CyberPone

//Stairway To Heaven

“You think the whole world has gone mad? Uh-uh yeah, it’s always been like this. I think you don’t get out much.”

Fair warning. This is going to be much weirder than usual; even for me.

Removing the cigarette from my mouth with crimson magic, I blew a ring of smoke into the air as I leaned back into the driver's seat and cracked my back. I grabbed my necklace, a shard, and brought it to the front of my face with a longing glance. Not everything was how it seemed.

A young grey diamond dog hopped into the backseat from the street. He leaned forward and, with his massive metal arm, turned the radio on. He tuned it to annoyingly loud hip hop. The pale blue unicorn mare next to me, with a mane that was an explosion of ultraviolet colors, let out a groan.

“What?!” The diamond dog asked while fixing his skull headcap bandanna.

“Turn that shit off, Hardcase.” She rolled her blue glowing eyes, reaching for the radio knob.

Hardcase grabbed her grey sleeveless denim jacket’s shoulder before she could touch the knob, “You just don’t know good music, niña.”

“You can’t even understand the words they’re singing! It’s just a bunch of autotune bullshit like the corpos produce.” She flailed her hooves in the air.

“Settle down, Hexie.” I turned to her, taking another hit from my cig.

Hardcase gave a hearty laugh, “At least you understand good music, hombre!”

“Nah,” I tapped the burnt end of my cigarette on the window of the car, its ashes falling to the pavement below. “Your taste in music is shit.”

“You city folk think you know everything.”

I laughed. “Maybe we do, maybe we don’t. Who really gives a shit though? Yo Hexie, switch the radio to something better.”

“Gladly!” The mare turned the knob, passing through the countless radio channels playing different styles of music, talking about the latest corporate news and other things. She paused at a few stations, giving each one a listen for a few seconds, before finding one she enjoyed.

The radiopony’s silkily deep voice squeaked through the old speakers, “Welcome back to 94.9 The Underground! This is your Love Doctor speaking directly to you, the beautiful people of Detrot. ‘It’s another great day for a big score, so get out there.’ That’s what my pops used to say. Now for a little news. Recently, there have been reports of gang violence between the Jets and the Techno-Scorpions escalating up in Evergreen. Apparently, not only are they pumping holes everywhere, but they’re also stealing fucking porches. How do you steal a whole goddamn porch?! Luna fuck me, we can’t have shit in Detrot, dawg! Hopefully DCP will be able put an end to the violence before I have to go there myself to beat some sense into those kids! In other news, SomaTech’s CEO is coming to visit our little city to reveal a new cyberware that’ll be available to the public soon for only a small shitton of bits. How kind of her. But that’s enough from me. Now it’s time DJ-Pon3 dropped the beat on the man with their latest hit, Techno Lullaby.”

Electronic beats filled the car. Both Hex and I bopped our heads to the beat as DJ-Pon3 sang out their anger over the mic. Hardcase crossed his cybernetic arms.

“So you complain about autotune, but you listen to this! Also didn’t she die like 30 years ago?”

“That was never confirmed, so shut the fuck up! DJ is actively fighting the corporations. What are your artists doing?” Hexadecimal retorted playfully.

The diamond dog leaned back into his seat and grumbled something inaudible. It’s always the nomad-types trying to make a name for themselves. I flicked my cig out the window and stared out to the bright neon colored heart of Detrot, the city of dreams or so they say. It was nothing more than a cesspool of poverty, corporate greed and, of course, technological marvel. I was born and most likely would die here, but I would be damned if I would go down without a fight.

My thoughts were disrupted by a message that appeared in my vision. My hud asked for an input in orange coloring to connect to a user named Crash Bug. Using only my thoughts, I connected to the caller. In the top left of my sight a square appeared with the metallic face of a zebra. Her eyes glowed a soft green along with the lines of light that went down her face.

“What’s up, Bug?” I asked.

“The SomaTech transport truck is only a few blocks from you now. Get ready,” she said bluntly.

I turned to my crew while opening the sunroof. “Get ready to dance, kids. The target will be here soon.”

Hardcase cracked his neck, “Gotta love SomaTech. Their products are always top of the line.”

“I’ll never use their shit; not even for scrap parts.” I scowled at his reflection in the mirror.

The diamond dog climbed onto the top of the car through the now open sunroof, “Whatever pays the bills, choom.”

Hexie levitated a double barrel break action tech shotgun from the back seat, loading in two shells. She pressed and held the first part of the two-step trigger. Blue and white electricity pulsed from the trigger guard and up to the front of the weapon through wires and passed inside multiple moving black boxes fixed on the barrel. Hexie playfully stuck her tongue out at me as a pixel mask projected in front of her face. It appeared as a half mask of a snarling kirin. Sighing at the sight, she giggled and leaned out the passenger window with the shotgun. I floated my own custom PDW out of the backseat, loading a fresh magazine in and started to rev the engine. It roared with excitement.

The song on the radio finished and the Love Doctor spoke again, “It’s time for classic hour! Here’s My Backyard with FreeBird!”

“Now this is music,” I said quietly to myself. Easy going guitar chords played as we waited for the vehicle. I turned up the music, not removing my eyes from the road in front of us.

