Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture

What could they be wanting? Celestia asked herself when Twilight and the others had left.

There was a knock on her door.

“Come in.” She said.

A short chubby man stepped in. He was dressed in a dark brown business suit and had a clean shaven, ragged face with a semicircle of hair around his temple. “Evening, Celestia.” He walked towards her.

“Evening, mister…”

“Oh, sorry. I´m Joel from the ministry of foreign affairs.” He held out his hand.

“Right then.” She shook his hand. “Evening, Joel. What brings you here?”

“You’re a busy woman so I´ll keep it short. We´ve come to relive you of the android that reportedly committed homicide.” He dug into the suit´s chest pocket. “Here´s the foreign minister’s approval.” He handed her a document.

Celestia unfolded it. “We?” She asked while reading it carefully.

“My companion is waiting outside our office. He is ready to open up the android and perform a thorough scan.” He answered.

“There are two problems with this request;” Celestia said when she finished reading it. “First the document doesn’t say why you want the android and secondly we have already made plans to have one of our officers dive into it later tonight.”

Joel´s brows folded slightly downwards. “This is a direct order from the parliament. You are legally complied to obey them and failing to do so is disobedience.”

“And withholding information relevant to a government official investigation is treason.” Celestia answered. “We are perfectly willing to cooperate provided you give a reason I find to be valid.”

Joel´s brows sank and he grunted. “The android was made by Cyberdine united and it´s suspected to be registered with a member of parliament.”

“I see. With the stock price for Cyberdine united dropping by the day the last thing they would need in is scandal involving one of their androids going rouge and killing a human in the processes. Or is it the parliament member who wants this swept under the rug?”

“The entire parliament want’s this taken care of without the public knowing. If this was to go public the negations with the Crystal Empire might worsen and the economy might go down as a result.”

“So your plan is to have everything in the android´s hard drive deleted and send the scrap to the junkyard?”

“Exactly.” Joel said. “So is that a valid reason for cooperation?”

Celestia thought for a moment. “I´m afraid not.” She could tell by the look Joel gave her that he was angry. “We have reason to believe that it´s linked with the sabotage on the assassination a few days ago and may hold information to find the person behind it. I am however willing to let you and your companion perform a surface deep scan of your own provided you don´t attempt any form of deletion or manipulation of the content within.”

It took Joel a moment to answer. He glared at Celestia. “If we find what we are looking for in that machine; we have the authority to take it. Regardless of your investigation.”

Now it took Celestia time to answer. He´s right. The foreign ministry would have the authority to take the machine if they had evidence to support that it would interfere with foreign affairs. Unfortunately, there was little for Celestia to put up against him now. “Very well. But I will be overseeing the whole scan with my own engineers present.” If they try to alter anything within that android, they will lose the authority over us.

“Agreed.” Joel answered.

“Let´s go then.” Celestia rose from her chair and lead Joel out of the office. Outside the doors was a man waiting. He was half a head shorter than Celestia and had short curly brown hair. His eyes were narrow and blue. He didn´t greet Celestia when he saw her. She led the two men to the E-unit.

“Chief?” Rainbow Dash appeared in the corner of Celestia´s sight.

“What is it?”

“There are two men from the foreign ministry with you now right?”

“Yes.” Celestia said. “Is there something wrong?”

“I saw the two of them on my way down to the garage. Thing is that, there’s two cars in the parking I don´t recognize with only two seats in each.”

“Got anything else to go on?”

“Yes. I also looked over the security footage and the entrance doors took another four seconds to close. Not to mention that the elevator gave of a weight reading of close to 300 kg.”

“So they´ve got a cyborg using some kind of optic camouflage. Update the major on this. I´ll play along until we get further evidence.” Celestia knew that a faulty plate reading and slow closing door wouldn´t be enough to get the ministry to admit to anything.

