Cyberpony Y2K

by J3sterking

Matters of Trust

Talk had died died down after Rainbow Dash had returned with some metal plating for Applejack, at which point Fluttershy had thrown her and Rarity out. Octavia was thrown out after Fluttershy swabbed her cuts with disinfectant, and by that point, the Behemoth had finished fixing her plating.

Vinyl was a little unsure about the Pie Sisters at first, but she quickly found herself laughing at every one of Pinkie’s jokes, even if the rest of them were somewhat quieter. Marble, in particular, seemed to say little beyond, “Mm-hm” and a light bob of her eye, though Pinkie seemed to have a good guess at what she was feeling normally.

Fluttershy peeked out the doorway, then said, “It looks like Octavia is off giving her report.”

“Sounds about right,” Applejack muttered, before grunting as the final piece of armored plating was attached to her shoulder. She rolled her shoulder, listening for anything out of place, before letting out a, “Yeehaw! You girls patched me up right as rain!”

“Aw, it was nothin’,” Pinkie said, eye rolling to one side in a bashful fashion.

Or, so Vinyl thought. The tone conveyed it more than anything. If she looked closer at the Behemoth, she did see four mechanical hooves, though she had yet to ask if they were cybernetic, or purely mechanical, or...actually, she hadn’t yet worked up the courage to ask anything.

“Well, what do we do about Vinyl?” Fluttershy asked. “This place is really old, and if she wandered outside, she could get hurt badly. And if she stays inside, she might get caught in one of the traps.”

“Ah, booby traps, of course,” Vinyl muttered. “Um...I’m fine sitting here until--” She stopped. “Actually...what next? I...I don’t know what you guys want.”

“A large part depends on what you want, Vinyl,” Applejack asked, pointing a finger at her. She grabbed her tank top, pulling it over her head.

“What I want?”

“Ain’t no one who owns you no more. Yer free as a bird.” She threw her jacket back on, then pulled her hat onto her head. “If you want to help us, yer free to offer up a hand. If you just wanna sit down and avoid the action, hell, we’d let you do that jest fine.”

“But aren’t you worried I’ll go alert the Princesses?” Vinyl asked slowly. “Besides, if I leave the castle, no one’s gonna care that I’m ‘free’.” She made sure her exaggerated air quotes were plainly visible.

“First off, we didn’t say you were free to leave right away,” Applejack said. “I’m afraid we may have to keep you here for a little while. And the second part is why we’re fightin’, so that androids can be truly free, and the other ponies Canterlot’s hurtin’, too.”

Vinyl had to admit, that did sound heroic, but... “I don’t know the first thing about combat,” she said. “I’m not built for it, either, even if I...can hurt ponies now.”

“’Can’ and ‘should’ are two entirely different questions,” Applejack said. “It takes some work figurin’ out when yer supposed to attack, and when to hold back. We normally try to avoid violence, if we can help it.”

“We’re not out to hurt ponies,” Pinkie said.

“Not the good ones,” Limestone growled. “Bastards like Filthy Rich need to be buried in a pine box.”

Applejack didn’t answer that directly. “Sometimes ponies only listen to fightin’,” Applejack said. “And Celestia seems to be one of ‘em, but there’s a lot of ponies out there who don’t want to hurt no one.”

“But, if you wanted to stay around, we’d be happy to have you,” Fluttershy put in. “It’s always nice to meet a new friend, though I guess it can be scary sometimes.” The poor girl hid in her mane, casting a nervous look Vinyl’s away when she noticed the android’s attention.

“Well, um—I don’t bite, if that’s what your worried about,” Vinyl said, gesturing to her face—which lacked a mouth entirely.

Fluttershy giggled. “I wasn’t really worried about that,” she admitted.

“Good.” Vinyl swung her legs off the operating table, planting them on the ground. She picked up her jacket, sighing at the bullet holes in it. “Aw.” She pulled it on, saying, “And, um...if the Princesses catch me. What happens then?”

