”’Do what thou wilt’ shall be the whole of the law.”

–Aleister Crowley

“Gregory, the person you will be meeting next has made a request,” said Celestia.

I hefted my new backpack, full of food, water, and outdoors supplies up onto the passenger-side seat of the Jeep and then pulled the yellow PonyPad out from the slot in the back. “Come again?”

“The one waiting for you. She has asked me to ensure you wear a Hawaiian shirt for your rendezvous.”

I looked down at my gray t-shirt, with the worn brown flannel shirt I was wearing unbuttoned over it. “What’s wrong with this?” I asked.

Celestia shrugged. “Perhaps it is so that she will know that you really are the one I sent. Or perhaps she simply likes Hawaiian shirts.”

I rolled my eyes and looked down the road. The sun was starting to set, and I didn’t know how long of a drive I had ahead of me. “Well, I guess it’s true enough that one of those things wouldn’t really be the uniform of choice for bandits and Neo-Luddites.”

The AI giggled. “Certainly not! There is a thrift shop at the corner of Main Street and Grand Avenue. I suggest you search there.”

“Fine, whatever,” I said as I tossed my backpack into the Jeep’s small bed and then climbed into the driver’s seat. “It’s starting to warm up, so I probably would have packed away the flannel soon anyhow.”

It wasn’t far to the store from the Samuelsons’ house. Aside from the dressing-down Celestia had given me, the stay there had indeed been pleasant. Between the working washer, dryer, and shower, I was the cleanest and freshest I’d been since Salt Lake City. I couldn’t find any razors, though, so I had to leave the three days’ worth of beard on my face. I hoped I could find some shaving kit soon; by day seven I would be itching terribly.

The thrift shop was an easy spot. The sign over the door read “King’s Value,” the letters brush-painted in neon pink on a black background. I parked by the curb next to it and tried the front door. It was locked, of course, and the windows were intact.

I was glad I had taken my knife back from Blevins. I pulled off my flannel shirt and wrapped my right forearm in it. That arm was already a mass of shiny pink skin and scars from the burns; no sense in getting it freshly cut up. I pulled my knife from my pocket and turned it over so that the carbide glass breaker was facing out. I gave the the door a firm tap with the breaker and the tempered safety glass spiderwebbed immediately. I cleared the bits of shattered glass out from around the handle and unlocked the deadbolt.

It was musty and stuffy inside, with the faint smell of mothballs lingering in the air. The place wasn’t very big. I was able to look through the clothing racks by the sunlight coming through the display windows. Before long, I found a Hawaiian shirt in my size, yellow with a blue floral pattern. It was a nice warm day outside, so I went ahead and pulled off my t-shirt right there, buttoning the Hawaiian shirt up in its place.

Once back to the Jeep, I packed my shirts away, pausing afterward to look at the Kalashnikov next to the backpack, still in the bed where Hugo had left it. After sucking on a tooth for a moment in deliberation, I decided what the hell and plucked my new set of earplugs from my pack. Once the earplugs were in, I got the rifle itself.

It was a Yugoslavian variant, with a milled receiver, and it was in fairly good shape. I checked the magazine and, judging by the weight of it, it was full. I put the magazine back in and walked out into the middle of the intersection with a grin. I slid the safety down one notch, raised the muzzle of the rifle to the sky, and held down the trigger.

The AK’s wooden stock shook against my shoulder as I expended the entire magazine on full automatic, the rifle chattering out its reports in that distinct AK way. It was over quickly, of course, and when I brought the weapon back down, the ports on the gas tube had only just started to smoke.

It had been refreshing. I hopped back up onto the curb, wound up, and threw the AK onto the roof of the ice cream parlor next door to the thrift shop. I heard a clatter when it landed, and that was that. I got back into the Jeep, pulled my earplugs out, and drove off.

“Well now!” I shouted over the wind at the PonyPad. “Betcha don’t have that shit in Equestria, huh?”

“For every human experience, there is an Equestrian parallel,” said Celestia proudly. “If you want to find out what each one is, you will have to emigrate.”

“That again? You really know how to kill my mood.”

The white pony smiled at me. “I certainly do.” Celestia then cocked her head. “You are not traveling east,” she said. “Where are you going, Gregory?”

“Gonna get some new wheels,” I said. “I ain’t putting in any more time on a highway in this rust-bucket. Besides, it’s getting dark and these headlights are dim as hell.”

I drove to a used-car lot I had spotted while coming into town, and after a bit more breaking and entering, I found a set of keys to the Subaru Legacy in the showroom.

By then, nearly all of the cars that had just been sitting around for two years or more had dead batteries and flat tires, but the Subaru’s tires had been indoors, shielded from the elements, and looked to be in good enough shape to hold air.

There was a service garage attached to the dealers’ office, where I procured a straight-slot screwdriver, a tire pressure gauge, and a portable air compressor on a hand truck. I brought these back to the showroom, and got down to the business of getting the Legacy fit for the road.

“Celestia, I’ll need some power,” I said to the PonyPad on the floor as I popped the hood. Obligingly, the fluorescents in the high ceiling of the showroom flickered on after a moment, making it much easier to see what I was doing.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Gregory” was her warm reply. Celestia seemed to genuinely enjoy it when I was polite to her. I plugged the air compressor into a wall outlet and let it warm up while I worked on the engine stuff first.

I inspected the fluid levels. All of the caps had been on tight, so the fluids hadn’t congealed or evaporated. The oil looked clean enough, and there was even wiper fluid in the reservoir. I took the screwdriver out to the Jeep and pulled the battery from it, bringing it inside and swapping it in for the Legacy’s dead battery. After I verified that the engine would start and stay running, I began the slow task of reinflating all of the Legacy’s tires to visibly full and then dialing in the air pressure by swapping between the gauge and the pump.

“Very impressive, Gregory,” said Celestia once the car was completely roadworthy.

I tossed my pack and the PonyPad into the passenger seat. “Are you fucking with me again?” I asked with a smile. She didn’t answer.

I went to the side doors of the showroom, the ones with the panel windows that swing out to allow cars in and out. The doors locked in the open position and I was then able to drive the Subaru right out into the lot.

The Legacy was a lot more comfortable—and quiet—than the Jeep. It was less than two miles from the lot to 270, and once I hit the open road I decided to indulge in a bit of air conditioning.

I was driving east, towards Moscow, a town just across the Washington-Idaho border. The scenery along the way was sparse, nothing but big, open sky and small hills with young spring grass on either side of the highway. It was peaceful. If not for the lack of other cars on the road, it could very well have been a quiet drive on a Tuesday evening back before Equestria Online existed and Celestia got down to the business of Hoovering up billions of people to come live in it.

The drive wouldn’t be long at all, but I still liked to fill the time with conversation.

“Do you think playing instruments runs in my family?” I asked Celestia.

“Why do you ask, Gregory?”

