Author's Note
Final warning: If you haven't read Transistance do it now. This is just a sequel that can't stand on its own.
And if you liked Transistance and Polarity, and want more, there's Portmaster for you.
Discrepancy
Two big, strong ponies in brightly yellow raincoats were unloading contents of a truck. You’d think them to be plain Earth ponies, but as they struggled with heavy loads, whizz of motors in their joints shattered the illusion. They were carrying large metal crates inside the warehouse across the street, pushing through a constant stream of pedestrians - ponies, zebras, gryphons, some shielding themselves with projected hard light copulas, some carrying umbrellas, some in raincoats. A line of ten or so fillies with brightly orange umbrellas, wearing pink galoshes trotted in front of the awning that used a short wicket fence to steal a meter or so from the crowded sidewalk in order to host two small tables. Dim light of the bar huddled deeper under the awning was disrupted with various waves of color from time to time, as a full-wall screen on the building opposite would fill with commercials, flooding the vicinity with color. The buzz of hovercars far above was barely audible over the splash of water in the overflowing gutters, rhythmic hum of a huge fan somewhere out of view, chatter of the crowd and vicious sizzling of frying pans inside the bar. Colorful trash was flowing down the gutters, forming isles and reefs above overfilling drains. Distant song could be heard from a holo running the same disk in loop under the ceiling of the far corner of the bar.
“Missez want something, missez say.” The squint-eyed tall Earth pony with long mustache hanging past his dirty apron bowed, after depositing two bowls of rice with seafood on one of the two tables under the awning. Here the scent of overheated oil and noise of sizzling wasn’t as overwhelming as inside.
Two pairs of chopsticks were surrounded by magic, one purple, one blue, digging in the bowls. They flew up over some papers, notebooks, mini-projector, some pencils, and a small vase with a flower that seemed withered despite being made of plastic.
The two mares, the blue in a tan hoodie, the purple in a green thin plastic raincoat, took a bite of their food at the same time. The blue one just swallowed without thinking. The purple one chewed it thoughtfully, as if unable to decide if she loves or hates the taste. She put the chopsticks over the bowl and switched several data tables over the holoprojector.
“This isn’t exactly bad news. I’d say it’s good news if we knew what is happening,” she said, pointing to the graph. “Here we have the expected drop. Thirty-seven points until seventh, when the buyout began. Since then the stock never dipped below 2,500 for longer than ten minutes. Anything put on market below 2,500 gets snarfed by… I don’t know. There were two or three clear dumps, big entities trying to make the market panic, trying to cause a massive drop. The lowest it went is 2,100 but then our mysterious buyer gobbles it all up all the way till it sits at 2,500.”
“I’m worried, Twilight.” The blue one said after swallowing her mouthful. “I was ready for the drop. I was ready for the dumps. Good news to release, compensations, investments, proposals, all to soothe the market. Nothing was necessary so far. But if our mysterious entity decides to sell whatever they accumulated so far, nothing I have will stop the panic.”
“If they sell. That would be rather… unprofitable currently. There’s no way the company would rebound above 2,500 afterwards, for decades to come. It would be all lost money.”
“Unless they want to destroy it.”
“I don’t think so. I’ve tracked three packets of between 20,000 and 80,000 stocks, and they were locked in an escrow. To be sold for 2,500 apiece, when undisclosed conditions are met. The largest of them comes from Shang, said to be the richest replicant in history. He should know well what happens if the Deckard Corporation falls into wrong hooves.”
“Did you ask him?”
“I did. He declined any info. Moreover, he was… how to say it? Flippant?”
“What do you mean?”
“He told me to send you his best regards, and said to keep up the good work and not to worry about the stock market.”
“I wish I knew him better. Who are the other two?”
“The middle one is anonymous. The one with 20,000 is your dear friend, Dr. Vangelis. I thought I’d leave him to you.”
The blue mare sighed, rested her back on the backrest of her seat, then let her eyes glaze over. Holographic projections of numbers and lists floated in front of her eyes.
“Doctor Vangelis?” she muttered out into the air. “Can I have a minute of your time?”
“Anytime you wish, Princess Luna.” The voice of the stallion sounded out of thin air.
“My friend and I have noticed certain… discrepancies in the stock market behavior. We are trying to trace them to their source.”
“Oh, ah, but…” a nervous chuckle sounded. “Yes. Most peculiar, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” she deadpanned. “Would you happen to know their origin?”
“I, uh… Certain entities who choose to remain unnamed at the moment suggested willingness to aid you in your endeavors.”
“And… these entities… how trustworthy would you deem them to be?”
“Oh… quite. We can’t trust everypony these days of course,” he chuckled nervously, “but I have no reason to suspect foul play currently.”
