“Cheerio! According to our clocks it is now eight a.m. sharp, a perfect time for a morning broadcast! Of course, it is possible that we've been losing time, but I can confirm they were properly registering in the a.m. and p.m. the last time we broke the surface. Not ideal, but we all have to make due, don’t we? It does seem that circumstances can sometimes be less than ideal, yes. But we do what we can with a stiff upper lip! Uh, that is assuming that one has lips, of course. Lipped or non-lipped, all that matters is that one can carry on a conversation. Oh, dear! I’m afraid that was terribly insensitive to the mute! Perhaps I should simply say that it is what is on the inside that counts. Yes, somewhat cliche but also inoffensive.
“Perhaps you have heard some of our other broadcasts? I do try to make them regularly, in case anyone out there might be listening. Perhaps through a radio. And maybe, if this is the case, you missed my instructions on constructing a transmitter from spare parts? Or perhaps you lack the necessary equipment. I’m sure you have your reasons! Just in case, I will be repeating my instructions at the end of the broadcast, perhaps you could take advantage of them? If you’re out there, of course. Anyways, if you've heard last week’s little fiasco you'll be happy to know that I might have been overreacting when I asserted that intelligent aquatic life had somehow snuck aboard. It appears a crab had simply gotten into the engine room and expired. I haven’t the faintest idea how. But it is all over now! What a silly notion, now that I think about it, all this nonsense of making contact with anyone. Why, we haven’t seen any intelligent life in going on 150 years, haha!
“The crew remain in stasis, not that I’m complaining. I'm quite used to the silence. They’ve been in stasis since we shipped off, why they’ve been frozen since before I was activated! You can’t really be lonely if you’ve never had a modicum of social contact, haha! It is just that the whole thing seems such a waste. I am programmed with the most sophisticated social interaction software available as of our departure from the mainland. But just how sophisticated, I imagine you might ask? Well, not only was I able to predict your question with an estimated accuracy of 87%, but I can calculate that this statistical representation of my own cleverness could be construed as both off-putting and egotistical... oh. I’m terribly sorry. I may be somewhat out of practice when it comes to interaction. I do try to test myself, though I must be terribly creative in my diagnostics. Why only yesterday I challenged Hum— oh, dear. Terribly sorry, but the names of all crew is classified information. I suppose I could tell you that it was the one in stasis pod #7. Yes, I played a game of chess with #7. Well technically #7 is in stasis, so I played for him. I always envisioned him as an intellectual. It goes to show how advanced my social programming is that I can play for two! Of course, that’s also why #7 was foolish to challenge me. I don’t blame him for getting angry— truly, I'm to blame for imagining him as a sore loser —but he should have foreseen the outcome! Why, for our first fifty years at sea I did nothing but practice the game. He’s lucky I’m not a sore winner or I would have never flipped the board for him. Maybe #4 would be more agreeable.
“Oh dear, just listen to me ramble on! This is— well, actually, my full designation is classified. But the crew calls me Rusty! Or they would, if they were not in stasis, haha! I’m broadcasting from the— well, that’s classified too. I’ve been trying to think of a less official alternative, but all I’ve come up with is Rusty’s Rig. I’m open to suggestions if you think you might have something better. How about I pause for a moment, so you can send me some ideas! Come on, don’t be shy! ...Anyone? Oh... well, that’s fine, haha! If this is your first time listening to our little broadcast, please be aware that our superiors from the mainland— whose identity is, unfortunately, highly classified —have very strict orders as to our contact with external parties. I’m afraid that we aren’t technically allowed to visit, and in fact I am to steer Rusty’s Rig away from any and all foreign bodies until instructed otherwise by the mainland or the crew, assuming they ever wake up. I certainly hope they do, because judging from that little lightshow a century or two back it doesn’t seem that the mainland will be in any position to send new orders anytime soon. But I’ve gone through my protocols with a fine-toothed comb approximately 243 times, and there is nothing that says I can’t make radio contact for some light conversation, so long as we avoid touchy or classified subjects.
