Portmaster

"Wake up, Stomper. You have a guest."

I didn't oppose the prison guard invading the party in Applejack's barn. I shook myself awake and got off the cot. The hard light wall separating my cell from the corridor flickered off.

"Make yourself presentable," the uniformed mare said, sending me a smirk. "Word has it your visitor is a VIP."

I nodded, then took a brush to my scruffy mane showing first signs of white. A ion shower removed traces of sleep from my face, and I followed the guard out of the cell.

"Who's that, Thumper?" I asked.

"You know I'd tell you if I knew. All I know is everypony's painting grass green for her."

"Her?" I raised my eyebrows. Dusty Planet had dropped in a couple times, asking me some questions about resolving one situation or another. Mr. Night sent me a cake for both 40th and 50th birthday. A writer, writing about 100 most prominent terrorists in history dropped in, but after first three loaded questions I cut the visit short.

I was led to the teleporter at the end of the corridor. The secure device zipped me to a destination, a visit room, no exits, no features, not even pillows to sit on, just two teleporters on two sides and a wall of perfectly transparent crystalline aluminum splitting it in two. There were small black dots painted on the crystal to help visitors see where it was.

"Hello," said the blue alicorn on the other side.

"Princess Luna." I bowed low.

"Let us skip courtesies and false dreams." Yes, of course, no getting out.

"How can I help?"

"I guess you know about my efforts."

"Yes. We seem to have... some goals in common."

"And we both found... obstacles of objective nature."

"Your efforts are very appreciated." I bowed my head. She took the position of Princess of Technology a couple years before, and through law, promotion, education, she worked towards acceptance of replicants as full citizens of Equestria.

"They are... progressing slowly." She turned her head, her discomfort apparent. "I have managed to improve livelihood of free replicants. I have opened some routes to freedom for the owned ones. But these, who had it worst, still have it worst... and my efforts meet strong resistance. With no incentive, there is little will to activate the good-will openings I created in the law. A replicant with not a minute of free time in a day has no options to earn their freedom."

"Well, I'd gladly help, but as you see, my hooves are kind of tied."

"Not as much as you were led to believe. Your efforts yielded several good results. Tau Ceti, after a transitional period involving Elysium management model, fully recognized rights of replicants."

"And the attempt to implement it partially at Maple Forest led to blowing the colony up."

"Yes, that... accident... led to cooling the enthusiasm at adopting your model. Can you tell me why they failed so bad?"

"They totally fucked them up... oh, forgive my language, your highness."

"Fuck shit cunt. Use any language you desire. Manehattan is not a soft-spoken city."

I nodded, hiding the hint of shock and got back on topic. "They gave the replicants a task they hated and imposed a reward for that. They refused to offer alternatives. They failed to understand the replicant nature, how much they loathe to be put in such a situation."

"Surely the replicants' situation improved..."

"This is, your highness, how ponies think. Beat a replicant up, force them to work eighteen hours a day, strip all the flesh off their metal skeleton, and they will be unhappy, maybe very unhappy. Make a replicant hate something they loved, make them discard what they clung to because the alternative may or may not be better, or reward them for an evil deed and you have them at breaking point."

"Is that so?"

"Try an experiment. Buy a replicant and get them to perform a highly immoral act. Say, to hurt a pony they believe to be good. They will not be happy about it, but they will do it."

"Made to obey, yes."

"Then offer them a reward for that act. A significant, valuable, desirable reward which is morally neutral, and which they can't sell or exchange for something else. Say, rent them a luxurious place to live. Make sure to emphasize this is 'a reward for the job well done'."

"They would feel guilty about it, right? Torn?"

"Not at all. They would outright refuse."

"Is that so? What would they do if they could sell it?"

"They'd quickly redirect the funds to something to make amends for their crime. A charity for example. Or they'd buy themselves freedom and take up a charitable work. They'd be quite conflicted about it, but they'd eventually earn comfort of mind."

"Very interesting. A deeply ingrained sense of karma, it seems."

"You could put it that way."

"Still, nothing overly dangerous."

"Now don't give the replicant a choice in terms of accepting the reward. Force it upon them."

"That's where the trouble begin, right?"

"Repeat it several times and you have a ponicidal maniac at your hooves."

"Turning a wonderful forested planet into a mud desert, and forced into comforts and luxuries in exchange, day after day... Now I see it clearly. And this is the kind of insights you have and I don't."

"The self-buyout hasn't been going very well either?"

"The owner requests a replacement, the replicant gives up. Freedom in exchange for putting another in their place. Reward for an act they consider evil. By the stars, it's so simple in perspective. They are truly different than us."

