An anomaly had occurred. A single shot had been fired, and the telemetry from one Jeremy Jacobs III had indicated brain death. His suit had compensated to support his vital signs and his body would no doubt be refitted for use with a secgen brain, but his death was unusual. Combat was not supposed to begin so early. The target had somehow detected them.

Analysis of the gunshot had indicated that it was an ultra-high caliber, specifically a .700 shell. The use of such an unnecessarily large caliber was most likely an indication of desperation, but it might also have been a sign of preparation. As if she had known this was coming long in advance.

The internal units mobilized, drifting silently through the darkened hallways. All offices that contained workers had been sealed, allowing only the target to escape. The advanced guard was expected to identify her location and path and neutralize if possible; otherwise, they were to lead her outside so that she could be handled in an open area. That was less preferable: the target was an alicorn and therefore capable of flight, and being on the banks of a deep river created a dangerous situation. She could easily dive downward into the Depths and be lost permanently. Entering the Depths was of course suicide, but only a confirmed kill would satisfy the demands from Corporate.

A voice came through the shared encryption channel.

“Six-G,I’m detecting interference in your signal.”

Six-G- -a woman by the name of Johana Johnson- -had detected it as well. “Acknowledged,” she replied through the silent machinery of her implants. “Compensating.”

The compensation did not work as well as planned. There was heavy audio distortion, apparently from poorly shielded power conduits in the building. Six-G swore mentally, cursing the low-quality building.

Then her infrared scanner failed. This gave her pause, as it almost never happened. The whole room faded into static, with only the bioneural and olfactory sensors working. Neither were detecting a human or pony presence, but they were detecting something.

Six-G did not have a chance to consider what it was, or why footsteps were running toward her- -or why the retractable bolt of a kinetic EM gun suddenly went through her temple. Six-G shuttered and took a step back. She tried to raise her gun, and as she did her sensors showed the vague outline of a human face. He showed no pulse, neural impulse, or body heat signature- -and his expression was impassive, even confused.

“She’s not dead,” he said.

“Idiot!” cried another voice, one whose owner was hidden in the static but whose voice was clearly that of a Twilight Sparkle. “Aim for a vital organ!”

“Oh yeah…”

A second bolt shot came, and then a third. Both were in Six-G’s heart. Her body failed and her consciousness failed as she dropped. Her suit compensated to save her organs, but actively crushed out her consciousness was allowed to fade. Her commanders took note of the loss of telemetry, but by then the man with no vital signs had long since passed her on the way to the basement.

The commander of the operation stood outside the building, watching. He saw everything. His overall frame was that of a pony- -a Flash Sentry unit, to be specific- -but his body was barely recognizable as such. He had no coat, but rather a smooth body made of hard armored plates. His eyes, likewise, had been replaced with an advanced optic unit that covered most of his face and penetrated both of the massive sockets. The only parts of him that was still even close to stock were his wings, which were both still quite functional.

The captain had chosen to perch himself in an area only reachable by flight so that he would have a view of the area with his own eyes, even though it was hardly necessary. He saw through the eyes of every soldier under him, and was linked to their data as well as to the precinct itself. Several of the internal units had already lost telemetry, and he had observed the perpetrators.

Morgana Twilight Sparkle was indeed present, along with her secretary, an unnamed Blossomforth unit. Partial visual confirmation had indicated that the Blossomforth was very likely military surplus. Two individuals were also present who were not part of the intelligence reports: a secondary Twilight Sparkle- -likely a decoy- -and a human man. The man was the most puzzling: his facial recognition matched that of the missing Bronislav M. Spitzer VIII, but he did not appear to have any vital signs. The captain ruminated on this, wondering what it might mean.

Suddenly, from below, a car screeched out of one of the holding areas. It was immediately destroyed by a hail of silent gunfire. It was not the first, though- -more came. Tens of them, all pouring out at top speed and racing in every direction.

“Captain Zawaski!” cried one of the overseeing lieutenants. “The cars!”

“I see them,” said Zawaski, scanning through the area.

“Should we engage?”

“No. Wait. There is a vehicle leaving from the building below. A single van. Honda. White.”