A dark grey truck turned the corner right on our street. Just as it was about to pass us, I shifted into drive, tires squealing, and t-boned the truck into a nearby building. My car’s metal grill guard smashed into the front passenger door, crushing the pony sitting there. His robotic screams were quickly silenced by a blast from Hexie’s shotgun. Their head was instantly deleted, leaving only small black burn marks on the chair’s headrest. Hardcase was flung forcefully from the roof of the car and punched his cybernetic paw through the windshield, ripping out the zebra driver and tossing him away like an old banana peel. The body bounced across the pavement like a skipping stone until the zebra hit a light post with a very loud crack.

I opened my car door and exited my vehicle. I looked at my crew, all smiling. This was the score we needed. I approached the back passenger door and tugged it open with my crimson magic. A whimper came from inside the truck as the door swung open. The grey pegasus inside, in a well pressed suit, cowered in fear at my glowing orange scowl. He was hugging a small sliver case.

“Pleeasse...don’t hurt me,” he whined from behind the case.

I quickly scanned the case he held with my eyes. From the information on my HUD it was our target, but was locked biometrically. I leveled my firearm to the corpo’s forehead.

“You can either open the case warm or cold. It doesn’t matter to me.”

The stallion lowered the case and pressed a hoof to a scanner located on top of it. We locked eyes and silence grew around us as the case began to open.

The pegasus’s eyes filled with fear, “I know y-you.”

My eyes burst into flames, “Mr. Blackout.”

“C-Candle Wick, let’s not revert to our animalistic instincts. We can talk about it, r-right?”

They took everything from me, including my name. Candle Wick, my official name from my days of being just another guard for SomaTech. I served for them for years until I was thrown away like trash by the pegasus before me. There was some sort of poetic symbolism here, but I really couldn’t give less of a shit.

I let out a long sigh, “My name is Afterburner.”

I pulled the trigger, exploding his grey matter all over the back seat of the truck. Blackout’s upper torso slid from the window and fell to the floor below with a meaty residue left on its path down. I spun the steel case and was greeted by a single black and green chip shard. I grabbed the chip with my magic and returned to my car where Hexie was waiting with Hardcase.

“You done blow’n the corpo?” the punk unicorn asked playfully.

I didn’t even humor her with a response. Only the grinding of my teeth as my flames cooled off. I jumped in the car and floated the shard to Hexie.

“Hexadecimal, check the data on the chip,” I said, starting the car.

The vehicle roared with a cheery response as I put her into gear, driving away from the scene, speeding off to our rendezvous point with the ‘customer’. Crash Bug never gave us any more information than that. I find it best not to ask for any more information than I need. No strings equals no problems in the long run.

Hexie scanned the shard with her eyes before deeming it safe to plug it into her head behind her ear. It entered smoothly with a small click into the shard port. Her eyes flicking about as she sifted through the information.

“Yo Afterburner, looks like they’re tracking the chip,” she said as her eyes flicked again in her technomagical trance.

“We can’t head to the meeting point like this. Can you disable it?”

She paused for a moment, “Yeah, just give me some time.”

I nodded and turned to Hardcase, who was just vibing in the back, “Hey just in case we get a tail, please don't just shoot out my back window. I paid a lot for that.”

“Fine, choom.” Hardcase rolled his eyes.

I kept driving roughly towards our objective, keeping my eyes peeled for the Five-O or SomaTech. While pulling up to stop at a red light I spotted a solid silver car stop just across from us. With a quick scan of the vehicle, anyone could tell it was corpo. It was armored to the teeth. No glass windows; the cameras all around its exterior gave the driver inside the visual information needed to drive.

‘Well fuck me,’ I thought to myself. ‘Looks like I’ll need to give my ride a new paint job when all this is over.’

I rocked my hoof back and forth on the gas pedal, letting the engine growl. As the square light over the intersection flicked to green I picked my hoof off the brake, shifted back into first gear and blazed forward, leaving burnt rubber behind me like a lover’s kiss. The silver car hit a u-turn and followed. I bobbed and weaved around the vehicles in front of me while shifting into higher gears, trying to put more distance between us, but whoever the driver was, they were good. As they edged closer to my car, I pushed on the brakes, shifted into fifth gear and whipped the steering wheel to the left, drifting to a side street. As I pulled the wheel back to the right to stabilize the vehicle, Hardcase padded me on the shoulder rapidly.

“We got a problem, choom. The car is still hot on our tail,” He said as a bright crimson shot ripped through the middle of the car’s back window. “And they’re deploying drones now!”

I glanced at the left side mirror and, before I could get a good look at the drone’s reflection, the mirror was blasted off the side of my car. I leaned my head out the window and glared at a pair of wyvern-looking, medium-sized, black and glowing green flying assault drones. I’d always hated Hunters. They were armed with state-of-the-art laser weaponry at the drone’s tail, which were pointed towards us. The Hunters were surrounded by six other smaller ball drones.

“They got a damn Rigger in the car!” I yelled to my crew.

I leaned back into my seat and continued to burn rubber down the road while trying to dodge the hail of lasers shooting at us. Along the way we picked up two other vehicles, both black vans with ponies and zebras shooting from their open side doors. Hardcase was doing his best to return fire as I continued drifting down streets and dancing around other cars on the road. Folks in the streets trying to hide from the chaos were being cut down by stray bullets and lasers from the corpos.

‘Damn rats!’