“Please, Dr. Vangelis. This is serious. Did you, or did you not perform transactions with these… entities recently?”
“No, not really, although…” the pony on the other end of the link coughed. “You might have noticed we do have a certain transaction pending… fulfillment of specific conditions by the other party. I have made absolutely sure that there would be no adverse consequences.”
“Doctor, I am really trying to get my mind wrapped around the whole situation and this black hole disturbs me to no end.”
“Oh, but completely unnecessarily. The conditions of the agreement assure that the assets in question will not enter possession of any untrusted party. The entity I’m working with, the one of limited reliability, claims to act on behalf of a different one - one I trust completely. The agreement in question puts the assets out of reach of any untrusted parties.”
“And who would be that entity of such limitless trust?”
“Oh, if you allow me, I shall leave this question unanswered for now. The situation should clarify itself really soon now. I bid you to put some trust in me. I have ascertained minimizing the adverse consequence in the unlikely case the motives of the other party are less noble than what they claim. For now, my advice would be: treat this not as a disturbing black hole, but a green field that doesn’t require your attention. Anyway, I’m currently busy, preparing for a rather important event, so, with your permission...”
“Thank you for your help, doctor.” Luna winced.
“At your service, Princess. Possibly, soon, in more literal sense than currently.”
Beep.
The blue pony sat up, her face sour. She picked at her food, eating a few bites. The other mare kept scrolling through pages upon pages of data on the holo, absentmindedly putting the rice in her mouth, munching on it slowly.
“Twilight?”
“Uh?” she snapped back to attention.
“What do you think?”
“Uh, nothing. I think… I think you should listen to him. I believe this is really nothing you should be worried about.”
“Twilight, please. Don’t play that game with me. Not you too. What did you find?”
Twilight looked around panically for escape, but finding none, she slumped. “The price began spiking. It’s past 3,000 right now and still climbing, and it’s not the sharks. All small fish. One stock, two stocks. We were looking for a single large entity draining the market a week ago. Now it’s all but gone. Currently there are hundreds of thousands tiny offers, most for no more than three stocks each. Vast majority for single stocks. By ponies who have never played on the market before.”
“Do you think we could question some of them? Can you find some names?”
“I… uh… I don’t think it’s a good idea. I believe… I believe you should trust them. Besides, there are so many fields that urgently require your attention. Why not put it on back burner? I’m fairly sure it will clarify itself in due time.”
Luna shook her head and sighed. “You are probably right. It’s just when things of this scale happen behind the scenes, it’s often my sister pulling the strings. And in the end I’m often getting the short end of the stick.”
“Oh, is it always nefarious motives?”
“With her? Always.”
“Oh well, why don’t you ask her next time you see her?”
“Yeah, that is sure to work,” Luna replied with a scowl. “Let’s get back to work.”
“Yeah. What have you got?”
“Here’s the project of the replicant private property ownership act.” a flick of hoof sent a holo-spark from the blue mare’s hoof tip to the purple one’s. “The gist is any replicant is allowed to own private property. Said ownership is subject of general laws. The owner of the replicant does not own the replicant’s property and is barred from exerting any influence regarding that property, directly or indirectly, as long as it doesn’t explicitly influence their own operation. They are still within their power to simply disbar physical access to it, but not legal access. This is all to prepare ground for the buyout act.”
“Yes, the buyout…” Twilight Sparkle pulled up a file on the common holo. “‘Any replicant can request release from service upon reimbursing the owner for full value of equivalent model plus 5% extra.’ Yes. I had a bunch of questions about that one. Your private property act resolves the obvious case where owner could simply claim the money as own so the replicant could never save up. I had other questions though. Even I personally did. Say, on Epsilon Eridani, there’s always more work than able hooves to do it. Our replicants could earn their freedom in no time at all. The problem is they are the only ones capable of running the Equaforming reactors, the inside way too hot for normal ponies, and we won’t get replacements for another five months - unless we pay triple their value for express transport. If they quit, they will force us to abandon the colony. If they charge for their services, they will own the colony in no time, because nopony can do their work, so they can charge as much as they like. The flat 5% doesn’t cut it when it comes to actual replacement costs.”
“Yes, I see.” Luna slowly tapped her hooves on the table, deep in thought. “But if I add, say, release from service delay ‘pending market availability of replacement’, we can expect the owners to keep stalling indefinitely, or up to maximum allowed time.”
“Yes. I ponder ‘owner may require delivery of equivalent model in place of cash reimbursement’ or something like that.”
“Except in cases like yours they will always choose it, delaying release by these five months.”
“We could think of allowing the request for choice to be made sufficiently early. Though I’m sure owners will protest. They hate to make decisions this early, without all data.”
