Pony Bolo

Pony Bolo - Meeting and Revelations

DISCLAIMER: My Little Pony is the property of Hasbro, Inc.
The Bolo Series by Keith Laumer

There are things that most people simply don't think about. How my great-uncle was such an expert on creating the nonhuman thought processes that went into so many of the servants and defenders of Humanity. What was living around such a brilliant and rich man like?

The last I couldn't answer, because it was tied up with the first. He was an expert on nonhuman thinking, because he was significantly inhuman. He could create other creatures' thoughts, because he had a lifetime to learn to simulate human behaviors. And he became an expert in psychotronics, because he knew he'd never get away with playing his games with humans, or even most living creatures. At least those who weren't relatives, who made endless excuses for him and his behavior. And even then, he limited himself to cruel mind-games with them. But machines have no rights and few defenders, and the more human he made them, the better the games he could play with them. The stupider, more greedy, or more socialized 'not to judge' members of the family would accept how he hurt them, and be lured back into his orbit. I avoided that. He hurt me, and my little sister, once. I hurt him back, and then stayed out of his orbit. No blandishment lured me back. A period of Concordiat service took me out of range of his money and influence. My little sister did likewise, going career kept her permanently out of his reach.

When I got out, I could stand on my own without anything from my family and I did. No 'sock-puppet' fooled me into letting him get close. It's sad to know your own mother is either so greedy, or so stupid that she would let that man near her children more than once. When she came most recently, all tears and histrionics, that he was dying and just wanted to see me once before he passed. I said not a word until she'd wound down, out of platitudes, excuses for old hurts, appeals to pity or family, and most of all, out of tears. I looked around the farm and house I had purchased and kept up, through my own efforts, without even the glimmer of a brass farthing from him, and told her simply, 'I will consider it'.

Then followed offers of princely transport and accommodations, and a repeat of 'I will consider it.' I refused an absolute 'no', or to tell my mother I would rot in Hell beside the grim bastard before I would accede to his velvet demands. She left, confident in her assumption I needed a few days to put my home and farm into the hands of a caretaker, and would rush to my great uncle's side.

It took a week for her to come to her senses, her excuses to run thin, or the old man to realize I hadn't fallen for his ploy. My father was soon at my doorstep, demanding I stop this foolishness and attend. I was sorely tempted to ask how much he was being paid. Instead, I reminded him that he was addressing me in my home, and that he had often told me, when I was in my home, then I could be in charge. I told him I was in charge, I wasn't going to meet with that great old bastard, and he could leave if he intended that to be the sole topic of our discussions. It hurt quite a bit to watch my own father admit he had nothing in his head to say to his eldest son, except what his father's brother had put there.

Where does that leave us? It leaves me here, in the old bastard's warehouse, cleaning up after the mess his death, and what the subsequent and irrefutable revelation of his true nature did to the more credulous and delicate members of the family. The animatronic versions of most of the family members were enough to do in the faint hearts. The accouterments of the room they were found in managed to finish off the rest. So I, the only one who really understood the old man, was called in to dispose of the old man's rather macabre 'toys'.

More ghastly to me were the half-assembled, or half-broken things that moved as if alive. Not as something so badly wounded would move, but something healthy just not understanding its incompleteness would move. That these mannequins were aware, and reacted made the hair on your neck stand up. None showed any malice. They reacted as proper toys should, wanting to go through their behavior cycles. To play or serve. All the more heartbreaking that they had been abandoned, half-finished, or half-crippled, specifically to make that simple fulfillment of function difficult to impossible. Nothing more than an ultra-tech method of ripping the wings off a fly, or torturing a small animal. Here, with these creations, my great-uncle played god. As cruel and insane a god as ever graced the pages of dark mythologies. Yet still the toys sensed a 'master' and worked to please. I hurried on. If the man hadn't already been dead. If I hadn't already confirmed the bastard was worm food in the ground, I would have put him there myself.

