THE MAGIX:CHAPTER 12: Glitched

24 hours passed. Another day dawned on the Firestar's crew. And with the coming of a new day, Project Apocalypse was set in full-force motion.
Everypony gathered in the holodeck, as usual. Spiro and Saph at the controls, Cherrybomb on guard of the ship, and the four remaining crew members positioned in the activated jack chairs, waiting to be plugged in. The recap was given, the monitors placed, and the crew jacked in.
Rain's virtual eyes flickered open. Here she was again, in the same complex that was the Firestar HQ. The others were scattered around the room, Horus and Neon poring over their communicators, trying to find the database's location, Amber running a weapons check, investigating the new artillery and prototype bomb Spiro had downloaded them and packed in a messenger bag. The second her hazel brown eyes registered Rain's existence, they blazed with hate and she turned away. Rain sighed. This was going to be a long mission.
Temporarily forgetting Amber, she went to check on the findings for the database location with the other two. "What have you gotten so far?" she asked, reading Horus's communicator screen over his shoulder.
"Obviously, they've moved again," he answered, concentrating. "Our last attempt must have tipped them off. They know we're onto them."
"Have you found a location yet?"
"No, but I think we're close."
A loud chime cut through the conversation. "I've got it!" Neon's voice shouted.
Horus shut off the feed on his communicator. "Where are they now?"
The pegasus studied the information on his communicator. "They're still at the edge, but closer to the city this time. Near a place called..." Neon squinted at the screen. "Sweet Apple Acres."
"Hey, I know where that is!" Rain thought out loud.
"Sweet Apple Acres?"
"Yeah. My friend Applejack lives there. Her family runs the farm. I've been there a million times."
"So I'll assume you know the way very well?" Horus said.
"Well, obviously."
Her captain nodded. "Then Rain, you will be our guide."

It was a long way through the broken, abandoned labyrinth of the outskirts to the lush fields of Sweet Apple. For the longest time, it was nothing but road ahead of the crew. After hours of walking, the scenery finally changed. Chipped, faded asphalt and crumbling buildings gave way to rolling green hills and a natural dirt-and-gravel road. A shape appeared in the distance, breaking up the bright, lively fields and country hills. The reflective grey block shone in the simulated afternoon sun. The database. Sure enough, only a few dozen acres away, the gleaming shades of red, yellow, and green of fresh-picked and growing apples marked the rich orchards of Sweet Apple Acres.
"There it is!" Rain pointed out as they neared the building in the distance. "And there's Sweet Apple!"
"Knew it was somewhere near there," Neon said. "Odd that we were headed in the right direction the first time."
"Yes, it is funny, isn't it?" Amber hissed, shooting an icy glare at Rain.
Horus quickly took note of the unicorn's bitterness. He sent a sweeping wave out to her, trying to find the source. Nothing. Her thoughts were just as guarded as yesterday. Something wasn't right. Horus shook the thought away and returned his focus to the mission. "I'm calling Spiro. Once he has a location on us, we can get started." He pulled out his communicator and ran a checkpoint with the unicorn on the other end. "The connection is secure. He's got us on the POV. Let's go."
The crew split up again.

Amber and Horus dashed towards the building, dragging the messenger bag along with them. They moved stealthily, dodging the watchful, oscillating eyes of the security cameras mounted on the outer wall, speeding closer to the building in short bursts, while Neon and Rain watched just out of sight.
The Earth pony and unicorn reached the wall and flattened themselves against the side of the building in a temporary blind spot between cameras. They had a few seconds to spare before the nearest security cam would turn in their direction and catch them. Amber tried to open a first-story window just above where she and her captain were crouched in the shadows. It stuck firmly in place, latched from the inside. Her horn glowed. A hazy orange glow surrounded the inner latch, and it undid itself. She nudged horus. He turned to help her pry open the window.
The security camera was turning back towards them. The two rebels struggled to open the flat, slippery pane of glass. Finally it gave in and slid open.
The camera's shining black eye now stared straight at where they stood. All it captured was the open window sliding shut again.
Horus and Amber flattened themselves against the wall below the window, out of view of the camera. The seconds ticked by as they waited for the watching black eye to move. 5 seconds, then 10, now 20. Finally, it was safe. They slipped away from the window.
The window they'd entered through had led them into an office cubicle. A pony was seated at a desk, his back facing them, completely absorbed in his work. He finally turned around to see two black-clad strangers staring at him. "What the-" was all he had time to say before his head was slammed backwards against his desk.
Amber and Horus backed away from the unconscious witness. Amber stared at him. "What are we going to do when he wakes up?"
Horus closed his eyes and sent a wave out to the pony slumped in his chair. "It's alright," he said
when he opened his eyes. "He'll forget everything when he wakes up."
