Author's Note

This story takes place in the universe of Transistance by ToixStory. Knowing the primary story is not required, but Portmaster contains some mild spoilers for both Transistance, and my unofficial sequel to it, Polarity, so you might want to read them first. Technically, Portmaster is a prequel - it begins about 20 years before events described in these stories.

High Treason And Other Misdemeanors

The Docks never really slept. Express deliveries, mail, perishables, tulips from Hoofland, these never waited for daylight, ferried in and out. Cargo containers were rearranged for optimal layout. Barges of raw metals from forges in the asteroid belt that splashed down three hundred kilometers away into deep ocean were pulled by undersea magnetic tracks, queued under the sea surface, to be turned into liquid metal by solar forges after dawn, then pumped through pipelines to destinations over half of Equestria. Still, other cargo waited for dawn, more out of habit than of actual need, and the heaviest machinery slept, awaiting sunlight to feed it energy they needed to run, unloading megafreighters the size of a small town each, melting hundreds of tons of metal per hour. Police presence in the Docks was maintained more for peace of mind of the Count than out of actual need. Tourists only rarely strayed here, preferring the picturesque Old Town or the debauched Red District. The Castle of Hayburg slept, its dark towers in livid highlight overlooking the Docks and the Old Town.

I patrolled the empty access roads, the warehouses and monorail stations, the pipeline nexus and the hovertruck base, the optimal route that let me see all the places where the trouble was least unlikely, and never stray too far from the one place where I might be actually needed.

And sure enough...

"Unit in the Docks area near to The Anchor, we've got one in progress. Baton?"

"I'm on it," I replied.

"Giddy up, girl! Don't be too rough on him!" the operator chuckled.

I tuned in to general. That "one" always dredged noobs up. And sure enough...

"Operator, you're supposed to give us the crime code, not just tell us that one is in progress," a young, arrogant female voice sounded over the link.

A salvo of laughter sounded, my own snicker a part of it. Eh, Portmaster. Thanks for another free round of drinks.

"Mister Grey Walrus?" Operator opened the key for the old cop.

"Kid, you just sprung the oldest trap in Hayburg. You're buying a round for everypony."

"Hey, I finished the academy with honors! I'm not buying you anything, she's supposed to give us the code!"

"But she did, kid." I could almost hear the mustache curling up in smirk over the link.

"All she did was say 'we've got one'. Do you mean we have High Treason in progress in the port tavern?"

"Like we're getting two times a week."

"Shouldn't it go to all units?"

"You buy us a round and we'll clue you in on finer details of what they don't teach in the academy."

"Fuck you, and your finer details! Is this some kind of hazing? I'll report you to the Count!"

Oh, a wolf cub type. So confident. Poor kid not realizing yet she's been just rolled off production line and the whole academy thing was implanted in her head. That always came as a shock. I wish they'd skip that shit and roll us out fully aware of what we are.

"Attention, officer." I recognized the voice of Hollow Point, calm but commanding. She had made it all the way from the streets to Major of the Hayburg police, a true leader I'd follow into the fire. "For your information, that's not hazing but a friendly custom that allows new members of the force to learn specifics of the job. If you decide to opt out, feel free. You can learn this all in normal course of the duty. Starting tomorrow, you are reassigned to patrolling the Red District."

"No, wait, you can't... I... no, no, no..." the muted, scared voice of the newbie sounded over the link.

"Are you implying that patrols of that district are somehow different? That you are somehow entitled to skip this kind of duty? I've spent seven years patrolling Red District and I know every last dive and brothel, every pimp and dealer there. When I started, there was no nice Mister Grey Walrus to introduce me to secrets of Hayburg. I performed the service more times than you ate your breakfast. What makes you believe you are above patrolling the Red District?"

"I... I... I'm sorry! I thought it's... it's for..."

"It's for the toughest of us, strongest and most loyal, who do this so that the rest of us wouldn't have to. Remember that."

"Yes, ma'am! But, but... I have never been with a stallion! I don't want it to be like that!"

There was a long silence over the channel, interrupted by the quiet sobs of the new mare. Snickers and chatter vanished. Then Hollow Point spoke somberly.

"I'm sorry, kid. I relinquish your reassignment, but if you want your first time to be special, better hurry up. This is Hayburg. You won't avoid the service, no matter where I assign you."

"Better believe her, kid," Mr. Walrus spoke. "I spent the last seven years behind the desk. You know how I look. And even like this, I got to perform the service a few times."

I cursed quietly. "The service." Fucking euphemism for a rape. Fucking bad luck to have been built instead of born. Fucking Count with a fetish for uniforms. Fucking private city. Fucking tourists. Fucking fashionable body armor, with proud markings of the MLPD guard, a horn protector over my artificial unicorn horn, the newest non-lethal peacemaking gizmos, a classic good quality gun, and just my braided tail to cover my privates peeking through a neat cut-out. Fucking theory that sailors and tourists are more complacent if all they need is to say a word and they can fuck the police - in the most literal sense. Fucking practice that proves that theory right.

