A few good Ponies.
“C’mon Riley, isn’t it obvious?” The blue pegasus drillled me. She seemed to be catching something I’d overlooked. That tends to happen a lot. Though she could never just come out and tell me what I was missing.
“No, it really isn’t.” I admitted. I took a drink from my glass of water. This case was really starting to wear me down. This was made clear by the pair of sunglasses lying on the table in front of me. I looked up and, of course, the pegasus was still there.
“Really? Wow, ‘cause I figured it out a long time ago. I guess I’m just better than you.” This didn’t make sense. She shouldn’t be here. How did she exist?
“Shut up. You’re not real.” I a took another drink. I was getting dizzy, my vision was fading, and I wasn’t sure why.
“Real or not, I’m all you’ve got. Now c’mon! Put those glasses back on and piece it all together.” I couldn’t. I couldn’t use it anymore.
It was an addiction. The more you used it, the more difficult it was to separate real life from subconscious projections. Though I couldn’t stop using it.... It was so... Exhilarating. It was better than reality, that was for sure.
The middle of a story is never the best place to start. Rewind a few years. 2014, top scientists perfect shared dreaming. It’s an incredibly expensive system, and is only distributed to police forces, to use for more efficient interrogations.
2015, the technology is released to richer civilians. A freelancer scientist, by the name of Alfred Bloomsburg, developed a prototype of the Subconscious Projectal Examination System, or SPES. An incredibly complex, expensive device. He sook a test subject.
The SPES connects to its user’s brain waves, almost telepathically. Because of this, the first person to use a SPES unit becomes its sole user. It simply won’t work for anyone else. The scientist who developped the system found his test subject, a local Private Investigator, by the name of Riley Compton. That’s me.
I recieved the system June 16th, 2015. He said that it would be a very useful investigation tool, and that he had chosen a PI to test it, rather than the police, because he knew the police would have to go through weeks of protocols to be able to use it. I agreed, it was true. The police’s protocols are one of the main reasons I quit the force.
He gave me a quick, basic run down of how the SPES works. Using a modified version of the dreaming sharing technology, it accesses the target’s subconscious, creating projections of their mind. The projections show the target’s true colors, and usually know a lot more than the target, making them much more useful for interrogation.
I didn’t fully understand at first. It sounded crazy and pointless. Not fully understanding, I decided the best option was to see for myself. I removed the system from the packaging. I was incredibly surprised by how sleek it was. All it was was a pair of sunglasses, that wireless connected to this box, similar to the boxes worn at the waste for wireless microphones. There was also a right handed, fingerless glove in the box. I clipped the box to my belt and put on the glasses. Then I slid on the glove and pressed the convenient “on” button on the box.
Immediately, two floating screens appeared in front of me. One said “Connect” and the other said “Cancel”. I took a deep breath and tapped the “Connect” screen with my gloved hand. The screens disappeared and the glasses went completely black, blocking my vision. Eventually, small, green letters appeared that said “Scanning...” I remembered Alfred explaining this part to me. It was scanning my brain for something I could identify with easily to create suitable projections.
“Theme set to “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.” Appeared across the screen. “Creating Projection”. This caught me off guard. Alfred mentioned nothing about the SPES making a projection of MY subconscious.
The glasses cleared up, and my vision was restored. Surprisingly, nothing seemed different. Just my usual office. It was a pretty standard PI’s office. A window behind a desk, the door across the room, straight in front of the window. It was a pretty nice setup. My walls were painted a light tan, and were bare except for a painting. “Starry Night”, Vincent Van Gogh. Not the original, of course.
The room was empty, aside from myself. No projections. I figured the device just wasn’t working properly. That’s when something unusual caught my eye. I looked out the window, and saw a small, bluish speck in the distance, growing bigger and bigger. Finally, I realized that it was a rainbow maned pegasus, just like the SPES had promised. CRASH. She crashed through my window, completely shattering it. She flew across the room and face-planted against the wall. I was both amused and appalled.
“Are you insane! Do you know how much it costs to repair a window?”
