The air was paradoxically thin and sweltering. The area was dark, hot, and uncomfortable; there were few if any lights but the overwhelming roar of distant and massive machinery. Beyond the anemic light cast from the lamps linked to the rails of the rising catwalks, it was impossible to see anything more than inky blackness. Through Elrod’s operator mask, however, it was possible to distantly perceive architectural shapes: the terminal points of columns and arches so vast that they could not be perceived all at once, but only through abstract consideration of the parts of them that were visible from several points along the path. These in turn stretched out into a fog and were eventually replaced with digital blueprints that represented what was supposed to be present, but what very well might have been replaced or lost long ago.

There had been trains and elevators and places that Elrod had not even known existed on the way up, but that had only gotten them so far: the path was eventually reduced to nothing more than catwalks and endless stairs and ladders. Distant views of verdant manors of the wealthy were replaced with lots that had been reclaimed by machinery, and then areas where the machinery was replaced with darkness and static structures.

“Where even are we?” he asked, barely managing to make words through his wheezing. The air was hot and draining, and he was weighed down by an oxygen tank that linked to a thin respirator under his mask.

“High,” said Twilight. “Higher than you’ve ever been before.”

“I don’t know, man,” said Jadeglow. “I’ve been prettttty high before…”

The three of them turned a corner and came to what looked like another endless array of stairs winding their way up an enormous arch and a set of vertical pipes and conduits that in total was several hundred feet wide.

“But the Upper Levels…”

“We passed them. Or rather through them. You don’t exactly have authorization to be there.”

“Oh, and you do?”

“Of course I do, but those are closed communities. But not all of it is hoidy-toidy bullshit. Half of the stuff is just industrial workthroughs. Their all clearly delineated and well coated so that they look pretty. And the rich-folks spend at least half there type protesting them, even though those ‘eyesores’ are what keep their air breathable.”

“They just, like, hate air man. Because air is free.”

“Is the air here breathable?”

Twilight shrugged. “You could try. But most of the city’s heat ends up here. Humans aren’t even supposed to be this high, not without refrigerated suits.”

“I’m not refrigerated.”

“I know. Which is why you need to work your skinny organic ass and get moving before you cook alive.”

“I do yoga,” said Jadeglow, smiling. “That’s how I keep in shape.”

“You should talk to Forth,” muttered Twilight. “She’s surprisingly flexible for being made out of zinc.”

“And they are up here? The terrorists?”

“The Green World Shepherds,” corrected Jadeglow, sounding mildly annoyed. “You’ve got to remember, they’re good people with strong hearts. They’re just going about it wrong, man. Hate just makes more hate, man, we’ve got to give love, you know?” she turned to Elrod. “Like, I need a hug, man.”

“No time for hugs,” said Twilight. “And to answer your question, no. They are not here. Nobody would be here.”

“Then why did you drag me up here? I’m dehydrating!”

“Quit complaining. We’re on our way. Here.”

They stopped. The path had leveled and come to an end at a large metal door. It had the appearance of being extremely old; a warning sign had been painted in English, reading “NO EGRESS—AUTHORIZED PERSONELL ONLY”, although it was chipped and faded. Most of the door was covered in graffiti, much if it in several unintelligible languages save for one line of text that read “Abandon hope all ye who enter he”, with the last point being punctuated by a bullet hole and specks flaking dark brown pigment.

“A door? But we’re at the top.”

“Exactly.” Twilight stepped toward the door, looking up at it.

“Dude, I think it’s locked.”

“No door is locked to me.” Twilight closed her eyes, and the door immediately reacted. A loud grinding sound came from inside it as old and barely usedmotors began to wind up. The grinding sound accelerated and was accompanied by a slow succession of low clinks as the door disengaged. Then it slowly started to rise.

Light came from underneath the door and Elrod cried out. He covered his face against the glow, but he still felt a profound change in temperature wash over his body. It had been hot before, well over one hundred degrees; the gusts of air from the other side of the door, though, were frigid.

When Elrod actually managed to openhis eyes and tolerate the enhanced light coming through his operator mask, he was able to see snow blowing through the opening. Outside, he saw a pair of high concrete walls and above them a stormy gray sky.

“Oh no!” he cried, yelling over the sound of machinery and of the wind from outside. “That- -that’s the Surface! I’m not supposed to be here! NOBODY’s supposed to be here!”

Twilight and Jadeglow were both already outside, with Twilight having pulled up the collar on her trenchoat and Jadeglow snuggling warmly into what seemed to be the word’s scratchiest sweater. “Well,” snapped Twilight, “if you want, you can walk all the way back down to the bottom levels by yourself, then. All alone. Through the dark.”

“Harsh, man,” said Jadeglow. “Like, super-harsh.”

It was indeed a harsh choice, but not a hard one. Elrod forced himself to go forward and joined his compatriots on the exit ramp. From behind, he could hear the door running again. This time there were no motors, just the quiet spinning of the gears as the door happily descended to its normal position followed by a distant clink as it sealed shut.

Elrod looked behind him to see the door, and then continued on, rising through the access channel to a more level area. The ground itself seemed to consist of a number of thick polymer plates or outright concrete, both of which were faded and cracked.