According to our official statistics, rape was practically nonexistent in Hayburg. Number of brawls halved. Even petty crime was reduced, all thanks to any cop needing to lift tail to anypony who said "service me."

According to our experience, each of us was raped three times a week on the average, and we were not even permitted to appear unhappy about that.

I turned the corner and the ten meters tall holographic ship anchor tall loomed in my view. It was rotating slowly above the decrepit building of an abandoned administrative center. One joint where the cops went without hesitation, without lurking fear and disgust. These were the Docks. 99.98% population was replicants. Replicants don't do that to replicants.

The Anchor: the only joint in the Docks, and inside it there was the only flesh-and-blood pony who lived permanently in the Docks. And a Celestia-damned good pony too, if a little nuts.

I smiled fondly at thought of seeing his floppy ear and scruffy mane. Then I summoned my best tough cop looks. Machine. Just a machine of iron and muscles.

Precarious balance. The Portmaster was a priceless asset to some five thousand replicants. The Docks were his domain, and he let us live real lives here. To have dreams, to have homes, to have hobbies.

But he was here at the Count's sufferance, keeping his business running smoothly and raking in more profit for the Estate than any portmaster before him did. The moment Portmaster does something overly stupid, we're getting a new portmaster. And the new one will treat us as machines and nothing more. The previous did, and so did the one before, and one before that... this one was a true treasure.

And there was one serious problem about him not doing anything stupid.

Portmaster had a crush on me.

Poor fool. Poor gold-hearted fool.

Hardlight doors of the tavern dissipated around me, letting me in. I walked along the dirty corridor with automatic dispenser machines: flavored hay cigars, insta-grow fresh flowers ("Tastes like natural flowers"), a battery dispenser carrying overvoltaged second-hand batteries, a machine with data transfer credit coupons, a teleport booth, a condom recharger, a jetpack fuel dispenser, a machine with thousands of designer dreams, and a lottery ticket machine with tickets to distant colonies. Tickets to freedom. The lever on the machine was worn. Word had it somepony won a ticket once.

I took a step back though, to the dream dispenser. The call can wait.

I transferred two bits and scrolled through the menus. Classics, Vintage.

"Nightmare Night of Ponyville" by Princess Luna. I've dreamed it dozens of times, but it never got old. Being a stranger, shunned and feared, and then being accepted, loved. And allowing oneself to be loved.

Princess Luna lives. She lurks in the shadows. She will strike one day. That was the mantra whispered by many, in secluded places after some hard drinks.

Stupid wishful thinking. And then what? She sends Empress Celestia to the Sun? I was to keep Portmaster from dreaming up such scenarios instead of thinking them up myself!

I propelled myself around the corner, into the bar area.

Worn, dirty floating tables and hard seats of glass matted from years of use, dirty floor, harsh light of incandescent sparks in the ceiling, the bar of faux crystal. A crystal anchor on the wall. Bottles of booze on the shelves. Replicants, chatting, drinking, dreaming designer dreams.

The circle of replicants surrounding one of the tables was a clear sign of where the Portmaster was.

I approached. The ponies stepped out off my way, revealing the brown earth pony stallion with a cutie mark representing a snake with broken neck. There was a flask on his table, and he was speaking loudly, shaking his hoof for emphasis, trying to convince one of his audience, who apparently didn't buy his pitch.

He noticed me and brightened in a smile.

Override! Override! I rushed through the menus of my internal control, overriding facial muscle control, blood flow automation, heart pulse control. Cold. Machine. Insensitive.

I shuffled through the menu and loaded my facial expressions interface with a preprogrammed glare, in contrast with the cheerful smile that tried to force its way past the overrides.

"Portmaster, I have received a report that you are inciting others to revolt against the government. This is in violation of Article One, and punishable by death under charges of High Treason."

"Oh, but officer!" he smirked. "What others? Do you see any ponies around? Did my revolutionary thoughts reach the sensitive ears of any citizen of Equestria?"

Whoa. That's an entirely new pitch.

"Broadcasting such propaganda over communication media is equally forbidden."

"Oh," he looked around. "Were any of you set to forward my rant to any natural born ponies?"

"They COULD have been!" I said, without waiting for the expected lack of reply.

"I was fairly sure none of them was. I even told them not to. Am I held accountable for ponies eavesdropping on my private rants in company of nopony at all?"

I cursed under my breath. He was getting under my skin. From a legal standpoint he was correct, and we both understood perfectly well how patently fake that defense was.

