Those Thirty Days

  Keen closed the door to her office, quickly making her way to her desk, setting her bags beside her chair before sitting back in a huff. She took out the files and the tape player, setting them down on her desk, not bothering to actually use them as she caught her breath. She had woken up a tad late, and had almost missed the trolley, and so had to run after it halfway down the street. The day so far had been quite hectic, especially in the soaking rain that had carried on through the night. Keen ran a hoof through her mane with a sigh, quickly getting back to the work before her. Taking out the box of tapes, setting it down beside the tape player. She slid the folder holder to her taking out the next day's paper.

  Project Status: Optimal

  Subject Physical Status: Average

  Subject Mental Status: Sub-Optimal

  Researcher Notes: Subject seems to be slightly adjusted to their condition. It appears that this state is not one of acceptance, but of resignation, which, in the greater scheme things, is not a good sign. Information gathered from project 'Ghost Town' suggests that resignation has a greater chance of producing a psychological break, while as acceptance has a greater chance of preserving the pony as they were. Fighting against the circumstances is also a methods through which a pony may preserve themselves, though statistics show that it is a slimmer chance than acceptance, though still a possibility. The pony before this test had been judged to be a very solidly minded pony, not being one for flights of fancy. An earth pony who was truly down to earth in every sense of the word. This should provide us with a great deal of information as to how this experience will effect ever the most stalwart mind. Enter tape from day two for full notes.

  Keen opened the tape case, pulling one of the door out, taking the small tape once again. Pushing the button on the tape player, she carefully placed the plastic box in its rightful place. She closed the lid, only to look back at the notes. Putting the file that contained the researcher's daily notes to one side, she pulled out another one of the files. The cover wasn't labeled, only serving to peek her interest more as she flipped the cover open. In it, notes and pictures were gathered together about one pony. The camera shots were in odd angles, giving her the impression that they were taken with the express purpose of not letting the pony know that he was being watched.

  The pictures were all in black and white, so she couldn't tell what colors the pony was, but she could tell by several reference points, that the pony was of average height and build. Most of the pictures had him in a suit, giving the impression that wherever he worked, it was in formal conditions. Keen didn't recognize the small bits of the background she could she, so really, to her, the pony could live and work anywhere in the world that had a summer time, since there was no sign of snow on the ground. Keen looked through the papers in the folder, but they revealed even less, having the majority of their pages blacked out with marker. Keen set the file down, pressing the play button on the tape.

  "Project Solitaire, day two. Breakfast has been sent to out subject, though the audio coming from the room suggests that he is still asleep." The same pony from the previous day began. "That may or may not be the best for this pony, though only time will tell. In an unrelated note,half the team was removed the project, since an investigation has been launched on Project Ghost Town by the feds. Only necessary staff ponies for this project that were part of Ghost Town are staying, including myself and five others. The others have been removed from all sensitive projects, with a memory blocking spell that will make it impossible for them to remember anything of either project. The investigation on Project Illusions was dropped almost as it started, which is a relief seeing as more than half of our remaining ponies on this team were involved in it, not to mention most of the engineer ponies who know how to preform maintenance on this blasted project. No matter, we will just have to be careful with this project. End of morning researcher notes, switching to in room audio feed." Again the click sounded, but instead of switching to the room, it switched immediately to the pony from the previous evening.

  "Today was most uneventful, the pony merely wandering about in his cell, most likely trying to figure out a way to escape while maintaining silence, either that, or he's trying to figure out what he can do. We can only hope the stallion has enough of a brain to exercise and stretch his muscles. No pony here wants to help him recover from muscle atrophy. End of night researcher's notes and of day two of Project Solitaire."

  Keen leaned back in her chair as the machine clicked and began to rewind the rather short tape. These ponies had already had been investigated for their other projects, and not only that, but by federal investigators, ponies far beyond her caliber. The pony had also mention a memory blocking spell, suggesting that by that time they were already used to being investigated by ponies who had gone through their experiments. The machine clicked opened as it finished rewinding, allowing Keen to remove the tape and place it back into the case, pushing the shelf back in. Her stomach growled, reminding her to check the time. She glanced up to the clock, which read eleven forty-nine. Keen stood up, intent on grabbing some pizza from the shop across the street before returning to the case, on to have her eye catch something moving away from her window. Keen rushed over, looking in every direction for any sign of the pony that was watching her, but found none.