For some reason, Elrod had always envisioned the Surface as flat. It was not. In fact, it was covered in what looked like a city all its own: enormous gray masses of machinery, tanks, cooling towers, and exhaust stacks that extended hundreds upon hundreds of feet into the sky where they were belching smoke into the gray atmosphere. The structures seemed sterile, though. There were no windows and no paths leading to them, and they were empty and still. They hummed with empty mechanical life, but were devoid of life save for the thick growths of lichen and epiphytic moss that clung to almost everything.

Twilight looked up. The sky was gray and cold, and small quantities of snow were descending and adding to small drifts. “You know,” she said to herself, almost smiling, “anywhere else, and you could look up and see the sky. The real sky. The debris fields, the space stations, the cities they build up there. Even the lunar colonies on a good day, or what’s left of them these days.”

“I have seen them,” said Elrod, looking up and tightening his thin coat against the cold. “When I lived in Idaho. Places were not built like this. There were fields. Green fields. And at night, I could see the sky. The lights of machines in space.”

“Righteous,” whispered Jadeglow. “What I would give to see the sky, and verdant fields…”

“Well you’re in the wrong place for that.”

“I don’t see why. I mean, would it kill them to plant, like, a roof garden or something?”

Twilight snorted with laughter. “Up here? Really? Watch.” She pulled out a cigarette. It sparked as the internal charge fired, but rather than lighting it formed and ember and a whiff of smoke as it went out. Twilight stuck it in her mouth anyway and chewed on the end. “We’re three miles up over Bridgeport Connecticut. It’s below freezing more than half the year, and we’re WAY above the treeline. The sky always looks like that.” She pointed upward. “Wind, gray, storms. And these machines? Toxic exhaust, water collection. Do you really think they would bother pumping hydroponic solution this high? Why, when we can just grow stuff in dirt out West?”

“If the air is that thin, then why are there people here?” asked Elrod, suddenly glad for the oxygen tank he was wearing. He looked around, and was surprised to suddenly realize that there were none. There were no people or signs that there were people, just the endless massive units that maintained the water and atmosphere for the city below.

“There aren’t supposed to be,” said Twilight.

“But they are,” assured Jadeglow. “The Shepherds, they live up here.”

“But how?” said Elrod. “This has to be a restricted area.”

“It is,” said Twilight. “There’s been a few times where people have gotten desperate enough to try to live here. They died. You see all this?” she pointed “Drones maintain this. All of it. And they make sure that outsiders stay out.”

“But we’re outsiders.”

“Yes. And I am suppressing our signal. Not that I necessarily have to.”

“Meaning?”

Twilight sighed. “Meaning the security up here isn’t reliable. It doesn’t need to be. It’s meant to fight technovores, not people. Most people who come up here end up dying anyway, so the machines aren’t quick to act.”

“But we’re talking about an entire group of criminals.”

“Not criminals,” said Jadeglow. “Freedom fighters.”

“Well, like I said, this place is slow to respond. And in disrepair. If I had to guess, they probably found a way to hack a localized area of the security system. Or they just found one that’s in disrepair where the drones never bothered to repair the detectors. Or for all I know, they cut a deal.”

“Cut a deal? You mean with the city.”

“I mean with the machines.”

“You can’t make a deal with machines, man. They’re justnot natural like that.”

Twilight groaned. “Jade. YOU are a machine. I’m a machine. We’re reasonable, aren’t we?”

Jadeglow’s eyes widened. “Dude,” she said. “This changes everything…”

Twilight looked over her shoulder at Elrod. “Machines aren’t like people. They don’t have ideology or rigid dogma. They work based on logic. If humans could provide them with something valuable, the drone AI up here could potentially work out a deal.”

“But what would they provide that the AI finds valuable?”

“I don’t know, but it worries me.”

“Hey! No need to worry, man, just play it cool. Follow me and let me do my thing. You’re not cops or Monsanto guys, so it’ll be fine.”

Elrod froze. “Um, I am- -OUCH!” Twilight had bucked him in the knee to silence him.

“You are what?” asked Jadeglow.

“Um…mellow?”

Jadeglow looked suspicious for a moment, and then smiled wide. “Right on, dude.”

They continued across the bleak and frozen landscape. It seemed to go to on forever, although the landscape overall tended to obscure itself due to the shape of its buildings. Every time they would seem to make progress in one direction, more buildings would become apparent as if they had materialized from nothingness. Various towers- -communication links and smokestacks, as well as others that Elrod could not name- -always seemed to loom in the distance, never drawing closer.

Some parts of the landscape did change, but only subtly. The sky seemed to darken at one point, and Elrod looked up to see the sky overhead blotted out by endless arrays of solar panels. Many of them were broken or had collapsed, and none of them were connected. A few bits that had fallen showed thick layers of smoky grime over them. In the distance nearby, windmills were visible. They were tremendous structures with blade diameters nearly four hundred meters wide. Most of them were stopped despite the high wind, and their blades had long-since fallen. Only one was turning slowly, and it was missing most of the plating over its blade.

“What happened here?” asked Elrod.

“Human advancement,” shrugged Twilight. “Technological sophistication. I’ve seen it all, trench. Alternative energy was a phase. The whole world used to be powered by it.”

“But these are broken now.”

“And nobody wants to give up on them entirely. But do you know how much output one of those windmills made, or a thousand? Almost none. You know what we use now.”

“Hydrocarbons.”

