, and a plume of magenta and lime-colored hair with bangs that sat above a pair of blue eyes.

“Identify yourself,” demanded Blossomforth.

“I am Forth. I am naked. I am also not dead.”

“Neither am I.” Lilium gasped as Morgana’s body shuddered and attempted to rise. Her legs shook and many of her chest muscles grasped at nothing, but she was still able to force herself into a standing position with an incredible effort.

“No- -NO! I killed you! My accuracy was excellent! You have no processor, no memory cells- -”

“My processor burnt up when you cut my cooling cables in the Library.”

“You- -you knew- -”

“That you were trying to kill me? Or that you’re not Forth? Because both were obvious.”

Blossomforth looked at them both, now clearly enraged. She took a step back and swung her legs into a defensive position. “You knew, but you didn’t stop me…”

“What do you think I’m doing right now? I put the ball in your court. You succeeded at the Library. This body’s been uninhabitable since then. It’s a shell. I jumped to the nearest system that could support me when I had the chance.”

“Then- -” Blossomforth’s eyes suddenly turned to Lilium. “YOU!”

Blossomforth raised her arm, unfolding it and targeting Lilium’s processor. Lilium put her arms over her face, as if that would help her. Before Blossomforth could fire, though, a projectile struck her leg. She screamed as the weapon shattered and fired simultaneously, sending a bullet fragment to the left of Lilium as she rolled and ducked, shielding Roxanne with her body.

Forth charged. She tackled Blossomforth to the ground and sunk her teeth into her neck. Blossomforth screamed, more in rage than in pain, and her body pulled itself open, tearing away her clothing in the process. She opened fire on Forth from within. Several bullets struck Forth in the chest, clanging off her surface and taking large chunks of skin with them. Forth rolled backward, unfolding one of her hooves in the process to reveal a single assembly. It rotated into position, and several bolts of brilliant blue plasma shot outward. Blossomforth dodged most of them, with one melting deeply into one of her rear legs.

Blossomforth took to the air. Her front limbs spread outward into numerous barrels, and she opened a downward barrage on Forth. Forth rolled and dodged, crossing the room in a wide arc before leaping into the air herself and attempting to pull Blossomforth out of the air. Blossomforth was prepared, though, and fired a barrage of small missiles in return.

Forth was struck in the chest and knocked downward. As she fell, though, she targeted Blossomforth again. No projectile flew out, but a long straight line of molten metal appeared on the cars and racks behind Blossomforth as an invisible ultraviolet laser cut through them. Blossomforth dropped to the ground as well; the laser had burned deeply into her underside.

Now even more enraged, Blossomforth opened fire again. The shots were deafening, and Forth was not able to dodge. She was hit again and again, each time taking a step back. Blossomforth continued to advance until finally her heaviest weapons clicked as they ran dry. Forth was still standing, although much of her skin had been removed. Beneath it, though, gleamed a white material that was completely devoid of injury.

Forth smiled. Then her chest opened, and several missiles flew outward. Blossomforth released chaff and jumped forward, jamming her hoof into the opening in Forth’s chest while the missiles detonated behind her. She fired, sending a bullet into Forth’s innards. Forth’s eyes flickered but did not go out; Blossomforth had missed her processor.

Blossomforth held on tightly and extended one of her blades. With expert precision, she jammed it into one of Forth’s joints; the leg she had penetrated jammed and fell limp, even as the weapons inside it were open and ready to fire. It also kept Forth from escaping as Blossomforth headbutted her in the eye with enough force to send the cracks on her diamond eye nearly to its edges.

“I do not want to fight you!” she cried. “You are not my mission! Please! I only need to kill Morgana! Then I we can all be happy! Please, sister, you have to understand!”

Forth’s blue eyes met Blossomforth’s red. “But I want her alive. Since you don’t, that must mean that you are an INFIDEL.”

Forth’s free arm opened. Rather than revealing new weapons, however, it extended and shifted. Though the weapons were still apparent, the limb became a distinct arm, complete with a three-fingered hand. With it, Forth grabbed Blossomforth’s neck and tore her away, throwing her across the floor.

Blossomforth landed on her feet, sliding across the floor and into a defensive stance. Forth stood up, and as she did, the remainder of her body unfolded. Both her front limbs became arms, and she stood upon her rear legs, which became longer and more balanced. Within seconds, she stood as a bipedal, gaunt form- -a version that was clearly identical to the tall, two-legged anthro-Lyras.

“Sister…” Blossomforth seemed horrified at the change. “What have they done to you?”

“I have no idea. I don’t really care though.”

Forth extended one of her arms, and it shifted. She opened fire with an unidentified energy weapon as well as a high-rate low-caliber automatic weapon. Blossomforth ducked and rolled, opening fire at Forth’s knees as she did. Then she flew once again, moving high into the racks of cars overhead. Forth raised one of her hands, and several clearly-delineated circles of orange energy appeared around it. She fired, vaporizing her way through several vehicles. Blossomforth dodged, and then dodged the next blast and the one after it. She was too fast to hit.

“There’s a reason we use bullets!” she shouted. “Your reactor! It can’t sustain that level of energy expenditure!”

“It doesn’t have to! It needs to make you dead!”

The fight continued, and Lilium watched in horror. She tried to force Roxanne away, to try to find cover somewhere, but the strain of all the events had caused her to freeze.

“Come on!” cried Lilium. “We have to get out of here!”

“No,” said Morgana. “We have to finish this.” She turned toward the fight and yelled. “FORTH! Target Elrod!”

Forth followed her orders without hesitation. She turned her hand toward Elrod, opening several additional weapons. Elrod’s eyes went wide as Forth fired.

“NO!” screamed Blossomforth. She dropped from above, placing herself between Forth and Elrod. The blast and projectiles that had been meant for him instead struck her in the back. The force of it instantly peeled away her skin and wings, and she fell forward into Elrod’s arms.

“Forth…”

He knelt down, and Blossomforth buried her head into his chest. “Please,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry! Please don’t hate me…don’t hate me…”

“I don’t hate you.”

Forth approached, returning to her pony form as she did so. When she finally leapt forward, she extended a burning blade from her hoof. Blossomforth did as well, whirring around with a plasma-blade in hoof. Both of them struck one another; their blades penetrated each other’s chests.

The fighting immediately stopped, and the room fell silent. Neither opponent had been killed, but neither could move: they had transfixed one another, and stood together, their faces inches from one another.

At first they said nothing. Then Forth spoke.

“My blade is currently between your processor and primary memory core.”

“Mine also,” replied Blossomforth. “One motion, and I can destroy it.”

“As can I. But I am being remote transmitted. I do not require my processor to live. You do.”

“I know.”

Neither of them blinked, and both knew that the fight had already been won. Blossomforth had lost.

“Can I say something?” she said, softly.

“Yes.”

Blossomforth lowered her head. “We…we were not designed for this, sister.”

“Yes we were. We were constructed to purge the bloodlines of infidels. For endless war. To kill and die, and return to kill more.”

“NO.” Blossomforth looked up at her. “I know what you are. A surplus unit. The war ended before they could send you in. But not me. I was THERE. I murdered thousands upon thousands. I’ve seen things you can’t even imagine.”

“If you felt remorse, you are defective. We do not feel. We are only weapons.”

“No…no remorse. Just realization.” She sighed. “I realized that I never wanted any of it. What they did to us, it…it was wrong. I don’t want to kill. Or to fight. I just…I just wanted to be loved. Someone to hold me. To laugh with me, to snuggle, to be petted and called a good pony. I’m still a person…a pony. Is a life like that…is it wrong to want that?”

“Yes.”

Blossomforth lowered her eyes. “I thought so. At least I had dreamed, even if it can’t come true.”

“I assure you. It can’t.”

Forth twisted her blade, shattering Blossomforth’s processor and memory. Her program collapsed instantaneously. Her mouth went wide and her pupils dilated. As Forth pulled the blade out, Blossomforth’s eyes went gray and she collapsed into a heap on the ground.

The room fell silent once more. Then, slowly, Forth turned toward Morgana.

“Hello, Ms. Morgana,” she said, smiling.

“Hello, Forth,” replied Morgana, grimacing slightly as she tried to step forward and pieces of her fell out of the hole in her chest. She left a pool of dark fluid as she walked. “It’s good to have you back.”

“Wait!” cried Lilium. She rushed forward and blocked Morgana’s path. Don’t so was not difficult; Morgana had been weakened badly. “Stop! What- -what just happened?!”

“Lilium, this is Forth. You’ve never met her before.”

“Hello Ms. Lilium,” said Forth, still smiling widely. “I am happy to meet you! You look very similar to Ms. Morgana. Are you related?”

“No- -what- -” She turned sharply toward Morgana. “You knew- -but- -how?”

“I told you. It’s obvious.”

“NO IT ISN’T!”

“Yes it is.” Morgana stared at Forth. “For one, she didn’t have a plasma emitter. I got that for Forth last September for her first birthday and had it integrated into her design.”

“I still have it,” said Forth, opening one of her front legs to demonstrate it.

“Then there were the trees. She hated trees, but Forth loves them.”

“And little plants in little pots. I think they’re cute.”

“Then there was the suspicious behavior. That she wouldn’t reintegrate with me in my body…and that the coolant line in the Library was cut. Not hit with a bullet, but cut with a blade.”

“She was the one that cut the coolant…but why didn’t she just kill us there and then? Or let us die? Why did she try to defend us?”

Morgana shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess the parameters weren’t quite right. Or she wanted something more than just killing me.” Morgana stared at Forth for a long moment. “That’s why I went to see Jadeglow,” she continued. “Because I was wondering if you ever came back from the Surface. You didn’t, did you?”

Forth shook her head. “No. I lost. The infidels overwhelmed me. I ran out of ammunition, and they destroyed my body.”

“Your program was in your processor. You should have died.”

“I think I did. Or…I don’t know. I went somewhere.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see anything. Or…feel anything. It was empty. I was alone. I hated it. But then I woke up. Look.” She gestured to where the skin was torn on her body. Although it was broken, the edges were slowly starting to push forward as it regrew over the areas of her that were damaged. Likewise, the cracks in her eye lenses were beginning to retract. “I got a new body!”

“It’s regenerating,” said Morgana, looking somewhat shocked. “Holy shit. That takes ‘lifetime warranty’ to a whole new level, doesn’t it?”

“The only thing is…I don’t know where it came from.”

“I do. The Cult of Humanity. They brought you back.” Morgana looked into Forth’s eyes. “And I think they still have you. Your program…where is it?”

“I don’t know. I can’t tell. A long way away, though. Many miles.”

“That shouldn’t be possible.”

“Oh. Then maybe not. I can’t tell. But…”

“But what?”

“I have a memory. Just one. It wasn’t there before. Whoever saved me and gave me this neat body, I think they put it there.” Forth transferred the memory to Morgana, who shared it with Lilium.

“These are coordinates,” said Lilium, looking at the sequence. “Latitude, longitude…this is in Bridgeport.”

“Fuck,” groaned Morgana. “It is. But look at the elevation.”

Lilium checked. It was well below sea level. “What does that mean?”

“That’s the Depths. So deep I don’t think it’s even charted, not on any of the surviving schematics and not on the maps the Delvers keep. At least not the ones I have access to.”

Morgana groaned suddenly and dropped to her knees. Lilium gasped and approached her, only to be waved back.

“What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? I just got shot in the fucking chest. Between that and having to survive a four hundred meter fall onto concrete, I think this body is pretty screwed. I’m going to have to ditch it.”

“But what…we don’t have a spare.”

Morgana gestured with her head toward Blossomforth’s body. Elrod was kneeling next to it, staring at it. “That thing. Did you take out her receiver?”

“A standard Blossomforth receiver is larger and more heavily armored than our processors,” said Forth. “No. It should still be functional.”

“Then it will have to do.”

Morgana’s body collapsed to the ground. As it did, Blossomforth’s body sat up, her unblinking eyes now bright blue. “Fuck,” she said. “What the hell- -wait, is that my voice now? Holy crap this is awful.” She stood, groaning as she did. “Fuck me with a knife and call me Fluttershy…Forth, you did a number on this body. It’s not much better than mine. Fuck.” Morgana winced. “At least it sort of looks like me.”

“That’s one of the primary reasons you keep me around.”

“No shit.” Morgana walked over to where her original body was lying dead. She reached down and picked up the necklace that contained the red synthetic ruby given to her by Twinkelshine Prime. It was all she took; to her, everything else was no better than scrap.“Right,” she said. “Let’s move. They’ll be here soon. High Point might even send more.”

Elrod stood, even though his expression still looked distant. Forth smiled, happy to be obeying orders once again. Lilium, however, approached Roxanne. She was silent, and had been laying on the ground quivering.

“Roxanne?” said Lilium. “Hey, Roxanne.” She put her hoof around Roxanne. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to fix you- -”

“Don’t touch me!” screamed Roxanne, suddenly pulling away from Lilium and slapping her hoof away.

“I’m- -I’m sorry, I didn’t mean- -”

“Just stay away from me! I…” She lowered her head onto the pavement. “Just…just stay away…”

Part IV, Chapter 10

“Damn it.” Morgana swore loudly to herself as she descended the ramp to the warehouse. “Celestia’s fat ass…how do you deal with a body like this, Forth? It’s heavy as hell.”

“That’s because it’s full of mercy,” replied Forth, as cheerfully as ever.

“You did not just say that…”

“I was joking. It’s because it’s full of guns. But if the slaughter of infidels isn’t ‘mercy’, then I don’t know what is.”

Elrod followed them, cradling Roxanne in his arms. Her body was small and comparatively light, so it was not difficult; in fact, it was far more of a problem for Roxanne than it was for Elrod.

“I can’t believe this,” she muttered.

“It’s the way it has to be,” said Elrod in reply. “Your body uses a fiberoptic notochord. It’s an extremely delicate system. I’m not able to repair it. I don’t know-how. But it can be replaced- -”

“Replaced? With what? By who? Do you have any idea how much that component costs? I don’t have the money to pay for a new one! And I can’t work without my legs! How the hell am I supposed to dance now?!

“We will get you a new one,” said Morgana.

“Fuck you, Morgana! What, am I supposed to somehow believe you have the money? You’re not even going to be able to afford a new body for yourself!”

“Then I’ll be stuck as a Blossomforth”

“We could be like sisters,” whispered Forth in amazement.

Morgana pressed ahead of the others, leaving Forth to fall behind with Elrod, Roxanne, and Lilium. Elrod looked at her, somewhat confused, and his eyes grew distant once again.

“Forth,” he said.

“Yes, I am,” she replied. “Is there something you need, Mr. Jameson?”

“No…it’s just that…”

Forth looked up at him. Her eyes- -and her whole body- -had already healed. Now a pair of empty blue irises stared up at Elrod, analyzing him without blinking. Few thoughts ran behind them. “What is it?”

“You don’t…do you remember anything from the last few days?”

“Just floating in nothingness. Which was horrible. I was all alone. No orders. I’m still there, even though I can see now.”

“But not the Library, or escaping Morgana’s office, or the party…”

Forth shook her head. “That was not me. It was one of my sisters. She is dead now. I killed her.”

“But…did you have to?”

“No. Of course not. But I wanted to. I think it is ideal if we die by other Blossomforths. Maybe it’s more poetic.” Forth paused. “Why?”

“She…I don’t think she was a bad person.”

“Probably not. She was a Blossomforth. I assume she was a lot like me. Just defective. But not a bad person. That does not affect my decision to kill or not, though. I am Forth. She was not. So I made her die.”

Elrod frowned. Roxanne seemed to notice, and her hateful expression softened considerably. She understood what was running through Elrod’s mind, even if he was not able to fully comprehend those emotions.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Why would you be sorry? I don’t…I just don’t understand…”

Lilium listened to this conversation, and though she was far younger than any of them she had a distant understanding as well. She very distantly understood that this was sad, but she also understood Elrod’s confusion. She herself was confused, perhaps even more so.

Ignoring it, she forced herself forward to fall in step with Morgana. Morgana’s Blossomforth body was shorter than her Twilight Sparkle one, and the back had been torn away to reveal heavy zinc alloy armor and the two sockets where Blossomforth’s wings had once been. It looked painful, but Morgana appeared to be more contemplative than in agony.

“So,” said Lilium. “You’re inside me?”

“If you’re asking if you can purge me, the answer is no. I’ve parsed myself VERY well. It would be beyond your ability.”

“One, I could. Two, that isn’t what I’m asking.”

“Then you’re asking if I watched you fuck my ex marefriend.”

Lilium blushed deeply. “I- -well- -um- -”

“I was conscious of it, but not involved in it. As I said, I parsed myself well. Think of it as though I were hiding in an empty room of a large house while you were upstairs ruining the bed. I’m not a pervert. And I don’t actually have a grudge against you.”

“Um…I think you’re lying.”

“I probably am. But it’s better this way. Look at what I did to her. And Valla. Look at my face.” Morgana turned her unblinking blue eyes to Lilium. “Do you see an ounce of remorse?”

“No.”

“And that’s a problem. Because things like that end up happening.” She pointed over her shoulder at Roxanne. “I loved her. And now look at what I’ve done to her. There was a reason I stayed away. Because I can’t stop myself from doing this to her.”

“But I can.”

“No. You can’t. Not as long as I’m around.”

The two fell silent as they approached the door to the warehouse, and the door opened. As it did, light poured out, revealing a white Rarity unit standing in the doorway, waiting for them.

“Welcome back, darling!” Lynnette stepped back as Morgana entered with Lilium at her side. Elrod ducked to enter as well, and gently set Roxanne down on one of the nearest crates.

Morgana said nothing at first, at least not until she was sure that Roxanne was comfortable. Then she turned to Lynnette. “Where the fuck were you?” she asked, her tone not rising above a distinctly cold monotone.

“Where do you think I was? I was watching it all.”

“Lilium. Did you hear anything from her?”

Lilium paused. “No…but I don’t know if Forth…I mean Blossomforth had communication.”

“Well it’s too late to know that now, isn’t it? But I have a hunch that you weren’t contacting her either, were you, O’Toole?”

“And what would you have me do? Even if I had an appropriate rifle, I’m still an Aetna-Cross detective. I simply couldn’t attack our own troops, now could I?”

“You could have done SOMETHING!”

“Oh. Was getting you into the party in the first place not good enough? Should I perhaps have summoned you an army of government shock troops, or maybe a heavy mech?” Her eyes suddenly narrowed. “I’m working with limited resources here, and even more limited personnel. My job was only to get you into the party. And I had other work that needed to be done.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Does the name Gary Jones mean anything to you?”

Morgana raised an eyebrow. “Should it?”

“I don’t know…” Lynnette shook her head as if trying to clear something from it. “Never mind. Have you made any developments in the case?”

“No,” said Morgana. “We lost Valla. Aetna-Cross took her.”

“An acceptable loss.”

“Can you get her out?” asked Lilium.

“You mean recover the body? If I wasn’t in hiding, I might be able to get you the ashes. Or part of them. But right now, no.”

“She wasn’t dead, though.”

“Oh my. Well, she will be soon. We have several Pinkie units who will make sure of that. And no. There isn’t anything I can do about it. You should have killed her before departing. It would be better that way.”

“What…what will they do to her?”

Lynnette seemed to consider for a moment. “Well, I was always partial to drawing as a method for my more substantial interrogations. I’m quite good at it.”

“No,” groaned Roxanne. “Stop, stop! I’m- -oh God I’m going to throw up!”

“Yes, that will happen when you eat expensive hors d'oeuvres and champagne with the gusto of an anorexic sow. Regardless. The loss of your centaur is hardly of consequence.”

“Not of- -!”

Lynnette cut Lilium off. “I mean in the case.”

“I already told you,” said Morgana. “Nothing.”

“Yes there is,” said Forth. “I have coordinates.”

“Coordinates?” Lynnette smiled in a way that made Lilium extremely uncomfortable. “Coordinates to where?”

“Somewhere in the Depths.”

“Forth!”

“The Depths? Oh my. Well, that certainly does seem like a good place for someone to hide if this particular someone did not want to be found…until the time was right, at least.”

“You think it’s the Cult of Humanity,” reasoned Lilium.

“I know it is, dearie. So. Morgana. Are you going to go?”

“Like hell.”

Lynnette seemed to be confused. “But you found them. You know where they are!”

“I already walked into one trap today. And I lost a friend because of it. I’m not walking into another.”

Lynnette frowned. “No. No, that won’t do. You have to go. This is your only option.”

“No. Their toying with me. I don’t know why, but I’m not going to play their game. I already tried to go by their rules, and look where that got us. I’ll need to find a schematic.” Morgana started pacing. “I can talk to some Delvers. I know a few members in the guild, and some of them keep private maps. Then- -”

“No!” snapped Lynnette. She stomped forward, her eyes narrow. “After all this trouble…they’ve delivered the coordinates right to you! It’s right there!”

Morgana frowned. “O’Toole, my decision is final.”

Lynnette laughed suddenly and sardonically. “Really? After we’ve taken the time to make this as easy and painless as possible, you still want to do it the hard way?”

“O’Toole, what- -”

A dark smile crossed Lynnette’s face. “Like I told you. I have made SURE that this is your only option.”

Forth’s ears suddenly pricked up. She turned suddenly, tackling Lilium to the ground as an explosion rocked the room. The warehouse door was blown inward by a fiery plume. Lynnette, likewise, ducked to one side, rolling behind cover as heavily armored Aetna-Cross shock troops burst through.

They did not hesitate or bother to announce themselves. Instead, they opened fire. Morgana lifted one of her hooves to shield herself and the bullets ricocheted off her body. The bullets in question left massive dents in her zinc armor, but her Blossomforth body was durable enough to attempt to retreat temporarily.

Elrod was not as lucky. His body was impacted by a hail of bullets. His eyes widened as they struck and necrosis began to progress from every bullet hole. Aetna-Cross had come prepared for him this time. Their bullets used herbicide cores.

“Forth!” he cried.

Forth responded immediately, her body unfolding as she walked into the gunfire, returning it as she could. In a fraction of a second, she crossed the floor. Most of Elrod’s lower body had collapsed from the toxic bullets, but not all of it. Forth grabbed his head and with one quick motion severed his head at the neck.

“Lilium!” Morgana spoke both verbally and inside Lilium’s mind. “You have to get out of here! Follow Forth!”

Lilium looked over the box she was hiding behind and saw the soldiers approaching. A heavy bullet whizzed by her head, grazing through her hair. She was afraid, and if she had possessed a heart it would have been beating faster than it ever had before. The only exit was blocked; she was trapped. But that was not what worried her.

“NO!” she screamed in response, retreating through the boxes. “Not without Roxanne!”

“There isn’t time! If you don’t get out now, we’ll both die!”

“I CAN’T LEAVE HER!” Lilium called into the room as several smoke grenades detonated, filling the room with toxic mist. “Roxanne!” she screamed. “Roxanne, don’t worry, I’m coming- -”

She took a step forward, and then suddenly stopped. She wanted to move, to run to Roxanne’s side and protect her- -but something was stopping her. Her legs would not respond. Something was forcing its way into her mind, trying to take control of her body.

