Capture the spy

Aima sat in the corner as the voiced stopped talking. She brought a hoof to her chin and scratched it softly in thought.

'So it seems one of us is playing the cloak and dagger charade. Now what would our adversary achieve from our current premise? The voice stated there would be a myriad of pain for the individual who is unfortunate enough to be the scape goat, but I suspect there's more than that. Our foe wishes a particular harm on us and a simple pain isn't going to suffice. This facade has a fatal potential, I've got to be cautious.' she thought curiously.

Her cybernetic eye whirred softly in its socket as it began to adjust to the level of light in the dim room and Aima felt her heart drop into her stomach.

'He mentioned something regarding an ocular lock. If that's the case then given my prosthetic, I'm likely to be the public enemy.'

She sighed. Sitting around playing a guessing game would only result in complications. Aima stood up in place and cleared her throat.

"As many of us have figured out by now, we find ourselves in a harrowing game that might very well put our lives in danger. We can't afford to apprehend the incorrect individual and force them to suffer unjust consequences, so I propose we relax, let our minds rejuvenate, and get to know each other a little. If we're lucky we should be able to identify our mole with enough time. Allow me to begin, my name is Aima Anakti, and it's a pleasure to make most of your acquaintances." she said softly as she smiled to the confused ponies scattered along the steel room.

 

Aima stepped back from the curious pony in front of her, but was reminded of her situation by the wall she backed into.

"Quite the contrary my dear, it may be the sole reason that I'm here."

The purple mare held open her eyelid and softly tapped the fake eye underneath. It looked strikingly similar to her biological eye, yet the retina and pupil were drastically different. The retina shared the cerulean blue of her real eye, but held a unique red glow as it maintained a dully lit broken ring of light paired with a pupil composed of similar light.

"Fascinating is it not? I'm employed at the Manehatten hospital's surgical wing and used to find myself short an eye. The lack of depth perception started to interfere with my work so I began collaborating with some of my coworkers to help develop a new breed of cybernetic prosthetics."

She tapped pointed her hoof at her eye once more

"This was the result." she looked off at the other ponies.

"Which reminds me, I haven't caught the rest of your names."

 

Shining Shield listened as the voice talked to everypony collectively. He didn't quite remember how he'd gotten here, but right now that information was probably irrelevant anyways. So, the pony behind this voice is just toying with us? Well, well. Typical mistake to be made by one with the mental instability indicated by this kind of twisted game. If he wanted to cause us pain, he shouldn't have given us a chance to escape it. He gazed around at the other ponies sharing the room with him. Any feelings he might have had were hidden behind his default facial expression; an unintentional poker face, of sorts. He knew that this would be a problem, as his unintended aura of indifference would likely attract negative attention from ponies looking to accuse, but while he had at least a basic knowledge of Psycology, social interaction was not his forte, and he was likely to make himself even more suspicious if he made a clumsy attempt at appearing innocent.

His attention was drawn to the mare named Aima. She seemed to have a substantial vocabulary, and also appeared to be highly intelligent. Her cybernetic eye, he observed, was likely to turn other ponies' subconcious against her, however, as ponies were naturally suspicious of things that they knew little about. He hoped, nonetheless, that she was on his side. Her intelligence would be formidable indeed, no matter what her allegiance.

Another pony, this one named Teddy, walked up to her and waved his hoof in her face rather rudely. This one, thought Shield, did not seem unnaturally hyperintelligent, but he did seem to have some common sense. He also seemed reasonably honest, though you could never be sure when you have been observing people for only a few seconds. He mentally kicked himself for making so many assumptions. Theories are acceptable, assumptions are not. Base your analysis on the facts! he rebuked.

Nopony else had really said anything that could be taken one way or the other, in his opinion, so he decided now would be a good time to introduce himself. Assuming an incredibly neutral persona, he approached Teddy and Aima and spoke. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Shining Shield, but please, just call me Shield."

 

"Oh, uh..." Shield stumbled over his words. He hadn't expected anypony to be this direct; well, that was what he got for introducing himself. "Well, not really. It's mere guesswork, at the moment. There is not really enough evidence at this early stage of interaction to correctly determine the infiltrator."

 

Aima raised an eyebrow as Teddy hit her with a volley of questions.

"In sort of circumstance would I ever require missiles for?" she began, but turned around and observed her surroundings once more and became defeated by her own question as she hung her head slightly.

