Project Pegasus

by BronySpielberg

Rating: teen
Tags: Derpy Hooves, Dark, Alternate Universe, Human, Main 6, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Fluttershy, Adventure
Length: 4832

At Universal Studios' newest attraction, guests find themselves able to visit a magical fantasy world as they sleep. Transformed into ponies, they can fly, do magic, even battle foes. Welcome to a place called "Equestria"!

The year is 2016. Universal Studios' Orlando park is premiering their newest technological breakthrough. "Equestria", a fantasyland for all ages brought to life inside of a massive supercomputer. Paying guests enter in an unusual fashion, they visit as they sleep, via a system that can generate alpha waves, allowing the brain to be "encouraged" to go into a strong dream state. A "thrill ride for your mind", but safe for children of all ages.

Matt "Hutch" Hutchinson finds himself over his head in this colorful world, despite his initial misgivings over being involved in another "cutesy" project. Artificially Intelligent adventure awaits!

Published 2014-12-31 05:00:05 UTC
Last updated 2016-03-30 08:23:37 UTC

Arrival

The double doors slid open and a tsunami of air conditioning rushed out to mingle with the sticky humidity of a Central Florida afternoon. Matt Hutchinson stepped from the cool dim interior of Orlando International Airport. Idling at the curb sat a hot pink hardtop Porsche rattling with bass from a high powered sound system. A matching cartoon pony dangled from the rearview mirror. The door popped open and the music blasted orchestral obscenity into his ears. "Well, the prodigal son returns", a chipper female voice beckoned from the drivers seat. He took his place in the hard bucket racing seat beside an attractive young woman with her hair dyed to match her car's paint. With a slam and a spew of soot and smoke the sportscar leaped away from the curb and into the traffic lane, cutting off a swearing taxi driver. The flash of pink sped down the ramp with squealing rubber and shot under a green sign that read "To Interstate 4 South". Once they had gotten properly on the road and averted the attention of a highway patrolman, Sarah shifted the car into high gear and her attention to her passenger.

"So, how ya feelin' pal, enjoy any of those first class cocktails?"

"You know I don't drink anymore." Matt seemed nonplussed at the choice of topic.

"Yeah, not since the accident." Sarah said with a hint of friendly sarcasm in her voice.

Matt frowned at his companion. The remark was in bad taste. He had been severed from his internship at Walt Disney Imagineering for "improper conduct on property" as they supervised construction of the New Fantasyland project. That was three years ago and the only good thing that had come from it was meeting Sarah. Matt had brought his college drinking habit with him to Orlando like many interns in the program. The party scene was quite lively and Matt found ample opportunity to get himself into trouble. They finished in record time and to celebrate, he and a few interns had gone out for drinks at a bar off property. Matt ran afoul of the police on the way back in and spent the night in Orange County Jail with his car impounded and a DUI for his trouble. His work records were stellar though, so the company credited him with a successful completion of the project and full recommendations to any future employers.

It had been tough at first, and the rejection letters and bottles piled up in Matt's apartment, later trailer, and finally car as his savings dwindled. Matt wondered if his life was over. After selling his prized Mazda, he had fallen into a deep depression. A night on the phone with Sarah talking him down as he stared at a loaded pistol made him gave in and seek help. After a month in an Orlando rehab center, Matt didn't exactly feel ready to take on the world but he no longer felt like leaving it either.

In early 2013 though, after a hard year his luck turned. Sarah had been working for Universal Orlando's creative team all along, and she convinced her boss to bring him on for their "Halloween Horror Nights" event. Matt quickly made an impression and was kept on. After Halloween, Sarah and Matt went separate ways as Universal sent Matt to California while Sarah remained in FL, working on a secretive new project. Just weeks ago, Matt had finished Universal Hollywood's version of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Now he was returning to work in Florida after a short vacation. At Sarah's request, Matt had been attached to the mysterious "Project : Pegasus". According to conversations with Sarah prior to his arrival, this "project" was shrouded in even more secrecy than Harry and his pals. Even now, Matt didn't know much more than its name. At Universal Creative, expansions for the park were assigned codenames like "StrongArm"; the pseudonym for the Harry Potter ride when it was considered top secret.

The pink hardtop tore past Sea World and turned westward toward Universal's property. It was plain to see that Sarah was a speed demon, the way she handled the machine, deftly clutching and dropping the hammer into 4th. Matt broke in over the buzz of exhaust. "Okay, so you've had your fun with the "classified info" and all that over the phone. Care to spill the beans?"