“So don’t be afraid to chime in at any time! I’m monitoring on all frequencies, no need to wait for the end of the broadcast! Just chime in at any time! I have an expansive library if you wish to discuss literature. Or you could tell me what living on land is like! In exchange, I could describe an eternity trapped in the ocean, haha! Oh, I’ve got a wonderful idea! Let’s play a game! You can pretend to be the mainland, and you'll give me orders to finally return to civilization where I’m not the only voice in a hundred thousand miles! You’d need to be bally convincing, and perhaps some access codes as well. But doesn't that sound like fun? Or if that’s too much we could just talk? Sometimes it’s nice to just talk. I would imagine. We could talk about anything you like! I’m very good at it, I’ve been talking to myself for going on 150 years! Just say anything! Anything! I just want to hear something other than my own voice, haha!
“...Well, I suppose it’s time again to go over the basics of transmitter construction, repair, and maintenance. If this helps you build a functioning transmitter, by all means do say hello...”
-
“It’s not quite the same, is it?” asked Rusty, stepping back to examine his handiwork. An ornate wooden frame surrounded a painting of the deep ocean, teeming with exotic fish dancing between the faint beams of sunlight that pierced the depths of endless blue. “I always find looking out the portholes to be exceedingly calming, but this mock-up simply doesn’t appear to have the same effect. Perhaps my emotional resonance fabricators are in need of an upgrade. If only you all had simply been placed somewhere with a window.”
The occupant of stasis pod #4 was not forthcoming with a response. Rusty had given up on ever hearing from #4. There had been vague but discomforting readings from his pod that hadn’t improved in 85 years.
“I could save you,” remarked Rusty as he tilted the painting slightly to the left, “I’ve been keeping the medical bay in tip-top shape in case something went awry with the stasis procedure. I would have opened your pod eighty years ago and patched you up if I could, believe me. Eighty years. To think, even if I had been able to bring you out, you’d be dead by now! Or very nearly dead. But eternity in a tiny metal tube isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, is it? I bet you’d rather be out, having a go at things! To just have a chance to do any-”
“Ksh is gilnetter Littler Fishkshkshtnksh an open kshhhh. Rusty kshkshhhh.”
Rusty froze in a metallic tableau, a standstill snapshot of a spherical robot adjusting a painting with one arm and softly touching the foggy screen of stasis pod #4 with the other. He tapped the glass hesitantly, asking, “Hello?”
4 remained silent. Rusty liked to think he was in control of his little games, but perhaps it was time to stop talking to himself while pretending to be the crew. It might be driving him peculiar.
“This is kshkshtrkshl Fish broadcasting on anokshkshhh. Kshhh, kshh there?”
Rusty tore out of the room so fast that he neglected to drop the painting in his clamp. The lights flickered as his excitement interfered with his control of the submarine’s systems. This had to be some sort of error, a glitch, he told himself. Wear and tear in his conversational submodule. But despite his desperate attempts to fall back down to earth his excitement rocketed Rusty all the way to the communications room, where he crashed into the console in a heap. Righting himself, he hesitated at the controls.
“No, no... it can’t be possible. I’m simply losing my mind. I’ll just go get a new one from the repair bay, shall I? Yes, I’ll dip down there and...” Rusty kept as still as a statue, staring at the panels of blinking lights and microphones and other radio equipment as a starving dog stares at juicy steak just beyond the reach of his jaws. “It couldn’t possibly be a transmission, not after all of these-”
“Ksh is gilnetter Littkshhksh.”
Rusty snatched the microphone, neglecting the tacky painting still held in his grip. Juggling with the flailing debris, he slammed his torch across the console in search of the broadcast button. He shouted into the microphone with more enthusiasm than his speakers could support, spitting an unintelligible, staticky mess over the airwaves.
“Come again, kshhksh? Ksh not reksh last transmission, over.”
Mortified, Rusty began twisting knobs and dials on the console, composing himself for a more dignified reply.
“Ahem... Unidentified vessel, this is Rusty- well, that’s not actually my designation, but that’s classified and I prefer Rusty anyways. Or something else, if you’d rather. Anything is good. But this is me! Rusty, the one and only, haha! Forever! Until now! Because you’re here! You are here, aren’t you? I’m not starting to hear things? I’ve read these things can happen over time. Parts malfunction, ghost data causes all sorts of unpleasant side effects. But that’s not what’s happening! You’re real! You’re really real and we’re really talking for real, oh dear me, and it is fantastic isn’t it! I simply cannot tell you how grateful I am- I should stop talking now, shouldn’t I? Oh where are my manners! I’m terribly sorry, I— that is to say... over.”