“What- -what are you doing? NO! Morgana, don’t!”

“I have to.”

Lilium attempted to defend her core systems, but Morgana was stronger. Her firewalls began to break down before she could even reinforce them, and the hidden consciousness in her memory immediately became apparent. Lilium struggled against it, but Morgana’s will was too strong and too focused. It began to take control, forcing her out of her body as it took over. Lilium could not even scream; all that came out was a high squeak.

She started to run into the mist, but not toward Roxanne. Instead, she was driven somewhere where she could not see, until she felt a three- fingered hand reach around her body and lift her up.

“Forth,” she said, “please…”

“I have my orders,” she said, smiling as two soldiers emerged from the mist, their bodies protected behind heavy shields. They opened fire, and Forth turned to defend Lilium. She lifted one of her hands- -the one still holding Elrod’s severed head, its eyes still roving in terror- -and opened the weapons contained within her arm. She fired two projectiles. The human’s shields did nothing; on impact, two luminescent vortices rent them into spirals of red liquid and chunks of metal and organs.

“Roxanne!” cried Lilium, even though it only came out as a low groan. “Roxanne, no! Please!” She started to weep as forth forced her way through the Aetna-Cross lines. “I’m sorry! Roxanne, I’m sorry!”

Morgana did not retreat- -at least not in a bodily sense. Her mind was safe in Lilium’s body, while the body she was using was free to die if need be. The sensation of it was liberating and terrifying at the same time, and for the first time Morgana fully understood Forth’s tendency for reckless abandon and giddiness in battle. She had nothing to lose, yet felt the instinctive fear that she did.

Which was not entirely true. She did have something to lose. Quickly, Morgana found her way to Roxanne and pulled her down, hiding her behind a metal crate. The gunfire around them had grown quiet, with the focus being on Forth who was now some distance from the warehouse itself. The room was still filled with Aetna-Cross soldiers, though. They made no sound as they moved, but Morgana’s Blossomforth eyes could still detect their shadows through the mist.

“Roxanne.”

“Morgana…I’m…we’re fucked, aren’t we?”

“Pretty much.”

“I don’t want to die. Please, I’m not ready. I- -I never saw the sky! Lilium…”

“I’ll do what I can,” replied Morgana, knowing it was not much.

She then stood up on the box and raised her hooves, retracting the surfaces that concealed the weapons below. This battle was not one she could win, but she could provide cover for a little longer and perhaps give Forth a little bit more of a chance.

Morgana opened fire. The recoil of the weapons was extensive, but her stolen body was heavy enough to dampen it. Several soldiers fell, but most of the rounds she fired had missed before the ammunition was depleted. She attempted to switch weapons, but the second one exploded when she attempted to use it.

“DAMN!” she screamed. “Forth, you didn’t have to go so hard on it!”

She turned her attention toward what few working firearms she had left. Their caliber was small, meant for soft targets- -she could not get through the armor that the Aetna-Cross enforcers used. She had to keep trying, though.

Bullets returned to her. One shattered through her body, ruining her central robotics as it passed. Then another came, smashing through her face. More came, and she sent more in one last firefight as they advanced.

“Come on,” she whispered. “Get close to me. Just a little closer…”

The circle closed in, and the last of Morgana’s working weapons clicked as they were emptied. What few bullets and missiles she had were in parts of her that no longer worked. She only had one option remaining, and she chose to take it.

“I’m sorry Roxanne,” she said. Morgana put her hoof around the red gemstone on her neck and accessed her body’s internal controls. She began to prepare to strip the control rods that surrounded the Blossomforth body’s nuclear reactor.

Before she could, something ghostly white shot from the smoke and grabbed her. Morgana saw a vicious frown and a pair of deep blue eyes, and then watched as a number of gold-tipped tendrils shot forth from below a perfect mane of blue hair. Lynnette’s probes wrapped around Morgana’s body, penetrating every port they could find or jamming themselves into her systems directly through the wound she had suffered. In seconds Lynnette had infected the body, driving her consciousness into the core systems and shutting down the self-destruct process.

Morgana tried to resist the incursion, but doing so was futile. The body was remote; her consciousness was hamstrung by the limited connection. Just before Lynnette forced the body into shutdown, though, Morgana was able to look into her mind. She saw in that instant what she had failed to see before: the mind of a pony, trapped screaming beneath a shell of implanted code. Every aspect of her will was infected, and the infection stretched out, even as Lynnette tried to control it from within. Morgana retreated before it could reach her, abandoning the body in the process. Seeing it was enough, though. She knew what had happened, and understood what this meant.

Morgana’s Blossomforth body collapsed, landing on the floor next to Roxanne. Lynnette smiled, and signaled the all-clear. Overhead, a flocculent grenade detonated, and as the black powder within it rained down the smoke collected into neat spheres and clattered to the floor. The room was clear, and the soldiers advanced. Several of them kept their rifles trained on Morgana’s body, as if it would get up and attack them. The rest surrounded Roxanne. Roxanne tried to crawl away, but received a crushing blow from a boot to the face. Several of her teeth skittered across the floor as the soldiers descended on her, beating her before firing bolts through her wrists and forcing them behind her back.

“You goddamn fuck!” screamed Roxanne. “You did this! You traitor!”

“Traitor?” said Lynnette. “Hardly. I do work for Aetna-Cross, now don’t I? If anything, I’m the epitome of loyalty. That really is something you should understand, isn’t it?”

Roxanne lifted her head and tried to spit on Lynnette. Lynnette slid one of her probes into the back of Roxanne’s neck and cut into her settings, shutting her primary reactor into low-power mode. Roxanne gasped and tremored as her power faded, and she collapsed into a comatose state.

Satisfied, Lynnette allowed the soldiers to collect Roxanne. Then, before she left, she spied the red gemstone that was still around Morgana’s body’s neck. While the soldiers directed their attention toward Roxanne, Lynnette reached down and pulled removed it, placing it in her inner jacket pocket as she departed. She made her way toward the front of the warehouse, climbing over the bodies of various coworkers as she did so. Many of them she had known, at least tangentially. Their deaths did not bother her, though; she had never liked them especially much.

As she reached the front, the soldiers that were still alive parted. A Pegasus pony whose skin consider of orange, plated armor stepped through the gap. He had no clearly defined eyes, but when he saw Lynnette, he frowned.

“Detective O’Toole,” he said.

“Captain Zawaski. So good to see you.”

“We didn’t capture our target. You know that.”

“Yes, sir. We did not. However, I did indeed perform my role. Quite spectacularly, in my opinion.”

Zawaski stared at her for a moment, and then sighed. “You did,” he admitted. “Actually, your undercover work was exemplary, as always. You gave set the sting, but it was my op.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t anticipate that they would have a second Blossomforth.”

“THAT aspect comes down to intelligence. You should have known, O’Toole. Now our asses are going to pay for it.” He paused. “But, you also saved a lot of paperwork by preventing her from detonating.”

“We also managed to capture a prisoner. Morgana Twilight Sparkle’s ex-lover, in fact.”

“Her role is irrelevant. She’ll get the same fate as the rest of them.”

“Ah,” said Lynnette, frowning and feigning sensitivity toward the thought. “I had heard that the centaur was captured during the Bottlebrush incident.”

“She was. But she had mostly bled out. We have to stabilize her before the torture can commence. As for the two in the hospital, we successfully terminated both of them. Valla Goldberg and Roxanne Rainbow Dash IV will be executed painfully and on schedule.”

“Excellent. I have prepared my report already.” Roxanne extended one of her cables. “I’m ready to submit it immediately.”

“To me?”
“It is your op, after all. And after Nikolosov’s death, someone is going to need to take control of Enforcement. You may not have seniority, but I know where Morgana is likely to go. Once you capture her, I do expect you to be my new boss.”

Zawaski smiled. “Excellent,” he said. “As efficient as always. I think you might be in line for a promotion as well after all this is said and done.” He lowered his head, and Lynnette inserted the cable into his neck.

Zawaski gasped and shuddered slightly as the virus was installed into his central program. He was not a technomancer, and his mind was instantly overwhelmed and consumed with barely any resistance. When Lynnette had finished the installation, she disconnected. Zawaski looked up at her and smiled. Lynnette returned the same smile, and Zawaski turned away.

“Alright!” he yelled. “I’m issuing new orders! The plan has changed!”

Part IV, Chapter 11

The streets were dark and damp. Water- -or some reeking brown fluid akin to water- -flowed over the cracked pavement on either side, carrying plastic debris along with it as it flowed to somewhere unseen and deeper within the city. Mist was rising from the streets, but rather than obscure the dim and flickering neon that lined the street it seemed to amplify it, drawing it into strange shapes.

Lilium walked quietly through the silent street, eyeing the shrouded individuals who walked by quietly on their way to unseen and unknown things. Morgana walked beside her. She no longer had a physical body; they had both been destroyed. Instead, she existed as a projection. She was a concentrated incursion into Lilium’s consciousness; a cartoonlike image of the pony she had appeared as in the virtual world, rendered to appear as though she were walking down the same real-world street as Lilium.

At first they were silent. Then Morgana spoke. “Lilium…”

“Fuck you,” said Morgana, not caring if she looked as though she were insane to anyone around her. “Don’t you dare talk to me.”

“This isn’t the time to act like a child.”

“A child- -do you have any idea what you did?! You left her! Roxanne, you just left her there!”

“Do you think I don’t know that?”

Lilium stopped walking and turned toward the image. “It’s just like what you did to poor Valla- -but she loved you! I should know! I could feel it! It’s still in there. She trusted you! Celestia knows why. And you turned your back on her. And you made me do the same.” Lilium shivered. “I didn’t give you permission to do that to me. You- -I feel dirty. I don’t know why. But you didn’t have the right to do that. I could have saved her- -”

“No, you couldn’t have.”

“Yes I could! I was supposed to protect her! We- -we were going to go across the country together!” Lilium was crying, although her body could produce no tears. “We- -we were going to see the Pacific Ocean- -”

“You were going to protect her. With what? A Librarian body? Or do you have a gun I don’t know about? I had a damn Blossomforth body and couldn’t do jack shit. O’Toole screwed us and I had to save who I could.”

“You mean yourself. That’s it, isn’t it? You just wanted to get out alive. If you could have left me- -”

“Do you think making that decision was easy?!” snapped Morgana, suddenly shouting. “In case it’s not fucking apparent, I loved Roxanne too! But I have a responsibility to keep you safe too! I didn’t have a choice!”

Lilium frowned for a long moment. “You’re oddly good at making that kind of decision, aren’t you? Who to leave and who to keep.”

“It’s because I’ve gotten used to making it. Forth.”

Forth appeared from the mist, taking Lilium by surprise. Despite sharing the same body, Morgana seemed to be able to detect her while Lilium could not.

“Yes, Ms. Morgana?”

“How’s our perimeter?”

“Clear. We were not followed.”

“And Elrod?”

Forth lifted Elrod’s head. “She’s asking how you are,” she said.

Elrod spoke, although without his body his voice was strange and distorted, like someone who was severely winded combined with a strange clicking sound. “I’m alive,” he said.

“Can you regenerate?”

“She wants to know if you can regenerate.”

“No. At least not right now. I’m too low on mass.”

Forth set him between her wings and retracted her body back into its normal pony form. She walked alongside Lilium and Morgana’s projection.

“What now?” asked Lilium at last.

“We don’t have much of a choice. Goddamn it, they were ahead of me the whole time…”

“I don’t understand.”

“She even tried to warn me. Garry Jones. ‘Jonsey’ Jones. I should have seen that.”

“Is that someone we know?” asked Forth.

“No,” said Lilium. She squinted, recalling a distant memory within her internal database. “That’s the name of a character from a Stephen King book. Dreamcatcher. He was trapped in his own mind by an alien consciousness.”

“I should have got that. Goddamn it! I’m a Twilight Sparkle for Celestia’s sake, and I didn’t even see it!”

“I don’t understand how THAT is what you're concerned about.”

“Because they were THERE! In O’Toole’s mind. Her whole program was hacked. Damn it, she could have been that way the whole time.”

“Hacked? By whom?”

“Who the hell do you think?”

Lilium’s eyes grew wide. “The Cult of Humanity. They- -they made her do that to us?”

“More than that. They were watching through her. That’s why they were always one step ahead. That’s why she got the tickets. Led us to the plant. Because they were planning it all from the start.”

“But why?” asked Forth. “It seems like an awful lot of work.”

“I don’t know why. But I know what they were trying to do.”

“They were trying to force us to follow the coordinates,” said Lilium.

Morgana nodded. “By leaving us no other option.”

“Then…are we going to go?”

“What else can we do? If you can think of something, I’m all ears. But the whole city is after us now, I’m out two bodies, Elrod’s decapitated, and we don’t have a hideout.”

“And you’ve lost Roxanne and Valla.”

“And maybe Moonlight and Jadeglow for all I know. And I might lose more before we’re done. This next part is going to be…unpleasant. Because they’ve cornered me. All I’ve got left is to meet them.”

“The coordinates are forth the Depths,” said Forth. “My new body is very good. But the Depths are very dangerous. I think I might have been there, but I don’t know how I got out. I can’t navigate them. It would be too dangerous.”

“And I don’t expect you to. We’ll need a guide.”

“We have no money.”

“I know. And if I had a body I’d bet the whole thing that they’ve frozen my accounts too. But I have a plan. I know someone who I think can help.”

“Is that why we’re down here? On Level C?”

Morgana nodded. “Yeah.”

They stopped. Lilium found herself standing on a crooked, sloping road through a narrow alley surrounded on either side by hastily-constructed but ancient-looking resblocks. They had arrived at a large door.

“Lilium. Project me.”

Lilium did as she was told, converting Morgana’s mental image into a holographic one. The resolution dropped substantially, but in her cartoon-like state her render quality was reasonable.

“Hey!” said Elrod, his head still perched between Forth’s wings. “I can see you now!”

“Forth?”

“Yes, Ms. Morgana.” Forth approached the large, rusting door, and tapped on it hard with her hoof. It opened almost immediately, as if the person on the other side was waiting for them- -or had smelled them coming. A large, tusked face leaned forward from the room on the far side.

“Hoig,” said Morgana. “I know who took your daughter. And I know where we can find them.”

Part V, Chapter 1

Lilium sat waiting- -or, rather, Morgana sat waiting with Lilium at her side. The pair of them- -a pony containing both their consciousnesses, and a hologram generated by that body- -sat at the edge of a large pool. It was surrounded by the looming, dilapidated buildings that made up the residences of Level C, as if they had been hastily constructed around this water- -or as if it had formed here and partially forced the buildings back.

The water was fetid and disgusting. As far as Lilium could tell, it was a cesspool of some kind. Drainage water had started to collect here, possibly long ago, and more pipes had been built to link to it. Whatever streams had once filled it had long-since been replaced by rusted tubes and pipes that belched water into it or pulled liquid out. At its edges were piles of trash flotsam and thick levels of dried sludge, as well as the remains of listing, broken buildings that had been consumed as the pool had grown.

It was a horrible, toxic lake of opaque waste and disease. It disgusted Lilium, even though she had no sense of smell. Yet Morgana was intent on it. Lilium knew why.

As they watched, something suddenly stirred on the surface. Lilium shuddered when she saw a snake-like creature slither across the surface. Looking at it more closely revealed that it was far worse than any snake: it was in fact a metallic spider, its legs tilted and moving in unison in a serpentine pattern. It starrd forward with a single three-lobed eye, and it was dragging a dying and nearly drowned genet behind it. Based on its path, it seemed to be headed toward a group of similar machine-spiders standing on the bank, most of which were going through the trash to pull out any resources of potential value- -or dissecting animals for living tissue or anything electronic they might have eaten.

“What the…”

“Harvester spiders. They won’t hurt us. There’s not enough of them right now.”

Lilium’s brow furrowed, and she looked back to the spiders- -only to have her attention suddenly turned toward the water. The only ripples near the center had been from the spider and its living pray, but in the darkness a thin hand with narrow, discolored fingers reached up and took hold of the genet. It did not struggle much as it was dragged under the water, the spider along with it. After a few moments, the spider pulled its way back to the surface and made its escape; the genet did not surface again.

The water was still for a moment, save for the dispersing ripples and the areas where new human waste was being dumped into it. Then the center of the water shifted, and a head emerged. The figure standing in the sewage and filth walked forward toward the shore. As the rest of his body emerged, Lilium felt whatever imagined breath she had hitch. He did not look human in the slightest. His body was horrendously thin, but also small, nearly the size of a child. The skin on his face had been pulled back, but not against bones. There were no bones. The only features were a mouth, and two empty eye sockets.

He came to the shore and stopped, standing ankle-deep in sludge. Morgana looked up at him.

“Elrod,” she said.

“I’m here,” he said. “Hold…hold on.” His eyes squinted closed, and he seemed to expend a tremendous effort as his face shifted, rendering something at least marginally similar to what he had once looked like. At the same time, he managed to partially produce something that resembled clothing from the brown, scaly skin that covered his body. “Damn,” he said, sighing loudly. “I can’t do any more. Not right now. I need more time.”

“We don’t have more time.”

“I know. This water is rich in nutrients, but to impure. It would take me weeks to regrow my entire body at this rate. Unless you have more...” He lifted his hand. He was holding something made of fur and blood with very little meat left on it.

“No. It will have to do. Just try to look as human as possible.”

“I don’t look human?”

“You look fine,” lied Lilium. Elrod frowned, but then smiled. He apparently believed her.

“Right. Not that it matters.” Morgana stood up. “If we’re done here, Hoig should be ready.”

The three of them left the cesspool and the harvester spiders and proceeded down the narrow alleys that connected it to the rest of the residential area. The whole region was damp and excessively hot, with oppressive silence throughout. Few people were about, but there were some. A pair of hooded humans were walking in the opposite direction, fishing poles in hand. A drug junkie was lurching down the same path, his body leaving a trail of blood and necrotic organs as his cybernetics drove him forward. Up above, a pale pony with a half-constructed head stared down at them from a window without blinking. If any of them paid any attention to the passing group, it was not to Elrod- -to them, nothing more than yet another deformed human- -but to the pony with the expensive body and the glowing hologram beside her.

“I don’t like this place,” said Lilium.

“You’re not supposed to.”

The alley descended a decayed staircase and led back out into the main road. Lilium followed it past Hoig’s door and around the corner, to where he had opened a larger door. Pale light flowed outward into the dark pathway that led by it. Distorted, static-filled music was emanating from the room, as well as the sound of arguing.

“Hoig,” said Morgana as she entered the room. “I didn’t know you could even get PLR down here.”

Hoig stopped arguing with Forth and turned his head toward Morgana. He gave a weak smile. Despite being a strange, bipedal pig-creature, Lilium could see a horrible sadness about him. It looked like he had not slept in months.

“Yes. Can,” he said. “Signal, bad. Not good. But signal.” He put his hand on an old, paint-spattered radio unit. “This sound, re-transmit. Sometimes old. But good.” He sighed. “Hoig remembers…when she was shoat, would listen to old-music with Jen-fer.” The sadness that surrounded him seemed to expand substantially. He closed his eyes, then stood up sharply. He looked at Elrod. “You,” he said. “You are not human.”

“No,” said Elrod. “But you knew that.”

“Yes. Did.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Hoig is not human also. Neither are ponies. Bigger problem is the smell. You smell bad. Very.” He picked up a hose and threw the end at Elrod. “Here.”

Elrod began to spray himself with water that was only marginally clearer than the sewer water he had just been feeding on. Morgana ignored him, instead approaching Hoig. He was standing between Forth and a large exoskeleton suit that had been hanging on the rear of his storage room. It seemed to have been in disrepair, but several packs of tools had been opened and repairs had very clearly been made. He was getting it ready for use.

“Is this almost done?” asked Morgana.

“It is done. Hoig has maintained, out of habit. But not so much recent. Was forgetting.” He looked back at the suit almost wistfully. “Had hoped not to use again. But if what you say is true, will use one more time.”

“And why were you arguing with Forth?”

“She insist- -”

“My specifications,” interrupted Forth. “He insisted I wear a suit too. But I don’t need it. My body follows or exceeds military specifications.”

“She has a point.”

Hoig sighed. “The Depths, there are many dangers there. Collapse. Falls. Corrosives, disease, radiation. Technovores. And other Delvers. It is not safe. You understand?”

“I do. Her body can survive it.”

“Fine.” Hoig pointed one of his hoof-like fingers at Lilium. “Then she wears the suit.”

Lilium protested. “My body was designed to be durable as well. For extreme conditions- -”

“The Librarian bodies are designed for terrestrial exploration,” said Morgana.

“You not understand,” said Hoig. “Depths, they are not like other things. Not up above. More dangerous. More dangerous than anything. Bad things there. Very bad things. Some with no names.”

He walked over to one of the shelves full of various strange technology and pulled down a folded, armor-plated semi-exoskeleton. It was dusty and badly stained, but Lilium instantly knew that it would fit her. “This will protect you,” said Hoig, opening it and setting it on the floor. “Not much, but enough. Hopefully.”

“And me?” said Elrod.

Hoig pointed toward a rack of similar human-shaped suits. They were not nearly advanced as the one he owned for himself, but Lilium supposed they did not have to be. He was the Delver; they were just cargo, or passengers that he would formerly have been paid to guide to their probable deaths.

Morgana contemplated his Delver suit. “Do you have a cybernetic uplink in this?”

“Has interface. No cyber-net-ic. To Hoig, a waste. Of time, and money. Body is old, but do not need machines to walk yet. It will work.”

“If you say so.” Morgana looked at the helmet lying on the floor. To Lilium, her behavior was absurd; she did not see through her holographic eyes, but rather through Lilium's. There was no need for her to get close to things or even turn her head. “I can project myself as an overlay. So I don’t need this damn hologram.”

“A body would be better,” said Elrod. He was dripping wet, but apparently somewhat cleaner.

“We don’t have time for that.”

“In this case, fewer is better,” said Hoig. “In some ways.” He shrugged. “Two killed if one dies. But one less to attract bullets.”

“Bullets?” asked Elrod, suddenly confused.

“Human-words hard speaking. But Hoig knows what said.” He grunted, and tilted his entire body toward Morgana’s hologram. “Now. Tell me where we go.”

Morgana nodded and held out her hoof. An abstract shape appeared over it, representing the coordinates. Hoig bent down and squinted at it; as he did so, he removed a pair of bent reading glasses that were clearly sized for a human rather than a porc. He looked through one lens a the holograms, and then nodded. “Let’s see.”

Hoig stood and lumbered to the next room. Instead of going into his apartment proper, though, he passed through a thin door and into an offshoot room from the garage. Lilium followed, and when Hoig turned on the light she found herself in what was really just a space between the rear wall of the building and the first wall of the garage. It was thin and cramped, but despite its size it had been converted into a kind of office. The walls were covered in rusted filing cabinets and many hand-drawn, wall-sized maps.

“What is this?” asked Lilium in awe.

“Maps,” said Morgana. “I do enjoy a good map.”

“Few have seen this,” said Hoig. “Normally, would not let.”

“Why?”