With that, the rebels slipped unseen out of the cubicle block and out into the hallway maze that made up the database. They dashed down the hallway and found one of the painted beige metal doors that marked a staircase, the only ones not disguised as wall paneling. They opened it and sprinted down the two flights to the basement, where the control room was waiting.
At the very lowest floor, the heavy grey double doors of the basement entrance stood, completely undisturbed. The rebels stopped at the base of the bare concrete stairs, hesitating for just a second. Horus stepped forward and silently pushed one open, cautious not to let the rusting hinges squeal.
The basement was dark, nothing but a spacious room made entirely of cement, a long expanse of concrete and boxes that smelled of dust and mildew.
Amber scanned the darkness. There had to be a door, a light, something to show them where the control panel was. She closed her eyes and repeated a simple search spell from her memory. A spark formed at the end of her horn. It flared, then glanced off and flew off into the darkness. Amber and her captain raced after it.
The spark whizzed through the dusty air, then stopped. The crew members skidded to a stop in front of it. The spark flared once more, then faded.
"It's somewhere near here," Amber said, her gaze darting around the dim space.
"Over there," Horus whispered. He pointed a hoof into the distance. A few feet down the wall, a thin ribbon of light shone against the dark concrete wall in the shape of a rectangle. The two ponies raced over to it. The light outlined a small, dark metal door. A little plastic plaque was stuck to the surface along with several warnings of high voltage and dangerous machinery. Control Room was written in small black letters.
Amber picked the lock open in seconds. Then they kicked the door in.
The control room was tiny and cramped, but in that small space, the agents had managed to cram a lot of technology. Buttons, switches, levers, valves, vents, and screens lined the walls and filled the room, leaving hardly any space for the three security ponies manning the controls, who stared in total shock at the strangers in black who had somehow found their way down here.
Without a second to spare, Amber and Horus rushed in and attacked. The first pony was down with a swift blow to the head. The second tried to fight back with a few weak punches at Amber. She caught his fist. "You're kidding, right?" she said before a shock from his own taser cut him off from reality. The third didn't even try to resist. It was a matter of seconds before Horus and Amber had total control.
"They should be out for an hour or so," Horus said. "You call Spiro. I'll handle the bomb."
Amber grabbed her communicator and called the ship as Horus opened the messenger bag and removed the bomb. "Operator," Spiro's voice answered on the other end.
"Spiro, it's me," Amber said. "We've made it to the control room. Where to now?"
"Okay, next step is security. If you take a look around you should find a grid of really small screens."
"I see them. The ones with the silver panel and blue controls under them, with the trackpad and keyboard sticking out?"
"Exactly. Now, there should be a larger screen in one corner. That's the security camera feed from
the lobby. There's a toolbar at the bottom of that screen. Do you see it?"
"Yes. What do I do?"
"Go to menu. Click that, then go to actions. Click disable feed. It'll ask you to select which cameras you want to shut off, just select all of them, then click continue. It'll ask you for an activation code. The code is 40813. Enter that, then hit disable."
"Got it. Done. Okay, the monitors are all blank. Now what?"
"On the control panel, there should be buttons that display each different mode in the security system. Press the one that says sound detection. That one controls the hidden microphones in the building."
Amber pressed it. The blank screens flickered back to life. They no longer displayed the grainy, unsaturated footage of a security camera, but jagged, undulating wavelengths of sound. "Alright, now the sound waves are up."
"Do the same as I told you before. Then do the same with all the rest of the modes. After that, call Rain and Neon to tell them they're in the clear and call me back when you're finished."
"Got it."

On the other side of the database walls, two pegasi waited, crouched in the grass, out of view of the security cameras. Neon clutched his communicator, wondering with fierce hope where Amber and Horus were. They must have gotten to the control room. Spiro would have called if they were in danger, right? He looked down at the little black cell phone he held tightly in his hoof, hoping that it would ring soon.
Neon lifted his gaze away from the phone to the sky-blue mare positioned next to him in the grass. Rain was gazing intently at the database building, her magenta eyes taking in every detail.
"What are you thinking about?" Neon asked, trying to break the silence.
She kept staring at the building in front of them. "Do you think they got rid of the skylight?"
Neon looked back to his communicator. "They can move their location. They do it all the time. But I don't know if they can change the structure of their database. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't."
"If they did get rid of it, do you think we'll be able to get out again? Or would they stop us and we'd still be in there when the bomb goes off?"
Neon stared off into the distance. "I don't know. The bomb isn't supposed to be that powerful. It shouldn't take out the third floor. We'd probably get out fine, even if we don't get out before the bomb detonates. Just go up."
"Oh." Rain looked at him and smiled.
Neon felt her gaze on him. He turned and smiled back. He felt his pulse speed. "Rain-"
A loud, mechanized ringtone cut his sentence off. Neon snatched his communicator out of his pocket and flipped it open. "This is Neon," he said.
Horus's voice answered. "It's me. Amber and I have disabled security. You're in the clear."
"Perfect. We're headed in right now." He snapped the phone shut.
