Chapters Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
“This really bad.” Celestia sighed with a tired tone. Her otherwise sparkling hair was tousled and messy. She was sitting behind her desk, looking over the team. Everyone was there, except Osborn, who was still hospitalized.
“We managed to complete the mission, didn´t we?” Rainbow Dash said.
“Not in the way we were suppose to.” Celestia pulled up a hologram screen and showed them a news article with the headline; “Government assassination performed in a public hotel.”
“The public was not supposed to now about this.” Twilight Sparkle told Rainbow Dash. “The reason this mission was classified and performed the way it was, was because it was meant to look like a mafia hit.”
“But this wasn´t our fault.” Applejack butted in. “It was someone else who shoot Osborn and forced us to perform an extraction.”
“I know.” Celestia said. “And I am not putting the blame on any of you. The problem is that we are facing a public outcry towards the assassination and we need to find out who sabotaged our mission and why.” She nodded towards Twilight Sparkle.
Twilight Sparkle rose out the couch and showed them a holographic image of a bullet. “This is the bullet that the medics dug out of Osborn´s wound.” The base of the copper colored metal was marked by narrow ridges that curved around until it reached the end.
“Doesn’t look like any normal sniper bullet I’ve ever seen.” Applejack said.
“That´s because it isn´t.” Rainbow Dash rose to take a closer look. “It´s a digging bullet. The are used to ensure that the target dies.”
“How?” Applejack asked.
“The base starts turning when it enters that target and tears the organs apart.” Rainbow Dash paused and turned to Twilight. “If you hadn´t given Osborn the nano bots, he would have been dead before he reached the hospital.”
“How come this bullets don´t exist in our catalog?” Fluttershy spoke for the first time. She had been mostly sitting quite on the couch with her white little bunny in her lap and her face was partially concealed by multiple strands of her pink hair.
“They have been outlawed sense the third world war.” Rainbow Dash said. “They were considered to be to brutal and were quickly banned. The official production of them stopped about fifteen years ago, but they are still being made by black market producers.”
“And Osborn has more then his fair share of connections in the black market.” Celestia rubbed her fingers against her chin. “Damn shame he was the one to get shoot. What about the rifle?”
“It was remotely controlled.” Rainbow Dash said. “But the actual receptor was destroyed by a timed charge attached to it. Other than there was nothing special about it, a common rifle with a lot of home made attachments and modifications. Which makes it hard to track down were it came from and who it belongs to.” She smirked. “But far from impossible.”
“Get to work on tracking down were that rifle came from.” Celestia ordered. “How long until Osborn gets discharged from the hospital?”
“About three days.” Fluttershy said. “He is still recovering from the wound but should be able to perform as soon has he leaves.”
“Good.” Twilight noticed the corner of Celestia´s mouth go up for brief moment. “Until then we have another mission to prepare for.” Celestia send the description of the assignment to a hologram that hovered over the coffee table in front of them.
Rainbow Dash and Applejack read it thoroughly while Fluttershy stayed hidden behind her hologram. Twilight Sparkle merely glanced over it. She had already read it the day before and memorized the entire thing. They were going to plan and watch over the security for the prime minister’s public appearance in five days.
“How many journalists are we expecting?” Applejack asked.
“About thirty.” Celestia responded. “At least those that are registered. There may be a few who manage to squeeze themselves in at the last minute to get some snapshots or ask something they want to know.”
“Especially with the latest scandal.” Rainbow Dash scrolled through the report.
“It is not just that.” Celestia commented. “The latest development with the Crystal Empire has lead to loss of jobs in transport and hardware production of androids. The assassination we performed was meant to help the negotiations that we are currently in.”
“Why was he so important?” Twilight Sparkle asked bluntly. She had just assumed that he some kind of political enemy of Equestria.
“The target was wanted for multiple cybercrimes in the Crystal empire and fled to Equestria to avoid charges. He managed to stay under the radar by performing hack jobs for the mafia. It wasn´t until he started working for some of the larger gangs that he popped up again and the Americans wanted him removed without the public knowing that it was a political job.”
Well, I was almost right. Twilight said to herself. “So now the prime minister faces not only the scandal of having blood on his hands but he is also going to have to explain to the Crystal Empire why the mission failed.”
“Exactly.” Celestia said. “Fluttershy,” She turned to towards the timid woman. “I want you too see if there were any hacks performed in to our data base and if so try to track them down.” Celestia ordered and Fluttershy nodded. “Applejack, start planning the security plan for the prime minister. Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle, I want the two of you to track down the sniper rifle. Any questions?”
None of them said anything.
“Good. You are all dismissed.”
Twilight Sparkle pulled the plugs out of her sockets and found herself back in her car with Rainbow Dash in the driver seat. They were parked close to the center of Manehattan and the sun had set recently, making the world look darker than normal. “Got any ideas of where to start?”
“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash turned on the car and drove out on the road. “This may be a dumb question,” She asked when they were about to head on the central highway running through the city. “But why don´t we just ask Osborn for his contacts and talk to them ourselves?”
“Because they don´t know us and don´t trust us.” Twilight Sparkle responded. “I know you are new to section twelve so I´ll fill you in; Osborn has been working alongside some of the underground smugglers and black market dealers for years to give us an eye into the illegal market. Hence they now him personally and are often to careful to talk to anyone but him.”
“Got it.” Rainbow Dash turned of the highway and steered into a crowded area where blinking sings hung over them and merchants showed their goods.
“You don´t seem surprised.” Twilight commented.
“I was told by Celestia when I started at this job that we wouldn´t always be playing by the rules.” Rainbow Dash turned a corner around a massive skyscraper that cut into the blue sky like a grey, disfigured sword. The road ahead of them was narrow and dimly lit. Aside from the torchlights from the car and a few blinking street lights there were no sources of light in the street.
“We´re here.” Rainbow Dash stopped the car and turned of the humming engine.
“Who are we meeting?” Twilight Sparkle asked when she stepped out of the car. There were no clear sings or marks on the buildings, which would usually indicate that there was a secret meeting place. The kind of place were the mafia doesn´t like unexpected visitors. Twilight Sparkle thought. Let alone cops.
Rainbow Dash dug around the backseat and pulled out a machine gun, modified with a small CPU on the side of it.
“What are you planning to do with that?”
“You know how you said that Osborn´s contacts would rather not talk to us at all?” She plugged a wire from the CPU into socket on her neck. “Well, these guys will probably shoot at first sight and make sure your body is never found.” She gave shrug. “Might just rip a few of your augments out first and sell them on the black market.”
“Are you expecting or anticipating?” Twilight Sparkle loaded her own gun. It was a considerably smaller handgun and only held fifteen bullets but it was still stronger than most revolvers and could penetrate medium body armor at close range.
“Expecting.” Rainbow Dash checked the magazine. “I never knew these gang to particularly friendly with cops. And with armed cyborgs might they’re almost guaranteed to open fire.”
“Roger.” Twilight checked her own magazine and disabled the safety. “Lead the way.”
Rainbow Dash removed the safety on her MG hid it beneath her jacket. She showed Twilight Sparkle to an orange rusted old door, marked with red sparrow painted in spray color. Rainbow Dash knocked three times, paused and knocked another two.
There was no answer.
Rainbow Dash shared a quick glance with Twilight Sparkle. “They tend to be quicker than this.” She said the moment before a narrow window opened on the door. A pair of eyes looked at them. The right was red, the left one was green and both of them looked like moist pieces of glass.
“What do you want?” The eyes asked with raspy tone.
“We´re here to talk to Gilda.” Rainbow Dash responded.
The mismatched eyes jumped between the two. “Wait here.” The window closed.
Rainbow Dash pressed herself against the wall the moment the eyes disappeared and Twilight Sparkle followed.
“Are they gonna start shooting?” Twilight Sparkle asked with her gun held drawn against her hip.
“Yeah.” Rainbow Dash unveiled her rifle and lifted the barrel to her cheek.
Twilight Sparkle glanced up the building and saw a path she could climb up. “What floor are they on?”
“The third.”
“I`ll climb up and flank them from behind. Can you take the rest of them?”
“No problem.”
“See you on the other side then.” Twilight holstered her gun and made one jump that took her to the second floor by landing on flagpole. Underneath her she could see Rainbow Dash kicking down the door and starting too shoot. The muzzle flashed with blue fire in sync with shallow barks. She made another jump to the third floor. She took hold of one of the pipes climbing along the wall and jumped through the window by smashing it with her boots. In the sparkling rain of broken glass Twilight Sparkle made out the shape of three individuals. With no way of knowing which one of them were Gilda, Twilight drew her gun but aimed for their feet and legs.
The first two shoots tore through their targets legs, spreading steaming blood and crude metal on the wall behind them and sending the two men they belonged to the floor. The third shoot missed and the white blond woman Twilight Sparkle aimed for drew her own gun. Twilight could see the sights lining up.
The bullet raced past her head and hit the wall behind her. The woman looked baffled, making it easy for Twilight Sparkle too shoot in the leg this time. She hit the floor wincing and clutching a leaking hole in her leg.
“Did you hack my vision?” She asked, wincing.
Before Twilight Sparkle could answer Rainbow Dash came in through the door.
“Is she Gilda?” Twilight Sparkle nodded towards the woman.
“Yeah.” Rainbow Dash shoot one of the men as he tried to lift his revolver.
The second one tried the same but Twilight Shoot him in the head before the barrel had even left the holster.
“We wanna talk.” Twilight Sparkle holstered her gun squatted down next to the woman.
“What do you want to know?” Gilda grunted
Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
Time to get to work . Fluttershy thought after plugging herself out of the meeting with the rest of section twelve. She gave Angel a stroke with her palm, bending his soft ears over the back of his head. Once her hands passed over them his ears jumped back to pointing up at the roof.
She took a bag of blueberry tea, put it in her white mug and poured steaming water into it. The clear liquid took on a dark blue shade as it filled the deep mug. Fluttershy taking a quick sniff of the rising steam, the warm moist air carried the sweet scent of wild blueberries before it gave her a small prick in the back of her throat. With a small smile on her lips she let a stream of creamy milk into the mug. The milk looked like a cloud of thick white smoke before it spread out over the rest of the tee.
Steam rose from the mug like soft, transparent, dancing pieces of silk. Fluttershy put a plastic spoon into the mug and stirred around before blowing the steam away and taking a sip. She held the liquid in her mouth and let the warmth spread before she swallowed. After taking another sniff of the soft steam she put the mug down on her desktop. In front of her sat the black monitor with a glowing keyboard beneath it.
Fluttershy pressed down three of the keys and said; “Entropy.”
The monitor started with a thin white line in the center that quickly grew to fill the entire screen. A black window with one blinking white square opened. Fluttershy´s fingers folded outwards with thin mechanical joints, effectively tripling her fingertips. They dashed over the keyboard and within a moment the window was filled with numbers and letters arranged in short paragraphs. She pressed the “enter” key, her fingers folded back together and she took another sip of the tea while waiting for the program to load.
She found herself nibbling on the tip of her thump. “I hope there is nothing here.” She though out loud while giving Angel another stroke. The little bunny was chewing on piece of salad in between scratching the back of his ears with his back paws.
“Scan complete.” The monitor announced with a dull voice.
Fluttershy clicked through a few menus to reach to the data. She scrolled through over fifty thousand lines of data in a few minutes. The data unsettled her. “There is something here.” She took a wire from her chair and plugged it into the socket on her neck. Through the wire she went into the network.
Numbers and letters floated and hovered around her in here. They traveled in pathways and lines. Over and under each other, crisscrossing and intersecting in different clusters of rushing lines. Fluttershy floated amidst it all and traveled quickly to the suspected intersect. The lines traveled into and out of the sphere through controlled, artificial openings. Fluttershy put her hand on to it and read through the lines. At the moment there was nothing out of protocol so she read through the history and cross referenced it leading up to and surrounding the assassination.
“Mission started… ” She said in her head. “Strike performed… Mission compromised… ” She found nothing on the events surrounding the mission. Acting almost on instinct she switched to the history and tried to find any sings of hacking.
We received the order three weeks ago so the hack must have been performed sometime after that. Numerous lines flashed before her eyes has she entered the activity history, everything from exact time the order came in to every conversation they had surrounding the mission. It didn´t matter whether they were meeting on the net or at the office, everything was there. Some sixty thousand lines of code and lines hovered before her eyes. She scanned and searched them, looking for any changes or entrances that didn´t match up with the logs she had on file.
“Got it. ” Fluttershy found an entrance performed two weeks and three days ago. There was no entrance in the log matching the date or time of day that it was performed. She swept away the other data away and to get a closer look at it.
It consisted of six letters and four numbers. All of them shifted and changed. Fluttershy activated the firewall and locked the anomaly down. She sent it to her station´s external hard drive. Before she exited the network she took one more glance over the sphere once more but found no other anomalies.
When she came back Angel had leapt of her lap and was sitting in his basket next to her chair. Fluttershy took the cords out of her neck before taking the external hard drive out of the monitor. She took a sip of the tea; it had turned lukewarm but it didn´t bother her. She petted Angel and plugged the hard drive into a holographic pad. The anomaly appeared hovering above the pad. It had the same number of changing letters and numbers.
“Celestia. ” Fluttershy called the chief.
“Yes? ” Celestias face appeared in the corner of her vision. Her sparkling hair was in much better condition in the picture.
“I can confirm that we had a hack being performed into our network about four days after we received the order. ”
“Can you identify the source? ” Celestia asked. Her face was stiff and only her lips moved has she spoke, but Fluttershy could tell by the tone of her voice that she was hopeful.