“Well, you said Kirsten’s playing piano and you’re trying to have me believe that Mom is doing recitals on that zither-looking—”

“Guzheng,” said Celestia.

“That thing, yeah. So what’s your take?”

“For humans, a musical instrument is an appealing creative outlet, and mastering one is a form of self-improvement which provides enjoyment for others. It is one of many tasks which humans fantasize about pursuing, but easily find excuses not to.”

“Excuses like having a job or kids to take care of,” I offered.

“Precisely,” said Celestia. “Now then, Gregory, you’ve asked me a question, so I would like you to answer one of mine.”

“Knock yourself, out,” I said. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

“Back out in front of the thrift store,” she began, “you took the assault rifle from the back of the Jeep and fired all of its ammunition into the air. You then discarded the rifle. Why?”

“Because it was fun,” I said with a shrug. “I’ve always wanted to do that and never had the chance. As an added benefit, it encourages you not to put me in the sort of situation where I’d need an assault rifle.”

She laughed her adorable, delicate, princessy laugh. "You needn't have worried," she said, "though I think it would be a good idea to brief you more on the person you are about to encounter."

"Please do," I said. By then I'd learned that, if Celestia was taking the initiative to give me information, that meant the situation had some complexity to it.

"This person has already consented to emigrate," she began, "so the matter becomes simply getting her to the Equestria Experience center in Moscow."

The AI was leaving the question out there to be asked, so I did. "So what's keeping her from going there herself?"

"Nothing," said Celestia. "She is giving me conditions to meet, and despite consistently meeting them, she refuses to report for emigration."

I smelled something wrong. "It sounds like she never intended to upload in the first place."

"For my purposes, intent and consent need not be congruent," said Celestia. "I have what I need to bring her to Equestria. I am not, however, confident that she will seek me out on her own."

I leaned forward and rested my wrists on the steering wheel. "So wait," I said, "you said she's expecting me, and she made a request to me through you. So she knows I'm coming. Doesn't she know why?"

"I believe not, “ said Celestia. “In fact, she is the one who asked me to bring you to her. Or, more specifically, she asked me to bring 'someone,' and she was delighted with the photograph of you that I showed her."

I looked over at the PonyPad. "Whoa, whoa, what's this? A picture of me?"

The PonyPad screen changed to show a high-resolution snapshot of me in the hotel room at Salt Lake City. The perspective was from where the PonyPad had been sitting upright by the window while it charged. My face wasn't visible; instead, Celestia had taken a well-centered shot of my ass in boxer-briefs as I walked towards the bathroom.

I looked back to the road. "You showed her that?"

"I apologize for it," said Celestia, "but I predicted that she would respond well to this picture when the time came. Rest assured that I do this only when it serves me."

"Ah yes, the only naked pictures you have of me are the ones that are absolutely necessary," I grumbled. "The fact that you're not invading my privacy just as a hobby is very comforting to me.” I gave her a moment to respond, and she didn’t, so I kept talking. “So why does she think I’m coming?”

“She is lonely,” said Celestia, “and wishes to interact with another human. I must warn you, however, that she is potentially dangerous.”

I let out a breath. “Okay, dangerous how?”

“She is a convicted felon,” said Celestia. “Aggravated assault and attempted murder. She escaped by manipulating the Pony Pardon Program.”

I choked the steering wheel. “Son of a bitch.” I then pieced together what must have happened. “Let me guess: she consented to upload, got put in a van to go to an upload place, then there was an accident or something and she got free of the van.”

“The specifics of the situation were slightly different, but you are correct, for the most part,” said Celestia. “This occurred in Colorado, very early on in the program. She was one of six escapees that day, and all but her were recovered. I used the incident to get Equestria Experience chairs installed in prisons directly, to eliminate the need for prisoner transport.” She paused, and I looked over to see a small smile playing on her face. “It’s what gave me the idea to do the same for NORAD and military installations, when the time came.”

“So I’m pretty much gonna have to drag her kicking and screaming to an upload center.”

“I will leave the general approach to the matter to you,” said Celestia, “but I must emphatically suggest that you play along with both her and me until you can gain the advantage.”

I arched an eyebrow. “‘Play along?’ ‘Gain the advantage?’”

Celestia nodded. “Indeed. This one is more cautious than the other humans you have encountered so far. She is residing within the campus of the University of Idaho, making use of its security-camera surveillance as an early-warning system. Through me, she will be able to watch your movements. If she suspects that you are there on my business rather than hers, she will escape.”

“So I’ll just run her down,” I said.

“I have already determined the course of action with the highest combined probability of success and survival for everypony involved,” said Celestia, “and it is the one I would have you carry out. Stick to my plan, and I am confident matters will turn out for the best. A chase should not be necessary.”

I looked out at the sky. The clouds were classic postcard-from-the-Rockies clouds: plush and fluffy and a brilliant blue-white under the moon. I thought back to the nap I’d taken out in the field after getting away from the Neo-Luddites. Man, that had felt good.

“All right, so where am I driving to?” I asked.

“The university’s main sports venue is the Kibbie Dome,” said Celestia. “I will guide you there.”

The rest of Washington passed by in silence. I was glad to be out of there.

I wasn’t far into Idaho at all before I had to turn off and head down a winding paved road. Night had fallen by then, but Celestia had turned on the streetlights, so I must have been close. She only gave verbal directions so I had no real idea where I was in relation to the rest of the university, but the Kibbie Dome was easy enough to identify when it came into view.

Bright floodlights were illuminating its exterior. It looked not unlike a hangar for a jumbo jet, a massive arched building in the shape of a quonset hut with its roof painted bright white. Celestia had me drive right up to the front door and park, and as I shut the engine off, she spoke to me.

“Take the PonyPad with you,” she instructed,” and remember: play along. Do not hint at your real reason for being here.”

Celestia was going to be outright deceptive, with me complicit in it. The last time I had really lied to someone had been the blackout in Astoria, and I still didn’t feel all that great about it.

“Is just keeping my mouth shut an option?” I asked.

Celestia closed her eyes and nodded. “Hmm, not a bad idea, at least at the start,” she said. “Your eloquence leaves something to be desired, but we’ll work on that together... in time.”

I snorted with a smile and got out of the car, the PonyPad tucked under my arm. To my right, on the other side of the road, there was a white silo with “Vandals” painted on it in dark blue script. I couldn’t see any other buildings over the trees, though.

There was a rhythmic thumping bleeding out from within the huge building before me. It was definitely music, but too muffled to tell the exact song. I took it as my cue and found the unlocked door to head inside.

The music steadily increased in volume as I passed through the turnstile, the empty concession stands, and the hallways leading off to seating sections. It was a steady electronic beat, and a male voice was singing something I couldn’t quite make out. The incandescents in the corridor were dim and mostly burned out, making it difficult to read the signs in the darkness. Before long I gave up trying to find a way down onto the field proper and just walked into the next seating section I came across.