“No idea!” She replied as she got to her feet and shook off the crash. “Why not fix it yourself?”
“What do you mean? I’m a private investigator, what makes you think I can fix a window?”
She laughed. I was still slightly in shock that one of my favorite characters from my childhood was here in my office, even though I knew she wasn’t real. She gave me a weird look, as though she thought there was something funny about my inability to fix a window. It was as though there was a joke, and I was getting it at all...
“Oh. Right.” I finally got it. I slid the glasses down my nose and peeked out the top of them. Of course, the window was fine. “Alright, I’m sold.” I smiled, as I slid the glasses back up. I turned back to the blue pegasus. “Hello there, my name is Riley. I’m a private investigator.”
“Hey there! Name’s Rainbow Dash! Fastest pegasus on Earth. Actually, the only pegasus on Earth! For now anyway.”
“Oh. So you actually know what you are?”
“Of course I do. Do I look stupid to you? Why WOULDN’T I know what I am?”
“Well... In movies, a lot of the time...”
“Does this look like a movie to you?”
“... Good point.” Shown up by my own subconscious. There’s something that doesn’t happen everyday. “Okay, there’s one thing I don’t understand.”
“What’s that?”
“How can this technology possibly help me as an investigator? I mean, it’s amusing, but how is it practical?”
She sighed. “Here, I’ll just show you.” She headed over to the door. “Oh, and try not to respond to me around other people. They’ll start to think you’re... As a friend of mine would say, ‘loco in the coco.’”
“Noted. Alright, where are we going?” I asked, opening the door.
“The Daily Bean.” She said, following me out into the hallway. My office was in a building called Express Offices. You know, one of those buildings that rent out offices to people who have nothing better. People such as poor, struggling PIs.
The Daily Bean was a coffee shop. I wasn’t sure why she was leading me there, but I trusted my own subconscious.
“You’ve been going about this all wrong! See, you can’t just put out an ad in the paper and expect people in need of an investigator to come to you. You’ve gotta do a little PR! You gotta go find he action yourself! Take initiative! Get dirty!” Dash lectured me in the elevator on the way to the bottom floor.
“Here’s what you gotta do. Go in to the coffee shop, and find work! If someone needs assistance, trust me, I’ll be able to help you find them.” I nodded. We arrived at the door to the Daily Bean, which was just a block down from Express Offices. I stepped inside and walked up to the counter.
There was no wait, since they weren’t very busy. “Hello.” I said to the barista.
“Hi there! Welcome to the Daily Bean, what can I do for you?” He responded.
“Um... Can I just get a cup of coffee?” I had quite clearly never been in a coffee shop before. He nodded and turned to a large, complicated looking coffee machine, and started filling up a cup of coffee. “So uh... Anything unusual happen around here lately?”
Rainbow Dash sat down beside me and did a head desk. “That’s right, nice and subtle.” She mocked. I sighed. I never was good at being subtle. There were probably good reasons that I never had clients.
“Hm... No. Nothing comes to mind. Isn’t that the kinda stuff newspapers are for?” He motioned to a newspaper stack to my immediate left as he placed the cup of coffee in front of me.
“Yes. Yes it is.” I averted my eyes, probably blushing, sort of embarrassed. I reached over and grabbed a newspaper. The front page headline read “Large Sum of Cash Stolen from Duran Co. Advertising Company.” As I read the article, I noticed something interesting. “The money was found missing from the CEO’s safe at around 2:00 PM today.” I checked the date. June 16th. That was today. I checked my watch. 3:14. Impossible. These newspapers ship out at 6 AM, there’s no way they could know about something that happened an hour ago.
I looked up and jumped slightly when I saw a mint green unicorn staring at me on the other side of the counter. I pointed at the newspaper and asked, “Was this you?”
She nodded. I looked around to make sure no one else was watching. Then I leaned close to the projection. “Let me see if I understand...” I said very softly. “You’re another projection, correct?” She nodded again. “You’re altering my perception of reality in order to tell me something?” Another nod.