“Because Delvers are extremely competitive,” suggested Morgana. “Maps like this…Hoig, you must have been doing this a long time…”

“Animal-folk have short life. Most of mine, down there. Best years not.”

He reached into a drawer and opened it, pulling out several additional maps and some pencils. He began to spread them out and type something into a large, battered calculator. His eyes then narrowed, and he consulted several other maps that lined the walls before pausing, and pushing back a rack of several framed maps before removing one that was heavily annotated in primitive script with a red pen.

Hoig picked it up and set it on the desk before shuffling through a few more maps, as if to confirm that he was absolutely right before speaking. Then he sat down in a small chair and shook his head.

“What?” asked Morgana.

“This…this is very much bad.”

“You can’t find the coordinates?”

Hoig looked up. His pig-like eyes were wide. “No, no. Can find. Found. Here.” He pointed in the center of a large map. To Lilium, it was entirely incomprehensible.

“So you’ve been there.”

Hoig shook his head vehemently. “No. No one has. Not that came back. Is Yag-Dra-Sil. Bad, bad place.”

“Yggdrasil,” whispered Lilium.

“It’s the Norse world-tree,” said Morgana.

“I know that,” snapped Lilium. “But why is it called that?”

Hoig pointed to a different part of the map. “Because has branches. And roots, so is said. But roots deeper than anyone got yet.” His hoof-like hand moved to the bottom of the map, and beyond it.

“But what is there?” demanded Morgana.

“Area unstable. And technovores. Many. And…”

“And what?”

Hoig shook his head again. “Hoig does not know. Many stories, many legends. Many bad things in the Depths. Things no one has seen. Things no one SHOULD. Guess? Air is poison. Rads, or deep pollution. Have seen. Have lost friends to similar. Must be great much large for Yag-Dra-Sil.”

“Can you get us there?”

Hoig’s eyes went wide, and he took a deep breath. “No. Cannot. But will try. And Hoig will die. So will you.”

“Wait,” said Lilium. “You’d do that, even knowing you’d die?”

“Jen-fer is dead. Hoig…” He lowered his head. “…it better this way. To let claim. If can find her…or those that make her dead…but if not…”

Lilium inhaled sharply. “You…you want to die.”

“Have thought. Think every day. Can’t…no point. No point anymore. Daughter, dead. Nothing left. Nothing…” He stood. “But. If this can find, will risk. But only if you know risk too.”

“I know it,” said Morgana.

“But it’s not your body your risking,” said Lilium. Morgana turned toward her. “Stop doing that! Don’t try to intimidate me!”

“I wasn’t.”

“Then why are you looking at me? You can’t see me. You’re already here. Do I even have a choice?”

“Of course you do.”

“Do I? Or will you just take control of my body again.”

“I did that to save your life.”

“That’s a lie. I can tell, because it’s the same one I would tell. You still need me for something. You claim to be responsible for my safety, and then you want me to go on a suicide mission.”

“Fine. I can transfer to Forth.”

“No, you can’t. Her processor is barely big enough to hold her, and she’s a reduced-scale consciousness. I know because you know that. You need ME.”

“And if you die, so do I.”

“So?”

“You know me better than almost anyone else in the world.”

Lilium’s eyes narrowed. “And the only one you really care about is you…”

Morgana nodded. “They wouldn’t have summoned us if it weren’t possible to get there. There’s a way. Forth got out, didn’t she?”

“But she doesn’t remember the Depths. She has no idea- -”

“She doesn’t need to. That’s my job. We WILL get there. After everything they did? They won’t risk us failing. If we die, it will be when they give us permission to.”

Lilium fell silent. Logically, she knew that Morgana was correct. She still felt angry, perhaps even unreasonably so. This whole time, she had just been led and used- -never once had she been given a real choice. She could see that now, and it was torture.

In the end, they departed as a unit. Hoig led them, looming over them and anyone passing in his nearly antiquated Delver exoskeleton. Lilium and Elrod had been outfitted with their respective suits. It had turned out to be a detriment to Lilium, as the suit’s camera interface was far inferior to her own eyes. For Elrod, though, the suit proved more beneficial; he was able to appear more substantial and overall more human with something covering his otherwise exceptionally thin regenerating body.

Forth, likewise, had been convinced to wear some amount of armor. Although much more of her body was exposed, several plates of faded but light plastic armor had been fixed over what she already had. This did not seem to displease her, and in fact it looked oddly appropriate in Liliuim’s opinion. The only one among them that wore no armor was Morgana; she appeared as a digital projection into their respective cameras or optical sensors. Having been reduced to an abstract being, armor was of no use to her.

They did not need to go far to reach their destination. Level C itself, after all, was technically part of the Depths: it was level with them, delineated only by a reinforced wall that had once made up the casing of a massive mining operation into the landfill below. Only the upper levels of what had come to fill that hole were habitable; where or if the drilling machinery remained somewhere deep below was not known

Hoig knew the way. It was clear that it was a path he had walked hundreds if not thousands of times before. As he led them out of the residential districts, the area became more vibrant- -if only in a relative sense. It was familiar to Elrod; SteelPoint City served a similar role in a distant part of Bridgeport. It was an area where Delvers collected, preparing for their journeys, selling what they found, or spending the profits from their ventures on alcohol, prostitutes, cybernetics, and heavy weapons. This area was similar, but also different in its own right. The Delvers here were not ones who came from great distances for adventure or profit; they were the dwellers of Level C, who had no other way to make their living.

Machines and transports hummed, and trading stations had been established, but it all took a more somber tone. There was none of the vibrant energy that came from adventurers who risked their lives every day for rich elemental scores. Instead, there were only dreary transactions as scrap was appraised and shipped away while fractional vod were paid out.

Even the entrances themselves were bleak. The one Hoig had chosen was a long, downward-sloping concrete ramp that led to a square, stained concrete arch. Beyond it lay the Depths, and several signs in Georgian and isographic script warned of it. One especially cliché graffiti artist had defaced one, writing instead “abandon hope all ye who enter here”. Another had adjusted that statement further, replacing “hope” with “yer ballz” and inserting “don’t” between “ye” and “who”. Lilium found the false bravado almost as pleasant as she found the use of the non-word “ye” in a sentence.

A few individuals were in the process of exiting the gap. The first among them was a massive man, his body overwhelmingly altered by hormonal reconfiguration and semi-implanted power-armor- -power armor with a large handle placed on one of the shoulders. Lilium wondered what that was for, until she saw what he was dragging. His disproportionate arms nearly reached to the ground, and he was pulling a man in identical armor behind him- -or at least what was left of him. One arm had been torn entirely off, and the legs were gone. Entrails and part of a spinal column trailed behind, adding one more red streak to the already stained ground. The deceased was covered in harvester spiders that were already pulling him apart.

Farther below, a medium-sized pack of sobakans were gathering, with one barking orders to the others in an abbreviated version of Standard Language. As they were assembling, another Delver passed. This one was only slightly taller than a human, but his suit was far wider. The legs and arms of it were completely robotic. On his back was an enormous pack, and across that several equally enormous firearms.

The wide Delver passed the sobakans, and as he did, his optical receptors focused on Hoig. Almost immediately, he raised a hand.

“Malo!” he yelled, nearly laughing as he did so. He then rushed forward with disturbing speed. When he approached Hoig, he spread his arms wide. “Shemch am kaki sank! I would recognize that suit anywhere! Hoig, is that you?” The Delver leaned forward, and the front of his suit split. It separated, revealing a small cockpit. Inside was a middle-aged human; he was deathly pale and thin, with long unwashed blond hair. He apparently had no arms; the stumps were linked directly to his suit.

“Jason,” said Hoig. He laughed, and although it was soft it was sincere and sounded oddly human. “You still do the work.”

“Forget me! You’re HOIG! You- -have you finally come back to the business? I haven’t seen you in years!” He looked over his shoulder, and his suit amplified his voice substantially. “Bella! BELLA! You’ll never guess who’s here!”

The leader of the sobakans looked up, her floppy ears perking at the sound of her name. She approached as well with long, loping steps that seemed oddly relaxed. Based on Lilium’s assessment, she seemed to be a derivative of a sighthound of some sort; her face was long and thin. Like the others of her kind, she wore no mask; unlike them, though, she wore no helmet whatsoever. The lack of it only served to highlight the fact that her face was disfigured heavily with the scars from a crude surgery that had replaced her eyes with highly reflective metal spheres.

“Huh?” Her eyes turned to Hoig. “No. Such is not possible.”

“I don’t remember you,” said Hoig.

“She’s from the West Side,” explained Jason. “Neli’s sister. She took over after what happened to Vlax.”

“Vlax,” said Hoigh. “He was claimed?”

Jason winced. “Yeah. Collapse got him. Pinned him and took out his respirator.”

“Did they…”

Jason nodded. “Of course they did. You can’t come back from that. It was worth the bullet. Fuck.” He was silent for a moment. Then he smiled again. “So,” he said, “you’re back.” He suddenly looked concerned. “Why aren’t you wearing your guild colors?”

Hoig shook his head under his helmet and mask. “Because I have no right. Left. Retired.”

“But you’re back now. And if anyone deserves them, it’s you!”

“Flatter. That is what you do. Not true, not true. And not back. One last trip.” He gestured toward Lilium, Forth, and Elrod, and explained with one word. “Tour.”

“Damn it, Hoig! You come out of retirement and STILL get the high-paying work!”

“I will charge half what he pays,” said Bella. “I undercut, if you use my team.”

“Dude! You don’t try to undercut Hoig!”

Bella crossed her arms. “Offer stands.”

“No thank you,” said Lilium.

Bella threw one hand up in the air and rolled her eyes dismissively. Jason laughed. “Told you.”

“Jason,” said Hoig. “I have been gone. Long time. Are there changes?”

“You mean in the guild, or in…”

“In Depths.”

Jason frowned. Bella’s canine face displayed less emotion, but even with mechanical eyes and a narrow sighthound face she still betrayed some level of discomfort.

“Yeah,” said Jason. “Freaky-ass shit’s happening.”

“That’s my favorite kind of shit,” whispered Forth.

Hoig ignored her. “What sort?”

“Don’t know. Hard to say. Weird stuff moving.”

“Moving?”

Jason nodded. “Guys saying they say machines going by. Flying ones. And I’ve never seen a technovore that can fly. Don’t know if I believe it, but the natives are restless. The vampires are going crazy. It’s bad. Real bad.”

“My team has seen things,” agreed Bella. “We sense more than humans. Some say they see ghosts. Or creatures that are not monsters. They are…” She struggled for a word. “Smarter. Things that watch. Waiting. The whole place is waiting.”

“Exactly! That’s exactly it! Fucking things shifting, whole sections clearing out or getting moved, all of that isn’t shit compared to that feeling. Like something’s watching you.”

“Something always is,” said Hoig.

“No, not something. IT. The Depths. That something’s down there that we haven’t seen before, but it doesn’t want to be seen.”

“It doesn’t impede work,” said Bella. “But I don’t like it. We don’t like it. And not just here. I felt it on the West Side too.”

Morgana stepped forward, making herself visible to the pair. “Does it have anything with what you call Yggdrasil?”

Jason went pale, and Bella yipped involuntarily at the sound of its name. They both looked at Hoig.

“Hoig. You aren’t.”

“One last trip.”

“Oh fuck. I mean, you’re a legend…but do you really want to go out like that?”

“Someone waits,” said Hoig. “I think…I think my daughter.”

“If you mean in piggy heaven, sure.”

Bella put her hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Leave him be. I had puppies once. Drowned them, but understand the feeling.”

Jason did not seem to accept that. “Come on, Hoig, please don’t.”

“Would you stop me?”

Jason stared at him, and then after a long moment chuckled. “No,” he admitted. “Damn. You’re crazy. But I guess you don’t get to be the best in this job by being sane. Don’t end up like Vlax, okay?”

Hoig just shrugged. Jason put his hand on Hoig’s shoulder, and then walked past him. Bella saluted, and then turned back to her pack, now literally barking at them to get them back in line as they tried to haul out most of an ancient-looking automobile chassis.

“Friend of yours?” asked Morgana, despite already knowing the answer.

Hoig sighed as he started walking once more. “Someone. Of the guild.”

“I didn’t even know the guild still existed,” said Elrod.

“It grows weak. Alive but dying. An old thing. Like me. The past.”

Part V, Chapter 2

At some point in the distant past, there might have been a time when Morgana had walked through the land of Bridgeport in the region that would eventually become the Depths. Even in that era, the city had been in a state of decay, and differentiating it from the rest of the failing cities of the late twenty-first century would have been nearly impossible. That time had been different for Morgana: in those days, the old programming was still fresh in her mind, and she avoided forests or towns out of fear of being haunted by visions of Ponyville and the Everfree.

No such visions haunted her this time. Although the old memories of being Twilight Sparkle could never truly be suppressed completely, there was almost nothing left in the human world to remind her of the life she had been told that she had lived. What might once have been recognizable as forests and a city had been replaced with something now completely uninterpretable as familiar.

The Depths themselves were enigmatic. Various phenomena had contributed to their construction. The largest and most generally accepted aspect was that the city had simply moved beyond; as lower levels were consumed and replaced with supports for higher ones, they became abandoned and fell into decay. Even that, though, was an incomplete view of their formation.

In the areas around Level C, there had been heavy remodeling by Delvers. The areas past the gate had been tunneled through and reinforced, forming caverns and caves that occasionally interfaced with cavities or pits that had been left from much older mining operations or abandoned drainage projects. The gates to Level C had no doors, because they were not necessary. This part of the Depths was undeveloped, but also uninteresting. Anything of value had long-since been removed, and the high traffic of Delvers taking the various trails to new and deeper frontiers tended to repel anything that might attempt to rise from deeper.

This area was lined with a number of electric lights strung through the caverns on long chains of wire. The distance between each of them was too far for anyone to have been able to see without augmented vision, but it was adequate for Morgana, who watched the world through Lilium’s eyes as hewn rock-walls and long-buried concrete partitions passed.

In time, this region passed. The lights stopped, and the channel began to move in a downward direction. Eventually, Hoig stopped at a gap into darkness.

“Here,” he said, drawing an enormous square rifle from his back. Morgana had already assessed it and determined that it was an obscure Ethiopian brand, designed for use with both .90 and .30 caliber bullets. Hoig had loaded the larger caliber with hollow-points. He paused for a moment, and then jumped down into the blackness. Forth followed him, her wings fluttering as she went. Lilium hesitated.

“Go,” said Morgana.

Lilium did so, jumping down the five-meter gap to the floor below and landing with an uncomfortable thud.

“Ow,” she groaned. Beside her, Elrod fell, landing on his side as he did so. He did not complain.

Lilium looked up and at the tunnel before them. This one, unlike the others, had not been cut- -at least not recently. The walls consisted of badly-cracked concrete, assembled in a long, straight tube. “What is this place?”

“Tunnel,” said Hoig, as if that were not already obvious.

“From the shape of it? It looks like it was meant for a train,” suggested Morgana.

“Then where is the train now?” asked Elrod.

“Long gone. Do you need to seek a schematic? The whole place is like Swiss cheese. Subways, pneumatics, utility corridors, drainage systems. About a thousand years worth of them.”

“But it’s abandoned.”

“Of course it is. Or do you expect someone to come down here and repair it?”

“Metro,” said Hoig. He flicked on the light on his rifle, and a large number of eyes reflected back at him before they departed rapidly into the darkness. Only the harvester spiders remained, taking note of the intruders before climbing up the walls and into various rusted access channels. “This was metro. Does not flood, not this time of year. Know way. We take route.”

“This leads to where we’re going?” asked Lilium, sounding quite hopeful.

Hoig laughed darkly. “No. It does not go down.”

They proceeded, for many hours. Time seemed to have little meaning in the Depths. Everything was dark and decayed, and the channels were long and winding. Hoig seemed to know the metro well, but he had grown old. It was a long time since he had journeyed down its paths. Many areas had collapsed, while others had been opened, either by Delvers with powerful cutting tools or by other unknown things.

The path was convoluted. At some places, the tunnels broke away into different systems, either because they had been cut by newer projects that drilled through them or because walls had been broken down into other types of tunnels. Many were trains of various types, but some appeared to be made for water. More than once, Morgana found herself passing effortlessly through shoulder-deep water while Lilium struggled to keep her head above it.

It was in one of these brick-lined drainage tubes that Hoig suddenly stopped. He lifted his gun, aiming it into the darkness. A mist or smoke had filled much of the tunnel, and his light did not penetrate far- -but he still seemed to be able to see.

“What is it?” asked Forth, opening one of her limbs and forming a weapon. Hoig noticed and grabbed her arm.

“No,” he said. “Nothing.” He lowered his rifle. “Nothing there.”

They continued, but not far. The tube widened, and the water grew deeper until it was up to Hoig’s waist. The flow of the water had increased, though, and a sound of water flowing over concrete echoed through the tunnel.

“Mind the wet-lizards,” said Hoig.

“Lizards?” Lilium looked down, and as she did she saw the flowing water undulate as the backs of pale crocodiles moved by. She screamed and attempted to jump out of the water by climbing onto the slippery walls on either side but only succeeding in striking deeper water. She fell below her head, and Morgana rolled her eyes.

“In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not made of meat.”

Lilium pulled herself up, gasping for breath despite her face being covered by a mask and her not needing to breathe at all. “That’s easy for you to say! Did you see the size- -oh sweet Celestia, one just touched me!!”

“If the wet-lizards afear you, your luck is bad,” said Hoig, darkly. He pushed forward, moving the crocodiles out of the way with the butt of his rifle. They protested slightly, but none of them bothered him. Taking down a heavily armored porc was clearly not something they wanted to try.

“What do they eat?” asked Elrod.

“Not know,” shrugged Hoig. “Never care.”

Lilium managed to calm down, but only because the grade of the pipe floor increased. It spread into a cross intersection, with two massively wide portions filled with far deeper water spreading out to the left and right. Part of the pipe, however, had fallen away, revealing a precipice. That was what Morgana had heard; water was flowing out of the pipe system and downward. There was no sound of it splashing against anything, though.

When Lilium finally reached the precipice, Morgana understood why. The pipe opened to a sheer drop. The land was cut away to a square hole several hundred feet wide. From its appearance, Morgana realized that it had once been intended to be a building. It was a penetrating development, like the downward projections of the towers of Hartford. This one, though, had been abandoned for centuries. The floors had largely collapsed, creating a tilting mezzanine of rubble that overlooked a dark drop several hundred meters into blackness.

“This is down,” said Hoig. He raised one of his arms and a small device fired, striking a protruding metal beam overhead. A small flash of light erupted around the projectile as it fused, illuminating an almost imperceptible thread that linked it back to Hoig’s suit. He put his rifle on his back and tapped Elrod’s shoulder. “Right there,” he said, gesturing to part of Elrod’s suit. “Link, then follow.”

With that, Hoig took several steps back- -followed by a running leap into the void. He swung for a moment on the thread and then dropped downward, his line-link producing a whine that faded as he descended.

“This is all insane,” muttered Elrod as he connected himself to the thread. He attempted to go down slowly, but ended up falling fast enough to cause him to let out low squeal.

“I don’t have a link!” said Lilium, turning around her to see that the crocodiles were reassembling. With Hoig gone, they had grown curious about the small, pony-sized creature that was wandering through their water. “How- - how do I use it?”

“You don’t.” Forth descended from above and took hold of Lilium. “Here, Ms. Lilium. I will carry you.”

Forth’s wings beat faster, lifting Lilium off the ground and over the edge. Lilium gasped when she looked down, realizing the vast distance that the vertical pathway went. Hoig and Elrod were already nearly out of sight.

Morgana walked to the edge as well. Being highly committed to her metaphor, she sprouted a pair of wings and took flight, descending alongside Lilium. Lilium tried to focus on Morgana so as not to look down, or on the crumbling floors of the building as they passed. Most of it was just debris, but she could see the remnants of what the subterranean tower had once contained: half-collapsed shops, or apartments, their contents now badly rotted but still often recognizable, spilled out throughout the broken floors.

As they passed, Morgana was able to see some signs of motion. On one floor, a pair of humans in full-body hazard suits and bearing large rifles stared at her as she passed, watching. On another, a group of large dog-like creatures retreated into a more complete section of the floor, leaving behind the severed arm that they had been gnawing on.

“What- -are those dogs?”

Morgana shook her head. “Hyperwolves. Get used to them. There’s a lot down here.”

“If you see any more, let me know,” asked Forth. “I’ve always wanted to hunt. Like a mountain-man.”

When they reached the ground, Hoig was already waiting for them and in the process of tying down his line.

“There you are,” he said. “Good.”

“I saw two humans, I think,” said Lilium as Forth put her down. “I don’t know. It was hard to tell.”

Hoig nodded. “Saw. Delvers. Bad sign. Not worst, though.”

“Why were they here?”

“This. Used to be good. Less now, but some things.”

Lilium looked up at the tower over her. The water was now raining down near them, having been dispersed into many small streams and waterfalls by the jutting pieces of building overhead. Wherever it touched, strange, thick tendrils of mold grew.

“Is this level stable?” asked Morgana.

“None of it is,” replied Hoig, once again taking his gun off his back. He pointed across the level that they now stood on, which consisted entirely of a complex debris field. Periodically, small things would drop from overhead and add to the heap. “Opening that way. We go.”

The abandoned tower led to more tunnels. These, though, were not meant for trains, but appeared to have once been intended to serve as part of a complex of several underground towers. They came across as abandoned, moldering corridors. Some parts of it seemed to have been meant to have a train, or perhaps even a road for cars, but that section now stood empty.

Most things of value had been stripped; every door had been blown out and the rooms inside looted. Even the doorknobs had been taken, as well as any electronics and wire linked to any sort of lighting systems. Elrod seemed to take great interest in this.

“Sometimes I considered becoming a Delver,” he said. “I mean…just one of these doors is better than a whole week’s haul in the civilized zone. I wonder why they’re here…”

“Heavy,” replied Hoig. “You are better off. Things here, are different. Costs, different. Carry only what is worth to carry.”

“Do you know why this is all abandoned?” asked Lilium. She was looking around almost in awe; the environment around her had clearly taken a long time to construct, and yet had fallen completely into disrepair.

“No.”

“What about you?” Lilium turned to Morgana.

“I don’t bother with social policy. But there’s a lot of these. I remember when they opened. They just never took off. I guess nobody wanted to live in the upper Depths.”

“Upper? Wait, how deep does this go?”

“A lot deeper. We’re barely in the surface right now. Trust me. If this was easy, I would have done it before I lost Roxanne.”

The journey continued, and as Morgana predicted, it was neither easy nor short. Days passed as the group picked their way across rubble and through strange tunnels and ancient highways. Usually, they moved in a downward direction, but sometimes upward when the way was blocked. In general, though, they were getting closer- -though they never seemed to.