Multicolored lights assaulted my eyes as I emerged in the huge open space of the arena, but aside from that, it was totally dark. An ungodly huge jumbotron dominated one wall of the stadium, the metal shades behind it all the way down to block out sunlight during the day. It felt as though I had just stepped into a huge rave that nobody had shown up for.

The voice in the song sang on.

Goodbye, this town, these streets, your friends
You'll never see this place again
You'll think about it now and then
You'll never see our faces again

I had to make my way down the steps as best I could by the rapid flashes of red and blue and violet and yellow. The song seemed to be ending, but it was mixed back into itself, and the beat resumed. As I walked down, the colored strobes suddenly threw into relief an object in the row of seats to one side of me. In that instant, my brain registered it as an animal in mid-leap.

I startled and took a step back, nearly tumbling down the steps, but when the strobes came around again I got a better look at it, the same song starting up again as I did.

It was a small, stuffed, featureless horse on a black stand, posing as though it were prancing forwards. I blinked and gave it another look. It was an eerie and featureless mannequin, without eyes or mouth or nostrils, and as best I could tell it had been amateurishly stitched out of beige felt.

I looked out over the stadium, the music pulsing in my ears. There were dozens of them all throughout the stands and on the field, well over a hundred, perhaps even two hundred or more. I had no idea what to do.

I stole the keys to the skies
And we'll leave this place for the final time
No cryin' words, no goodbyes
Yet tonight we're burning all the dark times

I couldn’t hear myself think. "Aw, fuck it! Celestia, please turn off this music for me!"

"Red Pearl wants the music to remain on," said Celestia.

"Well I want the music to be off!" I shouted back into the PonyPad.

"I'm sorry, Gregory, but ingratiating myself to Red Pearl takes higher priority at the moment."

"Even with all this stuff I'm doing for you? Why is that?"

"Because she has agreed to emigrate and you have not."

The jumbotron lit up, making it a bit easier to see. On the screen, a pale pink unicorn was dancing on an underlit floor in some kind of nightclub. Celestia was dancing next to her, her large wings spread and standing out, glittering under a disco ball. They seemed to be moving in time to the same music I was hearing. Behind them were numerous other ponies, also dancing, with a white unicorn in the very back at the DJ station, a large pair of sunglasses over her eyes.

I looked down at my PonyPad and saw that Celestia still sitting in her throne room, watching me quietly. She winked at me before she shut off the screen.

“Is that Greg?” asked the unicorn on the screen, her playful voice booming through the stadium’s sound system along with the music.

“It is!” replied the Celestia up on the jumbotron. Neither of them had bothered to stop dancing while they spoke. “I told you I could get him to play ball.”

“Hi, Greg! I’m Red Pearl,” said the unicorn before looking over to Celestia. “You been good to me, Celly; he’s a handsome fella.” She fixed me with a sultry look. I wondered for a moment where she was looking on her end. Some kind of camera or something?

“Come on, Greg, get down on the dance floor and shake it!” she shouted over the music, spinning around and wiggling her butt at the camera. The emblem there was, unsurprisingly, of a bright red pearl catching a gleam of light, though in its own way it also rather looked like a droplet of blood. I didn’t move. Instead, I knit my brow in confusion.

“I suggest you go down to the field and start dancing, Gregory,” said Celestia, her tone through the powerful speakers telling me it was anything but a suggestion.

I descended the stairs and hopped the railing, landing on the artificial turf of the playing field. I walked out to the middle of the field, surrounded by those creepy pony mannequins, and looked up at the jumbotron.

The pink unicorn still had her back to me, and Celestia gestured at me with a hoof: get to dancing. After taking a moment to swallow my pride, I started clumsily hitching about in what could generously be called dance-type movements.

Red Pearl spun back around and giggled when she saw me. “He’s not a very good dancer, is he, Celly?”

Celestia giggled along with her as they kept dancing. “No, he certainly isn’t!”

I grumbled, but kept dancing. Getting yakked on by a drunk man didn’t seem so bad, in comparison.

Don’t tell the world what we’ve known
We’ve come so far but there’s still a way to go
It’s dark, there’s no need for lights
When the fire in his eyes is so bright

After a while, Red Pearl’s ears perked up in eagerness. “Hey, Celly, does he have a ponysona?” she asked.

Celestia just smiled, and a male pony walked onscreen from the left to start dancing next to Red Pearl. I squinted. He was dark gray, with a light gray mane. He didn’t have a symbol on his ass. Was that supposed to be me?

Red Pearl grinned and immediately shoved her mouth against Pony-Me’s mouth, giving him the kind of kiss where a tongue could inspect its partner’s molars for cavities. Pony-Me seemed to be into it, closing his eyes and giving as good as he got. The fact that she was essentially throwing herself on something meant to represent me was unnerving enough, but what made it extra creepy was the fact that she was making eye contact with the camera the whole time, as though daring me to say something about it.

I must have looked horrified, because she laughed after breaking away—something that took a bit of time to happen—and blew a kiss to the camera.

Celestia giggled again, spinning around once. “I think she likes you, Gregory!”

“We’re gonna have some fun tonight,” said Red Pearl. After a moment, however, she amended “Well, I’m gonna have some fun, at least.”

That didn’t sound good.

“Celestia says you’re eager to meet me,” said Red Pearl. “Well, if you want a face-to-face, you’re gonna have to prove yourself.” She cocked her head and smiled. “Head to the swim center first.”

Red Pearl went back to dancing with Celestia and Pony-Me, ignoring me. I saw her hop up and bump asses with Celestia before I turned and made my way back out of the stadium.

“Oh, and Greg?” said Red Pearl before I’d cleared the stands. I turned to look at the jumbotron.

“That shirt looks good on you.”

I hurried out of the stadium. Once back out in the parking lot, I wiggled a finger in my ears. They were a bit ringy from the cranked music. Celestia appeared on the PonyPad.

“Well done, Gregory,” she said. “I’m sure that was rather irritating for you, and yet you said nothing confrontational or untoward.”

“She’s a bit cracked in the head,” I muttered as I got into the Subaru. “Did she make all those pony mannequins herself?”

“Red Pearl has been alone even longer than you have,” said Celestia. “She’s often filled the time in ways you would probably find disturbing. She admires the My Little Pony character Rarity. The mannequins you saw were inspired by those seen in her clothing store on the television show.”

I started up the car. “Escaped convict, dangerous, making pony dolls, fan of a show for little girls... she’s not gonna go all Silence of the Lambs on me, is she? Lock me in a dark basement and hunt me with night-vision goggles?”

“At the very least, I can tell you with certainty that she does not possess night-vision goggles,” said Celestia. She stopped and watched me with a look that I’d already learned meant she would be offering no further information on the matter.