“Mined from Titan. The privately-funded space program at work. No need for this useless shit anymore when we have an entire planet of oil.”

“I’m not opposed to it,” said Jadeglow. “Global warming is great. Return this planet to the glory days of the carboniferous, man!”

They turned a corner and Elrod froze. Standing in the wide path at the base of one of the damaged windmills was a drone. It was not like the small industrial drones that he was used to, or even the enormous enforcement mechs that Aetna-Cross used. It was substantially larger than either of them, standing at least ninety feet high. It was bipedal and currently in the process of setting down a large and badly rusted piece of equipment that it had just severed from a larger bank of similar units. The piece it held was swarming with spiders. Not the ordinary organic kind that were at most the size of a person’s torso, but the much larger metallic kind: harvesters. They were already in the process of disassembling and scrapping the ruined component, reducing it down to its elemental residues and reusable components.

Everything seemed to stop as the unit was set down. The spiders became aware of the presence of outsiders, and they turned their three-lobed eyes toward them. Even the drone seemed to observe them before returning to work, its arms splitting into hundreds of effectors as its internal factory began to generate new components.

“Just keep walking,” said Twilight. “Trust me on this, I know what I’m doing.”

“You had better,” said Elrod. “They look hungry…”

Twilight was correct, though. The trio moved past the repair area and into another deep cut as they descended several hundred feet to a lower area filled with water collection units.

“That unit was worth at least six hundred vod,” bemoaned Elrod. “Damn it…the amount of scrap up here is tremendous. Just one of those solar panel fragments, about two feet long…”

“We just made it past the spiders,” said Twilight. “The only reason we did is because they weren’t really concerned with us. And now you want to steal from them?”

“It’s not stealing if I take it myself. That’s called being the means of production.”

“You can tell that to the spiders while they disembowel you and sell your liver to the highest bidder. The liver that I, technically, own. By verbal contract.”

“Wait, what?”

“Never mind. Just don’t touch anything, and don’t get too far away from me. That goes for you both!”

Twilight glared at Jadeglow, who was reaching to pat a small epiphytic lycopodium that was growing in a runoff stream from a fluid holding tank. She just smiled dopily. “Sorry, man. It looked so soft.”

Twilight groaned. “Just get us there, and don’t get us killed.”

Jadeglow laughed. “Well, I certainly know how to do one of those things.”

They moved deeper into a depression in the Surface and Twilight began to understand what exactly this group had done to remain hidden. She knew almost precisely where she was and could coordinate her location on the surface with the internal schematics of Bridgeport overall. She recalled that this area had been part of an Upper Level development, one of several that attempted to create ultra-luxury by using a transparent ceiling that would expose users directly to the sky overhead. It had been a nice idea in theory but had fallen apart as soon as people began to move in and realized just how depressing and dim the real sky actually was. The company that had built the modifications was then sued into oblivion, and the space underneath had been converted to a botanical garden that had long since dried and died into a tiny abandoned forest.

The area below the glass had been sealed off, but the relatively large area overhead had not been. The ground was still soft and comparatively brittle, and the heavy drones did not approach due to the risk of breaking through. This had likely initially led to a long plane devoid of development, but had since been overgrown with a thicket of transverse conduits and pipes. The density and thickness of them made it almost impossible for cameras or scanners to fully analyze the areas, and Twilight detected several covert field generators that were subtly interfering with her own scans.

As such, she was not surprised when a pair of masked humans descended from the pipes, rifles in hand. They were dressed in pressurized suits with black masks and heavy, well-worn long coats. Twilight just sighed when she saw them; they were dirty and poorly armed amateurs. In a way, she had been hoping to see another one of the strange and indestructible bipedal pony-things that she had seen in Level C.

Elrod immediately started to panic, but Jadeglow stepped forward. “Hey, man. And like, other man. We’re here to, like, see Commander Caleb.”

“Do you have a password?”

“Like, no man. My short term memory’s shot. But I think we’re on the same wavelength right now, and I dig your aura. So how about we make an exception?”

“Don’t bother,” said Twilight. “They were going to take us anyway.”

“How do you know that?” said Elrod.

“Because they can’t let us go. We’ve already seen them. There’s no alternative but to take us in.”

“There is, actually,” said one of the pair, raising her rifle toward Twilight. “I could shoot you through the central processor right now and be done with it.”

“Your body would pay for a lot of bullets,” noted the other.

“Assuming your leader didn’t embezzle it and buy himself an Upper Level mansion.”

“What the- -WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!”

“You heard me. If you had the pieces to shoot you’d have done it before we got this close. But you won’t. For one, this is Rowan-Lilac, a friend to all trees.”

“I do love trees,” said Jadeglow.

“You already asked her to come. Second, you want to know how why we’re here.”

“You’re here to betray us to the Corpers!” cried the male guard, raising his gun. “Rowan-Lilac might be friends with trees, but she’s no friend of ours!”

“Yes. And clearly we intended to eliminate you. That’s why we brought a massive army of Aetna-Cross enforcers to overtake you.” Twilight looked over her shoulder. “Oh wait. No we didn’t. We’re all alone. And you knew that, you idiots.”

“For someone who wants something from us, you areinsulting us an awful lot.”

“Because I’m still alive and you’re rambling. You’re doing a shit job. That, and you’re just shlubs in this whole thing. I don’t care what you think. I need to talk to your leader. So either get out of my way, or take us inside.”