Rain's eyes brightened up. "Are we good to go?"
Neon nodded. "Yep. Let's go."

The pegasi raced unstealthily for the lobby door. Avoiding security didn't matter anymore. It had been all taken out. Now there was only the files and the bomb to worry about.
Neon and Rain skidded to a stop just before the spotless glass of the double doors leading into the lobby. They took a few seconds to slow their breathing and pulse. The evidence of their mad dash erased, they walked casually through the doors. The pristine stone tile floor and perfectly clean white walls were exactly what Rain had expected. Classy marble columns lined the walls, tall, perfectly cut rectangles holding up the ceiling like regal pedestals. Two receptionists were seated at desks on opposite sides of the room, going calmly about their business. A walk-through metal detector stood as the only barrier between the lobby and main entrance, a security guard standing at either side.
One of the receptionists finally looked up from her computer screen to notice the two visitors just entering the lobby. "Can I help you?" she asked.
Rain walked calmly up to the desk. "We're just here to visit a friend," she said.
The receptionist peered over the edge of her desk at the pegasus's dangerous attire. "Well, if you want in, you're gonna have to lose the belt."
"I'd rather not." The pegasus swiped a foreleg out at blinding speed. Before she could react, the receptionist was slumped over her desk, completely unconscious.
A scream sounded from the other side of the room. Neon whirled around at the sound. The other receptionist was staring in total shock at her coworker. She screamed again and reached for the phone on her desk to call for help. Neon snapped out his wings and shot toward her. He swatted the phone out of her hoof and knocked her out in a single stroke. He landed behind the desk and walked around the edge back to Rain in the center of the lobby.
The security guards were no longer standing still and silent at their post. They had removed their taser guns from their holsters and had them trained on the two rebel ponies. They slowly advanced toward the invaders. "Alright, we don't want this to get messy," the stallion on the right said. "Just drop your weapons where you are and come with us."
Rain's hoof slipped to her belt. She snatched a pistol from its resting place and aimed it at the guards.
The stallion on the right glared angrily at her. "Put the gun down, missy." She stared indignantly back at him. The guard fired his taser.
She shot him. The guard fell to the floor, blood spilling from his chest. Dead. Rain gasped and dropped the gun. She felt like she couldn't breathe. She'd actually done it. She killed someone.
The other guard's eyes widened. He fired the taser at Neon. The pegasus jumped into the air and drew one of his guns, the jolt of electricity not even grazing his hooves.
Shaken, the security guard drew another gun from its holster. It looked nothing like the taser he'd held before. "You two are in huge trouble! I'm calling backup. First one who moves gets a bullet in their flank!"
Rain looked up at Neon, who landed silently next to her, his gun trained on the guard. "Neon, he's serious. This one looks real."
The security guard reared up on his hind legs, his other hoof reaching for the walkie-talkie on his belt. "Do. Not. Move. I mean it."
Neon stared back at the guard. "You're not the only one with a gun around here." He pulled the trigger. The guard fell down, dead.
Rain stared at Neon. "I- You- I just-" she stammered.
Neon put a foreleg around her shoulders. "I know, I know. It's hard, but we have to do it." He looked at her discarded weapon on the floor. "Pick it up. You'll need it."
Biting her lip, Rain reached for the gun and slipped it back into its pocket. She felt Neon squeeze her shoulders one last time and let go. She looked from him to the metal detector.
"Don't worry," he said. "It's not on."
The rebels went on through the entryway and into the complex.

It was a straight path to the first stairwell, the third floor, then the hallway where the central computer was last located. Sure enough, making a break down the corridor brought them straight to the dead end. Neon ran a hoof over the smooth, spotless surface, searching for the seam that outlined the hidden switch. He squinted at the panel as he felt around for the tiny break in the smooth plaster. His hoof landed in the exact same spot as the switch was before. Except he felt nothing.
"What the..." he mumbled. "It's gone."
"Hm." Rain replied. "Let me take a crack at it."
She placed both her hooves on the blank white panel. She ran them over the featureless surface, searching for the switch. Nothing. They must have gotten rid of it. There must be a password or a code or something now.
Rain closed her eyes and sighed. It couldn't be hopeless. It just couldn't. I have to get this door open. I have to.
Something changed. There was the sound of a mechanical whirring, then a click, and suddenly the panel was moving under her hooves. Rain's eyes flew open to see the panel sliding sideways and Neon staring at her, his glowing eyes full of surprise. "How did you do that?"
Rain stared at the door as it mechanically slid open. "I have no idea."
Without a second to spare, they rushed through the door and it slid shut behind them.

"Okay, do you see the plug that is three to the left and four down on the right side? It has an orange ring around it."
"Found it."
