Cyberpony Y2K

Octavia sipped her drink. "This is good. And quite strong. What is it?"

"A Gryphon liquor," Sonata explained, holding up her own glass. "Not many things grow up there, so they can't make normal beer. The only crop that really grows is potatoes, of all things. So, in desperate need of alcohol, the Gryphons made this stuff out of potatoes. It's called vodka. They also use it as a disinfectant sometimes." Sonata grinned, then took a large sip of hers.

"A lot of alcohol can be used as a disinfectant," Octavia replied.

Sonata tilted her glass, slowly dripping it down her mouth. She made an exaggerated sigh, holding it up to look at. "That's what makes it funny, you know? Aside from getting drunk." She giggled. "I saw a drunk pony one day, who came in, and started flirting with everypony around her, and then one of the slot machines. Then she threw up and passed out on the ground. That was funny."

"That was sad," Octavia corrected, "that that poor mare let her life dwindle away like that."

"Eh. Tomay-to, to-mah-to," Sonata said, waving it off. She gestured to the food on the table. "Like these!" She picked up one of the items...it seemed to be a strange, over-sized corn chip stuffed with various vegetables and sour cream.

Octavia looked to the one on the plate on her side of the table, and briefly pondered how to pick it up without spilling its contents.

"They're called tacos!" Sonata said excitedly. "They make lots of these things in Appleoosa! Which is funny, because you wouldn't think the Apple Family exports nearly as much corn as they do!" She turned the thing sideways, taking a giant bite out of it. Her needle-sharp teeth seemed to be fully capable of chewing thick vegetables, somehow.

Octavia mimicked her, holding up the taco at an angle and taking a delicate bite. It was surprisingly good, though holding it was a challenge.

"You find a lot of things funny," she said.

"Eh...live enough time, you stop taking most things seriously," she replied, resting her elbow on the edge of the sofa. "Things like pain, strife, death...if it's not mine, it's not my problem."

"Isn't that a horrible way of thinking about it?" Octavia asked. "Everypony's suffering matters, so we shouldn't ignore the suffering of others."

"What about...Lyra Heartstrings?"

Octavia stiffened, and Sonata leaned forward, resting both her elbows on the table and leaning forward.

"What if I caught her?" Sonata chuckled. "Broke off her horn and bound her arms and legs. You could torture her as long as you wanted. Wouldn't you like that?"

"The proper thing to do," Octavia swallowed, "would just be to kill her. Put a bullet in her head. End it."

Sonata leaned fully over the table, wrapping one arm around Octavia's shoulder, letting her legs stretch out over the table. "But that's not what you'd like to do," she whispered. "You'd really like to let her feel it for what she did to ol' Goldie, wouldn't you?"

"We often want things that are wrong," Octavia said simply. "Such as, wanting to corrupt the morality of one's guest." She raised an eyebrow at Sonata.

"You're funny," Sonata said with a grin. Then, she stuck out a long, thin tongue, licked Octavia's cheek, and moved back to her seat in a jerky, sudden motion, lying on her back with her legs in the air and her head resting on the arm.

Octavia gagged, rubbing her cheek with her sleeve. "You—you—you disgusting cretin!" she gasped. "Ugh! Why the fuck would you do that?"

"Because ponies always react funny," Sonata said, grinning. Then she picked up a second taco, shoving the entire thing into her mouth.

"Aren't we here to discuss business?" Octavia asked. "Such as how we're dealing with the Inquisitors?"

"Eh? But didn't we get that sorted out already?" Sonata frowned. "The only work is your schedule for playing."

"Well, then let's work on that!" Octavia said. "Instead of...whatever the hell you're trying to do here!"

"Bully you," Sonata supplied.

Octavia rubbed her forehead.

"Ugh, you guys get more boring with each new recruit," Sonata muttered. "Whatevs. We mostly play it by ear, y'know? The musicians just sort of talk it out amongst themselves. Only instrumentals, though. My sisters and I are the only ones who sing."

Octavia rubbed at her throat. "It's been a very long time since I practiced my singing voice anyway."

"Good for us all," Sonata chuckled. "Anyhoo, you've been practicing your violin, right?"

Octavia nodded.

"Why not play us a piece?" Sonata asked. "The prez suites are sound-proofed, to keep things private within." She adjusted her position, sitting upright. Her tail coiled on top of one leg, wrapping twice around her waist to end with the fin in her lap.

