Celestia's Finest: Sunshine for Days

[Elbeyon]

Love raises a hoof to Rose. "Rose is our on-site expert with the devices. It'll take time, but she can search a pony for the devices without too much trouble. She could do a much better job of explaining the details."

"My, our, friend was the victim of one of these devices. She was out of our sight for minutes, and that was enough time for the device to be implanted. Her capture had gone undetected by all her closest friends and family. They were none the wiser, and neither was she for that fact. She didn't even know what she was doing or remember doing it. It was a difficult situation for everypony, but Rose here found and removed the device."

Love looks to Rose to ask her to continue.

[DigoDragon]

"Forgive us if this is too forward, but we would like to test you and your family in case the cpi has infiltrated this station. Believe me when I say that you do not want one of these chips in you."

[Elbeyon]

Love adds, "It only takes a moment to check a pony. I've had it done to me. The process is harmless."

[D.KnightSpider]

Sniper internally winced, but said nothing. He kept his face neutral.

Had Rose and Love just over reached in the conversation?

Spoiler: OoC Roll

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Body Language:
(3d6)[4][2][5](11) VS 14

Detect Lies:
(3d6)[5][6][5](16) VS 13

[Miltonian]

Night Skye visibly tenses. "This place is self-sufficient. Nopony's come or gone for months, save you. And I'm not comfortable letting you poke around at my family with stuff that I don't know isn't harmful, except that you told me it's not."

[D.KnightSpider]

"That's an entirely understandable position." Sniper interjected. "One that I can appreciate and would be concerned if you didn't hold.

"Your word is good enough for us in this matter. We won't press the issue any further and instead look forward to earning your continued trust in the future."

He snap-fired a pointed look at Love and Rose that clearly said: Right?

[DigoDragon]

"Alright. Just be careful then if anyone sympathetic to the CPI or on behalf of a bat pony named Hyper Thought shows up." Rose says.

[Elbeyon]

Love grabs and rubs the back of her mane and tries to chuckle. "Yeah."

[DigoDragon]

Rose puts the chip away. "What kind of defense do you have at the station here? Do you have a panic room?"

[Miltonian]

"I appreciate your understanding," Night Skye says with a nod.

"Again, that's not something we tell to visitors, friendly or otherwise."

[D.KnightSpider]

Sniper attempted to explain and smooth over the situation. "For what it's worth, Love already alluded to the situation, but to provide more context: Hyper Thought perfected his brainwashing techniques in Equestria and tested them on a friend of mine named Ruby Red. He attempted to use Ruby as a spy. We found the Control Chip in her and disabled it before any harm was done, but when the issue of brainwashing comes up, well, we take it personally."

Time to get things back on track.

"We appreciate your willingness to hear us out and we'll pass along anything else we learn or discover. Forewarned is forearmed and that may be enough to save some lives out here."

Sniper looked to the others.

"I don't believe we had anything else to share?"

[DigoDragon]

"I don't think so. Just be alert, for I'm sure once the CPI figures out who we are they'll start looking for anyone who worked with us. We'll do everything to ensure the heat stays on us however."

[Miltonian]

Night Skye chuckles. "There's always some bandit king, upstart mayor, or random mare who wants to blow us off the map. That's nothing new."

"Now..." He looks between the five of them. "I believe that there was some talk of music?"

[DigoDragon]

Rose pulls up her cell phone and cues up some ZZTrot. "Ad a token of good will, we'd like to find a way of getting some of these jsms to you for your collection. We just have to work out the tech barrier."

[Miltonian]

He nods, listening to the music and smiling. "Well, some new tunes would be much appreciated. I guess I could let you have a go at it."

Star nudges Love. "That's your cue."

[Elbeyon]

"Ahem. Right." She puts down all the 'evidence' and packs away the stuff.

She chuckles. "Let's try to stick to public domain songs, Rose?"

His radio station is his baby, so she asks permission before she starts working. She motions toward his soundboard and asks, "Would it be alright if set up a channel/input into your audio console?" She is ready to move her hoofs. A few tools in her hooves always felt like heaven. "I'd be happy to show you how to switch between songs. You wouldn't be the first pony I've taught today." Love motions for Rose's phone, but she has her own phone if Rose isn't ready to make that sort of sacrifice.

[DigoDragon]

She chuckles. "Let's try to stick to public domain songs, Rose?".

"Lots of luck with that."