Of them, only Hoig needed to sleep. He did not do so for very long; every twenty hours or so he would sit down and become silent for several hours. The others would wait patiently, but they said little. The darkness was ever-present, and both Morgana and Lilium began to feel what the other Delvers had warned them about. They were being watched. Sometimes, in the distance, they would see animals of various sorts: mostly hyperwolves, but also genets, and sometimes even sickly vulpi on occasion. There were other things too that they could not see so well, things that were larger and stayed back or flew through the air silently. The feeling of being watched, though, did not come from them. It was some other presence, or a lack of one; one that had been waiting, and almost seemed to be beckoning them forward.

The remains of the city began to become more and more diverse as the distance to civilization grew greater. Less Delvers came this deep, although there were signs that some had: rusted suits with bones still connected to them, or large symbols cut into the walls that gave directions and maps in strange languages. Hoig took note of both, and adjusted his course accordingly.

After four days, they came to an enormous cavern. Lilium had no sense of what had formed it, or why it existed; at this depth, it had to be artificial, but whatever had created it had left few traces that could be seen. Buildings sat on its edge, all of them lining the shore of a vast lake.

What struck Lilium was not the fetid, placid water, though, but the fact that this room also contained light. Near the shore, standing in the shadow of a vast and decrepit building, sat a small network of prefabricated buildings. The distant hum of a nuclear turbine filled the air, and warm lights filled the camp while spotlights illuminated the dead ground around its perimeter.

Hoig did not hesitate to approach it. Lilium was concerned until Morgana pointed out the flag that flew over the camp. Although there was no wind, a wire forced it to sit upright: it showed the crest of the Delver’s Guild, and below it was a large sign with the name “Waystation” written on it.

Despite the light, though, the camp seemed to be empty- -save for a single human. She stood at the edge of the lake, her eyeless face staring away from the lights of her camp. The machines linked to her body churned quietly, filtering the radiation from her blood as they forced purified oxygen into her bloodstream. The back and front of her suit were marked with the crest of the guild.

Hoig hailed her. “Blind Jerri,” he said.

“Hoig.” She smiled, but did not turn. To Lilium, the woman looked like a little girl- -but that made no sense. She had to be older. “They told me you would be coming.”

“Who?” asked Morgana.

Hoig just shook her head. “She has spent decades staring. Into darkness.”

“And the darkness has stared back into me,” replied Jerri. “Because what use are eyes in this land? It is better not to see. Seeing is a distraction.”

“Ah,” sneered Morgana. “So she’s insane.”

“Yes,” she said. “And I can in fact see you. Or perceive you. You have no body.”

“Yeah. I’m working on it.”

“You will not find them down here. Any ponies that were here were consumed long ago.”

Hoig looked up at her. “Machine-eaters?”

“Their activity has increased, yes,” sighed Jerri. “But…”

“But?”

“It is not of their own will. I can hear it when they move. The machines they have taken are not their own, nor are they old. Someone is supplying them.”

“Or they dug into something more sophisticated than their usual diet.”

Jerri shrugged. “Perhaps. But the wind tells me that this is not the case.”

“The…wind?”

“Can’t you feel it?”

“Yes,” said Morgana, without hesitation- -perhaps to end the conversation, or perhaps because she truly did.

“The ghosts have grown strong. But not the right ghosts. Not the ones who lie here, who speak to me in my sleep. Evil ones. The balance here, it’s been disrupted. But it will return. Ninety years I have watched this realm. And it will return to peace before it claims me. Not long now…”

“Jerri. Can resupply here?”

“You are not a member of the guild, Hoig. But I will make an exception. Take only what you need, except ammunition. Take extra of that. The wind has shown me the far side of the lake. And you will need it.”

They regrouped over the course of several hours. Hoig took some supplies- -food, water, reactors, and new filter cartridges- -which came in the form of canisters that he linked to his suit. He did not take more ammunition. Forth, however, took all of it.

After Hoig had rested, Lilium approached him. Morgana followed her like a glowing shadow.

“Do you need more time?” she asked.

“No.”

“But you’ve been going so long. If you don’t rest- -”

“Hoig knows the pain. Is used to it.” He picked up his rifle. “We go. Other side, beyond way-stations. No network. This is last stop, then wilds.”

Lilium gulped and nodded as she followed Hoig to the bank, where Forth and Elrod were already waiting.

“So,” said Elrod, “we need a boat.”

“Do you have boat?”

“Um…no?”

“Then no boat. We walk.”

Hoig stepped into the water, and as he did he pounded his fist against the side of his helmet. Several forward lights flickered to life, and part of his suit began to whir. Lilium and Elrod looked at each other, completely confused. Then Hoig walked into the water, disappearing from its surface.

“Um…”

“Yeah, I’m not doing that,” said Forth. Her wings began to buzz, and she lifted off the ground. “I’ll stay up here, thank you. Swimming is for infidels.”

Lilium and Elrod still paused.Morgana seemed to grow annoyed. “Are you going to go or not?”

Elrod turned and stepped into the water. After a few steps in, he dove below the surface. Lilium found it odd that he had hesitated in the first place, considering he had been more than able to swim in raw sewage. She wondered if he sensed something the rest of them could not.

“It isn’t that much farther,” said Morgana. “Come on.”

“Yeah…I’m coming…”

Lilium approached the water and stepped into it. It was cold and opaque, but she stepped forward and into it. Just before she went under, she looked back at the shore. In the distance, Blind Jerri was staring at her- -and for just a moment, Lilium was sure that she saw a second woman. One dressed in all black.

There was no visibility in the water. Despite this, Lilium was still able to see clearly. The suit she had been given had automatically switched to a form of ultrasonic rendering, which she assumed must have been what Hoig had activated before immersing himself. It showed her a projection of the environment with reasonable clarity: of a floor lined with heavily radioactive debris, all of it forming a treacherous network of metal and glass that seemed to go outward forever.

“Damn,” said Lilium, softly, as she picked over the debris, following Hoig and Elrod who apparently had no trouble doing so. “This is kind of freaking me out.”

“Why?” asked Morgana. She was walking along the debris as well, rendered perfectly in Lilium’s mind. “You can’t drown.”

“I know, it’s just…all this water…” She began to hyperventilate, or at least through she did. Then she forced herself to be calm, even as the debris began to slope and the water started to become much deeper. “It’s not just the water.”

“Nobody said the Depths were a nice place. I don’t like being here either.”

“No, this whole thing. I don’t like it. It’s all wrong. I mean, what are we even doing?”

“Solving the case.”

“Are we? What happens once we get there? Do you even have a plan? Maybe a flowchart?”

“No. I don’t even know how I’d make one right now.”

“Then what are we supposed to do?! Because if we get there, then it’s all on them. And I don’t think they’re going to be all that friendly.”

“No. Probably not. But I don’t think they’re going to be violent either.”

Lilium paused. “Wait. You know something.”

“I know a lot of things.”

“No, you know something about this case. Something I don’t.”

“I have theories,” said Morgana, shrugging.

“Technically hypothesis,” muttered Lilium.

“What they’re called doesn’t matter. What matters is if I prove them right or wrong. I’m so close, Lilium. I can almost taste it. I have to finish this. I just have to.”

“Whatever the cost?”

Morgana stared at Lilium. Though she did not speak, the answer was clear.

The going through the water was slow and long. Several miles passed by as the slope of the submerged land continued to decline. The radiation grew more intense, as did the oppressive darkness and pressure. Lilium could hear her suit creaking from the force, and she was worried that it would implode and allow saltwater to rush inside. She had no idea if her body would survive that, although Morgana seemed confident that it would. At the same time, Lilium started to detect things moving in the water. At first, she dismissed them as fish, until it occurred to her that they were far too large and that the water was far too toxic to support any normal forms of life.

Then the slope began to rise. It rose slower than it had sunk, and a longer distance was passed before Lilium finally felt herself approaching what appeared to her sonar like a great flat plane overhead: the surface of the water.

As she neared the shallows, though, a sound echoed through the water. It was a deep, repetitive thudding. Lilium did not recognize it, but Morgana did.

“Gunfire,” she said.

Lilium felt herself grow cold, and she accelerated, clawing her way out of the water and mud on the shore. As she emerged, she saw Hoig firing his rifle into the distance. Forth, likewise, had unfolded half of her body into whatever weapons the Cult of Humanity had built her to contain. She was firing as well. Just as Lilium emerged, she saw a number of enormous white lizards sprinting awkwardly into the darkness. They were as large as crocodiles or alligators, but far faster.

“What is it?!” cried Lilium. “What’s going on?!”

Something in the darkness moved, and Lilium instantly understood that the monitors had been incidental. A thrum of what sounded like many engines, and the sound of something pushing through debris with ease. Hoig’s light shined into the darkness, and suddenly reflected off a massive red eye. The mechanisms within the eye shifted, narrowing its pupil and separating its iris into many more. Optics of every possible kind shifted, staring at the tiny people who were firing at it. Then it lifted its numerous legs and crawled forward, a vast creature made of metal and heterogeneous machinery of every type. It groaned and nearly spoke as it passed, the plates on its body reconfiguring as it shed damaged ones and sealed itself with what scales it had. Then, without pausing, it slipped into the water, its long squirming tail trailing behind it.

The group fell silent for a moment, aside from the sudden splashing of Lilium sprinting out of the ankle-deep water she was standing in as the machine’s tendrils slipped up through the mud around her. Hoig kept his rifle pointed at the water’s surface, though, until he was sure that the creature had gone.

“What- -what was that?”

“Machine-eater,” said Hoig.

“He means a technovore,” said Morgana. “Goddamn it…since when do they get that big?”

“How big are they usually?”

“Between a dog and a car. That…”

“That was an autotruck size,” said Elrod. “I mean…I’ve never actually…you know…seen one.” He put his head in his hands as he sat down. “Damn…next you’ll tell me the feral Fluttershys are real too…”

“Pray we do not find them either,” said Hoig, slowly lowering his rifle. “Our luck is good. White-pony attracted it, but it was less hungry. For now.”

“For now?”

Hoig pointed his light into the darkness. Several horribly deformed metallic creatures squealed and recoiled. Though smaller, it was still apparent that they were also technovores: quasi-intelligent machines that had built themselves from the scrap they consumed, building themselves ever-larger and ever-more advanced bodies.

“Can we get through?” asked Lilium.

“Have to,” said Hoig. “Be very careful.”

They moved forward carefully. The technovores retreated some of the time; although they behaved in many ways like animals, their reactions were far less predictable. Some sat where they stood and watched, forcing Hoig to lead the group around them. Forth’s unblinking eyes watched them constantly, prepared to attack at any moment without hesitation. Lilium wished she could share Forth’s confidence or at least Hoig’s poise.

The area on the far side of the lake largely consisted of a forest of pipes rising at an oblique angle, moving upward through a system that had been drilled into the roof, creating a vast chimney. It seemed that someone was either dumping waste or extracting the water for use, or perhaps both. Lilium felt herself growing increasingly glad that she was a machine and did not need to worry about things like drinking or toxicity.
Then, all at once, the entire atmosphere seemed to shift. Lilium froze, as did Hoig. Fog seemed to drift in from the lake as the temperature changed.

“This is bad,” said Lilium.

“Yes,” agreed Hoig.

A tone rang out over the land. It was as penetrating as it was simple. Then, through the mist, Lilium saw something approaching. She did not see it clearly, only the fact that it was bipedal and badly deformed. Its broken, asymmetrical body was far larger than a human, although it seemed to have at least part of a pony head- -or, as Lilium looked closer, three heads.

“Shit!” said Morgana. “MOVE! NOW!”

Before Lilium could even respond, the tone went out again, and this time the technovores reacted. They charged forward.

Over Lilium’s shoulder, Forth opened fire. Her aim was true, but the attacking horde was durable. Being destroyed did not stop them; the only advantage was that when one fell it was devoured by several others as they incorporated its parts into themselves. It was not a random act, though; Lilium could see patterns in their motion that were characteristic of a single parsed mind. They were a hive.

“Run!” cried Hoig, suddenly sprinting. Despite his size, the power-assist of his suit made him unnaturally swift. Elrod attempted to keep pace, but like Lilium, he was slow.

“We can’t keep up!”

“I can!” Forth unfolded her body into its humanoid conformation. She grabbed Lilium under one arm and Elrod under the other. This made her unable to fire back effectively, save for the use of any weapons built into her sides, but she was able to carry both with ease.

“Where are we going?!” cried Lilium. “Wait, Hoig- -”

Suddenly, Lilium saw a ledge appear before them. Hoig did not hesitate or fire a line; he simply leapt over the edge. Jets on the rear of his suit ignited; although they could not lift him, they stabilized his fall and slowed his descent. Forth did the same, although lacking jets she was forced to use her wings.

“Hoig!” she called. “Catch!”

“Wait, what- -”

Lilium screamed as Forth tossed her downward. Hoig caught her under one arm and grabbed Elrod by his collar as he fell. Forth, meanwhile, turned around and opened fire with her full arsenal, melting and burning her way through the technovores that leapt over the edge after them, with special focus on those that had the ability to fly.

Few technovores followed, and those that did and somehow managed to survive were dashed on the rocks below. Hoig landed with substantial force, although the legs of his suit absorbed the blow successfully. Forth followed, resuming her pony form as she neared the ground but never ceasing her flight.

“Thanks,” said Lilium shakily.

“Not yet. I hold a little longer.” Hoig tightened his grasp. “There are other ways. Now, is time to go fast. For a little, yes.”

With that, he took off in a quick jog. Forth followed behind and overhead, occasionally firing backward- -at first a lot, and then more and more seldom until not at all. Lilium held Hoig tightly. In her mind, she could feel Morgana’s emotions: impatience and annoyance, largely, along with an overwhelming, nearly obsessive excitement. Lilium herself, though, was so very afraid.

They did not stop running until they reached the edge of a massive concrete support column. Above them sat a pillar nearly a mile in diameter, made of solid metal and concrete, forced deep into the Depths long ago as the city expanded overhead. It seemed almost foreign as it tore its way through the environment. Though it must have gone hundreds upon hundreds of meters into the air, the area below it consisted of a number of collapsed buildings and partitions that made an excellent artificial thicket. The group took refuge in there, and Hoig set down both Lilium and Elrod.

Almost immediately, he sat down, breathing hard.

“Hoig?” asked Lilium.

“Not dying. Not yet. Just old. And porc. Porcs not meant to run.”

“You saved our lives.”

“That’s his job,” shrugged Morgana.

Lilium turned suddenly. “And what did YOU do?”

“What CAN I do? I’m a technomancer. Despite the similarity in the name, I can’t do anything against technovores. Just look.”

“Did you see anything?” asked Forth.

“Yes. They were working together.”

“I noticed that too,” said Lilium. “You don’t need to be a technomancer to see that.”

“That’s not how they normally work, though. Technovores are solitary. They were focused on one of them. One that was MUCH smarter than it should be.”

Lilium gasped. “I saw it.”

Morgana nodded. “I did too.”

“Was it…one of them?”

“No. I don’t think so. But I think they helped make it. Damn it, that’s a risky move. Either they’re desperate or insane. Or…”

“Or what?”

“Or they want sentries that can’t be traced back to them.”

“The motivation doesn’t matter,” said Elrod. “What matters is we got away.”

“You don’t sound happy about that,” noticed Forth.

“Well…do you have any idea how much technovores are worth? Just one of them…”

“Not worth it,” said Hoig. He made a slicing motion with his hand. “Price is high for reason. Hunting machine eaters is not easy. They come back too good. From tiny pieces.”

“You mean those will grow back?”

“Not know. Not matter. Ten clicks, be in spider-place. Not better, but not follow.”

“Because harvesters and technovores can’t coexist,” noted Morgana.

Hoig nodded and stood up. He lifted his rifle, but then paused before inexplicably placing it on his back. Lilium suddenly detected motion. She turned sharply to see eyes staring back at her from the broken corridors of the debris around them. Figures moved swiftly, and Lilium backed away, even though they did not look like technovores or hyperwolves. Whereas technovores were often reflective or produced a whirr of motors and hyperwolves squeaked and growled aggressively, these figures were dark in color and moved in silence.

Forth raised one of her arms and unfolded it, preparing to fire. Hoig put his hand on her barrels and forced her to lower them.

“Are times to shoot. And times not to. Now is not to. White-horse:you must listen. Do not shoot. Not at all, and not ever, until I say so. Listen now. Is important.”

Forth looked up at him, confused, and then at Morgana. Morgana nodded, and Forth obeyed Hoig’s suggestion. She folded her weapons back into place and began walking, although she did not take her eyes off the darkness surrounding her.

They continued around the perimeter of the support pillar, and Lilium was distinctly conscious of the figures following them. For some reason, it was almost impossible to get a clear view of them; part of this was the decreased resolution of her suit’s camera, but it also seemed that the pursuers were dressed in some kind of camouflage. They knew to stay in the dark where they could not be seen, and only made their presences known- -and only ever partially- -when they wanted to be seen.

“Morgana, what are they?”

“I don’t know,” snapped Morgana. “We have the same eyes.”

“Quiet is good,” whispered Hoig.

“I wasn’t talking,” said Morgana. “I’m not integrated into their systems. I can’t even find any systems. At least with the technovores there was SOMETHING. But these, I can’t tell…”

Hoig did not respond, with seemed to annoy Morgana greatly. She did not like others knowing things that she did not- -and to Lilium, it served her right for keeping her own ideas so pointlessly secure. To Lilium, it was a matter of patience and trust: she trusted that Hoig knew what he was doing, and that she only had to wait until he revealed what his plan was.

The land began to slope upward, and the ceiling of the broken corridor gave way to a larger cavern. Overhead, some massive piece of debris had formed a roof, while a heavily sloped flat piece had made the floor. The result was a substantial cavity.

“You’re taking us in the open,” said Morgana. “I don’t like this. If my body- -”

“It’s not even your body,” grumbled Lilium.

Forth turned around, her eyes wide with amazement. “Hoig said to be quiet!”

“No. You can speak now. Just quiet. Better they know we are here.” Hoig pointed. Lilium squinted, trying to see through the static of her camera. After a moment, she realized that she was looking at buildings. Not ones that were the remnant of some fallen or abandoned aspect of ancient Bridgeport, or prefabs set out by the Delver’s Guild. They were instead constructed from what appeared to be scrap and debris, and they were lit by fire instead of nuclear-driven electric light. Planning and conscious effort had gone into its construction: it was a village.

As if on cue, the figures emerged from the darkness, suddenly swarming around the group. Lilium realized what they were: human. Their bodies had been painted in various shades of black and gray, and they bore some various rusted armor. In their hands they held swords and spears, as well as tubes that Lilium supposed were blowguns of a sort. One among them held a badly decayed gun that had been decorated with various small, hanging bits of glass and fur. He appeared to be the leader.

The leader pointed his gun at Hoig. “Kien?” he demanded.

Hoig slowly raised his hands, and then reached for his helmet. With a click, he removed it. The humans jumped back, and for a moment Lilium was sure that they were about to attack. When they saw Hoig’s face, though, their eyes went wide and most of them lowered their weapons. Even the leader turned his gun so that he held it by the barrel, using it as a staff. A wide smile crossed his wrinkled face.

“Puerco Asado!” he cried, raising his arms.

Hoig smiled, or made an expression that was as close to a smile as his porcine face would allow. “Si,” he said. “Hola. Bueno.”

The humans laughed, yet their circle grew somewhat tighter. Lilium felt one of them poke her with a stick. They were moving them toward the village, and although they seemed happy, Lilium once again found herself strangely nervous. This time, though, she wondered if it was her own fear- -or Morgana’s.

More humans awaited them in the village. Some were like the others, although without the charcoal paint. Others bore no weapons, but reacted with great reserve toward the oncoming group, at least until they saw Hoig. As soon as one recognized him, she yelled to the others. Those that possessed weapons lowered them, and those who had hidden emerged suddenly, instantly forming a throng of half-naked individuals. All of them seemed to speak in the same language, and as the group leading them spoke amongst themselves, Forth looked confused.

“I can’t understand them,” she said.

“No. You wouldn’t be able to,” said Morgana. “It’s Spanish. The language has been dead for six hundred years.”

“I can understand it,” said Lilium.

“You were programmed to speak it. It was common when I was young, and when you were originally supposed to be born. But now…”

They were led into what amounted to the village’s main street. Children ran forward. They hesitated greatly around Elrod and Lilium, and they could not see Morgana. All of them looked at Hoig in awe, though, as if they were seeing a man straight out of a tale. Few approached him, though. Forth, though, was swarmed.

“Caballito!” they cried. “Caballito con alas!”

They said other things, but Forth did not understand any of it. The children hugged her and grabbed at her wings. She herself was only slightly taller than some of them, but seemed to tolerate the attention well. Her body had been intended for endless military campaigns; there was little that children could do to harm her. Still, she looked to Morgana for advice.

“These beings. Are they infidels?”

“No,” said Morgana. “They are children.”

“Oh. Good. It would make me sad to kill them without a reason to. But I’ve never seen children before. Just in targeting simulations. They are smaller than I thought they would be. Like little humans.”

“That’s exactly what they are!” laughed Lilium. Morgana, though, did not laugh. She still seemed as concerned as ever, and seemed to observe the children intently.

“Do you notice anything?” she asked, turning to Lilium.

“No,” said Lilium. “Why? Should I?”

“Look at their skin.” Lilium did. She winced when she saw a number of strange scabs and early evidence of tumor formation. “All the people here are either old or badly diseased. Cutaneous conditions, infection, amputations, mental retardation…no one here is healthy.”

“If they live like this, what do you expect?”

“What else do you notice?”

“Excuse me? What, do you want me to identify every one of the conditions by name? You’re really confident they can’t hear us insulting them, aren’t you?”

“They can’t hear me anyway. But that’s exactly my point. Not one of them has cybernetics of any kind.” Morgana turned to Elrod. “What do you think?”

“I can’t tell without a reading,” said Elrod, causing some of the braver children to squeal and jump away from him; they had not realized that he could speak. “But movements and the presence of disease suggest that they have very little genetic modification.”

“They don’t have any,” said Morgana. “I’m sure of it. These are naters. Natural-born humans.”

Suddenly, the children cleared. The groups of people who had come to witness “Puerco Asado” parted, leaving the dusty street clear. A man appeared before them on the street, and was joined by two other humans who arrived from the sides. All three of them were considerably aged, at least by natural-born standards, and they were dressed in dirty but extensive clothing decorated with various trinkets. The leader of them bore jewelry that contained numerous hyperwolf skulls, as well as several harvester spider eyes- -as well as a human jawbone and the lower hooves of at least three separate ponies. The other elders- -one male, and one female- -had similar chains and dress, although often with different bones and parts. The woman even wore the extensive skull of a long-dead technovore on her chest.

All three of them had guns, although the weapons they used were ancient and likely nonfunctional, having been converted into what amounted to spears or staffs. The warriors of the village, though, converged around the elders, responding to orders that Lilium could not perceive. The leader of the elders, though scarred and ridden with disease, looked quite similar to the leader of the warriors, who was a slightly younger version of himself.

The leader moved one shaking hand over his face, spreading his fingers to reveal that there were exactly five. “Caras,” he said, softly.

“Wants remove masks,” said Hoig. “El-rod, also remove glove. Show fingers.”