"The fifth jack goes there. Then there are two more. You see how they're shaped? There are specific plugs that will fit only those jacks. They're-"
As Spiro guided Horus through connecting the prototype to the computer network, Amber kept watch of the locked door. But she wasn't focused on guard duty. Her mind was wandering. They'd taken out security. Neon and Rain were probably fighting guards, wherever they were. But why? The agents were perfectly capable of defending themselves. Why did they have guards and all these security measures? If they were under any serious threat, they would end up defending the database themselves, not leaving it up to some incompetent, mortal pony.
"They need to appear to be a normal software company to prevent the residents of the Magix from harboring suspicion," Horus said, reading Amber's mind and cutting off her thoughts. "All their employees are completely unaware of who they really are. The security measures are to keep their true identity a secret."
"Thanks for the fun fact, Horus," Amber said sarcastically. "Do you never keep your mind to yourself?"
Horus smiled at her and shrugged. "What can I say?" He turned back to the bomb installation. But his thoughts immediately went back to Amber. She was still guarding her thoughts. Whatever had been wrong before was still wrong. Spiro's voice sounded out from his communicator.
"You've got everything connected now?"
"Yes. The keypad just powered up. What are the activation codes?"
"There are three of them. The first one is 42. If you press enter it'll ask you for a code again. Enter 42 again. The third code is 566. When you enter that, the bomb will short out the network and the clock starts for three minutes. Neon and Rain have made it to the central computer. When it shorts out, they'll know how long they have to escape. You take it from there."
"Got it. Thanks."
Spiro hung up. Horus punched the numbers into the keypad. Immediately, a deafening ZAP exploded out from nowhere. A jolt of electricity rattled the bomb. Horus jerked his hooves away and the lights of the control room blacked out. The loud electrical crackling quieted to a hum. The wires connecting the bomb to the network glowed as the signal was sent throughout the system, shorting out the network. The lights flickered back on.
Amber had remained still in her swivel chair the entire time. She turned around to her stunned captain. "Wow. That was..."
"Intense?" he suggested.
The unicorn nodded. "Exactly." For a moment everything was quiet as the signal raced through the network, shutting down everything in its path.
"How much time do they have?"
"A few minutes, at the most. Once the entire system is down, the timer starts. They'll be running once the central computer shorts out. I'm sure they'll get out safely."
Amber nodded wordlessly. The bomb's blank, darkened clock face suddenly glowed to life. The lines of light flickered for a second, then organized themselves into an image.
3:00. 2:59. 2:58.
"It's started," Horus said. "Our work here is done. Come on."
Amber nodded. "Right."
She picked up the messenger bag and followed Horus out the door.

Neon and Rain were propped up against the metal desk at the center of the orb, covered in blood, bruises and scrapes. Rain was gasping again. The bodies of three agents lay still on the floor. The skylight in the ceiling, of course, was gone. The agents shattered into pixels and shimmered away.
Rain stared blankly at the floor. "I can't believe I just did that again."
Neon turned his head to face her. "Well, you might as well get used to it." He picked himself up off the floor and stood in front of the computer to log in as Agent Steel.
She looked up at the ceiling, where their only hope of escape had vanished. "How are we going to get out now?"
"We'll worry about that later," Neon said, busy cracking the computer in front of them. "Right now, we focus on getting the files. You remembered to reset the locks, right?"
"On it," she answered. The mare walked back to the hidden entrance they had come through. She scanned the edges. "What exactly am I looking for?"
"Last time, there was a keypad. The code was 0553. It's on the left side, about shoulder-level. You see it?"
Rain looked once, then again. She searched frantically around the doorframe. "Um... Neon?"
The dark pegasus looked up from the freshly hacked computer. "Yeah?"
"There's no lock."
He jumped up from the computer and raced over to the door. "What do you mean there's no-"
He trailed off. It should have been there. But there was nothing. The keypad was gone. Neon turned and ran to the door on the other side. There was no lock there, either.
Neon backed away from the door and sat down against the desk. "We're in trouble."
Rain went back to the computer and looked over the desktop. "Where's the storage area?"
"They've hidden it in accessories and labeled it regenerate. You'll need a password to get in. They probably changed it."
Rain plugged her communicator into the side of the monitor and opened the feed. The tiny gadget automatically began registering the streams of code readings from the computer. She stared intently at the screen. She rifled through the various accessory programs. Everything was sorted out of order. She finally dug up the regenerate file and glanced at her communicator. The streams matched the file on the mainframe perfectly. She opened it.
Instantly a little gray box popped up in front of her face. Password required, it demanded in bold yellow letters. Rain bit her lip. Come on, she thought. You've done this before. Think. What would Steel set as a password? Something monotonous. Predictable. Something with numbers, probably.
Rain placed her hooves on the keyboard and entered agents 456.
The box flashed red. Password incorrect. Access denied. The gray returned, asking again for a password. Rain tried again, entering Steel 27.
Password incorrect. Access denied.
Rain thought harder. Steel. Think like Steel. Millions of passwords spilled into her head.