The two of them looked at each other, and then one turned and put her hand to her and said something with her amplifier microphone turned off. Twilight still heard it, of course, and knew that they were contacting their superiors for information about how to proceed.

“Right,” she said after a moment. “Yeah. He wants us to pull them in.”

“See?”

The woman glared at Twilight through her mask. “I don’t think you really understand what’s going on, little horse. You’re not going to like what we have to do to you. And there’s a good chance none of you are going to make it out of here.”

“Well, at least in one piece,” said the man, laughing slightly as he spoke.

Twilight would have liked to ignore the threat, but her occupation demanded that she never ignore anything. It would indeed be difficult for her to escape, especially after the way she had chosen to treat the two guards. That had been an acceptable risk, though: they were after all both low-ranking individuals with little say on the final outcome. Establishing herself as an apparently tough individual and a potential threat took precedence, and it seemed to have paid off- -so far.

The three of them were led into the forest of pipes and conduits. The dark February sky overhead was blotted out by the seemingly random array of metal overhead, and thin beams came down through the gaps to create strange splotches on the reflective glass floor below. There was less wind inside, and a modicum of warmth from whatever the pipes were transporting.

They were not alone. Much to Twilight’s dismay, the camp was far more populated than she had expected. Eyes were watching them from every side, either on the ground or up in the pipes where their camouflagedtents were assembled. The vast majority of them were human, all dressed in whatever coats and respirators they were able to find. There were also ponies, though, mostly of the Applejack series with a few Golden Harvests here and there. They wore what could loosely be described as uniforms, but as machines they required no breathing apparati.

“Shit,” whispered Twilight. “Jade, you could have told us that there was a whole goddamn army up here.”

“Dude, chill. They’re not gonna hurt us.”

“No,” said Elrod. “I’m pretty sure they are.”

“We are,” said one of the guards. “Or not. It depends on Caleb’s orders.”

“But you are right,” said the other. “Don’t try anything. There’s just three of you, and I don’t care how much firepower you have, there’s no way you can fight your way out of here.”

“There are a lot of you, then?” asked Elrod.

“Many. And this is just one cell of thousands.” She sighed. “But still not enough. We try so hard to fight for humanity, but no matter how many of us there are the Corporations will have more.”

“But why do you need this many?”

“If you knew what we were up against, you’d understand.”

They were led deeper and deeper into the overgrown maze. More and more soldiers appeared to their sides, and Twilight had managed to count at least one hundred and thirty seven of them so far. The fields that they had set up were stronger here, and it interfered with her scans; there could have been far more that remained hidden and uncounted.

Then, suddenly, the pipes seemed to thin and vanish. Twilight found herself standing at the edge of a vast circle of clear space. The floor was still glass, but it seemed thinner here. The metal cladding underneath had partially collapsed onto the abandoned gardens below, and through the gray light it was possible to see fallen and leafless trees amongst long-dead grasses and parched soil below: a garden abandoned when no one could think of a way to profit from it.

The sky overhead was not fully visible. A netlike tarp of polychromatic cloth had been overlaid over the gap, and one end of it linked to a portable reactor and processing unit that powered . Several larger tents were present in this area, but Twilight was pleased to note that there were no surface-to-air missile banks.

As they approached, several new guards stepped forward. Twilight assessed them carefully, noting that each used commercially available rifles from widely different manufacturers and eras. Many of them were small caliber, chambered in Kalibri BMG or .219s, but a few were chambered in large anti-pony calibers. Most appeared very old.

When the area was secure, the flap to the tent opened an a man stepped out. He superficially appeared taller than the others, but Twilight noted that it was likely only due to the fact that he was wearing robotic armor underneath a coat that seemed to have been proportioned for a zooneus instead of a human. His respirator helmet was transparent, revealing a middle-aged face with sharp features and dark eyes.

He at first seemed relatively impassive until henoted Jadeglow. When he did, his expression hardened.

“Rowan-Lilac,” he sighed, his voice made substantially deeper by his suit’s audio system. “I trusted you with our location under the assumption that you would be joining us. And now look at this…”

“These are my friends, man,” said Jadeglow. “They wanted to talk to you.”

“You weak-spined idiot!” he shouted. “You don’t even understand what you did, do you?! You brought COPS!”

“We’re not cops,” said Twilight, raising her voice. She reached for her coat, moving slowly as the guards reacted by very nearly shooting her. Instead of reaching for a gun, though- -she did not even possess one save for the .50 Beowulf built into her left front leg- -she opened the breast of her jacket to reveal her private detective licensing badge. Almost all the eyes went to the shiny piece of metal, although Twilight noticed that at least two of the Applejack units’ eyes instead went toward the red gemstone that she wore as a brooch.Twilight wondered if any of them were old enough to remember what it had once meant.

Their commander- -ostensibly the one called Caleb- -looked quickly to the badge and then back at Twilight. “‘Detective’ means cop.”

“Detective means detective.”

“Privately funded, man,” said Jadeglow. “No vassals.”

“Privately funded by who, then? Who paid you? Who wanted me found?”

“Me and me only. Frankly from what I can tell nobody here cares about you. Aetna-Cross isn’t into gene engineering, at least not with plants. Connecticut isn’t known for that. Which is probably why you chose to be here.”