“But the statistical analysis suggests- -”

“Ignore the statistics! It’s the lower one!” he reached out to the units that had already started chasing the decoy cars. He knew what the statistics said, that Morgana was likely in a car not her own in the middle of the pack- -but if the statistics were always correct, there would be no reason for having an operations commander. “Move! Take her down!”

The van swerved and the tires screeched, sending Elrod and Twilight slamming to one side of the rear. Forth shifted as well but acrobatically moved her legs and wings into a position to easily brace herself. Morgana, meanwhile, was occupying the front. The van was not hers, and the only way to access it had been to slam several of her connector cables directly through the dashboard and into the systems beneath.

“Do you even know how to drive?” cried Elrod.

“Of course I know how to drive, now hold on!”

The van twisted on the street and accelerated. As it did, something popped against the roof. It sounded like rocks striking it, but Morgana knew better. Behind her, she could see holes opening up in the ceiling.

“Incoming fire!”

Forth immediately turned one of her hooves up toward the ceiling and it unfolded, revealing several heavy barrels. Twilight screamed in horror.

“I cannot get a lock,” said Forth, sounding oddly calm. “We are not in their line of site.”

“That’s kind of the idea!” screamed Morgana, pushing the van as close to a nearby concrete retaining wall as she could. Several more bullets ricocheted across the wall. “If they hit the motor, we’re done!”

“I don’t like this!” cried Twilight. “We’re going too fast! And- -EEP!” A bullet passed through the van wall near her head and embedded itself in a set of wooden boxes that seemed to dominate the rear of the vehicle.

“Crap…” groaned Morgana. “Forth! They’re on us! Do something!”

Forth smiled. “Right!”

She stood up and walked toward the rear of the van. Despite Morgana’s erratic driving, Forth remained relatively stable. When she reached the door, she kicked it open. A set of heavily armored cars were visible behind them, and they immediately opened fire.

“FORTH!”

Forth sat back and extended her front limbs. She opened fire in several directions, apparently targeting snipers as well as the vehicles near her. Several Pegasi dropped from above, but any bullets aimed at the armored drone-vehicles behind them rebounded with a sound of distant clangs.

“They’re gaining!” cried Morgana. “Fucking Honda Crap, go faster!”

“My ammunition is depleted,” said Forth, turning back. “I cannot continue to fire.”

“Switch to plasma!”

Forth cocked her head. “The standard Hi-Point Blossomforth model does not come equipped with plasma dispersion weapons.”

“Then, I don’t know, throw something at them!”

“Like what?”

Elrod lurched across the van and tore open one of the wooden crates. “How about- -holy crap!”

“What?”

“Ammunition! Forth, can you shoot fifties?”

“Fifty caliber?”

Elrod held up one of the shells. It was as large as his forearm. “No. Fifty millimeter!”

An enormous smile crossed Forth’s face as she gasped in delight. “That’s my favorite kind of fifty!”

Forth’s body opened and the contents of one of her front legs changed. A heavy barrel irised open and extended while a universal chamber resized itself for the large ammunition. At the same time, Forth braced herself. Elrod gave her the shell and she loaded it in.

“This may cause recoil,” said Forth. “Also, some noise.”

She fired. The force was so great that her body was forced into the bottom of the van. Had it been Morgana’s own folding van, the entire thing would have crumpled. This one, though, only deformed and was nearly knocked off the road. Had anyone other than a pony with a high-end processor been driving, it likely would have been knocked off the road.

One of the approaching cars behind them detonated in a plume of flame and was thrown back. It swerved and bumped the other, but only one of them was disabled as another two joined the chase.

“LEFT!” cried Morgana as she swerved. Forth compensated, but Elrod was thrown into Twilight and nearly flattened her. Several shells rolled out.

“Careful,” said Forth, catching one with a free projection from her body. “Do not waste ammunition! Starving children in Africa could be using those shells!”

She fired again, and this time Elrod managed to pull Twilight to the front seat and partially buckle her in. He himself hugged her seat as tightly as he could to keep from being thrown free of the vehicle. As he did, he looked back and saw what Morgana had already detected.

“Oh crap,” he said, craning his neck to see the top of an enormous mech-drone moving into position before it vanished behind an overpass. “What was that thing?”