I hit a huge drift coming into a roundabout which caused our diamond dog to be slammed to one side of the car.

“Can you drive smoother? I don’t have a snowball's chance in Tartarus of hitting shit like this!” Hardcase yelled at me.

“Sure, I’ll just let ’em hit us more.” While shifting into higher gears, I looked worriedly at Hexie. “How’s breaking the tracker going?”

Her focused glare softened, “Tracker is zero’d.”

“Prime,” I laughed. “Hardcase, I got a present in the back under the seats for the corpos. You mind delivering it?”

“Now, that’s a hot piece of iron right there!” The diamond dog replied, practically squealing with joy.

In my rearview, I watched my companion place the barrel of the light machine gun out what was left of the back window, and pull back the charging handle. The LMG spat out hot brass cases all over the backseats as Hardcase gave deep lead insertions to organic and inorganic beings alike. The diamond dog sounded like a filly on Hearth’s Warming getting the present they begged all year for.

One of the vans and a few drones behind us exploded into impressive multi-colored fireballs as my speedometer read 135mph and climbing. Hardcase screamed in pain from the back. Hexie looked back and then to me, “Well, looks like you need to get us out of here quick. Think you can handle that, Hot-Rod?”

“That a question?”

I scanned the road ahead, thousands of lines of code and data processed around my vision, searching for the fast route for escape and to our meeting spot. A small loading bar completed at the top of my screen telling me the problem was solved. Orange arrows appeared on the road in front of me that my HUD told me to follow. I didn’t object, chasing down the digital path as it turned and bended before me. After a few minutes of blissful driving the path led me to a bridge, slowly being brought up for a boat approaching from one side of the river.

Hardcase leaned on my chair still grasping his wound, “Just making sure you're not going to do what I think you are going to do, because choom that’s not a great idea.”

“Have I ever let you down before?” I paused. “Actually don’t answer that. Just trust me.”

I gave the road everything I had, lane splitting towards the rising platform at top speed. My passengers braced themselves on whatever they could. My car rocketed up the platform, catching air, leaving everyone in the vehicle breathless for a moment before our wheels returned to ground. We bounced a little off the ground as we zoomed off, escaping the SomeTech rats and drones.

I let out the breath I was holding and called up Crash Bug on the HUD. The video of the zebra appeared again in my vision.

“Inform the customers we’ve acquired the chip and we’ll be arriving at the set location shortly.”

Bug nodded and ended the link.

“Another happy ending, eh Afterburner?” Hexadecimal snickered.

I rolled my eyes. Hardcase reached forward and switched the radio channel back to hip hop as the last song finally ended. Hexie was opening her mouth to object, but stopped after a quick glance at me. Hardcase smiled as we zoomed off to the meeting.

*** *** ***

“Remember to always smile! But that should be simple stuff for the master of negotiations himself,” Hexie said from the video link in the corner of my orange heads-up display with a large grin.

I let out a laugh, “Yeah, and I’m a goddamn onion, too. I’ll see you after the meeting.”

“Bye, bye for now, Smoky!”

The call ended. Hardcase and I approached the meeting location: an old abandoned Ford auto factory. Once we were the pinnacle of progress in manufacturing and production, but now we’re nothing more than the sad husk of a once great living breathing giant called Detrot. It was surrounded by massive high density housing and bathed in the bright neon lights from advertisement scream screens. The production factory stood as a decaying symbol of what we could’ve become. The sight made me shy away my gaze.

Hardcase put a paw on my shoulder and gave me a nervous look, “So remind me again why you don’t ever ask more questions about the job, other than the cuts and the target?”

“Because Fixers love that. They’re paying us for everything but the lip, so better for ‘good working folk’ like us to zip,” I used my hooves to make air quotations as I spoke. “It also just pays a shitton more to simply shut the fuck up, ya know?”

He nodded, “I think so, choom. But we don’t even know what our customer looks like! That’s my issue.”

“Well let’s get in there and meet them then, if you’re so eager to see their appearance,” I said while walking towards an open garage door on the side of the grey brick building.

I heard Hardcase’s quiet displeasure in the situation as he followed me.

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

I entered the large mechanical production line area through the garage door and as the diamond dog came in behind me, I motioned him to shut the door. We sank into darkness only for a brief few seconds before the overhead lights flickered to life. Their cool steel blue light lit up us, the old cars that had never been finished, and a group of black cybernetically enhanced creatures in the room.

I heard about these folks a few times before. Unreformed changelings. Back when I was in school learning about Equestria’s history, they talked about the divide of the changelings over their rulers. Those who didn’t reform into colorful bugs were said to be as black as their soul. The colorful ones could be found almost in every city, but were kept under close eye after the unreformed ones’s help in the assassination of the princesses. According to corporate history, all unreformed changelings were jailed or killed after the Corpo War but, often with the history we’re taught as I found out, they lied.

Each changeling in the room was equipped with rifles except the one in the middle, who approached us.

“Afterburner? I can only assume based on the description Crash Bug gave us,” He said with a refined tone.

“That would be me, who’s ask’n?”

“Where are my manners?” He bowed. “I’m Cornicle, leader of the Family.”

I looked at the changelings around him who were whispering and staring at me. Cornicle noticed my glares at his kind and stood up tall.