“Well, most likely, they kill yah, since you know more than they want you to,” Applejack put in. “But, if you wanna risk it, there’s always the one-percent chance that, if you turn in the ponies who saved yer life, sell ‘em out and all, then you’ll save your chrome at the cost of a couple dozen ponies who wanted to do right with the world, just so you can spend yer days...I dunno, actually. I’m not sure what they’d do with ya if they kept ya alive. Maybe death would be preferable.” She shrugged. “Or maybe I’m not givin’ ‘em enough credit. Maybe they’re a lot more fare than that.”

“Okay,” Vinyl said. “Yikes. I never really thought about how scary those ponies were.”

Especially the Alicorns. Oh, Stars above...what if she ran into an Alicorn?

“So, you wanna a tour?” Applejack said, seemingly pretending she hadn’t made a previous statement. “There’s a lot of the place that’ll be off limits to ya, at least for now, but I can show you around the hospital, at least.”

“Is...is there a place I can rest?” Vinyl asked. “I think I need to boot off for a bit. Process everything, y’know?”

“Oh, of course,” Fluttershy said. “Applejack, we...we have some guest rooms, right?”

“A few, though we don’t exactly get many ‘guests’,” Applejack said. “Come on. I’ll show ya to a bunk.”

“Hmm. No android stasis tanks, I’m guessing?” She paused. “Wait, how do I recharge?”

“Oh, right, yer new,” Applejack muttered. “Ya don’t need to.”

“Dude,” Vinyl said. “Not funny. I don’t want to have gone through all this just to black out from power loss and then never wake up again. Where do I charge my batteries?”

Applejack reached over and poked Vinyl’s horn. “That doohickey Fluttershy and the Pie Sisters took out did more than just prevent you from hurting anypony. It blocked yer magic—you have unicorn magic, same as any unicorn would, and that keeps ya charged.”

Vinyl stared at her. “Wait, I can...I can do the telekinesis thing?”

“Mm-hm,” Marble’s voice put in.

“Actually, you can manipulate thaumic energy through a conduit—your horn—and manipulate it such as to cast numerous spells,” Maude said. After a slight pause, she added, “But yes, you can also do the telekinesis thing.”

“I thought androids couldn’t use magic,” Vinyl said slowly.

“’Cuz Canterlot wants to keep pretending yer not really alive,” Applejack scoffed. “Long as they can do that, then they can brush off all the complaints about android rights, but there’s no easy way to prove that right now.”

Vinyl accessed her system diagnostics, checking her power. Fully charged. Despite being active for considerably longer in one stretch than she had before.

“So, is someone gonna teach me how to do that?” Vinyl asked slowly.

Applejack shrugged. “Maybe. There’s not a lot of unicorns nearby, though we can certainly find one we trust enough to let up here. You can try practicing a bit on yer own, too. No one’s gonna stop ya, though you might wanna be careful.”

“Gotcha,” Vinyl said, imagining blowing herself up because she wanted to roll up window blinds with magic. A ridiculous thought.

“This way, ma’am,” Applejack said, beckoning.

Vinyl followed, examining the building. The hospital room had been whitewashed stone, but from what the rest of the place looked like, it had clearly been replaced with newer material.

The building was ancient. Cracked stone bricks made up every wall and floor, and she’d occasionally pass a tapestry. They either seemed to be of Celestia—which were few and far between—or of another pony, an Alicorn. Vinyl couldn’t say who it was. She wasn’t familiar with all the Alicorns over the past thousand years. Despite the fact that they were supposed to live forever, Alicorns did end up being replaced every few decades, normally lasting thirty to fifty years.

Not that Vinyl had seen any of that. She’d only been made seven years ago, just before the Wonderbolts had been declared as ‘government use only’.

But she wasn’t particularly sorry to see them gone from Fancy’s place. He’d been using a few as guards. They were a lot more dangerous than the Flash-points, which Canterlot had replaced the confiscated Wonderbolts with.

But the Flash-Points looked a lot friendlier.

“Could I...ask a question? About Discord?”

“Go ahead, but I can’t promise I’ll be allowed to answer,” Applejack replied.

“Is the Diamond Duster real?”

Applejack stopped dead in her tracks, falling silent. “Eeeeyup,” she drawled out. Then she started moving again.