“Aetna-Cross is as guilty as any of the others,” spat Caleb. “Perhaps less so than the Great Evil, but only by a very thin margin.”

“This ‘Great Evil’ being…?”

“We do not like to speak their name. Especially not here. But if you must know, they are called Monsanto.”

A hushed whisper fell over the crowd. Some members winced, and others spat at the sound of their enemy’s name.

Twilight paused, turning over the unburnt cigarette in her mouth. “Yes. I’ve heard you’re rather opposed to genetic engineering.”

Caleb sneered. “You’remocking me.”

“Not really. But you have to understand, I’m a pony. I don’t havemuch stake in any of it.”

“You mean you have no stake in the health of the planet, then? Then you are nothing more than a foolish child.”

Twilight smiled and sat back. She spat out her cigarette and lit one designed to function at high altitude. It lit, and she covered the fire with her hooves while it grew. “What do I care about the planet? I’m a machine. I don’t care if you burn away every green thing on this planet and replace the atmosphere with analytical grade hydrogen sulfide. It doesn’t bother me. As long as the factories keep running, ponies will keep on going.”

Caleb frowned. “So you wouldn’t mind if the Corporations and Governments let humanity die?”

Twilight laughed humorlessly. “Humanity. Humanity had its chance, back when I was still young. And you wasted it. Your kind seems to really crave its own extinction, doesn’t it?”

“Twilight,” hissed Jadeglow.

Strangely, Caleb smiled. “Either you’re a very well trained in rhetoric, or I think we share a few ideas.”

“I think it’s probably both,” said Twilight, shrugging.

“What you say is true,” said Caleb, “but only partially. Individual humans are not to blame. Not completely. No one person can create this much destruction.”

“A collective could.”

“They could, but that depends.”

“On what?”

“On who drives the collective.”

Twilight sighed. “You mean Corporations.”

“I do. And your tone betrays that you are either cynical beyond redemption or ignorant beyond belief. If people knew what the likes of the Great Enemy were doing to the planet, they would rise up in an instant and dash them to the ground!”

“And what, exactly, are then doing?”

Caleb’s eyes narrowed. “If you don’t know, then you really are ignorant. In fact, I think you already know. It’s genetic engineering. The defiance of nature. In the name of profit, they are contaminating our food supply.”

“It is not contamination,” said Elrod suddenly. “The manipulations affect crop efficiency. They have no impact on human healthy.”

Caleb laughed heartily. “And who said that? Scientists? The ones that the Enemy pays to say the right things? No, we know the TRUTH.”

“There is no reason for Monsanto to want to contaminate your food supply.”

“No reason? NO REASON? I already told you! MONEY! Because food is supposed to be free! Anyone can plant, anyone can grow- -no one owns it! But when they put something into it, suddenly THEY own it! They control a monopoly! And suddenly little farmers have to pay THEM to feed the rest of us toxic shit.”

Elrod groaned. “It’s not a matter of property rights. The changes produce empirical benefits for plant health- -greater crops, resistance to disease. This planet has over two hundred billion humans on it! Do you think you can feed them with technology from the dark ages?”

Caleb leaned forward. Any trace of mirth on his face was gone. “Two hundred billion people overburdening our plant. Burning it up. Breeding, cutting away what forests we have. Building endless cities like the one that you’re standing on, merging them and connecting them until there isn’t even space to grow your precious GM crops left!”

“Whoa, whoa,” said Jadeglow. “Careful, dude. I don’t like what you’re implying.”

“That some will need to die in the name of protecting the Earth and the purity of our food supply? Yes. But they’re not even real people. They’re no different. Children born as teenagers in factories, custom grown in laboratories to be exactly what their parents paid for…those aren’t humans. They’re not even alive. Not really. Even ponies qualify as living things more than they do.”

“Which is why you’ve been recruiting pure humans,” suggested Twilight.

Caleb stared coldly at her. “Yes,” he said, slowly. “Pure humans. The sort untouched by corporate greed. Behavioral modification, personality traits, ideology…even genetic kill-switches. I pity them, Ms. Pony. But there is no place for them in our revolution.”

“And I don’t care,” said Twilight. “About your revolution, Imean. Or your ideology, or even how many people you kill. What I am really interested in is those natural-born humans.”

“Why?”

“There have been disappearances. Disappearances related to a case I’m working. Somebody is targeting natural-born humans…the ones you call ‘pure’, although in my experience no human can be called that- -and I have a feeling you’re involved.”

Caleb’s expression changed, becoming both more stony and more concerned. “You think I’m kidnapping people.”

“I might.”

“No. I’m not. We are not.” He gestured around himself. “Everyone here joined of their own free will, drawn by our righteous cause. To fight the Great Enemy however we can- -by destroying their goods, stopping shipments, removing factories and property if we can- -but under no circumstances to we take people against their will.”

“So all these people have ‘seen the light’? Poor kids, rich kids, everyone? I doubt it.”

“What do we have to gain from slaves? More people to stab us to have to constantly control, or to give away our secrets at the first chance they get?”

An Applejack unit stepped forward. “That’s not all,” she said, her voice thick with a pre-programmed accent. “I’ve checked the recruiting logs. We’ve pulled up just twenty four the way you describe. Pure genetics, no cybernetics and all. And…”

“And what?”

“And we’ve lost half of that,” said Caleb.