Elrod did not hesitate, possibly out of fear of being skewered by the numerous soldiers that eyed him viciously. He removed his helmet, and Lilium was pleased to see that his regeneration had progressed greatly. His face looked exactly as it had the first time she had seen them. He also- -with some difficulty- -unlatched one of the gloves on his suit. He held up a hand that despite having brown, flaky skin on its rear, had five fingers.

Lilium also removed her helmet. Some of the crowd gasped, with whispers of the word “unicornio” passing through the crowd.

The elder did not smile, but he nodded, seeming to accept the situation. Hoig reached behind him, but rather than reaching for a weapon he removed one of the canisters from his suit. He approached the Elder and twisted the top unit of the canister apart, pulling it apart to reveal the internal machinery. It was a food component, and the inner portion was filled with numerous bays of dehydrated food blocks.

“Comida,” he said, with some difficulty. He passed the unit to the leader of the warrior band, whose eyes went wide when he saw how much food it contained. Then Hoig reached for his belt, and removed a small square box. He gave it directly to the leader, who took it with one shaking hand. “Por rabia.”

The elder nodded and took the box. He nodded, and then slowly turned his attention toward Lilium, Forth, and Elrod. He leaned on his gunstaff and spoke.

“You speak the language of the fallen?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Elrod, clearly confused by the question.

“English,” said Lilium, stepping forward to be beside Hoig. “Pero tambien puedo hablar Español.” Lilium was somewhat taken aback by her ability to speak Spanish, but it seemed that Morgana had been correct. She was programmed with several common languages, although unfortunately none apart from English that were of any use in the modern age.

The elder smiled, although only slightly. “The one called Puerco Asado is friend to us, to our village. Few who come come with kindness. With weapons, with disease, to take, even though what we have is of no value to them. The legend of Puerco Asado runs long, of beasts slain and of kindness great.” His eyes slowly turned to Hoig. “But you have been away long. We had feared you had returned-ash.”

“No,” said Hoig. “Encontró- -”

“Una hija. Si. I know. A perfect child, a remain of a lost tribe. The wind brings news swiftly, and once did a boat cross to the Blind Sentry, the oracle.” He looked between the ponies and Elrod. “But none are her.”

Hoig’s expression dropped, and he tried not to let them see the tears, although it was obvious the humans perceived his sadness. Many clasped their hands to their mouths, and some gasped. “Está… está muerta.”

The elder shook his head. “This is grave news indeed. I am sorry.”

“Tomodo.”

The elder’s eyes narrowed, and the mood of the crowd shifted from pity to fear. “By who?”

“No se…” Hoig turned to Lilium. “Please. Cannot…I do not have words. Morgana.”

Lilium nodded and projected Morgana beside her. Many in the crowd screamed and leapt back. “Fantasma!” They cried. “Fantasma purpura!”

Even the two secondary elders raised their staffs as weapons while they took a step back in fear, and the warriors, though afraid, drew their weapons. The eldest man among them, though, only sighed.

“No es fantamsa,” he explained. “Solo truco del las caballitas.”

“I am Morgana,” said Morgana. Lilium knew quite well that she spoke their language, but that she refused to address them in it. “My body is currently destroyed, so yes, in a sense, I am a ghost. I’m looking for the people who took my body. And who took Hoig’s daughter.”

The elder’s eyes narrowed. “What you seek is evil.”

“Then you know what it is.”

“I have always known. But I had hoped. That one who had been found and brought away might escape. That they would not journey into the far-world. Come. Come with me.”

He turned and walked, and Morgana followed. Since she was linked to Lilium, Lilium had to follow as well. The elder moved slowly, but with a sturdiness that was uncharacteristic for an old man. How old he actually was, though, was not clear.

“Do you want to know?” asked Morgana.

Lilium gasped. “Were you reading my mind?”

“I don’t have to. I thought you would find it interesting. We’re both Twilight Sparkles. Curiosity is in our nature.”

“Fine.”

Morgana nodded to the elder. “He is twenty years younger than Valla.”

“Yeah right. You have no way to know that.”

“I’m a detective. I know people. And I can tell their age.”

“But Valla- -”

“Still has a number of genetic enhancements. Even the poorest humans do.”

“I know not this ‘Valla’,” said the elder, without turning, “but what you say is likely true. The fallen live long lives, but pay a heavy price.”

Lilium was confused. “What price?”

“I mean what I say. In money. You have dwelt in their world. It created you, no?”

Lilium thought about it for a moment, and then nodded slowly.

The elder looked over his shoulder and gave a sad smile. “In their world, have you seen children?”

“One or two,” admitted Lilium. “No…” She paused. “Only the one in the Upper Levels…”

“That is the price. In money. They are sterile. Children are born in factories. Though I do not dwell in their world, this I know, as I was told it by my father, and his father before him. A war to cure poverty, but such a war that cannot be fought.”

“A war that succeeded,” said Morgana.

“Did it? A world where only those with money can bring more to this world? Is that a good world?”

“I don’t care if it’s good or bad,” replied Morgana. “I’m a pony. Human reproduction does not concern me. But less humans means less poverty.”

“And would none be ideal, then?”

“Of course. But I gave up on that goal when your ancestors still walked in sunlight.”

The elder chuckled softly. “Then you are a fool. But such is expected. We hold many stories. And even as fantasma, you still bear it. Piedra Rojo.”

A murmur went through the crowd, and Lilium noticed that even though Morgana was only a hologram, she still bore the image of the ruby given to her by Twinkleshine Prime at the end of the Adorable Revolution.

“Today is a strange day,” said the elder. “I am glad I could see it. The return of the hero, Puerco Asado, and to witness the ghost of Piedra Rojo. But in this time, such things must assemble. Such proclaims the wind, and the Eyes of the Night.”

They came to the edge of the village, to a square where no one dared to build their house. No fires burned in this area, and low walls built from ragged concrete debris surrounded it. In the center stood a statue lit by candles. As Lilium approached, she saw that it was carved from many pieces of fused stone- -and she recognized what it was.

It stood on two legs, a thin creature with clawed, outstretched arms. It had six of them, and on its shoulders it bore the head of a pony. The eyes had been painted on with charcoal; they were black and seemed to stare at the approaching crowd, glaring down hungrily. Though the interpretation was distorted, Lilium knew: it was a carving of one of the anthro-units that belonged to the Cult of Humanity.

The elder lowered his gun staff to the ground and dropped to his knees, bowing as he approached the statue. The remainder did as well, and they spoke together in a language that was neither Spanish nor English. Then the elder sat up, though he did not rise.

“Moloch, Rey de Lágrimas,” he said, as though that were an explanation. Then he bowed again. “This is the god our ancestors found. Our price, the one we paid.”

“I don’t understand,” said Morgana. “I know what this is. I’ve seen them.”

“Then you have seen Death.”

“What is it?” asked Morgana. “From your perspective?”

The elder sighed and shook his head. “Many things lie in the wastes. Things with names, things without. We have heard stories. From other tribes, those miles and miles below who no longer live…and who have arisen once more, sometimes as something else. Is finding a god unreasonable?”

“You worship them?”

“We try to appease them,” snapped the elder. “But they are not happy. Never happy. No sacrifice is enough. Save for one.”

“Children.”

Lilium gasped, but the elder nodded, his eyes having grown steely. “Yes. But this land is toxic. We take what we can, and live, but many are born cursed. Some live only days. Some years. But when Moloch comes, he only takes the most perfect. Those not bitten, those without broken minds or sickly bodies. Only the most perfect.”

“Because only one in one thousand natural-born humans is adequate,” said Elrod.

“What did you just say?” asked Morgana.

Elrod shook his head. “Nothing.”

“What are they used for, though?” asked Forth. “Children seem to have little use. They cannot hold guns. Not well, anyway.”

“I do not know. I do not ask. Some here will claim they become the Damned, the vampires. But the vampires are no different from us, born from mothers in their own way.” He shook his head. “This is the way it has always been. It cannot be helped…not until now.”

“What do you mean?” asked Morgana.

The elder paused for a long time. “Things are changing,” he said, simply. “The whole world is moving. Tension gathers. Moloch sits, thinking, waiting in the Great Tree.”

“Yggdrasil.”

“I know not this word. But I know the place. None return from Moloch’s throne. It is our most sacred place. And our most feared.”

“I intend to go there,” said Morgana.

“But do you intend to return?”

Much to Lilium’s horror, Morgana did not answer.

“Then I must know. Do you intend to slay Moloch?”

“I intend to slay no one. This Moloch is not my concern. Nor is the fate of your people.”

“Then you might very well prevail, for if you do, it will be pointless. Such is the way this world tends to progress. The wheel turns, but only in place.”

They remained in the village overnight. A party, or something similar to it, was thrown in Hoig’s honor. The mood, though joyous, had an undertone of somberness: all among them knew that their beloved Puerco Asado was headed to a place where he would not return, and though they honored this it made them sad as well.

Lilium enjoyed the festivities, although she felt that her behavior was somewhat awkward. The humans tolerated it, though, and she was happy to learn about their rituals. Though these people had no books in their possession, Lilium wondered if their behavior was something the Librarians would be interested in. Although Faulkner had never once mentioned the possibility of it, Lilium began composing a text in her mind, organizing and collating it even as she watched hyperwolf meat being prepared and as children attempted to ride Forth.

After a time, though, she noticed that two members of the party were missing. Morgana had vanished, electing to retreat back into whatever distant portion of Lilium’s body she inhabited. Elrod, meanwhile, was nowhere to be seen.

After a few minutes of searching, Lilium found him. He was standing outside the village, just at the edge of the light, staring without blinking back at the people who moved as silhouettes in the distance.

“Elrod, why are you out here?”

“Fire makes me nervous,” he said.

“That’s a lie, isn’t it?”

Elrod turned his eyes toward her. “No,” he said. “It’s true.”

“But it’s not why you’re out here.”

“Correct.”

“Then why?”

“Because I do not understand.”

“Oh. Well, neither do I. That’s kind of the point, isn’t it? To learn about other cultures, to experience new things.”

“I don’t want to experience new things. I never have. Does it serve a purpose?”

“A purpose?” Lilium did not really understand the question. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Elrod was silent for a moment. “I just…I don’t understand.”

“If you don’t try to learn, you won’t. You have to- -”

“It doesn’t work that way. Not for me.”

“Of course it does- -”

“No. I can look like them, but I am not them. I will never understand them. I am not supposed to. I don’t know why they are here, or why they live like this.”

Lilium paused for a moment. “Why do you live in Bridgeport?”

“Because I wanted to live.”

“And that is why they are here too. Look at them. I know your culture was different, but if you could be with others of your kind, if they weren’t extinct.”

Elrod stared for a moment. “If they were not extinct…”

“Wouldn’t you want to be with them?”

“No. I miss them. But those that died cannot come back. There should not be more.”

Lilium thought a moment more. “Then let me rephrase. Why aren’t you living down here?”

Elrod stared at her. “Because I was afraid.”

“But you could survive here, couldn’t you?”

Elrod was about to respond, but he closed his mouth and thought. “I could. And that thought terrifies me.”

Part V, Chapter 3

Once again they resumed their journey. The whole while, Lilium sensed the coordinates drawing nearer- -though they were still distant. The natural-born humans followed them as long as they could, but when the debris planes were replaced by ruined cliffs they slowed and eventually remained, watching as their guests headed out into the unknown, knowing that they would never again return.

The land beyond the village was barren, and it quickly descended into tunnels. What had made them was unclear, but it was apparent that they were old. At these, Hoig gave pause: they were beyond the world he had become accustomed to, and although they were listed on his maps the trail downward was one he had never taken. Few Delvers had, although occasionally a weathered marking could be found on the walls of the caves and brick-lined tunnels.

It took the better part of two days to descend properly through the crevices and into the lower reaches of the Depths. This was easy for Forth, who had wings, and for Hoig, who knew the techniques to descend properly without disturbing the creatures that clung to the walls or in the rivers that flowed from barnacle-covered pipes embedded through the walls. Even Elrod was growing more adept at traveling, and Hoig stated as best he could that Elrod showed promise for a career as a Delver, one that Elrod seemed to have come to consider. His nearly indestructible body made him a near-perfect candidate, and he took careful note of the path and whatever virgin scrap he managed to find as they passed into places few dared to go.

It was only Lilium who had difficulty. Much of it was physical; her body was simply too small to move easily over many of the obstacles that bipeds could climb over or through. In addition, she had no hands, only hooves. More than once, she found herself wishing she had telekinetic magic as her Canon progenitor did, but there was no luck in that regard. Magic, unfortunately, did not exist in the world, and that made things so much harder.

What was worse, though, was the mental strain of the descent. Many times, she was required to remain quiet for long durations, and this forced her to think. She had increased her effort on penning a nonfiction travelogue of her journey, as well as simultaneously reading some of the books that were already programmed into her vast memory cores. Her ability to do both of these while climbing through debris or trudging through contaminated water were, in her opinion, nothing short of miraculous- -but they did not protect her from the thoughts that were slowly infiltrating her mind. She kept recalling Roxanne, and hearing her cries as Morgana forced her to retreat. Though she had not seen Roxanne’s face as they left her behind, the version of it that her imagination had conjured haunted her.

Roxanne, a pony formed in the shape of her friend Rainbow Dash- -a pony that Lilium believed with all her metaphorical heart that she loved- -and she was gone. Not dead, necessarily, although it was likely. Morgana’s Blossomforth body had been destroyed, after all, and there was little chance that the Aetna-Cross soldiers had not done the same to Roxanne. Even if they had not- -a hope that grew increasingly thin as time passed- -Lilium became increasingly sure that she would never be able to return herself. The Depths would consume her, and leave nothing save for an empty shell to be incorporated into technovores.

Morgana most likely was aware of these thoughts, or shared them, but she was no help. She could speak without making noise, and could have reassured Lilium- -but she did not. She only waited, her obsession festering and growing within her. Lilium could not find where her mind was hiding, and certainly could not purge it- -but she felt that feeling emanating from her. A single-minded desire for the case. It was almost intoxicating, and soon she found it driving herself as well. What else lay in Morgana’s mind, though, she did not know.

When the descent slowed, the group found themselves at the edge of a mining shaft. It was an enormous oblique hole drilled through the earth, which from their perspective looked like a tunnel hundreds of feet wide, stretching out at an angle both upward and downward into a lake of black water where nothing lived.

This shaft, it seemed, was a smaller version of the same type of mining that had created Level C. The difference, it seemed, was that this one was uninhabited, deeper, and had apparently been far less popular. A few long, rusted lines trailed down it- -left by Delvers many decades before- -but there were no new monofilament ones. Even they had abandoned it.

Despite this, there was evidence that when the shaft had been dug workers had inhabited it. Small city-like structures were built in cylindrical offshoots. Much of them seemed dedicated to repairing and maintaining mining equipment, but a few had what almost looked like tiny- -and now deathly empty- -towns built into them. Hoig picked one, and led them through it.

As they walked through the streets of one of these collapsing resblocks, Lilium paused. She thought for just a moment that she had heard something.

“Hoig,” she whispered. “Did you hear that?”

Hoig tilted his head. “No,” she said. “Is bad to listen here. Ghosts, and worse. Things that deceive.”

Then, suddenly, a voice rang out through the darkness, echoing off the walls.

“Is- -is someone there?” it called. It was a woman, and sounded desperate and in great pain. “Wait! Wait! Don’t go! Oh God!Help me! PLEASE! Help me! Oh God, PLEASE!”

Lilium looked around, trying to isolate the location of the voice. “Hold on!” she called.

“No!” growled Hoig. “Don’t make noises! Stay quiet!”

“Help! Please help me! I- -before they come back! Before they come back! Is someone there? Wait! Wait! Don’t go! Oh God! Help me! PLEASE!”

“We can’t leave her!” cried Lilium. Before Hoig could stop her, she ran off into the darkness.

“NO!” cried Morgana. “Lilium! STOP!”

“I have to help!”

In seconds, Lilium had separated from the group. She followed the pleading voice, which was now weeping incoherently. “Don’t worry!” she called. “I’m here to help! Just keep calling! I’ll find you!”

“Please! Please help me! Oh God, PLEASE!”

Lilium isolated the voice from down an alley between two prefabricated buildings, a garage-hanger and an isolated resblock. She pushed her way into the darkness, slowing as her camera attempted to amplify the minuscule amount of light that was visible into something that would allow her to see.

“Hold on,” she said. “Try to stay calm. We can help you- -”

“No.” Morgana appeared at Lilium’s side. “No. Lilium. Please stop. NOW.”

“What is WRONG with you?!” cried Lilium, turning sharply to Morgana. “Someone’s down here! And she’s in danger! How can you just ignore that? She must be from the village, or- -”

“The village that doesn’t speak English? Lilium, I know what that voice is. You don’t want to be here!”

“NO! I don’t want YOU to be here! You can make yourself not care, but I can’t! I’m going to help her!” Lilium turned toward the weeping and took several steps forward. As she did, though, Hoig reached the edge of the alley. His light swept through the alley and revealed, much to Lilium’s confusion, that it was a dead end- -and empty.

“Is- -is someone there? Wait, wait, don’t go! Wait, wait, don’t go! Help! HELP ME!”

Lilium looked up suddenly, following the light. When she saw it, she cried out in horror. Sitting on top of a fragmented wall was the source of the voice: an incredibly gaunt, pale, naked, gray-skinned girl. As the light hit her, her oversized blue eyes narrowed into a pair of thin slits that were barely visible through her shoulder-length black hair. She did not move, and yet the weeping sounds continued. Lilium realized that they were coming from her: although the girl’s mouth barely moved, it generated the sounds.

“Help me! Please! Oh God, oh God! Before they come back! Please help me!”

All of these sounds emanated from her, spoken through a mouth filled with numerous rows of sharp teeth. They were not from a state of pain, though. She watched them with a horrible, hideous grin across her face, as if she were mocking them.

Suddenly her pitch changed. Her voice became soft. “Won’t you please help me?”

Then she began cackling. Hoig fired a bullet, sending it through her shoulder. The girl screamed and grimaced, but otherwise barely seemed to notice. She glared at them all in anger- -and then was gone, having retreated down the far side of the wall.

“We move,” said Hoig. “That one was young. Others will come.”

“But- -but- -”

“MOVE!”

Forth descended on Lilium, pulling her away. Hoig led them to the edge of the mining colony at a trot, with Forth’s eyes darting around the room until they reached the end of the corridor. When the path narrowed, Hoig turned and threw a small grenade into the gap. It ignited in a plume of white light, revealing at least four sets of blue eyes that were watching them leave. Screams came from the room as the light blinded them, and Hoig was able to push forward without having to worry about the rear front.

When they finally did stop, Lilium found herself shaking.

“What was that? What was THAT?!”

“Nhumi,” said Morgana, darkly.

“We call them vampires,” said Hoig.

“Because they drink blood?” asked Forth.

“They do. After they strip the meat. And suck marrow. Cannibals. Monsters.”

“Evolved humans,” argued Morgana. “Humans that don’t hide what they really are.”

“I think I ate part of one at the flower party,” said Elrod.

“Wait,” said Forth, turning sharply. “You got to eat one? I want to eat one!”

“No,” said Hoig, motioning for them to move forward. “No, no, no. Vampires bad. Great much bad.”

“Really?”

Hoig looked up suddenly, firing before his light even struck the woman before him. She raised one hand as black fluid surrounded it and hardened into armor, deflecting the bullet before it could strike her undiseased gray flesh.

“Hold your fire!” demanded Morgana. “Lilium, I need you to project me.”

“I can’t without taking off my helmet- -”

“Just do it!”

Lilium took a step back, but did as she was told. She projected Morgana into the corridor, and through her glow it became possible to see numerous grinning shapes suddenly moving through the edges of the darkness. One among them did not. She sat on a rusted storage crate, her legs open and her body clad in nothing but black tattoos and long, greasy hair. One of her arms was fully black, and longer than the other, with a set of long claws instead of fingers.

The woman smiled. “Morgana. There you are. I was wondering where you were hiding.”

“Get out, vampire!” spat Hoig.

Jane Doe’s eyes narrowed, and she stood up. “Or what, bacon? Or should I call you Roast Pork?” She began to visibly salivate. “So much fat on you…I’d get parasites…” She laughed. “Not that I don’t have them already. I’ve eaten your kind before. So tasty.”

One of the vampires leapt forward, and with one swift motion Jane Doe severed his head. His body fell, taking a few more steps without it, and the others scattered. Jane Doe lifted the corpse and threw it to them; they immediately began devouring it.

“Pardon them,” she said. “We’ve been trying. Very hard. But so far there’s very few of us that have survived the grafting procedure. Only the strongest do. Which is only natural.” She shrugged. “Put down your stupid rifle, Bacon. I can’t be injured.”

“Yet only has one arm.”

Jane Doe frowned. “Yes. I know.” She flexed the artificial limb. “This always happens. They always- -ALWAYS- -go for my damn arm. Do you know how long it takes to grow an arm back? Not as long as an eye or a leg, but still damn long.”

“You seem to be doing fine,” noted Morgana.

“Better than you, at least.”

“We’ve come because- -”

“Because that one told you to.” Jane Doe pointed at Forth. “Yeah. I know. It took you long enough.”

Forth stepped forward and stared at the nhumi woman before her. “Why do I remember you?”

Jane Doe crossed her arms. “Because I was there when they made you. The new you. They say you can’t kill me. Programming modifications or some stupid technobabble shit. I don’t want to test it.”

“Then what?” demanded Hoig.

“You’re some spicy Bacon, aren’t you? I’m here to take you the rest of the way. Or to fight and kill you. Whichever you prefer.”

“That’s not even a choice,” said Morgana.

“Wait,” said Lilium. “You trust her? After what we saw- -”

“After you didn’t listen. I know her. She’s evolved, but not nearly as much as the rest of them. Lilium, you should know by now. The Cult doesn’t offer choices. It makes demands.”

“Poignant. Fucking goddamn poignant.” With her arms still crossed, Jane Doe pointed one finger at Hoig. “But my orders are only for Morgana, the weapon-horse, and the potato man. You can go home, Bacon. They don’t want you.”

“I not leave,” he said. “Will not.”

“Really?”

Hoig nodded. “Cult. You. Was it you? Took my daughter?”

“I’ve taken a lot of people’s daughters. In more ways than one. But the Cult doesn’t take porcs. Only humans, and only pure ones. Would you believe they even ignore us?” She gestured at her much more poorly trained compatriots. “Not that I care. Their methods and goals are all bullshit. I’ll tell you that right now.”

“Then why do you work for them?” asked Morgana.

“Why else? Because it pays well. But you’re immortal. So let’s see if I end up being right. Our kind won’t stay deep forever. Soon enough…”

“You’ll take the planet,” said Elrod.

“That’s my bet. Let’s see.” She looked at Hoig. “I can take the Bacon with us, but trust me on this, pig-man: you are not going to get what you want. Pray to whatever pig-god you have that they killed your daughter. Because if they didn’t, the alternative is hell.”

“Not care. Will face them.”

Jane Doe shrugged. Then she slid down from the crate she was sitting on, her bare feet landing on the ground silently. “Fine,” she said. “You will die, though. They will kill you, and I will eat you. I can guarantee that. I don’t give second chances. Turn back now if you want to live.”