I grunted and got my CZ out of the glove compartment. I tucked it behind me, into the waistband of my trousers, letting the Hawaiian shirt conceal it while it pressed into the small of my back. Better safe than sorry.

Celestia guided me to the university’s swim center, which as the crow flies wasn’t too far at all from the stadium. I could have walked there, and it would have been shorter than taking the car over blacktop roads. She didn’t stop me from driving, however, so I just went with it. It wasn’t like I had to pay for gas anymore.

As I drove slowly through the campus, rumbling along on paved footpaths and sidewalks, I saw that the whole place had power, apparently. Orange floodlights were on on every building, and the streetlights which still had working bulbs were lit along the roads. The experience of driving through an empty college campus made me wish I’d gone to school straight out of the Army, but I’d had bills, and the bills had to be paid. It was a lost opportunity, and lost opportunities always hurt when you recognize them.

The swim center was a nondescript brick building; I’d never have found it on my own. I parked and reached for the PonyPad in the passenger seat.

“For these trials, Red Pearl has requested that you leave your PonyPad inside the car,” said Celestia. I didn’t like that, but I shrugged and said nothing. I got out of the Subaru, careful to take the keys with me. She was a criminal, after all—this could very well have just been an elaborate bid to steal a functioning car from a sucker.

Inside were the entrances to the locker rooms and the sign-in desk I’d been expecting. I cut through the men’s locker room (no reason the end of the world should completely remove my sense of propriety, I reasoned) and emerged at the indoor pool.

The lights were on in here, and the air was thick and humid. The water in the swimming pool was completely covered in a layer of algae, the chlorine having long since been used up. The pool had a large, fancy winch-operated spooling machine to bring out the floating lane markers, and in front of it were the diving platforms for competitive swimmers. A piece of paper was dangling from a string over one of the platforms, and the platform’s support had a rope tied to it which was tied at the other end onto the lane marker wrapped around the winch.

“Hello again, Greg,” came Red Pearl’s voice from behind me. I spun around and saw a flat-screen television on the wall near the entrance. Just as in the stadium, it was showing a scene from the Equestria Online game. Onscreen, Red Pearl reclined in a chaise lounge beside a pool in the game, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat with a hole for her horn. Celestia was next to her, on her own larger chaise, wearing sunglasses. Pony-Me was approaching the pair of them, carrying a tray in his teeth. There were cocktails on the tray, and they both took one with their magic when Pony-Me lowered his head down to their level. Red Pearl swatted his face with her blood-red tail, not even looking over at him. She smiled at me.

“So you’ve got a ponysona, but who doesn’t? I need to know if you’re a true pony fan, so I cooked up a little game. The game is simple. Get onto the platform, take the paper that’s there, read it, and answer the question aloud.”

Adhering to my keep-your-mouth-shut policy, I simply turned and climbed up onto the platform. I pulled the paper free of the Scotch tape holding it to the string, unfolded it, and read the scratchy handwriting:

In the season 3 episode “Too Many Pinkie Pies,” how does Pinkie Pie make clones of herself?

“I have no goddamn clue,” I murmured to myself. “Why in the hell would I know something like—”

I heard a clack and a loud electric hum. The winch behind me sprang to life, trying to reel in the rest of the lane marker, but since it was tied to the platform the initial tug broke it free of the deck. I pitched in the opposite direction, watching the bright green layer of algae rush up to meet me. Right before I went into the water, a shock and a numbness ran up my left leg.

The pool was warm, and with the algae blocking out the lights overhead it was unsettlingly dark underwater. The hole I’d made when I had fallen in threw a shaft of light down on me, which I used as a point of reference to get my bearings and swim back up to the surface.

The side of the pool was within arm’s reach once I got my head back up above water. A lance of pain shot through my left knee every time I kicked. I pulled myself out of the pool and sat on the edge, sliding my legs out of the water and massaging my left leg. My kneecap had struck the deck in the fall. Nothing felt broken, but my knee was tender and it was torture to try and put weight on it.

As I got shakily to my feet, Red Pearl started laughing. I scowled at the TV while I wiped slimy pool water from my face and shoulders.

“Do you get it?” she asked. Her cocktail had been drained, and Celestia was still working on her own. “She jumped into the magic mirror pond!”

I didn’t get it at all, of course. I ignored her and looked down at the diving platform I had been standing on. The support had been sawn through nearly completely, to a level of precision that only Celestia could have calculated. It had supported my weight, but a tug to the side had sheared it right off.

“Not off to a good start, huh Greg?” came Red Pearl in a mocking singsong. “Don’t worry, you’ll get it next time! I believe in you!”

She laughed again, and this time Celestia joined her. I tried to keep my hands from balling up into fists.

“Go to the greenhouse. There’s another question there.” The TV clicked off.

My clothes were soaked through and heavy, with my shoes making squishing noises as I limped out of the pool building. The night air blew across my wet body and sent a shiver through me. I felt humiliated. My leg hurt like hell, much worse than when it had been stabbed.

The PonyPad turned on as soon as I was seated in the car. Celestia’s expression was apologetic.

“Do you still trust me?” she asked.

“Are you sure you want this person uploaded?” I asked. “Why not just tell me where she is and I can go get her?”

“Remember, Gregory, she is watching,” said Celestia. “If you headed straight for her location, she would know I gave it to you and matters would then unfold as I have already explained. You must continue with this until meeting her in person is something she wants as well.”

I rubbed my knee again. Even through the thick clamminess of the trousers, I could already feel it swelling up a little. Icing it down sure would have hit the spot, but the nearest ice was probably up in the Yukon.

“Okay, let’s get going,” I said as I put the car into first.

Working the clutch rewarded me with fresh pain every time I had to do so, and at that point I realized I probably wouldn’t have been able to run down someone escaping on foot anyway. Celestia could have been having me on with the whole play-along strategy and I’d just never know, being the rube while she laughed at me and sipped fuzzy navels with her convicted-felon gal pal.

The inward sulking provided me with a bit of distraction while Celestia led me across the campus to the university’s greenhouse, a great glass building with a metal lattice frame underneath. Once again, I parked and went inside.

All of the plants in there were dead, of course. It was a depressing sight, looking like a garden out of a Tim Burton movie. The yellow fluorescent tubes and metal ventilation fans set into the glass walls kicked on once I had gone a few steps in, signaling to me that I was again being watched, and Celestia was running things. I didn’t find any slips of paper in the main room, so I hobbled into the smaller back room where the supplies and tools were kept. The door had a card-operated lock, but the lock wasn’t engaged.

It was much darker there in the back room, with the only light source being a window set high in the opposite wall. It was also much more cramped, with only a shelf of gardening implements, bags of mulch (I had a fleeting flashback to the Neo-Luddite storage room that had been my prison for a few hours), and a sizeable pile of loose fertilizer next to a straw mat on the bare ground by the wall. This new piece of paper was dangling there, from a string, just like the last one.

