Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture

Rainbow Dash and Osborn stood outside the front of a shimmering, blue mansion. Grey clouds moved slowly across the sky, blocking out the midday sun. The door ahead of them was ornamented with an ice blue crescent moon, beautifully carved into the wood.

“And?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Trixie Lulamoon.” Osborn answered. “She´s a former investor of the electronics company that bought a majority of the cheap resources that were found when the economy took a head dive. One would assume that the money she made would have settled her for live but the woman managed to find a way to burn through enough money to sustain a small country in less than a year. Soon she managed to put her company on the verge of bankruptcy before it eventually fell five years ago. She never managed to turn things around after that and she´s taken up hacking in order to sustain herself.”

“Is she dangerous?”

“If you had asked me week ago I would have called her a small fish in an even smaller pond, but after what has happened recently she might be better than I thought. I´d watch myself.”

They pushed the heavy doors aside. The moon arching over them split in half and the sound of their footsteps echoed has they pressed against the reflective marble floor. The walls where made of the same material and colorfully decorated with soft patterns beneath the hard surface. Pattern shaped shadows spread on the floors and reached to the walls from colored glass windows. It was only now that Rainbow Dash realized how dimly lit the entire place was.

Once her eyes adjusted she could see the massive staircase in front of them. The steps seemed to be made of the same stone has the rest of the building but the railings were golden with shades of blue. The stairs reached only one level higher but Rainbow Dash could clearly see a third floor above it.

They made their way up the stair case and the two of them walked separate paths. Osborn took the path on her right and Rainbow Dash walked to the left. She put her hand on the cold wall and gave it sweep with the tip of her fingers. The wall had marks of her fingers on it for a moment before they began to fade away. The sound of a door creaking in its hinges spread through the hallway. Looking over her shoulder she could see Osborn opening a door and entering it.

Rainbow Dash looked at the door ahead of her. The door was made of red, shining wood and had a golden handle. She opened the door and stepped in. The room held a long dining table set for about fifteen guests. When looking up Rainbow Dash though for a moment that she was outside. She quickly realized that it was only the roof covered in holographic imagery with soft white clouds and a warm blue sky. The windows on her left were at least as colorful as the others she had seen.

On the walls on her right hung massive painting that depicted a beautiful tall woman. Her slender figure was covered by a thin, night blue dress. She had long icy blue hair and sharp purple eyes. Her face had sharp features and thin cheeks. She sat on large leather bound chair and had a smirk on her thin, blue lips that Rainbow Dash found difficult to take her eyes of.

“So that´s what she looks like.” Rainbow Dash said has she continued forward. The next room she entered had shelves covering the walls each one of them filled with leather bound books and tomes with a vinyl record player playing a plinking tune.

As she was walking past the player she stopped and listened to the tune. It evoked an old memory but she couldn´t put her finger on where she had heard the music before. “Now that´s going to bug me.” Rainbow Dash was about to lift the tonearm of the record but changed her mind just before touching it.

She opened another door. This one only lead to a long hall, empty apart from a child sized figure standing frozen halfway across. Despite the dim light coming in from the windows Rainbow Dash could clearly see that the figure was standing on one foot. When she got closer she saw that it was a girl and she was in the middle of running. Rainbow Dash squatted down and took a closer look. The little girl had a dull set of green lifeless eyes with short artificial blond hair. Rainbow Dash flinched and continued.

She opened a door on her right and was meet by a bright harsh light. She closed her eyes for a moment and looked again. The room in front of her wasn´t very bright but in contrast to the rest it was like night and day. The room had five sets of what, Rainbow Dash assumed was, antique armor, each and every one of them stood on their own pedestal and had their own unique marks on their breastplates.

Above her hung what at first looked like a dove but Rainbow Dash soon realized that it was seagull. It hung from thin steel rods. Rainbow Dash decided not to meddle in here and walked quickly forward.

She found a door marked “Study”. Rainbow Dash opened it and saw an armchair turned to face the tall window at the end of the room. In the silhouette formed by the soft light Rainbow Dash could see a head resting on the back of it and collection of black wires leading from it to the wall. Tousled icy blue hair fell over the edge of the chairs back.
Rainbow Dash drew her gun and walked around to face whoever was sitting in that chair.

A pair of bulging, dry eyes where popping out of the plastic skull with visible joints of an artificial jaw showing between the cracks on the cheeks. Despite the doll like face it still managed to form an expression that looked like a smile. Must have been an old painting. “Osborn. I found her.”

“Where?”

“The study on the left wing.”

“Stay there I´m coming.”

Rainbow Dash looked over the body once more. She was only covered with an open robe and her chest was clearly exposed. The plastic skin was white as snow and Rainbow Dash could see clear joints between the fingers and wrists.

Osborn walked through the open door. “Well?”

“I think she´s dead.” Rainbow Dash stepped aside to let Osborn see. When he laid his eyes on her he frowned and kicked the chair over. The body fell out like puppet and the plastic clicked as the joints slammed together. The wires all lead to neck of the body. “What are you doing?”

“Quit playing dumb with me, Trixie.” He ignored Rainbow Dash and looked down at the body.