“Half?” Twilight looked up at him. “What do you mean ‘lost’?”

“I mean they’re gone.”

Twilight grimaced. “You mean they disappeared from your ranks too.”

Caleb laughed sardonically. “No. Not disappeared. Yes, some did. We thought they deserted at first. But the others…we found bodies.”

“So they were killed.”

“Not just killed,” snapped Caleb. “They were…mutilated. Pieces of them missing.”

“Which pieces?”

Caleb stared into Twilight’s eyes. “The head. The head was always missing.”

Jadeglow turned. “I think I’m going to be sick!”

“What do you think did it?” asked Twilight.

Caleb looked to her, and then started pacing slowly, never taking his eyes off them. “Tell me, Ms. Pony. Have you ever heard of something called an agromorph?”

“I’ve heard Jadeglow tell me stories about ‘monsters’, if that’s what you mean.”

“There is no better way to describe them, yes,” said Caleb, a sad smile creeping over his face. “They are genetic abominations. The greatest crime every conceived against nature itself. The Enemy build them. Made the first of them in laboratories. Bred them. Improved them.”

“For what purpose?”

“As soldiers, of course. A new kind. A different kind. Unrivaled killing machines with no emotion except cold hatred, immune to virtually all conventional weapons. They do not eat. They do not sleep. They don’t tire or feel remorse or pity. Like machines, but that’s the rub- -they aren’t. They’re alive. They heal. And they think, like you or I do. Of new and better ways to kill.”

“But what exactly are they? A unique type of zoonei?”

Caleb laughed. “No. No animal could be that perverse. Even themost vicious zooneus will pause. He will hesitate and question. He will have empathy. Because they are animals at heart. Agromorphs are not. They were made from plants. Our conceptions of morality are meaningless to them.”

Twilight paused for a long moment. Elrod felt her gaze turn slowly toward him. “And you believe that one of these ‘agromorphs’ was responsible for the killings?”

“There can be no other culprit. Nothing else could kill so viciously and without mercy, or move without a trace.”

“There were no traces?”

Caleb shook his head. “No footprints. No fingerprints. No witnesses. Nothing. Ruthless, effective…perfect. Although I doubt there are more than one. Only one would be necessary.”

Twilight once again paused, this time taking a long drag that burned her oxidizer-soaked cigarette to the filter. She flicked it onto the ground with her tongue and ground it out on the glass floor with her hoof. “People have died,” she said. “But it wasn’t an agromorph. I’ve seen the things that did it. They were machines with nonstandard weaponry. Too advanced for you, and even too advanced for Monsanto.”

“Lies. We know who the culprit was. The Enemy wants pure humans dead.”

“Believe whatever you will. It doesn’t affect me. And as edifying as this conversation was, I’m no closer to figuring out who the real culprit is.” Twilight turned around and began walking.

“Where are you going?” demanded Caleb.

“I’m leaving,” said Twilight. “All three of us are. I have the information I need.”

“I don’t recall giving you permission to leave.”

Twilight stopped and looked over her shoulder. Her gaze was cold and impassive. “Why would you need to? Like I said. You don’t bother me, and now you’re not even any use to me. So either I leave here, or you all die.”

Laughter arose from various parts of the group that surrounded them. At least thirty more humans had arrived, each bearing guns, and at least that many ponies had joined them.

Caleb smiled and shook his head. “Bold but stupid. But yes. I would have let you go. Except that one of my hackers broke the encryption on that one’s mask.”

Several of the guards suddenly moved, ceasing Elrod. Elrod cried out and struggled, but he was not nearly strong enough to break free. Caleb approached him as the guards held him.

“I’ve seen what you actually look like,” he said as he put his hand on the base of Elrod’s operator mask. “And I know who you are!”

With one swift motion Caleb removed the mask. Elrod released a shrill cry and closed his eyes, as if the cold air and thin atmosphere did not bother him nearly as much as the sunlight that filtered through the thick clouds overhead.

“Bronislav M. Spitzer VIII,” sighed Caleb. He turned toward Twilight. “You really are an idiot. You brought him right to me. I don’t know if you were trying to leverage him for something…or if he was a spy this whole time.”

“I’m not Spitzer!” cried Elrod. “Wait, you don’t understand! This is a misunderstanding!” He immediately began to weaken. The thin air was draining him.

“I understand perfectly. You are the scion of the Great Enemy. Your death will cripple them and end their reign of terror.” He gestured toward one of the guards. “End the line of succession.”

The guard nodded and she took a pistol out of her belt.

“WAIT!” cried Elrod. “NO DON’T- -”

Caleb turned away, and as he did the guard put the pistol to the back of Elrod’s head and pulled the trigger. Elrod’s head immediately detonated into a plume of white material. The woman who had just shot him stared on horrified as Elrod turned around and shoved her to the ground. Screams erupted from the crowd at the sight of an ambulatory headless corpse, and Caleb turned around just as flesh was beginning to flow out of Elrod’s wound to reconstruct his head. Upon seeing this, Caleb’s eyes went wide and his complexion grew pale.

“Damn it!” whined Elrod as his head assumed its normal form and color. “Why do they ALWAYS go for the head?!”

“An- -and agromorph!” squeaked Caleb. “They’re- -they’re actually REAL!”