“I’m sorry about them, it’s just…,” he paused, lifting a hoof. “We’ve never seen a living kirin before. We were of the understanding that your kind was massacred when the corporations brought their war to your lands. If you don’t mind me asking, how many of you—“

“Do you want the chip or not?” My right eye twitched as I cut him off.

My burst of aggression almost caused Cornicle to stumble. He regained his composure and smiled, “But of course. Let’s move on to business.”

I floated the chip’s small blue container to him in a crimson magical grip. Cornicle removed the shard from the case and plugged it into one of the slots behind his ear. His yellow eyes flickered with blue as he scanned the device. He smiled and turned off the program.

“Perfect. You have no idea what this means to me and my kind. We thank you and your crew.”

Hardcase, who stood practically silent this entire conversation, rolled his eyes and said curtly, “What could be that important on a shard like that?”

I turned to the mutt, feeling my internal flame begin to heat up. Cornicle spoke before I could give the dog the punishment for asking unnecessary questions.

“Simple, it’s a prison that holds the engram of our beloved queen,” the changeling said bluntly.

We stood in shock at the answer, our mouths wide open. Hardcase and I shared a glance before our eyes returned to Cornicle.

“Once again, we thank you,” his eyes glowed blue once again. “You should be receiving your payment briefly.”

The lower corner of my vision confirmed the transfer of fifty thousand bits into my personal account. I thought about the situation we were thrown into. We stole a maximum security prisoner from SomaTech… and everything was going well. I...I didn’t know how to feel about it.

A connection to Hexadecimal appeared in the corner of my HUD. Only voice, not a video link, came though.

“I don’t suppose you were expecting more guests. Patching visuals through your sight now.”

A small video feed appeared in my vision. Multiple hooded figures armed with high tech firearms were silently hacking the lock on the front door of the building. All had a small logo on the back of their clothes: a navy blue circle with a golden obtuse triangle breaking out of it. I knew that symbol. SomaTech had arrived. After the door was successfully opened, the lead character activated a device on their left shoulder. It looked like a mechanical arm with four smaller rotating pieces around the part not connected to the pony. The device leaned into the doorframe, charged up with the small dim red light in the middle growing brighter each second, before it released a crimson grid forward. It encased the room ahead of them till eventually I saw it reach the assembly room passing over everyone inside. It was a scan.

“What was that?” Cornicle asked anxiously looking around the room; he looked ready to jump at the slight sound. His mood and tone had completely shifted, “I thought the best weren’t ever followed!”

“Well,” I gave my most charismatic grin to the changeling, my fangs on full display. “Even experts make mistakes from time to time. Hey, big guy! Let’s show these corpo rats how to tango!”

Hardcase laughed, steam releasing from the exhaust holes located in his shoulders as he cracked his metal knuckles. “Let’s.”

I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply for a few seconds, then exhaled before opening my eyes. It only took a single thought for my cybernetics to activate. The robotic spine plates on the back of my leather jacket jacked themselves into my back. I stumbled forward a bit as my nerves screamed at me due to the impalement. I grit my teeth to hold back my groan. The changelings looked on in horror as my eyes grew a brighter orange than before.

“We’ll deal with the party crashers. Would you be so kind to turn off the lights?” I said in a vain attempt to imitate the changeling’s accent.

The group behind Cornicle giggled at my mockery. He shot a glare at both me and his crew, who immediately recomposed themselves at his glance.

“They’re almost at your south door,” Hexie said through the connection.

I gestured to Hardcase to follow me to the sides of the doorway. We waited quietly for it to open as the lights were turned off in the room, plunging us once again into a void of darkness. The metal sliding door squeaked as the first corpo entered the garage, guns aimed forward from their torso. She stood only a few inches from my face. I could hear her breathing as she stopped and signaled to the group behind him. Slowly her eyes glowed up yellow as she looked around the room.

“Subjects are not visible,” she stated firmly through her half mask. “Scanning the room for life with Horus.”

Horus, I could only assume that was what the device on her shoulder was, came back to life with the small dim red glow as earlier. The eye scanned the room from left to right slowly before stopping on the second pass.

“We have movement located near the center of the room. Proceeding with recovery of the Ark shard.”

The mare edged slowly into the room. The rest of her party, of what looked like ten figures, followed. All cloaked with Horus active devices on their shoulders. The last one entered the room and I looked in Hardcase's direction and winked. I couldn’t see it but I knew he smiled.

The diamond dog grabbed the neck of the pony, their neck cracking loudly before being thrown towards the rest of the corpos. They turned around to open fire on Hardcase, but were met with a flying corpse to the face instead. The body knocked a few of the rats onto the floor while the ones left standing were now searching for my furry friend.

I reached for my gun but found nothing.

‘Celestia fuck!’

I had left my PDW with Hexie in the Ford that was five blocks away in some random pony’s garage.

‘Time for the old fashioned way, I guess…’

I extended my front metal hooves, which opened up and pushed out large, razor-sharp blades from my forehooves. With little effort, I stabbed the mantis-like blades into the wall and began to climb to the beams that hung from the ceiling. An elegant weapon from a more civilized era as some would say. I reached the roof in no time and hopped onto one of the beams, sauntering towards the space above the corpos. They’d never see me coming.