A few moments later she had lead them to the E-unit. Fluttershy and the engineers had removed everything from the waist down and were in the process of removing the arms as well. Thick black and grey wires spilling from the open gut. Some of the lose hanging wires were connected to the monolithic computers in the room.

“Fluttershy,” Celestia said. “They’re going scan the android but I want you to oversee the procedure to make sure that nothing gets deleted or altered within the android´s hard drive.”

Fluttershy nodded in response and plugged a wire into the back of her neck.

“It´s all yours.” Celestia said.

“Processed.” Joel said to his companion.

The man walked up to monitors next to the android´s table. His fingers folded like Fluttershy´s and jumped over the keyboard. Lines of green letters and numbers formed on the black screens.

“Chief.” Twilight´s voice said. “I just got the update from Rainbow Dash. Any orders?”

“We don´t know for certainty that there is a cyborg with them yet, until we know for certain we can´t act. But until then I want you to prepare for some kind of interference. They want the android because it might belong to a member of parliament and it might cause a scandal if the public found out what it had done.”

“Roger that.”

“Okay, I´m done with the scan.” The short man said and turned to Joel.

“And?” Joel asked.

His fingers folded back into themselves while fluttershy removed the wire from her neck. “It´s the one we´ve been looking for.”

“Well then,” Joel said with smug smile. “Looks like we´ll be taking it away.”

Celestia grunted silently to herself. She folded her arms over her chest and squeezed her left arm with her right hand. I can´t stop them. “Fine.”

“I don´t think so.” A cold, booming voice came from the android.

“What is happing?” Joel asked. “How is it able to act on its own?”

“I don´t know.” Fluttershy said. “All external control has been turned off.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“I am project AG19201914, a sentient being. And as one I demand a trial before being sentenced.”

“Why would we grant you a trail?” Joel asked. “You´re just a program on a machine.”

“The same can be said for DNA in an organism. It´s nothing but a program dictating every function in your bodies.”

“That still doesn’t prove you to be a living being!” Joel shouted.

“And what prof can you give me of your existence?” The android kept its cold flat tone. “Can you even tell me what life is?”

“Be that as it may, you´re still guilty of murder.” Celestia said. “And even if you do get a court case they´re not likely to look kindly on that.”

“Have you not killed, Celestia?” The android still lay still on the table. Not even its eyes had moved. “Even if you haven´t done it yourself you´ve ordered those beneath to do it. You´ve committed death by proxy. Don´t you want me for something similar? To find out who tried to a commit murder by means of a proxy?”

“How the hell do you know that?”

The monitors next to keyboards cracked before shattering completely, spraying shards of glass. The short man blocked the glass with his arms and Fluttershy jumped backwards as the keyboards exploded.

The lights went off and the room became pitch black in an instant.

A loud explosion echoed through the room and smoked filled the room. Celestia struggled to regain her herself and the gas caused her to chough violently. The red emergency lights turned on.

“Twilight.” She said over the coms.

“Chief?”

“We´re under attack.” She waved some of the gas away. “And the android is gone.” She said once some of the smoked cleared.

“I figured that they would do something like that. I told Rainbow Dash to mark booth of the cars and she managed to get a tracker on the car she saw the android get put into.”

“What else did you do?”

“Me and Osborn have gathered the equipment and prepared the helicopter for takeoff.” Twilight answered. “With your approval we´ll head after the android and figure out who´s behind this.”

“I´m gonna report this, Celestia.” Joel growled.

“This wasn´t caused by anyone in section twelve. It must be a terrorist attack.” She frowned back at him.

“Make sure to get that android back. Preferably in scraps and without anything on the hard drive.” He turned and walked away with his companion.

“Chief?” Twilight asked.

“What about Applejack?”

“She´s following the escape vehicle in her own car.”

“Follow the vehicle at a distance. I´m gonna set up road blocks. Your objective is to bring back the android intact. Do not fire unless fired upon and do not attempt arrest until they have reached a road block.”

“Roger that.”