  Slowly walked away from her window, moving back to her desk. She slid one of the draws open, revealing her rotary phone which had sat quick neglected over the past few days. She picked up her headset, putting it on as she looked back towards the window, still being assaulted by the heavy rainstorm. She could call the pizza place, but that might come off a bit weird, seeing as she'd just be asking them to walk across the street, instead Keen decided to call another one of her favorites that was farther away, taking any suspicion as to why she was having delivery. She dialed the number as quickly as possible, checking the window again as she finished, but saw nothing but the water rolling down the pane of glass. The buzzing of the dialing tone continued for a few moment before the other end finally picked up.

  "Hello, Healthy Heart's Sandwiches. We have Apple Family's Special for fifteen bits and the Gargle Busting Mega Shake for ten bits, how may I help you?" The pony on the other end asked over the clatter in the background. Keen took one last glance out of the window before turning to her desk for no reason.

  "Yes, hello, do you still have the special on the Overboard Deep Fried Hayburger on rye?" Keen asked, taking a quick glance back to the window.

  "Yep, it's still on special. What size are you hoping for?" The pony asked politely as the sound of the register on the other end could be heard. Keen though for a short moment, making her mind up as quickly as possible.

  "Make it large. And make the drink a Cherry Jubilee's Sparkling Cherry Water." Keen replied, before taking out the main file on the project, flipping through the pages once more.

  "Alright, That's one large Overboard Deep Fried Hayburger on rye with a Cherry Water, is that all ma'am?" The pony asked. Keen considered her options briefly, but again, she made up her mind quite quickly.

  "Yes, that's all I'll be having."

  "Alrighty, is that going to be pickup or delivery?" The pony asked as a few more key presses were audible over the phone.

  "Delivery, my address is forty-seven fifty North Broad Street." Keen stated. "Keen Eye's Investigatory Services on the third floor." The other side was rather silent, besides the sounds of the kitchen beyond and the occasional loud key strike of the register.

  "Very good, your order will be arriving in around ten minutes. The total of your purchase is twenty-nine bits, have a nice day." Keen Eye nodded, pressing the end call button as she removed her headset. She wasn't entirely in favor of the price, but it was better than the price she'd pay if she lost any of the materials for the investigation. Besides, these extra ten minutes she could stay in this room allowed her to continue looking over different things while if she had gone down to get pizza, she would've been unable to look at her materials.

  Opening the subject's folder once more, she looked through some of the small sticky notes and pages that were farther back in the bunch. The pony was, except for what had happened to him, completely average. There were no special notes on him, all around giving the impression that the ponies that were doing this were doing it to him for that very reason, because he was average, with nothing overly special about him that would set him above the common pony. Setting that file down again,  Keen took out the file holder and removed all of the folder from within. The folder containing the daily reports and other side notes about the project was the first she saw, which was to be expected since it had been on the top, she set the folder with the little information on the pony on top of it, concentrating more on the folders that she hadn't taken the time to look at before. One of them caught her eye, labeled 'Project: Illusions' while the one right beside it was labeled 'Investigation: F.R.I.', both of which were in stiff competition for her attention.

  After reading through the first few pages of the files on 'Project: Illusions', a knock tore Keen from her reading. Keen set her work to the side and walked up to the door after taking her bits bag from her main desk draw. Opening the door, she found herself, much as she had expected, face to face with a Healthy Heart's Sandwiches delivery pony, wearing a clear raincoat over her uniform, the dry bag, not counting the grease stain on the bottom, containing Keen's food floating beside her.

  "You ordered a large Overboard?" The pony asked, receiving a nod from Keen. "Well, here's you're order, that'll be twenty-nine bits, ma'am." Keen nodded once more, quickly counting out the amount from her coin pouch, handing thirty-five bits over to the rain-drenched pony.

  "Keep the change, you deserve it for all this weather." Keen said before taking her bag in her mouth, moving back to her desk where she set it down before turning back to her door, where the pony stood, counting the coin as she placed them each in her pouch looped around her neck. For not the first time in her life, Keen found herself wishing that she could manipulate objects as easily as a unicorn, but she had learned that being an earth pony had it's own set of advantages. The pony soon finished, giving Keen a nod before moving away as Keen closed the door, turning back to her work, and now, her lunch.