“Not currently. ” Fluttershy was surprised how easy the words came out of her. “It appears to be a shifting anomaly that performed the hack.”
“Is it a worm? ” Celestias tone was heavier now.
“I can´t rule that out at this stage. ” The words were harder to say this time.
“Okay. ” Celestia said. “Since you aren´t certain I´m going to have to request a search of our network. In the mean time I would like you avoid going into the network for risk of having your cyber brain infected. ”
“Alright. ”
“I will send the same request to the rest of section twelve. ”
“Affirmative. ” The picture of Celestia closed down.
“Now what is this?” Fluttershy asked herself while staring at the shifting line. With some gestures she turned the line around and looked at from different angels. She stared at it somewhat unsure of what to make of it or what to do about it.
Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
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.
Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
The elevator made a soft humming sound has it traveled swiftly upwards. Looking out the window Twilight could see the giant city brightened by the warm sun. Massive skyscrapers covered the ground with cars moving on the streets between.
As the elevator ascended everything got smaller. Soon Twilight couldn´t see any of the people and the cars looked like small bars. She turned and stared at the floor counter. It was a digital counter with green text.
“Just teen floors left…” Twilight leaned against the railing behind her and looked up the roof. If her body was organic, her heart would be jumping and a cold sweet would be running down her skin. But her artificial heart kept a steady rhythm and skin remained dry. “Hopefully there will be some good news from the others.”
The elevator stopped. The doors parted and twilight walked down the hallway before she got to Celestia´s office. When she entered the rest of section twelve aside from Osborn was inside. Rainbow Dash and Applejack were sharing a couch and both drank steaming coffee from white plastic mugs. Fluttershy was sitting by herself in her usual chair and her little white bunny was sitting in her lap. Celestia was sitting behind her desk reading through the latest reports.
“Good morning, Twilight.” Celestia greeted her.
“Morning.” Twilight responded before sitting down in the cough opposite Applejack and Rainbow Dash. “What´s the latest news?” No reports had been uploaded to the network because Fluttershy was still not sure whether the hack was caused by a worm or not and what she had been sending through her own channels, she hadn´t had any time to read. She had spent the entire last day searching the archives for any hitman that had used the name ´The long death´.
“Nothing.” Celestia said. “And that´s becoming a real big problem. We only have three days before the prime minister has to make his public appearance and if we don´t have an answer for who sabotaged our mission by then we will have problems with the negotiations.”
“So what are we going to do?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Forcefully discharge Osborn from the hospital.” Celestia said.
“Can he still work when he´s wounds are only half healed?” Rainbow Dash raised her brow.
“If he had been shoot with a normal bullet he would have dug it out of his wound and meet us in the entrance to the hotel.” Twilight said. “So, yes. He will be able to work.” She said with a sarcastic tone. But if his wounds open up he could bleed to death.
Rainbow Dash stared at her major with wide eyes. “Okay… so who is going to pick him up?”
“Twilight.” Celestia answered. “You and Osborn will both look into the bullet we found in his wound.” The chief handed Twilight the bullet in a small plastic bag. “Applejack and Rainbow Dash.” She turned to the sergeants. “I want the two of you to look into the possibility of an organized group performing the sabotage and Fluttershy,” The timid woman flinched when the chief met her gaze. “I want to know if the hack was performed by a worm this afternoon. Is that clear?” She said with a hard tone.
Fluttershy nodded.
“You are all dismissed.” Celestia returned to the papers on her desk.
They gathered up in the elevator. It was designed for up six people but in comparison to the ascension it felt crowded.
“Find out anything about ´The long death´?” Applejack asked.
“A few things. For one there wasn´t hundreds of them, according to our archives there has only been sixteen criminals who have gone by that name. Thing is that Dr. Caballeron, who was the last to one to use it, was executed over ten years ago and the name hasn´t ever come up in any investigation since.”
“Umm…” Fluttershy butted in. “Isn´t it possible that there are assassins out there who go by that name but have stayed underground.”
“It is certainly possible.” Twilight leaned against the railing.
“So the ´The long death´ is probably a dead end in that case.” Applejack said. “Whoever got those modifications for the sniper rifle must have used it knowingly to throw us of our scent and make us believe that there were three of them.”
“And” Rainbow Dash added. “they were good enough to hack into our network and stay undetected for weeks if not longer.”
“I think we are dealing with some rather skilled and dangerous individuals here.” Twilight watched over them. “All of you; Be careful.”
“Roger that major.” Applejack said while making a small tip with her hat.
“Affirmative.” Fluttershy pushed a string of her pink away from her eyes and meet Twilight’s gaze.
“Copy that.” Rainbow Dash said.
They went their separate ways a few moments after that. Twilight got in her car alone and drove straight for the hospital Osborn was in. Within an hour she was there.
“What can I help you with?” The receptionist asked her when she entered.
“I´ve come to discharge Osborn.” She showed the receptionist her badge.
“I see.” His tone was somewhat bitter. He pressed a few keys on the keyboard in front of him. “He will be with you momentarily.”
Twilight sat down in the lobby and waited for about half a minute before Osborn showed up. He was wearing a red t-shirt with a brown leather jacket over it. His heavy boots made loud echoing thuds in the otherwise quite lobby.
“Hey, Twilight.” He waved his hand when he saw her. “Come to set me free from this prison?”
Twilight gave of a small chuckle. “Not exactly. We need to talk to some of your contacts.”
“Now?”
“Now. Follow me to the car and I will tell you the details.”
“Alright.”
They walked out of the hospital. While Osborn did his best to hide it Twilight managed to pick up small sings in his way of walking that he was limping and heard small grunts over his breaths.
“Wouldn´t happened to be about the assassination, would it?” He asked when they had climbed into the car.
“How did you figure that?”
“Well, they weren’t giving me enough painkillers to make I think my bed was made of water, I spend most of my time watching the news and trying to piece what you were doing. Didn´t result in much but since you came to discharge me early I figured that you still don´t know who shot me or why and time is starting to press.”
“You´re right.” Twilight reached inside her pocket and gave Osborn the bullet. “It´s the bullet they pulled out of your wound. Know of anyone who might have made it?” She handed him his badge and gun.
Osborn put the badge in his pocket, holstered the gun and studied the bullet for a moment before answering. “I think so.”
“Not what I want to hear now, Osborn.”
“You can never guarantee anything, Twilight.” Osborn put the bullet in his jacket. “But I know of a factory where they specialize in making illegal bullets. The problem is that I´ve never been there myself, so they might not want to talk to me at all.”
“Fine.” It’s at least something . Twilight started the car. “Where to?”
Osborn marked a place on the cars GPS and Twilight started driving there. On their way there, Twilight filled Osborn in on what had happened during the time he was in the hospital.
“So you suspect that more than one person is responsible for the sabotage?” Osborn asked when she finished.
“Well who can hack into a government database, build a remote controlled sniper rifle shoot it with enough precision to hit me through an ascending elevator if not an organized group?” Osborn looked out the window as Twilight drove towards the edge of the city. He rubbed his chin and the stub covering his jaw produced a grating sound.
Following the GPS, Twilight turned off the main road and headed out of the city.
Within a few minutes the giant, metallic skyscrapers got replaced with significantly shorter, green trees. Twilight threw a glance into the rearview mirror and could see some of the higher buildings at the lower edge of the mirror. “Is the place far off?” She asked Osborn.
“It will probably take another ten minutes before we get there.”
“I´m guessing these black market manufacturers don´t like the thought of being close to a police force.”
“Half right.” Osborn said when Twilight turned off the freeway, onto a smaller road. “They’re also afraid of other mobsters. When you produce a unique product like outlawed bullets you become far more attractive to the crime bosses.”
“Oh, yeah. If you want to survive in the mafia, it´s better to stay under the radar and don´t be remarkable.”
“Exactly.”
A few minutes later Osborn asked Twilight to stop the car on a place where the road broadened somewhat. “The factory probably has a fence around it so I´ll go first and let them know I am here. If they let me in just sneak in behind me.”
I could probably jump over the fence. Twilight was about to say when she considered that the impact would produce a lot of noise. “Alright. Let´s just hope they don´t mind talking to a cop.” She turned on her thermoptic camouflage.
“I´ve never meet a criminal who does.” Osborn took his gun out of the holster and checked the magazine.
Osborn raised his arms with his badge in one hand as he walked towards the gate. “I´m an officer of section twelve.” He said. “I´m only hear to ask some questions.”
A security guard walked out of the factory holding an assault rifle. She could see a wire leading from the rifle to the back of his head and that he had metallic arms. The guard walked up to the gate, the rifle pointing squarely at Osborn´s head.
“What´s the password?” He asked.
“Radiance.” Osborn answered.
The guard adjusted his sight and shifted the stock against his shoulder, but kept the aiming for Osborn.
Osborn kept his gaze locked at the guard. Twilight could hear Osborn´s heart beating faster. A few slow, stiff breaths escaped through his nostrils.
The guard lowered his rifle. “You can come in.” He said and the gate opened. As Osborn passed the fence line the guard stopped him. “Drop your weapon.”
Osborn did as he was told and dropped the gun on the ground.
“Put these on.” The guard took a pair of handcuffs out of his belt and threw them at Osborn´s feet.
Without objecting, Osborn picked the cuffs up and attached them to his wrists.
“Move along now.” The guard placed himself behind Osborn and pushed him with the rifle.
“I´m not getting any signal out here. ” Twilight noted as they walked across the field. “We can´t call for backup if something happens. ”
“We´re on our own then, huh? Just like old times. ” Osborn was pushed by the guard through a sliding door and Twilight only just managed to make it through before it closed. “Major? ”
“I´m still here. ”
“Get going.” The guard pushed Osborn with his rifle.
Twilight followed closely behind them. The guard stopped Osborn on a square of the floor.
“Why did you stop?” Osborn asked.
“Stay there.” The guard walked over to the wall and opened a panel. He pressed a few buttons before inserting a cord into his neck. A moment later he removed the wire, closed the panel and walked back to Osborn. The plate they stood on made a small jump before it descended into the ground. It kept going for a moment before it slowed down and stopped completely. The wall in front of Osborn parted and a pillar of dim light entered. Once the doors parted she saw five people sitting in front of desks with bright lamps aimed towards the collections of copper shelfs and metallic bullets they were putting together with black gunpowder.
“Is he the cop?” One of the workers asked. He was similar in height to Osborn but was noticeably thinner and his complexion looked pale in comparison to Osborn´s dark skin. He also had narrow green eyes and black hair that reached down to his shoulders.
“Yes.” The guard answered.
The worker turned to Osborn. He inhaled and rubbed his nose. “What exactly do you want?”
“I want to ask some questions about a bullet I think you sold or made. Once you answer what I want know I´ll be out of your hair.”
“Did he come here alone?” He turned back to the guard.
“Yes.”
The worker stared silently at Osborn. His green eyes sharpened and he rubbed his nose once more. “Do you have the bullet?”
Osborn reached into his jacket and held out the bullet. “Recognize it?”
“I do.” He picked the bullet out of Osborn hand. “Know what it is?”
“A drill bullet.” Osborn answered.
“Correct. Designed to not make it clean through the target, instead stopping halfway through and cause the target to bleed to death or tear the inner organs apart. It proved quite effective when stronger body armor was starting to become deployed during the last war, but it quickly became outlawed because it was considered inhuman.” The worker turned and led Osborn to his working desk. He turned on his lamp and put the bullet under a magnifying glass.
“Did you make it?” Osborn asked after a moment.
“I don´t know.” He turned to Osborn with a coy smirk on his thin lips.
“What do you want?” Osborn frowned.
“A favor.” He replied.
“What kind of favor?”
“I don´t know.” He shrugged and started playing with a shelf he picked up from the desk. “I want to savor it.” He began to spin the shelf around with his fingers.
“Because I am a cop?”
“Not just any cop.” He put the shelf down and leaned forward. “But a member of section Twelve, a government employed police unit. A normal cop I would have just dismissed or settled for money. But I know what section twelve can do and having one of their officers in my debt could come in handy.”
“Major? ”
“I don´t like it, but we have don´t have any other leads and we can´t let the trail run dry. ”
Osborn sighed. “You´re a sly businessman and I think I´m starting to hate your guts, but you´ve got yourself a deal.” Osborn held out his hand.
“Excellent.” He shook it. “When I want that favor called back I´ll contact you on this.” He handed Osborn a small device.
“Will you answer my questions now?”
“Yes.”
Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
Twilight sat alone in the car. She was waiting for Osborn outside the pharmacy, he was in to pick up painkillers and antibiotics for his wound.
“Major? ” Applejacks picture appeared in her sight.
“What it is, Applejack? ”
“The hack turned out to be a worm and it´s been sending data to an unknown channel for the past three days. ”
“What? To who? ”
“We don´t know yet. Both Rainbow Dash an d I got attacked while you were out with Osborn and if they could find us they are probably coming after you to next. ”
“Copy. ” Twilight closed down the link and opened a new. “Osborn, we might be in a fire fight. Get back to the car and drive back to the station. ” She climbed over to the passenger seat.
“Copy that, Major. ”
Twilight drew her gun, made a quick check of the magazine and removed the safety. The crowd partially blocked her sight and she could only see a part of the people walking along the road. Her eyes darted back and forth, every face that came within her sight was scanned. Hurry it up, Osborn. She leaned back to get a better overview and placed the gun in her lap. No one that she scanned was a registered criminal. In the rear view mirror she could see Osborn. He was walking briskly towards the car with both his arms in his pockets and a white plastic bag hanging from his left wrist.