Seven stepped over, holding one of their suitcases. Octavia's violin.

She stood up, taking it from Seven, and opened the case up.

Sonata watched her as she set up the violin. Then, Octavia closed her eyes, and began to play.

She ignored Sonata. She let herself forget where she was. To her, there was only one thing in existence: the song. The music.

She hadn't had time to play it here lately, not since that day at the Flight of Fancy, but she still remembered the tune she'd been working on for months.

Had it really only been a couple of days since she'd gone to the Flight of Fancy? It felt like it had been months. So much had happened.

And Vinyl...hopefully she was doing alright. That silly little unicorn, who had signed up to fight gods.

Octavia banished those thoughts, though. She had to devote herself to her music.

Vinyl Scratch had found the library easily enough. Not many ponies went here, she was told, but the ones she'd asked had still known where it was.

From there, she simply had to find the books on electronics. And from there, develop an understanding of holograms.

Images made of light, imprinted over the reality everypony knew. Ponies knew the concept. You said, 'hologram', and everypony understood. Then you could try and explain what that meant.

Which was how you ended up with a half-dozen advanced science books that were not, strictly speaking, legal to own for most ponies, and certainly not for Vinyl.

The exact science behind holograms was, frankly, absurd.

It involved the delicate process of displaying light-based images onto the air. It had be exactly the same shades of light as the world around it, or it would be clearly visible as a fake. There were other problems, too, such as making a hologram in a darker place that didn't glow. And the colors, too, were a problem.

But also there was the cost. The machinery that went into their firing range cost about eight thousand bits, apparently. The one the Inquisitors used in Canterlot cost about fourteen thousand. And the power drain was also expensive. Discord had a separate generator running the firing range. All that meant that combat holograms were completely out of the question, by any means, forever.

Heh.

Vinyl looked up from her book, at the red spot of light she'd created on the table. If she squinted, she could say it looked like an apple. Unfortunately, lacking eye lids, she couldn't squint.

Maybe I just don't have the hardware to do this yet, she thought. Like, I'm using rave lights for this. That is so not-the-intended-purpose, it'd void the warranty.

The empty library didn't laugh at her joke. Vinyl turned her attention back to the book in front of her.

A hand reached over, poking her 'hologram'. Vinyl jerked up, chair scooting over, as she looked over at Sunset. Sunset wore her disguise, complete with the mask Vinyl had seen her wearing around the base.

"How long have you been working on this?" Sunset asked.

"Just...since I found the firing range," Vinyl chuckled. "I don't think I have enough hardware for this, is the problem."

"Hmm. You're most likely right, but that you did this—after two days—is completely ridiculous in and of itself." She paused. "Did Bonbon let you get a look at the firing range?"

"Yeah. Turning that into a spell should have been harder, but..."

"Huh. How much have you considered on the scale of upgrades, Vinyl?"

Vinyl closed her book. "Hardly anything at all. Armor, I guess?"

"That's easy enough, and probably necessary. Your plating is that flimsy nano-plastic crap. I wouldn't trust it to take a golf ball and survive."

"Actually, it didn't," Vinyl informed her. "I was with Fancy while he and a friend were golfing. His friend damaged my shoulder with a stray golf ball. Punched a hole right through the plating. Both apologized a lot."

"Ow," Sunset said. "Once the Pies are done helping Fluttershy, we'll set you up for some upgrades. You've done that before, right?"

"Once or twice. While fixing that shoulder, at least," Vinyl said, earning a laugh from Sunset. "So, any luck with that bass cannon?" Vinyl joked, elbowing her.

"Quite a bit. If I can keep it from exploding whenever I pull the trigger, we might have a functional weapon," Sunset replied, pausing to think.

"Wait. You're serious, aren't you?"

Sunset nodded. "When you joked about it, I suddenly realized something. Sonic weapons are very good Alicorn stoppers. I...kind of got hit by a flash bang once, back in Canterlot. Without Earth pony magic, I'd have busted my ear drums." She chuckled. "I'll pull up some upgrade options for you. Want to browse?"

"Hmm...not right now," Vinyl said, tapping her book. "I'm still working this out. Once the Pies are done with Fleur, then I'll look at it."

