Secret Rendezvous
Twilight waited silently as her friends joined her in the basement of CHS. she adjusted her glasses nervously as she looked at them. only the emergency lights and the furnace provided any illumination.
"Where's Fluttershy?" she asked breaking the silence.
"I left her at her house, After what you told me over the phone, I didn't think that she would want to hear this." Rainbow said, "her brother is watching her, and my dad has squad cars going by her house every fifteen minutes, plus an unmarked in her driveway."
The six girls looked at each other then turned to Twilight, all of them had concerned looks on their faces.
"Why are we meeting in the school basement in the middle of the night?" Rarity yawned finally. Twilight hesitated before speaking.
"Moondancer and I did some more digging into King Enterprises." Twilight said, opening and old laptop and connecting a thumb drive, "lots of high level government contracts, cryptic inter-office memos. most seem to have to do with something called Project Dream Catcher." Twilight turned to computer around so her friends could see. she then clicked on a file labeled "CHANGELING".
"CHANGELING, what is that?" Sunset asked. She new what a dream catcher was, they had something similar in Equestria.
"From what Moondancer and I were able to uncover, Project CHANGELING is a project started by a super secret government agency, something called the Internal Security Agency, sound familiar to any of you?" Twilight looked at her friends, they all shook their heads, "What the ISA had King Enterprises doing was creating super soildier sleeper agents within the civilian population. I guess the purpose of the agents was to cause mayhem and chaos and then ultimately control the population."
"That sounds silly, whay would you want your agents to be asleep?" Pinkie said, "They cant do much mayhem if they are sleeping."
five pairs of eyes just stared at Pinkie, Applejack pinched the bridge of her nose.
"You were sayin' sugarcube."
"We were able to get a few files concerning CHANGELING from the King Enterprises server." Twilight clicked open a file labeled "Subject001", the girls were shocked to see a picture of Fluttershy! There was a brief description of Fluttershy, her vital statistics, height, weight, that sort of thing, then there was a list of project phases:
- PHASE ONE: DNA splicing and genetic modification; COMPLETE
- PHASE TWO: Cybernetic enhancement; REJECTION
- PHASE THREE: Mental conditioning and aggression enhancement; INCOMPLETE
- PHASE FOUR: Combat training; INCOMPLETE
- PHASE FIVE: Insertion; INCOMPLETE
- STATUS: INACTIVE
"Cybernetic enhancement. is that even possible?" Rainbow asked. Twilight closed the file about Fluttershy and opened another. This time a picture of what appeared to be a prosthetic left arm was on the screen.
"Looks like it, this is model has retractable razor blades in the fingertips" Twilight said.
"OK, I have a question that needs to be asked." Rarity said, "why Fluttershy?"
"Looks like they identified that teenagers are the most likely candidates to survive this alteration process. Fluttershy just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Sunset leaned over Twilight's shoulder and read some more of the files. after approximately five minutes she stood back up.
"This is some scary stuff. " Sunset said.
"We have to do somethin, tell somebody." Applejack said.
"Who are we supposed to tell AJ?" Rainbow asked, "The government? They started this. Why do you think its been two months and no charges have been brought against King Enterprises? There is black, and then there is whatever, this, is."
The room was quiet as Rainbow's words hung in the air. All the girls were thinking of the reality that they now found themselves in.
"What do we do now?" Pinkie asked, her hair having deflated, "who do we trust? who can we trust?"
"Each other," Sunset said after a moment of thought, "we trust each other."
"Its getting late, and I want to check on Fluttershy before I go home." Rainbow said, "lets call it a night and pick this up in the morning."
The other girls agreed. Sunset helped Twilight pack up her laptop. As the girls left the never noticed the three pairs of eyes that watched them leave.
***
Across town, in a nondescript office building someone else was awake late at night. He was known as "The Director". On the screen before I'm was everything that King Enterprises had on Project CHANGELING. The fools had not only allowed Subject 001 to escape, but they had allowed partial knowledge of the project be leaked to the public, making recovery of the subject impossible at this time. He had not worked for decades on this project to lose everything due to the incompetence of corporate bureaucracy. Well that couldn't be helped now. Now his job was containment and control. he reached for his phone.
"Commander, continue surveillance, do not attempt to reacquire the subject with out my authorization." he said, "And send a containment team to both the warehouse and to King Enterprises, I want both locations scrubbed clean, squeaky clean."
After that he hung up the phone and continued to read the files before him. King Enterprises had done all the research and had got the project rolling, now his organization could continue the project. he made a mental note to have King's top researchers "transferred" to him. King Enterprises was one of the largest corporations in the world, but their loss meant nothing in the long run. the resources available o him were limitless. He picked up the phone again and dialed another number.
"Professor, begin stage two. The loss of Subject 001 is a minor setback. I have complete faith in you." He said, "Yes, we will be keeping everything in house this time, use the Farm if you need it."
Again he hung up the phone. Standing up he tapped a button on his desk causing a bookshelf along one wall of his office to split apart revealing a lit map of Canterlot City. There were several red dots marked on the map each representing a Dream Catcher. all were currently dormant. The speaker phone on his desk went off. pouring himself a glass of bourbon he answered it.
"Yes?" he asked.
"Sir, we have detected a possible security breach concerning CHANGELING." the voice of his assistant said.
"What?" he snarled.
"Someone hacked into the King Enterprises server and managed to get some of the Dream Catcher files. we are running a trace now."
"Find them."
"Do we implement termination protocol sir?"
The Director thought a moment before answering, "No, take them to the Farm and prepare them for employment.'