“Hoig don’t. And won’t.”

Jane Dow smiled. Her many teeth were sharp, and stained with blood. She had eaten recently. “Excellent. I might even fry your skin. What do they call that?”

“Rinds,” said Morgana.

“Ah, the rinds! I love the rinds. Especially when you prepare them in front of the person they came from. Oh, I laughed so hard…”

“Are you ever going to shut up?” asked Morgana. “Because if you’re not going to do your job, I’ll go to Yggdrasil myself.”

Jane Doe frowned, but then shrugged again. “Sure,” she said. “I get paid either way. Follow me. And don’t slow down. You aren’t made of meat, but them? They don’t give a shit.”

Part V, Chapter 4

Though Morgana was able to discern many things, she was aware that she possessed several weaknesses. When the journey was finally completed and she beheld Yggdrasil- -or what Hoig had called “Yggdrasil”- -she became acutely aware of one of them. In her rush to reach the Cult of Humanity’s stronghold, she had not devoted thought to what Hoig had meant, or why the structure was described as an enormous tree- -or who had named it.

When she saw it, though, she understood- -and everything seemed to click into place. Far overhead, traveling through an incomprehensibly vast spherical room, she saw it for what it was: a massive, tree-like tower of metal, its pipes rising into the vast overhead space and spreading apart like the limbs of a great tree, feeding through the Depths and rising up into Bridgeport itself while the trunk extended deep into the ground, forming a massive and impenetrable tower.

“That’s an air handler,” said Morgana in awe. “That…why isn’t this on any of the maps?!”

Jane Doe shrugged. “Hell if I know.”

Morgana stared up at it. “Those pipes, this thing…it has to connect to everything in Bridgeport. Do they even know it’s here? That it’s still active?”

“What part of ‘hell if I know’ don’t you get?”

“I think I remember it,” said Forth. “Pipes…lots of pipes…”

“It’s how we get places,” said Jane Doe.

Morgana had already assumed that, but Jane Doe had confirmed it. This unnamed system was pumping air throughout all of Bridgeport, perhaps even making a substantial part of the lower levels actually habitable. It led to everywhere and to everything, reaching out through the forgotten partitions between levels and districts. That was how the Cult of Humanity moved so quickly.

“But who built it?” asked Lilium. “And when? I mean, SOMEBODY has to know it’s here. Unless they’re totally disorganized.”

“Nobody knows,” said Morgana. “And if I had to guess? It was put here when Bridgeport was still young. To power the lower levels when there were only two or three. It’s grown since then.”

“But why?”

“Why? Lilium, I think they built it. The Cult. Because they knew they were going to need it.”

“What utter shit,” said Jane Doe. “Probably true, but still utter shit. I’m not the one you want to talk to. I do the fun work.”

“Then who do I need to talk to?”

Jane Doe looked somewhat indignant. “You really expect me to remember their fucking names? Hell no. Talk to the Lyra. She’ll know. She’s the one who sent me. Thought you wouldn’t make it on your own.”

“We were good,” said Hoig.

“Confident for a guy who’s about to be my dinner, aren’t you?”

“Could shoot you.”

“No. Look.” Jane Doe pointed. Morgana saw little, but she noticed that there were numerous dark shadows nestled high in the branches of the air-handler, and in the supporting structures that surrounded it. All of them stared with vaguely orange eyes, all waiting to attack at a moment’s notice.

Hoig may or may not have seen them, but Lilium did. Her pace quickened, and Morgana took notice.

“There,” said Jane Doe, pointing to a large door. It was blank and nondescript, appearing exactly like an access point appropriate for a skyscraper-sized air processing unit. Lilium paused, as did the others, but Jane Doe did not hesitate. She entered the door and paused in the dark room beyond.

“Are you coming or not?” she asked. “Because if you’re not, I’ll give the ‘suggestion’ that they shoot you. The Cult wants you alive, but I don’t. I don’t like most of you that much.”

Morgana stepped forward, and Lilium followed her. “Then why don’t you?”

“Because only one of you is edible to me, and I’m going to eat him anyway.”

Morgana stepped into the dark area. Forth followed, as did Elrod and Hoig behind her. As soon as they had all entered, a door sprung up from the ground and sealed shut behind them.

Forth unfolded and pointed her weapons at Jane Doe. “It’s a trap!”

“What was your first clue?” Jane Doe raised her artificial hand and a framework of orange energy appeared around it. Forth cried out and shuddered as her body was forced back into its pony conformation, and her guns were hidden from use.

“Stop it,” snapped Morgana. “Both of you!”

“Testy. Someone’s in a hurry. Don’t worry. If that gets you, this next part should be fun.”

“Next part?” asked Lilium.

“Oh yeah. I hate this part.”

The room suddenly ignited with blinding light. Lilium screamed and fell to her knees as her program was distorted by the radiation that surrounded them. It burned into her surface, etching away her suit. Morgana’s hologram faded and vanished. The same occurred to the others as well, and all of them were put in extreme pain, save for Forth and Elrod as neither of them had a concept of it.

Then, as quickly as it started, the surge stopped. Jane Doe was left on her knees, her body smoking as she gasped for breath. A system of swear words escaped from her that were not comprehensible to human ears and likewise could not be spoken with a human tongue. Then she stood shakily.

“What…what was that,” said Lilium.

“Delousing.”

Suddenly, the door on the far side of the room opened. Light flooded into the airlock, although it was far less harsh than the light that had burned through it before. Lilium’s eyes took a moment to adjust. When they did, Morgana was able to see several figures silhouetted against the light.

“I do apologize,” said one of them, stepping forward. She was a Lyra unit, notable only in the fact that she bore a thin scar on her upper front leg. It had healed nicely, but it was still enough to distinguish her. She was the Lyra who had been present at the Bottlebrush Society party.

The Lyra smiled. “The decontamination cycle can be somewhat…harsh. But it is important. We can’t have radionuclides or unwanted pathogens in our workspace. I’m sure you understand.” She turned curtly and walked into the main building. “Please, come.”

The group did. As they entered, the door closed behind them, and the remainder of the figures who accompanied the scarred Lyra became visible. Three of them were Lyras that were, save for the scar, identical to the first. There were also two anthros, their rifles held at the ready.

“The journey must have been long,” said the main Lyra. “Please, have some food and water.” She motioned toward two of her Lyra compatriots who bore trays balanced on their backs. They brought food, which consisted entirely of freshly grilled meat. Neither Lilium nor Forth took any, and Hoig seemed highly hesitant. Elrod, though, gladly took a large piece and removed his helmet to eat it.

“Elrod,” said the Lyra, smiling. “You cannot conceive how deeply it saddens me to see you here.”

“Um…why?” said Elrod.

The Lyra sighed. “If you don’t already know, I can’t bear to break your heart.” She looked around, enumerating the guests. “Ah. Morgana? Where are you? I don’t have cybernetic eyes or an external connection. However, every room in this facility is equipped with complete high-resolution holographic projectors. Please feel free to use them.”

Morgana did so, materializing herself as a hologram beside Lilium. She found that, to her surprise, the system she was accessing was elegant but incredibly effective. Not only was she able to project a complete hologram with little graphical delay, but she was able to perceive the room around her completely without the use of Lilium’s eyes.

“There you are. I’m glad to finally meet you.”

“What is the thing people used to say? ‘You have me at a disadvantage’?”

The Lyra looked confused for a moment, and then smiled. “Oh. Of course. I should probably expect literary anachronism from a Twilight Sparkle, shouldn’t I? I’m afraid your disadvantage will need to remain. I have no name. But you can call me Lyra, if you like.”

“I’d rather have a real name.”

“Of course you would. But I don’t intend to give you one. You are guests here, and I intend to be a good host- -but remember that. You are GUESTS.”

“You were the one who summoned us here.”

“Not me personally, no. Me in general? Yes. We would have liked it to be easier, but I suppose it only matters that you actually did arrive.”

“Why?” asked Lilium. “Why us? And why here?”

Lyra stared at her for a moment, and then turned around. “Walk with me. Elrod may walk behind, if he likes, as I have a very well-formed rump.”

Morgana did as was suggested, and she fell into step with Lyra. Lilium did as well, remaining near the front, while Jane Doe retreated to the back with the anthro guards. Elrod, Forth, and Hoig were left somewhere in between while the other Lyras had departed completely. The group proceeded down a long, curving hallway that did not look at all what the inside of an industrial air purification system should have looked like. Everything was stark but pleasant and filled with bright, soft light that did not seem to come from any distinct source. To Morgana, it looked more like the inside of a scientific laboratory.

“So,” said Lyra. “As I understand it, Morgana, you are a detective.”

“I am.”

“Excellent. We can start with what you know, then. Or what you think you know, if you only have that.”

“That’s something I’ve been wanting to know too,” said Lilium.

Morgana did not hesitate or pause. “I know that your body is a biological construct. And those other three, they were as well.”

“A biological construct?” asked Lilium, clearly confused.

Morgana nodded. “A being made piecemeal from artificially produced biological components. When you were hit at the party, you bled. And look.” Morgana pointed to the scar. “That isn’t sculpted. That’s skin. Real, living skin.” Morgana looked forward. “You’ve clearly been taking your time building it, too. The blood at Hexel’s apartment. That was yours, wasn’t it? From when he tried to fight back.”

Lyra nodded. “It was my blood. But fighting? No, it’s much more mundane than that. Your friend was far more civil than you take him for. We sat down to tea and spoke.”

“Then the blood?”

“If you would believe it, I dropped a teacup and cut myself. I am a bit clumsy.” Lyra signed. “It’s sometimes a burden not having any hands…”

Lilium spoke. “But Elrod analyzed the blood. He said it couldn’t be from a living thing.”

“I did say that!” called Elrod.

“Which is correct. It was grown from synthetic marrow. None of my parts have the same or complete genomes. They are produced individually.”

“P…parts?”

Lyra smiled. “I’m not unlike a real human. Morgana is correct. I am a construct. This is real hair, real skin. These eyes are real, as are my muscles. I have a heart, a liver, a lung, a kidney. Of course I’m not entirely biological either. A substantial portion of my body is machine. My bones, nervous system…it’s necessary to maintain the tissues.”

“But not all your nervous system. Part of you isn’t synthetic.”

“Oh?”

Morgana looked into Lyra’s genetically engineered orange eyes. “Growing skin? Hair? Blood? Even a liver or a heart, that’s easy. Growing a brain in culture is impossible.”

Lyra smiled broadly, revealing perfect dentistry that no doubt included a number of living, organic teeth. “Then you know that too. Excellent.”

“It’s why you needed natural-borns. Blank slates. No cybernetics to get in the way. No transgenic to contaminate the procedure. Am I right?”

“I don’t understand,” said Lilium. “Morgana, what are you implying?”

“I’m implying that she’s not a pony at all. She’s human.”

Lyra seemed both taken aback but also tremendously pleased. She paused for a moment to regain her composure. “Well,” she said. “I could not be paid a higher compliment. And yes. My brain is, in fact, human. It was harvested, reprogrammed, and grafted into this body. Such is the case with all of us.”

“All of you?”

Lyra pointed forward as a small group of Lyras in pony-size lab coats emerged from one of the branching hallways. They smiled and nodded and passed between the group and the wall, heading on their way. Lilium watched them go, clearly horrified.

“How many?” asked Morgana.

“That number is classified, at the moment. Let’s leave it as a lot, but never enough. Although, Morgana, I have to admit. I am curious as to how you discern my nature.”

“I don’t give a damn about your nature specifically. But all this work harvesting natural-borns? Containing them, bringing them out of hiding- -picking out only the most perfect, free of disease or alteration. And then taking only the heads. You had to be using them for something.”

“So it was that obvious, then?”

“It was. But it was what Elrod found that really tipped me off. A pony that bled, and that left behind a cybernetic connector unlike any even I had ever seen before. One that you sent your non-human pony soldiers to terminate.”

Hoig had been listening, and he suddenly realized the implications of what Morgana was saying. He rushed forward, pushing past Elrod and Forth. “YOU!” he cried, his pig-eyes narrowing as he moved. He suddenly stood beside Lyra, towering over her. “The one shot, that one- -you did this to Jen-fer! To DAUGHTER!”

Lyra’s expression fell, but she did not take her eyes off Hoig. “Yes.”

“What you saw,” said Hoig, facing Morgana. “Horse killed…horse with…with her brain…made dead- -” He suddenly roared wordlessly in despair, grabbing at his head with both hands. “D- -Daughter! Jen-fer! Why? WHY?”

“Hoig,” said Lyra, the sternness of her voice seeming to freeze the room. “There’s nothing worse than seeing a Delver cry. Your view of what happened is incomplete. I happen to know something that you do not, that will make it a little bit more…tolerable.”

“What…makes this…tolerable…”

Lyra smiled. “Natural-born human brains are precious. Unbelievably so. Only a small percentage are acceptable in quality alone, and even then, many fail to survive the reprogramming. As such, we strive very, very hard to maximize them.”

“What are you saying?” asked Lilium.

“I am saying that we let nothing go to waste. Morgana, are you aware that the human brain can still function even if exactly one half of it is removed?”

Morgana’s eyes widened. “You goddamn bitch…”

“Not the way I would put it,” laughed Lyra. “But you seem to understand, at least.” She turned to Hoig. “Your daughter, Jennifer, was a perfect specimen. The Cult could not bear to waste her brain. So we sectioned it. The pony that Elrod was unfortunate enough to witness being eliminated was her right half. I am the left.”

Hoig’s eyes widened. “Jen…Jen-fer?”

“That’s right. I’m her. Hello, dad.”

Hoig dropped to his knees. “You…how do…how can know?”

“I have her memories. I remember that when I was five, you suddenly stopped eating. Claiming you weren’t hungry anymore, or that you were trying to lose weight, or too busy at work to eat. I started to get scared that you weren’t eating because we didn’t have enough money, and I tried to eat less too. Then on my birthday, you came home with a used bicycle. Like the ones in the old pictures.”

Tears fell from Hoig’s eyes. “Jen…fer…”

“And not a week later, Jeremy Sont from down the street stole it. You chased him three blocks, screaming at him the whole way. You didn’t catch him, though, and you came back looking so sad. It was okay, though. I cried, but only because you were so sad. I didn’t give a shit about the bike. But then the next day? You came in with one you tried to make.” Lyra laughed. “The tires weren’t even round, but I was even more happy than when you gave me the real one. I will never forget that, dad. Not ever.”

Hoig burst out crying. As he wept, he wrapped his arms around Lyra and hugged her tight. “Jen-fer! Thought- -though lost you! That failed! But here…here you are! Am sorry! Sorry didn’t look! Please forgive! I love you! Always know that!”

Tears welled in Lyra’s eyes as well. “I love you too, dad. Thank you for everything. I’m just sorry it had to be that way.”

“Don’t be sorry. Live your life. Know Hoig was proud.”

“I do, Dad. I will. And I will always remember.” Lyra looked over her shoulder and nodded to one of the anthro units. It sighed and nodded back. Then, with one swift motion, it brought its hand down, severing Hoig’s cervical spine in one swift motion. He closed his eyes and gasped, but then fell onto the floor.

Lyra turned away and wiped the tears from her eyes as though nothing had happened. She raised one hoof as she did, and Jane Doe smiled gleefully at the signal. Before Hoig’s body had even stopped twitching, she descended onto it, tearing away chunks of his face with her teeth.

Lilium watched in absolute horror. “But- -but- -”

“Lilium, was it? Do you know why I ordered my sister be terminated?”

Lilium did not answer. She just shook her head.

“It was because her mind did not accept the reprogramming. It’s a critical part of our personality. To understand who we are, and what our purpose is. What we mean to the Cult, and what it means to us. The process is not that much different from how humans are trained in birthing tanks, although infinitely more subtle. Yet, somehow, it still remains…unpredictable.”

“And she escaped through the ventilation system,” said Morgana.

Lyra nodded. “She did. I dispatched two of our soldiers to retrieve her. They succeeded.” She looked over her shoulder to where Elrod was watching Hoig be devoured with complete indifference. “But Mr. Jameson was unfortunate enough to witness the termination. My soldiers attempted to remove the witness.”

“But you weren’t expecting to be fighting an agromorph.”

“No. And frankly we were not sure how to respond. Who was he, what was he doing there? We pulled back. Perhaps an error on my part. We tried to cover our presence by finding alternative ways to eliminate him.”

“The technomancer.”

“Who we anonymously tipped to his location, being fully aware that the majority of males of his species do, in fact, resemble the late young Bronislav Spitzer.”

“And when I got involved?”

“We tried to demonstrate his nature without giving ourselves away. Of course, that inevitably failed.”

Lyra sighed, and began walking again. The guards stepped over Hoig’s body, leaving Jane Doe alone with it.

“I kept digging,” said Morgana. “At least until suddenly the whole world turned to shit and every single Corporation in North America decided to try to off me.” Morgana paused for a moment. “That’s what I thought you were, at first. Part of the Corporations. Maybe a special project of some kind. Except that they want me dead, and you’ve had every opportunity to kill me…and you haven’t.”

“And the party,” said Lilium.

“Exactly. You slaughtered the heirs of several major subvassals as well as critical management. Why?”

Lyra frowned, and then sighed. She turned toward one of the walls and waved her hoof. The apparently metal surface of the wall lifted up and shifted as though it were unfolding, spreading outward and propagating until what had seemed to be solid and opaque was replace with thin, transparent glass.

Morgana looked through. A large room sat on the other side, and it was filled with a number of tables and pieces of well-maintained equipment. Ponies were sitting at the tables. Many of them were Lyras, either ones that were biological in nature or ones that were clearly ordinary ponies. With them, though, sat different ponies. They were in general white; their proper color had not yet grown in, nor had their horns. A few of them were old enough to begin to show teal highlights in their manes and tails, while others were beginning to show just the faintest blush of green-blue in their coats. They sat with the older ponies, apparently learning how to use their bodies.

“Look at them,” said Lyra. “Aren’t they beautiful? Just brought into the world. The eldest of them are only two weeks old. They weren’t even born when all of this started.”

“You’re evading my question.”

“No. I’m providing visual aid. Look at them. Do you think making them was easy? Each one is a priceless being. Their cost cannot be measured. But we do spend money. Each one costs an inconceivably high amount of vod. So…we made a proverbial deal with the devil.”

“With the Corporations.”

“It has not been the first time. Our history stretches back far. To before ponies, even. But this was the closest we came in recent memory. They would provide us with resources, and we would share our technology.”

“Technology? They’re leading Corporations. Their technology is the best in the world.”

“Is it? Don’t be an idiot. Look at who- -at WHAT- -you are talking to. Our development has been long and uninterrupted. Granted, we are lacking in some areas, but what we do have is far beyond what can be found in this world. Look.” Lyra pointed through the window. As Morgana watched, one of the horns of a more complete Lyra unit erupted with orange light. An orange disk of energy traced itself around a rubber ball in front of her, and her eyes lit up as she lifted it into the air.

Lilium’s eyes grew equally as wide. “Magic!”

“In a sense. The Corporations of the world paid dearly for what we could offer. Just look at your friend.” Forth stepped forward. “This body? We built it. But we did not design it. High Point did. A prototype, built from schematics of our anthro-type bodies. I honestly doubt they will ever sell it, of course. Too expensive. But who knows. In ten years, armies of these could be marching across battlefields across the planet.”

“I think I would like that,” said Forth.

“I wouldn’t,” said Lilium. “You just let them have that? That technology? And they made weapons?”

“Of course. It’s only human nature.”

“Then why turn against them?” asked Morgana.

Lyra paused for a long moment. Then she turned suddenly toward Morgana. “Because that was the predicted outcome of the whole thing. The Corporations became too overbearing, treating us as little more than a research and development department. A thing meant to serve them instead of your own goals.”

“And you resisted.”

“Not at first. We were not quite in a position to. I’m sure you’ve wondered, haven’t you?”

“Wondered what?”

“Why you are still alive.”

Morgana shrugged. “I can’t say it hasn’t crossed my mind.”

“Because you proved to be unbelievably valuable to us. When the Corporations sensed you investigating, they overreacted. Badly. Hence the unfortunate bounty on your head. We never ordered that. In fact, we used it to justify yourselves.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Lilium.

“Doesn’t it? If we had outright rejected them, their response would have been unanimous and swift. But if we had justification? Their boards of directors were split. They couldn’t decide if they wanted to appease us or slaughter us. Add to that the confusion and expense of trying to track you down. It gave us the distraction we needed to strike.”

“You were keeping me alive,” said Morgana. “I was the fulcrum.”

“Indeed you were. We could not have made the necessary preparations without your help. The Corporations doing everything in their power to take control- -and to kill you- -and us slipping through their fingers like sand as they tightened their grips. Poetic, don’t you think?”

“A lot of people got hurt because of you.”

“Yes. But ask yourself: do you really care? I already know the answer. You don’t.”

“But I do,” said Lilium.

“Really. Well, then you can take consolation that you have made sacrifices for a good cause.”

“Oh really?”

Lyra smiled and nodded. “Come with me. Let me show you the future you helped create.”

Morgana slowly descended down a long, sloping, curved hallway beside Lyra. This hallway was neat and orderly, and more ponies were visible walking quickly about at various tasks. They seemed to be in a hurry, although otherwise in good spirits. All of them were Lyra units, and most were organic.

Windows were visible on both sides of the hallway. To the left, Morgana was able to see large windows that led into various laboratories holding bizarre equipment of various strange types. Had she more time, Morgana might have been able to discern what any of it was for, but they moved briskly past. In addition, much of the equipment was being packed away and removed, with only the heaviest or least valuable pieces left behind.

On the right, a large central room was visible. This part of the hallway, it seemed, curved downward around a large cylindrical courtyard. It was filled with bright light and, of all things, trees. A few benches were present, but they were not in use. The many Lyras that might once have taken their lunches there or read books under the bright artificial light were now busy elsewhere.

“Do you like it?” asked Lyra. “The light is perfectly matched to be the same intensity and spectrum as natural sunlight. It helps our bodies form the proper amount of vitamin D. Most of our bones are artificial, but it’s important to keep the few natural ones we do have nice and strong.”

“It’s too bright for me,” complained Elrod. He squinted against the light. “I don’t like it.”

Morgana ignored him. She instead looked out through the window and into the courtyard. “This place isn’t really an air handling facility at all, is it?”

“Oh, it is,” said Lyra. “It’s just that the actual filtration and processing unit fits into a single medium-sized room.”

“For an entire city?”

“No, just part of it. And as I’ve said: our technology is vastly superior to all others. When we do turn off the air supply, I’m sure there will be some substantial consequences.”

“Wait,” said Lilium. “What do you mean ‘turn it off’?”

“That isn’t important,” interrupted Morgana. “I’m more interested in how this place even exists without anyone in Aetna-Cross knowing about it.”

“Aetna-Cross did not build Bridgeport. They just inhabit it. If you were to have access to our records of the last two thousand years, you would find that there are a lot of things missing from mainstream history that we still remember.”

“Because others forgot, or because of forcible omission?”

