Access thought about taking up Bright Sun on his offer, there was no better medical care than that of a Corp, most of them had and ran medical facilities but none were more renowned than Equi-Tech’s.

Despite his almost rigid distrust, he decided he’d take up Bright Sun’s offer of a medical checkup and maybe just maybe they’d gain an ally in the process.

“Hey, Mr Sun asked me to inquire about a Doctor Brandy Snaps, something about fixing my implants?”

The reception pony raises an eyebrow, rifling around a drawer for a moment before tossing Access a keycard which clatters to the ground.

“Go up the stairs behind me and to the general use elevators, this card will take you straight to the floor you’re wanting. Brandy Snaps will meet you up there.”

Access took the keycard off the floor using his magic and slipped it into a pocket on his vest with a slight grumble.

The Equi-Tech Tower lobby area made liberal use of many high-quality materials used in Upper-Canterlot itself, gleaming steel and glittering glass aplenty. It still bothered him that Lower-Canterlot and beyond looked so run down and dirty.

Anger began to bubble within him once more as he reached a bank of elevators, putting his keycard into a slot near one of them which called it down to the lobby after a few moments.

While riding the elevator up Access found himself thinking about events so far, while Bright Sun seemed sincere it wasn’t wise to trust the word of a corp nor was it wise to work for them.

Him and his crew didn’t have much of a reputation outside Lower-Canterlot so he pondered how Equi-Tech had come to know of them, most of their past jobs involved the kinds of crimes most police forces would overlook.

The elevator came to a stop on his floor, upon stepping out a rather large Earth Pony Stallion with a burnt orange coat and beige mane greeted him, he towered over Access by quite the margin and looked as if he’d tower over the rather tall Titus as well.

“Ah Hello, I assume you are Access Granted?” The stallion asked.

“Yeah, Yeah, That’s me.” Access mumbled in awe.

“Excellent! My name is Brandy Snaps, Mr Sun has already told me what happened so you’ll just need a quick checkup and then maybe a bit of implant maintenance, please follow me.”

This Earth Pony seemed oddly chipper unlike his colleagues who roamed the halls, all of whom wore the same form-fitting white and yellow striped uniform jumpsuits.

Before long they arrive at an immaculately clean and brightly lit medical bay, the centerpiece of the room was what looked like a large lounger covered in cables and various computer terminals, it was likely equipped with the latest in diagnostic hardware and software.

“Please, go ahead and lay down and we’ll get started!” said Brandy as chipper as ever.

Access did as he was told and laid on the lounger, to which Brandy passed some cables over to him.

“Before you jack in let me clean your plugs first, with any luck they should still be working.”

Access shows his neural plugs to Brandy who looks at them intently before grabbing some cleaning tools, even though he was an Earth Pony he was surprisingly deft with his hooves and had the plugs clean in no time at all.

“You had better not screw me over.” Access said with a glare.

“You can trust me! I’m not in the business of doing the Boss’ dirty deeds.”

Access grabs the plugs in his magic and slides them into his neural interface, with a satisfying click they fit into place. Surprisingly his systems recognized the connection with a brief alert.

“I’m going to run some diagnostics and check over your physical condition, just relax and try not to stress yourself.”

Access just nodded and let himself relax a little as Brandy started a diagnostic procedure, It was taking a little while but Access was in no position to complain.

Brandy also checked the area around Access’ plugs, some of the surrounding tissue was still severely burnt but was otherwise healing just fine. He also makes a mental note to advise a cell regeneration serum to help things along.

Soon after, the report came back and the results were somewhat surprising to the both of them.

Brandy began to speak, as politely as possible “Interesting, it appears most of your systems just suffered a critical failure, no damage at all!”

“It felt like I was being fried alive, to be fair.” Access states coldly.

Brandy gave a small chuckle “You’re very lucky it didn’t cook your brain, let alone your implants.”

“I should just be thankful my countermeasures worked then.”

Brandy raises an eyebrow and put on a concerned look “Alas where your implants are for the most part fine your nervous system isn’t.”

Access looked at Brandy in a confused manner.

“Look, I don’t need this machine to say it’s possible that you may have permanent nerve damage, though it’s still too early to tell but you may develop fine motor issues.”

Access let his ears go flat against his head at this news before Brandy interjected.

“Just take it easy for a little while and you’ll be fine, hold on while I reboot your implants and let me know if everything comes back up alright.”

With a few taps of his terminal’s keys Access’ vision went dark, a few moments later his vision was filled with his AR displays boot-up sequence as he watched each status message go by.

Sub-dermal Weapon Link: Online

Cranial Neural Interface: Online

Cortex Response Enhancer: Online

Ocular Enhancement and AR display: Online

“Looks like everything is good!” Access says with a relieved expression.

“As far as the diagnostics are concerned the overload only induced a critical failure, if your systems are communicating with each other then you have nothing to worry about.” Brandy assures.

Access pulled the plugs from the back of his head and sat up, feeling much better now his systems had been looked at. Before he could get up to leave, Brandy stops him with a stern look on his face.

“Access, Do not under any circumstances let that happen again, you got very lucky indeed and the next time you’re this reckless will likely end in your death.”

Access nodded and got up from the lounger, while he was doing so Brandy took a set of seven vials of medicine from a nearby drawer, along with an injector and tossed them to Access.

“Almost forget, Take one of these per day for seven days, should heal those burns nicely.”

Access turned to leave, heading back down to the foyer and after some moments of travel down to the ground floor he quickly walked out of the Tower’s front doors, thankfully without being watched intently this time.

Now his systems were working correctly, he started a diagnostic of his own, though it was less accurate than one done with the proper equipment it’d still tell him if anything was amiss.

Waiting with baited breath Access watched the diagnostic progress and when the results came back as “All Good” he began to question his reaction to Brandy’s help.

Was he being too judgmental?

This thought played on his mind as he walked further and further from the tower, nearly knocking into several passing ponies as he went.

Author's Note

Some doubt being sown in Access' mind this time around now that things are calming down for the crew, what could be next for them?