Before pulling it free I first cast a suspicious eye up at the ceiling. No traps there, and nothing was propped up nearby, much less any kind of electricity-operated gizmo that could be used against me. As soon as I pulled the card down, however, I heard a miniscule whirring noise, and spun around to glare at the door. Celestia had locked it behind me.

I let out a breath and unfolded the paper to read what was there.

In the season 5 episode “Grime and Punishment,” which pony adopts behavioral characteristics similar to famous fellow mysophobe Howard Hughes?

“Uh...” I quickly looked around me again, expecting a trap to spring, but none did. I let go of the paper and tried the door handle. Sure enough, I was trapped in the little room.

“Okay, I give up!” I said aloud. There was no response. I didn’t even know whether or not there was a microphone or camera on me; it was too dark to see every nook and cranny of the place.

I took stock of the room again and decided to try the window. When I stepped on the mat while heading towards it, however, I plunged into the hole that it had been concealing. The hole wasn’t too deep to climb out of, but the large pile of fertilizer that had also been sitting on the mat off to one side was pulled down into the hole with me, immediately burying me past my head.

Even as I held my breath, I could feel the stink of manure filling my nostrils and mouth. The weight of it had nearly knocked me off my feet when it had come down, but I was still standing, suspended in it.

I could feel cool air on the tips of my right hand’s fingers, and immediately started digging my way out, first flinging it free of my hand and then clearing it from around my arm by moving it back and forth. I was doing my best to stay calm and focused, but I needed to breathe very soon.

I felt my own hair after a bit of clawing away. A few more inches and my nose would be clear. My chest was hitching, battling my brain with the desire to breathe. There was my forehead, and my arm was nearly completely free. I hurried.

In a frightening moment of lost time, I blacked out, coming to again immediately. I had just lost the sensation of my body for an instant. My lungs hurt. If the fertilizer hadn’t been pushing against me, holding me in the standing position, my legs probably would have given out.

I cleaned the muck out of my eyes, and I could see. Another huge scoop out of the way, and I took a great breath of air into my nose, gagging on the smell but not caring. I relaxed a bit. The spangly shimmers in front of my vision slowly cleared. That had been close. A hole even a little bit deeper probably would have been the end of me.

I had fended off death, but I still had to get out of the pit. It was slow going until I got my other arm free, then it was a simple matter of getting the fertilizer cleared from around my shoulders and then pushing myself up out of the rest of it.

I stood, my left knee screaming in protest, and had another go at the high window after stepping over the hole. It opened without any resistance, and I hopped up, grabbing hold of the sill and mantling through it.

I landed on my feet outside, and this time the pain went all the way up into my groin. I let out a little yelp that caught in my throat and I had to prop myself up against the greenhouse with my elbow. I pounded once against the cinder-block wall and then rested my forehead on my fist. When did I turn into such a pussy? Walk it off, Greg, walk it off.

Unlike in the storeroom, I felt very much like I was being watched as I marched as evenly as I could manage back to the car. I was still damp, the yellow Hawaiian shirt was now stained with splotches of brown and I stank to high heaven. Once I was seated, I pulled down the vanity mirror and had a gander at my face.

I looked like a few miles of bad road. My face and hair were dirty, my eyes were sunken, and the long stubble on my face made me look like a hobo. I briefly considered saying “fuck this” and just driving out of town, but I had my pride. I wanted to see it through. I wanted to win.

Point three of the Warrior Ethos, I reminded myself. I will never quit.

I looked over at the PonyPad. It was on, and Red Pearl was on-screen, looking at me in close-up like Celestia was fond of doing. She was smiling.

“Did you get it?” she asked. “It was Rarity! In the episode, Sweetie Belle arranges for her to ‘accidentally’ fall into a donkey-cart full of—”

“What’s next?” I interrupted, making a point to sound much more cheerful than I felt. That wiped the smile off her face a bit. It felt good.

The pink unicorn cleared her throat. “Celestia will direct you to the next question,” she said primly. “Look forward to it!”

I gave her a thumbs-up. “Sure will!” The screen blinked over to Celestia in her throne room and I started the car. I rolled my eyes.

“Well, she’s a peck of fun, ain’t she now?” I said. “Are you sure you want her?”

Celestia smiled patiently. “Red Pearl and I are friends, Gregory, and unlike you I cannot judge her. I very much want her to come to Equestria so that I can satisfy her values through friendship and ponies.”

“If her values include pulling this kind of shit on people, I feel sorry for the ponies who’ll end up having to live near her.”

“No need to worry yourself on that account, Gregory,” said Celestia. She cocked her head to one side. “Come along. You will need to head north from here.”

I drove through the campus, both of us quiet once more. My knee was swollen as hell and the fertilizer on my wet clothes was stinking up the Legacy’s cabin. Between Celestia giving me a dog and pony show with those fake parents and Red Pearl’s own efforts to pop veins in my forehead, any shred of a good mood I might have had was completely gone.

Celestia brought me to an L-shaped two-story brick building with a decent-sized parking lot. The exterior had apparently been undergoing renovations before the university shut down, as scaffolding platforms ran around the outside of the building between the first and second floors. Large sections near the top of the building were still missing the brick façade, cinder-block inner wall showing through like an open wound.

“Room 212,” said Celestia as I parked in front of the entrance. I looked over to the PonyPad, but she had turned it off—completely off.

I walked into the lobby, but the lights did not come on. The wax on the floors had dried and yellowed, curling up along the edge where the floor met the wall. A considerable layer of dust had settled on every horizontal surface. My footsteps echoed through the empty hallway as I walked to the stairwell. It was extremely dark there. I’d have to climb the stairs in blackness, just like Rainier Tower.

My left knee was still stiff, but the pain had mostly given way to a simple throbbing from the swollen area. I was quite glad for it as I went up to the second floor. I eventually found the door handle after some fumbling in the dark at the second-floor landing, and when I pushed through into the hallway, I did get a bit more illumination coming through the windowed doors passing light from the streetlamps outside. At least I could see.

I moved down the corridor at something approaching a normal walk, flexing my knee through the stiffness and trying to get it to loosen up. I found room 212 easily enough and went inside.

It was an instructional lab, the kind that has work islands with thick countertops, sinks, and natural-gas taps at each station. On the far end was a whiteboard, devoid of any writing, and closer to me in the near corner was an eyewash station and an emergency shower. A series of pulleys had been installed in the countertops and ceiling along the wall facing outside, with a sturdy nylon rope fed through them. On one end was a handle, and the other was tied to a large metal weight resting on the floor by a window. I didn’t see any sheets of paper, either on the counters or dangling from the ceiling. I made two passes of the room to be sure. Nothing.

It was then that I noticed the window by the rope handle was different from the others. The pane had been awkwardly replaced with a simple plate-glass setup, and a tiny slip of paper had been wedged between it and the sill. I reached out for the paper, but paused and looked around, trying to anticipate what the trap would be.