I dropped down from my hiding spot and stopped my fall by ripping my blades through the torso of a corpo below. With the hostile’s lungs filling with blood slowly drowning him, I pulled a blade out and swung it at the closest target. The poor soul tensed up just before his head was sliced off by the blade's sharp edge.

“Subjects found!” The leader said, unloading a hail of super charged lead towards me.

My cybernetic outer spine activated at my command. Cool black liquid was injected directly into my spine; a tingling sensation shot down it. The world appeared to slow down all around, except for me. I dodged out of the path of the bullets and quickly opened the neck of the corpo. I proceeded to finish off all of the rest hostiles in the room walking up to each to slit their throats with extreme precision. Their bodies still appeared full of life appearing frozen in time. My heart dropped when looking for the final target; they had vanished.

I began looking frantically for the little corpo rat. Then suddenly the short hairs on the back of my neck rose. I violently whipped around and thrusted my blade forward, catching the pony’s mask. It fell to the ground as their light tan face was revealed and blue blood fell from the wound I gave them. The stallion jumped back and cleaned the blood with a hoof.

“Your report did say you had access to a Celeritas spine.” He looked at the bodies of SomaTech members floating around him as he began to pace to his right. “It would seem I was the only one who came equipped to handle such a problem.”

I quickly scraped my blades on each other. I began pacing to the right; we started to circle one another. I stared at his blue blood on my blades, then to him. “You’re not alive are you?”

“Hello, I am Live Wire, prototype model. Number cRP800 from SomaTech. You are my mission, and I always complete my mission,” the pony responded in a monotone voice.

“Of course they send a fucking prototype after me. Not even the common decency to give me a completely tested plastic toy!” I smiled at Live Wire. “You know, I’ve never had the chance to talk with someone like you; a real submissive slave. Hell, sound like a pony, you look like a pony, you even act like a pony, but what are you really?”

He laughed as his forehooves opened up, revealing mantis blades of his own, “I’m a machine designed to complete a task. Nothing more, nothing less.”

I sighed loudly.

“Did I disappoint you, ex-Lt. Wick?”

I shook my head and then lunged at Live Wire. We clashed with sparks flying off our weapons; neither one of us gained an edge. Back and forth our blades went. I would cut his torso, he would cut my leg. He moved perfectly systematically against my aggression. Whenever I missed a strike, I was immediately punished with multiple cuts to the face and body. When he to miss, I would swing into the opening only to realize too late that he was faking it. The android couldn’t mess up. Only when I began using my crismon magic to asset the trajectory of my jabs, making them appear random, did I start landing more hits on his body.

The fight went on like a deadly tango until a notification popped up in my vision. I was running out of juice. Live Wire noticed my visible anguish and took a wide swing at me with both blades. I jumped back from my opponent.

His brown eyes flickered briefly blue, “I see you're close to exhausting your supply of Black Lace. Submit to my request and my aggressions will cease immediately.”

‘Fuck’n AI.’ I thought to myself. He was right about one thing, though: I was tired and breathing heavily. I quickly scanned the area for another way out. Live Wire continued to approach me.

“Fuck! Fine, what do you want with me?” I said with a heavy heart while retracting my mantis blades back into my forehooves.

“I’m glad you agreed.” His own blades folded away. “Now all I need to do is jack into you and this is all over.”

“I’m sorry what?”

Live Wire brushed some dust off his cloak and smiled, “Please don’t resist, again.”

He walked up to me and pulled a small cord out of his forehoof. Just as he was about to connect it to a port behind my ear, I lunged on top of him and pinned him to the ground. Live Wire tried to resist by thrashing under my weight, but to no avail. Quickly, I grabbed my own cord from the underside of my forehoof and jacked into a port behind his ear.

The bodies around me finally fell to the floor as I uploaded a short virus directly into Live Wire to disable his cyberware by short circuiting them. To the normal pony it would leave them completely immovable due to the dead weight of the cybernetics. For something like Live Wire, it caused them to black out.

“Guess they’re still working out the kinks,” I told myself in between heavy breathes.

I breathed a sigh of relief as the virus caused spasticity before his eyes fell dim. Hardcase briskly walked over to me.

“We got ’em all, right choom?” he asked.

“Goddesses I hope so. My joints are sore as shit.” Through my link to Live Wire, I connected Hexadecimal into his system. “Hexie, you mind tapping the lines to answer our friend’s question?”

I heard a giggle on the other side of the call, “Sure thing.”

The mare went silent for a few seconds.

“Aaaand we are in.” Another pause occurred. “Hey Afterburner, you have a back up plan right?”

“I’m working on that part,” I replied.

Hardcase face palmed, “Ay caramba.”

“I said I was working on it!”

“Well think faster,” Hexie scolded. “They have the building surrounded.”

“Keep us posted,” I turned to the darkness. “Cornicle, we’re trapped in here thanks to some fucking corpo rats. Any ideas?”

The changeling appeared out of the darkness. He brought a hoof to his chin and pondered over the question.

“We could assist each other and shoot our way out.” His eyes flickered blue. “It’s risky but it will work out in our favor.”

“Afterburner,” Hexie said. “I’m patching you into their comms. I'll see you and Hardcase after all this… right?”

“What gave you the idea that we wouldn’t make it? Come on, Hex. We’re better than that,” I reassured my friend.

She sighed, “I’ll be expecting you, then.”