Magix 42. codes100. rebel84. 1file2. Iam1. 9000power. agent57331. steelmetal46.
She entered them all. Every time. Password incorrect. Access denied.
Rain sighed and smacked a hoof against her forehead. "This is hopeless."
Neon was watching the doors with intense concentration. "Keep going. We don't know how much time we have until the entire network goes down. You're bound to find it sometime."
Rain breathed out heavily and put her hoofs to the keyboard one more time. She closed her eyes. The password. We need the file. We need the password. What is the password?
JustADream.
Rain's eyes flew open. She gasped. Where had that come from? It didn't fit Steel at all. JustADream?
She typed the letters in. The box flashed green. Access granted.
"Neon!" Rain nudged the dark pegasus next to her. "Neon, I got it!"
Neon tore his attention away from the doors. "We're in?" He looked at the screen and Rain's joyful expression. "We're in. Quick, send the file. The system could be going out any minute now."
Clicking away as fast as she could, Rain dragged the cursor to file, send, direct stream, and pushed her communicator deeper into the USB socket. Immediately a loading bar flashed on screen.
Sending file. Send: 1% complete.
The rebels breathed a sigh of relief. The file was sending. As long as the network didn't short before it was complete, they'd be in the clear. Rain's legs collapsed and she sank to the floor, breathing heavily. Come on. Send. The network can't short out before the file sends. It can't.
Sending: 10% complete.
"That's weird. The file's sending faster than before."
Rain, who was stretched out limply on the floor, exhausted from the pressure, blew a strand of rainbow hair out of her eyes and looked back at the screen. "What the-"
Sending:20% complete.
She looked at the quickly filling loading bar. "26% already? What's going on?"
Sending: 30% complete.
40% complete.
50% complete.
"It's already halfway sent, and it's been, what, a minute?" Neon mused. "I have no idea what you did when you sent this, but whatever you did, it's working."
60% complete.
"Was I supposed to send it through direct stream?"
"That's what we did the first time, and it wasn't sending anywhere near this fast."
Rain looked back to the floor. This whole time she'd been fiercely hoping to get this mission over with, and successfully. First the door, then the password, now the file.
Sending: 70% complete.
What was going on?
Sending: 80% complete.
It was as if she'd been making it happen.
Sending: 90% complete.
Just by hoping...
100%. Send complete.
Rain snatched her communicator away from the computer. Not even a second later...
BOOM.
The computer screen flickered and filled with static. The entire room went black. The multicolored lights of the network wires covering the walls faded into the dark. Rain and Neon pressed close together against the desk, determined not to lose each other in the dark. Rain counted the seconds in the total blackness. 5...6...7...8...
The lights flickered back on. The two pegasi squinted against the brightness as their eyes readjusted. Neon took a deep, relieved breath. "That must have been the signal."
Rain looked over her shoulder at the blackened screen of the central computer. "The entire system's been taken down." She looked back at the cell phone she now held tightly in her hoof. "Close call, too. If we'd taken any longer to send it, we would've lost everything."
Neon stood up and walked cautiously to the door. He opened the feed on his communicator and held it against the door. "I'm not getting any signals from the agents," he said, reading the streams spilling over the screen of the little black phone. "They're probably headed toward the basement. It's where they would have traced the signal to. But some of them might be coming this way to make sure the central computer is safe. Now that the skylight is gone, the only way out is back through the building."
"We've got three minutes, right?"
He nodded. "It's possible that-"
Suddenly, the lights went out again. Rain screamed. Neon dashed blindly back to the desk to find her. He crashed into something soft.
"Ow." It was Rain's side.
Neon sat down on the floor next to her. "What just happened?"
"I don't know. It's just like what happened when the signal came through."
"What?"
"It's just like when the signal-"
"Yes. It is. It's exactly what happened. So- Rain, check the doors!"
"But it's pitch black in here."
The lights came back. The pegasi were temporarily blinded by the light. Rain rubbed her eyes and squinted against the brightness. And the first thing she saw was...
Colors. So many colors. Thin little colored lines of light, racing around on the walls. No...
Rain's vision finally cleared. The wires on the walls were alight again, streaks of colored light racing along them. Frantic, she peeled herself up off the floor and whirled around to face the central computer. The screen wasn't blank and shut down like she remembered. Instead of the dull black of a dead computer, it glowed. And there was that little green word floating in the center of the screen, taunting her. Welcome. Suddenly it flickered. It faded out and new words replaced it. Rain choked, too afraid to scream. Game over, Miss Dash.
"Neon!" she screamed.
She felt his forelegs wrap around her from behind. "Calm down," she heard his voice say behind her ear. "We're going to get out of this. Don't let them get to you. That's exactly what they want." He let go of her.
She whirled around to face him. "What's happening?"
Neon snatched his communicator out of his pocket. "A glitch. The agents have found us out."
Rain was confused. "A glitch?"
