Sweepers

It was always rainy in Fillydelphia, at least for the past week. The massive metropolitan city suffered under an aggressive overcast which came with an abundance of precipitation. It had been a while since the citizens of Filly had seen the sun, and with such depressing weather, it was starting to weigh down on the morale. The rain clattered down between the tall skyscrapers and onto the many cars parked in the middle of the road, budging a little every minute whenever the light turned green and a couple of cars could squeeze their way through. Traffic jams were nothing exceptional here during the busier parts of the day, but this time it was especially bad. It was a good thing the weather was this terrible, or ponies would already be out of their cars and yelling at each other in the middle of the street to not drive like a complete idiot and just move already!

One of those cars queued up had one of the windows down, and a dark blue hand was reaching out to catch the rainwater in its palm.

“Hey, Shark!” Vertigo said, and turned to her friend behind the wheel. She brought her hand back in and whipped it in her direction, spraying her with the cold water. Sharktooth flinched and gave an annoyed grunt, wiping the drips from her face with her hand. She glared at the cerulean pegasus, who was snickering back at her. “Gotta keep your body moistened or you’ll suffocate.”

“You’re hysterical,” Sharktooth said while rolling her eyes. Her hand rested casually on the steering wheel while the other held a lit cigarette. The plume of smoke slowly rolled through the gap in the window right next to her, and she dumped the ashes into the tray that was built into the lower dashboard, one that she really had to empty out sometime soon. She didn’t care about smoking in the car, it was her car after all, and it was a pretty old model. She had thought about getting rid of it in exchange for a new one, but this one still rolled, so she didn’t make that a priority whatsoever.

Shark’s foot was firmly pressed onto the brake pedal, though at this point using the parking brake seemed more viable. They had been stuck like this for a good twenty minutes, moving a few car lengths every few minutes. They weren’t exactly in a hurry, but they were still expected somewhere.

“Man, too many cars in the world,” Vertigo said, following the windshield wipers with her eyes out of boredom. “This blows.”

“Aye,” Sharktooth sighed. She took a drag from her cigarette while Vertigo changed the radio station. There was nothing but talking and commercials on the one they were listening to anyway. “Vertigo, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this. When are you planning to get yer driver’s license?”

Vertigo looked at her as she leaned back in the passenger’s seat. She laughed a bit. “Driver’s license? What for? I can freakin’ fly!”

“Yeah, it’s all about flying with you, until the weather gets shite, then it’s all ‘Sharky, can you drive me there’, or ‘can ya come pick me up, my wings are freezing off’. I ain’t gonna be your cab driver for the rest of my life, ya know?”

Vertigo snorted and stretched herself long in the seat. “Lemme put it this way. Imagine me behind the wheel of a car. Are you willing to trust me with a two ton death machine beneath my ass?”

Shark grimaced at the comment. She did have a point, but she was obviously just coming up with excuses to slip away from the issue. At this rate, Shark was thinking about asking for gas money compensation or she would cut off her services entirely.

“Then again,” Vertigo snarked, “maybe I could say the same thing about you. You know you’re supposed to be sober while driving a car, right?” This got her an obtuse look from the shark punk.

“I don’t drink and drive,” she retorted.

“Really now? That means drinking before driving, you know. Not during. And you know they check for the alcohol on your breath, not how tipsy you’re feeling at the moment, Miss ‘Drinks Whiskey like it’s Water’.”

There was no helping it, Sharktooth had to chuckle at that. “Yeah well, at least I got my license. If bein’ sober is all it takes, you should get yers no problem.”

Vertigo looked out the side window and shrugged her shoulders. “Whatever you say, piranha girl.”

The dark green mare raised an eyebrow. She hadn’t heard that one before.

“Besides, here we are complaining about the amount of cars on the road, and you wanna put another one on it?” Vertigo said. “What made you bring it up, anyway?”

Shark gave a long, exasperated sigh and drove another couple of meters ahead. “Fine, forget it, but ye’re gonna have to chip in for petrol if this keeps up.”

They eventually managed to push through the bottleneck and the rest of the drive was pretty smooth, save for the few red lights along the way. They found an open space on the parking lot, right across the street from a massive building. It was located in the industrial district, east of the city, so it was surrounded by plenty of other companies and factories, but this one stuck out because of how much it towered over them. Right across the street was a big sign next to the path leading to the building. In big, metallic letters it read “NOVA Corp.”.

“So, what exactly are we doing here?” Vertigo asked as she gazed at the behemoth of a tower from behind the foggy car window.