“Slow down, Osborn. ” She said over the com. “Don´t draw attention to yourself. ”
Without answering, Osborn went down on one knee and pretended to tie his shoelaces. “See anything? ” He rose and started walking again, now with a slower pace.
“Nothing yet, you? ”
“No… ” He stopped.
“Osborn? ”
“You´re in the car, right? ”
“Yes. ” Twilight turned her sight towards Osborn and saw him staring at something blocked by the crowd. He blinked a few times and walked towards the car, but this time he almost ran.
“Osborn,” Twilight said when Osborn climbed into the car. “what are you doing?”
“We need to get back to the station now.” He started the car.
“What did you see?” Twilight shifted her gaze around.
“You.” The car started and Osborn nodded towards a woman with neck long violet hair and purple eyes. She was dressed and in an open black jacket and grey pants with only thin white shirt covering her torso. Even from a distance the similarities were downright uncanny. “Or that.” He put the car in reverse and pressed the down the pedal.
Only one word could escape Twilight´s lips. “What?”
The woman darted towards them. The speed of her movements where faster than anything humanly possible. “It´s a cyborg.” Twilight quickly concluded as Osborn turned the car rear first down an alley.
“I figured that. Why does it look like you??” He shifted the gear and steered the car back on the road again with the engine roaring and the tires screeching.
The roof on the car was bend inwards. A human fist broke through and reached down. It grabbed Osborn by the shoulder.
“Gaaahhh!” Osborn screamed has the fingers dug into his shoulder.
Twilight took the arm by the wrist and fired of the shoots into the arm. A mixture of red and white fluids splashed over Osborn´s head and two grid covered wire fell out of the wound.
The fingers lost their grip on Osborn´s shoulder and he stepped on the brake. The force of the abrupt stop flung the cyborg of the roof. The arm got trapped by one of the jagged edges from the busted roof and completely tore it off. The dismembered limb dropped onto Osborn´s lap.
The cyborg leaped forward and landed on the hood of the car. The woman and Twilight shared a glance. Twilight could see herself in the car reflecting in the cyborg´s dull, stiff eyes. Twilight had an expression of shock on her face that she had never seen before.
A clenched fist rammed through the windshield, both Twilight and Osborn were showered with a splash of broken glass. The knuckles were racing towards her face.
With one movement Twilight ducked out of the path of the incoming ram and took a firm hold of the wrist. Twilight raised her gun to shoot, but the bone of the dismembered arm pushed into her arm like a disfigured spear. The metallic bone cut through the fibers of her skin and pressed beneath the skin on the other end.
The woman launched forward yet again with her legs and Twilight could feel the arm she was holding slowly pushing towards her neck. She twisted her around the wrist and pointed to towards the cyborg´s temple.
A white light flashed from the muzzle and the woman´s right temple exploded in a mixture of grey metal, white plastic and red blood. The cyber brain was exposed in a narrow crack in the metallic skull.
Her head was thrown back for before she stopped moving, but kept her cold lifeless stare fixed into Twilight´s eyes. Streams of red, white and pink liquids ran from the opening in her skin. Twilight stared back.
Osborn grabbed the cyborg by the hair on the back of her head and pressed a tranquilizer unit into the sockets neck. The moment he fired it the woman´s gaze fell and every one of her limps lost their strength as she fell into Twilight´s lap. “You okay?” He remarked on the wound on her arm.
Twilight stared at the woman. Her hair was tousled and wet with fragments of plastic skin spread over it.
“Hey.” Osborn gave her cheek a light slap when she didn´t respond. “You felling alright?”
She pressed out a breath. “I´m fine. You?” She nodded towards his shoulder.
He pressed the body out on the hood and sat back in his seat. He grunted and squeezed his shoulder. “Just a little stiff.” A few ragged breaths rushed over his lips. “What the hell is this?”
Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
The medical section always smells strangely sterile. Osborn thought. “How´s it going back there, Aloe?” Osborn asked as the medic was massaging a gel into the back of his shoulder.
“Won´t go any faster if you keep interrupting me.” She responded with an irritated tone.
“Sorry.” Osborn took a slow breath and kept still.
The doors to Aloes office opened and Applejack stepped in. She wore an orange jacket with a white shirt visible beneath it and a pair of blue jeans.
“Hey, Applejack.” Osborn tapped two of his fingers against the side of his temple.
“Hey , Osborn.” She tipped the edge of her hat at him. “You okay?”
“Well I didn´t end up with bullet in my stomach this time.” He shrugged. “So you know, there´s that. Know who tried to kill me and the major?”
“Not a clue who she was. Or if it was even a woman to begin with.”
“What do you mean?”
“The body was originally an android, but instead of a central CPU in the head someone decided to put in a braincase along with a human brain.” Applejack dug into her pocket and Osborn felt a shill spread through his skin. “Now here´s the strange thing; there were no memories on that brain that weren´t completely destroyed or corrupt except one.” She took an audio device out of her pocket and played. It produced a hoarse, cackling laughter that looped after three seconds.
Osborn drew a slow breath and rubbed his chin and mouth. “So you mean some poor bastard had all their memories removed and then their brain got implanted into an android body?”
“Reverse order, probably. But that´s the gist of it.”
Osborn felt the hairs in the back of his head rise. “Turned into living weapon and send out to die.” He shook his head. “That can´t have been a pleasant way to go.”
“I wouldn´t know, Osborn.” Applejack said. “But now I am frankly more concerned of what this means for us that are still alive.”
After a moment of considering Osborn knew what Applejack meant. “You think someone has it out for the Major?”
“I´m pretty certain after what attacked. You did say it was going after her?”
“She or it, tried to crush my shoulder when it smashed it´s fist through the roof. But that was probably because it couldn´t see what she was grabbing at then. When the Major came into sight she went straight for her though.”
“Add to that the body was almost an exact copy of Twilight´s right down to the very length and thickness of her hair.”
“They must have gotten her specs from the planted worm.”
“Luckily they managed to exterminate it and plug every leaking channel.”
“Could have come a little sooner if you ask me.” Osborn padded his stomach.
“Fluttershy had to perform a manual search through the network in order to find it.” Applejack said. “If you hadn´t gotten shoot we might have never even suspected a hack. And something even worse could have happened.”
“Well I´m always glad to could be of use.”
Applejack gave of a chuckle. “In that case you will probably be dancing when you hear the orders the chief has for you.”
“She´s said that we won´t be provided with any additional support until we manage to produce some solid evidence. Luckily we have something to go on. The code was partially incomplete but Fluttershy managed to find the location of the hack at least; Blue Solace.”
“I´ve got some acquaintances there.”
“I know. That´s why you and Rainbow Dash are being send there to find out who hacked us. Me and Twilight are going to look into the name that you turned up.”
“Okay, when are we going?”
“Tonight. Any questions?”
Osborn looked over his shoulder. “Will you be able to finish your massage before then, Aloe?”
“Only if you sit still.”
Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
Applejack adjusted herself in the truck´s seat. Though the sky was calm and clear she could still feel the cold evening air sipping in from cracks and busted AC. The guns clicked and smacked as Twilight Sparkle loaded them in the storage behind them.
“How´s it going back there?” Applejack asked.
“Almost done.” Twilight replied while loading up a shotgun with shells .
“Did you see the report Flyttershy send out before we left?”
“Yes.” Twilight smacked a magazine into a gun. “Why do you ask?”
“Because the body was almost an exact copy of yours. Don´t you think that´s a little suspicious?”
“Of course I think it is. But I don´t have any hard evidence for who could have done it or why and considering the number of enemies we´ve made over the years it’s hard to tell who´s after us.”
“Not sure if they are after us so much has you.” Applejack accelerated and drove past a smaller car. “Considering what Osborn said; the cyborg seemed to going for you has soon as it could see you.”
“Probably because it considered me the bigger threat.” She pulled back the mantle. “They probably made a body that looked like me in order to scare me and give them an advantage.”
“I don´t think so. A full cyber body isn´t cheap and takes some effort. Why would they do that if they just wanted to throw you of your game? They could have just given a random thug a body that looked similar to yours. Instead they made something that was almost a perfect clone and removed the individual’s entire history.”
“Maybe they had a thug who wanted out and his bosses decided that it would be a better idea to have him perform a suicide mission instead of becoming a snitch.” She holstered her gun and turned on the tachikoma. The spiderlike robot was no bigger than a motorcycle and mostly designed for supply carriages before actual combat but it was all they had for the moment.
“That still doesn´t explain why they went to such efforts to make a body that looked exactly like yours.” Applejack glanced quickly at the GPS and turned left at the oncoming intersection. “What was that thing you said in the elevator, Twilight?” Applejack didn´t wait for a response. “´All of you be careful´. That applies to you to.”
Twilight sighed. “You´re right.” She put some commands into the tachikoma. “But I still find the idea of them coming after me, specifically, farfetched.” She climbed into the passenger seat. “Either way it´s almost confirmed that we are dealing with an organization at this point.”
“Rainbow Dash and Osborn are taking a look into the hacker and we´re heading to the woman who bought the damn drill bullet. So after this they should know we are on their trail and we´re coming after them.”
“Sunset Shimmer.” Twilight said. “A relatively unknown assassin who more often than not only kills street thugs and drug dealers.”
“A bit of a step up to go after a section twelve officer. Think maybe she didn´t know and was just set up to take the fall for it?”
“No. Getting a drill bullet requires that you make some rather specific deals and considering the setup of the shoot I find that even more farfetched. It´s possible that she just managed to stay under the radar until now.”
“Think by using a name like ´The long death´?” Applejack shifted into a lower gear.
“Will have to ask her if we get her.” Twilight put her elbow on the edge of the door and looked out the window.
Still unsure. Applejack thought.
Sunset Shimmer was registered in the southern district of Manehatttan, a neighborhood marked by multiple homicides and even more known drug dealers living in the area. A good hunter sticks close to the prey.
The walls on the buildings where scared by years of neglect, with only the occasional graffiti text to hide the marks of gunfire and decay.
Applejack stopped a few blocks away from the address.
“I´ll go in first.” Twilight unlashed her seatbelt. “You and the tachikoma will position yourselves outside the building in case she tries to make a run for it.”
“Roger that Major.” Out of habit, Applejack tipped the edge of her hat almost instinctively.
Twilight nodded, took an assault rifle and exited the car.
Before the Major was out, Applejack climbed out of the driver´s seat. took the shotgun Twilight had loaded earlier and opened the trucks back door. The tachikoma rolled out on its wheeled legs, turned around with an almost perfect circle and waited for Applejack. When the Sergeant had exited and closed the doors the tachikoma followed her like a loyal dog.
They followed Twilight until they reached the building that Sunset Shimmer was registered at. Twilight made her way up the fire ladder with an almost silent jump. She covered five levels in less than five seconds. Applejack positioned herself outside the entrance with the tachikoma positioned next to her.
A few moments passed.
“Applejack? ” Twilight appeared in the Sergeants sight.
“Yes, Major? ”
“I´m outside the apartment and ready to enter. Get ready. ”
Applejack released the safety on the shotgun. “Roger. ” She pressed her back against the wall and peered into the entrance. Aside from a busted lamp and wall that had giant colorful letters sprayed over it the entrance looked like any other of the standard apartment entrances built during the last thirty years.
The wall gave a rumbling and vibrated. Applejack felt bits of knocked out concrete dropping on her head.
“She´s heading jumped out of the window! ” Twilight said. “She´s heading east. ”
“Roger. ” Applejack took a brief moment to remind herself that she was facing the western wall. She and the tachikoma rushed alongside each other. When she made it around the corner the Sergeant saw a human sized shape leaping from the rooftop of next building, over the narrow road and grabbing the edge of the roof with her arms. She struggled for a moment before hauling herself over.
“She´s heading south. ” Applejack turned to follow.
“Copy that. ” In the upper corner of her sight she could see the Major leaping over the street. She disappeared when she landed the roof.
The alley in front of Applejack was blocked by sheet metal fence. She ran up to the blockade and gave it a hard kick with her boot. The thin metal fell down as if it was made with cardboard. The tachikoma followed her through the opening into the alley.
“She´s heading down, Applejack. ” The Major said. “Heading southeast, into the marketplace. ”
“Roger. ” Applejack turned to her right when she reached the end.
The square opening was crowded. People filled up whatever small openings they could find and walked in narrow streams between the stands. The merchants behind the stands where showing of ancient processors and cheap produce.
“What´s your position, Major? ” Applejack pressed into the dense crowd, looking for the assassin.
“I´m on the rooftop behind you. ”
“Think that she´s trying to hide inside the crowd? ” Applejack pushed a few shoulders aside to reach a more open area.
“Yes. ”
Applejack threw a quick glance over her shoulder and saw the Major crouched at the corner of a building facing the marketplace. She had a pair of digital binoculars pressed against her eyes. “See anything? ”
“Got a possible match at a stand on the north corner. ” The point that the Major pointed out appeared in Applejack´s sight. The tachikoma hurried away before she had a chance to get going. It turned out to help Applejack, has people jumped out of the incoming robot’s way it made an easy path for the Sergeant to follow.
“She´s spotted me. ” Twilight said. “She´s heading northeast. ”
“Roger.” Applejack and the tachikoma adjusted their paths to try and intersect her. She stopped when passing a stand and saw a woman breaking her sprint when seeing her. The woman wore a black, unzipped jacket and a green shirt beneath that. Long fiery red hair with blond cracks threw itself forward when she stopped. It´s her. The Sergeant was about to raise her shotgun when Sunset Shimmer drew a gun out of her jacket. There was no chance for Applejack to avoid it.
