Loyalty

Chapter 2: Alone

Senate Law 13-C, Signed into effect 18.08.2243: By decree of the President of this Nation, any citizen aged thirteen through nineteen must reside with an adult of immediate family unless circumstances are approved by the State. Any citizen found to be in violation shall face immediate relocation.

The girl called Rainbow Dash woke to a strange sight: a soft room with ochre flowers on its walls and a dim light on the ceiling. She found herself on a bed, tucked underneath a blanket far more comfortable than the one in her own home. As the girl sat up several vertebrae could be heard cracking, forcing her to wonder how long the darkness had been her world.

Looking around the room, it was plain that this house was poorly furnished and hardly made for comfort. Little more than a dresser—burned slightly from some kind of accident—was stashed in this little corner of the place. The light above emitted a dull hum that entranced the girl. What was this thing, and why did it make that sound?

Slowly, the girl stood up, stumbling out of the room and into a narrow hallway. Following it, she soon arrived at a staircase. As the bottom drew near, lights and sounds came into focus from another room. The girl tentatively ventured toward the source of the assault on her eyes and ears, wandering into a new room.

Sitting in a chair, staring at a lighted box, was the boy from earlier. He seemed engrossed in whatever it was on that strange device. The sound molded into words she was able to discern.

“…as the businessman carefully positions himself directly behind the customer and unzips his pants and proceeds to service the account!”

The boy’s pealing laughter was higher than the girl expected. Lost in the sound, she never saw his eyes meet hers, and was oblivious to the world until a voice called out.

“Hey. Are you alright?”

The girl shook her head quickly, clearing a confused mind.

“Um, yeah. Fine.”

The boy cocked his head to the side. He was worried at how raspy her voice still sounded.

“Are you sure? You sound sick.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” The boy gave her a disbelieving look. “Well, I am thirsty…and hungry.”

“Yeah,” he scoffed. “I thought that might be it. Take a look in the fridge. There should be some food there. If you want me to make something, I will be more than happy.”

“Uh, thanks.” The boy in the chair seemed unaccustomed to having others around. He would take some getting used to.

The kitchen featured little more than a stove/oven, a small fridge, and a strange device on the counter with the time displayed on it in bright green lights.

I like it. It’s…homey.

The door of the refrigerator opened with ease, and revealed very little. How could that boy in the other room possibly survive on a few slices of cheese, stale bread, and tofu chicken?

Realizing she wouldn’t do much better than this, the girl pulled out the cheese and chicken, setting both on the counter. Upon opening the latter container, a strange smell assaulted her nose. It took a few seconds for that dark thought to make itself known.

Is…is this real chicken?

“Yes, that is real chicken!” The girl jumped. She hadn’t realized that thought was expressed out loud. The boy continued. “Hard to believe, is it not? When I found that stuff the other day…” He trailed off into fond memories.

Swiftly replacing the chicken in the refrigerator, the girl sauntered back into the living room while taking small bites of cheese. The boy had returned his attention to the screen, watching what looked like a cartoony representation of…ponies?

The girl called Rainbow Dash felt her world crashing around her as she watched the strange screen, its images filling her head. This was incredible; with unbelievable accuracy, someone appeared to have documented the lives of the girl and her friends, broadcasting them in this world.

At the moment, there was a pink winged unicorn on the screen singing a song, with the boy softly singing along.

This day was going to be perfect,
The kind of day of which I dreamed since I was small.
But instead of having cake with all my friends to celebrate,
My wedding bells, they may not ring for me at all.

As the song faded, the girl found herself in tears. How had she come to be here, watching this all happen? When falling asleep the previous night, her mind had been buzzing with anticipation of this same wedding.

The boy turned to face the girl, his piercing eyes boring into her soul.

“Are you alright?” His voice sounded so innocent, but it still sent a slight shiver down the girl’s spine.

“I-I’m fine.” She sat down, taking in the room around her, from the strange box and the other boxes beneath it to the chair in which the boy was seated.

The boy. Such a peculiar being. He seemed inquisitive, yet foreboding. His eyes were a sea of blue, seeming to process everything they saw at an extreme pace. The strange claw-like structures at the ends of his forelegs were clenched in anticipation of something.