The cage was an unlikely touch in this hall of horrors, and extremely unlikely when all manner of programming safeguards could be installed to prevent the machines from attacking, even to preserve their own existence. Or simply preclude them from being able to think about attacking or even trying to escape. A cage was there specifically to force a consciousness able to consider resistance or escape to accept that it was difficult to impossible. The cage was not meant as confinement. It was meant to evoke despair.

Inside were two very strange creatures, considering my experiences in Concordiat service, being worthy of calling something strange is quite an achievement. Quadrupedal, vaguely horselike, and colored in hues more appropriate for toys than living creatures. Unless the creatures were violently poisonous and wanted the world to know. The pair were a lavender-bodied unicorn, so named due to the horn on its forehead. It had an indigo mane and tail. The other was a yellow-bodied pegasus, so named due to the small wings on its sides, with a pink mane and tail. The pegasus was curled up on the floor of the cage whimpering. The unicorn gave me a glare that would count as Battery in most civilized nations.

"Why are you holding us? Why are we locked up? Do you have any idea who we are?" the unicorn angrily demanded. The voice was young-adult female, and the fury of her tone warred with her intense cuteness. Her anger only made her adorable, not fearsome.

But I had learned that not all threat displays are perceived correctly by humans, and with my great uncle's sense of humor, a toy might seem at it's most adorable, when it was most dangerous. "I'm not, I don't know, and no," I told her, "The one who locked you up is dead, and therefore no longer a source of good explanations. I honestly have no idea what you are, except my grand uncle's prisoners."

The unicorn sat back on her haunches and visibly restrained her anger. "I am Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia's prize pupil. This is Fluttershy, my friend," she said in a clear almost lecturing tone, "If you don't know who we are, you can ask someone in Ponyville, or in Canterlot."

"Welcome to this world, Twilight Sparkle, I have no knowledge of any of those other names. Is your friend injured?" I'd almost said 'damaged' then realized that neither might know their true origins. Not for the first time, he'd loose the truth on some poor article, and watch its shocked to horrified reaction.

"Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Princess Luna, Pinkie Pie . . . Spike?" the unicorn offered in growing desperation.

"I'm afraid none of those names has any context for me," I replied, and found what was obviously the delocking mechanism. It was fashioned as an ancient key, but anyone foolish enough to believe it would function as one would be severely surprised.

"Don't turn it in the lock!" the unicorn blurted out.

"Why not?" I asked.

"I tried. It hurt us," she added sadly. She looked at me with such hope and shame.

If my 'great' uncle hadn't been moldering in his grave, I strongly suspect I could have many volunteers to put him there. I put the 'key' in the lock, and slid the cardkey I'd been given through a slot in the key made to look like a decoration. The bolt retracted with an audible click, but I waited a few moments before opening the gate. The sense of humor I was dealing with had a penchant for practical jokes, painful ones.

"I'll have to ask both of you to stay close to me, and not attack me in any way. You have no legal standing here, and without my presence, you can be killed out of hand by anyone who sees you."

"I don't understand, but we'll do what you say," the unicorn said.

I opened the door, but the pegasus remained lying on the floor. It, she, whimpered slightly, but wouldn't move. A nudge from the unicorn didn't budge her either. I considered checking her for a data port to see if her motion system was down, or her sensory systems were being overloaded by light or noise. Snapping my fingers near her ears didn't provoke a response, and her limbs moved so her paralysis was psychological.

"Look at that poor bunny," the unicorn said.

"Bunny?" the pegasus's head came up, "Angel?" She dashed out of the cage. "Angel!"

I ran after her, with the unicorn on my heels.

"Fluttershy don't get too far ahead!" the unicorn shouted, then looked at me, as if to apologize. Around a corner, we nearly crashed into the pegasus as she stared at another pegasus. The stool it stood on was too small for it's four hooves. The dress it wore would have been rejected as too frilly and fancy by a five-year-old in an 'I want to be a princess' phase. The frozen expression of bored fury still tried to extract a guffaw rather than caution.

"Rainbow Dash!" the yellow pegasus shouted at the sky-blue one, "Rainbow Dash!"

