Access slammed the van’s side door closed, and Sheet Rock wasted no time in putting her hoof down on the accelerator the moment it did so. Access figured she’d had enough and just wanted to be alone for a little while, which was understandable.

What she did not know, and Access would like to keep it that way, was that he’d lied to her face for the first time in years when he said he couldn’t crack the chip. If she knew, she’d kick his ass out onto the streets again or beat him over the head with something heavy until his chromed skull developed an uncomfortable dent, it could end up being either.

“Cheer up, Access, it’s over now.” Star remarked. “Sure we didn’t get any answers, and we didn’t really get paid, but at least we’re alive!”

There was a store that Access always used to frequent when it came to spare parts and scrap, a real hole-in-the-wall if there ever was one. The transformer that powered the flickering neon sign always did get on his nerves now he thought about it, much like Star’s continued attempts to get him to see the bright side of things.

Inside, racks and racks of “new” parts, scrap, and reclaimed components lined the walls and filled large metal bins marked with their prices. If it existed at some point, whether that be on the open market or from the black market, it was likely this shop had it on a shelf or a bin somewhere or had someone who could tell you were to get it.

Here they would find the requisite parts to get Snowy at least functional enough to see and speak, a proper synthetic body would need to come later.

“You’ve been acting weird since we crossed the border into Canterlot, is something wrong?”

“I just want to get these parts and go home.” Access said plainly, stopping in front of a tray of assorted co-processors. “What makes you think something’s wrong?”

“It isn’t your fault Snowy’s out of action, you know.”

“I know.”

“So why are you being so weird?”

Access felt his last nerve snap and he pushed Star out the front door and into a small alcove next to the storefront.

“I lied.”

“You… lied?” Star said, a little startled.

“I’ve had that chip cracked for hours, it wasn’t booby-trapped at all.” Access said, his voice low. “I can’t say whether this is because she gave us the wrong chip, one without any defensive measures, or if it was intentional.”

“Shouldn’t we tell the others?” Star asked. “I mean, this could give us answers, why lie?”

“Because I know Sheet will want to go after whoever killed Phantom.” Access half-shouted. “Ever since our first job with the Crown our actions have ALWAYS given us just enough information to spur us on to the next job, like the curious rats we are.”

“You think our involvement and the actions we took was by design, like someone knew we’d take them?” Star said as she put the pieces together in her head. “That would mean…”

“Someone’s been leading us on, yes.”

It had always been suspected that someone had been carefully directing their involvement toward an end that benefited those pulling the strings, which made sense when you considered that many of their jobs didn’t logically follow one another despite involving certain parties who were often at odds.

But that was the least of their concerns, right now their involvement with the job Phantom brought to them had caused a rapid and uncontrolled rise in the tensions between Equestria and the Bat Pony Nation.

The real question was who would want to inflame relations, when up until this point, the two nation’s tempers had been cool and cordial.

“Could Dark Space firing me have something to do with this?”

“I suppose that depends how paranoid you want to be, but I can’t imagine it’s much of a co-incidence considering what Luna told us.” Access remarked as he want to step back into the store. “We need Snowy’s help to draw conclusions from the data we scraped over all the jobs we’ve done, to see if we can piece together who has been fucking with us.”

“What about Sheet, Scarlet, Bulwark even?”

“We say nothing, at least until I can make sense of everything.” Access stressed. “Can you do that?”

”As much as I hate having to lie, I cannot deny that Sheet would more than likely do something reckless if she knew you’ve been lieing to her.” Star said, nodding reluctantly. “Plugging that thing into your head without at least some idea what might happen to you was the kind of reckless I’ve come to expect from you.”

“I’m the kind of reckless you can medicate, Sheet is the kind of reckless that ends up with someone losing a limb.” Access retorted. “We should stop wasting time, we need to get Snowy up and running again.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.”

Author's Note

This marks the end of "Act One" of Access and Sheet Rock's story, and work on Act Two is progressing quite quickly and already spans a number of drafts, which i think many of you will quite enjoy when it arrives.

That said, I thank you for joining me on this journey, and i hope you'll join me again when Access and Sheet Rock's story resumes in the sequel.