The tachikoma jumped Between the two and caught the bullet. Though the sound of the shot was muffled by a silencer, the tachikoma´s metallic body clanged sharply when the bullet made contact.
Applejack continued her action, but when the tachikoma passed she saw Sunset Shimmer pressing into the crowd. “Shit.” Applejack raised the barrel to the sky and fired. The shotgun produced a thundering bark and the crowd screamed. Applejack couldn´t see her. “Major? ”
“She´s rushing towards the building on your right. ” Twilight responded. “Be careful, she´s got a hostage. I´m heading down now. ”
“Roger. ” Applejack fired another shoot towards the sky and the crowd around her quickly dispersed. She managed to glimpse Sunset Shimmer dragging another woman by the arm into an apartment building nearby. Twilight was not far behind.
“I´m gonna be coming in from the front. ” Twilight said. “You circle around and take them from behind. ”
“No problem.” Applejack said when she passed the Major. She ran around the building and was met by a solid wall.
“Please just let me go.” She heard a shacking voice echoing between the walls.
“Shut up.” Another voice responded.
It only took Applejack a moment to figure out where they were. The sergeant pressed up against the wall. “I got their position, Major. ”
“I see them. Hold your position. ” The Major went quite for a moment. “Let her go.” Twilight´s voice echoed.
“Drop your weapon.” The voice replied.
Applejack carefully put the shotgun on the floor and adjusted her position.
“She´s not up against the wall. ” Twilight said. “Give me a moment. ”
“Please help me.” The other voice said again.
Now Applejack was certain of their position. She took a step back from the wall and waited.
“I will shoot!” Twilight barked. “Now! ”
The sergeant´s fist pushed into the drywall exited through the other end. Before her arm was even halfway through, she opened her fist and turned once the elbow was through. She grasped a head and shoved it into the wall. Applejack could hear a gun hit floor and someone running.
“Good work, Applejack.” Twilight said when she came around. She had placed a lockdown collar around Sunset Shimmers neck. The assassin was still out from the hit and Applejack spotted a red mark on the wall next to the hole she made. “That fifty cal. arm sure came in handy.”
“Sure did.” Applejack brushed of the dust that had gathered on her jacket and arm. “Now we might finally have some idea of who is chasing us.”
“Or chasing me.”
Applejack was about to reply when the heard the sound a silenced gun being fired behind them. They both looked to their left, up the stair well. But there was nothing. Applejack turned around and saw a pool of crimson blood growing from Sunset Shimmers head. In her hand was the same gun she had used to shoot the tachikoma with two shells next to it.
But there was only one shot.
Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
The clouds rested heavily over Blue Solace. Towers pierced through the blanket like sharp, grey-brown, metallic needles. The soft morning light painted the clouds in a warm orange light. Rainbow Dash was reminded of the feeling of gliding through the air with her wings as they hovered over the city. Though the helicopter had a big space that they could move around she still felt cornered and would constantly adjust her seat and keep her gaze locked at the shapes beneath them.
“Strange isn´t it?” Osborn said. He sat in his seat looking down at the city with one elbow on the arms rest and his head resting in his hand. “Teen years ago this city was the fastest growing market for augmentations and digital technology.”
“And then came the collapse caused by the tightened laws around augmentation and suddenly every piece of unchecked cyber tech became illegal and every major buyer withdrew.” Rainbow Dash filled in. “The local economy collapsed overnight.”
“You know your history.” Osborn remarked.
“I remember because I had some friends who lived here. The moment those laws were passed their families suddenly had no income and were forced to leave. And now the once great floating city in the sea is only big floating artificial island.”
“Not entirely.” Osborn looked at seagulls outside the window. “Since the economy collapsed everything became so cheap in this city that the big corporations started coming in and buying materials and starting up cheap factories. The city is still alive even though it´s nowhere near what it once was.”
“Somehow I doubt that those who invested time, money and effort into this place would look at it the same way, Osborn.”
“Probably not.” He shrugged.
“We´re closing in for landing now. ” The pilots voice said from the speakers. “We´ll be setting down in about one minute. ”
“Finally.” Osborn adjusted in his seat.
The chopper rounded a massive tower and Rainbow Dash could briefly spot the landing zone beneath them. The tower was ornamented with gargoyles looking down on the cloud covered city while seagulls rested on the edges of the roof.
“Setting down now. ”
It took Rainbow Dash and Osborn a few minutes before they could get out of the helicopter and enter the city. They walked along platforms guarded by railings. Over the edges the sea ran in thick rivers. The black, murky water hid any possible bottom and boats filled with cargo slowly passed them by.
The faint sound of music started jumping between the buildings. At first Rainbow Dash couldn´t tell what it was but the faint tones where quickly drowned out by the beat of massive drums.
Booom! Booom! They echoed.
As they rounded a corner Rainbow Dash saw what produced the sound. A collection of boats all traveling in the same column after one another. On the first one she saw a man dressed in some kind of armor wielding a shield in his left hand and a curved sword in the right, he wasn´t facing forward or towards the crowds that were watching on the bridges and platforms sprouting of the buildings. Instead he was facing an animatronic dragon, or at least that is what Rainbow Dash assumed he was facing. The dragon had an elongated body like a snake with four short limps and shimmering red scales. The mustache on its upper lip reached out into two long whiskers that almost touched the platform it and the warrior were standing on.
The two of them danced around each other. Despite the heavy and clumsy looking armor, the warrior was wearing he still moved with ease and grace. Every movement was made in rhythm with the score and every attack in sync with the drums. For a long time, the warrior danced around the dragon and the dragon avoided every one of his attack. Bits of white confetti flew out towards the edges each time he struck. Rainbow Dash forgot herself for a moment. It wasn´t until the boat passed and she managed to get a peek into the platform from an angle and saw a woman sitting beneath the platform the dragon and the warrior was on. She had a small controller in her hands with brightly lit monitors surrounding her.
Rainbow Dash chuckled before hurrying after Osborn.
He stood leaning against a wall, watching over the passing convoy.
“Waiting for someone?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Yes, but right now I´m just enjoying the show.”
Rainbow Dash walked up next to him and watched along with him. A giant animatronic horse soon appeared, decorated with colorful lights around the joints and painted in shining silver. After that a collection of white lions roaring towards the sky and after that a dancer with a burning staff. None of the following boats caught Rainbow Dashes eyes quit like the first one.
“Time to get going.” Osborn said.
He walked up a staircase running along the building they were standing in front of and Rainbow Dash followed him closely. They soon found themselves out on a thin bridge that reached from the building they came from, over the narrow bit of ocean beneath them and too the building on the other side. Beneath them Rainbow Dash saw that the parade had passed. Now there was only the black ocean, still shifting and waving from the passing boats.
“What now?” Rainbow Dash stopped next to him. He looked a little funny has he rested his hands between his thighs and leaned his back against the barrier but Rainbow Dash withheld her laughter.
“Just wait.”
Rainbow Dash leaned against the railing and took a piece of gum from the pack she bought the day before. The sugary sweet had strawberry taste. “Want one?” She held the pack to Osborn.
“Thanks.” He helped himself to a piece and chewed with an open mouth. Rainbow Dash was about to tell when he rose and walked silently across the rest of the bridge. It took Rainbow Dash a few moments to catch up with him. When she did he turned to his right down an alleyway. Besides Osborn, Rainbow Dash could only see one figure in the alleyway. The person slowly turned to face them. It was a man who was a head shorter than Osborn with golden brown hair and green eyes. When those eyes saw Osborn they widened.
“Osborn?” He gasped.
“Hello, Braeburn.” Osborn walked up to him. “I´ve got some questions i want you to answer.”
“Hey, hey” He stuttered and staggered backwards. “I don´t know nothing.”
“So you´re saying that you´re useless to me?” Osborn crossed his arms and raised his brow.
Braeburn grew pale. “No, no that’s not what I´m saying.”
“So you´re lying to me?” He raised a brow and took a steep towards him. “Well were you?”
“Look, Osborn you know me. You know I don´t like being a snitch.” He shrugged and Osborn grabbed his shirt with both his hands and lifted him up. Rainbow Dash chewed on the gum.
“I know you don´t.” His voice was hard and deep. “But I know that there are things that scare you. Things you outright care about. Things I could take away from you.”
Droops of sweat started forming on Braeburn´s forehead. He swallowed. “You wouldn’t.”
Osborn slammed Braeburn into the wall next to them, his feat still hovered above the ground. “Try me. And see how much I care about your problems.” A bit of gravel fell down from the wall as Osborn pressed him.
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.
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.
Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
“That´s the last of them.” Rainbow Dash loaded a diver tank sized battery into the combat tachikoma. This one was much bigger than the one Applejack and Twilight Sparkle took out to last night and Rainbow Dash was tasked with repairing some of the damages it received during that mission. She turned the handle at the end of the battery to look it in. A brief glance at the panel confirmed that it the battery was fully charged and ready to be used.
“Everything is working as it should.” She closed the panel and washed the thick, oily residence of her hands at the sink with a special alcohol. She glanced at her wrist watch. “Another hour until my shifts over, Twilight and Applejack are going over the security plans, and Fluttershy is working on getting into Trixie´s head.” She shrugged. “Might has well get some exercise.”
She took the elevator down a level, changed in the locker room and walked to the buildings gym. When she entered she heard the gym she someone grunting, a man. “Hey, Osborn.” She said when she saw him. He´s skin was shiny with sweet and his muscles twitched has he pulled himself up with a 25 kg weight tied around his waist.
“Hey, Rainbow Dash.” He stopped and dropped to the floor with heavy thud. “Come to work out?” He asked while untying the weight.
“I was, but sense you´re here I got two things I want to ask you.”
Osborn gasped for a few moments, put the weight against the wall and took a three big chugs from his water bottle before answering. “What do want to ask?” He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
“First;” Rainbow Dash marked with a finger. “Think you can take me in the ring?”
Osborn sniffed. “Sure. How many rounds to want to do?”
“One.”
He smirked. “Alright.”
Rainbow Dash picked two pairs of boxing gloves out of the storage. She gave Osborn the red pair while she used the white ones. Before she put them on she opened the control panel and raised the boxing ring out of the floor. Osborn climbed into it when it was only halfway through ascending.
“Ready?” He tightened the glove´s strap with his teeth.
“Oh, yeah.” She raised her fists to guard and walked towards him.
Osborn did the same and looked at her with a sharp smile.
She jumped forward and threw a punch with her right arm. The attack seemed to take Osborn by surprise. He barely managed to block it and took most of the impact with his forearms.
He staggered backwards and was close to falling over, but stopped himself with his foot. “Augmented your arms or something?”
“Nothing in arms but I´ve got a few in my back and behind my ears to help with flying and balance.”
“I guess old age is finally catching up to me.”
“You´re gonna start making excuses now?” She raised her brow. “Didn´t think you the type.”
He shook his head. “Just wait until you´re pushing forty plus.” He raised to guard.
“Your forty?” Rainbow Dash jumped to the side to avoid his incoming attack.
“Forty-three.” He countered her follow up with a low left hook. Rainbow Dash took the blow to her left side. “Do I look older?”
Rainbow Dash smiled faintly. “I honestly thought you were thirty.”
“What?” Osborn was stunned and Rainbow Dash wasted no time. Her right fist slammed into his lower jaw and Osborn hit the floor with a heavy thud.
“Come on, don´t tell me you´re downed already.”
Osborn grunted and got to his feet. “Was that the second question you wanted to ask me?” He avoided her strike and landed a hard blow in her stomach.
Rainbow Dash felt the air escaping her lungs. She took a moment regain herself. “No, it wasn´t that.” She said before rising to her feet.
“Still don´t think I have answered the first question?” He raised his left brow.
Rainbow Dash nodded.
“Alright, then.” Osborn lunged forward. His right fist rushed towards but Rainbow Dash managed to avoid it all the same.
Too slow. Rainbow Dash rammed her fist into his stomach. She could feel the muscles sinking inwards and he hit the ground a second time. He laid still, gasping and sweating.
“You win.” He said after lying still for teen seconds.
“You okay?” Rainbow Dash held out her hand to help him to his feet.
“Just dead tired.” Osborn took her hand. “You´ve got one hell of a right hook.” He took of his gloves and moaned has he gently rubbed his stomach.
“Now for the second question.” Rainbow Dash took her gloves of too. “How come you don´t have a cyber brain?”
“The Major uses me like an ace up her sleeve. Sense I have an organic brain I can´t be hacked and I´m immune to EMP blasts.” He said every word like a reversed speech. “It also helps that a lot of my criminal contacts trust me because I don´t have a cyber brain.”
“That´s not what I asked.” Rainbow Dash folded her arms over her chest. “You only told me how Twilight uses you during missions. You didn´t tell me why you choose to stay organic.”
“Fine.” Osborn sat down in the corner of the ring. “The reason I choose to stay organic is because I don´t want someone coming into my brain.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know the saying, that a man is nothing but the sum of his memories? Well, what if someone could change that sum. Every experience and memory that I have has formed me into the person I am today. Even a small memory can be vital in forming a personality. But when you get a cyber brain your memories become digital, like the hard drive in a computer, and that means they can be altered or outright deleted.”
“You do know that you can never augment your body beyond that little cyber com you have behind your ear because of that? If you get your arm torn of it will never regrow and if you get shoot in a vital area you could die right, there on the spot.”