"Im terribly afraid I'm not optimally suited for our current situation. The most I'd be able to do is remove my eye to see what trap our host has in store for us, but all it would achieve is a slight of knowledge and a cavalcade of torment at my expense."

 

Aima looked over at the scanner and grimaced.

"I'd suggest we don't go fiddling with the unknown. For all we know it could be booby trapped, I doubt our kidnapper will have made his technology easy to manipulate."

Teddy's previous statement came back to her mind.

"I'd only maintain eyesight if I avoid severing the nerve links that are connected to the base of the cybernetics, but yes, if I'm careful I can remove my eye from it's socket and look around still. The problem with that however is that the nerve endings don't reach far and might only give me an inch at most."

Aima began to trot around the room slowly.

"Come on, let us gather information to smoke out our mole."

 

Shield spoke up. "Um, excuse me?" he said tentatively. "Sorry to interrupt, but unfortunately I have to agree with Aima. That is a sensible, natural approach, which means that it is easy to anticipate. I would be willing to bet that our host has a nasty trap set for anyone bold enough to try that... but, if we run out of options... well, that might not be a bad idea."

He continued to sit and observe, which was his preferred method of gathering information. This way, he could learn twice as much as if he interviewed everypony personally, because he could observe a conversation between two ponies rather than learning about one at a time. Also, once more, social interaction was not his strong suit. He preferred to speak only if he had something to contribute or if he needed to steer a conversation in a certain direction in order to gather more information.

 

"Hello my Comrades im Cal Bulguarin and im not very sure whats going on here but what i can say how are we to get out of this trap our mysterious friend put us in.

 

Aima began to pace silently as she took a metal note of the information.

"Excellent, we're making progress. I have a hunch that the menial details are the key to unveiling our mystery."

She sat in the middle of the floor for a moment and blew a dust bunny across the dirty floor.

"I resided in Manehatten during my youth. To be honest though I never really departed, I've called that establishment home for as far back as my memory spans. As a filly I had a bit of an anger issue, in fact that's the reason I'm missing an eye. From what I can remember there was this brute on the playground during recess who insulted me in a way that bore deep. I lashed out at him in a fit of rage and things became exuberant quickly. To keep things short, it all climaxed when I took a horn through my eye..."

She paused for a moment and cupped her hoof around her prosthetic.

"After that I migrated from school to school until I learned to keep a steady hold on my temperment. Now though, I find employment as a surgeon in Manehatten Memorial Hospital as I've said before and in fact only recently had this appliance installed." she said softly as the cybernetic whirred softly when she removed her hoof.

She turned slowly to pony who had been in deep thought for a while.

"What's your story?"

 

Shield blinked in surprise. He wasn't used to being directly addressed. "Well," he began slowly, "I can't tell you how I got here, because I don't really remember. But, other than that..." he took a deep breath. He wan't really comfortable sharing personal information of any sort; he was more accustomed to collecting it.

"I was born in Canterlot. My mother and father were...what you may call the "snobby rich" sort. I was fortunate enough, however, to be saved from a life of meaningless drivel when they sent me to a private school in Las Pegasus. I wasn't a particularly strong pony, in fact I still am not, and the school was rough, despite the fact that it was private. I quickly learned to defend myself using magic, which is how I got this," he said, gesturing to his cutie mark, a silver kite shield. "However, just because some of the other students were brainless stallions with nothing better to do then buck other stallions in the face did not mean it was a bad school. I recieved an exceptional education, and I worked as an inventor, I suppose, although I would also fix things that were broken. I lived in Ponyville, since my parents and I don't really get along very well, but it was a reasonably happy existence," he said. Although there was not a noticeable change in his expression, everypony was thinking the same thing as him: If they didn't get out of this, they wouldn't be going back to those lives, however happy or unhappy they were.

He exhaled. Thank Celestia that was over with.

 

"since no one has be called on i'll go next"
"where to begin hmmm. ah i was born in stalliongrad which accounts for my russian accent anyway me and my family grew up without a home on the street we almost froze to death every night i was home schooled by my parents then the one thankful day i hold dear we moved to ponyville me and my family were so happy to be rid of the cold and happy to be in the sun then in my years as a teen i meet my special girl Kiki we've dated ever since the day we met then a few days after we met i learned how to DJ on a turntable i got when i was 16 thats how i got my cutie mark and my nickname now i think everypony is wondering where i am"