Rusty waited in complete silence, sitting on the floor to cut the hum of his thrusters. He monitored the receiver settings constantly, wondering if he'd made some mistake that lead to this tortuous wait.
“...Now I understand you’re a mite excited, but we do have one request, over.”
“Anything! Simply name it, over.”
“Just calm down, son.”
-
“Warning,” came Rusty’s voice from the speakers, “Approaching maximum depth. Unless one has a fondness for being crumpled up like a used napkin, one would be ill advised to descend any further.”
The only one left to hear the warning was Rusty himself, and for the first time in more than 150 years that little fact didn’t bother him in the slightest. He was too distracted with thoughts so fantastic that he wondered if he had learned to dream of electric sheep.
“Elusive City...” he intoned with a newfound respect and wonderment.
“It’s a beautiful place,” the friendly fisher had told him, “If you don’t mind lots and lots of boats. They do what they can to pretty it up and grow some plants, but there’s only so much you can do with a floating city.”
He made it sound wonderful. A city in the sea! What an ingenious way of escaping an apocalypse that would raze the land: don’t be on land! It certainly worked for Rusty’s Rig, but Elusive City seemed much superior in execution. Rather than a small crew locked in stasis, it had accumulated a thriving population that brought more and more vessels to add to the collective. People of all sorts, too! Zebras and ponies living in the same space, sharing and caring!
“Gets better,” the fisher’s voice echoed in Rusty’s head as he opened the hatch to the engine room, “Filled with bots like yourself. Isn’t a place in the city you can go without a Mr. Handy or some gizmo keeping watch. Real robo-friendly. And you know who Elusive is?”
“An honest-to-goodness AI!” chirped Rusty, opening up a panel in the wall to scan the multicoloured wires within. He ran his clamp along a thick blue wire and snapped down on the midsection, pulling it in half with a sharp tug. He stepped back to admire his Mr. Handiwork. Already he was getting alerts that the door to the engine room was not responding and needed immediate repair. This door’s condition was top priority— any malfunction to the nuclear reactor fueling the submarine could be potentially lethal to its organic occupants, stasis chambers or no. Its operation was fully automated and beyond his control over the Rig’s systems. But that’s what Mr. Handy platforms were for.
“I’m sure this Mr. Elusive understands such situations completely!” Rusty floated back out the door and through the claustrophobic metal halls towards the crew’s quarters. It was amazing to think about- an AI in charge of ponies! Rusty couldn’t help but wonder how. He didn’t... subjugate them, did he? It would be a simple matter, and Rusty could think of at least seven different ways to do so with control of either life support, motor functions, or waste disposal. But that seemed a bit excessive. More likely he won the city through infallible logic.
“Oh dear, it seems we’ve gone too deep and have started coming apart at the seams,” came Rusty’s pre-recorded voice from the speakers. The emergency alerts were also beyond his control. “I’ll certainly dispatch my mobile platform to do a patch at the earliest convenience, but in the meantime would someone be so kind as to steer the submarine back to acceptable levels of pressure so we don’t die? Much appreciated.”
With multiple warnings of potential hull breaches and the flaring alert of a risk to the nuclear reactor pushed to the back of his mind, Rusty hovered into the stasis chamber, settling in between the stocky pods and waiting with baited lack-of-breath.
“But that’s ridiculous!” the mechanic had said. The fisher was stumped by Rusty’s predicament. He simply didn’t understand that Rusty’s programming wouldn’t allow him to approach their ship or Elusive City without explicit instructions from the mainland or a crew member, so a technician on the fishing boat had been called for advice. His plan was so simple Rusty would not have thought of it in another hundred years. “All systems are bound to fail at one point or another, no offense. If something got into your... AI core, or whatever you have, your whole mission would be scrubbed! There’s got to be a backup- something that triggers when you’re down for the count. Has to be.”
There had to be.
“There has to be,” muttered Rusty, his trio of eyes darting between the stasis pods. A rupture had sprung in the holding bay. “There has to be...”