The joints around the mouth and lips started moving up and down. An electric voice produced a cackling laughter. Eventually the cheeks separated and more bits started falling of revealing more of copper wire and hinges underneath.

“Disturbing isn´t it?” She forced the joints on her face together with her hands. The plastic and metal clicked when they met. “How the Great and Powerful Trixie in a body made of more rubber and metal can still be so full of life?” She rose to her feet. The robe hung on her elbows and her upper body was fully exposed. Her breasts were two cold, white, round domes on her ribcage with pink, latex nipples on the peaks.

“I´ve seen corpses that look warmer than you.” Osborn said.

“You doubt that a creature like me is actually alive or not.” She took a step forward. Her toes clacked as they hit the marble floor. “And that means that you are unsure.” She pulled the robe to her shoulders but her chest was still exposed. “When something looks almost human it becomes unsettling, because you be can´t be certain of what it is. And that uncertainty is truly unnerving.”

“Cut the bullshit, Trixie.” Rainbow Dash butted in. “You´re under arrest for hacking into a government facility.”

Osborn´s head turned to her so suddenly that she was stunned by it. He stared at her. “Do you enjoy interrupting, the Great and Powerful Trixie?”

“What?”

“You heard your partner.” Trixie was suddenly right next to Rainbow Dash. Her synthetic face were mere inches away from her own.

She jumped and managed to push Osborn. Limbless he hit the floor and his head popped of the neck like a cork on a bottle. The head rolled slowly around Rainbow Dash.

“I think you killed him.” Somehow the latex lips formed the same smirk as Trixie in the painting.

Rainbow Dash felt her heart beating, both with terror and anger. She grabbed Trixie by the wrist of her right arm and turned her around. She was about to take the other arm when the head twisted around the neck to face her. The dry eyes narrowed.

“You don´t really think that´s going to work?” Trixie´s wrist twisted on the joint and grabbed Rainbow Dashes arm with an iron grip. She could feel the bones giving in and breaking.

“Fuck you!” Rainbow Dash ignored the pain, took a firm hold of the woman´s shoulder and slammed her forehead into Trixie´s nose.

Bits of broken, pale plastic skin fell of and milk white fluids leaked in fingers from the mark Rainbow Dash made on Trixie´s face. The corners of her mouth went up and formed an unsettling smile.

Rainbow Dash could feel the hand on her arm squeezing harder and something slammed into her chest, pushing her backwards into the glass window behind her. Her spine took most of the impact and Rainbow Dash felt a wave of pain spreading from her back to the point of her fingertips.

But only in one hand.

Her left hand was hanging on by a lose fitting sack of skin. A warm pain ached and pulsed from the place Trixie had squeezed. She squinted when she saw the skin turning into a dark blue shade.

“Hurts, doesn´t it?” Trixie asked.

The words rang in the room but Rainbow Dash quickly blocked them out. She reached behind her back, took her gun out of its holster and aimed for Trixie´s head but when she was about to pull the trigger her finger stopped.

Trixie shock her head. “No, no, no.”

Suddenly her limbs felt heavy and weak. Her legs gave up underneath her and the floor came rushing towards her. Her cheek hit the floor first and a jolting pain ran through her body. Osborn´s head was facing her. He glared at her with red, thin eyes. Breathing quickly became a heavy exercise and every muscle on her bones felt like it had been turned to lead. She tried to rise but nothing in her body moved. Only her eyes still did what they were told. I won´t scream or beg. She told her herself as Trixie looked down on her.

“Oh you will.” Trixie said with a cold tone.

A white light flashed before her eyes. She was standing again. In the same room with Trixie in the armchair in front of her. A warm hand was on her shoulder and there was something pushed into the sockets on her neck.

“You okay?” Osborn´s voice came from behind her.

“What happened?” Rainbow Dash felt something being pulled from her neck. She looked at her left hand before she turned to make sure that he was there.

“She hacked your brain and tried to trap you inside her digital dungeon.”

“Why were you not affected?” Trixie had hint of surprise in her tone.

“I guess it´s true what they say.” Osborn walked past Rainbow Dash. “No one is easier to trick than a trickster.”

“What did you do?” Trixie turned her head to face Osborn.

He didn´t answer, instead he walked up behind her and pulled out the wires from her neck with one hard pull. There was a small spark coming from them has they left their sockets. Osborn put his left arm around Trixie´s neck and Rainbow Dash could see him charging the tranquilizer unit in his right hand. “Even idiots like you should know this;” He lifted her up and brushed her hair away to reveal the sockets. “You can´t hack an organic brain.” He released the charge into her sockets. Trixie gasped in pain before sinking back into the chair.

Rainbow Dash felt her stomach revolting for a second but she managed to force it down. “How did you know?”

“I started hearing a bunch of noise on my coms.” He tapped behind his ear. “I figured someone was trying to hack into my brain and instead of turning it off, I left it on and started looking around for you. Found you standing dead still right there.”

“So you kept it on to let her think she was hacking into your brain?” Rainbow Dash coughed.

“Exactly, it’s just that no amount of digital hacking can get through my dense skull.” He tapped his forehead with a closed fist.