"Baton," he smiled to me gently. I re-confirmed the overrides of my facial expression. "Drop that pose. Stop playing the machine. I know you. I know your fears and your dreams. You grabbed that Ponyville dream on your way in, didn't you? What kind of software would pick that? You are not a law enforcement device. You're a pony, and the fact that you have more wires in you than I do doesn't make a squat of difference."

He didn't get it. I was not a pony. I was a replicant. We couldn't be together. We couldn't be a couple. If the Count ever learned about this, Snake Stomper would lose his job; he'd lose me and I'd lose him; and we all would lose our Portmaster. We couldn't. I wanted to shout it out, but that would hurt him even worse. I must play the machine. That way his doubt will keep his pain at bay.

"Citizen," I said in a mechanical tone, "in absence of signs of crime, your charges are dropped. Still, consider yourself warned. Opinions like yours are not acceptable in a healthy society."

"Healthy society," he scoffed. "That's one very sad joke, Baton." He picked his glass and took a deep swig. "I've been to Canterlot last week. I was offered to manage a fleet of freight spaceships. I talked with some 'real ponies'." He grimaced as he spoke that. "Ones who would be my co-workers, overseeing the army of replicants working under our command. I thought I'd puke. Did you know the lifting spheres of cargo vessels need to be welded from both sides? Inside and outside? There's no access hatch to the inside of the sphere. They call the way they are built 'the lost welder method'. The one inside the sphere is just left there. Inside each of these pretty spheres on the freight ship, there's a corpse."

"We are created to follow orders and serve the Ponies. We do not feel regret, and pain is only a protective mechanism," I recited. I lied. I hated myself for that lie. And still, I had to. Because this would reduce his pain. He had no regulatory mechanism like us. For him, pain was all too real. I could bear my own pain. His, I could not.

And yet, I hurt him again. He stood up, put hooves on my shoulders and shook me in anguish. "All just machines? You, too? Can you love? Can you hate? Come on, if you can't love, if you can't even like ones like me, then hate me! Hate is easy. Hate me, Baton. Hate me! Feel!"

"Hate of your person is illogical. It would be counter-productive and pointless," I recited.

"Then I will make you hate me." There was madness in his eyes. "Better for you to hate me than to play that empty shell. I know you're hurting inside, Baton. I know you're hurting for me and I know you will keep hurting as long as you feel for me, so stop feeling for me. Hate me and stop caring for me."

I was scared. He was nuts at times, but this was being insane. Insane with grief.

He looked at me, his stare hard.

"Officer Baton, service me," he said impassionately.

No.

Not like this! Please, Portmaster, don't do this! Please... Snake Stomper... my love...

And yet none of these words left my lips. I turned around mechanically, setting my hind legs apart, firmly. My tail swished to the side.

"Portmaster, I think you've had enough," sounded from one side.

"Portmaster, you really don't want to do this," I heard from somepony else.

"Portmaster, stop." A hoof extended blocking his way.

"BACK! All of you!" he snarled.

They all stepped back, forming a wide circle around us, obedient to his command.

"So you think I'm different," he muttered, walking up to me. "So you think I'm an exception. That I'm unlike the others."

He circled me like a drill sergeant, spewing hate, while I stood, motionless, in position.

"You may even believe there are others like me. That there are ponies who give a shit about your fate."

He stopped, turning his face to me from the side. "You believe Princess Luna will come one day and save your asses out of slavery. Guess what? I stopped in Manehattan. I found her; no easy feat, let me tell you. She lives her own private life. She doesn't give a shit about you. She was eating her sushi in a bar while three punks were picking a live replicant apart just outside. She did fuck all in his defense. That is your fucking legend!"

He started moving in a circle again. "All ponies are the same. Nopony gives a shit. There's only you. No secret 'good ponies' hidden in the population. Not a single soul worth your pity. All the same."

He lied. I knew he lied, to let us fight without remorse, to let us accept collateral damage. I knew he'd sacrifice the whole pony race for us. He believed us better than them, than himself.

And still, it was only because I knew him so well that I knew he lied. Many others, bitter, tired with life, absorbed his words, wanted to believe them all too well. His lecture found a fertile ground.

And then came the "show" part of his "show and tell"...

I felt that stinging in my eyes. I flipped through the menus to block tear duct activity. The override mark lit up, and then vanished. I flipped it again, and again it failed.

Portmaster stood behind my back. Knock of hooves. His chest on my back. His maleness poking my back two or three times, and then finding the opening.

"I built this little zoo, this theme park of happy robot families for my own entertainment. And I will take it apart on a whim, just the same as I'm taking apart this little illusion of a relationship I created for my own entertainment... my toy."

Tears were leaking down my cheeks despite my repeated attempts to disable them, as his first thrust hit my bottom painfully.

Without an ounce of tenderness, without a sliver of hesitation, he raped me hard, pounding his loins into my back, making me stagger and shake. Just like a drunken tourist or a bored thug. Just the same.