“Exactly the confirmation I needed,” said Twilight. She turned her head toward the sky. “Now: terminate the infidels.”

Several of the revolutionaries raised their weapons. Elrod cried and tried to duck behind anything he could, but Twilight did not react. There was no need. She watched as bullets from above tore through the first line of individuals, and she saw them scream and turn in confusion toward the sky. The last thing many of them saw was a white winged speck bursting through the cloud cover at incredible speed.

Forth struck the ground with enough force to flatten the torso of an Applejack unit into an unidentifiablemass of burst machinery and black blood. The glass below her shattered in several places and bothhumans and ponies alike screamed as they fell- -and as Forth fired several incendiary rounds into the dry, crisp forest where they were landing.

She did not hesitate or falter. Forth charged forward at the humans, her body splaying open as she poured bullets into her opponents. Her motion became like a dance as she swirled and twisted, firing with exacting precision.

Caleb charged her. His armor was thick enough to block the majority of her bullets, and those that penetrated had little effect on his heavily cybernetic body. Forth suddenly turned her attention toward him, and her hooves shifted as several long blades emerged, already glowing white hot. She removed one of his legs, and as he fell bisected his head as well as three human women and a Golden Harvest pony. The pony screamed and pleaded as she fell, and Forth put an armor-piercing bullet through her processor.

As effective as Forth was, she was vastly outnumbered. The humans initially seemed to retreat, but many had just moved to cover. Bullets rang out from every direction.

“Oh crap!” cried Elrod. He reached down and grabbed a passing Applejack unit, picking her up.

“Hey! Put me down this instant!” she cried as she struggled.

“Pony shield!” cried Elrod, holding her up and listening to her scream as her body was torn apart by friendly fire. That at least gave him enough time to jump behind Caleb’s body and begin to remove the expensive optic implants from the still marginally alive Applejack.

Twilight fell to the ground and rolled, taking several small-caliber bullets as she did so. Her reflexes were fast. Jadeglow was not so lucky. She did not know how to react in a firefight and was caught in the crossfire. A bullet went through her chest and she fell to the ground in a heap. She did not move.

“Damn it,” groaned Twilight as she pulled back her sleeve and prepared her own rifle. “Jameson!” she shouted. “Don’t just sit there like a lump, grab one of their rifles and return fire!”

Elrod looked up from the softly weeping and now blind remains of the Applejack pony. “Oh,” he said. “Sorry.” He bent down and picked up a nearby rifle. He had no real idea how to use it, but he stood up and pointed. Several bullets ripped through his body, but they were more or less trivial. He had no vital organs. One bullet, however, struck his right arm and actually hurt substantially. The limb started to go limp and did not heal. Despite this, Elrod kept his finger on the trigger and kept shooting.

Elrod targeted several nearby humans and eliminated them. There was really no emotion associated with it; he just pulled the trigger and fell. He supposed what Caleb had said about empathy had been true to an extent. Whether it mattered or not was still up for debate, however. Forth seemed to lack it just as much as he did, and she seemed like an okay person.

Suddenly, an explosion rocked the area. Twilight was forced back, but then dove forward to catch Elrod as the glass beneath him shattered. She pushed him to the ground and looked up just in time to see a human charging toward her with a bayonet point.

Twilight did not shoot. Instead, she drew her right hoof across the human’s legs. His limbs shattered instantly and he fell. As he did, Twilight leapt up and grabbed him, folding his body over at the mid-back so that the back of his head was touching where his legs had once been. There was a horrible crack and a scream as his spine broke. Humans were like that- -profoundly fragile.

Another explosion went off, this time near Forth. Forth largely ignored it, although the mortar blast reduced several of her attackers to red bits. Twilight scanned the area and found the mortar, but at the same time saw several individuals in suits of heavy power armor advancing toward them.

“Oh shit,” she said, lifting her arm and firing at them. The heavy uranium Beowulf rounds managed to damage several of the rickety suits, but not to fully disable them. One of them turned its heavy plasma beam toward Elrod.

“Shit shit SHIT!” cried Twilight. “Forth!”

Forth immediately turned her attention toward the offending suit. She fired one of her heavy 20mm rounds into it, liquefying the person inside. The plasma bolt went off at an angle and burst several pipes. Scalding steam sprayed out nearby, condensing quickly into the cool air to form a thick fog.

Twilight turned to look, and as she did she took her attention away from the battle. She turned back to it too late to see one of the armored troops advancing on her. She raised her arm, but he fired first.

A sharp pain went down her side as her left front leg was torn free of her body by a plasma bolt. Twilight twisted and dropped to her remaining knees in an attempt to regain balance. As she did, Elrod sat up and fired his .700 repeatedly at the soldier. The recoil from his pistol was so intense that he could barely hold on to it, let alone aim, but the enormous bullets penetrated the armor well enough to cause it to fall, trapping the most likely mortally wounded pilot inside.

“Damn it,” moaned twilight, looking at what was left of her left side. The limb had been torn away at the shoulder along with most of her skin in that area, and it had left behind a mass of synthetic black muscle and broken connections that dangled from where a leg was supposed to be. “Forth,” she said. “Fall back. Cover us.”