Sunset paused, turning to the book. "Alright, that's a good call. I'll leave you to your research." She turned, walking off. "Good luck."

"Thanks. Let's see if I can't crack this."

Octavia finished the song with an exaggerated flourish, then let out a breath, and opened her eyes. "Well? Sonata? Are...are you--"

"Shut up! I'm not crying, you're crying!" the Siren snapped, wiping her eyes.

Octavia turned to Seven, who shrugged helplessly.

"Ugh, that's embarrassing," Sonata muttered, glaring at the tears on her hand. "Bleck. I just...got caught off guard. I've heard so much imitation classical and electro remixes of it here lately, that...that's what I was expecting. I didn't think..." She shivered. "It felt like 1100 again. Not just a mimicry or half-assed parody, but...a faithful recreation, straight out of one of the galas we held back then."

"Um...sorry?" Octavia said.

"No, no...I liked that a lot," Sonata said. "We don't really miss the old music, really. We move on easily. We do rock nowadays." She chuckled. "Yeah. You're definitely good enough to be up on that stage." She frowned, meeting Octavia's gaze. "You...how much do you practice?"

"Eh...once a day? A second time, in the evenings, if it was a slow day."

Sonata sucked in a breath, then let it out. "You are awesome. How the hell did you end up being a cyber terrorist instead?"

"Classical wasn't in," Octavia said with a bitter smile, "and then, Goldbricker happened."

"Ah...right, right. Lyra Heartstrings." Sonata threw up one hand. "Geez. Real pain in the ass, huh?"

"Sonata," Octavia chided, "we don't use language like that anymore. That word dropped out of the vocabulary back in the sixties."

"Oh, right, when we gave the donkeys rights," Sonata muttered.

"That...happened in the seventeen-sixties," Octavia corrected.

"What? They've had rights for three hundred years?" Sonata frowned, looking confused. "Wait, then who'd we give rights to in the nineteen-sixties?"

"N-no one, Sonata. Everypony but androids have equal rights, and have since the eighteenth century."

"What?" Sonata stared openly at her. "Huh. You'd think Aria would have mentioned that."

"Didn't...you hear about it from Canterlot?"

"Eh...we were going through one of our 'we're the good guys' phases, so we'd left the slave trade already," Sonata waved it off. "We'd retired to a private resort and were chillin'. I didn't hear anything from the outside world until they started building the first high-quality androids."

"Hm," Octavia said, taking her seat again. "You really have been around."

Sonata shrugged. "All over the place."

"I suppose I'll work out a time to play tomorrow?" Octavia asked.

"Yeah. Aria's new girl toy is playing today—started a few minutes ago, I think," she said, thinking. Then she paused, and looked to Octavia. "What was the cover story for how you ended up getting a room here?"

"Fixed a serious problem with Adagio...Five." She, just in time, remembered to add the number.

"And she never told you what she went to fix?" Sonata asked.

"No," Octavia admitted. "I still haven't--"

"Adagio One wouldn't like that information being shared around," Seven said from the corner. "I'm obligated to tell you." She still made certain that her gaze was lowered, and her head tilted to the side, exposing her throat.

Sonata rolled her eyes. "Ugh. Whatever, the point is there's another reason you could have gotten a presidential suite."

"No," Octavia said immediately.

Sonata paused, half-way through shrugging off her jacket. "Eh?"

"No, I am not screwing you, nor will I pretend to have done so," Octavia said.

"Aw," Sonata said, straightening her jacket. "You looked fun, and I liked your music. You sure?"

"Yes."

Sonata pouted, and her tail gave an annoyed flick. "Well, fine," she said, standing up. "Call us if something comes up, or...you change your mind. Anything else, ask Seven." She picked up her last taco, shoving it into her mouth and devouring it as she walked out the door.

Octavia let out a frustrated sigh, then downed the rest of her vodka.

"This is what you've signed up for," Seven commented. "Second thoughts?"

"Better than the Inquisitors," Octavia said. "Marginally."

"Well, think of it this way," Seven said, pouring her another glass of vodka, "that is what you're putting between you and the Inquisitors."

Octavia winced. "I almost feel sorry for them, actually." She picked up the glass, eyeing it carefully. "I'll need lots of paper for sheet music, a pen, and another bottle of this stuff. I'm going to need it."