With that hair color, what else could it be. I located the activator, palming it along with several other items off a crate near the 'display'. I thumbed the switch when it was in my pocket, and out of sight of a too-observant unicorn. The formerly deactivated automate awoke, and loudly fell from its perch.

"Was that Rainbow Dash?" I asked, not trying to hide my grin as the pegasus recovered from some period of deactivation, toppling over, and finally from the ridiculous clothing.

"WHA?" the sky-blue pegasus with the rainbow mane and tail exclaimed as it got back to its feet, and then jumped back onto the stool, and tottered there for a few moments, before focusing on the unicorn and pegasus staring at it. It recognized them, and tumbled off the stool again loudly. "You guys are okay, you're out!" The voice is pubescent male, or young adult female, it's hard to tell. The creature is soon confronting me. By flying. The tiny wings could never have produced the lift or thrust necessary. "Who're you, what are you doing here? Why am I in this dress, where's the old guy who said if I got off the stool it would hurt Twi and Fluttershy?"

"The answer to the last is 'he's dead', and I'll wait until we get the rest of your group before I answer any of the other questions," I told it, then turned to the unicorn, "Is this one a girl or a boy?"

"I'm a mare!" the rainbow-haired pegasus informed me, "Can't you tell?"

"Not really," I replied, "I don't know much about horses -"

"Ponies," the unicorn said.

"And by voice alone you could be a young male, or a young adult female, but I had no clues to which. Besides, with my grand uncle involved, you could be a dragon for all I know."

"Is your grand uncle a wizard?" the yellow pegasus asked, "If you don't mind me asking, that is."

"No, he used science that some might mistake for magic," I replied, "Now, is she the last of your group?"

"No, there should be a few others," the unicorn explained, then seemed to brighten up, "What kind of science?"

"Simulating minds, with machines," I told them.

The unicorn asked several more questions, but I kept my answers close to the vest. I still wasn't sure what use these creatures had been put to, although they understood about the fear-threat reaction.

We found the next one. I've field-stripped engines that weren't as filthy as the creature we found inside the mirrored box.

"NO! I want to be alone! No one should look at me," it shrieked in a mid-Atlantic accent, and slammed the door shut instantly.

I got the vague impression of another unicorn, covered in grease, filth, paint, and I think, the worst set of clown makeup I'd ever seen. "I take it she takes pride in her appearance," I asked.

The unicorn was too busy giving the rainbow pegasus a death glare to keep her from laughing, so the yellow pegasus nodded and said, "Rarity is very sensitive to such things."

The rainbow pegasus couldn't keep it in any longer. She lay on her back, her hooves slashing through the air like a drunken spider. "Bwhaha! Did you see that?"

"I want to be alone!" came the anguished moan from inside the box.

"Let's put 'cutesy bows' in front of the door so Rarity can get a good look at how adorable she is," I offered.

"Gahaaaaa!" the pegasus shrieked as her wings went to full extension. She had shredded the dress in seconds, and stood as naked as the other two.

"Someone else is very concerned with her appearance," the unicorn noted wryly.

The boyish pegasus rounded on the unicorn. "I don't go in for that frilly stuff! That's all!"

"But you looked so natural and at ease wearing it," I added.

"Hey! If you saw that dress, what made you think I could be a boy?" the pegasus asked.

"If any of you three misbehave, I'll explain it to you," I told them and left it at that. "I think we can use a pallet jack to get the box to one of the decontam stations. It won't be perfect, but it will get her clean."

"Do you think we can find a hairbrush, or something," the yellow pegasus asked, "For Rarity?"

"I left all my grooming tools back at the hotel, and this is a warehouse. I doubt we'll have anything like that outside the workshop."

"Oh, then we should go to the workshop," the pegasus stated.

"I think we'd better go there last," I told her as I moved the pallet jack under the box and lifted it.

A few minutes later, the white unicorn with the royal purple mane and tail walked out of the decontam unit. "I certainly cannot recommend it as a spa," she intoned haughtily, but bowed her head, "But thank you for the attempt." She frowned as she gave me a once-over. "No offense, but those - clothes - really don't suit you. Their styling is drab, and the colors do nothing for you."