The feed opened and glided across the screen of Neon's communicator. "A glitch happens when the agents hack a ship's mainframe computer. It alters events in the crew's reality. In this case, they made the signal reverse itself and fix the network." He walked over to the door they had come through, reading the signals from the hallway outside. His eyes went wide. "Crap."
Rain tore her gaze away from the message on the screen. "What is it?"
Neon dashed to the door on the opposite side. "Agents. A lot of them. They're headed this way. Fast." He quickly scanned the hallway on the other side of the door. "This one's clear. Come on!"
Rain shot away from the desk and toward the door that slid slowly open. She and Neon slipped through and raced down the hallway at top speed as the door slid shut behind them.
Neon skidded to a stop. "Wait!" he shouted.
Rain scrambled to slow down and turned around. "We don't have time to wait! We have to-"
"No," the dark pegasus said. "We can't go back to the staircase. That's where they'll be coming from."
"Then what?" Rain asked, desperate for answers.
In response, Neon reared onto his hind legs and pressed his hooves against the wall.
"What are you doing?"
"We can't get out through any of the doors on the first floor. We'll need a window. And the only way to get to one is to find one of the offices. All the doors are disguised as wall panels. Come on, help me look."
Rain sighed and reared up against the wall and stretched out her forelegs to feel for the seam that marked an opening switch. She closed her eyes and tried to focus all her energy into into finding the tiny seam. She thought she felt something. It was just to the right...
Hoofbeats sounded in the distance. Rain's eyes flew open. Fear blazed through her head. Her hoof slipped to the right as she lost her focus. She thought she felt her hoof graze over a tiny line. Then a hoof-shaped chunk of plaster sunk into the wall.
"Rain! You did it!"
Neon's voice dragged Rain back to reality. She fell back onto all fours. In front of her, the wall panel was sliding sideways to reveal a maze of office cubicles. The hoofbeats grew louder and louder as the seconds passed. The agents were coming. Neon pushed Rain through the door and hurriedly followed, sliding it shut behind them.
The pegasi sprinted through the maze of temporary walls and ducked behind the panels of an empty cubicle. There was a quiet shiff as the door panel slid open. Calm, collected hoofsteps sounded from the doorway of the busy office and made their way briskly through the network of cubicles. Trying her best to keep her pulse under control, she peered over the top of the cubicle. A row of large windows stretched across the wall opposite them, exposing the cool gray skies outside. Rain leaned toward the edge of the cubicle where she and Neon hid. Holding the edge of the corkboard wall, she peered around the corner to see who had entered.
There were agents. She saw five... six? No. Way more than that. The ones who had been chasing them through the hallways were now in the huge collective office, splitting up to search for the rebels who had infiltrated their precious database. Another strode through the door, and then another. One turned his head and looked down the makeshift hallway. Straight at where Rain and Neon were hiding.
The pegasus held her breath and jolted back to where she had been before, scrunched up against the cubicle wall next to Neon. "What's going on out there?" he asked, his voice not even a whisper.
"Agents," Rain breathed. "Dozens of them. They're all over the office, looking for us."
Neon nodded. He looked at the floor, then the arrangement of cubicles around them, then up at the huge windows set into the opposite wall and the slowly darkening sky outside, hopelessly far away. He breathed out heavily, pushed his neon hair away from his face and turned back to Rain. "Follow me. Whatever you do, don't make any noise."
Moving with ninja speed, Neon crawled soundlessly from their cubicle to the one across from them, a few precious feet closer to their only escape. He turned around and signaled for her to follow.
Rain peeked around the corner one last time. Nopony was looking. The coast seemed clear enough. She aimed herself at the cubicle and shot toward it like an arrow. In less than a second, she was once again next to her crewmate, squished in the small space of the next cubicle. A middle-aged, overweight stallion was asleep at the desk in front of them, a spilled mug of coffee staining a stack of papers on his desk.
Rain turned to Neon. "What are we going to do about them?" she whispered, pointing at the snoring pony.
"Just be as quiet as you possibly can," he answered. "If they're doing what I've seen ponies normally do in an office, they shouldn't even notice us."
"O-kay..." Rain mumbled half-heartedly, not at all reassured.
Neon set his gaze on the next cubicle. He dashed across to it, Rain close behind. They went on to the next one, and the next, moving gradually closer and closer to their one escape, crawling like spiders across the office floor. They were almost there. Just over ten feet remained between them and the window. Four more cubicles and they were free.
Neon and Rain slid into the next cubicle and scrunched up behind the wall, out of sight of the agents. They relaxed again after another mad dash from cubicle to cubicle. Almost instantly, a shrill, chirpy laugh filled their ears.
"Ohmigosh, no way! She did not! Daisy, you have got to be kidding me."