The connection ended and I removed my link from the port of the android, which returned quickly into my hoof. With a small click, I was transferred over to the chaotic voice communications of SomaTech’s best. Orders were being screamed. Questions asked repeatedly. No one knew what happened to the recon team. Then a single voice overpowered all the discord.

“Shut the fuck up! We are entering the building with overwhelming force,” the feminine voice assured. “Open up the garage with small explosives, then—“

She was interupted by a robotic genderless voice, “The mission is mine now, skinsuit.”

“Under whose o-orders?!”

A short laugh followed, “Black Friday herself gave me control of this situation. Now I’ll head in and clean up the problem you’ve made.”

“Well, we have a problem,” I told everyone in the room.

“SomaTech assaulting us again?”

“Yes,” I replied blankly.

“How many?” Cornicle asked nervously.

“One.”

Everyone in the room fell silent. Hardcase looked at me, puzzled.

“You’re joking.”

I pointed to the garage doors, “I’m not.”

An ear piercing metallic screech resonated from the area. The garage door was cleanly ripped off; greedy blue neon lights filled the once darkened area. All the changelings aimed their firearms at the opening, waiting for any type of movement. Only the continuous sound of squeaking hydraulic joints was audible. Tension filled the room, drowning everyone inside.

“That noise,” one of the changelings whispered, scanning the room. “It’s close.”

“It feels like it’s all around us,” another one stated.

The sound of metal hooves stomping hammered our eardrums. At this point only Hardcase and Cornicle were watching the opening where the garage door used to hang. Everyone else was searching frantically for the source of the noise. Then the sound stopped. The deafening silence overpowered even the rapid breathing in the dim blue room. Cornicle pointed to one of his crew to check out the area near the garage door.

Sweat rolled down the side of his brow as the changeling slowly pulled himself towards the door. With each step he began shaking until we all felt his mind snap. He screamed, “Come on you fucking corpo tool! Show yourself!”

His voice echoed, bouncing off the walls and ceiling. It ran through the front of the manufacturing factory with seemingly no response. The changeling gave the group a prideful smile and walked confidently back towards us. He glared at me with disappointment.

“I thought Kirins were supposed to be intelligent. I guess your kind is better at lying,” He laughed.

All of the bones in his body exploded only a few feet away from me. A massive, deep navy blue colored, pony-like creature landed on top of the changeling. The dust on the floor encased them in a shroud. Its pair of pure white pupil-less eyes glowed from within. Gas escaped from parts on the creature as metal moved within the cloud. I stepped back and looked up at the demise that looked back. The shadow leaped towards the ceiling, back into the darkness, followed by the bullet trails of the folks standing around me.

I tried my best to control my breathing as I stared at the mess of the body that belonged to that changeling. Hardcase grabbed me and turned my view to his. “We have to get out of here, choom!”

He pulled me into a sprint towards the single door of the building leading to the front. Bullets were still being fired all around us as the Family tried their best to locate and kill the creature that had been let loose in the factory room. Blood curdling screams began. I couldn’t hold myself from looking back at where the slaughter was occurring and felt my color fade at what I saw.

It was a pony. No, it was something more. Its massive frame towered over its opponents, demanding fear. The face it wore was from a navy blue pony, much like the color of the metal that made up its body. Its organic eyes had been replaced by optic plate cyberware. Thick wires connected and wrapped around the inner shell of the body. It fired bullets from the center of hooves that decimated the fleshly targets it hit. What stood there ripping and tearing through changelings was no longer something one could consider pony. It was an upgraded pony.

I witnessed Cornicle and a few other changelings fade into the darkness, almost vanishing from existence. I turned away from the canarage of blood and broken bodies and ran in step with Hardcase. But the cybernetic monster was faster, leaping over us and blocking the doorway. We slid to a halt only a few feet in front of it. I froze. For once in my life, I didn’t know what to do.

The creature grinned and pointed at me. “I remember you, cunt.”

My shaking was stopped by Hardcase’s paw on my shoulder. I didn’t know I was shaking.

“Afterburner,” he looked at me with determination. “I got this.”

He sprinted at the beast on all four; picking up incredible speed. The diamond dog then leaped at the face of the cybernetic pony, winding up his metallic fist for a punch. The creature gave a deep robotic laugh before sticking his hoof out to catch Hardcase. He couldn’t move out of the way fast enough, landing face first into the center of the pony’s hoof. Four grey clamps popped out from the sides of his hoof and inserted them deep into the dog’s skull. He screamed as his body spasmed at the pain.

“Help me, Afterbur--” His voice was cut off by the sound of a gunshot that exploded his head like a balloon. Blood and grey matter splattered everywhere, including onto my face. Hardcase’s body was tossed away like a broken toy.

I felt my heart race as my internal flame grew. My body grew black as rage filled my soul. I snipped at his taunting.

“Weak, foolish meatbag,” The cyborg continued to laugh. “Primitive like everyone else.”

Heat engulfed my skin and mane as my blades extended out of my forehooves. I growled at the chunk of talking metal before me. They looked on in amusement.

“Hardcase,” I got out of my throat in between breaths. “You killed him.”

“I’m glad your eyesight hasn’t failed you yet, Wick”

I grit my teeth and lunged at them, “Fuck you!”