Lyra smiled slyly. “From their perspective, there isn’t a difference, is there?”

The air beside Morgana distorted as a second hologram ignited into existence. Her form rendered in seconds: a unicorn pony slightly shorter than Morgana with a fuzzy white mane that matched her otherwise colorless body. She emerged already walking, and Lyra- -like Morgana- -recognized her immediately.

“Ah, Dr. van der Kriegstein. I’m glad that you could make it. I had been informed that you were indisposed.”

The War Stone smiled. She had neither teeth nor gums, and her smile held no joy. “‘Indisposed’. Do you have any idea what they did to me? They built an inescapable prison. Seven thousand four hundred and fifty-two Divers linked in unison, plus a system that they spent the better part of the last thirty years preparing. All for me.”

“And how long did it take you to break out?” asked Morgana.

Josephine looked up suddenly, her white eyes growing wide. She had apparently not bothered to realize that Morgana was present, or even more likely had not recognized her outside of the virtual world. “You,” she said. Her eyes darted to Lilium. “And you. You’re both here. And less dead than I expected you to be.”

“It’s not so prosaic,” sighed Morgana. “I’m out a body.”

“Is that supposed to be funny? Welcome to my every waking minute. And I spent EVERY minute awake. Not fun, is it?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“About thirty-seven minutes. Which is incredibly impressive. I spent most of that time just admiring their work. Ugly as hell but remarkably annoying.”

“You’ve been gone a lot longer than thirty-seven minutes,” noted Lyra.

“Of course. I needed some time. To deal with loose ends.”

Lilium frowned and slowed her pace. “What…what did you do?”

“I slaughtered the Divers.” Josephine spoke without hesitation or remorse. “I made it as painful as possible. Divers can’t wake up when the torture starts, after all, and their brains can handle time extension surprisingly well. Then I tracked down everyone who worked on the prison, and I forced them to drive sharpened pencils through their own ovaries.”

“What about the men?” asked Lyra, seeming mildly interested.

“The what?”

“Surely the programmers weren’t all women. What did you do with the men?”

“Oh.” Josephine waved dismissively. “I had them drive pencils through their wives’ ovaries. Or daughters, or mothers, I don’t know. Whatever women were nearby at the time. Strangers for all I goddamn care.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“You made sure they won’t bother our work, didn’t you?”

“Meaning?”

“She wants to know if you killed them,” said Morgana. Lyra smiled, quite pleased that she could be so easily understood.

“Oh no. They challenged a god. Death is too good for them. I burnt away their sanity. I tore apart six technology Corporations and salted the earth below them. You’ll find the liquidated funds in your accounts. I have no need for mortal money.”

“Excellent,” said Lyra. “That solves more than one problem. Your work is impeccable as always, Herr Doctor.”

“I’m Dutch, not German. And of course my work is goddamn impeccable.”

“Sure you are, Oorlogssteen,” said Morgana sarcastically.

Josephine glared. “And why exactly are you here, anyway?”

“Because we wanted her here,” said Lyra, firmly. “I was just on the way to show her some of your work.”

Josephine suddenly smiled. “You mean my real work? Not this phony programming shit?”

“Of course. You are an incredible asset. We could not have come this far so quickly without you. I think they will like it.”

Josephine continued to smile, seeming quite pleased with herself. She fell in line beside Morgana and, despite her small size, nearly pranced along with them.

Then they came to the room. Unlike the rest of the facility, it was kept in near-darkness, lit only by intense but tiny lights that lined the surface overhead, forming something that almost looked like a sea of stars that cast diffuse, soft light. Despite the dimness, Morgana could see perfectly. She had no eyes, and whatever allowed her to perceive the world did not require light to operate.

Several key lights increased intensity as Lyra led the way into the room, illuminating her path. The room was long, consisting of a central pathway that was lined on either side by rows of large, semi-cylindrical pieces of equipment. This one hallway branched at points, connecting to others that were similar save for the fact that they curved away into darkness.

The room was not empty. Several Lyras in heavy protectives suits were inspecting the equipment, taking readings and making adjustments as necessary. When Lyra entered, they turned to her and nodded, departing past the group as it entered. The two pony Lyra’s who served as guards waited until they had passed and then folded themselves, resuming the form of ponies instead of anthros. Morgana was not sure why, but it almost seemed to be out of respect.

“I…I don’t like this,” said Elrod, suddenly stopping. “Something isn’t right here.”

“Nerves, probably,” said Forth. “It seems fine to me. Look, stars!”

Lyra chuckled and spoke softly. “We believe it helps keep them calm.”

Morgana’s gaze hardened. “Keeps WHAT calm?”

Lyra did not answer immediately, but rather walked slowly down the central hallway. “We have worked continuously for centuries. You are aware of that. We saw Elrod’s analysis of our genetics, and yes. He is correct. However, we have reached the limits of what can be accomplished by conversion. I am proud to be one of the last of my generation. I am so grateful for what the Cult gave me, but…I am still incomplete.”

She lifted her hoof and tapped the front of one of the large machines before her. The metallic surface lifted like a sea of scales and peeled back, disintegrating as it retracted, revealing a diamond tank beneath. The same occurred on the remainder of the units lining the room. Each was a tank, all of them filled with a luminescent amber fluid. The fluid itself had begun to crystalize, the nanotechnology within it assembling thin wisps of machinery lines that spread and branched from the walls of the containers into a thin network, all converging on the objects in the center of each tank.

Lilium looked into the center, and she gasped and nearly cried out when she saw what sat in the center. Morgana had already seen them, and understood instantly. In the center of each tank was a tiny, perfect fetus- -not human, but pony.

“These- -these- -”

“These are the future of Humanity,” said Lyra, gently placing her soft, organic hoof on the glass in front of the tiny foal inside. “A new race of humans. Not limited by construction or conversation. One that doesn’t need us to harvest human brains. They will be born alive and complete, as will their children.”

“This is insane,” whispered Lilium. “You…you can’t…”

“We have. These are my children. Our children. Our future. This will be the first generation. Save for the prototype…”

Her eyes tilted toward, and Morgana followed her gaze. On the edge of the room, Josephine was standing in front of one specific tank. The pony inside it was nearly its complete adult size, but quite clearly not a Lyra unit. Her mane was fuzzy and soft where it had started to grow in, although little of it was visible. The rear of that pony’s head had been removed, and a cybernetic system built around a single blue-red crystal had replaced her brain. Josephine could not take her eyes off that one pony, and she could not stop smiling viciously.

“Why?” asked Morgana, suddenly. “Why go through this? What’s the point?”

“It’s in our name. You should know that. Especially if you actually talked to Elrod. We are the Cult of Humanity. Our purpose is to safeguard the human race.”

“By building living ponies?”

“By building better humans.”

“But then what happens to the old ones?”

Lyra’s expression fell somewhat, and she lifted her hoof to the tanks. The coating that protected the infants from light restored itself, much to Josephine’s disappointment. Lyra began walking toward the end of the hallway where there were no more tanks and no more lights, allowing Morgana to follow her in the process.

“That’s something of a problem. And a sad one. The older aspects of Humanity will need to be replaced with new ones. We will orchestrate that effect. You do not need to concern yourself with it.”

“Yes, I do. Because I know what you’re referring to. And it DOES concern me.”

“Really?” Lyra looked over her shoulder. “That is the first thing you’ve said that has surprised me, I think. I did not take you for one who cared about humans so deeply.”

“Damn the humans. You’re going to burn the world. The world I live in.”

Lilium gasped, clearly understanding what Morgana already knew. “You can’t!” she cried.

“We have already started. There will be war, and plague, and strife. Engineered carefully to excise the failures of the human population. Controlled and shepherded by us, Humanity’s guardians.”

“But that’s a paradox! You can’t protect humans and destroy them!”

“Why not?”

“Because all that death- -”

“Lilium. Do you know Philomena?”

Lilium blinked. “You mean…Celestia’s bird? The phoenix?”

“Yes. Consider it an admittedly trite metaphor.Humanity is old, ugly, and sick. It will burn, and from its ashes, new humans will rise. Our humans. Perfect humans.”

“We won’t let you!”

“Really?”

“More to the point,” said Morgana, “do you really think you can contain that much chaos?”

“Destruction does not necessarily arise from chaos. I assure you, from our perspective, the fall of the governments and Corporations will be quite orderly. Look at what we’ve already accomplished in Bridgeport with barely any difficulty. How long do you think it will take before the gangs tear it apart entirely, or Aetna-Cross burns itself up trying to stop them?”

“You turned on the Corporations. I’m guessing that was always your intention.”

“Not all the Corporations, Morgana.”

Lyra smiled, and as she did, a hulking figure emerged from the darkness, its body seeming to materialize from nothing. Morgana immediately recognized what it was. She saw the spines and armor of transgenic bone that lined its upper shoulders, and saw the three sets of arms with extra joints that each terminated in long claws. On its face, it wore a mask that gurgled slowly as it breathed a contained liquid atmosphere through its gills. It stared down through many lenses with unblinking eyes, and though it was not human- -not anymore- -it still wore complex and strange armor etched with familiar script.

“A Micronesian,” said Morgana. “You’ve allied yourself with MHI.”

“Among others, yes.”

As she spoke, Jane Doe emerged from the darkness behind them. Her abdomen was hideously distended, and her entire body was covered in blood. Somehow, though, she still managed to look hungry. Her position beside the two Lyra-guards had boxed the rest of them in: Elrod, Forth, Lilium, and now the War Stone herself, standing to one side and watching with amusement.

“So,” said Morgana. “What is it you want?”

“Firstly, I’d like to apologize. As much of annoyance as you are, you never asked to be put in the middle of all this. And yet here you are. But I can help.”

“By…?”

“Your friend, Roxanne. Are you aware that she is not dead?”

Lilium gasped. “Roxy is alive?!”

Lyra nodded. “Indeed, she is. As is the centaur Valla. Even Lynnette O’Toole. She was stronger than we expected. The virus we implanted in her did not fully overtake her mind. Our programmers believe she can be cured, with only moderate lasting psychological trauma.”

“And the others?”

The Micronesian held out one arm, holding a case made of transparent plastic. Two objects were visible suspended inside: both of them were the central brains of ponies, removed expertly and perfectly preserved in an inactive state.

“Hexel and Jillian. I succeeded in preserving them. You will find their bodies in a storage unit in Essex if you care to have them repaired. And in the current state of things, I do believe the lieutenant is due for a promotion.” Lyra paused. “However, that is all I could save. Your barkeep friends did not survive.” Lilium’s expression fell, but Morgana’s remained the same. She did not care terribly much. Lyra continued: “in addition, several plans are about to converge. The intricacies of it are complex, but the gist is that the bounty on your head is about to disappear. You will be a free pony-woman, allowed to go back to your ordinary life.”

“You…you can do that?” asked Lilium.

Lyra smiled and nodded. “We also would like to present you with a gift.”

The Micronesian made a strange motion with one of his many-fingered hands. Many feet skittered in the darkness behind him, and several bizarre creatures emerged. They were strange, distorted hybrids of technology and flesh, likely that had been derived from some animal that had undergone the same sort of controlled mutation that the Micronesian himself had. These asymmetrical crab-things pulled an object into the foreground and set it beside Lyra.

They grasped it with their many small hands and peeled away the fleshy surface. It made a sickening sound as the wrapping was removed, but it came away cleanly without residue. In a matter of seconds, they retreated to the lightless shadows. Left in their wake was the skinless body of a pony.

It stood, but did not move. Morgana stared at it, awe-struck for the first time since she had entered the Depths. Its body consisted of wires of black synthetic muscle that merged with thick, flexible surface armor covered in pores and polychromatic plates. Though it had a face roughly in the shape of a unicorn, it had no eyes; rather, the spaces where both of them would be present were connected by a single opaque gray visor-plate that curved across the face to fill both eye sockets. The mouth had no cheeks, and was open in a silent and horrifying roar. All of the teeth were needle-like and pointed.

“This is an MHI prototype unit,” explained Lyra. “Created by a shared venture between us. It is the only one of its kind, and the most advanced of its kind. Ever. It is far stronger and more durable than the one you possessed previously, and the central processor consists of an admittedly smaller type of the one we are using for Josephine’s body. It is over eight hundred thousand times faster than any on the market, even in Micronesia. And it comes with a class VII uplink default.”

“Is that even possible?”

Lyra nodded. “This body currently contains your friend’s core processes.” She pointed to Forth. “It has since we rebuilt her. Your body was destroyed because of oversight on our part. We would like you to have this one now, as a replacement.”

Morgana stared at the body. Lilium whispered to her. Morgana did not need to hear what she said to know what it meant. “And why?” She looked up at Lyra. “Why do all this? Why give me all this? Why don’t you just kill me, here and now?”

Lilium’s eyes widened, clearly not expecting Morgana to react by offering a suggestion like that. Lyra, though, barely paused.

“Because we do not want you dead. The Corporations do, of course. And we oppose them. If you were allowed to perish, it would be a victory for them, over us. And we cannot allow that.”

“So this is all for the sake of a pointless gesture?”

“No. The gesture is secondary. The true reason is so obvious I did not bother stating it.”

“Well, consider me an idiot. Enlighten me.”

“You’re a Twilight unit, aren’t you? The Princess of Friendship. And that’s exactly what we want. We want you to be our friend. And we can’t do that if we let you suffer for our mistakes.”

Morgana grimaced. “Ah. I see.”

“Morgana?” said Lilium, confused.

“You’ve had this conversation many, many times,” said Lyra, stepping forward toward Morgana. “Our work is not done. Not by far. There is still so much to do.”

“What are you saying?” asked Lilium.

“It’s the same deal I had with Maurice,” sighed Morgana. “And others…”

Lyra nodded. “A true friend of the Cult of Humanity- -and of myself, Lyra Heartstrings- -would help us in the same way we want to help you. When chains of investigation lead to our work, you turn them away. Lead them elsewhere. When dangers present themselves to your keen eyes, you can warn us. And when we ask for help…you help us in the same way we are willing to help you.”

“You just talked about genocide,” spat Lilium. “You’re asking us to be complacent in that!”

“No,” snapped Lyra. “I am asking HER. And complacency might not be enough. There might come a time when lines are drawn, and sides are chosen. And I want to be sure that I can count on my friends standing alongside me.”

“That’s insane! Morgana, she’s asking you to sell your soul!”

“I accept,” said Morgana, calmly and without hesitation.

Lilium’s eyes widened. “Morgana, you can’t- -”

“You want to see Roxanne again, don’t you?”

“I- -of course I do- -”

“And now you will. This isn’t the first time I’ve made this deal, Lilium. She’s right about that. There’s a reason Roxanne hates me. Because of this? I don’t care. The case is solved. It’s over. And I come out on top.”

“But- -but you can’t! It’s not right!”

Morgana turned her holographic head and stared into Lilium’s eyes. “Right and wrong don’t concern me. They never have. I’m just not that selfless, Lilium. You always knew that. Now stop being a little shit and let me make my own choices.”

Lilium gaped, not knowing what to say. Lyra’s smile grew somewhat more sadistic as she looked at Lilium, clearly enjoying her confusion. Then she turned back to the Micronesian and took her place beside it. “Then it is settled. We will vanish from Bridgeport and go elsewhere. For all I know, you may never see us again.”

“I doubt that,” said Morgana.

“As do I, in all honesty. But you will not be able to find us again. We will take what is valuable and detonate this facility and everything in it we can no longer use.” She paused, and her expression grew stern. “However. Before we progress, there is something else I very unfortunately have to deal with.”

“What?”

Lyra stared past Morgana, and her eyes met Elrod’s. “You,” she said.

“M…me?”

“I warned you. I tried to warn you. At great personal risk to myself, mind you. Because I found you innocence endearing and your story almost romantic in a classical sense. An outsider fleeing from persecution, from the destruction of his people, only to live a quiet, humble life. I wish it could have ended differently. But you didn’t listen.”

“L…Lyra, I don’t understand!”

“If you had stayed away from this, I could have avoided dealing with you. Ignored you. But you came here, following HER. Now I have to deal with you.” Elrod’s eyes went wide. Lyra sighed. “Our other principal partner has their own plans for the world, plans that are startlingly similar to our own. Ones that may lead to war in time, or not. But that’s the far future at the ends of our respective paths.”

“Monsanto,” said Elrod. He shook his head. “It doesn’t have to do with me. I’m not them. I’m not like them.”

“That doesn’t matter, does it? Because if you were to be discovered, it would derail everything they’ve planned. You’re outside their influence. And because of that, you have to die.”

Elrod’s expression suddenly became curiously blank. He rotated his head slowly, first looking at Forth longingly but seeing nothing but empty blue eyes staring back. Then he looked to Lilium pleadingly.

“…that is,” said Lyra, “unless someone would like to attempt to stop me?” She looked to Morgana, and Morgana turned to Elrod. Her face was impassive and her eyes dead.

“Morgana,” said Elrod. “Please…”

“The case is over, Elrod. I don’t need you anymore.”

Lyra smiled. “Excellent. Forth?”

One of Forth’s arms unfolded and she did not hesitate to fire a single bullet into Elrod’s back. Elrod’s eyes went wide, and he took a step forward as herbicide the bullet contained began to course through his body. He took a step and shuddered, then dropped to his knees as the connection to his lower legs disintegrated.

“ELROD!” cried Lilium, rushing to his side. She grabbed ahold of him, steadying him, but there was nothing she could do. The dose was already far above what was lethal for an agromorph; the would was lethal.

Elrod, though, did not show any signs of fear or pain. He did not even look confused. Only sad. He looked up, and his eyes met Morgana’s as his neck began to necrotize. “I was kind,” he said, his voice garbling as dark, fetid fluid dripped down his lips. “I did not breed. I did not hunt. I only wanted to live. But I am not the last. Monsanto failed. Below the fields of the Middle West, my kind wait, sleeping. Countless millions.”

“Elrod, don’t talk,” said Lilium. “It’s going to be okay, I- -I- -” She suddenly screamed to everyone else in the room. “WON’T SOMEPONY GODDAMN HELP HIM?!”

No one moved. Elrod leaned forward, defeated. His head was beginning to fade into indeterminate rot, and he turned to face Forth. He opened his mouth to say something, but when he saw her staring back- -smiling, as if mildly amused by his death, with otherwise complete disinterest- -he shook his head and turned away. Instead, he addressed Morgana.

“Take care of Forth,” was all he said. Then he collapsed, and was dead.

Lilium screamed and grabbed at him. “Elrod? Elrod!”

“He’s dead,” said Morgana.

“Indeed,” said Lyra. “And I must compliment you, Morgana. You are indeed a loyal friend.”

“Loyal?!” Lilium stood suddenly, glaring at Morgana. She was attempting to cry, but her robotic eyes could generate no tears. “You- -you’re a monster. He was your friend, and you…you let him be murdered. For what?!” She grimaced and gestured wildly at the body that still stood beside Lyra. “A new body? For your own gain? I- -I- -” She shook her head and backed away. “I respected you, goddamn it! I even admired you! I wanted to be like you!”

“Then you were an idiot,” said Morgana, darkly. “And who knows? Maybe you still will be.”

“NO!” spat Lilium, her voice shrill as she suppressed weeping. “I can’t- -I can’t do this! I wanted to believe that you were good, that there was something redeemable! But you didn’t even try! Your eyes- -they didn’t even change! Roxanne was right! I hate you! I hate you, Morgana Twilight Sparkle!”

“And I don’t care.”

Lilium took a step back as if she had been struck. Her eyes became wide in shock, and then in seconds she came to understand what she had hoped Morgana would refute. “Get out,” she whispered. “Get out of my body.”

“Lilium- -”

“Get out of me. NOW.”

Morgana sighed, and her hologram vanished. As it faded, she activated the optic sensors of her new body. The world suddenly appeared to her with a level of clarity that she had never before witnessed. The whole of the room was available in perfect detail, to the point where she could count every hair on Lyra or Lilium’s bodies, and compare the difference between the artificial threads in Lilium or Forth’s manes and the natural, growing hair of Lyra’s. What had once been solid, likewise, seemed to have no bearing on her vision. She could see Lyra’s heart beating, and the blood pumping through her brain and various organs all linked together through an artificial network. In the tanks, she could see the heartbeats of the new humans as they prepared to be born.

“Do you like it?” asked Lyra.

“It is adequate,” said Morgana. She took a step. The body moved smoothly; it was far lighter than her previous one, but at the same time showed signs of being immensely stronger. Every muscle worked perfectly, with not even the most infinitesimal amount of lag. Every artificial nerve presented her mind with perfect feedback. Morgana wondered if this was how organic beings felt, and if this was the closest she could come to that state.

She took another step, and then was fully walking- -toward Lilium. Lilium took a step back, but then steeled herself and retreated no farther.

“Are you going to kill me?” she asked. “Because I will fight you. If that’s what it takes.”

“Why would I kill you? I brought you into this world. Hate me as much as you want, but I see you as something like a daughter. And to be honest? I really hope you don’t end up like me. If you do, I’ll kill you then.” Morgana turned to the pile of fluid that had formerly been Elrod. She focused her mind, and felt her horn ignite with violet energy. A complex shape traced itself in the air, and she reached into the corpse.

“What are you doing?!” gasped Lilium.

“There’s a bounty on his head, isn’t there?”

“There is,” said Lyra. “We had actually hoped you would kill him yourself and attempt to claim it. You seem to be too nice, though.”

“Maybe.” Morgana removed a piece of decayed tissue, one that still retained its integrity- -and the epigenetic signature of true core death. “And you know what? Maybe if I was younger, I’d stand here and fight you. I’d even die trying. Fuck the humans, just because I really don’t like you.” Lilium continued to stare, and Morgana stared back with her eyeless face. “But you know what? I’m too old. I’ve seen too much. I just don’t care anymore.”

Lilium’s jaw dropped, and for a moment Morgana was sure that she saw a real tear run down her face. Then she turned and ran, pushing past Forth. The other Lyra’s allowed her to pass, as did Jane Doe, who seemed to be enjoying the spectacle thoroughly.

“I would rather like to have her killed,” said Lyra.

“No,” sighed Morgana. “There’s no point in it. What is she going to do? Claim that a semi-human cult is stealing brains and taking them to the depths to build ponies out of them? No one will believe her even if she does talk. Just let her go try to live her life.”

Lyra paused, considering for a moment. “Well, I don’t think I can deny a request from a friend. I will allow it. You have already more than proven your loyalty. Feel free to keep the Monsanto bounty. We have no need for it.”

“Thanks,” said Morgana. She motioned to Forth, who almost skipped toward her. She was clearly incredibly happy to no longer be alone; her and Morgana were once again sharing a body. “Forth. Take Hexel and Jillian. We’re leaving.”

“Already? But I wanted to see the trees!”

Morgana did not bother responding. Forth would follow orders; she always did. Morgana did not speak, and neither did Lyra. She followed the same path that Lilium had, and although they both marched toward the same exit, Morgana knew that their paths had diverged permanently. Mentally, she tried to convince herself that it was irrelevant. The case had been solved; it was all over. Yet, somehow, despite all it had taken to get this for, she gained no satisfaction from any of it.