“I do. But the though t of someone coming into my brain and changing my memories or deleting my person is something that scares me far more than losing a limp or dying.” He looked into her eyes. “Now let me ask you something; can respect my choice? That I will always be at greater risk than the rest of section twelve?”
“Let answer that with another question; do you look down on the rest of section twelve because we have augmented our bodies?”
“Not for a second. If anything I am envious of you and frustrated with myself.”
“In that case, I do respect it.”
Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
The shower sprayed warm water over Osborn´s head. He looked down on his naked feet, glistening with water dripping from his face. He lifted his head and closed his eyes as the water smacked his face. His fingers pushed through his thin, black hair and felt the water rushing in between them.
Osborn stood still for a moment, feeling the warm water running on his skin and let the smell of artificial lemons from the shampoo fill his nose. A long breath drew from his mouth. He turned the valve and the water stopped spraying over him. He walked out the shower, dried himself with his usual red towel. When it was wet, it smelled similar to the cat he had up until a few years ago.
“Sixteen years.” He smiled and laughed nostalgically. The thought of getting a new cat crossed his mind. “No. Not yet and not now.”
He dried the rest of himself and get dressed. He was about to exit the locker room when something in his pocket started vibrating.
“What the?” He reached into his pocket and found the source. It was the little device he had taken when making a deal with the bullet farmer outside of the city. “Just when I was about to go home.” He grunted. The device had a small display, it urged him to answer by pressing a marked zone on the display. Osborn did what he was urged and pressed it against his ear. “What do you need me to do?”
“I don´t have time to talk. Just drive to the central station and wait for me there.”
Osborn grunted. “I´ll be there in teen minutes.”
“See-“ Osborn hung up and put the device in his pocket.
“Major. ”
“Yes, Osborn? ”
“I´ve been called in. I won´t be available for a while. ”
“Know for how long? ”
“No, but don´t worry. I won´t drag it out. ”
“Let me know if you need any help. ”
“Sure. ”
Osborn took the elevator down to the parking level and got into his car. After teen minutes on the road he was only halfway there.
The device started shacking again.
“What´s keeping you?!”
“It´s taking me a little longer than I anticipated. Give me another five and I´ll be there.”
“You sure this time?”
Osborn squeezed the device. “Maybe I will have an accident on the way and die in the car. It´s what it should take and that´s all you get.”
The farmer started to reply when the call was broken up as Osborn drove into a tunnel. He put the device into the passenger seat. He could fell his nail digging into the leather on steering wheel. “I need some music.” He turned on the cars CD player and loud guitar riffs started booming from the speakers. A slow, easy breath flowed across Osborn’s lips.
Two other tracks on the CD played before he reached the central station. He parked next to a convenient store, paused the CD and waited.
The device moved produced a buzzing noise and shifted on the seat.
“Where are you?” Osborn asked when he picked it up.
“Not your concern. Are you armed?”
He glanced into his jacket to make sure that his gun was there. “Yes.”
Moments after he said that, the bullet farmer opened the door on the passenger seat and climbed in. “Drive.” He said with an anxious voice while looking out the window.
Osborn turned the key. “Couldn´t call a taxi driver?”
“Just drive.” He kept looking out the window and over his shoulder.
“Let me put it like this; if you don´t tell what´s going on and why, I am gonna kick you out and leave you to whatever you´re scared of.”
“We had a deal.” He turned towards Osborn briefly. He looked paler than before and dark pouches had formed beneath his eyes.
“Never said; no questions asked. And besides the information you gave us was barely worth the effort.”
The farmer frowned and sighed. “I´ve been sold out.” He turned back to the window. “When I got to my workshop last night it was burned to the ground and all of my workers had been killed. I tried all my friends but none of them were willing to help. Since then I´ve been hiding but I think they´re on my trail.”
“So as last resort you called me.” Osborn stopped at an intersection and waited for the traffic light. “You want me to keep you safe?”
“Yes. With a cyber cop as my body guard most of my pursuers will be scared of when they see what you can do.”
The farmer grunted. “Oh, my luck never ends.”
Osborn could see droops of sweet running down his brows. “Got any idea of who exactly is after you?”
“I´ve sold bullets to every assassin and hitman in this city and probably a few mob bosses to. Perhaps one of them decided that it would be better to let no one have my bullets instead of everyone.”
Well, that makes my job a lot easier. The traffic light turned green and Osborn drove to the right. In a passing car the woman driving the car gave him a cold stare. “What if I take you to the station?”
“Fuck that.”
“Listen, if you manage to stay out of sight we may be able to sweep you under the radar.”
“No way.”
“Got another other plan then, I suppose?”
“Anything but going to prison.”
Osborn stopped at another intersection. The traffic lights turned red as he got closer. Two cars stopped next to him. The driver on the left side was a man driving a black car with short white hair and a thick beard. The driver on the right side was a young woman with bright green hair tied behind her head.
Osborn tried to keep his eyes on both drivers. He reached for his side and pretended to scratch himself but was actually removing the safety and releasing the buckle. “See those two?”
“Yes.”
In the rearview mirror Osborn could see another car driving up to them. The windows were shaded and Osborn couldn´t see through them. “Two questions; do you know them and do you know how to use a gun?”
“No and yes.”
“Good.” The lights stayed red. Turn green, dammit. He drummed his fingers at the wheel with one hand and placed the other on his gun. He looked to his left and the old man was gone. A quick glance to his right and he saw the woman with green hair raising a gun towards them. “GET DOWN!” He grabbed the farmer by his jacket and yanked him to down, his foot slammed down on pedal the moment before the passenger side window exploded in sparkling shards. The acceleration of the car pushed him backwards. In the corner of his right eye he saw a bright yellow flash followed by a loud bang.
“Major! ” Osborn called out over the coms has he headed into the oncoming traffic.
“Osborn? ”
“I´m being attacked. Close to central station. ” He saw at least one of the cars in his mirror but he couldn´t tell witch one. “Suspects are chasing me in a vehicle. I´m gonna try and shake them of. ”
“Copy that, Osborn. We´re heading for you now. ”
He was about to answer when the back window shattered and send sparkling shards towards them.
“Hand me your gun!” The farmer held his hand out.
Osborn shifted the gear before he handed it over.
The farmer twisted and shoot towards the cars behind them.
When Osborn turned his eyes back on the road he saw a car heading right for them. With a hard twist, Osborn managed to avoid the incoming car and turned down into an underground tunnel. He pressed down the gas pedal and heard the engine screech.
A web shaped crack with a black center appeared in the front mirror. A warm liquid started running from Osborn´s shoulder, down his chest and gathering up the elbow of his jacket.
“You´re bleeding.” The farmer said while climbing back into his seat.
“Is it bad?” Osborn didn´t have time to look. He had to keep his eyes in the narrow and avoid the other cars.
“I think you´ll live.” The gun clicked and another crack appeared in the window. The thin strings spread through the window, making it hard Osborn to see. “Got any more ammo?”
“In the glove compartment.” Osborn punched the corners of the window until the edges gave in.
The farmer gave the window a kick and the window tipped over the hood. It bounced for a few moments before flying off.
“Get back to shooting!” Osborn growled and pressed his hand against the wound on his shoulder. The major can´t track the car underground. I need to reach the surface.
A hissing blow came from the left side of the car and Osborn could feel the car tipping towards the left corner.
“No, no, no!” The car began to struggle and a black car drove up next to him.
There was nothing he could do.
The black car slammed into the side of his car. It careened and spiraled out of control before eventually slamming into the side of the tunnel. Osborn felt warm streams running down his forehead. When he opened his eyes the world was blur. He squinted a few times and saw a shape coming towards him. It was the old man. He had an assault rifle in his arms and was lining up to shoot.
In one quick movement Osborn took his gun from the farmer and pulled him down has he let himself fall. The back of his head slammed into the door on his way down and a jolting pain rushed through him. Above them a swarm of bullets flew by, tearing up the seats into showers of burned cotton.
“Got any ideas?” The farmer asked when the spray stopped.
Osborn didn´t answer. Instead he rose back up in the seat and took aim for the old man. His vision was still blurry and none of the shoots hit.
A clacking metallic sound echoed through the tunnel.
He´s reloading. After a moments pause Osborn´s vision cleared and he managed to line a shoot. The bullet hit him in the chest. He flinched for a moment but instead of stopping he raised his weapon. Osborn ducked back down and the bullets started flying a second time.
“He must have turned off his pain receptors.” Osborn checked the magazine. It was empty. “And I´m out of ammo.”
“So what now?”
Osborn dug into his jacket. “There´s a flashbang in the glo ve compartment.” He donned a black glove with metallic knuckles and the farmer held the flashbang in his hand. “Throw it.”
The farmer threw it towards the old man.
Osborn reached over his shoulder to open the car door. When he saw a white light flashing outside the car he climbed out. His ears were still ringing and his legs felt like they were made from soft gel but he rushed forward. Despite his blurred vision he could see the old man. He blocked his eyes with his left arm while his right held the rifle.
There was no time to think or consider. Osborn dashed forward, his eyes focused on the old man. When he was one step away from him pulled his fist back and rammed it into the old mans chest. An electrical tingle came of his knuckles and the old man slammed onto the ground.
Osborn almost came down with him. He stopped himself by falling to his knee and leaning on it. His head pounded with pain and his ears rang but he managed to regain himself. In the corner of his sight he could see the woman with green hair coming towards him. With an instinctive movement, Osborn took the assault rifle from the old man. The rifle barked louder than he anticipated and the kick of the shoots almost knocked of his feet.
The woman ducked behind a vehicle in front of her and Osborn rushed back to his own car. The woman peaked out from her cover and Osborn pushed her back down with another burst of fire. Once he reached the car he pressed his back against the open door. His breath was ragged and relentless. The farmer was still in the car but he stayed down.
“Major? ” He tried to reach her but only silence responded. Can´t reach her down here.
A bang echoed and a cold pain spread from Osborn right upper arm. Warm blood ran down his arm.
“Son of a bitch.” Osborn clutched the wound on his arm and bit down so hard he heard his teeth cracking.
“Get back inside!” The farmer said before another shot came through the door. This one missed Osborn and tunneled into the pavement.
“Fucking…” Osborn held the rifle around the corner and blind fired. The kick in combination with his wounded arm he struggled to keep the gun stable.
Bits of the pavement exploded in a small bang.
Osborn just barely managed to duck behind the door before another shoot was fired and tore through the metal. He heard the distinct sound of a clip hitting the ground. There was no point in peeking out. She´s smart enough to hide while reloading. He checked the clip. And these bullets aren´t armor piercing, only five of them left.
A burst of fire echoed from the entrance of the tunnel.
Reinforcement? Osborn swallowed and listened. Two more. He took a deep breath through his teeth peeked around the corner.
“Osborn?” Applejack was leaning on the car that the woman had driven.
Osborn ducked back. “Got the woman?”
“Yes, are there any others?”
He stood up and turned to Applejack. “Just him and this guy in the car.” Osborn nodded towards the old man. He still laid motionless on the road.
“Good.” The major appeared next to the old man when she turned off her thermoptic camouflage. “And who´s in the car?”
“You meet him outside of town.” Osborn helped the farmer climb out of the car. “Take him to the station for now.”
The farmer frowned at Osborn but he followed them without arguing.
Applejack took the farmer into the truck she and Twilight had come in.
“You okay?” Twilight asked when she got a good look at his wounds.
“No.” He rubbed the wound on his shoulder. The blood had stopped flowing but his muscles ached with every movement and his head still pounded while drops of blood still fell of his fingers. “How did you find us?”
“Went to your car´s last known position and the rest was pretty easy when we heard the sound of gunfire.” She gave Osborn a shot into his shoulder.
The needle getting through his skin was nothing but when the nano bots kicked in it felt like warm water being pressed into his body. “Aloe´s got her work cut out for her.”
Twilight chuckled. “Get in the car before you bleed to death.”
Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
Twilight sat in Celestia´s office next Rainbow Dash. Osborn and Applejack sat in the chairs opposite them. Fluttershy was in her usual chair facing the chief with her bunny in her lap.
“So what did you find, Fluttershy?” The chief asked.
“I´m afraid I don´t have good news.” She petted her bunny. “Trixie’s brain was an almost complete blank.”
“What?!” Rainbow Dash turned to Fluttershy. “How could that be?”
“I don´t know.” Fluttershy replied.
“Calm down, Rainbow Dash.” Osborn said. After returning his favor to the farmer, Osborn had undergone a transfusion and his shoulder and right arm where covered in bandages. Luckily the wounds were shallow and no bones were broken, or vital organs damaged. “You said it was an almost complete blank.” He turned to Fluttershy “What did you find?”
“Only this.” Fluttershy started the holographic display and played an audio file that produced a cackling laughter.
“And what about Sunset Shimmer?” Osborn asked.
Twilight could see his lips twisting and the corner of his eyes twitching has he adjusted himself in the seat. Should have taken the time of, Osborn. Twilight thought. When they brought him in his face was almost painted with blood and according Aloe´s report he had suffered a concussion during the crash. Despite the warnings Aloe gave him he refused to leave his team. I guess you can take a mule to the river but you can´t make it drink.
“Since her brain was damaged it´s been difficult to get any data from it.”
“What are you thinking?” Celestia asked.
“I´m thinking that maybe Trixie is smarter than I thought.” He rubbed his stubbed chin and looked over at Applejack.
“You said that both you and the major had you ears, at the very least, hacked when Sunset Shimmer killed herself?”
“Yes.” Applejack raised her brow. “Are you thinking that Trixie is still out there?”
“I wouldn´t call it impossible. When Sunset Shimmer killed herself she had a lockdown collar in her sockets and still somehow managed to get her gun under her chin.”