The girl suddenly noticed that the boy was leaning toward her, a concerned look on his face. Those eyes, piercing her soul, sent a sense of foreboding through the room. Tension permeated the air until he spoke.

“You do not look fine.” Again, that voice sent a shiver up the girl’s spine. “Your pupils are dilated and you are breathing fast. What happened out there?”

The girl looked past the boy. His gaze never left her face, waiting for an answer she did not feel able to give.

“W-What’s relocation?”

She heard a sharp gasp from the boy, and finally looked him in the eye. The expression was the same, but there was something different. He seemed more intense than before…more captivated by her. This change was unnerving in every possible way.

“What is your name?”

“What?”

The boy released the tension in his claws before speaking again. “I would very much like to know your name. You are a guest here; it is only polite, correct?”

“Uh-huh,” mumbled the girl. She didn’t know how to react to her host’s apparent lack of real social skills. “I’m uh, Rainbow Dash.”

The boy shifted uncomfortably in his seat, taking in this revelation. This girl was either crazy or lying; of that he was sure. If this really was the pegasus, how had she come to be here in his home? The odds were astronomical—to say the least—that such a planet existed that could support complex life capable of altering the paths of celestial objects.

The girl looked at his expression, and decided to speak.

“So, what’s your name?”

The boy jumped slightly, not expecting that question.

“Well?”

“I do not have a name. Hardly anyone does anymore.”

The girl’s mouth hung open, floored by that sentence.

No name? How does he even live?

“Do you have any way of distinguishing yourself from everyone else?”

The boy looked up and slowly pulled down the top of his shirt. Underneath, on his skin, was a strange tattoo.

ILU20379

Suddenly, it all became clear to the girl. This was all that the boy considered himself: a number. His entire identity came down to that small patch of ink on his neck.

For the first time, she examined him. Under those blue eyes were red rings and a thin mouth lacking lips. His skin was alabaster from, the girl assumed, little sunlight. The boy’s long hair was grainy to the eye; what little color it had now resembled a faded light brown. Past his head, the clothes covering him hung loosely over what the girl could only assume was a slight frame. The boy’s long claws constantly tapped each other, the appendages themselves generating a soft rhythm that soothed the troubled mind staring at them.

Suddenly, the girl snapped back to reality, recalling something peculiar.

“I asked you a question a while ago.”

The boy looked up at her. “Oh? And what was that?”

“What’s relocation?”

“Ah,” his voice seemed strained. “It is a rather long story.”

“I have time.”

“Okay, then let me think on how to begin.” The boy took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts.

“The world was not always like this—at least that is what I have come to understand. Long ago there was light and warmth in everything. No one is quite sure what happened to it, but what is clear is the events following the first war.

“The initial strike—launched by the Fellari Empire and aimed at the Rhodian Republic—wiped out between 50 and 400 million people. It was a devastating blow to a peaceful nation

“This war killed approximately 78 million soldiers and 3.2 billion civilians, and stands as the peak of our demise. No such numbers had ever been recorded by a single conflict, and indeed many nations were rendered inhospitable to life as a direct result.

“This country is the one that put a stop to the violence. In one swift move, our Senate crushed the Fellari Empire and assimilated it into its jurisdiction. Ever since, laws have been put in place to keep that kind of conflict from ever happening again.

“Relocation is the most common punishment for breaking one of these laws. I honestly have no idea what it really is; none who are relocated are ever heard from again. I knew someone who had that happen to him. I have not seen him in seven years.”

The girl was confused.

“I thought you said it was a long story.”

“Trust me: it is longer. I cannot remember most of it; the histories of the beginning of the current era in which we live are shrouded in mystery. Only the Senate knows the full details, which is why an appointment is a life-long commitment.”

“Oh.”

“Tell me. Why did you ask what relocation is?”

The girl froze. The memories of what had happened came rushing back. The hot breath of those men, their rough hands on her arms and in…other places.

“I was stopped by some men a few blocks from here. They mentioned it briefly.”

The boy suddenly leaned forward. “These men. What were they wearing?”

“W-When they were wearing clothing, it looking military. The jackets all had a badge on the front. ‘District Armed Police.’ Why? Does that mean anything?”

The boy jumped up and ran into the kitchen. He returned soon with a glass of water.

“Here. Drink this. It will help.”

“Th-Thank you.”