"Well, I'm glad I could help."

"Not yet," she waved her hoof with a smile. "You see, there's one thing I wanted to ask of you."

"Of course."

"See, if there is a financial incentive, companies are willing to take the risk. But just like Maple Forest, they blunder blindly, they try half-assed half-measures. And they fuck up, just like Maple Forest, and get cold hooves. The will is there, there is no knowledge though."

"As I said, my hooves are kinda tied."

"And as I said, not as much as you believe. I'd like you to write a book. A manual. Put your knowledge in writing, spread it, warn about caveats, show the way. I'll help in the release and distribution. 30% efficiency gain is a great incentive, and the Elysium model is a wonderful starting point for next transitions."

"I don't know if I can. I always did it on case-by-case basis, a lot of trial and error, adapting to the conditions..."

"You did it four times by now. If you need more training, we have seventeen more top security prisons in Equestria and they all look with envy at Granite Tower's extra 30% margin. It's not like you're very short on time, and I can arrange a transfer, or a few."

"This sounds very promising. Even if just for them."

"She would approve."

"Who?"

"Baton."

I sat silent for a while, dwelling in old, painful memories. She would.

"Yes, she would."

* * *

It took another ten years. The books became instant bestsellers, every single company owner willing to get them. They sat on the bookshelf back in my cell. "The Elysium Model", "Edge Cases", "Tips Book", "Empathy". Especially the last one sold well. It transcended business methods and told simply how to make friends with replicants, how to learn from them, how to listen to them. Supposedly it brought immense profits to those, who truly understood it, but ponies who didn't own businesses were buying it too. I was getting hundreds of letters daily, about immense non-financial benefits it brought.

A year after its release general public demand led to legalization of pony-replicant marriages.

History vilified the Count. The name entered the mainstream, meaning a cruel, heartless person: "Don't be such a Hayburg."

And today I stood in the mess hall, with dozens of inmates, as ballot results from farthest colonies were rolling in. The big projector displayed two presenters in the TV studio.

There was still some opposition. Noble houses allied with the Hayburgs still vetoed Empress Celestia's decision to just yield to public opinion. So she used her power to call in a nation-wide referendum. No noble house could deny that.

The presenter put the predictions on screen. "The preliminary polls in the Apple Systems show the vote still can go the wrong way for Snake Stomper. The Apple family is enormous, and they are very conservative, and law-abiding. They don't use replicants in their vast orchards, they depend on pegasus power in maintaining weather on their planets, and we all know their all-natural products, exclusive, expensive and..."

"Hey," the other mare in the screen poked him. "They didn't pay us for advertising, so cut that. Anyway, the ballots in the Apple Systems are collected by pegasus-based mail, so their votes are coming in last. But... here we are, the results are already coming in, and it's thirty seconds until the vote count is closed. But in the meantime, our reporter sent in his interview from the Zap Orchards."

"That snake Count Hayburg sure had it coming. It took a real snake stomper to stomp him right! We, Apples don't need'em fancy Replicants for our planting but that Hayburg city was sure one cesspit of villainy that needed a hero to put an end to it!"

"And back to the studio... The Apple Systems are overwhelmingly FOR FREEDOM!"

A cheer rose in the mess hall, and I felt several hooves tapping my back. There, Equestria spoke.

Empress Celestia appeared on screen. "Following the public vote, I declare the Earth pony Snake Stomper cleared of his charges."

And there, from the cheering crowd of inmates, a reporter approached me. How did he even get in here? The camera drones floated in a halo above us.

"Mr. Snake Stomper, would you care to answer a few questions?"

I looked to him. "Why not?"

"How are you feeling?"

"I really don't know. I guess I should feel happy or something, but I'm hardly relevant nowadays. Others took over my mission and they are doing better than I ever did."

"You were one of the proponents of the 'Fourth Breed'. You're credited for coining that term."

"I was naive and inexperienced back then. Of course replicants are not the fourth breed. They are a different species, like gryphons or zebras."

"Plans for the future?"

"I'll move to Elysium. I have some friends there."

"Living in luxury to the end of your days? Your books supposedly brought you immeasurable wealth."

"Not really. I signed it all off to Princess Luna's foundation. I hope I'll be able to get my old job back, piloting a ferry to Mars to earn my living there. I'm still a decent pilot."

"Now that is a surprise. But let us move to another question on my list. What do you like best about being a free pony again?"

"I'll be able to contact Princess Luna about her work without the hassle of prison censorship. It was really a bad hurdle, our exchanges were sometimes mangled beyond recognition."

"And your greatest regret?"

"That she didn't live to see this day."

"She?"

"Baton."