I slid the glasses down and took a peak at the newspaper. “Local Man Saves Baby from Burning Building.” The headline now read. I smiled. This SPES really was something else. I looked back up at the mint green unicorn. I wasn’t entirely sure who she was from the show. I remembered that she was a background pony, famous for a scene where she sits like a human. I couldn’t remember her name though.
“How do you know about this?” I asked quietly.
“Another one of the baristas that works here is related to someone who works at the company. He was talking on the phone about it in the break room.”
“Why didn’t that barista tell me about that?”
“Well he didn’t know you were an investigator.”
“... And you do?”
“Well of course. Your basic information is programmed into the SPES. Mainly your name and occupation.”
“Well, that will certainly make things easier.” I turned to Rainbow Dash. “Okay, I’m sold, this will definitely be useful for investigation. Let’s go take a look at Duran Advertising.”
“You bet it is!” She jumped out of her seat. “Come on, let’s go!”
I left a five dollar tip for the helpful unicorn, which I realized would probably go to the barista, but that was okay. He was more helpful to me than he’ll ever know. I took the newspaper with me. I got the feeling that it would come in handy in the future.
It seemed uncanny. I hadn’t had a case in so long, then I stumble upon one almost immediately at the Daily Bean. I guess that’s the advantage of being able to talk to someone’s subconscious directly.
I arrived at the Duran company building, which was only a couple blocks down from the Daily Bean. The entrance led to a rather small lobby, with a reception desk and a hall leading to an elevator. This building only had three floors, which was unusual for an advertising company.
The bottom floor was empty. I started down the hall, examining the walls as I went. They were relatively plain, white walls. The only thing that added any sort of interest to them at all was a portrait of the CEO of the company, Thomas Duran. He was a heavy built man, with wide shoulders and an almost squared off face. He wore a standard black business suit and a red tie, and the portrait showed him from the waste up. His hair was a dark brown, short, straight and well maintained. In all, he seemed like very dignified, respectable man.
“Look at this egghead.” Rainbow Dash said from behind me. I sighed, I’d forgotten she was there. “Guess he’s the victim then right?”
I nodded. “His company more specifically, but if you had to label someone specifically, it would be him. We moved past the picture and down the hall to the elevator I pressed the bottom with the arrow pointing upwards on it and waited for the elevator.
“Any ideas yet?” Dash asked.
“About the case?” I responded.
“No, tonight’s football game.” She said sarcastically.
“Oh... Well, no, I’m not a fan of football.”
“... Right. Okay. Let’s go.” The elevator reached the bottom floor and the door opened. I stepped in, Rainbow hovering close behind. I pressed the button labelled “2” and the door closed.
While in the elevator, I took a few moments to examine the glove. It was a rather long, black glove, the base of which went a few inches past my wrist. At the base of the glove were three flat, touch activated buttons. One showed what seemed to be a person, another showed what looked like a computer monitor, and the other was a traditional power button, the circle with a little line on top.
It was safe to assume what the power button did, so I gave the monitor button a try. Suddenly, three floating monitors popped up in front of me. They were labelled “Information”, “Memories”, and “Observations”.
“... So what exactly is this?” I asked.
“Oh, that.” Dash seemed slightly more condescending than usual. “The SPES takes in information as you learn it. It’s like a super awesome notepad. The Information section gives you the facts you’ve picked up. The Memory section lets you literally relive memories you’ve had. Be careful with that one, it can be dangerous. Oh, and Observations is like information, but instead of facts it gives you subconscious assumptions and opinions you’ve made and stuff.”
I nodded along as Dash spoke. It was kind of amusing really, Dash had to say a lot of things that didn’t really match her character because she had to be my guide through the SPES at the same time. She didn’t seem to like it much... If projections CAN like or dislike something that is.
I didn’t get a chance to use the SPES interface much because the elevator arrived on floor 2. In retrospect, it was a rather slow elevator, since it took all that time to go up one floor. I looked at Dash. She nodded at me, a determined look on her face. I returned the nod, bearing a much more unsure expression.
The elevator door opened and I grew nervous, completely unsure of what was to happen in the near future.