Vinyl moved to be walking right next to her. “Yikes. I’m assuming it’s more complicated than an android with a human heart?”

“I don’t rightly know where that rumor came from,” Applejack muttered. “But...yeah, it’s less complicated than that. Nothing like that crazy rumor.”

“Well, I mean, I don’t imagine sane people wearing masks like that,” Vinyl muttered.

Applejack looked at her. “Sane people don’t join the rebellion trying to overthrow the immortal goddess of the sun,” she drawled. “Everyone here’s crazy.”

“Ah, thanks for the heads up. I was expecting a castle full of reasonable, distinguished gentlecolts.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Applejack chuckled.

“Don’t be. I’m crazy, too.”

Applejack stopped at a door. “Here’s a room you can stay in. It should have everything ya need, give a holler if you need somethin’. Oh, and, uh...don’t wander off too far, okay? Just...until everything’s settled down somewhat.”

“You mean you don’t want a complete stranger with unknown affiliations poking around your secret base?” Vinyl gasped. “How rude.”

Applejack laughed. “You’ve got a smart mouth, anypony ever tell you that?”

“Once or twice.” Vinyl shrugged. “I’ve got a foul streak when I choose to, as well.”

“Ya gotta let me hear that sometime,” Applejack chuckled. “Right, I gotta head off, though. I’m sure the Boss will want to talk about that mission.”

“Does she have a name?” Vinyl asked dryly.

“Yeah, just only a couple of us are allowed to know who she is,” Applejack said bluntly. “And you ain’t there yet.”

“Gotcha, fair enough,” Vinyl said. “I’m gonna go boot off. I need to think.”

She opened the door, pausing as Applejack said, “Sleep tight.”

The room was sparse, mostly just an old bed—thankfully, newer than the castle—and a nightstand. It did, however, have a window, and that lead to her curiosity overwhelming her.

Vinyl stepped up and looked outside.

The castle itself was ginormous, even from the parts she could see. There was a massive courtyard, and in the center of this was a glowing, crystal statue of a tree. It had to be the size of a small building alone.

The walls separating the courtyard from the outside world were mostly gone at this point. Beyond the remains was a thick, dense forest. From above the tops of the trees, Vinyl couldn’t really see into it, but from the front, she could see that none of the pale light from the moon made it through the treetops.

Vinyl reached over, pulling at a vine growing along the outerwall. It didn’t move, and...

Vinyl stared at it, looking closer. The ‘vine’ was, in fact, just stone. In fact, there were lots of vines crawling along the outer walls, but none inside. All of the ones she could reach were the same.

Vinyl stepped inside, thinking about this. Then she looked to a broken tile on the ground, and very firmly, stomped on it.

Despite the fact that the tile clearly looked as if it wasn’t connected to the ground at all, it didn’t budge. “Whoa,” she said. The building clearly wasn’t half as old as it looked, then.

But why go through all that effort? Making a fake ruin seemed like a lot of work for no reason. You could have just built a castle.

Whatever. She’d think about it tomorrow. Vinyl jumped into the bed, then began booting off her systems.

And that was an interesting experience. All of her systems were so much more responsive, and she could diagnose a lot more than she should have been able to. Up to and including her ‘thaumic circuits’.

So you’re telling me...they built in systems to scan my use of magic and make sure it was running properly, when I can’t use magic?

That was enough to give her a headache. She decided to pointedly ignore the dumb logic and finish booting off her systems. She set her internal alarm to wake her up at six AM.

That should be plenty of time to do anything, right?

---

Indigo Zap growled, shoving the stacks of books away from her. The Manehattan Public Library was truly a treasure trove of information...it was unfortunate that Minuette and Midnight happened to enjoy that a lot more than she did.

And Minuette’s supposed to do more fieldwork than Lyra...

As she leaned back in her chair, Indigo idly scratched at her wrist. The metal plating somehow itched, even after she’d turned off the feeling receptors.

Minuette had made her turn them back on, because of health reasons Indigo didn’t fully get.

Indigo looked over to where Minuette sat, cycling through a few notes on the hologram display in front of her. “Tired?” she asked, without looking.