Rain looked up from where she and Neon were hiding to the pony occupying the cubicle where they hid. A model-thin young mare was sitting at the desk, her phone in her hand, her computer logged into some social networking site, laughing obnoxiously loud. She clicked away at her profile as she chatted self-importantly with her friend. "She could do way better. He is SUCH a jerk!"
Neon leaned over to the edge of the cubicle and peered around the corner. He gasped and jumped back behind the wall. "That's not good."
Fear rushed through Rain's head. "What's going on out there?"
"An agent's coming this way. He's going through all the cubicles we've just been through."
"Hold on. Let me see."
Rain climbed over Neon to see out into the rest of the office. Sure enough, there was one of the agent clones, slowly making his way down the corkboard hallway, looking into the very cubicle they'd been hidden in only minutes ago. She quickly slipped back into place. "Holy Celestia, we're dead."
"Calm down. It's not over yet."
The mare at the desk in front of them was still gossiping loudly over her cell phone. "That dress she bought at Carousel was totes posh! I am SO getting it! But in a different color. I don't want to look the same as her..." She placed a perfectly manicured hoof on the floor and started to swing her office chair playfully back and forth.
Neon looked around the edge of the cubicle again. "Okay. He's reached the sleeping guy now. He'll be asking the employees if they've seen us."
The mare at the desk began spinning around in her swivel chair. "He is totally hitting on me! I know it!"
"Maybe, if we can time our movements with..."
"Um, who are you?"
The mare had spun her chair away from her desk. She was staring at Neon and Rain, her heavily made-up eyes judging every detail of the weirdos in black who showed up in her office.
Rain's eyes went wide. "Crap."
The gunshots were everywhere. The mare at the desk shrieked and ducked under her desk, trying to protect herself. The two rebels unwound themselves from their hiding position and poised to sprint for the windows, but ducked down again as more bullets flew overhead.
The agent appeared out of nowhere. He stood in front of the cubicle, his revolver trained on the pegasi staring up at him in shock.
Rain heard Neon scream. "Rain, run!"
Without thinking, Rain shot up from the floor and made a break for the windows. Her vision blurred. She heard gunshots ringing out all around her, the screams and shouts of confused and terrified employees trying to make sense of what was going on. Her legs uncontrollably carried her forward at light speed. She stared straight ahead at the pane of glass being shattered bit by bit from the bullets being fired throughout the room. Almost there...
Crash! Rain hit the glass with a windbreaker-covered shoulder. She immediately stretched out her wings and jumped. Everything slowed down. The gunshots, the screaming, all the noise blended together and faded away. The wind billowed up and lifted her sky-blue feathers as she glided out into the air. Rain closed her eyes. It was over. She was free.
Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through her right wing, shattering her serenity to pieces. Rain's eyes snapped open. She screamed. She tried desperately to fly, but her wing was paralyzed with pain and refused to obey her. Helpless, she dropped out of the sky and rushed painfully fast toward the pavement. Suddenly, she felt a blast of air on her back. There was somepony behind her. A pair of black forelegs wrapped around her waist.
"Gotcha," Neon's voice whispered from behind her ear.
Holding tightly to Rain, Neon pushed downward with his wings and soared up to the roof of the database. He gently set Rain down on the smooth concrete surface.
Rain gritted her teeth and stretched out her injured wing. The small, deep wound burned with pain and her sky-blue feathers were soaked deep red with blood. Neon landed in front of her.
"Hold still. Let me see it," he said. Rain whimpered. Neon gently took her useless wing in his hooves.
"It's okay. It's only a flesh wound. The bullet didn't lodge anywhere. You'll be okay once the pain is gone."
Rain made a pained face and looked up at her crewmate. "How long until then?"
"Until you realize it wasn't really your wing and it hasn't actually been shot."
Immediately, the burning in her wing started to fade. Rain looked at the spot where the bullet had scraped a narrow, bloody path into her wing. It was still there. Still bleeding. But she couldn't feel a thing. "Whoa."
Neon walked to the edge of the roof and looked over at the ground. "Hm. That's weird."
Rain stood up and went to stand beside him. "What?"
His glowing green eyes scanned the area below, where the main entrance would be. "There's nopony there. If everything had gone exactly as Spiro had planned, Amber and Horus would be somewhere down there waiting for us."
"Maybe they ran into trouble and had to jack out ahead of us."
"Maybe. I'm going to call Horus. Even if nothing is wrong, we have to tell them about the glitch. That could have caused some serious damage." Neon grabbed his communicator and searched through his contacts. "Okay. Horus's phone is still on here. So is Amber's. They're still jacked in." He dialed in Horus's phone and waited. A few seconds later, he hung up. He turned to Rain. "He's not answering."
Panic hit Rain like lighting. "I'll try to get Amber," she stammered. She snatched her communicator out of her pocket, sifted through her contacts and found Amber. Forgetting about their fight, Rain dialed her in and held the phone to her ear. She waited for the unicorn on the other end to pick up. She heard Amber's communicator ring again and again for what felt like forever. Amber didn't pick up. Unwilling to give up, Rain called her again. She listened to the ringing over and over. Finally, she heard the static of an answer. Someone was breathing heavily into the phone.
