A Second Chance
"Do you believe in second chances?"
I wake up, dazed. I look around me, and see robot arms gently lifting me out of a bloody cocoon. Not that I have words for this, yet. I know nothing. Nothing at all. Then, the strange helmet appears. I look on, fascinated, as it is put on my head.
The helmet shows me images. Oddly enough, the images are identical to what I just went through. And yet, I feel like they're not the same. They're not "me". My movements in the images are not my own. I can't control my body. I am stuck. Again, the robot arms gently help me out of the cocoon, and again, the helmet is put on my head.
This is getting strange. The helmet in the images gives me, yet again, the same images. The bizarre scenario is always the same. Over and over, the robotic limbs help me out of the bloody cocoon, and put the helmet on my head. I try to keep count, but despite a natural feel for math, I find myself without any system to count with. I'd use my teeth, but inside these memories, I can't even move my own tongue over them to keep track.
I start panicking. Over and over, the images appear. Again and again, the same actions, the same arms, the same... me. Just when I start despairing and thinking I'll be in this hell forever, the images change. The helmet is put on my head one last time, and different images appear.
A childhood, in a beautiful coastal village. A youth. A life.
The scenes seem shortened, somehow. A highlights reel, rather than a full life. If it were a full life, I'd be stuck here for years, I realize. As the information flows into me, I start understanding the world around me. My name is Crashing Wave, and as I pass my cute-ceañera, I know my special talent is in the waves of my name. I'm a surfer, and a damn good one.
Now I have been given the basics of math, I try to think back and count the repetition of the birth scene with the helmet. I lose track. It must have been at least forty times.
My life continues, and it is good. With the rise of the movie industry, I star in several feel-good and adventure movies, set on tropical beaches, with plenty of pretty mares around me. And, of course, plenty of surfing.
Then, the tone of the presentation seems to change drastically. A threat appears, and the movies change from praising these tropical beaches, to making ponies wary of their inhabitants. Zebras. A conflict arises, and pretty soon, I get a visit from ponies in black uniforms with gold epaulettes. I'm a well-known movie face, and they want me to help them keep up the morale amongst the troops. Some more images flash past — meeting a hyperactive pink pony, getting my own uniform, suddenly becoming Corporal Wave. And then, I am tasked to guard some facility, far behind the front lines, presumably to keep me safe. It is a strange facility, though. It produces... spare parts, for war cripples. It produces ponies.
And then, an accident happens. Something falls on top of me. As I die, a stallion comes rushing to me, and asks me something. I'll never forget these words.
"Do you want a second chance?"
I nod, and the same strange helmet I've seen dozens of times appears, for the first time in my life, and is put on my head. My vision fades to black. Not because I die there, I realize. I probably did, but that's irrelevant. The memories end there simply because that was where they were recorded. That was the end of the recording.
~ ~ ~
The helmet is removed from my head, and yet I still can't move my own limbs. I'm still not me. No... I'm him. I'm Corporal Crashing Wave once more, and he just got his memories back. For the first time.
Dazed, I go back to work. I just got killed, and yet, here I am. Because, that's what they do. They make spares. The same stallion who gave me the choice tells me he can't afford to lose me. It is too important that I am able to appear in public. I am a known figure, after all. I suspect he is doing this behind his bosses' backs, but I am alive, and I don't want those bosses to change that. So I let it slide.
The images speed up again. I go out in public, wave and smile, tell ponies to join the Equestrian Military. At the job, I see things I can never tell anypony about. I see mindless copies made of so many soldiers, and I see them promptly cut up into spare parts for fixing up these soldiers. Gruesome.
I'm also just a copy. A whole spare part. But they didn't combine me with any of the original Crashing Wave. They just gave me his memories.
I realize they could make as many of me as they wanted, really. They could mass produce soldiers. Did I still have my skills? My special talent? I came out of the recollector helmet with a cutie mark on my flank, but was my body made with it, or did it appear while I viewed the recording of my life? Not a single one of the dozens of repeating birth-scenes ever had me looking at my flank. I will probably never know.