“Heavy units,” sighed Morgana. “There’s another six converging from all sides. I can keep out of their fire pattern but I can’t get past them.”

“Can you hack them?”

“No, you idiot, they’re nanoclocks! Pure mechanical! There’s nothing I can do!”

“Then hack SOMETHING!”

“I can’t hack anything, I told you! I’m locked out of Aetna-Cross! They planned for a technomancer! I can’t- -” She paused. “I’m locked out of Aetna-Cross…” she looked up. “I have an idea.You, get back there and cover Forth! If she gets damaged, it’s on your head!”

Elrod nodded, despite looking terrified. He removed a rifle from his coat and extended the stock. With a gulp, he turned back to Forth. Another fifty-round fired, and Morgana did not see if it hit or not.

“You!” she said, turning to Twilight.

“Me?”

“Who else? Drive!”

The holographic manual controls appeared in front of Morgana and she pushed them across the dashboard to Twilight. Twilight squeaked loudly as she tried to put her hooves on the hologram, only to have them pass through.

“I have no idea how to do this!”

“You’re a Twilight unit! Figure it out!”

The van lurched to the side and nearly rammed through a guardrail, barely dodging a heavy-cannon round in the process.

“Oh! So that’s how you turn!” said Twilight.

Morgana sat back and took a deep breath. “Here,” she said, holding up a hoof and altering the hologram near steering column. “Take this route.”

“This route?” Twilight squinted and leaned forward, nearly sending the van into oncoming traffic. “But I think that leads us to a populated area!”

“That’s the point. Just do it. I have a plan.”

“Well- -” Another 50mm shell went off in the rear of the vehicle, sending it swerving almost out of Twilight’s control, “- -what kind of plan are we talking about here?”

“You know how I said there isn’t any magic in this world?”

“Yes! If there was, I’d be driving with my horn like a civilized being!”

“Well, are you aware of Clarke’s third law?”

“Of course!”

“Well,” Morgana opened her eyes and saw far more than the world in front of her. “I’m about to do that one.” Then, under her breath, “…and hopefully try to skirt law number two…”

Morgana began to spread through every open system available. There were a great many- -hundreds, even thousands of individual point-sources all linked largely to the main system- -and she was able to penetrate most of them. Aetna-Cross still eluded her, but she had expected that. They had come prepared to battle a technomancer, but only in the most rudimentary sense. Their worldview was distinctly human: everything was meant to flow as it was ordered, to be predictable, mathematical, and logical. As a pony and as a machine, Morgana was given a far greater freedom to be creative.

The van had by this time begun to veer into the populated area that Morgana had described. She could tell that this had somewhat confused the Enforcers, but only slightly and only temporarily. They had positioned their heaviest units and blockades around all the major exits, which was the logical path for Morgana to go. Instead, she had chosen to enter a populated area with no possibility of escape.

Suddenly the van screeched. Morgana was forced out of her partial trance and grabbed on tightly as Twilight spun the wheel, barely keeping the vehicle from overturning. Ammunition rolled across the rear of the van, and even Forth was knocked on her side. Elrod was thrown from the vehicle and left several meters behind their final position.

“WHAT THE FUCK!” cried Morgana. Had it not been for the shock of having been so rudely interrupted, she might have considered slapping Twilight. “Why the hell did you stop?!”

“THOSE!” squealed Twilight, pointing through the window.

Morgana looked through the windshield. If she had possessed any organ similar to a heart, it would have sank. Two flying vehicles had descended from above. They were not helicoptors, exactly, but rather a unique type of flying drone consisting of a set of automatically articulating fans with heavy jets installed in them- -as well as equally heavy armaments.

The pair of helidrones descended and hovered, their electronic eyes identifying the van and its occupants. On the order of some unseen commander, they prepared to open fire- -but as they did, a rocket trailing red flame shot from the top of a nearby building.

Morgana shielded her eyes with her hoof as it detonated. The van was forced backward from the blast, and Morgana’s radiation sensors confirmed that it was in fact a short-range tactical nuclear rocket. The blast had been sufficient to irradiate the entire area slightly more than it already was, as well as to fully destroy the impacted helidrone and cripple the one nearest to it. As the second fell, another three emerged from behind it.