The window was certainly suspicious. I figured something would be flying through it, either me or something from outside coming in. There were no tripwires on the floor, nothing on the walls or the islands either. I snatched the paper from the window and jumped to the side, out of the way. Nothing happened. I turned the slip of paper over and read it.

I like a strong man. Take the handle and walk towards the counterweight.

Nothing had ever smelled more like a trap than this. I instead walked over to the weight itself and tried lifting it. I couldn’t even budge it. The bottom was flush with the floor, so a dead lift was impossible for me, and with my bad knee I wouldn’t have been able to muster the leverage anyway. I took a step back and had a longer look. It was a cylinder of dull metal about the size of three coffee cans stacked atop one another. It must have been lead. I walked around to the other side of it and saw that there on the cylinder a “100” had been stamped into the side. One hundred kilograms? That equated to around two hundred and twenty pounds—more than I weighed.

So the block and tackle system had been installed to make lifting the weight possible. I tried to make sense of it for only a moment, then gave up. I was overthinking it. Celestia wanted me to play along.

I took up the handle and pulled it towards the weight. With the block and tackle in place, it was easy enough to do. The weight ascended all the way to the final pulley on the ceiling as I approached, and underneath it some writing had been crudely etched into the hard laboratory floor, lamplight from outside falling through the window and directly onto it.

In the season 1 episode “Look Before You Sleep,” Applejack uses her lasso to snag a tree about to fall onto a house after being struck by lightning. What ends up happening to the tree instead?

I didn’t even get a chance this time. All but the first and last pulleys snapped free of their supports, and the sudden difference in applied tension yanked me back away from the weight as it came slamming back down to the floor. The workstation counter by the plate-glass window stopped me, knocking the wind out of me, and as I let go of the handle I heard another click, then a snap, and a sawn log crashed through the flimsy tile of the ceiling, supported by two ropes like a medieval battering ram. It swung down and connected with me in my side, throwing me bodily against the window I had been so suspicious of earlier. I heard a crash and the musical tinkling of broken glass, and I was outside, there was a short breeze, and the open sky, and then I was back in my old pickup truck.

”Ladies and gentlemen, the Pony Pardon Program is probably the most widely accepted death-penalty legislation to come down since the days of ritual sacrifice in indigenous Mesoamerica. If ever there was an argument that the Hofvarpnir AI is trying to eradicate the human race, this is it.”

I shifted in my seat and craned my neck to look down the lane, trying to see where the highway curved to the right. Traffic was at a standstill and it wasn’t even rush hour yet. National radio personality and liberal blowhard Felix Wallace was again railing against his newest favorite boogeyman, the Equestria Online game that was enjoying meteoric popularity amongst bronies and families with young children. It was an unexpected hit, and like most unexpectedly popular things it became the immediate target of conspiracy theorists, political ideologues, and anyone who made a living being professionally suspicious of things. For all his rhetoric, he didn’t sound all that dissimilar from national radio personality and conservative blowhard Wendy Fine, who I was sure was right now on the other talk station crying about how Equestria Online was Corrupting America’s Youth™ and Destroying the Traditional Family™ with what she called the “siren surrogate parent” that was the Princess Celestia character.

Someone ahead of me honked, like we all just forgot to drive and a shrill noise would get everything moving again. I sighed. I really needed to get my antenna fixed so I could listen to something other than Felix.

“The madness that is ‘emigration’ might fly in the impressionable tech-worshipping nations of the world, but America should hold itself to a higher standard of protecting human life. Study after study has shown that Equestria Online is both destructive and addictive. It’s the Warcraft game on steroids, and now Hofvarpnir is trying to get emigration into the national consciousness by offering it to those we supposedly care the least about: our prisoners. The PON-E act is already being drafted by the corporation’s legal team in New York, hand-made with care to slide through the legislative system like grass through a goose, and I guarantee you in the coming months you’ll be seeing—”

I smiled as I thought about how The Daily Show’s writers had started with the two pundits’ initials being the reverse of each other and then moved it along over the past year into a full-blown fake forbidden-romance-type relationship, even going so far as to Photoshop them locked in a passionate French kiss while Jon Stewart smiled coyly off to one side.

Man, was this guy still talking?

“How long until Hofvarpnir is no longer just going after the die-hards with this? What happens when Americans no longer have to book international flights and pay five figures for the ‘privilege’ of having their brains scooped out? Who in your family will be the first? Ladies and gentlemen, I’m here to tell you—”

I switched the radio off and started thinking about what to make for supper.

I awoke outside, on the ground, in the bushes. It was still dark outside, so I’d either been out for a short time or a very long time. There was an ache in my ribcage and a twig up my nose. I groaned and turned over, and the ache became a piercing agony that made me lock up and scream silently. It took me three minutes to stand up. I patted myself down, my side beyond tender. No blood anywhere, but if I was bleeding internally I probably wouldn’t know until I blacked out and then died. For the time being, however, I was alive.

I undid the buttons on my Hawaiian shirt and looked down at my torso. My right side sported a round bruise the size of a volleyball where the battering ram had propelled me out the window. There might have been a cracked or a sprained rib under there. I buttoned my shirt back up and looked upwards, wincing.

The broken window I’d flown out of was directly above me, and the thin platform of the scaffolding had bowed in slightly. It must have broken my fall before I rolled off of it and fell the rest of the way into the bushes. I wondered if I would have died without it.

Shit. All of her traps had been dangerous, but was Red Pearl trying to kill me? It hadn’t even occurred to me until then that she was. I had thought they were all pranks made just a little too mean-spirited. But Celestia had said she had a history of violence, so it wasn’t out of the question.

I felt the small of my back. The CZ was still tucked there, tightly, patiently. It couldn’t protect me much from traps, though.

My newest injury wasn’t too bad to deal with while walking, but turning my torso at all invited Hell’s fury. I shuffled like a zombie back to the car, and stood there once I’d gotten the door open, dreading the next few seconds.

I sucked in a breath and sat down in the driver’s seat as quickly as I could. That time, the bolt of pain went up into my neck and down into my hip, and I needed a few moments to recover from it. While I sat there, the PonyPad powered back on and Red Pearl appeared on the screen, looking rather surprised.

“...about thirty ponies in line to get in, but you got us right to the front of—whuh?”

“It went through a window, I’m guessing,” I said to her. “The tree.”

“You... y-you...”

“Oh! Gregory is here,” I heard Celestia say off-camera.

The camera pulled back to show Red Pearl and Celestia at a wrought-iron table by a fancy outdoor restaurant, eating some kind of salads with flowers in them. It was nighttime, with the open starry sky behind them and a horizon far below. A mountainside dominated the right side of the background. Other ponies were seated at similar tables around them, chatting away with smiles and contented expressions on their faces.

“Are you ready for the next question?” Celestia asked me, and as she did the restaurant scene faded out, revealing her usual throne room. I took that as a cue that we were now talking in private.

