Catalyst 2.0: Waiting

>You run your hoof along the thick, deep rug.  The color of ocean water, you feel like you could sink in at any time.  Wispy patterns of white draw across it in thin, smooth lines that end in spiral curls.
>The sliding glass door to your side streams in diamond patterned columns of light.  You'd drawn them down, once morning had become annoying for your sleepy eyes.  It was easy to sleep, too, with the kind of decadent material Rarity had made for her sheets in your absence.
>You sat on that familiar, smoothly cushioned couch.  Right where she'd first-
>NOPE.  No.  Bad brain.  Idle hooves are the devils...
>Wait, you think. How would that even work without fingers?
>Channel after channel, show after show.  You flick through varying bits of time-filler upon the high-def screen.  Pony sports, a cheesy horror flick with a pony with a chainsaw for one hoof in a wood cabin fighting undead parasprites, and commercials about soft drinks.
>Even ponies had nothing on television.
>Click.  Click, click.
>It felt clumsy to use the remote like you were. It was, however, good practice for using your hooves as a precision poking instrument.  It also reminded you, that you never did ask Twilight how the heck they actually worked.
>Whatever. If it wasn't broke...
>Though, the days you had spent “with” Rarity had grown rather monotonous.  She was always doing something. In meetings with representatives from other companies.  Off in her sketch room. Setting up a long-distance interactive display for clients in her sealed showroom. Tending to Sweet Heart's room, making sure everything was neat and tidy- as it always was with her.

>You didn't want to bring it up, but you rather missed her.  Even though she was right there, each night, snoozing peacefully besides you with that adorable, barely there squeak-snore she absolutely refused to admit having.  Having a beautiful, busy woman around certainly had it's share of ups and downs.
>THAT busy though? Sheesh.
>Even Sweet Heart was gone much of the day.  Off to some kind of esoteric educational program she was only keen on talking about when you were around.  You wanted to take it with her, sometimes, even though it was aimed at intellectual fifth-graders.
>Pony history was goddamn fascinating.  You'd taken to watching the history channel during the interim, but as it was a Sunday, they were only airing reruns about the creation of the neural uplink.
>Wierd, wired shit that was.  Too bad that you knew, firsthand, how obsolete and inaccurate all of the information was.
>Pinkie shared your sentiment, it seemed.  She'd bounce about, readily, for about an hour after waking.  Then she'd get bored and involve herself on the home computer, munching away at homemade snack until Sweet Heart and Rarity returned.
>Then.  Hoo, boy. Then it was a fight for attention.
>Between you, Pinkie, and Sweet Heart, it never ceased to be jovial little verbal contest. Most of the time, though, you had nothing to contribute besides what you'd watched on that history channel.  Ask a few questions, get a few answers.  Pinkie almost always won, in that respect.
>Rarity was always mare of the hour, when she returned home.  When you lost out on the time she did have, you took to playing with Sweet Heart. She did, after all, take more after you than her mother.  It made the transition of being a father seem more like that of being a friend, even if you had to temper your language and intensity around her.

>Her favorite spot was as your hat.  She used your ears for steering, while you did things around the penthouse.  Occasionally you'd transfer transport duty between Pinkie and yourself, and Pinkie's mane really did look more comfortable in that regard.
>Then you discovered pony video games.  Holy hell, were you bad at pony video games with those hooves.
>It was the only time so far you sincerely regretted the isolation collar.
>”Hey Pinkie, what channel are you on?”
>”I unno.” she said, mouth half full of grass.  “What provider does Rarity carry?”
>”I unno.” You replied.
>When you did manage to locate her show, it was more for the sheer, unbridled odd contained therein.  You recalled having some old episodes of Pee-Wee's playhouse on your smartphone when you'd arrived in Equestria- you assumed that's where she'd gotten her own idea for Pinkie's Playhouse.
>Filled to the brim with entertainment news, interactions, and spoiled pony celebrities, it was wrapped in that springy candy shell that you swore Pinkie was made from.  Between snippets of the watered down news, she'd wander the house full of mascots that represented each brand she dealt with.  The closet with eyes that held fashion news, that ate guest ponies and spit them out in new, “fresh” clothing.  The talking game console that would insert crystal cartridges into it's forehead and project the results on screen in the form of Pinkie reviewing it.
>The best part was the trivia she injected to it, though.  “Oh, I remember that scene. We had to do like fifty takes because the new camera guy kept giggling at a dirty joke about Hoity Toity being in Mr. Closet.  Yeah, he refuses to come back on the show now.”
>It had been almost three days, though.  In, out. Eat, play, sleep.