Sarah pondered this for a moment as she maneuvered around a semi-trailer. "Well, it's not really something anyone's tried before, that's for sure." She went on, detailing how it had gone through a very long development just to get the hardware running. Universal for the most part shunned traditional "carny" rides in favor of exotic technologies. Roller coasters with electromagnetic launches, dark rides with simulator cars and real explosions in the building were the standard. The Harry Potter ride even used robotic arms for ride vehicles!

All these tech toys meant that an army of engineers could take months to fine tune the "show" to meet the demanding standard Universal had set since opening in 1990. It was this "test and adjust" process that Matt specialized in, but Sarah was being too vague for him to surmise what he'd be dealing with. She spoke, "The IP's hot right now, but they're not sure that it'll last so they went with the tech we've been working with for the last year. We can always change things overnight if this one takes a crap"

Matt found this tidbit unusual. She was speaking of "intellectual property", the thing this ride would be trying to convince guests they were experiencing in-person. Millions of dollars could be spent trying to convince people that they were "riding the movies" as Universal's slogan had once proclaimed. How could that just be changed overnight?

"So what's this IP you keep going on about?" Matt asked as he regarded the pink plush pony swinging from the mirror with contempt. It was one of those with the little pictures on the butt. This one had a mess of balloons. If there was one thing Matt hated about theme park design, it was the girly shit. He'd been burned out with all of the princess crap the Mouse had him doing, and he often joked (in bad taste) that it was this that had driven him to drink.

"Funny you should ask just now, because you're staring at it!"

If it wasn't for the hornet's buzz of exhaust, a man screaming might have been heard as the hardtop flew down the interstate towards a sign, "Universal Orlando Resort, Sand Lake Rd, 2 miles".

The pink Porsche pulled into a marked space in a rather ordinary looking office park outside a rather ordinary looking two-story building. The only thing that might give a clue as to what lay inside was the Universal globe frosted on the glass doors to the lobby. Inside, Sarah led a steaming Matt down a hall to a door marked "Project Pegasus-Team Only". She slid her id card and the door unlocked with an automatic click. There was a rush of icy air from within.

Inside a row of computer servers sat humming. In the center of the room sat a pair of what appeared to be barber's chairs. In front of them hung two thick plastic discs, about 2 feet in diameter. Sarah closed the door behind him with a click as it locked again. The room was spartan,with wires streaming all over the floor and up to the discs. He had to practically shout over the thrum of fans from the servers on the back wall. "This is it? Project Pegasus? You brought me here to do 'My little Pony' and it looks like you're about to have a LAN party in here. What is all this crap?"

"You know, LAN party's not a bad guess. You're familiar with MMORPG's?" Sarah explained as she checked over the hardware. Matt was examining one of the servers when this caught his attention. He'd spent most of his childhood staring at a CRT with a controller in his hand. Games were about the only thing Matt loved as much as rides, but this was still supposedly frilly pink garbage.

The chairs in the middle of the room looked like something out of "The Matrix". He couldn't see the connection between this and their subject matter, but the promise of a new type of game kept him from calling his project manager begging reassignment. After all, she'd said once this flopped they'd develop all new software, right?

She went on "Well, the hardware is all off the self. Something to do with the military. After they moved on to some new toy, Universal took a crack at it and brought us in to see if we could make some kind of ride out of it on the cheap. In terms of our IP, I don't think we could have done better if they'd given us millions to play with." The "Dream Machine" as it was called utilized powerful computers and alpha wave transmitter/receivers to put the human brain into an REM state and provide the user with an interactive dream that would be just as vivid as reality itself. They were able to create a world that matched the hit cartoon perfectly.

"You mean this show is popular?" Matt was incredulous.

"Sure is, and wait 'til you see what it looks like," came the reply as Sarah hastily tapped instructions into a tablet computer. The disks started to emit a whirring sound and the fans in the servers went up a couple of octaves. She set the tablet on a desk and sat down in one of the barber chairs, motioning for Matt to do likewise. "Sit back, shut your eyes and try to relax. This might feel a little weird."

As Matt prepared himself in the adjacent chair, an electronic female voice spoke. "Initializing subject scan, please remain still and do not open your eyes" A green laser fan swept from the disks and went from their feet to their heads. "Targets acquired. Alpha wave emitters ready, receivers are primed. Initializing tranquillizing beam."

Tranquilizer? What the hell was this crazy science experiment doing to him? Before he could move a muscle though, he found himself paralyzed and fading from consciousness. The last thing he sensed was a feeling like sinking into a cool dark cloud of fog.

Basics

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."-Arthur C. Clarke

When Matt opened his eyes, the lab was gone. A pale blue sky swirled with clouds that had the unmistakable look of being hand-painted. In fact, everything, even the ground had an unnatural color about it. It was so bright. He tried to raise a hand to rub his eyes but found that he no longer had hands!