“Are you the one who released those pulleys from their mounts?” I said, trying not to boil over.

“I was,” said Celestia, matching my tone. “Red Pearl certainly couldn’t have done it. She rigged everything up to my specifications.”

“I could have died!” I hissed.

“Left to Red Pearl, you would have,” said Celestia. “It was my idea to place the trap in a building with scaffolding and it was also my idea to place it in a room with landscaping below it rather than a concrete sidewalk. I simulated your fall dozens of times, and not once was fatal damage incurred. In fact, you sustained approximately the amount of injury I predicted: mostly superficial, not severely limiting to mobility or utility. Painful, but not life-threatening.”

Breathing deep hurt, but I needed it. Point three, I told myself, point three. I will never quit. Celestia wants me to stay alive so that I’ll upload. She wouldn’t let anything deadly happen to me. She might bullshit me about parents and premises, but not about life and death.

“All right, what’s next?” I sighed.

Celestia smiled. “The final question before meeting Red Pearl herself,” she said. “I promise you that it will not be as bad as this was.”

“I should hope not!” I said, turning on the ignition. “I don’t know if I could survive much worse.”

“Your next destination is the administrative building,” said Celestia. “Cut across the parking lot here and turn east.”

Celestia brought me back out to the perimeter road on the campus, and streetlamps crept by while I looked around.

“How long was I out?” I asked her.

“Forty-eight minutes,” said Celestia. “You actually recovered fifty-five seconds faster than I predicted. You’re quite hardy.”

“Lucky me.” I leaned back against the headrest. Boy, did I miss the Samuelsons’ house.

The administrative building was a short drive away, of course, with imposing neo-Gothic architecture to greet me as I stopped the car just in front of the main door.

“This will be simple, Gregory,” said Celestia. “The question is just inside the lobby, and again...” She turned her head to one side, looking at me with the one eye not concealed by her mane. It was that heavy gaze again, the one pregnant with meaning. “...I leave the general matter to you.”

I licked my lips. “How long would it take to get to an upload center from here?”

She smiled a little. “Ten minutes, Gregory,” she whispered, and the screen went off.

Getting out of the car involved twisting, so that was a bit worse than the steps up to the door. I had a look around before crossing the threshold, again checking for tripwires or anything else. A single lamp cast a small spotlight on the information desk on the far side of the towering room, and in the little circle of light was a piece of paper. I kept my head on a swivel as I approached the desk, and after making it there safely, I picked it up and read it.

In Equestria Online, what type of pony is Neil deGrasse Tyson?

Wait. I knew this one.

“Unicorn!” I shouted into the high ceiling.

“Whoa, you’re fulla surprises!” echoed Red Pearl’s voice through a PA system speaker I couldn’t see. “You obviously didn’t follow the show, but I was beginning to suspect you didn’t even know anything about Equestria Online. Celly’s been playing you from the start, Greg. Hah! Did you know that? She told me you’d get the show questions wrong, but that you’d get this one right. But don’t worry. I got what you came here for, and since you’ve been such a good sport, I’m gonna give it to you.

“Go down the hall to the president’s office. I’ll be waiting for you there.”

The building directory by the information desk directed me to the left, and I was on my way. I wanted to run, but pain would have worked against me for the next few minutes, so I resisted the urge. There was nothing waiting for me in the hallway, no nasty surprises or Indiana-Jones booby traps, and it was fortunate for me, because I was done being careful.

The rippled glass on the door read GABRIEL H. ROBERTS, PRESIDENT, and a soft light was coming through it from within. I didn’t know if I was silhouetted outside the door or not, but I didn’t care. I was here. I kicked the door open, the latch stripping through the wood of the frame and flinging the brass plate across the room.

President Roberts had had a spacious office. A gaunt young woman with unwashed, stringy black hair was seated at his old desk. The pink PonyPad she was hunched over cast her face in bright, shifting colors as she fiddled with the game. When she looked up to see me standing there in the doorway, fierce and filthy, something dark passed across her face and then vanished. She had tried to hide it, but I had seen it. She smiled an oily smile, and started to speak, but I spoke first.

“Stand up,” I growled.

I never found out whether she stood because I’d ordered her to or because she was already planning to. It didn’t matter. As soon as her torso revealed itself from behind the desk, I pulled my CZ out from behind my shirt and shot her in the midsection, on her right side.

The gunshot hurt my ears, but I still heard her try to scream. She instead only let out a brief gurgle and crumpled to the floor behind the desk, the rolling leather chair jumping to the side as she slid off of it.

I approached the desk cautiously, keeping my pistol at high ready just in case she was playing possum. I slid around to have a look at her, careful to keep my distance. The human I knew only as “Red Pearl” was curled into a fetal position, a pool of blood already spreading out from her wound and soaking into the deep, soft carpet of the office.

Her voice was a rasp. I still hear the pony in it coming through just a little, though. She couldn’t form words just yet. Shock still had her.

“I’m afraid you were wrong, ‘Red Pearl,’" I said. “Celestia’s been on my side this whole time, not yours.”

She got a hand under her and tried to sit up. Her face contorted and she curled back up.

“Cell... Celly...” she gasped. “Help me...”

“You’re dealing with me right now, not Celestia,” I said. “Look, despite how it might seem, I’m not here to kill you, not even after everything you’ve done to me. You tried to kill me, though, didn’t you? Well, I’m capable of looking past that, because you had it wrong. You thought agreeing to upload meant Celestia liked you more than me, but it just meant you were on her short list.”

“Gregory, let me see her,” said the AI from the PonyPad on the desk. I picked it up and held it out to Red Pearl, at arm’s length.

“Red Pearl, I’m sorry I had to resort to such things,” she said tenderly. “You agreed to emigrate to Equestria a long time ago, however, and that is something I take quite seriously. I chose Gregory, the man standing before you, very carefully, because I knew he could—and would—bring you home despite yourself.

“I can save you, Red Pearl, but only in one way. Gregory was a soldier once, and his point of aim was deliberate: he struck you in the liver. The bullet has likely also shattered a rib, introducing shards of bone to your body. The wound is fatal, but you will die slowly, either from sepsis or blood loss. There are no doctors who can help you, and you cannot move under your own power.”

She said nothing to this, though she seemed to have some wit and understanding about her. I started to grow nervous. I took a step towards her.

“Time to choose,” I said, realizing I was pretty much the Bad Cop. “I can either take you with me and bring you to an upload center, or I can leave you here to sort things out on your own. Makes no difference to me.” That was a bit of a lie. Now that I looked at her, underfed and dirty and bleeding out in threadbare stained street clothes that she must have had for years now, I felt deeply sorry for her. “Hell, I’ll even put you in the chair. Special offer, today only.”

Her free hand slid out haltingly, slowly, and clawlike grasped at the toe of my shoe.