"The coveralls are for crawling around in a dirty warehouse," I replied with some amusement, "I could care less about how they look, as long as they work."

"Ah, so it's a uniform," the white unicorn said, "Whom can I speak to about changing the design?"

"The man who tossed you in that box. As long as you have a Ouija board," I told her.

"Well, one shouldn't speak ill of the dead," she said primly, "So I have nothing at all to say."

"I take it there are others of your group?" I asked.

"Pinkie Pie and Applejack at least," the white unicorn said, she looked hopefully at the others, "Spike, or Celestia?"

"I never saw either of them," the purple unicorn said.

"Pinkie Pie," I thought aloud, "Pinkamena Diane Pie?" I asked with a growing worry.

"Yes," the white unicorn said, her gaze full of hope, which only added to my foreboding.

With a feeling of utter dread, I signaled them. "Follow me," I told them and marched towards the security area. The place I'd looked first, when I'd entered the warehouse. To make sure the holding fields and alarm systems were still intact and functioning.

The crate labeled 'Pinkamena Diane Pie do not open under any circumstances' was the approximate right size for a pony, if its head was bowed low, or taken off. I shooed the others out of the secure section and opened the twist latches on the box, opening the top and looking down. The sockets and connectors in the shoulders were the simple slide-in type, used in military assemblies so even a fumble-fingered recruit could assemble the hardware. The head and neck of the pink and magenta creature were below. I propped the lid open to block what I was doing from the others. Fitting the head and neck into the shoulders, I pushed down until the closures clicked. I opened the data port and used a portable scanner to verify the diagnostics were running. Once they were finished, I pulled the connectors, closed the port, and awaited the final boot up sequence. I could hardly imagine what had so frightened my normally implacable grand uncle about this particular one. So I waited for the boot up to finish outside in the observation bay, with the security shields full on, as this one came to full sentience.

"Hello!" the pink blur bounced out of the box and around the room. "Twilight! Rarity! Rainbow Dash! Fluttershy!" the pink ball of excitement shouted, crashed through the security shield, and staggered towards the others. "Wow, all kinds of new colors," she said happily and fell over sideways.

I looked at the diagnostic that said the shield emitters were working perfectly, at the object that just leapt through a level-seven containment field, and then at the others. "I think I know why my grand uncle had her locked up."

The pink pony bounced in front of me, periodically coming to eye-level. "So who are you? I've never seen you before. Are you our new master, some distant relative come here to save us from that crusty old man, needing the brave Ponyvillians to rescue a magic cat from a tree, trying to rebuild civilization after the collapse, some secret government plan to give every child a pony -?"

"Pinkie," the lavender unicorn tries to interrupt.

"Alien robot here to learn about humanity? Although we don't know any nice humans, I'm sure there are some, if there are any left, we can help you find them, unless there aren't any -"

"Pinkie Pie."

"We could tell you how they ought to be, and then we could make all their -"

"PINKIE PIE!" the unicorn shouted.

"Yes, Twilight?" the pink motor-mouth asked, hovering in midbounce.

"Have you seen Applejack?" the unicorn asked.

The pink mass of enthusiasm's hair seemed to deflate, seeming to cause her to lose the lift that was keeping her airborne. She landed, straight-haired and with a pensive expression. I personally thought that made her a lot prettier than the supposed pretty one. "Yes," she said quietly, and looked at me, "Should I tell them?"

"Do they need to know?" I asked, guessing the condition we were likely to find this 'Applejack' in.

The pink pony nodded. She bowed her head and stepped closer.

"All right," I said as she exposed the access panel on her neck. I opened it. "You aren't animals, you are machines. My grand uncle created you, for his own amusement. From what Pinkamena is telling me, he was especially brutal with your friend Applejack."

"Just let me at him!" the cyan pegasus called.

"I can point him out, and hand you a shovel. He's dead so he shouldn't be too much trouble," I told it.

"If I may be so bold," the pale unicorn said carefully, "What's your interest in all of this?"

"One, I came here to make sure he's actually dead, and my family was in such denial, they couldn't clean up the loose ends."