“Fucked if I know,” Shark replied as she took the keys from the ignition and removed her seatbelt. “I got a notice from them telling us to come here. They’ve got something or someone they want us to see or summat, I don’t know.”

“Cool, maybe they have some kind of crazy gadget for us,” she smirked. “Do we at least know where to start looking?”

“Aye, sector 12F. We just head for the reception desk and they’ll tell us the way. Keep yer head down though.”

Vertigo nodded, but something wasn’t sitting right with her, and she knew Sharktooth felt the same way. They didn’t get a name, nor an objective, just a vague notice to come here and work it out from there. What for? As far as they knew, this wasn’t a mission, or maybe it was the precursor to one.

Nova wasn’t a small corporation, not just by the size of their headquarters, but they were widely known to just about anyone. They were the leaders when it came to technological advancements, from big to small. Their R&D department focused on robotics, both for industrial and medical purposes, animatronics, household electronics, computers and so much more, everything state of the art. There were even rumors that they were developing weapons, but those were debunked after a long and tiresome investigation. Turned out it was just a bunch of internet speculation that got way out of hand. They had plenty of subsidiaries all over Equestria, and one hell of a reputation to uphold. They were absolute juggernauts in the technology sector, and staggered the world again and again with their amazing results that would shape the future of civilisation.

Sharktooth and Vertigo got out of the car and into the rain, crossed the street and headed for the automated entrance doors. Both were immensely curious as to what they would find in there, though Vertigo was interested in taking a look around more than anything. Just by the entrance hall, they knew this place meant business. It was wide and spacious, illuminated with many spotlights in perfect, uniform distribution on the ceiling. There were information terminals dotted around the lobby, and Vertigo almost tripped over a robot driving around on its own, keeping the floors so shiny you could see yourself in them. In the back there was a big, rounded reception booth with several ponies in proper uniforms seated at them, and behind that, the company logo in gargantuan letters.

“Bugger me, do I ever feel out of place here,” Sharktooth whispered to her shorter friend. She wore a jeans jacket that was torn at the elbows and wet from the rain, fingerless gloves and her usual jeans trousers with work boots combo. Vertigo didn’t fare much better in this regard, she looked like she just came back from hanging out with her homies on the street, with her roomy burgundy hoodie and dark grey baggies.

“Tell me about it. This is kinda neat though. Feels like I just traveled to the future!”

They made their way to the reception, where a young unicorn mare with a black mane, orange fur and blue eyes greeted them with a smile. Sharktooth approached her and greeted her with a nod.

“‘Ello, luv-- Erm, I mean, miss… We got a notice to meet someone here? Sector 12F?”

The young receptionist turned to her very expensive looking computer and began to type on her keyboard. “Okay, your names please?”

“Sharktooth and Vertigo.”

“Oh yes, that’s correct. That would be Miss Proxy, she said she was expecting you,” she turned to them with a friendly smile.

Finally they got a name, which was more than they got when they received the email. Miss Proxy. Vertigo immediately got an image in her head of a mature woman who was an expert in computers, with her mane in a bun, wearing glasses and a lab coat. What would she want with them, though?

“12F is on the 6th floor. Just take the elevator over there,” she said while pointing at the far end side of the lobby, “and follow the yellow line. That should take you right to it. You can walk right in when you get there, she’ll be waiting for you.”

Shark gave her thanks and they both made their way to the elevator doors. They noted just how wide they were, and when the elevator arrived, they saw why. These were some heavy duty lifts, designed to carry a lot of people at once, and with a very shiny finish on their internal walls. They rose fast to the sixth floor and once they made it there, they saw the row of coloured lines running along both the floor and the walls. Clearly they were in the R&D section of the building, because the walls were sterile white and intersected by large windows looking in to laboratories and testing rooms, both on their left and right. As they passed by they could see what was going on in there, and it was interesting to say the least.

They saw a robot being tested, walking on its own with uncanny smoothness. It almost looked like it was alive. Through another window they saw a high precision robot arm being controlled, for surgical purposes perhaps. They even saw a naked, creepy looking metal endoskeleton they were still working on that looked like something out of Five Nights at Bucky’s, that horror game where you have to work the night shift at a haunted family burger restaurant and the animatronic mascots come to live and try to kill you.

“If the robot apocalypse ever happens, I know where I’m pointing my finger,” Vertigo quipped.

Sharktooth hummed in agreement, and before long they arrived to where the yellow line was guiding them. It said 12F above the door, so there was no question about it. The door was open though, so they just let themselves in since this Proxy chick was apparently expecting them anyway.