The war progresses, and not in our favour. Secret technology is leaked to the enemy, and turned into horrifying weapons. I'm never sent to the battlefield, though. No. I'm just their little puppet, acting the role of Crashing Wave, the movie star.
As the war goes on, I get an identity crisis. Nopony can help me. I am not sent off to the specialized hospitals. I'm not a war victim, and I know things I can never talk about. I stay here, as their little puppet.
The second chance was a curse, I decide. I am not really Crashing Wave. I hang myself in my office.
My last memories are those of medics rushing in to get me down, followed by a robot carrying that dreaded black helmet. And then, the helmet pressing down on my temples.
~ ~ ~
The helmet is taken off my head. I awaken in the local doctor's office, in the factory. I finally get the counselling I need, from a psychologist who does know everything that's going on in the factory. Why did they bother giving me the memories of that failed in-between life? Probably just so my memories would flow uninterrupted. They can't have their puppet being interviewed and not knowing what other appearances he made in the past years.
As part of the counselling, they show me the recording of my birth. I came out without the cutie mark, apparently, and got it as the recollector filled me in. Are the images real, or were they just made to assure me I am really me? There is no reason for a "soul" to jump from a dead pony to a newly made copy, but then again, the existence of souls is a whole other discussion. The psychiatrist ends up convincing me I am really Crashing Wave, and tells me to use this second chance to the fullest.
I don't do any such thing, of course. I am still their puppet, and they do whatever they want with me. I am guarding a secret base where no one ever visits, and am occasionally shipped off to offer encouraging words to the troops. I can't be anything more. Not while the war rages on. So I bide my time.
And then, the bombs fall. I don't die there, though. No. The factory is resistant to that.
Whatever automated system runs the factory, though, is aware that all ponies have sensitive information in their heads. Those who want to leave without valid passes are killed by the robots. The rest stays inside until food runs out. A few go crazy, and start eating the meat of the copies. It makes me sick to my stomach; I am one of these copies. I kill them.
Finally, I try to leave. There is nothing out there but destruction, but staying inside is certain death, so I try anyway.
The robots kill me. As I slump down, bleeding from several holes in my chest and flank, I see the black helmet looming over me.
~ ~ ~
The helmet is taken off my head. I am starting to see the pattern, and I don't like where it is going.
I wake up below the bloody cocoon. The robot is hanging above me, recollector attached to its arm. It never bothered moving me to the doctor's office.
I'm still not in control. The recording shows how I decide to go exploring. All the ponies in the facility are dead or gone. I doubt any of them made it past the robots. All the robots are still there, mindlessly patrolling the place.
I quickly realize there is no food left anywhere in the facility.
After a few days I grow desperate, and kill and eat one of the copies. I feel horrible, but there is no choice. I feel even more horrible for the ones who came to the same conclusion a lot sooner, and got killed by me for that.
The next day, the copy I killed is back. Or, at least, their number is the same again. The newly created one isn't the same as the copy. It's a white pony, with a white mane. The only real similarity is that it is female, like the one I killed.
I'm not sure why the automated systems keep running. The copies wander around aimlessly, mindlessly. Over the next days, some wander outside. The robots recover them, either herding them back, or carrying back their corpses. A day later, the dead ones are always replaced by another blank. It takes little over two weeks before they're all just blanks.
I try disabling some of the robots in an attempt to escape. I fail, even in the disabling-the-robots phase of my plan. As my dying body slumps down once again, the Helmet is there, waiting for me. I curse it with my dying breath.
~ ~ ~
The helmet is taken off my head. The pattern is pretty clear by now. I curse the pony who asked me that damned question, and I curse my dead original for giving that answering nod.
And still, I'm not myself. Still, I'm just an observer, waiting to see where it all leads, and when I'll get my own chance to finally try again. I don't have much hope. After all, I've seen the awakenings of dozens and dozens of me already. Dozens and dozens of me whose lives ended with the black helmet shoved onto their head. Why would I be any different?
But I'll try. If I ever truly wake up from this, I'll damn well try.