“Are you suggesting that Trixie planted a failsafe in Sunset Shimmer´s brain in case she would get caught?” The chief asked.
“And then used a full prosthetic body in combination with fake cyber brain in order throw us of the trail.” He shrugged. “It would go explain why she fell for my little ear trick.” He tapped finger behind his right ear.
“That´s right,” Twilight agreed. “when the hacking initiated it would have assumed that your com was an actual cyber brain but a quick look at you would have shown her that she had no control over you. The AI she employed probably didn´t think to do that.” Twilight thought for a moment. “Can you pull up the audio file we got from the cyber body that looked like me?”
Fluttershy tapped a few keys on the holographic keyboard in front of her and played the file. It produced the exact same cackling laughter.
“That´s what I thought.” Twilight pushed her thump up under her lip. “Rainbow Dash, you wrote in your report that Trixie laughed when she was hacking into your brain.”
“Yeah?”
“Did it sound anything like that?” She played to sound again.
Rainbow Dash took a moment to answer. “She cackled, definitely. But I can´t say that if it sounded exactly like that.”
“Maybe that laughter is just her calling card.” Applejack said. “Wouldn’t be surprised if the only thing we find in Sunset Shimmer´s brain is the same audio file.”
“Damn taunt, is what it is.” Rainbow Dash grunted. “So we´ve basically have gotten nowhere and are no closer to grabbing who´s behind this?”
“No.” Celestia said. “We got an idea of who did it. We still don´t know why she did it but we know how.”
“Think that´s gonna be enough for the prime minister?” Twilight bit the inside her of cheek. “We have a face, but we don´t have an arrest. Just the body of a low ranking assassin and a bullet farmer that refuses to talk.”
“I don´t think he knows anything more that would be useful to us anyway.” Osborn said while staring into the holograms.
“Does that mean we can throw him out?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“If it were up to me I would lock him up and throw away the key. But until the heat´s off him we have to keep him here.”
“To get back to the matter at hand.” The Chief said. “The only results we have managed to get is the suspicion that Trixie is responsible for the hacking into a government facility and attempted murder via proxy on a federal officer.”
“So basically all we can give her is manhunt for Trixie.” Applejack said tired tone. “I don´t think she´s going to be pleased.”
“No, she won´t.” Celestia shock her head in agreement. “But it doesn´t matter now. It´s all we can give her.”
“So what will be our next move?” Rainbow Dash asked. “If Trixie is still out there she´ll probably try to stay under the radar and avoid detection.”
“We don´t have much of a move to make now.” The Chief said. “The only thing we can do now is to prepare for the prime minister’s speech and wait for Trixie to make her next move. You all know your tasks in this mission. Any questions?”
None of them said anything.
“Dismissed.”
Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
The warm beams of the sun were reaching over the horizon has the sun was sinking behind the monolithic buildings. The wind blew against the truck´s windows. Behind the window Bulk Biceps sat leaning against the ragged leather seat. The road was scarcely populated with only the occasional passing car and fellow truck.
He took a sip of his coffee. “Fifteen hours of driving.” He sighed calmly. “What´s on the news?” With a callus hand he turned on, the now almost antique radio that was built in to his dashboard. At first the speaker produced only buzz until he turned to the knob.
“…the stock price for Cyberdine united dropped another ten percent.” The voice of a woman speaking with a dry tone said. “Following the continued failures of the negotiates with the Crystal Empire the cybernetic industry is likely to suffer further losses as time goes on.”
“And make jobs even harder to get.” He thought about his nephew, young man with no school graduation and working as a cleaner for a factory producing cyber optics. The kid had some problems with gangs and drugs but managed to dig himself out of that and get a job. “If he losses that job it will be a steep slip slope back to the gangs.” Bulk Biceps knew how easy it could be to fall back into old habits. When he rubbed his right upper arm he felt a cold shiver spreading through his body.
“The prime ministers next public appearance set for tomorrow hopes to improve negotiations with the Crystal Empire going forward. In other news, there was a firefight in the Bukling tunnel involving a civilian dressed cop and multiple gang members last night. Both sides used heavy armaments and multiple cars were damaged in the fire fight. Thankfully there were no casualties and the officer only sustain minor injuries.”
Part of him wanted to smile, other parts of him wanted to grunt. “What a time to be alive.” He turned off the radio and rubbed his forehead.
The last of the sunshine disappeared behind the horizon. Briefly, he glanced up at the picture stuck to the roof of the truck. In it he was standing behind a skinny, timid woman with long pink hair with his muscular arms wrapped around her neck. Booth of them smiled as they looked into the camera. He chuckled and gave the picture another look. “How many years has it been?” He asked himself and tapped a thick finger on the wheel. “Five? No, six.” He shook his head. “No, six. Wonder what she´s up to theses days.”
A white shape appeared in the trucks path.
Bulk Biceps only managed get a quick look but there was no mistaking what it was. A human standing in the middle of the road.
The person in the street disappeared under the truck and Bulk Biceps could fell the truck hitting two small bumps as it rushed forward.
It took him a moment to get control back to his body. When he did he jumped out of the truck and rushed back to see if could find whoever he ran over. He looked down the road but there was nothing there. No body, no body parts, not even any blood.
“Where did he go?”
A scraping sound came from underneath the truck´s cargo. He turned on his flashlight and looked underneath it. A pale, white hand reached out from under one of the wheels.
“Oh, god!” He rushed up to the wheel, took the arm in his hand and dragged the whole body out. The body belonged to a naked man. His left arm was missing, a cluster of broken rubber wires hung out of the shoulder socket and a pair of blue, cold, plastic eyes stared at him. The man´s face showed no sign of pain. It didn´t show any emotions at all. “An android?” He drew a slow sigh of relief and stopped himself from falling by resting his hands on his bend knees. “Oh, thank fuck. Wait, what´s it doing in the middle of the road?”
The moment he finished his sentence the android´s face turned to him. It had a plain face with soft cheeks. The lips parted and seemed to want to talk but he couldn´t hear any words.
Bulk Biceps squatted down in front of it. “Can you hear me?”
The lips moved apart and seemed to form some kind of words but the android remained silent.
“What?” He leaned closer and held his hear over the mouth.
The android´s hand slammed into Bulk Bicep´s throat and squeezed. The cold fingers dug into the skin on his neck and wrapped around the adam´s apple.
Bulk Biceps struggled to breath and grabbed the android´s arm in an effort to get it off. The artificial latex skin broke and peeled away. Underneath was a chrome, metallic skeleton with black and red rubber wires. The more of the skin he peeled away the harder the grip seemed to become.
In one hard movement the android twisted around and slammed Bulk Biceps to the ground. He could almost hear something shatter in the back of his head. His limbs flattened out on the pavement and every attempt to move them sent jolting waves of pain through his body. The machine let go of him and for a brief moment, Bulk Biceps could breath. The breath was shallow, coarse and sounded like a hissing whisper.
The android was suddenly on top of him. Bulk Biceps only managed to get a small glimpse of it in the dim light of his truck before the machine put its hand over his mouth. The fingers locked into an iron grip and squeezed. The bones beneath his cheeks cracked and bend inwards as two of the finger pressed down and inwards. Bulk Bicep´s tried to scream but his jaw was locked firmly in place by a cold thump pressing from underneath like a hard hook. The two remaining fingers on the android’s hand rose, hovered over his eyes before pressing down. Warm red streams rushed down his eyes and gathered up in ears as the fingers dug deep into wet eye sockets. He squirmed and struggled but the machine held him firmly in place.
“Correct. Guard.” The android said with a cold voice. It raised Bulk Bicep’s head in its hand and slammed it into the pavement. Bulk Biceps could feel his arms rattling as he hit the ground and something moist and warm touched his neck. The android slammed his head down again. This time he couldn´t feel anything, but something rang in his head and he felt like the world was spinning around him. His stomach revolted.
The android slammed him to the ground.
Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
Twilight Sparkle rushed down the halls of section twelve headquarters. She had left Applejack while they were in the middle of going over the final details for the security plans for tomorrow and was heading for the E-unit. She pushed a set of doors aside and was meet by Osborn and Rainbow Dash. “What have you got for me?” She asked them.
“A homicidal android.” Osborn stepped aside to let her see.
The Major stared down from the observation window. Fluttershy, along with a few engineers were gathered around a pale, white male android placed on a table in the center of the room. The left arm had been completely torn of and the skin on the upper right arm was torn. Black stains and splatter of dried blood were spread across the chest and face. “What did it do?”
“Technical evidence seem to suggest that it murdered a truck driver who seemed to accidently run it over on the highway.”
“Identified the victim yet?”
“No.” Osborn replied. “The body was so disfigured we have to wait for DNA analysis before we can it identified.”
“So why have we been alerted? An android killing a human is certainly serious, but it has happened in the past with bootlegged models.”
“It laughed.” Osborn pressed a key and played an audio file sourced to the android. It played the same cackling laughter as the one found in Trixie´s decoy and the empty shell. “Fluttershy´s about to crack it open and take a closer look.”
“What if it self-deletes like the other ones? Before we can get a chance to look in to it?”
“Fluttershy´s already on top of it.” Osborn said. “She made an antivirus program to counter the self-deletion and keep all the files intact.”
“Good.”
“Trixie must be taunting us again.” Rainbow Dash said.
“Possibly.” But what does she want with me? Twilight pushed her thumb up under her lip. Or any of us for that matter. Up until this point she only vaguely knew of Trixie was a failed entrepreneur from blue solace and she had never been involved in any case against her up until this point. Osborn, though. He had encountered her a few times before this case, but never made an active effort to arrest her until now. According to what Osborn told me about her, Trixie was proud if nothing else. Maybe we did something indirectly to hurt that pride.
“If she is, then maybe she is pretty dumb after all.” Osborn looked down at the machine.
“Or dangerously clever.” Twilight said.
“We´re ready to begin.” A voice from one of the engineers came from over the speakers.
“Do it.” Twilight said over the microphone.
The engineer said something to Fluttershy and she started up.
The android twitched and contorted it´s arm to an unnatural angle. The machine hummed and the androids back arched upwards. Though sound escaped its mouth it seemed ready to scream in pain and agony. Then it fell back on the table.
“We´ll have the results in a few minutes.” The engineer said.
“Good,” Twilight said. “have Fluttershy display them in the chief’s office.”
Osborn and Rainbow Dash followed her on to Celestais office. Twilight updated the chief on what was going on.
She twirled a pen in her right hand when Twilight was done. “And what´s your take on it?”
Twilight wasn´t sure what to say. “I don´t know. Because I have no idea what her goal is.”
“Applejack assumed that she was going after you after the shell attacked. Would you still agree with that theory?”
“I can´t think of anything that disproves the theory, but at the same time there´s nothing I can think of that enforces it.”
“Osborn?” Celestia asked. “You got any theories?”
Osborn grumbled for a moment. “Maybe she´s trying to throw us for loop while she works towards some kind of greater goal.”
“And what would her goal be?”
He shrugged. “I don´t know. Maybe she´s aiming to eliminate all of us in order make something else easier or maybe our deaths are the only goal. But I can´t think of a reason why she would be coming after all of us.”
“She´s got motive for you and me.” Rainbow Dash butted in. “When you arrested her you insulted her intelligence and I wasn´t exactly giving her kind words.”
“But that was only when we arrested her.” Osborn said. “What was her reason before that?”
Rainbow Dash gave in. “Beats me.”
The door to the office opened and Fluttershy walked in with a tablet in her hand. “I got the results.” She said.
“And what did you find?” Osborn sat down on one of the arm chairs.
Fluttershy tapped her tablet a few times, the table in front of Osborn lit up and displayed a slowly rotating scan of the braincase. “To start with all of the standard android programs or protocols where deleted from the hard drive.”
“Explains how it was able to kill.” Osborn noted.
She nodded, tapped a few more times and the outer layers of the brain case where stripped away. The shape of the brain looked almost organic once the outer layers were of but it was betrayed by a series of wires leading up to the brainstem. “But that´s not all. When we looked deeper there was something else.” She pressed down on the tablet. “Fragments of human memories.”
“Really?” Rainbow Dash asked with one of her brows raised. “How could that be?”
“Only fragments so far.” Fluttershy replied. “We won´t know for sure until someone dives into it and gets a closer look.”
“I´ll do it.” Twilight said.
“You seem eager.” Celestia said.
“I´m not going to let Trixie lead us by the nose anymore.” She turned to Fluttershy. “Set up a barrier maze. I´m going in there in a few hours.”
“Honestly think that´s a good idea?” Osborn asked.
“Trixie may have some other trick up her sleeve that we haven´t seen yet and she might disappear again. If there is a link to her in that android, I´m gonna find it.”
“So what do we do now?” Rainbow Dash asked.
Twilight glanced at Rainbow Dashes face. She was still noticeably pale and dark patches had started to form beneath her eyes. “You can go home now if you want to.”
“You sure you don´t need me?”
What´s that thing Osborn loves to say? She asked herself. You can´t guarantee anything. “I can´t be sure, but you look like you could use a break.”
Rainbow Dash rubbed her eyes.
“How long did you sleep last night?” Celestia asked.
“Two hours, maybe. I had to go over the security plans for tomorrow.”
“In that case I order you to go home and rest.” Celestia voice hardened.
“Alright.” Rainbow Dash yawned and walked out the room.
“Chief,” Celestia´s secretarie voice came from the desk. “a representative from the ministry of foreign affairs is here to see you.”
“Let them in.” She said and dismissed them.