What they found in there was a room not too dissimilar from the other ones they saw. It kind of looked like a very neat, very high tech workshop. There were several computers, some of them on, others turned off, and something that looked like a workbench with a dubious looking piece of technological equipment on top of it with wires attached, connecting it to a machine next to it. They couldn’t really make heads or tails about what it was all for. There were even wires hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room, and there was a constant humming and the occasional beeping that filled the lab. Clearly somebody was working here, but they couldn’t see a single living soul.

“Hello?” Shark called out. “Hellooo!” There was no response. “What the bleedin’ hell? I thought she was waiting for us.”

“Maybe she went to take a piss real quick?” Vertigo suggested.

“Maybe… But then why was the door open?”

They decided to wait there for a while in case she showed up, and took a look around the lab. While Sharktooth was looking at all the mechanical knick knacks stored in the glass cabinets, Vertigo discovered another door in the back of the room. This one was different, however. It was made of steel and there was a green button next to it with an arrow pointing up on it. She pushed it without thinking and the door slid upwards swiftly with a soft swishing sound. It was like a door you would find in a sci-fi spaceship or something. She looked inside to see another room, and she walked through.

Only seconds later, Vertigo stormed back into the lab Shark was in, her eyes wide and her body language conveying urgency. “Holy fucking crap, Shark! Come take a look at this! You’re not gonna believe this!”

Shark turned and walked toward her with a quickened pace. “What? What is it?” She looked inside the room at where Vertigo was pointing, and her eyes went just as wide and her head filled up with questions.

It was a smaller room than the lab. It looked like it was used as an office of some sort. There was one computer with three screens on the desk and a couple of servers stored away in the back, as well as a few file archives against the wall. In the far corner, however, there was a table, or a gurney of some sort, or at least that’s what it kind of looked like. That’s what they were both really looking at.

On top of it they saw a young mare, a pegasus, laying down flat on her back in a rigid, perfectly straight pose, her eyes shut. Her fur was a pale flesh colour, bordering slightly on orange, and her mane, well, that’s where it became complicated. This girl was anything but normal. She wore a tight, light grey bodysuit that covered her chest, abdomen and hips, but the arms and right leg were exposed. One arm was her normal fur colour, but the other was not. It was mechanical! Same thing with her right leg, and her right wing, and the right side of her face. There was metallic plating all over her arm and leg and a black, flexible rubber like material that covered up the joints. There were some subtle creases near her wrist and ankle, and her real mane seemed to be missing, instead replaced by thick, synthetic, dark red dreadlocks that hung over the right side of her face, though she still had her tail, which was roughly the same colour. Moreover, she only had one ear, the one that was still organic.

The duo slowly and carefully approached this figure laying still on the table. Honestly, Vertigo first though she had found a corpse, that’s how stiff and lifeless her pose appeared. It did indeed look like the entire right side of her body was replaced by mechanical prosthetics!

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Vertigo asked, still not entirely recovered from picking up her jaw from the floor.

“N-no…” Shark replied. “What in the name of… What in the bloody hell are they working on here?”

Vertigo moved in to take a closer look. “It doesn’t seem to be active. You think this is what they wanted us to find?”

“Maybe, but… The invitation was from Nova itself. That makes no sense! That Proxy lass has a lot of explaining to do. If she’s still gonna show up, that is.”

As Shark went to check the lab once more to see if anyone had returned, Vertigo inched ever closer, reaching out to touch the mysterious mare’s left arm. It felt like real flesh alright, but then she noticed that her chest was very subtly and very slowly heaving up and down. Vertigo turned her head to Shark. “Hey, she’s breathing!”

Shark then saw that she was touching her and began to growl at her. “Have you gone mental, you bloody pillock!? Don’t touch her, she could be dange--”

Sharktooth froze when she looked at the mare’s face, so Vertigo did the same. Her eyelids had opened, and staring back at her was a wide open cybernetic eye with a light blue sclera, a round iris that was mostly aqua, but took on many more colours beneath the surface, and no pupil to speak of. The most curious thing, was that the eye displayed the image of an exclamation mark for a second.

Vertigo yelped and jumped back as she began to slowly rise from the table, seeing that a cable was connected to the back of her neck. When she sat up straight, she reached behind her head and pulled the plug out, which then recoiled back into the table. The two Sweepers stood side by side, readying themselves for a potential fight, and observed as she got off the table and stood to her feet. She was quite tall when she stood in front of them, several inches taller than Sharktooth, and she was about 5 foot 8. She looked at them with one eye, since the right one was obscured by her hair. She blinked a couple of times, a stoic, neutral expression on her face.