"Are we loose ends?" she asked carefully.

"Yes, ma'am," I told them, "Unless I can figure out what exactly you are. And two, I wanted to make certain my delightful family knew exactly what kind of monster they've been shielding all these years. For example, to frustrate their last hopes that the gravy train will continue, he left eleven, contradictory wills. All signed and dated the exact same date and time, and all with different, prestigious law firms. So none have precedence and lawyers for the family members will chew through all their savings, and probably most of the estate, before it is untangled."

"What a horrid man," the unicorn comments, "Beg pardon."

"Oh yes, I can't agree with you more," I replied, "In fact that's a good deal more tactful and polite than he deserves."

"Here we are," the pink mare said, "I think you might want to go in alone at first, and sort of clean thing up. You'll understand."

"I'm afraid I do," I said, "Stay here. There may be things that are a lot less friendly stored in here."

They nod worriedly, except the yellow one who starts looking at every crate and crevice as if it holds a deadly threat. I'm half tempted to just shut her off until I can get all of them outside.

The workshop was what I would have expected from an amateur hobbyist with scads of money. Just what his hobby was depended on the context you brought to the room. A charitable soul might have assumed the battered and damaged collection of pieces on the work tables had been brought there for repair after a horrible accident. If you knew the man, you knew he was the accident that had occurred to the hapless creature. I didn't jump when it stirred slightly, even in pieces, it was likely still 'alive'.

"Mah hat," it slurred, both from a damaged vocoder, and its accent. I glanced around and spotted a rather battered Stetson hanging from a hook. I carefully removed it, and carried it back to the table.

"I'm afraid I'll have to work on your head in a few moments, so I'll have to take it off and put it in your hooves," I told the creature that was one step from being a pile of spare parts as I fitted the hat over its battered head.

"Thank ye kindly," it replied, "You ain't like the other one."

"He's dead, I'm here to clean up the mess," I told it.

It sighed, resigned. "At least I die with my pa's hat on."

"I am not going to kill you," I told it without lying. You cannot kill what isn't alive. "But it is going to get complicated."

"Maybe dying ain't so bad after all," it said, and chuckled.

"Just be patient," I said and headed out the door. Trying to ignore the other figures held behind soundproof security screens.

Outside, the pink one was back to 'hair poofed out, manic grin' mode, and was showing her grin to her friends, after she had removed her head from her body and opened all her access ports and panels. The white unicorn and yellow pegasus were both out cold on the floor, flat on their backs, their legs sticking up in the air. The purple unicorn was examining the systems inside her friend's body with the air of amazement and utter horror. The cyan pegasus was circling frantically, looking for the mechanism to detach her own head, so she wouldn't trip it accidentally. At least I gathered that from her inarticulate stream of interjections. Mostly 'no's, 'can't's, 'accidently's, what-ifs, and 'I don't want to fall apart!'

I briefly consider threatening her with improper reassembly, but the sight in the workshop forestalled any such idea from passing my lips. "If you know how you go together, maybe you can help me with the orange, hat-obsessed pony."

"You found Applejack!" The pink haired head hovered inches from my nose. "I'll behave, I'll help, I'll - " The head landed back on the body's shoulders. The insane pink mane straightened out, and she took on a more dignified air. "I'll do anything to make my friends smile."

"I hope that's not 'anything'," I told her, "Sometimes friends have to be told 'no'."

"I'll think about that," she said.

"Okay, Purple, you calm down the whirligig, and see if you can wake up the drama queens, Pinkamena and I will get Applejack fixed up," I told the unicorn as the pink mare closed her access panels. It didn't bother me too much, except watching the turnkeys rotate themselves to lock the panels closed. That should have required a tool. I was really wondering what kind of goodies my grand uncle had packed into these small frames. I also was starting to suspect something else as we entered the workshop.

"Pinkie Pie," the mass of parts on the tables said weakly, "You loose too?"

"Yep, he let us all out," she said, then her hair poofed, and somewhere she got a manic grin. "Okie dokie loki! Operation Operational Applejack Operation."