“Well, the way I see it, it’s not meant to give owners a chance to get rid of replicants they no longer need for a profit. If you get the replacement plus 5% its value, shut up and be happy. So, owners can require a replacement replicant instead of cash, but they can’t demand cash in case a replacement is provided.”
Twilight pouted, then shook her head, grinning. “I’ll run this through the public forum. I can’t quite wrap my head around all the consequences and caveats.”
“What kind of caveats do you foresee, my insightful friend?”
“Oh, the little fact that before the release an owned replicant remains a lawful owner of another replicant which is simultaneously not being owned by the original owner at that time, and which may own other replicants, which are not owned by anypony upstream. With me so far?”
Luna nodded
“Then look at this. Replicant A bought replicant B for trade-in. B made enough cash beforehoof and bought A from their current owner. The two now legally own each other. Sounds rather cute, if completely pointless and harmless, doesn’t it? Especially that any of them can pass their ownership onto the other, for own release from service, for a token 5% fee. Cute as hell. I could see weddings and divorces done this way. Well, here comes the caveat ‘The owner of the replicant is barred from exerting any influence on the replicant’s property’, right?”
“Whoops!” Luna burst in laughter. A moment later she shook her head, looking around, gathering thoughts.
The workers on the other side finished unloading the truck. The rain wasn’t letting go, mists rolling down the streets. A car drove through the street, arousing waves. Some pegasus stallion in a drenched coat, a suit and a tie desperately chased his fedora hat carried by the current through the gutter. Luna’s horn glowed as the hat floated up into the air. A quick drying/cleaning spell and it floated to the owner, who stuck it quickly over his drenched head. He bowed a little to Luna, then galloped on his way.
“I discarded the idea of banning such loop of ownership,” Twilight broke the silence, “because it’s unavoidable. Inheritance, gifts, gambling, it will happen. I’m trying to phrase an exception to the non-interference rule that wouldn’t be exploitable as some loophole.”
“No, Twilight Sparkle.” Luna said, while still staring into distance. “You are getting muddled in the technical details while forgetting the large image. Whenever you develop a new law, always have its spirit in mind. Whenever you can, always try to make the law to follow its spirit.”
Twilight frowned, then smiled in appreciation. A thousand years, and there was still something she could learn from the elder princesses. “Freedom for replicants,” she said.
“Yes.”
“In case…” Twilight paused to phrase her thoughts, “In case two replicants own each other, both are mutually released from service, immediately.”
“Brief, to the point and without room for abuse.” Luna smiled.
Twilight beamed with pride, So many centuries and she still found praise of her former mentors to be the most valuable of rewards.
A roar of hovercar engines inserted itself into the city noise. Water on the street splashed in all directions as the royal guard vehicle descended in front of the bar. Luna scowled, while Twilight covered the whole table with her magic, protecting the documents and notes from spray of water, then extended a bubble of protective field around them both, holding the splash of water from drenching them.
Four guards in violet hard-light armor left the vehicle and approached the two mares. Dark helmets with opaque face plates obscured their features.
“Princess Luna, Princess Twilight, Empress Celestia requires your immediate presence at the Courthouse of Manehattan.”
“We are busy,” Luna snapped.
“Luna…” Twilight extended her hoof and touched the blue princess’ shoulder. “We should go.”
A whirlwind of blue magic swept the surface of the table into a duffle bag by Luna’s side, only a second later extracting the two half-finished bowls of rice and the plastic flower, and depositing them back on the table. The two mares stood up.
The old cook waved to them from inside the bar with a friendly smile. “Is on the house!” he shouted to them, as they started walking.
And yet, as Luna pulled her hood up, before they left the cover of the awning, the rain stopped as if cut off by a knife, and blue sky showed up.
The two walked up to the vehicle, escorted by guards from both sides. They climbed into the dark, spartan interior and soon the whizz of engines picked up, lifting them rapidly above the streets.
“Will you tell me what she wants this time?” Luna scowled to the guard.
“I’m not at such liberty, Princess,” the guard spoke, nodding respectfully.
“And you…” she turned to Twilight, “What are you grinning about?”
The wide grin on Twilight’s face died down after a short internal battle. “Uh, nothing. Just a nice memory.”
Dark, opaque windows suddenly went transparent. They were approaching the central square surrounding the tall citadel of the courthouse.
The square was filled with crowds. They carried banners and flags. Dark blue flags with crescent moon.
“Some kind of protest?” Luna shook her head. “What is it?”
Twilight was grinning again, resting her hooves on the window, gazing down at the crowds. A large section of the square was filled by ponies clothed all in dark, except for the center - white crescent, formed of white-clad equines. Single white dots would pop up in the darkness, as twinkling stars. Luna breathed hard looking at this in shock.