“Hello.”

Shark and Vertigo were taken aback. The cadence of her voice sounded smooth, if a little monotonous, but it had this strange, robotic tremor to it that was impossible to miss and so bizarre to hear come from her mouth.

“I am terribly sorry. I was taking a quick nap.”

“A...nap?” Vertigo inquired, still somewhat on edge.

“Yes, to recharge. I have long workdays.”

They both looked at each other, then back at her. “You… work here?” to which she nodded with a hum. They saw the tiniest smile appear on her face, but it didn’t stay for long.

“Then,” Sharktooth started, “you are…”

“Yes, I am Nova Proxy.”

Completely stunned didn’t even come close to describing how the two looked at her. Flabbergasted, astonished, dumbfounded, none of those words did it justice.

“Y-you’re Miss Proxy?!?!” Vertigo exclaimed.

“Just Proxy will do. And you must be Sharktooth and Vertigo.” She nodded and that small smile appeared again. “Good. I was expecting you.” She began to head for the door, and even Shark made way to let her pass, not being able to keep her eyes off her. Her prosthetic limbs whirred softly as she walked, but they moved very naturally and smoothly, and her robotic foot made a heavy metallic thud every time it landed on the floor. Shark and Vertigo looked at eachother once more when she exited the office.

“What the fuck?!” Vertigo mouthed to her.

“I apologise for scaring you. You were later than expected and I just needed some energy. I left the door open for you. My systems need some time to boot when I wake up, so my response was a little slow.”

“Ah, yeah, sorry about that. Bad traffic,” Shark chimed in.

“So, ehm, Proxy! Are you an android?” Vertigo asked with a hint of excitement, then watched as the pegasus froze in her tracks and her body tensed up. She took a deep breath, cleared her throat and looked at her.

“No, I am not an android, nor am I a robot. I am a cyborg. There is a very big difference. Robots are programmable machines that can have any shape. Androids are autonomous robots or synthetic organisms that are designed to look and behave just like ponies. I am a cyborg, which means that part of my body is organic, but I have cybernetic implants. Also, there is no such thing as androids, yet.”

That long winded explanation and the way she said it gave away that this was, perhaps, a touchy subject for her. Vertigo chuckled nervously. “Hehe, right, sorry…”

“It is okay. I have heard that mistake often.” She walked to the entrance to the lab and closed the door. Meanwhile, Vertigo leaned closer to Sharktooth and whispered to her.

“I didn’t think there was such a thing as cyborgs, either…”

Shark smirked back at her, then decided to speak up. “So, Proxy? What can we do for you?”

The cyborg pegasus turned off a couple of computers, then walked to the northern wall of the lab. Embedded into the wall was a small device that she promptly held her eye in front of. After that, a hatch opened up and she inserted her right hand inside of it. A few clicks were audible after which there was a beeping noise and part of the wall slid aside, revealing a secret door much like the one leading to her office. The two stared back at her with some amazement.

“This way,” she said and opened the door with the push of a button. The shark and the blue pegasus shrugged at each other and followed her in. What they walked into took them by surprise. It looked like a very modern living room, with a black couch, a tv with a video game console plugged into it and with rows of games beside it. Shelves against the wall were filled with toys, collectables and other curiosities, and there were plenty of other devices stored away in the corners. There was also another one of those recharge tables they found her on, albeit more comfortable looking with a padded surface. There were more doors, one just a frame that lead to a kitchen and another that was closed. She even had a window looking out over the area so some natural light could get in. This felt like an apartment room in the middle of a corporate building.

“These are my private quarters. We can talk here. Make yourselves at home. Oh, and close the door please.”

While Sharktooth pressed the button to close the door, hearing the wall slide shut behind it again, Vertigo was already exploring the room, excitedly looking at the stuff on the shelves. “Whoa, this is so cool! Do you live here?”

“Oh yes!” Proxy said. “I like to live close to work. That is how I stay productive.”

“What’s with the secrecy though?” Shark asked as she looked around the room. “It looked like you have two different security systems just to reveal the door.”

“Privacy measures. I sometimes have people over in my lab, so I like to keep my room hidden. My colleagues know about it, but only I can open it.”

While Proxy was talking, Vertigo picked up a toy from the shelf. It looked kind of like a red spider with four legs, its body about the width of her palm. It had an on and off switch on the top and a small eye in the front.