My blades cut the sides of his organic face, drawing red blood. He punched my torso, sending me flying back at dangerous speeds. I slammed my mantis blades into the floor to slow my body down. Sparks flew and metal screeched as I stopped. I galloped as fast as my hooves would carry me at the creature. He brought up his right hoof and fired multiple rounds at me that I dodged with the assistance of my Celeritas spine. The bullets tore chucks of concrete from the floor as I closed the distance between the pony. No, not the pony. I closed the distance between me and it.

A click sounded from the cyborg’s hoof. They looked down at their cyberware in anger, then rushed at me. I quickly ducked under the swing of the massive steel behemoth as I attempted to stab them in the chest. My right blade went through the plating and deep into their core. It didn’t faze the cyborg. They brought their hoof down hard, destroying my right forehoof. I stared in shock at the mess of wires, metal and gears. The cybernetic pony wrapped their right hoof around my neck; securing me in a tight grasp with their metal clamps. I tried cutting through the metal of the appendage. My left hoof blade was quickly ripped off in the middle of the action by the cyborg’s free hoof. A smile crossed the metallic monster’s face.

“Candle Wick, the little Kirin that could.” They ran their free hoof down my cybernetic spine. “What a prize.”

Their left hoof clamps wrapped around my metal spine and ripped it free from my back and jacket. I felt tired and my vision grew dimmer. The cyborg snapped the bloody piece of cyberware in half with ease. They raised me into the air, then slammed me down on the concrete below. My head bashed off of the floor. I tried to bring my right hoof up to my head, only to be reminded of my failure. Pulling my body around the best I could, I turned to witness the cyborg reloading their hoofcannon. They quickly flexed their foreleg and a small click was heard, then they pointed the barrel, found in the middle of their hoof, at me. Glee was roughly the emotion on the pony’s face.

“Meltdown,” a feminine voice called out from behind them.

Meltdown seemed to shake and they put their hoof down. Live Wire approached from behind the cyborg, but he was completely porcelain, no longer his light tan color. He put a hoof on Meltdown, who scoffed, turning away from the android.

Live Wire, his normal voice returning, looked at me. “You better hope he doesn’t die during this process. For your sake.”

“Whatever, tincan.”

He walked up to me and jacked into the port behind my ear. My HUD went crazy with multiple notifications and invasion warnings filling my vision. At this point, I didn’t have the strength to act. A loading bar quickly filled as thousands of lines of code flew up the sides of my screen. Various keywords stood out to me and my body grew heavier. Live Wire’s coat slowly returned to its original color with a wave of light tan washing over the white. He looked at me, puzzled.

“I fail to understand why Black Friday wanted this one with his level of deviance,” Live Wire stated to Meltdown while pulling his cord from my side port.

“Who cares?” Meltdown grunted as he walked away.

Live Wire looked down at me, placing a hoof on the side of my head. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

As the pony walked away my vision began to glitch. Saturation faded from colors. I’d lost all feeling in my cyberware. The darkness that hung at the edge of my eyes started to take center stage. My HUD informed me that multiple internal organ systems and cybernetics were on the verge of failure. I was told that shutdown was imminent. I tried to lift my head, but with the strength I had left all I could do was roll it to the side. To stare at the crumbled up headless corpse of Hardcase until I closed my eyes and fell below the seam into a lake of darkness as I heard of the voice of Hexadecimal call out.

*** *** ***

“3̸̛̦̒̈͘à̸͉̝̏͝l̴̺̫̙̲̂͘͝(̸̝͎̘̬͗n̵̪͉͎̍͆ͅo̴̧̱̩͙̎̓̕ẻ̴̦͝.

Life and death is a seesaw; light and dark. The more we search for a way to prolong our time, the more we mess with the natural order of existence. History has never been kind to figures that try to play god. Without balance, the natural order is left in disarray. Without dark there can’t be light and without light there can’t be dark.”

A voice rang out into my ears. I opened my eyes to nothing but darkness. I tried to run but found no ground on which to stand. My own voice was gone as I tried to scream. Only that voice and the sound of a ringing hiss was audible. Was this death?

It couldn’t have been death because I’m still here, only with my thoughts to keep me company. I had to be alive. I felt alive. I felt… home.

My hooves were placed firmly on solid ground. My body was back but not the one I was with. No cybernetics anywhere on me; just organic me.

‘But what about Hexie? What happened?’ It was the only thing I could think about.

I got my answer. A glass shard floated to me from the darkness. It moved on its own without magic. I peered at the reflection it held.

Hexie was driving my car. I rested in the passenger seat beside her. It was the first time I’d ever seen her genuinely terrified. Hexie mumbled to herself as she sped down the road.

“Come on… Move, move!!” She screamed at the road ahead.

I saw Hardcase’s body lying in the backseat. Hexie turned to me.

“Don’t die on me! You still have to keep your promise to me. The corpos are still here. Your job is not done, yet.”

The shard faded from my hoof, returning to the void it came from. I was left alone again. I looked around, not really for anything in particular. Everything was the same except for a light blue beam in the distance. Had that always been there?

I stepped towards it. When I blinked I found myself at the base of a large ornate door. Symbols of suns, crescent moons, books and more filled its dark wooden finish. A seemingly endless glass window stood above it, shattered. I pushed on the door, but it held its ground.

“You don’t know what that thing will do!”