      Day Seventeen, the subject appears to suspect the truth of this experiment, but only after we dropped hints so hard that no pony could possibly miss them. We literally had to make the vendor do something that no pony would do without noticing, namely drink a can of oil like it was sarsaparilla. Three glitches the size of Manehatten later, the pony is now beginning to question the reality of her situation. The project up to this point proves one thing: When the world suddenly shifts, but nothing that can be considered extraordinary, ponies will attempt to rationalize the world, and attempt to live in the world they find themselves. We have started programming tactical errors in the droids programming, so as to provoke questions from the subject. These errors will last only through tomorrow and the next day. After that, we will remove all errors from their programming, so as to not completely break the illusion.

  Day Eighteen, the subject is beginning to have serious doubts about her situation. We had a gang of droids corner her, acting as if they had been intending to all sorts of malicious acts to her, only to have them all go stock still and move away, as if they had been summoned by something. The pony appears to be growing more suspicious as the days go by, which I can't blame her for. Her meetings with our shrinks are yielding interesting results, as she professes that she feels as if not everypony is what they seem. The team has agreed, tomorrow we will strive to achieve a violent response from the subject.

  Day Nineteen, the subject took the bait, and has lashed out at one of the droids. The synthetic covering was torn away, revealing the droids inner servos, circuitry, and mechanical parts. The other droids acted as instructed, mostly in shock, while police ponies attempted to apprehend the pony, only to have some of our pony come in and 'deactivated' the droid, though the dents in the side of the enclosed chariot prove they actually hadn't. The subject stood their watching in shock, much to our interest, since we had planned on her just galloping away. Her visit to the psychiatrist tomorrow will be most interesting.

  Day Twenty, the subject, much as expected, reacted harshly to her morning visit to the doctor, where the pony told her that she must've imagined things. Her surprise quickly turned to horror as her lifted a tray of medical tools and launched it at the doctor, only to peal the synthetic cover from his side, to which he reacted without flinching, merely noting, in almost a comical manner, that his 'chassis' was now scratched. The subject galloped out of her appointment, going directly home to her coltfriend, or at least the synthetic version of that pony. She stayed in the same room, crying heavily for nearly ten minutes, before falling prey to exhaustion. Today was most interesting indeed, and we are all anticipating what will happen next. The results so far are very interesting, but the team is more than willing to take it up a notch.

  Day Twenty-one, it has happened. The subject decided today she'd find out the truth, and so, armed with a broken glass, ran down the main street, slashing at everypony she found, attempting to figure out who was real or not. She found some of our ponies, but after two minutes of letting this go on, the police droids were activated and sent her to the ground with their electrical batons. She was locked up in our pseudo-jail, but was quickly released from her cell by her coltfriend, who attempted to comfort her. When she arrived at home, she decided to cut herself to ensure her own reality, and was met by blood, which somehow made her feel better. The team seems to be developing certain doubts, but none of us are willing to throw away what we have fostered in this experiment because we feel some sense of pity for the subject. Te subject was quickly tended to, though throughout the night, she removed the bandages to poke at her cuts occasionally, as if to make sure. The intent expressed yesterday by the team is still strong, and tomorrow, we will do our utmost to make her see something that is certain to make her questions a bit more pungent.

  Keen looked up from the paper, taking another sip from her large, plastic mug of cherry water. At this point, she really couldn't say which was more despicable, Illusions or Solitaire. Sure, Solitaire removed the pony from society completely, without even knowing what is happening outside, but Illusions had stripped a pony from her home, placing her in a future version of the same, but with robot counterparts of each pony, with a few extras. Solitaire pushed a pony to the edge of sanity in solitude, while Illusions pushed the pony to the same point, but by slowly revealing the truth behind the world they had been placed in. Keen knew why the investigation into Illusions was canceled, but it still made her feel sick to think that the ponies at F.R.I. had merely laughed off the pony as if she WERE insane, when they were the ones to put her in that position.

  Looking up at her clock, she noticed that the time had quickly flown by as she had read through the majority of the day. She was only ten minutes away from closing time, and by the glistening floor around her, the cleaning pony had been through without her notice. Standing up, Keen quickly stowed her things away before moving out of her office, locking the door behind her as she made her way back home for the night, ready to rest while thinking over what she had been over that day.