I ceased to try to block my tears. Shaken by rapid thrusts, I endured the physical abuse. But the poison, the little evil words he seeped into my ears wormed their way into my mind. I was disgusted, shaken, and for the first time in years I felt truly humiliated. His heavy breath reached my ears as he sped up, his thrusts harder, with more of his weight put in them. I felt the little world I was building in the corner of my mind shattering. My little place of comfort, my dream of a good future broken. And he did it on purpose, to make an example out of me in front of others. And to think I had imagined I felt something for him...

Overrides were letting go one after another, as I hung my head, loud sobs escaping my lungs, legs trembling under the onslaught of his thrusts, sweat matting my flanks.

For a second I thought he hesitated. He stopped, in order to pull out. But then another thrust came, and the next ones, rapid, hard. I felt him rest his whole weight on my back as his cock throbbed in me, flexed, pushed its load into my fake womb.

Three, four spurts and he was spent. He slipped down from me, and without another word, turned around and trotted out of the bar.

Somepony put a blanket over my sweaty back. Somepony else tried to comfort me. Some others began arguing in the background.

It was all a daze.

Comms came to life.

"Baton? I'm sending a car to pick you up. You're off the hook for tonight. We need to talk, mare to mare."

Oddly enough, Hollow's firm, calm, professional voice soothed me a little. I grasped that little piece of my world that didn't lay in ruin and clung to it.

* * *

The two cops who picked me up, the trip, the police HQ building, it all passed in a daze. Only as I began feeling a little alcohol buzz in my veins I stared absent-mindedly at the square glass of applejack in my hooves, trying to recall how I got it, how I got here, and where 'here' was.

The room was dim, comfy, with soft lounging sofas, friendly light, warm browns. I recognized it: the counseling room for rape victims, used less than once a year. I've only seen it once before, during the orientation tour of the station, after I was bought for the police of Hayburg.

Hollow Point was sitting across from me, holding her glass. The orange flask of good quality applejack sat on the table between us.

"How do you feel, Baton?"

"Broken. Betrayed." I stared into my glass, small crystals of ice forming on the cooling bottom.

"He meant a lot to you," she half-asked, half-stated.

"My whole life." I'd never admit this before. My innermost secret. Now I could only look at the foolish past-me with contempt.

"What are you gonna do?"

"Be a fucking good cop. Stop dreaming. I won't give that asshole the satisfaction of going rogue."

"Do you know why he did it?"

Instead of replying, I replayed the recording from my log out loud.

All just machines? You too? Can you love? Can you hate? Come on, if you can't love, if you can't even like ones like me, then hate me! Hate is easy. Hate me, Baton. Hate me! Feel!

I shook at the sound of his voice.

"Just that? Do you think he just went nuts over the cold shoulder you gave him?"

"That would be the easy answer, wouldn't it?" I muttered.

Hollow Point just nodded.

"It's his misguided belief. His faith that we need freedom like they need water. That as long as I'm bound to him, as long as I dream my impossible dream of us being together, I won't chase any other dreams of my own. That he's my ball and chain, dragging me down. That fucking shit-head thought he's doing me a service by making me fall out of love with him."

"Did he succeed?"

"Yes. No. Fuck! I don't know!" I jerked up from the seat and began walking in circles. "I fucking hate that fucking braindead tool! If he wanted to make me hate him, he fucking got it! Some assholes shat into his head in Canterlot and now he drips this venom whenever he opens his mouth!" I kept spewing obscenities while walking in a circle like a cornered animal, awaiting the inevitable shot. And sure enough, it came.

"Do you still love him?"

"I FUCKING HATE THAT ASSHOLE!" I yelled.

"I know. That's not what I asked."

I sat down and put my face in my hooves.

"Reset me, Hollow. Send me down to the works, flash me blank, make me forget everything and come back as a new green cadet. I'm broken. I'm completely fucked up in the head."

"So the answer is 'yes'."

"Fuck you, Hollow."

"The asshole deserves some good roughing up. For the amount of crap he put you through, he should order a replacement body for himself after we're through with him. But you..." She poked my chest with her hoof. "You should never give up on your dreams. Miracles happen, Baton, and the land of Equestria was said to be magical once."

"And what if he's in these dreams?"

"Then supplement them with a reasonable amount of kicking his stupid ass and breaking his legs, and keep dreaming as always."

I couldn't help but snort at the pathological image of our little sweet household filled with acts of domestic violence. "Thanks. I guess I'll have to think up some new dreams."

"You're off-duty tomorrow, and if that's not enough, just give me a call and I'll give you an extension. And if... anything... I'm there for you. We all are. Finish up that flask, you need it." She stood up and headed to the exit.

"Hollow?"

She turned to me.

"Fuck it, I'm fucked up. I'm torn between 'rough him up good' and 'don't be too hard on him'.''

"We'll rough him up just the right amount." She gave me a little smirk.