These units immediately came under attack from small-arms fire from every roof in the area. They seemed confused by this and were unable to focus on their target without first identifying their attackers, specifically the one who was discharging nuclear firearms within city limits. As they turned and twisted, several heavily rusted vehicles swerved wildly out of several alleyways below. People of every sort leapt out, some in heavy armor but all with firearms. They began to shoot at every Aetna-Cross unit they could find.

“Who are those?” asked Twilight, sounding largely in awe.

“Not people we want to be near for very long. MOVE!”

Morgana grabbed Twilight and nearly threw her to the rear of the van, where Forth was attempting to figure out how to fit a 50mm shell in her body for safekeeping.

“Leave them!” cried Morgana. “We have to go! NOW!”

`Forth nodded and dropped her shell. She leapt out of the rear of the van and nearly landed on Elrod.

“Mr. Jameson,” she said. “Are you dead?”

“I hope not,” he graoned. “But I think my arm is broken!” He stood up and, indeed, one of his arms was hanging loosely from his body. It had been partially severed. Twilight swooned and nearly fainted.

“Do you even have a skeletal system to break?” asked Forth.

Elrod looked at his arm. “Oh. No. I don’t. Sorry, I forgot.” He slid his arm back into the correct position and it healed almost instantly. He then stood and started to run after Morgana, who would have been happy to leave him there if he had been stupid enough not to move when she told him to.

Suddenly she ground to a halt. One of the heavy nanoclock mechs had just come around the corner, blocking off her path.

“NOT THIS WAY!” she cried, ducking behind a parked car as it prepared its weapons. Before it could fire, though, another smaller mech leapt out of nowhere and slammed into it. Whatever weapon it had went off, and Morgana felt a searing beam screech by her and nearly melt Elrod as it did.

The smaller mech- -this one apparently with a ragged but young human pilot- -continued to pound on the Aetna-Cross mech, trying to tear pieces free of it as another tactical nuke struck it in the upper torso. The resulting explosion sent shrapnel from both units into the streets, once again forcing Morgana to dodge as a piece of armor at least three times her mass came slamming down past her.

The streets around them had been consumed by battle. Helidrones were being downed and every vehicle possible was being attacked. Pegasi and jet-linked humans swooped in from above, either to attack or to bring down Aetna-Cross Pegasi with them. Morgana was even sure she saw several actual Delvers join the fight, tearing through a pair of secgen ground units without hesitation.

“There is literally an army of Aetna-Cross mechs on the way right now,” said Morgana. “We need to get out of here!”

Elrod looked around, almost panicking. Then, suddenly, a look of realization crossed his face. He pointed toward a side street. “This way!” he said.

Morgana had several reasons not to follow him, but did so anyway. It was better than staying where she was. The fighting was getting intense, and escape was critical before anyone caught on to what she had done.

Elrod suddenly turned right and down an even more narrow alley that seemed to largely be a service tunnel. He ducked his head and pushed forward, taking a somewhat circuitous route before they reached a dead end. Before them stood nothing but a tall gray metal wall that seemed to go up and outward forever, with the only breaks in its monotony being either rust or various decaying posters plastered to its surface.

“Fuck!” cried Morgana. “You idiot! This is a dead end!”

“Exactly!” Elrod drew his pistol and fired at the wall several times. The sound- -despite the comically pointless suppressor- -was deafening, and Twilight covered her ears.

“And now they know where we are! Great!”

“You can keep complaining or you can help!” Elrod pushed his fingers through the holes he had made and where the metal sheathing of the wall had been loosed near the intersection of a large poster for and a graffiti tag. “I’m not strong enough to open it!”

“Out of the way,” groaned Morgana. “Forth, on me!”

Forth nodded. The two of them fed their hooves under the metal that Elrod’s shots had loosened and pulled it free with relative ease, revealing the fact that the seemingly impenetrable wall was hollow.

“There we go!” squealed Elrod. Without any hesitation he plunged through the hole and fell several meters down with a thud. “Come on!” he called, his voice echoing within. “In here, and try to close the metal when you get through!”

Forth and Morgana looked at each other, but Twilight had already shoved past them and dove in after Elrod. Figuring that they had nothing else to lose, the remaining two members of the party joined in as well.