“Another long night for the rest of us.” Osborn grunted and rose from the chair. Him, Fluttershy and Twilight left the office. They separated soon after that. Fluttershy went back to the android to have it disassembled and prepared for a dive while Osborn and Twilight entered the elevator.
“Hey, Osborn.” Twilight said.
“Hmm?”
“Did that android look similar to me?”
He leaned in closer and studied her face. “Yeah, you had the exact same plastic nose.”
Twilight frowned. “This isn´t funny, Osborn.”
“Sorry.” He backed up. “Why did you ask?”
“Ever since that empty shell with an almost exact copy of my body I´ve begun to fell paranoid. What if my memories aren´t real? What if someone has planted someone else’s memories inside my head or I never was an organic human to begin with and the memories I have before becoming a cyborg are just fabricated dreams?” She looked at her hand and closed it into a fist. “Maybe I´m just as fabricated has that machine.”
Osborn rubbed the back of his head and sighed. “I´m not sure what to tell you, Twilight. I´ve never had to face fears like that.”
“No, you prefer to fear a bullet to the head over a hacker in our brain.”
“Well we´ll both be dead some day and nothing will matter after that.” He shrugged. “Maybe there´s some small comfort in that.”
Twilight snorted before giving of a laugh. “You´re the worst sometimes, Osborn.”
Osborn shrugged. “You´re laughing aren´t you?”
“That´s true.”
“I actually tried to be a standup comedian before I settled on being a cop.” He looked out the elevator.
“Why did you give up?”
“I was rarely very funny when I tried to be.”
Twilight snorted again. “You´re making me laugh.”
“So what do you need me to do before you dive into that murderous android?” He changed the subject.
“Just help me gather up some of the equipment.”
“No problem.”
Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
“We are ready for takeoff, Major.” The pilot said.
“Do it.” Twilight replied.
“Roger that. We´re taking of.” The helicopter lifted off the roof.
Osborn sat opposite her. He was wearing a combat vest with an assault rifle hanging of his shoulder. “What do you think they´re up to, Twilight?”
“Seems to me like the foreign ministry is trying to hide something.” She holstered her own hand gun and put a few grenades in her pockets. “Think about it. A member of parliament loses his private android and it immediately commits a public murder. Even if that got out it could easily be written off as a bug or a manufacturing error. Seems more likely that android has something hidden in that hard drive. Something that the foreign ministry doesn’t want us to know about.”
“Think Trixie knew what was on that machine before she took it over?”
“I think so.” Twilight tightened some of the straps on her arm. “She may have done it intentionally in order to have a secondary means off escape.”
“So she anticipated us learning from her tricks.” He put a magazine into the assault rifle. The parts clicked and he gave it a slam to push it in. “She´s getting scary.” Osborn put a magazine marked with AP written on it into his chest pocket.
Twilight loaded her own assault rifle. “You can pull out if you want to. I won´t force you to go along with this if you feel there is danger to your life.”
“Out of the question. Trixie has more than enough reason to want me dead already and if we don´t get this lead she´ll just slip away again. Besides,” He smirked. “My life is always in danger with this job.”
“Thanks.” Twilight smiled. “Think you can tell me some kind of joke?” She checked the sights of the assault rifle and glanced out the window.
Osborn put on a helmet and clicked the strap under his chin. “What kind of joke do you want to hear?”
Twilight put on her own helmet. “A really offensive one.”
“Okay.” He checked the sights. “A black man with a parrot on his shoulder walks into a bar. ´Wow, that a beautiful animal´ says the bartender. `Where did you get it?´ he asks. ´The pet store´ answers the parrot.”
“That was pretty bad, Osborn.” Twilight smiled.
“Told you I was wasn´t very good at comedy. Was it at the very least offensive?” He looked out the window too.
“You got that part right.” Twilight chuckled to herself.
“Well that´s something.” He loaded a hand gun and pulled back the mantle.
“Major? ” Applejack showed up in her sight.
“What is it? ”
“The abductors have stopped and seem to be moving vehicles. Or… wait. There´s another crew. Two men. They seem to be moving the android from one car to another .”
“Can you be certain that they are moving the android? ”
“Not from this distance. ”
“In that case follow the unmarked car. Osborn and I will pursue the tagged vehicle. The Chief has set up road blocks, arrest them when they reach one. ”
“Roger that, Major. ”
“Follow the tagged vehicle.” She said to the pilot. “Keep a distance until they stop or reach a road block.”
“Okay.” The helicopter leaned to the side as it maneuvered between the skyscrapers. Osborn grabbed one of the handle bars above him.
Rain started smattering against the windows. At first it was only a few small drops but it soon escalated into a full flood with the rain hammering onto the metallic skin of the helicopter and blurring the sight out of the windows.
Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
The stream of data was clustered and shifting. Numbers and letters rushed by Twilight eyes, she hovered and flowed through the stream of binary codes and lyrical commands. It carried her to a cluster and Twilight stopped herself before entering. She stopped for a moment, put her hand on the cluster before entering.
She closed her eyes.
When she opened them she was in a dimly light hallway. The walls were covered by shelves filled with books. The only lights came from a weak light bulb hanging from the roof. There was no visible end or beginning to the hallway.
Twilight took one of the books of the shelf. The pages were filled binary codes. Lines upon lines with ones and zeroes covering the pages. She flipped a few of the pages, the binary code sifted into grey smudges over the white pages. Twilight put the book back and took out another one. This one was filled with smudges. Beneath the black smear there was the sign of blurry letters but it was impossible to read anything from them.
A cackling laughter echoed and jumped around the hall.
“Where are you, Trixie?!” Twilight shouted.
The laughter continued.
Twilight threw the book away and grunted. In the spot where the book had stood Twilight could see something. There was something behind the shelf. The Major began to tear through the shelves. Throwing the books to the floor, spreading pieces of torn paper into the air until it looked like a snowfall of black-grey flakes. There was something on the other side but she couldn´t make it out yet. She grabbed the shelf and tipped it over. The shelf slammed into the ground and send even more of the paper flying. And now she could see it.
There was some kind machine behind the shelf. It pulsated with a purple light and pumped a bright green liquid out of massive tubes. There was a panel on the machine reading “Life signs” with a line moving in sync with the light.
“Am I getting closer to you, Trixie?” Twilight taunted.
There was no laughter this time. Only a small cry echoing like the laughter.
Twilight was taken back. She wasn´t sure what to think or do now. Why would she be crying? She thought. Is she giving up? She quickly forgot the idea and walked up to the machine. There was some kind of heat coming off it, it seemed to be getting warmer and colder with the pulses. The surface was moist.
She walked back to the hall and tore down another shelf. This one there was nothing but a black wall behind it. Twilight pressed her hand against the wall. It was cold and had some kind of humming sound coming out of it.
The laughter echoed again and then the cry followed.
Twilight picked a book of the floor. The pages were filled with commands followed by binary numbers. A protection program? No, only half of these commands fit a protection program. And the other half seem to have been corrupted or altered. She was about to throw the book aside when she saw the tittle, “The little duck”, and she almost froze in spot. Not only did she used to read this book has a child but the state of the book was identical to the one she had back then. The red leather on the back wasn´t just the same dark tone but it even had the same tear on the front just beneath the tittle as hers. She turned the book around. The back´s inside had a brown stain from the chocolate milk that she spilled on it. Twilight threw the book away with force this time. The book shattered at the back.
“What the hell do you want with me?” Twilight shouted.
“I didn´t know.” A small voice said with a somber tone.
It can´t be. Twilight ran down the hallway and tore down another shelf. The shelf almost landed on her this time has she tipped it over, she just barely managed to avoid it by sidestepping it.
A cloud grey dust and tore papers filled the air. It settled after a moment and Twilight could see what was on the other side.
Behind a transparent wall she could see a thin woman sitting on a floor covered in green liquid. Her face was hidden by her knees. Wires spread from her neck into a massive humming computer. She had red hair with two different shades of violet highlights. In her hand was a pair of scissors and tears ran down from the corners of her eyes.
“Moodancer?” Twilight realized and smiled at the sight of her lost friend. “Can you hear me?” She hit the wall.
She sobbed violently and every movement send ripples through the liquid. “I couldn´t stop it.” She lifted her face from her knees. Her voice winced and cracked.
“I`m right here!” Twilight hit the wall in front of her.
“Twilight.” She sniffed. “I didn´t know you were alive.”
“I´m here!”
“Silverstain, you son of a bitch.” She looked at the scissor in her hand.
“What are you doing?!” Twilight punched the wall again.
Moondancer opened the scissor and put it over her throat.
“Don´t!”
The cold metal opened her throat and blood streamed out of the gash. Moondancer hit the floor, she twitched as the blood rushed out of her.
“No!” Twilight slammed and kicked the wall. She tried tackling it with her entire body.
Moondancer stopped moving and Twilight feel to her knees.
A white light came from the end of the hall. It seemed to rush forward like a breaching wave. When it reached Twilight it blinded her. It felt like a thousand explosions went off in her skull. Each one of them rang like a sledgehammer hitting a bell. She clutched her head and screamed. She closed her eyes but the light still shinned through her eyelids and warmed her eyes.
Then everything went black.
Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
A bar of light spread across Twilight´s eyes. The narrow light spread to fill her gaze and within a few moments, she saw a living room with a sofa and coffee table. Osborn sat in the couch with can of soda.
“Welcome back.” He turned to her. “Sorry about using the EMP but I was close to getting my head blown of.”
“How long was I out?” She looked at her arm and could clearly see that it had been replaced by looking at the point where she got shoot.
“About two days. The foreign ministry send a team after us while you were diving. I managed to hold them off for a few minutes before I had to use the EMP. Applejack showed up and gave us a ride home. We contacted HQ and Celestia gave us clear instructions to stay away until further notice. After that we had to replace parts of our body, so I called in a few favors in order to get new parts.”
“What about the prime minister’s public appearance?”
“After this little incident, which they are going to call terrorist attack, the whole thing was cancelled. The negations with the Crystal Empire took a nose dive after that.” He took a sip from the can. “Oh, and the android apparently contained project AG19201914 or the discord program, a classified spy program made for keeping an eye on other governments. Explains why the foreign ministry didn´t want us to have closer look into that android.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Fluttershy sent me some updates.” He put the can down on the table. “One more thing. The bullet farmer we brought in was found dead in his cell this morning. Apparently he had a pacemaker that decided to go haywire and give him a massive heart attack.”
“Maybe someone hacked into that pacemaker.”
“Maybe. Speaking of hacking, did you manage to find Trixie in that machine?”
“No.”
“Damn. Guess we´re stuck waiting for her next move.”
Twilight rose from the chair. “Where are we?”
“Applejack´s safe house.”
Twilight looked around and her started to recognize things in the room. “I`m gonna go now.”
“Just don´t go to HQ or any other government facility. Celestia is still trying to keep this thing somewhat contained.”
“No problem.”
“See you later then, Twilight.”
Twilight walked out the door. The cold night air filled her lungs and tickled her nose. She looked at the city below the hill she was on. It shinned in neon blue lights from the sings and lamps with yellow lights shining from the cars. “What should I do now?” She asked herself.
Author's Note
We´ll, this feels strange. This that was the first story I ever finished. It was quite the learning experience and I hope I can take the lessons I learned here and apply them to future stories.
I also want to give a huge thanks to everyone who read this story and followed it. An especially big thanks to Dorath who found errors and pointed out dumb things I did and Silverstain who helped proofread even though he was slow has a brick sometime.
Oh, and has for why I didn´t include Rarity or Pinkie the reason was that I couldn´t find proper roles for them.
Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
Manhattan shined with glowing blue and green neon lights. Cars and trucks moved on the roads with paired yellow stars on the front of them. From the hotel Twilight Sparkle looked down from the vehicles seemed more akin to glowing blood cells moving through the veins of titanic organism.
“I´m moving into position, major. ” Osborn´s growly voice said in her head, a moment before his profile picture appeared in the corner of her sight. He had amber colored skin with black short cut hair and a visible stub covered chin.
“Copy that. ” Twilight responded without opening her mouth. “Rainbow Dash, what´s your status? ”
“ETA to position; thirty seconds. ” Osborn´s face disappeared and Rainbow Dashes took its place. She had her rainbow colored hair pulled back into a ponytail at the back of her head and her white skin looked almost pale in comparison to Osborn.
“You’ve got twenty. ”
“Roger. ”
Twilight Sparkle attached a line into one of the air pipes that crawled along the side of the building, removed the safety on the gun and walked up to the edge of the building. “Osborn, status? ”
“In position and ready. ”
“Use the EMP. ”
“Roger. ”
The major spread her arms and leapt forward. The wind pulled her violet hair back and sung with high, sharp tones in her ears. The windows rushed past her. An electrical tickle went through her skin. Or at least that’s what the scans told her brain. A few levels beneath her she saw a man rushing out to the balcony and hurled his head over the edge. She didn´t know the man but she knew he wasn´t the target.
The line reached its end at the same level as the sick man. Twilight felt the line tugging her side and pulling her spine when it stopped. With a graceful movement she flipped around and drew the gun. Her eyes found the target. A skinny man with light brown hair and golden brown eyes. He was in the company of six other men including the man on the balcony. All of them were dazed and clutching their heads in pain. She pulled the trigger, the muzzle flashed with a small flame and the skinny man´s head was torn apart in an explosion of grey metal and white plastic. Every piece of it covered in a layer of crimson blood.