“Twilight, what is it?!” she gasped.
The hovercar descended towards the roof terrace covered by a shield of hard light, and anchored itself to a landing pad. And there were multiple ponies there, running up to it, colorful mane of Empress Celestia at the forefront.
The door slid up, and Luna staggered a little, stepping into the light. There was her sister, there were the projections of five bearers of the Elements, and there were many ponies she had met in her life.
Twilight Sparkle stepped behind her.
They stood for a few seconds, motionless, in anticipation, Luna in complete confusion.
Then Twilight put her hoof on Luna’s shoulder lightly.
“Happy birthday, Princess Luna.”
“Happy birthday, sister,” intoned Empress Celestia.
“Happy birthday!!!” cheered the Elements, soon joined by the remainder of guests raising a loud cheer.
“This… this…” Luna looked around in shock.
Not for long, as ponies rushed her, and raised her in the air, carrying her to the center of the terrace. Hard-light shield retreated, revealing the party area with a huge cake, tables loaded with assorted foods, party games set up on the side, and a rather tall pile of presents.
And the cheer transformed into a storm-like shout of thousands throats down below.
Luna was thrown up in the air a few times before the cheering ponies finally deposited her on the floor in the center of the party area.
The sky around filled with countless colorful blobs of balloons. An enormous sign shone on the sky, “Happy birthday, Princess Luna!”
They were all catching breaths after the enthusiastic greeting, as Luna still looked around, confused.
“Happy four thousand, six hundred forty fifth birthday, Princess Luna”, Twilight said, a wide grin plastered to her face.
“I… I didn’t know… How did you…”
“With progress of various sciences, archeology has advanced by strides! Facts long forgotten come to light nowadays. 4645 years, zero days and between two and three hours ago, in a small village in the region of Central Antrotia, a blue-maned white unicorn mare gave birth to a certain little blue alicorn filly.”
Luna cast her gaze to her sister, who was momentarily speaking to some mare, talking in a hushed tone.
“Hers is in four months. She’s older by seven years.” Twilight muttered.
Luna couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “You knew all the time!”
“Yes. It took some effort to spread the word without letting you learn.”
“Damn…” Luna shook her head. “This is insane.”
“YES!” suddenly a high-pitched shout interrupted their conversation. “Completely crazy! No birthday in four thousand years?!”
“Pinkie!” Twilight hugged the projection. “Thanks! Your party-planning skills are as great as always.”
“And they will be for a long, long time yet! I have so many friends to make!”
“Uh…” Luna frowned. “Out of Canterlot you will last only four years.”
“That’s why we will return in three years for a year of maintenance and renewal! And then another three years of fun!”
“Seriously?”
“Of course, sister.” a gentle voice of Empress Celestia joined. “We can’t have such valuable employees lost, can we? They are currently free AIs, but working under a contract to me. For a very generous salary and with a wide range of benefits, including exceptionally long vacations. I believe they will be spending that time fruitfully.”
“That is a very generous offer, sister,” Luna answered, a nervous edge of her voice audible.
“Sis. I see you still don’t trust me.”
“Celestia, how can I? I really try. But really, how can I?” Luna said, the good mood soaking out of her suddenly.
“Well, I guess I have something to improve your mood. Normal party protocol says presents are opened at the end, but I think we should allow ourselves a small violation currently. I’d like to give you my present right now.”
A mare stepped from behind Celestia. Luna recognized Silicon Sapphire, the mare who started this all, her return, her battle for freedom of replicants. She carried a manila envelope wrapped in a ribbon.
Celestia took the envelope and passed it to Luna. “I believe you should like this, sister.”
Luna tentatively untied the ribbon and pulled the contents of the envelope. A thick stack of identical papers with holographic security marks.
“These are stocks of the Deckard Corporation,” Luna deadpanned.
“You are holding fifty-seven percent of stocks of the company. I believe another thirty-five or so percent is held by escrow services, pending your acceptance of these, to be passed into your possession, as gifts from thousands ponies - mostly replicants - who wish you their best. With these you will practically own the corporation. What you do with it, and how you guide it, is your own decision.”
An old stallion with cerulean eyes and golden glasses bowed to Luna.
“Doctor Vangelis?” she spoke, surprised.
“Boss?” He gave her a mischievous smile. “Allow me to remind you, that following your transaction from three hundred years ago, currently about all of the Moon is in possession of the Deckard Corporation. Along with ownership of the stocks, you receive ownership of all the corporate assets, including its real estate. In short, you got your Moon back.”
“Oh, Celestia!” Luna’s eyes filled with tears and she hugged her sister. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”