>If this was to be that calm, happy life you'd wanted, you were going to need some kind of hobby.
>Sweet Heart was such a well-behaved, well-meaning girl, it didn't feel like time was being wasted with her.  She almost took care of herself.  Pinkie smoothed out whatever rough edges there were, jumping on the chance to keep things fun and focused away from the potential for chaos.
>Hell, it even occasionally gave you more time with Rarity.  That, there, was something you were always grateful for.  Whenever you didn't get it, somehow, you felt as if cheated.
>you knew, though, that she was feeling the same way.  Rarity always stopped what she was doing when she saw you for the first time during the day, nuzzling kindly up to you until you were both warm.  You hoped she'd make time, at some point...
>You pause at a newscast.  You hated them.  Never anything positive on.
>Today, there had been a beating.  A couple of ponies had confronted a wandering griffon tourist, accusing her of being a terrorist sympathizer.  Apparently, she'd beaten the ever-loving crap out of them, leaving them for dead in the alleyway.
>It was why you hated the newscasts.  They reminded you that you had been a place unearned, seemingly above all those other ponies, merely by virtue of the connections you'd made in your friendships.  Though, on some level, having the illusion of comfortable safety broken was something welcome.
>This particular newscast had you wondering, though.
>Why did it seem familiar?
>It wasn't just because it was a griffon... Right?
>You sigh.  Whatever, you thought.  Back to Pinkie's Playhouse.

>You check the time.  It would be at least three hours before Rarity would venture out to gather Sweet Heart up from school.  You'd taken to going along to pick her up; the other students and teachers seemed fascinated by you, for some reason.
>Rarity had wanted to avoid it, of course, and who could blame her?  She'd given you little lines to feed them. “I'm just an Old soldier that had to get a lot of parts replaced before the panacea ban.”   Yeah, that one was your favorite.
>Despite what you had done in the past- or, perhaps, because of it- she said they would not trust you.  Sweet Heart had apparently not said a word, and kept to herself.
>She really was smarter than her size projected.
>Even in the past few days, though, you'd come to realize you wanted something different.  Something more intense, perhaps.
>It stemmed from the idea  that you felt you were doing something wrong.
>Worst of all, though, was the thought you kept pushing out of your head and Rarity always tried to console.  A sliver of worry, of rash fear, causing your head to ache.
>It was the unshakable sensation that you were waiting for something.
>And sitting on your haunches like this, was allowing it to catch up.
–

>Twilight awoke from the desk with a start.  Feeling the cool metal on her cheek, she inhaled deeply, and sighed.  The rest of her felt warm.  Placid.  Fuzzy.
>She leaned back, staring at the screen before her.  The blanket she had upon her spilled from her neck, and she instinctively took to gathering it back up to cocoon herself within.  When she was a bundle of comfortable violet, her nose and horn sticking out of a wad of white fleece, she took to wondering where the blanket had actually come from.
>It had a distinct scent.  A little spicy, perhaps.  Pleasant, but exotic.
>Oh.  It was Spike's.
>She took to smiling a little.  Ever since she'd gotten there, it had felt like she was a little sister.  This had been the second time that she'd fallen asleep at the guest console; the first had been, of course, thanks to the law of Entropy.  Right when she'd needed to renew her authority key at the security desk.
>Spike, however, had intervened.  She'd woken up with a fresh key, and two extra days.  After a one-sentence lecture on his part, she'd taken to rejecting the energy drinks in lieu of the sheer use of willpower.  Gods, how things had changed.
>The sleep, though, did give her the robust thoughts she needed.  At least, when it wore off.
>She oogled the screen.  It was stuck on the visual loop of a newscast- a stifled report on the uplink virus.  She'd been in the middle of watching the progress bar on a data siphon, when she'd lost her will to remain awake.
>A large, scaled, purple claw pinched a comparatively tiny mug between a pair of talons.  It lowered the steaming cup of tea next to her, and lifted away.  She floated it over, not wanting to move from her situational fleece armoring, and sipped.
>Hot, green tea.  Nothing added.  He hadn't forgotten.

>Twilight tilted her head back to look upward.  The walls of grimiores seemed to extend endlessly upward, into a darkness her eyes could not reasonably fathom.  In it, twinkled the HDD access lights upon grimoires as they were perused, loaded into, or downloaded from.
>All that information, all that knowledge, and she was sitting there with a newscast on a computer virus, accessed from an inquiry.  She could've done that from home.  Why had she even bothered putting herself through this?
>Spike peered in from overhead.  He looked down with a grin on that massive face, teeth glittering. “You know, you look lazy.  You're never lazy.”
>”Oh shut up.” she replied, with a snerk. “Coming from a dragon, that's just... Ugh.”  She leaned forward, starting to read the textual details of the news.  A sister blurb had come up, dated earlier than the current cast. she was content to leave the first file alone for now, to digest the previous information beforehand.  After all, future details rarely made sense without the first.
>The path to knowledge was long and winding.
>”Did you find anything?” she asked Spike.
>His emerald eyes peered off screen.  “A few things. I gathered all of what was reported by the PNN within the first few hours.  I've been tracing sources.”
>”Are they solid?”
>”It's a lot of third party stuff.  Tracking through them has been more difficult, but so far, three of the five have lead back to a single Company.”
>”The other two?”
>”Incomplete traces so far.  A lot of names, but they work for the same company.”
>”Which is?”
>He rumbled. “LunaCorp.”
>She grunted, taking a wide gulp of tea. It burned, but it was a good pain.  “Son of a...”