In their place were flat hooves and forelegs covered in light orange fur that ruffled in the slight breeze blowing across the vast plain. He tried to take a wobbly first step, but only managed to end up on the grass with his feet to the pastel sky and Sarah's laugh ringing in his ears.

"You ought to see yourself!" exclaimed a pink cartoon pony as it came bounding up to him. Her green mane and tail were accented by a long pointed horn and a vicious looking pair of raptor's wings. "Here honey, tuck your legs in and roll over to your belly, there you go. I was just about to tell you not to move at first! Having four legs takes a little getting used to. This is why newcomers don't get wings or horns until they've had some lessons!"

Matt struggled to his feet and took another look around. Sure enough, he was now a bright orange, blue haired cartoon character. It took some getting used to, but he managed to get his legs under him. With some encouragement from his companion, Matt managed to trot by her side as they circled the meadow.

Sarah pointed out a few key landmarks as Matt got used to his new body. As she indicated a magnificent palace beyond a dense forest he was shocked by the keenness of his vision, for in the real world Matt suffered from near-sightedness and needed glasses. Even at what had to be two or three miles, he could just see a white figure on a high balcony and it seemed that her multicolored mane sparkled in the sun.

The air was pleasantly warm, maybe high seventies and cool as they left the meadow behind and followed a trail into a wild looking forest. Sarah filled Matt's ears with prattle about the struggle the team had faced with how to translate the show's signature 2-D art style into a 3-D world. The real problem, she went on, was in the textures. A television screen only showed so much detail, whereas here they had to design every texture down to the point where the naked eye could no longer see.

Matt was just getting the hang of walking and had long since tuned his partner out. He was too busy studying the expansive flora in this artificial jungle. This was nothing like any game he'd ever played. The most advanced games on the market couldn't compare to sheer onslaught of detail that was present here.

Even today's games would re-use models here and there, especially in a forest setting like this. Here there was none of that. Every bush and tree was unique as far as he could tell. That kind of variety could easily melt even the latest processors. How the hell were they doing it here? Matt decided to inquire of his companion.

"Sarah, this is incredible but how can you pull all this off? There isn't a machine out there that should be able to push this kind of detail."

"Well, the server farm is using GPUs from NVIDIA and the new processors from Intel," she replied. " Zero pie twos or something like that" Matt's eyes bugged and his jaw nearly hit the dirt, literally.

"You mean the 'Xenon Phi Two'? That chip isn't even supposed to exist, it's practically classified! How the hell did we get it?"

Sarah explained that over the past two years, their focus had been solely to develop the software. "The servers and emitter/recievers? Well, they won't tell us anything concrete but rumor has it that this stuff was developed by Lockheed Martin. It all came as a package, something like ten or fifteen semi-trailers worth. Maybe they upgraded?"

Matt considered this for a moment. Lockheed had a research facility at the south end of International Drive. That much wasn't a secret. Exactly what they did there on the other hand was another story altogether. If this hardware had come from them, it hadn't come cheap. Sarah had said that they'd scored a deal, perhaps they'd had a hard time writing the software? He didn't have time to think any further on it when Sarah stopped him with a wing in this face

"Keep your mouth shut and don't move 'til I say." she hissed quietly in his ear. In the shadowy distance he could hear a rustling that soon revealed itself as pairs of bright green eyes. "Timberwolves" Sarah whispered as a faint growling could be heard. "I didn't realize we'd walked into a combat zone. It's an area where enemy AI characters can attack. We put it in as something for the teens-LOOK OUT!" she screamed as a wolf-like mass of bark and foliage burst from the cover. Matt braced himself as a beam of light burst forth from his companion's horn with a loud pop not unlike a small shotgun. Taking a hit in the chest, the thing went down with pink static arcing over its body.

"GO! GO! GO!" she bellowed. To Matt's surprise, he managed to start galloping. He could hear Sarah's magic popping behind him. As he pelted along, following the twists and turns in the forest path he could sense something else following. One of the beasts leapt from the undergrowth and Matt, unable to stop, blundered into the creature and they both went tumbling.

"Use your hooves, fight 'im!" Sarah hollered, blasting at a pair that were circling and dodging just out of harms way. Sprawling in a ball with the thing trying to bury its teeth in his right foreleg, Matt noted that while it certainly wasn't pleasant to take body damage, it didn't exactly hurt. With his powerful back legs he kicked into the wolf's belly, throwing it off with a satisfying, woody thunk.