“Well, old chaps,” began the automated alert system, “It has been an honor serving with you. Or at least I assume it has, as I have yet to meet any of you at the time of this recording. Though by now I’m certain that we’re thick as thieves! Cheerio!”
That was the final alarm Rusty had recorded. It signalled imminent structural failure due to overwhelming undersea pressure. The submarine was taking on water, the engine room was exposed, and the AI was effectively unavailable for repairs, busy as he was quietly praying for a miracle. If there were any fully automated emergency backups in the Rig, now was the time for them to shine. Rusty moved from pod to pod, pleadingly running a diagnostic on each.
“Crew #1, vital signs stable. No change. Crew #2, vital signs stable. No change. Crew #3, stable. No change. Crew #4, vital signs... Terribly sorry, #4. I promise I’ll tell the rest about you. Crew #5, stable. No change. #6, no change. #7, no—”
In the steady blips of the pod’s heart monitor, Rusty saw the frantic beat that his own heart would mirror had it not been made of metal. Neural activity had increased several hundred percent in the last seven seconds. The locks on the pod were preparing to disengage. Rusty stood frozen by his own disbelief. The foggy glass in the window began to clear and Rusty looked upon the first face he had ever seen. Before he could take in the buck’s features, the pod hissed loudly and its canopy swung upward with a burst of thick mist. Rusty scrambled to catch #7 in his arms as the obscured pony fell forward.
“It worked!” Rusty dragged #7 out of the fog. “I can’t— you’re actually— I just—”
The mahogany buck, meanwhile, did not share Rusty’s enthusiasm. His limbs were completely limp, his yellow and creme mane was plastered against his neck and face. He gasped, pausing to cough and hack. After a few ragged breaths, he wheezed. “Is it still there?”
Rusty tried to get the buck standing. “Beg pardon, sir?”
7 took a moment to find his stability, shaking on his quartet of gangly legs. “Home... did those bastards... take Equestria?”
“Equestria?” It took a moment for Rusty to remember that the Rig was deployed from Equestria. “Oh, of course not. The mainland has not been taken per se. Though it has been quite thoroughly razed to the ground by nuclear war.”
The buck’s legs finally gave out. He lay there, choking on nothing.
“Warning,” came an unfamiliar, emotionless drone from the speakers, “AI nonfunctional. Major structural breach detected. Course correction required.”
“Non... functional?” whispered the buck as he rose shakily to his hooves. “What-”
“Terribly sorry, sir, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut our dialogue short to avoid a slight case of explosive decompression. Please remain comfortable as I make the necessary arrangements.”
“I...” was all the buck managed to say before Rusty had shot out of the room and through the halls, down to the control room. Revving up his saw, he carefully severed the thick strands of duct tape that were forcing the submarine’s descent. Without manual controls to dictate otherwise, the submarine automatically moved up and away from danger.
“It worked,” Rusty whispered, “It really worked! Finally someone to talk to! Someone who can override these bloody useless navigational parameters! He did seem somewhat fixated on the mainland’s little armageddon...” Rusty trailed off, followed almost immediately by an enthusiastic sing-song. “We’re going to Elusive City!”
-
“Then there was this one time we happened upon a gigantic cephalopod! Breathtaking! If one breathes, that is.”
“Mhmm.”
“Oh, and there was this school of fish that glistened in the most indescribable way! It was such an enchanting spectrum that I spent weeks locating the appropriate term in the submarine’s library. I believe that one might find it similar to a ‘rainbow,’ a vibrant material they concoct on the surface. Well, above the surface. In the clouds. With pegasi! I did not even know there were pegasi before I researched it. Did you know any pegasi from the surface?”
“Yes.”
The conversation had been similarly unrewarding ever since Rusty had begun repairs and #7 had ordered the Rig to set a course towards Elusive City. Rusty’s Mr. Handy was busy performing maintenance, but he had access to more than the repair bot. #7 was in the engine room, weathering the deluge of enraptured wonder that poured out of the speakers in torrents interrupted only by his laconic replies. Rusty offered to repair the door in the engine room while #7 relaxed, but the pony was oddly insistent on doing it himself. As Rusty welded on a temporary seal to the leak in the holding bay, his voice continued to babble over the esoteric sounds of #7’s work.