Morgana dropped down to the lower level with a loud and painful thud. She had forgotten that she no longer had wings, and she found herself sorely missing them. The fall had been greater than she expected, and as she looked around she saw that they were in a large space between two identical sheets of rusted metal. The wall was indeed completely hollow, save for a decaying plastic path that had been set up over large rusted pins imbedded in either side. Elrod was already following this path and in the process of jumping down a level.

“What the hell?!” cried Morgana. “Come back here! This isn’t going to work! They’ll have schematics of all the access tunnels including this one! I don’t want to get chased down in here like a rat!”

“Like that one,” noted Forth, pointing at an especially large and hairless specimen that was eying them wearily.

“That’s the thing!” Elrod poked his head up over the path so that his face was level with their hooves. “This isn’t an access tunnel! It’s not on any maps!”

“Of course it is! The maps don’t factor in the fact that this space is empty.”

“Bullshit!”

“Swearing…”

“Go ahead,” said Elrod. “Check for yourself.”

Morgana did so, fully expecting to see this area found on one of the many more obscure maps that a probably largely illiterate like Elrod would not have bothered to look through. To her surprise, though, they all confirmed the same thing.

“This wall is supposed to be solid.” She looked up at the vast expanse over them. There was nothing but the metal pins and several broken down paths stretching upward to the edge of her visual range. “But it’s not…”

Elrod smiled. “It used to be.” He pointed. “I recognized this design, because L7 and L6 have them too.”

“It’s a prefab unit,” said Morgana. “These are insulated walls. They were put in to stop fires from manufacturing districts from spreading in case of emergency.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that. I knew about the insulation, though. Thirty seven percent asbestos with two percent trace borosilicate and residual heavy metals. It used to be everywhere until scrappers like me discovered that it was valuable.”

“Asbestos?”

“Almost a third of a vod per kilogram! And that adds up, considering how much there was!” Elrod pointed upward. He started walking, keeping one hand on the wall to feel his way. This time, the others followed him. “Of course it was gone decades before my time. Most of these types of walls are hollow.”

“The fireproof walls are just empty air,” muttered Morgana. “How comforting.”

Elrod jumped down another level, landing on two of the horizontal pegs before continuing, apparently oblivious of how hard this was for ponies to repeat. “I actually found it out sort of by accident. My half-visor picked up a hidden room with some old sawblades in it, and when I got there I found a hole into the wall. I went in and it just kept going.”

“For how long?” asked Twilight.

“I don’t really know. My chronometer was always bad. But I know that it took two weeks for me to find my way back once I got out. Of course, I was loaded down with almost two hundred vod worth of reapings.”

“So you don’t even know where it goes?!”

“I’ve never been to this area, so no. I have no idea.”

“I do,” said Morgana. “I have several internal maps. We just need to keep following the places it says we can’t go.”

“And Aetna-Cross?” asked Forth.

“If they even find out we went this way, they’ll be no way to track us. The path diverges way too much. Besides, they have more important things to worry about.”

“It was certainly lucky all those friendly people came to our aid,” said Twilight.

“It wasn’t luck,” said Morgana. “That was me.”

“You? So those were your friends?”

“I don’t think so,” said Elrod. “I recognized some of the colors. A few were active-kill scavengers.”

“And the rest were bounty hunters. Yeah. I couldn’t hack Aetna-Cross, so I did the next best thing. You remember that dweeb of a technomancer, Amanda?”

“The one that managed to destroy Forth’s last body?”

“I rather liked that body took,” said Forth. “Oh well. It happens.”

“Yeah. That one. I used her credentials to get into Organization A. Even if it’s just a shell, it’s still a bounty-board. I put a price of one billion vod on the Aetna-Cross units around us, and then leaked it to the other boards. It went viral like hemorrhagic influenza.”

“A billion vod!” cried Elrod, nearly falling into the abyss below them. “Where did you get that much?!”

“I didn’t, moron, that’s the point!”

Twilight gasped deeply. “You lied to all those poor people!”

“Yes. And those ‘poor people’ took down the people trying to KILL US.”

“But what about when they go to claim the reward?!”
“Well, considering that there is no real reward, some heads are literally going to roll. But not my head. And that’s what really matters.”