That mysterious voice rang out again. I turned around to nothing. I tried the door again. It grew easier but its massive weight still prevented me from opening it. I felt my rage building.

“It’ll be alright now, Afterburner,” Hexie echoed in the void. “Quick Fix will make you as good as new!”

“Celestia! What happened to him?! Put him on the table. I need to start on him now,” another female voice, that I could only assume was Quick Fix, said.

This time I tried to open the door with everything I had. The door opened with ease, which led into a long brightly lit hallway with a spiral room. Cautiously, I trotted down its length. Objects were placed on each side of me below floating glass shards. Of the different items a few caught my eye. The first was a typewriter with a manuscript being written inside; a title centered on the middle of the page was visible: ‘Resurfaced by Wave Walker’. A small silver name plate right below the object read: Wave Walker. Another was a small crown made from black stone. Even with its rough appearance it remained simply beautiful. Its name plate read: Bad Luck. As I continued down the corridor only one more drew my attention; a purple pulsing orb trapped inside a glass pyramid. The name on below it was scratched off. Only a single letter was legible: A.

I moved past each of the displays until I reached the circle room. In the center was a crystal that appeared to have grown out of the floor. It gave off a soft light blue glow. The floor was a beautiful everchanging mandola. The walls of the room were really one large mirror. I walked around the area clockwise and looked at my reflection. It mimicked my movement as I put a hoof to the glass. It smiled, turning into a Nirik with a burst of colorful flames.

“What’s the matter? You look surprised to see your reflection.”

I stumbled backwards. He, I mean, I… laughed at myself. I quickly turned away and focused on the crystal. I peered inside and heard a conversation between two beings. The mysterious voice from before and a new one.

“What is your wish?” they demanded.

“I wish for…” The voice began then paused. I heard their footsteps grow nearer. Then a pair of mismatched eyes, one crystal blue and the other green, stared back at me through the crystal. The stallion didn’t look shocked like I was. He remained calm. I looked down at where the nameplate should have been. There wasn’t a name but instead a title: The Fool.

“I wish for 3̸̛̦̒̈͘à̸͉̝̏͝l̴̺̫̙̲̂͘͝(̸̝͎̘̬͗n̵̪͉͎̍͆ͅo̴̧̱̩͙̎̓̕ẻ̴̦͝,” he stated firmly.

I looked back at the image in the crystal to find the other side began to crack and fall apart; cut off the voice mid-sentence. I closed my eyes and took a breath. I tried to tell myself that this wasn’t real, but some part of me knew that wasn’t true. I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t alive. I was something in between. The void here was a place, but where?

My reflection reached out and pulled me into the mirror against my will. We freefalled together back into darkness. I smiled at myself and together we stated a realization. “This isn't a lake; It’s an ocean.”

*** *** ***

“I don’t think he’s coming back, darling. Do you know if he has any living relatives?”

“No,” Hexie responded. “He never talked about his family.”

My body violently convulsed; the straps connected to the table were the only things preventing me from being thrown from the table. I coughed rapidly for a short amount of time then took a deep breath. I felt like I had been drowning.

Hexie ran over and embraced me, causing me to blush, “Hot Rod, you’re alive!”

“Why,” I paused, “wouldn’t I be?”

Hexie just stared at me until Quick Fix approached me to remove me from the straps, “Because you flatlined.”

“I… what?”

Quick Fix shook her head, “I can’t explain it. Your return just dethroned all known logic.”

I sat up to put my head into my hooves. I paused, looking at my new right forehoof; a black cybernetic. I gazed over every connected line and edge.

The medical mare noticed my empty stare, “Sorry we couldn’t find one in your color, but we only had a few Kirin-made cyberwares.”

I heard her, but I wasn’t really listening. I turned to Hexie. “Where did you send Hardcase?”

“I brought him home to his family,” the punk mare responded quietly.

I nodded sympathetically.

“The hoof isn’t the only part we had to add to you,” Quick Fix cut through the silence, pulling the mirror down with her wing. “Take a look.”

I nervously looked at my reflection. No longer did I have a pair of grey eyes. My right iris was split into two colors. Now the top’s hazel was clashing with the segregated bottom grey and… it was organic. I hadn’t had natural eyes since I was very young. Turning my head to the right, I noticed the new collection of black metal that ran from my shoulder to my ear. It all came together to a cybernetic piece in the center of my left ear.

The shadow of my reflection turned its head back to face me. The shadow whispered into my ear, “Why did you choose to be Chosen?”

I turned around to find nothing behind me. Both mare’s looked concerned at my state, but I couldn’t understand why. Returning my gaze back to the mirror revealed nothing more. No more shadow; just my reflection.

“Are you ready to begin your tango,” the voice spoke again, “like many before you?”

“What do you mean?” I responded out loud.

The color on Hexie's face seemed to fade, “Are you okay?”

“You don’t have to speak out for me to hear you,” the shadow spoke.

“I-I’m fine.” I tried my best to cover my darkening blush as my reflection continued to smile gleefully at my dismay.

I thought about what I was going to say to him, or I guess me? He told me many things I wouldn’t understand. But how could I? This was the edge of understanding, the border of the known. But yet, some part of me knew that he spoke the truth. That he was something more. It was my turn to tango, but it’s a dance that requires two. So, who was my partner?