"Hell yeah" he gasped as he got to his feet. This was fun! The timberwolf visibly shook off the blow and came at him again. Matt quickly turned and tried to give a buck, but was knocked to the ground again. On his back, he found himself squirming as the monster straddled him and snapped for his neck. The foul thing's breath smelt of mold and decay, choking him.

While he certainly wasn't a trained fighter, he'd watched his share of MMA and tried something he'd seen one or twice. Digging his back legs into the sides of his foe, he managed to roll it off balance and come up on top. Swinging his hooves like fists, he pounded away at the beasts head. Wham! Crack! Pow! With each blow leaves and bits of wood flew, til he managed to knock the bottom jaw of the thing clean off!.

Unable to control himself, he let out a battle cry as he dealt the final blow. He watched in amazement as the green light from its eyes faded and it vanished in a cloud that smelled pleasantly like a bonfire. Now that he knew how to fight, he wanted more but was disappointed to see that Sarah had already reduced four of the pack to smoking ruins. The timberwolf attack was over.

"So much for a kid's game!" he exclaimed. "That was bitchin! Anything else around here I can kick the shit out of?" Matt found himself jumping a little on his front legs as Sarah came trotting up. It may have been a dream, but he could feel his heart pounding in his chest and the unmistakable sensation of very real adrenaline pumping in his veins. No game had ever given him that before!

"Well" she caught her breath. "Like I was saying. We put combat zones in the more remote areas for our older guests who would want something more exciting." It was obvious that the battle had gotten her heart rate up as well. "My Little Pony isn't exactly the same show it was when we were kids. There's quite a long list of bad guys that the hero characters have fought on their various quests. We've brought most of them here to be played with. I had meant to give you a bit warning, but I got carried away and we got ambushed. Those were a taste of our beginner level monsters. I helped Anne with their battle routines myself, what did you think?"

"I think I'm starting to like this." They shook off the dust from their coats and carried on. The path exited the woods and crossed a small creek. Over some hills in the distance Matt glimpsed what appeared to be a large medieval-style village, which the path was heading towards. "You got me buying what you're selling now, and I want more. When can we hunt up some more ass to kick?", he said with a chuckle.

"Easy there killer!" Sarah laughed. "We'll have plenty of time for all that after you meet some very special ponies and the rest of the team. They're in the village now, waiting on us. It's nice to hear that laugh of yours again though."

"It's been a while, hasn't it?" Matt reminisced. "Fun" wasn't something he'd had a lot of in the past few years. Alcoholism had destroyed his life. The depression that followed had nearly taken it altogether. He had to admit, he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this good.

It was like being a kid again. It reminded him of something Walt Disney had once said about Disneyland being a place to leave the real world behind. He felt like he understood that now more than ever, and wonder to himself what Walt might have thought of this place? "Alright then, I'm ready if you are. Let's see the village, I'll race ya there!" he shouted and galloped away before Sarah could react.

She muttered a curse that a monitoring algorithm would log as bad guest behavior and bolted after him in a cloud of dust.

Civilization

Everybody's got rides. What we have here are living biological attractions so astounding they'll capture the

imagination of the entire planet. We spared no expense. -John Hammond- "Jurassic Park"

A pair of colorful ponies emerged from the shadow of the trees onto a sun-drenched hilltop. The village opened before them in the distance like a page out of a fairy-tale storybook. Most of the buildings had thatched roofs and a certain charm, accented here and there with banners and other trappings of the medieval era. He was starting to feel like this pony thing might not be such a drag after all. Matt found it incredible that this "ride" was even possible. There he stopped himself, before this fancy tin can got any further inside his head! It was, after all, still just another machine that was sure to have a gremlin running loose somewhere. His usual job was to ensure a new ride's systems would function the way the manufacturer had intended on Opening Day and and each to come. A ride performing normally, in Matt's mind was just waiting to strand unsuspecting guests in some precarious spot. Soft human flesh and cold steel moving at high speeds make for a volatile mix.

They had even had a name for this phenomenon. "Walt's Folly" they called it. Walt Disney fathered more than just the idea of the modern theme park. He was an industry pioneer for the use of computers as control systems for complex new rides. Not to mention his trademark "secret weapon", Audio-Animatronics. The crude methods of 1950's technology actually proved to be a boon at first. Their robust "solid-state" components had a very low rate of failure. Naturally, Walt's rivals followed suit. As the computers themselves became more complicated, so did the ambitious plans of the men behind the "magic" and their machines that made it. By the 1980's microchips, switches and cables were joining the nuts and bolts as parts essential to an attraction's well-being. "Computer Trouble" had quickly risen to become the number one reason for downtime, and emergencies. The CPU just didn't care if its passengers were 80 feet above terra firma when it felt like taking a shit. Matt had made a living of preventing that very thing, and setting it straight when it did rear its ugly head.