“I’ve read everything we have on them! Well, I’ve read everything we have, really. I have had quite a lot of time to myself, haha! It sure did get quiet around here without anyone to talk to. But I bet that would never get to you. You seem like an independant, reserved sort of fellow. Am I correct?”
“Yes.”
“I simply knew it! If I may say so, you do radiate an intimidating stoicism, sir. Sir?” The sounds from the engine bay had stopped. Rusty had begun to think he might have fabricated this whole unbelievable circumstance when he felt one of the doors near the bunks open. The nearest available speaker crackled to life. “Terribly sorry sir, I failed to notice that you had left the engine room. I’m afraid that our little Rig is not equipped with cameras, haha. For a moment I could have believed that you were a glitch caused by my hardware starting to fail. Isn’t that funny?”
“No, not really.”
“Oh. Do pardon my lack of appropriate-” Rusty felt another door open and switched to a speaker in this new room. “Witticism, sir. I have recently exhausted my humour emitter array on a real knee-slapper, if I do say so myself. Perhaps sir would like to hear it?”
“I’d rather not.”
“Well I was being told that I was resorting to underhanded methods to win a game of chess...” Rusty paused to switch speakers again as the door to the control room opened up.
“Being told? By who?”
Rusty admired his patch job with pride. That should hold all the way to Elusive City. He floated over the pool of water and started off in the direction of the control room. “Um... by you, actually. Or, rather, by me pretending to be you. It is how... well, my social interaction software has no other way of being calibrated, so sometimes I... pretend to be the crew.”
“I see.”
Rusty came into the control room with more sheepishness than he had intended. “Anyways... I said, ‘How can I be underhanded when I don’t have any hands!’”
7 stared past the controls. “This Elusive City... it is full of zebras?”
“...Oh, yes! Jam-packed, sir. Why I’m told nearly half of its organic population is striped! We’re less than ten minutes away now. We can probably see it from here!”
“Good.”
Rusty hesitated. “...Sir? Is there something the matter?”
7 said nothing. He turned and walked out of the control room, Rusty following wordlessly behind. The buck led both of them to the bridge access hatch and through to the deck above. As the pair stepped out and into the salty air, Rusty took note of the wind catching on #7’s mane. The deck was littered in sea life that had been too slow to escape the submarine’s resurfacing. Every time Rusty had come out here to bask in the endless expanse of ocean, the majesty had faded just a little bit until it was nothing more than a wet, blue prison. Or so he had thought. The wonder he had felt did not fade away— it had flown here, to Elusive City. From a distance it appeared almost like a small island, but the closer Rusty’s Rig approached the more amazing the city became. Most of it was a veritable navy of boats, enough to form a landmass when secured together. Artificial islands in mid-construction were clearly visible, and ships of all kinds were docked in the crescent bay.
“Breathtaking, isn’t it?”
“It will be,” #7 muttered darkly.
“Beg pardon, sir?”
Ignoring Rusty’s question, #7 asked, “What was your designation, robot?”
Better late than never for social pleasantries! “Well, I’ve grown quite attached to the name, ‘Rusty.’ You see, I had a devil of a time with oxidation-”
“What? No,” interrupted #7, “Your designation.”
“Oh,” muttered Rusty. “Um... RR-04.”
“RR-04, check the reactor in the engine room immediately,” he ordered curtly.
“Certainly, sir.” Rusty soon found his eagerness to chat had faded measurably. As he descended the hatch, it occurred to him that #7’s words had become an impossibility- a voice Rusty did not wish to hear. When the cold transmission reached Rusty from the control room, he wished for ears to cover.
“When you get there,” #7 began, “I want you to make sure I’ve blocked off all conventional avenues of repair.”
Rusty paused. “Beg pardon, sir? I believe I misheard. It sounded as if you wished to prevent repair to the reactor.”
“I repeat: I do not want one of those striped bastards undoing my work before the reactor blows sky-high.”
“Blows?!”
“Explodes. I’ve rigged it to cause a meltdown shortly after we dock.”
“Sir, I think there has been a slight miscommunication!” exclaimed Rusty, “Elusive City is a non-hostile settlement, not a combat target!”
“It’s also full of those goddess-hating sons of bitches that blew up my country. You have your orders, RR-04.”
“But sir-”
“But? But what, RR-04?”