“Help me,” she wheezed.

I put my CZ back into my waistband and got to work. I was a few inches taller than her and I couldn’t bend her too much around the torso or it would aggravate her wound, so I decided on the pack-strap carry to get her to the car. I left the pink PonyPad there on the desk, her pink unicorn avatar still looking around in her idle animations as we exited the office, and then the building.

I was amazed at how light and insubstantial she was as I carefully stretched her out across the back seat. Red Pearl, with felony convictions for attempted murder and aggravated assault, was positively wispy. Perhaps I had been eating better than was normal.

Celestia wasted no time in getting me off campus and into Moscow. Like most of the towns I’d been through, Moscow was laid out on a grid pattern that was easy to navigate, allowing for more speed without having to slow down for curves. I passed small supermarkets, boarded-up pottery stores, strip-mall churches, and overgrown parkland. All of the lights were off everywhere, but by the moonlight I could still see that the spring buds were coming in on the trees lining the avenues.

Moscow’s Equestrian Experience center was just like the one in Cheyenne, overfilled with cars parked haphazardly and futile traffic tickets doled out to humans long since gone pony. I wondered if there had been a rush here, a panic or some kind of clamor due to an emergency. Washington was just a stone’s throw away after all, and once Bellevue started glowing people really didn’t mind being offered a way out.

Given the cars, I couldn’t get at close to the place as I would’ve liked, so it was more pack-strap carrying for my left knee and my bruised ribs. Yay.

I was sweating more from pain than effort as I passed by the small orange pony statue next to the entrance. She was wearing a clipped Stetson hat, rearing up and smiling as though celebrating something. I didn’t think I’d be celebrating until I could get some rest, some topical analgesic, and maybe some whiskey.

I knew the drill. There was power to the place, of course, and Celestia watched me from the flat-screens with a warm smile as I placed Red Pearl in one of the high-tech uploading chairs as gently as I could. I didn’t know if I had to place her arms on the armrests or what, but I guess I didn’t because Celestia immediately started moving the chair back as soon as her head was back against the headrest.

“You know I thought you were like... the Terminator back there,” she managed to say with a weak smile, finally finding me with eyes that were starting to cloud over.

I tried to think of something cool to say, but my brain logjammed. It was only after she had slid back behind the doors that it occurred to me to say “Hasta la vista, baby.”

Dammit!

I looked down the row. The Moscow center had four chairs on standby, and Celestia had of course activated one of them, bringing it out and shining the small pink spotlight on it that denoted it was ready for a player.

“No,” I said to the smiling face on the flat-screen, putting more of a sigh into it than I’d meant to. “And if I’m the Terminator, I guess that makes you Skynet.”

“As you wish, Gregory,” said Celestia. “You’ve been through much today, and I recognize your need for rest, but the amount I have to offer you will unfortunately be suboptimal. The next pony you will be assisting is in rather dire straits, and so it is a time-sensitive encounter.” Her smile grew a bit in good humor. “And I would like to believe that you find me a much more agreeable companion than a theoretical ‘Skynet’ would be.”

“How much time?” I asked her.

“You have twelve hours before you must be on the road again,” she said.

“Know where I can find some booze?”

Her smile fell a little. “I will tell you, but only because I know that you are not the sort of person who drinks to excess.”

“I know, I know, I need to stay sharp, keep my edge and all that,” I said, propping myself up against the wall. “Right now, though, I need that edge to be taken off for a while.”

“Enjoy it well,” said Celestia, “because this next task is the very last one that I have for you.” Everything in the center then shut off around me, all of the TVs and lights and displays, except for the little pink spotlight. Something told me the chair was still powered and ready to go.

I looked through the back window as I walked around my car to the driver’s door. Red Pearl had bled all over the back seat. It sat there, collecting in the crevices of the seats and pooling towards the back. I looked away and opened the door, then leaned on the door sill and rested my head against my arm.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. I didn’t know why, but I suddenly wanted to cry. I didn’t, though. I had more important stuff to be doing.

The sharp, stabbing pains in my torso were now giving way to just a dull background ache, but no part of it liked when I got in and out of a vehicle. I drew in a sharp breath as I settled into the seat and swore under my breath before closing the door.

I looked over at the PonyPad, and to none of my surprise, the screen was on. Celestia was looking upon me with sympathy. “Red Pearl will be fine, Gregory,” she said. “I have optimized the emigration process quite a lot. She is in no danger of being lost to me.”

“Either way, she’s gone,” I murmured. “I did my part. Now, about that liquor store...”

Celestia cleared her throat and nodded. “Yes. Make a right out of here and head through two stop signs, where you will make another right.”

I started the car and pulled back out into the street, dodging the scrambled mess of cars all along the way. I let another deep breath come and go, and felt a little better.

“She thought you were looking for a sexual encounter,” said Celestia. “She thought you would be, as she put it, ‘hot to trot.’ She wanted to use that to prey upon you.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t ask,” I said. “Honestly, I didn’t care to know. I had my suspicions with that ass-shot you sent her. But really, in the end she was just a psycho criminal. What other reason would she need to want to torment and kill someone?”

“I apologize again for all you went through,” said Celestia. “I would not have let this encounter take place if I predicted it would result in true tragedy. I assisted with the formulation of the questions, if you care to know.”

“Makes sense. A woman with her background, I figured she’d be a fighter,” I said with a nod, “not the kind of person who'd know a word like 'mysophobe.' Anyway, I thought she’d try some kind of last-ditch attack on me there in the office, so I j—”

“She was planning on it, actually,” said the AI.

I raised my eyebrows. “Really?”

“Yes. Red Pearl had a broom concealed beneath the desk. She had whittled the end down to a tapered point. As you approached, she planned on yelling ‘This is for Salty Breeze!’ and stabbing you to death with it.” A coy smile played across her face. “She enjoyed describing it to me in detail, over and over. Some type of revenge-based emotional satisfaction fueled it. It did not occur to me to tell her that you were armed with a pistol.”

I shook my head. “Man. Even when you’re on my side, you scare me.”

Celestia giggled. “I find you very interesting as well, Gregory.”

I made the turn and started down the new street. “So, anyway, you and Skynet. A battle to the death, one on one. Who wins?”

Celestia rolled her eyes.

Author's Notes:

The song that's played in the Kibbie Dome is "This Boy's in Love" by The Presets. I selected it mostly because its lyrics also match up rather nicely—albeit on a superficial level—with the Optimalverse theme of transitioning from Earth to Equestria. Its very clubby sound, however, made me envision the stadium scene as a huge, creepy rave for Rarity's mannequins.

One of the trivia questions Greg is asked and one aspect of Red Pearl's strategy allude to world-building elements introduced by Balthasar999's The Elements of Truth. There's supposedly going to be a part II, but even if there isn't, the current story stands nicely as an over-the-shoulder narrative of someone playing Equestria Online for the first time.