They passed by a tall clock tower, the hands pointed at nine and twelve. Trotting down a dirt path, the town seemed to be little over a half mile further. Across a small creek, what initially appeared to be a very large bush surrounded by birdhouses turned out to be a grass roofed cottage. As he admired this pastoral tableau, it was Sarah who broke the silence.

"That house belongs to Fluttershy. She's Ponyville's resident animal whisperer, and my second favorite pony. I absolutely had to make sure I got her birdhouses just right!" Sarah was an architect by trade and had designed the houses and buildings.

"Flutter-who? Why do they always give these things stupid names?" he groused. Sarah just scowled back. They continued on in silence for a bit. Other than a breeze here and there rustling through the foliage, there was no other sound than the footfalls of their flat hooves. This Matt found odd. In the real world, the outdoors in spring could be a noisy place but here it seemed oddly deserted. Nothing stirred in the undergrowth, no birds in the trees. Where was everything? It was as if the area was dead.

"Whew! Do ya smell what the Rock's been cookin'?" Matt exclaimed as the unmistakable aroma of manure offended his new nostrils. A cattle barn hove into view as they rounded the bend. "You never were one to settle for half-ass when it comes to theming!" The orange pony bellowed with laughter at his own crude jest but the smell was the only sign of the barn's residents as they passed it by.

"Detail is my religion, dear Hutch. I've been in here every day for the last two years putting all this together and the whole time I've been finding ways to incorporate humour. You would be the one to laugh at my version of a poo joke." Through the trees to the right Matt could see a large pond shimmering in the sun. "In December, that will be the center of our Hearth's Warming Eve event, ice skating. We'll snow the whole place over and do some bobsled runs down Hill o' Doom below the dam there." Looking up, atop a steep hill he could see the imposing presence of a massive blue wall, shrouded in the mists of a magnificent waterfall downstream. A pair of stone pegusus sat sentinel atop the dam, their diamond eyes gleaming. It was breathtaking to behold. The little town sat in a valley ringed by looming mountains all around. The greatest of them sat directly across, its peak obscured by a black smudge of smoke against the otherwise radiant sky.

"Is that one volcanic?" Matt inquired of his companion.

"Even better, that's the home to the star of one our high-level adventures. You're looking at Mount Dragonshy." Matt considered this and felt just a twinge of something he'd felt when he looked over the edge of a three hundred foot drop atop a lift hill. Fear.

"Can it get down from there?"

"I suppose it could go wherever it wanted, if that's what it really wanted to do. It won't though. Animal behaviour is controlled by their coding which is all Ann...well, Edwin's department anyway."

"Ann?"

"Anne. Edwin's fiance. She passed away a couple of months ago from a brain tumor. She was kinda the team's pet. Everyone loved her and they seemed so happy together. It gave us all quite a scare, given the nature of our work here but according to Edwin she had been ill for years and just didn't want anyone to know. He was devastated. Hasn't really been the same since. Damn shame. The two of them are responsible for the behavior every living thing here, well, minus ourselves of course. Anne worked for the circus, he's a programmer. It was this project that brought them together."

"Wow. That's terrible," Matt digested all that for a moment. For the first time he started to consider what physical complications could arise from the prolonged use of this machine. "Good to know you think this thing doesn't cause cancer, but how can you be so sure? Radiation of all kinds affect human physiology. I'd like to know more about what exactly this thing does to your insides before we start putting real people in here, especially children!" Matt considered how a ride was given its daily inspection. After looking it over to make sure all the important parts were present; you gave it a spin with all the seats empty to see if it would fall apart on you. Next, a couple of staffers would strap themselves in for the next run and if they returned in one piece then you could open up. He thought about the way the process implied that a ride operator's life was cheap in comparison to the park's visitors. This ride, if it could even be called that, would be in that third phase; employee testing. Matt gave a little thought to his condition at that moment. He was being used as a bright orange guinea pig! "So, you and the team really think this thing's safe..."

"Of course it is. Nothing in here can really hurt you. It's all just a dream." Something Matt saw in her eyes led him to believe that there was a bit more to it than that.

Matt glanced at a cluster of tents festooned with banners that fluttered in the slight breeze. Just a bridge stood between them and what appeared to be the center of town. Rather than grill his companion further he decided that he'd be the judge of that later. After all, he was here now. It was a little too late to be thinking of turning back and Sarah's hooves were already clunking their way across the bridge toward the town square.