Rift

The car’s engine hummed and rumbled. Raindrops smattered against the windshield and blurred the road ahead of Applejack and Twilight Sparkle. Pulses of yellow light irregularly passed them by as they drove past street lights and cars driving on the opposite side of the road met them.

“Could we stop by the pet store?” Applejack asked.

“Sure.” Twilight took a few turns at intersections before she stopped outside a store called “Pet supplies”.

“I will be right back.” Applejack climbed out of the car.

“Okay.” Twilight Sparkle leaned back into the seat and looked over the report Fluttershy had send them on her tablet. A possible worm inside the network. She read while scrolling through the paragraphs of text. Don´t use the network unless it is an emergency. “Dammit, it will take at least a day before we can use the network again.” She stared up at the roof of the car and tapped her foot against the floor.

“What´s up, Twilight?” Applejack had returned carrying two packs of dog food under arm. The rain dripped down from the edge of her hat and her jacket had gotten a darker shade.

“Read this.” She showed Applejack the report and the sergeant read through it quickly.

Applejack sighed. “I see what you mean. So the investigation is on hold until they can perform a scan over the entire network or Fluttershy can find out if it is a worm?”

“Not on hold necessarily. But slowed down definitely.” Twilight started the car and drove out on the road again. “We won´t be able to use the files stored on the database but we can use the physical archive and save our current reports on separate drives.”

“Good thing I didn´t finish my security plan before this order came out.” Applejack said. “It is still on my computer back home.”

“Better keep it there for now. If that information leaks via our network, we could have another scandal on our hands.”

“Not to mention that the integrity of section twelve would come under question.”

“That´s true.” Twilight hadn´t thought of that before and she grew quiet for moment while considering the possible consequences of another public scandal.

“Anyway, what did you and Rainbow Dash find out during you little raid?” Applejack broke the short silence.

“Aside from the mafia being filled with cyborgs made of dustbins and equipped with cheap anti hack programs?” Twilight sighed. “Not much. The only thing we managed to get was that the sniper rifle may have been owned by someone who calls herself or himself ´The long death´. Which doesn’t exactly narrow it down with the hundreds of names that underground criminals give themselves.”

“´The long death´?” Applejack scratched her chin. “Got any idea who it could be?”

“It would have to be someone who knew how to set up a remote controlled sniper rifle with timed charges or at least knew someone who could do it for them and also managed to hack into our network.”

“It´s starting to sound like an organized attack.” Applejack tapped her finger and stared at the passing street lights.

“Could be…” She thought for a moment. “The engineer, the hacker and the shooter.” Twilight turned off the road they were heading down and headed towards the area Applejack lived in.

“Three phantoms and three leads.” Applejack said before Twilight stopped outside her home. She climbed out of the car. “See ya Twilight.”

“Until next time.” Twilight drove of on her own. The rain was still smattering down and shallow pools started to form alongside the sidewalk. The packs of cars where growling in front of her and grew denser by the minute. Must be a traffic jam coming up.

Twilight Sparkle planned out a new route on her cars GPS and took a hard turn to the right. She ended up on a narrow alley that headed into roads that she had never seen before. The first thing that caught her eye was a somewhat sloppy looking fast food cart manned by a chubby man with a thick beard.

Then there was an antique shop. Twilight saw a child sized prosthetic body sitting in the storefront, staring like a doll with lifeless purple eyes. It had red hair with a violet line running over her forehead. She stopped the car in first parking slot she could find and stood staring at the body outside the store. Her hair and clothes soon got heavy with rain and the skin beneath her clothes felt moist and cold.

“Are you planning on standing in the rain all night?” A short old man, who stood in the entrance to the store, asked. He had thin white hair on his spotty head and his blue eyes were surrounded by several deep wrinkles. “If come in and I´ll give you a free cup of tea. No discounts though.”

“Tea sounds lovely.” Twilight Sparkle entered the shop and was meet by warm orange light coming from old light bulbs. She felt the nostalgic smell of old books and worn furniture. All around the little store she could see things like old cassette tapes and one or two TV devices that she had only read about. Twilight found herself smiling for a brief moment.

The old man disappeared behind the counter and returned with two small cups and two sugar cubes wrapped in orange paper, both of them marked with silver branches on the china with associated spoons. He filled the two cup with tea and pulled up an old chair for Twilight to sit on.

Without being asked Twilight sat down in the chair, unwrapped the sugar and took a sip of the tea. It had a soft taste of oranges.

“Why were you staring at it?” The man asked.

“It reminded me of someone I used to know.” Twilight watched the sugar cube dissolve in her cup while steering with her spoon.

“Well it is an old prosthetic,” He said while stiring his own tea. “rather expensive to.” He added.

“I´m not planning on buying it.”

“Ah, I suppose you know about the events that surround that prosthetic?”

“No, I don´t.” Twilight stated. “What happened?”

“It´s a rather unpleasant story.” He said and took a sip of the tea while staring into his store.

Twilight studied his face. The scans from her eyes picked up even the slightest twitch or movement on his face or within his blue eyes. The data was processed within a moment. “Last night I jumped off a hotel and killed a man in what some might call cold blood. Moments after that I had to drag my subordinate from the same hotel while blood dripped from a wound his stomach. So unpleasant doesn’t scare me.”

The man starred at her with wide open eyes. For a moment he frowned and Twilight thought he was going to kick her out. Instead he took a slow sip of tea. “So that was you I heard about on the news.” He put the cup down and stared into the tea as he carefully stirred. “Very well, I will tell you the story.” With a grunt he rose from the chair and picked up a bottle of vodka from behind the counter and poured it into his tea. He offered her the bottle.

It wouldn´t matter if Twilight took vodka in her tea or not. Her augmentations would be able to break down the alcohol, stopping her from becoming drunk.

“Sure.” Twilight said and filled her cup to the edge.

He took a chug of the tea this time. “When she was seven years old she was in car accident that claimed the life of both her parents, sent her best friend into a coma and paralyzed everything in her body besides her right arm. And this was before they could fix a destroyed spine. She was alone in the world with only her friend sleeping next to her.” He took another sip. “For weeks she begged her friend to wake up. And for a long time that´s what she did. Until she remembered reading somewhere that when people go into comas they can still hear and she started reading books aloud to her. The doctors told her that it wouldn´t matter and that she was wasting time and effort but what was she going to do?

“For months she kept reading and hoping.” He took another sip from the tea.

Twilight did the same. The tea had a much harsher and bitter taste now bit still retained a bit of the taste of sweet oranges.

“And then something did happen. Something bad. Her friends condition took a turn for the worse. From her bed she was only able to hear the doctors shouting some words she couldn´t understand before they took her away. She asked where her friend went and they told that she had gone far away and might return some day. She didn´t buy it for a second, her friend was dead and there was nothing left for her. After that she grew quiet and didn´t speak for weeks.”

“What happened then?”

“The doctors came to her claiming that good news. They could replace her entire broken body and let her live a normal life but they also said it would be painful and require months of training before she could even walk. To their surprise she agreed right the moment they finished talking. A few months later she found herself in that body.” He pointed towards the body in the window. “Some time after that she replaced that body with an adult sized one.”

“Do you know what happened to her after that?” Twilight asked.

He just shook his head. “I don´t know what happened. I´ve tried to track her down multiple times. I figured that maybe she would want it back but after the body change she disappeared and there is not a single trace left of her that I can find.”

“What was her name?” Twilight asked.

“Moondancer.” He finished his tea.

“Then that makes two of us.” Twilight finished her tea.

“What do you mean two of us?” He looked at her befuddled.

Twilight rose from the chair. “Thanks for the tea.” She said just before exiting.