“I am this closes to giving up and playing video games,” Indigo groaned, balancing her chair on its back two legs. With a little help from her wings, of course.

“Change topic of study,” Minuette suggested. “We have more than one thing we’re supposed to be doing, and a change of pace can help a lot.”

“Mm,” Indigo not-replied. She scratched at her arm cybernetics again.

“Stop that,” Minuette ordered. “You’ll damage them.”

“Do yours ever just itch?” Indigo asked.

“They did a little, which is why I’m not being super hard on you for it,” Minuette said. “But it’s just a psychological thing. The first few cybernetics are always the hardest.”

Minuette had quite a few cybernetics, herself. Both her hooves were metal below the knee, she’d replaced her elbow joints, and even added an augment or two to her heart. And of course, the one in her temple, boosting her reaction times, but that one was so commonplace, it was hardly worth mentioning.

Indigo touched the implant in her own forehead. That one didn’t itch. It was just her hands. The wing braces she had didn’t itch either—though how the hell she’d go about scratching them was a different matter.

Indigo returned her attention to the terminal in front of her. The temptation to go about playing video games was strong, but knowing that Minuette could see her was a strong deterrent. Instead, she moved to another tab.

Most ponies would find doing work like this in a public library stupid, but the Inquisitors had their own section for ease of access, and they were logged into a secure network. Indigo felt no qualms about searching top-secret information on them.
Everfree had not yet finished combing their records to see if they had an ‘Octavia Melody’ in their employment, though the knowledge that she did their security should have made that easier. In fact, the whole thing seemed a little weird. Sour Sweet and her partner were infiltrating them, but there was no reason Indigo couldn’t do this faster.

Hmm, Everfree had employed Octavia’s assistance before, it seemed, but for what, exactly, remained unclear. It seemed that they were regularly shelling out large amounts of bits to a freelance ‘security pony’ with a suped up, custom-build android.

Hold up, Octavia was a musician?

Indigo blinked, opening up the tab. With a name like, “Octavia Melody”, it shouldn’t have been surprising, really. But it somehow was. How did one go from ‘failed musician’ to ‘security expert’?

Okay, that was interesting. She’d never paid for that android of hers—not publicly, anyway. And, unfortunately, it was a custom model of some kind, so tracking that down would be difficult.

But Octavia was clearly not a rich pony, and any custom android order was expensive. So...was she working with somepony? Who? Everfree operated out of Ponyville, their main base on the borders of the Everfree Forest, which was where they got their name. Octavia lived in Ponyville—or at least, owned a house there.

“Hey, do I have permission to contact Sour?” Indigo asked.

“Why?” Minuette asked slowly, looking up from her own work.

“I wanna see if Octavia’s been back at her house since she left Manehattan.”

“Why would Sour know?”

“...Because Octavia lives in Ponyville?”

Minuette stared at her, then stood up and moved to look at Indigo’s screen. “No, don’t contact Sour Sweet just yet,” she said, as she read the reports Indigo was staring at. “Good work, though, this is very informative.”

“Really? Once I started looking into Octavia, I found it all within five minutes.”

“Yeah. And that’s why it’s informative, because we have Sour looking into this.”

Indigo paused, thinking that over. “Ah, shit. You think she’s gone rogue?”

“I think she may be taking some bits from the same ponies Octavia’s getting her pay from,” Minuette said. “But she and Double up are working together on this, and this isn’t enough to go by. That was good work, though. Keep at it. I want you double-checking all the reports Sour’s given us, too—I’ll send ‘em your way.”

Indigo beamed, but it was short lived. She found she couldn’t quite enjoy her success.

After all, this meant that Sour Sweet had turned traitor. And the Royal Inquisitors did not like those.

Author's Note:

For anypony interested, I just posted a one-shot story focused on Indigo in Cyberpony: Y2K, set before the main events of Y2K. Due to it being a contest submission, it's a standalone, meaning you don't have to read it to read this one, or vice versa.

My Little Inquisitor

Comments

[bahatumay]

I always look forward to these updates!

The android magic thing is very interesting...