The boy sat down again, examining the girl’s arms as she drank. What was he doing? Checking for cuts and bruises?

A sharp stab of pain and the smell of blood overpowered her senses. She looked down to see that the boy had cut into her left foreleg just above the elbow joint. He looked to be searching for something inside her flesh.

All the girl could do was stare; screaming was beyond the pain she was experiencing.

Only seconds later, he removed his claw-like thing from her skin. Opening it, she saw a small chip there, covered in blood.

“This is definitely Dap tech.”

To say the girl was confused would have been an understatement. What’s a Dap?

“To answer your inevitable questions, the Daps are District Armed Police…it is slang.”

“Ah.”

“As for this tech, it is an identifier chip. The Daps put it in everyone at birth to keep better track of them.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I need to see your neck.”

Instinctively, the girl reached up to cover herself. Why did he want to see her neck?

“Please?” the boy asked.

Reluctantly, the girl dropped her arm, allowing him to look at whatever it was he wanted to see. Without warning, he pulled out a strange device. With a flash, the girl’s right eye was temporarily blinded. The boy took a small sheet of parchment out of the thing he was holding and handed it to her.

It was a picture of the side of her neck. She looked him square in the eye.

“What does this mean?”

He stared back. “It means you cannot possibly be Rainbow Dash.”

The girl glanced back at the picture before dropping it. The full weight of that image came crashing into her. How could this be?

With nowhere to go, the girl fainted, collapsing on the floor in front of the boy. He bent over, picking her up and placing her in the bed in which she had awoken less than an hour previously.

Quietly, the boy went back into the living room and picked up the discarded picture, staring at it with newfound curiosity.

STM0037

Who was this girl? And why had she come to his home?

If there is a Hell, can I go there now?

The girl lay in bed, contemplating what she had just seen. It was impossible for her to be from this world; she remembered Equestria so clearly. Her friends and neighbors; her dreams and shortcomings. All of it was clear as day in her memory. If she was from this place, surely the would be memories of life here. There had to be.

It couldn’t all be a dream.

Slowly, she left the room, walking to the living area only to find that the boy had gone. There was a note on the couch.

STM0037,

I realize how hard this must be for you, so I left to run some errands and give your mind a rest. Should you remember anything about your past, please write it down. In the meantime, feel free to move about the house and do as you please.

Instructions for using the television are on the back of this letter.

One request: please do not leave the house. You may fall into the hands of the Daps, and I doubt they will be so forgiving twice on the same night.

Sincerely,
ILU20379

The girl set down the note on a nearby table and found a long, plastic device with buttons. Pressing on one of them, she was immersed in the moving pictures and sound emanating from the “television.”

The clock struck midnight before she broke free of the television’s addictive hold. Deciding to explore the home, the girl picked herself up off the couch. There was almost nothing personal in the room; the television blended into the black furniture and the rug was similarly styled. The dim lighting revealed a small door by the stairs, wedged slightly open.

Well, he did say I could explore any part of the house.

Cautiously, the girl pushed the door open. As she did, a voice emerged.

“Hi sweetie. How was your day?”

The girls screamed, ducking behind the door.

“Well, your father and I are just happy that you’re safe. Isn’t that right, darling?”

A deep male voice permeated the air. “That’s right.”

The girl wandered into the room, turning on the light. What she saw was beyond anything she could have imagined.

On a bed rested two department store mannequins. They were wearing the kind of clothing Rarity might be proud of. It was instantly clear that they had been in that state for years.

What were they? Why were they here? Did the boy know of them, and if so, why were they still there?

Her world darkened, and she knew nothing more.

“Hello? Can you hear me?”

The girl slowly opened her eyes to see the boy looking down at her, a worried expression on his face.

“Good. You are awake. Blink if you can hear me.”

She blinked.

“Great. Sit up slowly, please.”

The girl sat, her eyes never leaving his.

“Alright.” He finally looked away from her, staring at the open door before him.

The girl watched him, stunned at his reaction. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes.

“Wha—What the hell is that?”

The boy looked down.

“STM0037, I would like you to meet my parents.”

“What? Why are they plastic?”

The boy was struggling to hold back his emotions.

“Please understand: those are not my real parents. They died four years ago.”

It all became clear in an instant. The mannequins, the voices: they were all ways for him to cope.

“How-How did they die?”

“I killed them.”