Rose hands over her phone, but it's probably got very few public domain songs in it. Maybe a few of the Weird Ewe Yankovic songs?

[Elbeyon]

"We can mix collections."

[D.KnightSpider]

Yet another headshake escaped Sniper Scope. They were battling aliens for the fate of Equestria and getting hung up on digital piracy.

"I doubt copyright law has any jurisdiction or authority out here." He observed.

[Miltonian]

Night Skye chuckles. "Well, if you don't mind Shadow looking over your shoulder the whole time you work and making sure you don't break anything important, then you're welcome to try an' sync up our systems."

Speaking of Shadow, he chooses that moment to return. Perhaps he was waiting at the door for his name to be called or something. With him comes fresh, cool water.

[Elbeyon]

"I don't want any lawsuits on my hooves. That's just asking for trouble."

Love will take a cup of water from Shadow, but she doesn't drink. "Thank you."

"It'll be my pleasure working with Shadow. I look forward to his guidance." She re-introduces herself to him. "Name's Love. This is Star." She motions to her. "How about we head into the other room and get to work? We're going to be trying to sync up our systems." She smirks. She motions for him to lead the way since he doesn't seem the talkative sort.

[Miltonian]

Shadow grins and nods. He seems gregarious and friendly, very open, which makes his silence a bit strange. But he's all too happy to lead Love back to the server room. Well, this is tech she hasn't seen in a long, long time. Even the few instances where she would have laid her eyes on it before, it was never this well maintained and functioning. He sits down on a stool and waits for Love to get to work.

[Elbeyon]

As he is leading the way, Love will mark him for a SCAN. She doesn't expect anything out of the ordinary, but she should get a couple free glances at him to move the process along. It'd be a waste not to use Twilight's gift, really. The glass of water is set off to the side. She's going to keep her helmet on for now too.

Right. The main business. She'll try to keep most of her work contained within the phone to put Shadow and his family at ease, but she will need their systems eventually. She takes out her tools and starts working. "Here, get closer. You should get a real good look at what I'm doing."

Half a minute into the process, she asks with some charm. "No need to be quiet. Am I the first stranger you've seen in a while?"

[DigoDragon]

Rose jots down some notes from the meeting, using aliases as she waits for Love to sync the music stuff.

[D.KnightSpider]

The universe must have hiccuped. Sniper could have sworn he'd just advocated bypassing procedure while Love became a stickler for following the rules.

Must have been his imagination.

With the other three gone, Sniper turned back to Night Skye.

"If you don't mind my picking your brain, what's your take on Powder Keg's angle?"

[Miltonian]

"Shadow Skye, age 11. Biology is in line with what information has been gathered on the Wastelanders, with one exception. Vocal cords appear to be non-functional."

Shadow scoots close to get a good view but looks askance at Love's suggestion that he talk. He opens his mouth wide and points to it. A little gurgle comes out.

--------

Night Skye chuckles. "Oh, she's playing you. She's definitely playing you. Her gang gets wiped out? She goes to the ponies that can kill the ones who wasted them. She'll play nice right up till when the CPI is destroyed. Then, she'll turn her back on you. Probably won't betray you or try to kill you. But I bet if you managed to strip away whatever front she's put up, you'll find nothing but burning hatred underneath."

[Elbeyon]

Love puts her hoof on the back of her mane and laughs. "I stepped right into that one. Didn't I?"

Though her armor is transparent, she takes the helmet off and hooks it on her hip. A touch to her horn. "No pony has everything. How about I keep an eye on you, and you give me signals for yes, no, or you're asking too complicated a question Love! I'll let you surprise me with what the third one looks like." She gives him a big warm smile. "How does that sound?"

"I'm going to hug you now unless you signal in the negative" She gives him a smile and if allowed tries to wrap him up in a hug.

[Miltonian]

He accepts the hug with a smile. And then, as Love turns towards her work.

Spoiler

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Rolling time!

[D.KnightSpider]

"That's in line with my expectation." Sniper admitted. "A pony doesn't lose her racist edge overnight."

Stripping of the facade might handle itself when they rescued Question Mark. QM might feel a bit differently about accepting Powder Keg than the rest of the EDF.

"Have you heard anything about the CPI invoking child labor?"

[Miltonian]

"Can't rightly say I have," Night Skye replies, "Though I wouldn't put it past them. They've checked pretty much every other crime imaginable off their list. Why not that one too?"