“Now Rainbow Dash! ” The major placed her hands on her hips and clipped the line off. In the corner of her eye she could see a shape moving towards her from one of the side buildings. Rainbow Dash took the major in her arms and ascended gently to the ground with a pair of cyan colored wings strapped to her back.
They landed on a sidewalk were Applejack was waiting for them. She was leaning a chrome colored car with her hat folded over her eyes and her blonde hair was tied in two braids. Rainbow Dash put the major down and began to fold her wings down.
“Status, Osborn? ”
“I´m taking the elevator down. ” He responded. “ETA to entrance; twenty-five seconds. ”
“Copy that. ” Twilight Sparkle climbed into the car. “We´ll regroup at HQ. ”
“Roge- “ Something cut him off.
“Osborn? Osborn?! ” There was no answer. “Applejack drive! ”
The freckled sergeant started the engine and turned the car to the hotel with a few twist of sterring wheel.
“Osborn! ” Twilight tried to make contact again.
“I´ve been hit .” He responded. “A sniper shoot through the window on the opposite building. ”
“What’s your position? ”
“In the elevator, heading down. ”
“Copy that. Fluttershy, ” Twilight contacted central and Fluttershy´s timid face appeared in the corner of her sight. “We´ve been compromised, Osborn´s been shoot. Send a medical unit to the hotel. ”
“Affirmative. ”
“Rainbow Dash,” Twilight turned to her colleague. “Take point when we exit the car and watch for the sniper. Applejack, you’re with me. We need to get Osborn out of the hotel and in to the rescue helicopter ASAP.”
“Copy.” Applejack put her foot down on the gas and they made it back to the hotel within the minute.
Rainbow Dash was the first one out. She climbed out with her assault rifle and took aim to the opposite building. “Go.”
Applejack and twilight Sparkle rushed out the moment she gave them the clear. People inside the hotel were staring at the bloody mess that was Osborn, staggering out of the elevator. Blood dripped from a dark wet mark on his white shirt.
Before he could see either of them, Applejack ran up to him and put on of his arms over her shoulder. Twilight rushed up alongside Applejack and injected Osborn with a syringe filled with a green-grey fluid. The moment the fluid had been pressed down the plunger, Osborn grunted and the muscles on his neck visible flexed.
“Let´s go.” Twilight threw Osborn´s arm over her shoulder and Applejack helped her carry him out of the hotel. When they exited through the door a rush of pressing air pressed them down and the hard noise of cutting helicopter blades meet them.
The helicopter set down in front of the them and two medics jumped out to meet them. Together they lifted Osborn into the chopper and gave him some painkillers via another syringe.
“See the shooter?” Osborn from the carrier he was strapped into.
Twilight shacked her head slightly. “No. Just the rifle.”
“Already gone, huh?”
“I wonder if the shooter was never there.”
“What?”
“Just a hunch. Or perhaps a glitch.” She kept her sight locked to the building as if something would happen to resolve her doubts.
“Hmm…” Osborn put his head back and sighed. “Maybe the EMP got to your brain. Either way we got some big problems to deal with now.”
Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
The electronic tunes boomed and rang heavily in Moon Dancer’s ears. Her muscles tensed and her short nails dug into her sweaty palms.
What am I doing here? Moon Dancer asked herself as a cold lump of ice grew in her stomach. She wanted to lift her foot of the ground and exit the club but something held her in place.
All around her people were dancing, flailing their arms and jumping in chaotic fashion. Moon Dancer pressed into a corner to get away from the thick crowd. Their blank faces shined with warm sweat in the colorful, scanning spotlights. The woman took another step back and felt the wall pressing against her back. She heard the soles of her shoes grinding against the floor as she moved forward against her will. The pattern of hydrogen atoms that was covering the floor moved towards the wall as if it was consumed. The crowd moved slowly closer with the shifting floor.
Moon Dancer pressed against and tried to push the wall back by digging her heels into the floor, but it didn´t work. The wall pushed her ever so slowly forward and the crowd turned towards her, they stared at her with blank, colorless eyes.
“Get away from me!” She shrieked and felt a cold object pressed into the back of her shoulder. A shiny metal point pierced through the skin above her left breast. A warm, thick, crimson liquid dripped from the point.
Moon Dancer screamed at the sight of it.
And woke up in her bed. The sheets were soaked with smelly sweat and stuck to her skin. With her breath racing she ripped her shirt of and checked her shoulder. The skin was warm and moist with sweat, but otherwise unbroken.
“Oh, thank god.” Moon Dancer drew a sigh of relief before she put her knees up to her chest and salty streams rushed down her cheeks.
“Are you alright? ” A voice asked inside her head.
“I had another nightmare.” She sniffed and wiped the tears away with the backs of her hands.
“What happened? ” The voice asked with a cold tone.
“You can just read the files.” Moon dancer plugged cables into the ports on her upper neck. While still sitting in her bed she turned on the lamp. The light blinked a few times before it stayed on. Her room had a collection of thick rubber wires crawling across the floor, like a shoal of black eels and gathering up on the humming computer that reached from up to the roof. The floor was covered in cold, green liquid.
Moon Dancer sat back down on bed and closed her eyes. She floated through an ocean of hovering text and numbers. Flying around like a bird soaring through the city. She eventually found herself walking down a marble street. The sun was spreading warm light over the desolate road and the soft summer air was filled with the scent of lilies. Moon Dancer sat down on a soft patch of grass and began to drink it all in.
“Felling better?” Asked the voice again. This time it was not in her head, it was next to her and came from a man with soft, curly, golden brown hair. He had a kind smile drawn across his soft face.
“Much better.” Moon Dancer felt her smile grew has she pulled him in for a hug. Through his thin shirt she felt his relaxed muscles on her cheeks. “I´ve missed you, Silverstain.”
“I´ve missed you to.” His tone was stiff and cold as ice.
The two of them sat in the field for along time. Moon Dancer sat still with her face pressed against his chest. The man gazed up to the artificial blue sky.
And a creature looked back. It slithered across the sky dome with four different kinds of legs. “It will be my pleasure.” The creature said and cackled with laughter.
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. ”
Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
Applejack shifted to a lower gear. Her targets didn´t seem to notice her, either that or they were trying to get her close enough for them to be able to attack.
Good luck with that. Applejack thought. She opened the glove compartment and took out a lock down collar and a pair of cuffs. Should be coming up on a road block pretty soon.
The vehicle she was following picked up speed and rushed past a few cars along the way. The fresh rain sprayed from underneath the wheels.
Now they´ve spotted me. Applejack pressed down the pedal and shifted to a higher gear. The engine roared at the sudden increased in speed. She rushed past the same cars and chased the target car. The car made a small jump as she drove over a small bump. In the rearview mirror she could see a row of metallic triangles rising. Up ahead she saw a set of police cars parked in front of a similar row of triangles. Officers with floodlights stood behind open doors.
“Step out of the car!” A voice said over a megaphone.
The car stopped. Applejack slowed down before stopping behind them. She took the lock down collar and the hand cuffs with her.
“Get out with our hands up!”
None exited the car.
Applejack drew her gun, got out and slowly approached the vehicle.
“I repeat; come out with our hands up!”
The front window shattered as the drivers in the car opened fire. The officer holding the megaphone hit the ground and the floodlight died.
Applejack rushed forward. With her left arm she smashed the window and grabbed driver by the neck. She wrapped her arm around his shoulder and neck and took aim for the man in the passenger seat. “Drop your weapon.”
He did as he was told and held up his arms.
“Get out of the car.” Applejack said just has another officer rushed up behind the man and pulled him out of the car. She put the lockdown collar on the driver. “They´re all ours.” She looked into the back seat but there was nothing there. She opened the trunk and there was only a white doll. It still had all its limps attached and was clearly female. “Shit.” She closed the trunk with a slam. “Major, the car I was following was just a decoy. ”
“Thanks for the update. ”
“Where´s the car you´re following heading? ”
“East, towards the harbor. ”
“Roger that. ” Applejack headed for her car. “I´ll meet you there. ”
Ghost in the shell: Equestrian architecture
“They must be trying to escape via a boat or something.” Osborn said.
“There´re gonna need a fast boat in order to escape the helicopter.” Twilight replied.
The vehicle drove into a storage facility and stopped inside. The helicopter hovered about forty meters over the ground next to the building.
“Should we wait for backup?” Osborn asked.
“No.” Twilight unbuckled herself and opened the side door. The sound of blades cutting through the wind, pressed against her ears. “They might get away before they arrive. ”
“Alright. ” Osborn put the trigger for his EMP charge in one of his chest pockets and walked to the open door.
“I´ll jump down and get in close before they can make a move. ”
“I´ll try to keep up. ” Osborn hooked up to a line to his belt.
Twilight jumped out. The wind sang in her ears and the pavement rushed up to greet her. With a graceful movement she flipped over and meet the ground with the hell of her boot. The pavement cracked, bits of gravel and drops of black water spread from the point where her boot slammed down. There was a jolt of pain echoing through her but she ignored it. She ran forward, towards the storage. For a brief moment she considered going in through the door. No, they´ll be expecting that. Instead she ran up to the door and jumped to the rooftop. She saw roof window and slowly walked up to it.
There was nothing the warehouse but the car parked in the middle. She could see a clear pattern of wet water marks leading up to the car but there was no sign of anyone climbing in or out.
The Major turned on her camouflage and slowly opened the window. The assault rifle didn´t have the same thermo-optic fibers as her skin and armor. She had to leave it on the roof in order to keep hidden. The rest of her weapons were hidden beneath the armor. With slow and measured movements she climbed into the warehouse and dropped onto the floor with a soft, almost silent thud.
A clanking metallic sound filled the room. It was followed by sharp buzzing noise and then bright yellow flashes appeared seemingly out of thin air. White darts flashed by her.
Twilight threw herself to the ground and rolled towards a nearby pillar. The brown metal was peeled away by the flashing darts but it soon stopped. The skin on her left arm was broken and warm blood flowed from the broken arteries along with white cooling liquid. The fluids mixed and became a pink puddle on the floor. It ached with pain before she turned off the pain receptors. “Osborn; status? ” She pulled out her hand gun took a grenade out of her pocket.
“I´m outside the front door. ”
“They´ve got a tank in here. ”
“Shit. What type? ”
“A tachikoma, with mini gun at least. Do you still have the armor piercing ammo? ”
“Yeah, but I don´t even that will be able to get through that armor. ”
“It won´t. But it will destroy the joints and the mini gun itself. ” She turned off the camouflage. “Listen I´ll draw the fire and you shoot for the source of the fire. ”
“Alright. ” He paused for a moment. “Ready when you are, Major. ”
Twilight changed the clip in her gun to armor piercing has well and removed the cap on the grenade. She pressed down button. “On three. One. ” She released the button. “Two .” She waited another second. “Three. ” She threw the grenade out and felt the vibration and the shock wave of the explosion behind her. The Major ran out of her cover and fired at what she thought was the tank.
The camouflage broke as the bullets scraped the armor, revealing the black, spider legged machine that was hidden underneath. It seemed to flinch for a moment has the camouflage disappeared but it quickly regained its poise and started spinning the multi-piped mini gun. The muzzle flashed and Twilight could feel at least one of the bullets tearing through her left leg. Twilight could feel herself losing her balance.
Despite the deafening noise of the mini gun, Twilight could hear the bark of another gun and in the corner of her eye she could see a small yellow flash.
The spinning red hot muzzle stopped moving. It twitched and slammed against a twisted piece of metal sticking out of the joint at the base.
Twilight stopped her fall by leaning onto a crate. She shoot for the legs on the tank, aiming for the opening between the joints. The armor piercing rounds tore through the combination of rubber and metal. A thick, oily liquid leaked from the crack.
The tachikoma shifted its weight in order to compensate for the broken leg. She could see both men from the car getting out of the car. Both of them had small hand guns. Before they could even raise them Osborn shoot them both down. The tachikoma turned to face Twilight and two grenades came flying out of the back of the tank.
The Major shoot both of the grenades midair with ease. The explosions covered the tank in a thin blanket of grey smoke.
“I´m shooting out it´s legs, Major. ” Osborn´s rifle barked again.
A large, thundering, metallic bang came from the grey cloud. The smoke was pushed away and the tachikoma laid limbless on the ground, only one of it´s legs still moved.
Twilight ran up to the broken machine and pushed her fingers into the opening next to the hatch. The metal bend and winced before she tore it clean of. There was no one inside. Twilight paused for a moment.
“You okay, Twilight?” Osborn asked.
She smashed her fist into the control panel, the plastic shell bend inwards and she pulled out the cables. The wires snapped and she slammed her fist down again, this time tearing a control core out. She crushed it against the tanks own armor.
“I guess not.” He walked up to her.
“I´m fine.” Twilight grunted. “The damn thing was remotely controlled. Is the android in the car?”
Osborn walked over and cheeked. “Yeah, it´s in the back seat.”
“Good. I`m diving into it.”
“Now?”
“If either side gets the android now it will be stuck in court as they decided what is more important for them. Meanwhile Trixie runs free and we´ll lose all leads.”
“Alright. But it might be a little risky without the proper gear.” Osborn took the android out of the backseat.
Twilight took a wire out of her pocket, plugged one end into the socket in the back of her neck and plugged the other end into the android back sockets. She laid down on the ground.
“Just a heads-up, Twilight.” Osborn took the trigger for his EMP out of his pocket. “The foreign ministry is probably sending backup to get this android has we speak.” He switched the clip in his assault rifle. “I´ll hold them of for as long as I can but, if they get to close I´m gonna pull the plug and blow the EMP so we can get away.”
“Okay.”
“Good luck in there.”