>”I don't like it Twilight.  It's somep0ny bigger than you are.  A lot bigger.”
>”She's not above the scrutiny of her subjects.”
>”Neither are you.”
>Twilight frowned.
>”You might be pushing too hard, Twilight.  Everything I've found says that things were resolved.  Maybe it's so hard to find because it's mundane.”
>”No, Spike.  Luna's got some of the most cagey data servers ever made.”  She started to read the “new” newscast: “Pony Partygoer leaps to death- Perception altering computer virus blamed for outburst and suicide.”
>Bingo.  A LunaCorp. Dance club, one of several on record...
>Wait.  It was local.  Not more than four blocks from Twilight Tower.
>How had she missed this?
>”I know, but...”  He rested on all four legs, his movement appearing slow and heavy.  He turned, dragging his white robe along the perfect metal floor.  “Nop0ny saw it for themselves.  Nop0ny on record.  The whole district you said he was in, was abandoned right after the second scorching.”
>”I know the pony that saw it.  But he's not talking, so that's why I'm here.”
>”Twilight,” he said.  He was trying to verbally crowbar her away from the console, the large, winged beast retreating to his own.  “Maybe you should just let it be.”
>”Spike, No.  What he did and what I've seen makes for some very dangerous stuff.  It's like a damned tumor, and it's going to cause a lot of... Ill... ness?”  She trailed off.
>It had been the first time she'd thought of it.  Was the outbreak related?
>She checked the date on the file she was reading.  “Oh my gosh... Spike, look at this.”  She rested the empty mug on the console.  She'd been so preoccupied, she downed the whole thing already.  It's effects on her emtpy stomach had started to make her feel faintly sick.  “It's the day before he showed up.”

>She started to read the data, more readily absorbing it's details.
>The Blue Moon, a standard recreational floor inside the LunaCorp. Ponyville division.  A pony was infected with the infamous “High Jack” virus, something distributed through synthesized narcotics.  Made from the old stocks of obsolete, discarded panacea, it was thought to be delivered by the modified auto-diagnoses chip on the syringe while using the Panacea diluted with a stimulant. It adapted to the users body and dynamically altered it's dosage, meaning it could be used steadily without any fear of a lethal overdose.  If the user tried, it lingered, forming boils on the users flesh.
>It earned it's name for causing hallucinations in the users augmented reality.  Sound, sight, touch, taste.  Altered dreams.
>Bingo.
>Spike perused it from behind her blanketed shoulder.  He read just as quickly as she did, likely having learned how in his years alone with so much information.
>She started to search names in another window.  References passed, and her eyes shivered back and forth while she read.  All of them LunaCorp. Employees, the fatality listed was a known drug addict and poor performer in the company secretarial department.  There were a dozen or so injuries, most of them already treated and released.
>Two names stuck out.  They made Twilight curse.
>”What's wrong, Twilight?” Spike asked. He sniffed at the name screen, looking back at her with a curious glance.  His eye was the size of her hoof.
>”Vinyl.   That BITCH.”
>”I thought you said she-”
>”She DID.  This is how she got a hold of him.  Damnit, I was so focused on getting him active again I didn't even...”  She had a target, then.  One so obvious she wanted to kick herself in the teeth.  “What about the terrorist attacks? What were the dates?”

>He looked toward the podium.  A data file pinged into Twilight's AR.
>She started to read.  Then, she back-traced the dates of the first known outbreak of the virus.  She twitched where she sat, putting her hooves to the side of her head and screaming.
>Spike lofted a brow.
>”He said he was using stimulants on the operation.  The time the virus outbreak started was when he was on the field- He was there when the whole thing started!”  She slammed down on the console, causing the holograms to temporarily fuzz.  “Chrysalis.  She must have corrupted the LunaCorp. Stocks before they were shipped back to the city for destruction.  The druggies must have gotten some during transport.”
>”But, nop9ny else knows what happened Twilight. If you literally can't get it out of him, what can you even try to do to help?”
>Her lower jaw stuck out while she shifted the file out of the way, and she exhaled through her nose.  “No.  Luna knows.” she said.  She tried to sound aggressive in the approach of the name, but her voice didn't lie.
>”You can't go after her with this.  She'd destroy your credibility.  I mean, they all blame the griffons for it, and she even let out the visuals showing them setting up the bombs on the tower.”

>”He was part of the griffon deployment she'd hired. Of course she'd have the data.”  She'd be able to spin it how she'd wanted, to boot.  That she already expected, but how could nop0ny notice the correlation?  “Wait, what about them? The griffons?”
>”Uh, It coincided with the data you had. The released contract files I found said all but one was dead.”
>”Gilda.”
>”Yeah, but... Do you really think she'll even say anything?  To you, of all ponies?”
>”No, but it won't be me asking.  We'll have HIM ask.” she glanced at the sister file. It was apparently about a secondary incident, near the “landing point” of the first suicide.  “We just need to find her, then piss her off enough to show-”
>Ponyville Beatdown-  Griffon tourist beats two stallions to near death next to Ponyville's Blue Moon Club. Security cameras identify culprit.
>Twilight squinted at the mugshot.  The file was hours old.
>Well, it looked like the makeshift plan had already solved itself.
>”Spike, I need a favor. How fast can you fly?”
–