"Uh no, please stop that tickles!" the pile of parts exclaimed from within the pink blur that surrounded it. "Make it stop! Make it stop!" it laughed uncontrollably as it went from a pile of parts to a coherent whole.

Then the pink blur materialized beside me. "Don't you have to mop my brow or something?" she asked, "They do it in all the doctor shows."

"Which doctor shows?" I asked, wondering if she was picking up broadcasts.

"That's who doctor, or is it the other way around?" she commented.

"Speakin' of 'the other way round'," the orange pony said of its backwards head, and foreleg/rear leg swap.

"Oh, easy peesy!" the pink mare said.

"Uh, let me do that," I told her, "You let your friends in."

"Okay!" she said happily.

"That's weapons-grade crazy right there," I commented as I detached and reset the orange pony's head and then the legs. She only growled when I knocked her hat off. "Let me guess, he played keep-away with your hat," I said as I replaced it.

"It's mah pa's hat, last thing he gave me afore . . . " she said, and looked away. I actually saw a blush. The craftsmanship was unbelievable. It made the unmoving figures behind the security gates even more disturbing.

I opened an access panel and found my old skills while rusty weren't entirely gone as I plugged in a diagnostic system to ensure that the internal systems were correct and running properly. And that any inhibitory safeguards weren't bypassed in the hasty reassemble. I immediately saw they weren't, and got confirmation of my private theory about this 'band of brothers'. "Lie quietly, let the machine check out that everything is fixed and set properly."

"Thank you," she said and laid her head down.

"Maybe we can find a chinstrap for your hat," I added as I walked over to the security gates. There were actual warnings on the activators kept in a small box. Either the idiot didn't trust his craving to mess with things and people, or he realized he was going senile and had to be reminded. The figures at the front of the secured bays were humanoid. 'Oid' because the wings and horns moved them firmly out of the purely human category. The first was white, not Caucasian, I mean white, bone white, and wore a very brief bikini of the same impossible color as her hair. I couldn't see if she had a bobbed tail, but a tail as full as her hair would have brushed the ground and trailed behind nearly a meter. The second was shorter, slightly shorter than me, and a dark, sapphire blue. And while the white one was built like a swimsuit model, albeit at two and a third meters, the second was human height, but built like a female superhero from the fetishier comics. And dressed in a harem costume. The third, extremely pink one was almost comical. I could have swung my arm straight out and not even brushed her hair, but she was as broad across the shoulders as I was, and sported and well-manicured beard with beads and bangles braided into it. The costume could be described as 750 square centimeters of chain mail in a belt and loin cloth arrangement, and two 250 centimeter saucepan lids with a raised starfish pattern. So it looked like the starfish had glommed onto for decency purposes. The Phrygian or Thracian helmet topped it off and probably weighed more than the rest of the 'clothing' combined. Looking at them together I realized: white Elf, dark blue human, and pink dwarf.

Behind each one was a winged unicorn of similar coloring, and a vaguely similar physiognomy. The elf's steed was sleeker and much taller, like a large thoroughbred. The human's was more solid and shorter, like a quarter-horse. The dwarf's pink pony was the same size and scale as the others outside, a bit leaner and prettier. What my uncle had planned for 'horse and rider' I should leave to the most dark and prurient portions of the imagination. I did realize that for whatever reason, they did not cooperate and he was unable to overcome by threats or programing blocks whatever made them so intractable.

With Applejack able to vouch for me, and by the dragging sounds, the others approaching, I decided I'd never have a better time to make a good first impression. I thumbed off the containment, and opened the door. Both of the figures were active within seconds.

Seconds later, I was across the room and landed on my back just hard enough to knock the wind out of me. That I missed every table and tool box, didn't slam into the wall full of sharp objects and my head hit far more softly than my back, gave me the weird impression that whoever did this didn't want to hurt me just yet. The white, winged unicorn was on top of me in an instant, standing over me and one forehoof on my throat. It lowered its head to face me, and immediate let out a series of furious whinnies and snorts.

So that's what chagrin looks like on a horse, I thought as it heard its own 'voice'.