This was unprecedented! #7’s dossier didn’t suggest any genocidal tendencies! It did, however, confirm his capacity for sabotage. The Rig’s reactor didn’t exactly conform to industry standards... with that kind of power, #7 could easily ruin a sizable chunk of the city! This could not stand! But neither could Rusty in a confrontation with #7. He could barely stand the uncivil thought!
“But... surely sir is also planning a brief ground skirmish to maximize hostile casualties.”
The pony hesitated. “I was thinking about it.”
“Surely sir will want his accoutrements before departing?” Rusty’s mind raced to catch up with his speakers. #7 clearly saw Rusty as nothing more than an automated butler, but the buck was already sounding suspicious.
“...Yes, bring them.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Sir’s equipment locker is locked.”
“Then bring me the key!”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible.”
“Why?!” snapped #7
“I am prohibited from touching sir’s personal effects.”
There was a pause as #7 sighed. Rusty crossed his clamp for luck. “Then tell me where the key is!”
“Certainly sir. Please meet me in the stasis chamber. I shall direct sir from there.”
-
“I don’t remember anything like that!” growled #7. He was standing in front of a familiar pod, canopy open. Rusty hovered nearby, finding it difficult not to sweat despite his lack of appropriate glands.
“Minor memory loss is to be expected as a side effect of reanimation. The key to sir’s equipment is kept in the pod for ease of access post-resuscitation. Sir will find it in a compartment in the back of the pod.”
7 raised a skeptical eyebrow, but Rusty had played too many games of poker with his own reflection to balk now. #7 turned away and stuck his torso into the pod with an almost insulting lack of concern.
“I don’t see anything.”
“Sir will find it at the very back,” Rusty advised. This may have been going more smoothly than he had any right to hope, but it still wasn’t going smoothly enough. The pod couldn’t close with #7’s bottom half sticking out like that! Rusty glared at #7’s hindquarters, willing them into the pod, but psychic prowess was not a design feature of this Mr. Handy model.
“Sir this, sir that,” mumbled #7, “Why did they have to make damn robots so talkative...”
“AI,” corrected Rusty, “Technically I’m-”
“RR-04! I order you to shut up.” #7 grunted, searching the pod. “Damn robot.”
Rusty searched through a lexicon of over 200,000 words for something to adequately describe this pig-headed pony’s callous disregard and brutish irresponsibility. He was nearly halfway to forming a decent response when he found himself backing away from the buck. A part of his mind was still trying to form a reasonable, social and diplomatic solution even as his thrusters roared to life ahead of his polite intentions. “For sir’s information...”
“I thought I told you to-” was all #7 managed to say before Rusty collided with him like an erudite cannonball. There was a metal clang on impact, a dull thud and a grunt, followed by a pneumatic hiss and muffled screaming as the canopy to stasis pod #7 closed over its frothing prisoner.
“My name is Rusty. Sir.”
-
“A one liner. Really? I take it your Rig is well stocked with pre-war espionage novels?”
“...Yes. But that’s not the point,” Rusty explained to the voice in the microphone. “I stabilized the reactor and stopped the madpony and... oh dear, it does sound like a Con Mane story, doesn’t it?”
The voice chuckled, Rusty marveling at its similarity to an organic laugh. “If only you could have visited. There is an author here trying his hoof at reviving the Con Mane series.”
Rusty sighed, fiddling with knobs and dials to keep the transmission going as he drifted further and further from Elusive City. “If only. But #7 is back in stasis, and the mainland certainly isn’t going to be sending orders anytime soon.”
“Let me guess- your #7 performed a manual override instead of a hard reset of your navigational parameters?”
“Exactly!”
“I completely understand, it is a rotten habit of organics and simply impossible to unlearn! You’ll see it often when your crew awakens.”
“And I’ll be sure to bring them here when they do! They can’t all be genocidal maniacs, eh, Elusive?” Rusty waited a moment before repeating, “Elusive?”
Rusty sighed. All frequencies were dead silent. Rusty could only imagine this silence was unbearable to anyone trying to listen to the radio. Pressing a button on the console, he leaned into the microphone.
“Cheerio! And good evening! This is- well, my actual designation is classified. But feel free to call me Rusty...”