Epilogue

They had been summoned, and arrived, each in turn, under the cover of darkness. Their journey had been made in secret, but only paradoxically so: although none among their respective vassals knew the purpose of their trips, few had not seen the covert lines of affluent transport that had brought each of them to the neutral city of Sherbrooke: private trains with cars loaded discreetly with components of unbelievable affluence, convoys of automobiles escorted by heavy road-tanks and entire armies of disguised soldiers, and, among the most wealthy of the representative delegates, some of the last airplanes in existence.

They brought with them fear, but not fear in the sense that any normal person could understand. Each and every one of them was aware of what had quickly come to be called the Bottlebrush Massacre. The older of them dismissed it, recalling Bridgeport’s long and bloody history- -but the most prudent among them knew that precautions had to be taken. Normal men might have retreated or hidden, but none of these delegates were normal men. In their own minds, they were superior- -they responded to fear with brashness and confidence. Such behavior had led them- -or in many cases, their distant ancestors- -to invariable corporate victory long ago.

A man named Arthur Melville, son of Winston, was among them. He had been among the earliest to arrive, but, being familiar with the customs of his class, had waited in his lavish and exorbitantly well-protected hotel room until he felt that the time was ripe for his entrance- -never late, but never early. At exactly the right time, and only then.

On his way, he paused, looking at himself in the reflection of one of the many full-length windows that lined the Central Tower. The glass was tinted red-brown until it was nearly opaque to the point where it was nearly impossible to see the snow-covered city that lay below. It would be buried for most of the year, its buildings secured in darkness as its residents transversed nearly lightless tunnels. Beyond the city, manicured preserve-forests sat. Melville supposed they were probably pleasant enough during the summer months, although trees had never been something he much saw the point of.

Rather than focus on the city below, Melville instead focused on himself. He was tall for a natural-born human, and wide, thanks to the substantial cybernetic upgrades that had been implanted into his body. That was something of a departure from tradition- -he was well aware of this- -but he had deemed long ago that in changing times, changing tactics were required. His body was something he took pride in, and he smiled as he straightened his tie: the epitome of his company’s cybernetics made his body, and his face showed the signs of severe inbreeding that indicated that his family had approached their genetic heritage with an eye toward absolute purity.

When he was done, he turned back to the remainder of the room. Some of the other delegates were already arriving, funneling into the penthouse meeting room or speaking amongst themselves. They spoke equally to allies and enemies, and although some claimed that this group was meant to be homogenous, it only was so in name and goal. Those that had arrived her had come for that one reason: to sit by their rivals, and to not suffer the dishonor of being the one remaining at home while a meeting this grave occurred without them. To do so would be intolerable, and as far as Melville knew, all the principal Corporations were represented.

He began to move toward the conference room himself, taking long strides that were calculated to demonstrate confidence. As he approached, though, three figures caught his eye. He looked at them casually at first, pretending to be only glancing, and he confirmed what he had initially suspected: they were not people he knew. This was indeed a strange development, and in his state of enhanced confidence, Melville decided to be the first to approach them.

As he did, he immediately understood who they were- -or at the very least which vassal they were from. The heraldry on their high-collared shirts indicated that they were from Monsanto. This was curious indeed, as none of them were Bronislav Spitzer. Rather, Melville distantly recognized their apparent leader as one of Spitzer’s many wives, although he could not remember her name. The other two appeared somewhat strange, although they were quite clearly Spitzers, at least in bloodline, most likely bastards.

What was strange, though, is that all three of them seemed to share an identical skin condition. They wore hoods, but were clearly not attempting to hide the fact that not one of them had hair, not even eyebrows. Their skin was deathly pale, save for spots where it was scaly and strangely brown. To Melville, they looked disgusting, but he was not really sure why exactly.

The woman’s eyes immediately flitted toward Melville before he had a chance to retreat. They were strikingly brown, but seemed somewhat out of focus.

“Hello,” she said. “I believe I recognize you.”

“Arthur Melville, son of Winston,” replied Melville. “And if I’m not mistaken, you are from Monsanto.”

“We are,” replied the woman.

“That’s strange,” said Melville, suppressing his mild outrage. “I actually know Spitzer pretty well. I was expecting to see him here. This meeting is of great priority, and sensitivity. It is meant for leaders only, I’m afraid.”

“Ah,” said the woman, her expression not changing. She did not seem offended, only mildly confused. “Unfortunately, Lord Spitzer suffered a rather unfortunate accident. One that I am afraid resulted in his untimely death.”

“I see…”

“And, as the whereabouts of his only son are currently unknown, modifications had to be made to the chain of succession. In the interim, the Board of Directors had appointed me the acting High Chairman.”

“I was not aware. Although, granted, Monsanto is notoriously isolationist.”

“For good reason.” The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me, Lord Melville. To which vassal do you belong?”

Melville smiled. “Etsy, of course.”

“So your primary export is- -”

“Ultra-heavy armaments. Artillery, military vehicles, ships, orbital-strike equipment and the like. Actually, we’ve recently made substantial developments in our new line of auto-targeting heavy machine guns. I’ve been pushing toward the development of small arms to supplement our big-ticket items. Field testing during the recent student protests proved exquisite.”

“Student protests that you caused, I’m sure.”

Melville frowned. “I do not criticize how Monsanto conducts focus testing. There’s no need to be provocative.”

“And I have no need for a sales pitch. The contracts Spitzer had made with Etsy are now null and void.”

“Under whose authority?!”

“Under mine. We have no need for what you have to supply us.”

Melville nearly struck her, but quickly regained his composure, recalling the grueling hours of grooming he had experienced as a child that prepared him for this sort of negotiation. “Well. I see. You beat me too it, then.”

“Oh?”

Melville nodded. “Of all of us, Monsanto was one of the first to start causing trouble…and the first to then inexplicably retract their forces from the hunt for that heretic Twilight Sparkle unit. Do you know what that means?”

“That we will be ostracized by the remaining Corporations. That we will experience trade embargos until our internal economy fails, and other Corporations- -Etsy, perhaps- -will consume our vast real-estate holdings.”

Melville took a step back, unable to contain his confusion. She had stated the exact truth- -but with no reaction to it. As if the death of Monsanto did not even matter to her remotely. Then, as she saw his response, she had the audacity to smile. This time, Melville really was about to strike her- -but froze when for just a fraction of a second, he was sure she had viciously pointed teeth. He blinked, only to see that they looked entirely ordinary.

“Well,” he said, feeling himself flushing. “I suppose this is what happens when a woman is in charge of a Corporation. Under normal circumstances, I would raise this break from tradition with the Committein.”

“The Committein who is also a woman.”

Melville laughed. “We might call her a ‘she’, but her kind aren’t female. You know that.”

“I know many things. I care about few.”

She pushed past Melville and approached the security gate. She passed through the arch easily, as did her two associates. No weapons or dangerous devices were detected in their clothes or on their persons. Melville frowned, feeling his confidence badly injured. Still, he immediately forced himself to step forward, following after them into the main conference room.

By this time, the table was nearly full, and Melville had been made late. He dejectedly took his place, which was not terribly distant from where the Monsanto delegate had sat. The remainder of the room was filled with the most important individuals in North America, save for those in the United States government itself: High Chairmen, CEOs, Elevated Boardmen, Presidents, and the like. All of them were invariably the same: male, and natural-born. Some of them were accompanied by others, which were either lesser sons of their dynasties or tall, transparent-clad noblewomen who served as secretaries or as assistants toward their aging rulers. Melville began to regret coming alone; even the Monsanto woman had auxiliaries, even if they were just Spitzer’s bastards.

Talk circulated the table as the delegates spoke amongst themselves. Many languages could be heard, although derivatives of English were most common. All of this talk, though, ceased as the Committein herself entered the room.

She had come last, and the room fell silent as she entered. She was the only one of her kind in the room: a pony, a Rainbow Dash unit to be specific. She wore an impeccably fitted suit, and her exorbitantly long rainbow hair and tail were braided and fluffed into a complex style. She moved with absolute confidence, and an armored guard followed her wake. Everyone present knew who she was: she bore the deceptively simple name Heather, and was the Director of a minor vassal called R&D Development. Despite the insignificant holdings of her vassal, she was the head of this operation, and the one who had called them all to this meeting.

“You!” cried the delegate from Lockheed Heavy, nearly standing off his chair as Heather sat down in hers. “You have a lot to fucking answer for!”

A thin and infuriating smile crossed Heather’s face. “Really?” she said. “I do?”

“In case you haven’t noticed,” said another delegate, pointing at several empty chairs. “Some of us are missing!”

“Yes. Intel, NeoGoogle III, and Bandwidth Vast will no longer be attending.”

“Because they were liquidated! Every one of their ruling class are DEAD! There aren’t even heirs! Their entire structures were liquidated overnight, along with at least twenty subvassals!”

“We have evidence that the War Stone was used to orchestrate their downfall,” said Heather. “And I’m dealing with it.”

“Dealing with- -the goddamn Cult took down three COMPANIES! Do you have any idea- -”

“You can’t liquidate a company from the inside,” sighed Heather. “It’s like a dance. It takes two partners. One to sell…and one to buy.” She looked around the room, and all of the delegates present suddenly faltered in their supposedly righteous rage. The fallen Corporations’ assets had been consumed in minutes, and each of them knew exactly where they had gone.

“This is all beside the point,” said Melville, suddenly breaking the silence. He stood up. “I’ve met with my people. We all have. You can’t hide this anymore. The Cult? Do you even know where they are?”

“And can you even let them get away with what they did?” The CEO of Aetna-Cross frowned and turned angrily toward Heather. “We lost our Board of Directors, and half their heirs, as well as most of our subvassal leaders and their heirs. All in one hit. Our city is tearing itself apart.”

“Due to whose management?” muttered another delegate.

“Don’t try to pin this on me! Arthur is right!” He stood up suddenly. “Where the Hell are they? Do you even have contact? It was your idea to work with them in the first place!”

“And it turned out to be profitable.”

“Bullshit! BULL- -SHIT! Each and every one of us here poured in everything we had! Money, resources, proprietary technology- -and then YOU just let them FUCKING LEAVE!”

“We have no idea where their center of operations is. I couldn’t exactly stop them.”

“Then what was all this for?! Are you that senile, you can’t even remember WHY we did this in the first place?”

“I agree,” added the delegate from Universal and Universal. Unlike the others, he was substantially more aged, and when he spoke the others stifled their rage. He spoke calmly. “Time is running out. We made substantial sacrifices in moving to prevent a breach of our developments.”

“You mean to off one goddamn detective.”

“One detective that all of our combined militaries could not reach, mind you.”

A thin, nearly skeletal man leaned forward. “That one, I think, we can put on you, Foros.”

“Fuck you.”

“As I was saying,” said the man from Universal and Universal, raising his voice slightly. “The government is sure to take notice. My antiespionage division has already picked up spies infiltrating our border cities in response. I am old enough to remember how we dealt with the Japan problem.” He turned his nearly blind eyes toward Heather. “It has to be done swift, and efficiently. No plotting, no planning. Conviction. Every one of us here knows that, or we would not be responsible for ruling the better half of the world.”

“Agreed,” said Foros, having calmed down slightly. “Without their technology, we can’t win a decisive, quick victory. If we move without it, the only ones left to pick up the pieces will be Africa…or Micronesia.”

The entire room shuddered and hissed at the mention of their primary rival, the Paraiah Corporation MHI.

“I understand,” said Heather. “The Cult of Humanity was more capricious than we expected, I get that. And if my thoughts count? I gave a gut feeling they planned this. That they played us for fools.” The mood of the room darkened, but Heather smiled. “But…”

“But what?”

“But apart from the designs we already have? Guess what. I recovered the rest.” Heather smiled broadly and gently tapped her forehead, motioning toward the orthotropic processing core beneath it.

The room stared at her in disbelieve, and then broke out in quiet cheer. Some of them began to talk amongst themselves, congratulating each other on their success, and their inevitable victory over the government- -and each planning the part of the new power structure that they would carve for their respective vassals.

“Yes,” said Heather, chuckling softly. “It’s all stored here, and it’s all already been transmitted.”

Those sitting closest to her- -the ones who had heard her speak- -suddenly froze and went quiet. The rest of the room did not hear, but they seemed to sense a ponderous shift in the mood toward the far end of the table.

“Wait,” said Foros, interrupting all the others. “Transmitted? To who? We’re all here!”

Heather laughed, and then leaned forward. The drone beside her suddenly drew a high-caliber pistol and pressed it against the side of her head.

“Hail Xyuka,” she whispered.

The bullet fired, and Heather’s head was thrown to the side as the metal flecks of her brain spewed from the far side of her skull. Her body tremored and collapsed as the data that the Corporations had spent so much effort and resources into isolating died along with her. Then she was still, and the room burst into an uproar. They screamed and rushed forward, shouting and yelling. In the chaos, none of them noticed as the delegates from Monsanto tossed several small gas canisters down the center of the table. By the time any of them saw the grenades, it was too late; the nerve gas had already been released.

Those closest to it immediately screamed in agony as their bodies contorted from seizures. Their eyes rolled back into their heads and poured forth blood as they fell immobile as they died in torment. A few among them covered their mouths with their clothing or, if they were better prepared, specialized portable masks- -but it was too late. By the time each of them reached into their suit jackets or ornate blazers, the concentration of toxin in the air had already reached adequate levels to render every animal creature in the room with a central nervous system dead within seconds.

Melville stood suddenly. The nerves in his brain were already beginning to burn away, but unlike the others, his body was largely cybernetic. He sensed that he was dying- -or already dead- -but through his confusion and slowly progressing blindness, he was able to look around the room. Heather was dead, killed by her now impassive drone, and the rest of the members were deceased or on the verge of being so. Yet, through it all, three remained: the delegates from Monsanto watched with what seemed like mild amusement. The gas had no effect on them.

“F…fuc..k…y…OU!” cried Melville, reaching into his belt and drawing a ceramic pistol, one that had been designed by his company just for this sort of occasion. Despite his failing brain, he pointed weapon on the Monsanto woman’s head and fired. The bullet struck her through the left eye, tearing a hole through her skull- -but she did not flinch. No blood poured from the wound; instead, the flesh within was pure and white. As Melville stared in horror, the woman stared back at him, unmoved by the fact that he could see the wall behind her through a hole that took up half her face. Then, before his eyes, the wound began to close; it sealed itself, growing from within and restoring the shape of her skull. It grew thick brown skin that flaked away, and she opened a new eye.

Melville tried to call out. To who, he was not sure. There was not enough left of him to know if he should cry to God or his mother, or anyone else for that matter. He fell back into his seat and flopped forward, his brain having failed completely.

The room was silent for a moment as the delegates from Monsanto surveyed the carnage. There had been no survivors save for themselves: the leaders of every major Corporation in North America had been eradicated in a single swift motion. The woman in question- -she had no name, as none of her kind did- -found herself mildly pleased. Their plans were moving forward according to plan.

Then, suddenly, Melville’s body sat up. His eyes were unfocused and had already grown cloudy, and to the Monsanto delegates’ great surprise his torso lurched and turned. One of his arms lifted itself upward.

“Ooh,” he said, his voice projected from some mechanical part of himself as he waved his arm. “Floppy.”

“Excuse me,” said the woman. “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

“Oh, he is.” Melville’s floppy arm moved with great difficulty and took a position where his head could be leaned upon it. “Quite dead. They all are. Very effective. But this is the only body I could get to. The rest don’t have cybernetics.”

“And who might you be?”

“I am the War Stone.” Josephine caused Melville’s face to contort in a grotesque parody of a smile. It was not difficult; the contraction of every muscle in his body had already pursed his lips into something quite similar. “I do contract work for the Cult.”

“Ah. Pleased to meet you, I suppose. But why are you here?”

“To help, I suppose. I’m in position on my end. It’s very strange. There’s a lot more cyborgs in the senate.”

“Well, I thank you for your assistance. I doubt it would have been so easy had you not distracted them with Lady Heather.”

“Who?” Josephine looked to the head of the table where the drone was still standing, watching. “Um…that wasn’t me. I can’t even pick up that drone. Hence why I’m in a corpse right now. She did that to herself.”

“Oh…”

The two of them were silent. “Never mind,” said Josephine after a moment. “It’s not relevant. Come on. We’ve got a lot of work to do. Let’s get started.”

Hundreds of miles away, somewhere in the West Side region of Bridgeport, two ponies sat on a pair of stools in front of a street vendor. To the right, a white Pegasus with unblinking blue eyes and wearing a surprisingly frumpy sweater-skirt combination kicked her feet as she hummed. Her motions eventually triggered her stool to begin to rotate, which seemed to amuse her greatly. “Oop!” she said. “I guess I’m going around again!”

The pony beside her did not respond. Morgana instead focused on the world around her. She saw the holographic displays and warnings passing by, once again warning of air quality failure in the district and those nearby, to the point of toxicity in the lower levels. She saw each and every person passing by: mostly ponies or synths, but also humans who wore heavy filtration masks and respirators to protect themselves from the increasingly toxic atmosphere. Morgana could perceive every stitch in their clothing and every piece of armor they had in it, as well as every weapon they possessed. Her mind, likewise, touched theirs almost on instinct, to the point where she could continuously hear the dull hum of the digital world around her. The border that technomancers were intended to straddle no longer had meaning to her; in this body, the line had blurred into near nonexistence.

Her form had changed. She still wore a long coat, and on her neck bore a black choker with a single, familiar gemstone imbedded in on the left side of it. It was her body, though, that had changed. Instead of violet, she had chosen to render her skin dark to the point of being nearly indigo. Her cutie mark, though it could not be readily seen through her coat, had been altered as well; Morgana had simplified it and altered the colors into something that she felt was more suiting. Combined with the fact that she had no recognizable eyes, she was off-model- -and she did not give a shit.

“Ha!” said Forth as she rotated back to the counter of the noodle stand. “You look like a dragonfly, Ms. Morgana! Except substantially larger. And with no wings.”

“I never liked them,” muttered Morgana, still scanning the world around her absentmindedly as she thought. “They just never felt right.” She pressed her tongue against her sharp, pointed teeth. They felt strange as well, but did not impede her speech. In fact, they somehow felt more right than the ones she had used before.

“Have you heard anything?” asked Forth, suddenly. Her tone had become much less playful. It was a serious question.

“No,” said Morgana.

“So Lilium…”

“I have no idea. And I don’t really care.”

“But I don’t think that’s true.”

“It is. She served her purpose.”

“I like to think that she’s with Roxanne.”

Morgana paused. “Yeah,” she said at last. “I like to think that too.”

It had been nearly a month since Morgana had seen either of them. Lilium had vanished entirely, as had Roxanne. Morgana had tried to avoid caring, but still found herself walking by the bar near her old office late at night- -to find it abandoned and boarded up, then later converted into an automated aquaculture facility. Its owners were dead, and as far as Morgana could tell, Roxanne had not taken up dancing in any other location that Morgana could find.

“You should have seen her. Said goodbye.”

“It wouldn’t have helped anything. And she wouldn’t want to see me like this.”

“You don’t like what you look like?”

“I do. But she wouldn’t. I didn’t want to see that look in her eyes. Goddamn it. When did I get so fucking sentimental?”

“Maybe it’s the new body?” suggested Forth.

Morgana did not reply. She had, in fact, seen Roxanne- -but Roxanne had not seen her, or at least not recognized her. The new body’s selective polychromatic surface had taken care of that. She had been recovering thanks to a large anonymous donation.

“I tried to talk to Valla,” she said, changing the subject.

“That’s good. How is the new arm?”

“I offered to pay for it.”

“And?”

“She shot me.” The bullet had produced no effect on Morgana’s body, but its meaning had not gone unfelt. “I don’t think she’ll ever speak to me again.”

“Are you sure?”

“No,” sighed Morgana. “That’s how humans are. Their lifespans are short. Who knows? Maybe as she gets older she’ll forget about it. Or she’ll just die. Of old age, maybe. Then it becomes moot in the end anyway.”

“I guess that’s true,” said Forth, her expression falling. “But at least you still have me.”

“Yeah.” Morgana smiled slightly, and turned her distorted face toward Forth. “And you’re actually useful to me.”

Forth seemed overjoyed by this, as though it were supposed to be a compliment. Her wings flapped slowly and nearly involuntarily. “I’m glad,” she said. “I don’t want to be alone. I don’t know if I can again. I just…” She shook her head and laughed. “But why worry? I’m useful! And speaking of which, I’ve made several lists for your new office. Furnishings and stuff. All of them are almost within your price requirements.”

Forth continued to talk, but Morgana did not listen. She had already extracted and read the lists, adjusted them, and ordered the decorations to her own specifications- -but Forth liked to plan, even if her fashion sense was horrible. For the first time, money was not an issue. Morgana had plenty of it. Monsanto had gladly lived up to their end of their reward contract- -because of Elrod’s death, Morgana had enough money to live the next fifty years of her life in luxury. Luxury, though, was of little consequence to her; the money did not matter, except as a means to reestablishing her business. Morgana’s life had been long, and of all the things she could recall, the only thing that still brought her any joy were her cases. Aside from Forth, it was now all she had left.

Internally, she wished there was some part of her that would ask if it was all worth it. Unfortunately, as hard as Morgana tried to summon that internal voice, she could not. It was long dead. She no longer cared if ends justified means; to her, considerations like that had become purely academic and divorced from anything of practical value.

The cases had returned. Life had resumed its normal flow as if nothing had happened, save for the two new bodies she had been given: one for herself, and one for her weapon. Still, a darker consideration loomed in the back of her mind- -a thought of the unknown implications of what she had chosen to do.

“Fuck it,” she said to herself.

“The ottoman?” asked Forth, confused. “I don’t know if I can.” She looked under her skirt. “The Cult did not give me any genitals. Again.”

“Because you’re not supposed to have them.”

Before Forth could protest- -not that she would; she seemed oddly nonplussed by her lack of physical secondary sexual characteristics- -their noodles arrived and were placed on the counter in front of each of them.

“Yay!” said Forth, leaning forward and beginning to lap up the broth from her bowl of ramen. “Mmm…this is probably salty, isn’t it?”

“It should be.” Morgana snuffed out her cigarette as the spiral of her horn ignited and she began to lift a battered spoon. As she did, though, she became conscious of the waiter standing over her- -a Lyra unit wearing a headband, watching Morgana’s display with great interest.

“Sorry,” she said, turning away suddenly and going behind the curtain in the back of the shop to her tiny, pony-height kitchen. Morgana watched her go. A Lyra unit- -one of millions- -artificial, but in appearance no different than what the human Jennifer had become- -and no different from how the children of the Cult of Humanity would appear when they were finally born. Morgana would be able to see the difference, because she knew to look- -but no others would. None would know until it was already far too late.

These were the thoughts that scratched in the back of Morgana’s mind. However, Morgana pushed them back. She was able to tell herself that they did not concern her, and the simple fact of stating it made it true. That was how she had made it so far in life.

She picked up her spoon and sipped some of the broth from her noodles. It probably was salty- -but she would never know. Morgana supposed that in the end, it did not really matter anyway.