Forth acknowledged. As she did, her ammunition dwindled. The humans seemed to take this as a sign that she was defenseless, and some of them charged. Several ponies were with them. Forth extended her right hoof and changed the confirmation of that leg again, producing a pair of heavy electrodes that sparked as her plasma cannon fired up. She targeted the nearest human and fired, causing her face and upper torso to more or less melt. Forth repeated the attack on several of the advancing ponies, burning away their surfaces and leaving hideous melted injuries in their bodies as she retreated.

Elrod and Twilight ran with Forth covering them. With one leg missing, Twilight was slow. This matter was only exacerbated when a human managed to make a lucky shot and slice through her right wing with a large-caliber bullet. Twilight’s body absorbed most of the blow, but the shock ruined the surface of the wing. She had been rendered unable to fly.

“Fuuuuck me!” she screamed as she disappeared into the cloud of cooling steam. Forth followed behind, sending out a barrage of missiles toward the first of those that tried to follow.

Despite the fog, Twilight could see. She led the three of them as far as she could before she collapsed into a heap. “Damn, my leg is gone,” she said, looking up at Forth. Forth’s body had taken minimal damage, although several portions of her were still in their combat state. She did not even look like a pony like that.

“Yes. It is,” said Forth.

“I can’t get out of here like this. I’m not fast enough.”

“I can cover you. The precipice is eight hundred meters south.”

“No you can’t. They’ll just follow me.”

“Not if I kill them all. Or keep them fighting.”

“Can you do that?” asked Elrod.

Forth smiled. “These are the sort of infidels I was born to eliminate. Yes. I can.”

“No you can’t,” protested Twilight. “There won’t be enough time! As soon as I get over, you’ll be out of range!”

Forth stared into Twilight’s eyes. “Then transfer my consciousness to this body.”

Twilight stared back. “Forth, you understand the risk in that. If your consciousness is inside your body and it’s destroyed, you won’t come back.You’ll die.”

“It is the only way for me to persist in combat long enough for the enemy to lose your trail. I will attempt to lead them in the opposite direction. But to last long enough, I need my consciousness.”

Twilight paused, but she could hear voices and the sound of humans coming toward them rapidly. She closed her eyes and with great sorrow made the transfer.

Forth shuttered and took a step back. Her blue eyes switched to red, indicating that her body and mind had been united.

“I fight now,” she said, her voice slower and more pained coming through a minimized processor. “Twilight. Elrod. Go. Run.”

Forth turned and opened her body completely, pouring plasma and whatever caliber bullets she had left out toward the humans. Screams came from the distance. “GO!”
“Are you heavy?” asked Elrod, reaching under Twilight.

“I weigh nearly one hundred fifty kilo- -HEY!”

Elrod lifted her off the ground, part of his body shifting in size to accommodate her weight. He then ran, carrying her with him. Twilight looked back and saw Forth charge into battle. Twilight was not sure if it would be the last time she would ever see her secretary and friend again.

The sounds of battle grew behind them as they ran, with Twilight directing Elrod for the remainder of the course.

“Stop here,” she ordered.

“I can’t stop, if I stop they’ll get me!”

“No, seriously, STOP!”

Elrod did so, but only because he rather suddenly became aware of what Twilight already knew.

“What…what the hell?”

He looked out in front of them and saw nothing. The towering air handlers and water processing systems that surrounded them seemed to just suddenly stop. There was no ground, even, but rather just a vast expanse of gray. The world seemed to have just stopped at a great precipice.

“Okay,” said Twilight. “For this next part, you’re going to have to trust me.”

“Trust you- -what- -what is that? Why- -where did the city go?”

“There isn’t any more city. We’re at the edge. Hence why I told you to stop; that’s a three-mile drop into Long Island Sound.

“Three- -three- -” Elrod took a step back.

“We don’t have time for this,” said Twilight, forcing herself out of Elrod’s grip. “We have to hurry, before they find us here.”

“But Forth can stop them, I know she can. The terrorists- -”

“The terrorists? The terrorists aren’t the problem! All that noise? The machines are going to react, and we’re going to have every spider and every drone in the Surface on top of us in a matter of minutes.”

“So there’s- -there’s an access panel, or- -”

“There isn’t time.” Twilight stepped up to the edge and looked over. “We’re going to jump it.”

Elrod’s eyes went wide. “You- -you can’t be serious!”

“I am. It’s water on the bottom, I’m sure of it. Don’t worry.”

“Water?! We’re three miles up! At that height it will be like hitting concrete! I’ll be torn to pieces!”

“But I won’t. My body is extremely dense.”

“That doesn’t exactly help me, now does it?”

Something made a sound behind them. Bullets were still audible in the distance, but something else seemed to be moving as well. Something closer.

“That is why we have to trust each other,” said Twilight. “I can’t fly, but I still have one wing. I can slow our descent if we fall together. I’ll hit the water first and break our fall.”

“I don’t know if I can survive that!”

“You had better. Because my body is too dense to float, and at that force I’m probably going to be knocked unconscious. You’re going to have to pull me to shore.”

“But if I die- -”

“Then I’m not going to make it out either.”

The sound near them grew louder. Twilight was beginning to sense them, and she was doing her best to obscure their presence. The spiders already knew, though. They were learning.

“We have to go now,” said Twilight. “Hold onto me.”

Elrod looked at her and closed his eyes. He nodded and did as he was told. Before he could change his mind, Twilight ran forward and leapt from the edge and plummeted through the gray sky and clouds toward the frigid ocean below.