"Rain." Amber's voice.
"Amber. We sent the files. They glitched the system. We got out, but they have the network back. Where are you?"
"Rain, I don't have time to explain. Hang up. I can't talk right-" Static filled the background and drowned out Amber's voice. There was more heavy breathing and something that sounded like gunfire. "-Apocalypse failed! Don't worry about us, just go!" The other end clicked and went silent.
"Amber?" Rain stared at the cell phone in her hoof. "Amber?!"
Neon was still staring at the ground over the edge of the rooftop. He turned around. "What's going on?"
"I don't know. It sounds like they're in danger. Call Spiro. We have to find them."
Neon grabbed his communicator and flipped it open to contact the operator back on the ship. The two pegasi leapt off the edge of the roof and glided down to the landing in front of the main entrance. It wasn't the sight they remembered.
Smoke. Past the clear, pristine glass on the front doors, the entire lobby was covered with a curtain of thick gray smoke. Neon, his cell phone still on his hoof, abandoned his call to Spiro. "What the..."
Rain stared at the windows of the lobby. "I thought the bomb had been disabled. Then why..."
Something moved inside the smog-filled room, Without warning, a dark shape came rushing toward the door. It crashed head-on into the glass front door, shattering it to pieces. Another shape emerged close behind. Horus and Amber. They were covered in dust, blood and bits of shattered glass.
Amber saw her teammates standing outside the door. "What the hay are you doing here? I told you to go on without us!"
"Forget about that," Horus commanded. He raised his voice over the loud, discordant noise streaming from the lobby. "Shut up and run!"
Rain scuffed her hooves against the ground, prepared to bolt. For just a second, she looked back over her shoulder at the ruined lobby. Something else stirred the smoke that filled the room and leaked out through the jagged opening her crewmate and captain had made. Another dark shape emerged. One that was far less friendly.
Agent Steel forced his way through the smoke, his gun trained on the dumbstruck mare.
Rain whipped her head forward and kicked off the ground. Her wings snapped out. She shot away from the building. A gun fired in the distance behind her. She looked over her shoulder once more. More agents were fighting their way out of the lobby. They began to move, Agent Steel at the head of the pack.
Rain had caught up with the rest of the crew, racing desperately towards any escape they could find. She pushed her wings to their limit and rushed to keep pace with them. She lowered herself to the level of the wingless crew members and glided sideways to match stride with Horus. He cast her a sideways glance. He was listening.
"They're right behind us," Rain burst out, already fighting to keep her breath under control. "A lot of them. They're moving fast."
Her captain nodded. "Tell the others," he gasped, struggling as well.
Rain swept herself upwards and shouted the warning to Amber and Neon.
Gunfire sounded in the distance behind them. Hoofbeats faded in from somewhere far behind them, slowly growing louder. Closer. The agents were gaining on them. Fast.
Fear and desperation clouded Amber's brain. She couldn't focus if she tried. The amber unicorn gasped for air as she bolted down the empty road alongside her crewmates, her dark hair flying in the wind. Her legs were slowly wearing down. No. It's not real. It's just a dream. Just a dream... she thought, struggling to focus her mind on the truth. The pain in her legs slowly began to fade away.
Wait... I've seen this before...
Amber looked over her shoulder. The hoofbeats and gunshots grew steadily louder. Steel appeared in the distance behind the fleeing rebels. More of his his agents materialized from the horizon. The dirt road under her hooves gave way to faded, crumbling asphalt. She looked off into the empty space stretching out before them. She could see the broken buildings of the Ponyville outskirts in the distance. The smell of smoke and the acidic tang of the explosives contained in the prototype still clung to her coat and mane. She looked over her shoulder again. There they were. Dozens of them. She could see them clearly now. The agents were right behind them, moving in waves, running, stopping, firing, then running again, operating at perfectly timed intervals, more precise than clockwork. The streets of the outskirts stretched out in front of the crew as they poured on the speed to stay alive.
Just like her dream.
Amber choked. The truth hit her like a plexiglass wall. She stumbled on the broken pavement and scrambled to keep going. It couldn't be. Her dream...
If it had been true, then that would mean...
The gunshot rang out from behind her. It sounded louder than the others. Special. Then came the cry of pain. The dull thud of a body falling and hitting the pavement. Amber's eyes brimmed with tears and she forced herself to turn around.
Horus lay splayed on the ground. His eyes were squeezed shut and his teeth gritted in pain. Blood trailed behind him where he had fallen. A dark red stain was blossoming where his trench coat was draped over his right leg. He opened his eyes to see Amber staring at her fallen captain.
Amber heard herself shriek. "Horus! No!"
"Go!" he screamed. "Run!"
Then the agents closed in and he disappeared.