“Oh, I made that one myself,” Proxy announced. “It responds to certain sounds, locates them and walks towards them. It has an infrared sensor so it can avoid obstacles. Turn it on and put it on the ground.”

Vertigo flipped the switch to on and placed it on the carpeted floor, after which Proxy crouched down and whistled for it. The little robot sprung to life and dashed across the floor, straight at her. It even walked around the leg of a table in its way with ease. When it was right in front of her, it stopped. Proxy reached out and petted it on the head. “Good boy.” Vertigo started laughing, it was so hilariously cute when its little legs moved across the floor so eagerly. She whistled loudly, and the spider bot turned around and scurried over to her in a hurry, much to her amusement.

“Haha, this is the best! I gotta have one of these!” She picked it up, turned it off and placed it back on the shelf. “You made this?”

“Yes, I like to make toys in my spare time. I am planning to make something similar that can go down stairs. I hope it will eventually replace the slinky.”

While Proxy was still in the middle of her explanation, Vertigo was already walking to the other side of the room. There were a couple of devices stored away in the corner, but one of them in particular caught her eye. It was a rather large machine, something like a steel, cylindrical bench propped up on six short legs with rubber feet and with a soft, padded seat on top of it. She wasn’t sure what it was, but the two lumpy protrusions on either side of the seat, that looked like they were made of jelly rubber, gave her a sneaking suspicion.

With a dubious smile on her face, she turned to Proxy, already pretty sure of what it was, but she decided to ask anyway. “Is that a…”

“Yes, that is a sex machine,” was her answer; without the slightest hint of shame or apprehension. Shark’s expression as she just stood by was priceless. Her eyes went wide and her lips pursed as she gazed at Proxy from the corners of her eyes. “I have my own line of saddle vibrators, called Orgasmatron. I’m not selling them on a large scale yet, but I have sold a few online and shipped them out. This one is a new model I have been working on, with two seats for those who like company and a wireless remote, less noisy than the previous ones too.”

Her deadpan delivery on the subject was nothing short of hilarious to Vertigo, but was making Sharktooth immensely uncomfortable. She awkwardly crossed her arms and coughed. “You make sex toys too?” she asked. “Here?”

“In my own time. Nova does not have anything to do with it.”

“So is this one still a work in progress?” Vertigo asked.

“Oh no, it is finished. I even have several accessories for it. I just have not gotten around to fully testing it yet.”

With a sparkling glint in her eyes, Vertigo turned to the machine and her mind began to race. “Ohhh, shit dude~ Maybe I can help you with that.”

Sharktooth grunted and facepalmed, then pointed her finger at her partner. “Vertigo, quit arsing around!” she scowled, causing the pegasus to glare and pout back at her. “Now, Proxy, I reckon you didn’t bring us back here to show off yer crib, so how about you tell us why we’re here exactly?”

“Oh, oh yes, of course! Have a seat. Can I get you something to drink?”

While Proxy headed for the fridge, Shark sat down in the couch, while Vertigo preferred to stand, leaning over the backrest next to her with her arms crossed. The cyborg came back with a bottle of soda for Vertigo and a glass of OJ for Shark, and then she sat down in a chair opposite of the coffee table with her hands on her knees. She shuffled a bit, appearing anxious, though her expression was still that big open eye, borderline curious stare and neutral mouth position.

“I am a little bit nervous…” she admitted, making the other two raise an eyebrow. They figured they should have been the nervous ones, considering the fact that a freaking cyborg was about to tell them something important and they had no idea what.

“Go on...” Shark said, to which the half mechanical pegasus nodded.

“Okay,” she started. “My name is Nova Proxy. I am nineteen years old, born here in Fillydelphia. My name used to be just Proxy until my body was rebuilt with implants and prosthetics at age seventeen, after an illness affected and destroyed the right side of my body. I have been working here at Nova ever since in the Research and Development department. I have a high affinity for computers and electronics, and my implants allow me to interact with them on both a physical and mental level. I am always connected to the internet and I can browse it through my mind’s eye interface. I can even serve as a hotspot if necessary. However, I have difficulty expressing emotions, and I get really nervous around magnets. My--” Proxy stopped when she saw Vertigo raising her hand at her.

“Wait, wait, hang on. That’s all very interesting, if a bit confusing, but why are you telling us all this? It almost sounds like you’re in a job interview right now.”

“Well, yes, I did not get to that yet. To keep it short, I want to join you.”

Shark nearly choked on her OJ.