~ ~ ~
Dozens of lives flash before me. With each one, I learn new things. The pipbuck on my foreleg has the tracker that lets the robots know where I am. I can't take it off without special tools. They seem to put it on me while I relive my memories. To my chagrin I realize that as I relive these memories right now, they'll be putting the thing on me, too. A shackle to chain me to this endless repeating life.
In some lives, I actually escape, and live several years in the wastelands. I see myself meeting ponies, making friends, finally eating something else than these damned Blanks. But in the end, the robots are always there. And so is the Helmet.
As the lives and deaths build up, the me in the memories notices that sometimes, his pipbuck's clock skips several years, indicating that some of the me's probably died in unrecoverable ways. Maybe they weren't even killed by the robots. The missing periods are too irregular to assume the robots give up after a certain time, though. No. It's just head trauma. For no other reason than consistency, they only seem to make a new me after the previous one dies and is recovered. There is no escape from my Second Chance.
~ ~ ~
I am still watching my own memories. I'm currently looking through the highlights reel of a particularly successful life, where I manage to get into a desert in the neighbouring country of Caledonia. The factory robots have a hard time getting to me, since the desert sand plays havoc on their mechanics.
It all seems so pointless. Despite the fact I'm looking at a relatively happy life of more than ten years out of the factory, in which I even find a wife and have some children, the whole thing seems so futile; the fact the recording exists is ample proof that they got me in the end. Still, I decide to treasure these memories. I watch the highlights reel go on, hoping that at least, my family will survive. At the same time, I wonder how many years ago these memories took place. Even if they did survive, are any of them still alive now?
I also realize that during this life, I get very good at destroying the robots. This immediately leads me to the conclusion that something else is still producing them. A chilling thought.
Then, a burst of static interrupts the recording. The headache that follows it is unlike any pain I've ever felt before. And that's coming from somepony who just felt himself die several dozen times. I realize the pain is my own. Actually my own. Not the recording.
The memory continues, but it feels wrong. Something about it feels off, and it doesn't take me long to realize that I have lost the sense of touch of the memory. A quick experiment tells me I can move my tongue in my mouth. I go over all my teeth, counting them as I would've counted the birth scenes, had I been able to do this back then.
Then, in one swift movement, I reach up with my hooves, and pull the recollector helmet off my head.
~ ~ ~
I am greeted by the familiar spot under the messy remains of my birth cocoon. Less familiar are the flickering flames in the distance, and the fact the hovering robot is hanging limply in the air with one of its propellers clearly damaged.
I get up, still recovering from the headache, and look around. The place is a mess. I hear the chaotic shouting of panicked ponies somewhere deeper inside the factory, and see leaked rainbow-coloured fluid on the ground. I remember that fluid, from my original life, but I don't see how it could've come here. It's dangerous; it should be contained.
For a moment, I find myself wishing I'd seen the rest of the recording, but I shove that thought away. Who cares what happened to the factory in these lifetimes I lost? The place is burning, and full of dead blanks and destroyed robots. I need to get out of here.
I gallop towards the exit, and see armed ponies looking around. Not good. I decide not to take my chances, and turn back. All my past lives have one advantage, at least; I know every nook and cranny of this place. I make my way towards one of the less visible exits; one I made myself, so long ago. No robots come to stop me. A hulking mutated blank growls as he sees me, but, oddly, doesn't attack. It may have known my predecessor. What was my role in all this?
Again, I decide not to care, and get out. No robots. This feels so odd. So... liberating. As I get some distance between me and the factory, I realize its automated repair systems won't get it out of this one. The factory is done for. I make sure to get some more distance between me and the place. Any place that kills its own personnel to keep secrets is sure to leave nothing behind in a situation like this. It doesn't surprise me in the least when the whole place explodes in a humongous fireball a bit later.
I look at the pipbuck on my leg, and check the date. Wow. More than eighty years since that last memory. I really did miss a lot.
I smile, and walk away from the smouldering ruin. Sure, the first passing raider may gut me, but at least, my death will be my own. Never again will I wake up in a cocoon, getting a black recollector helmet shoved onto my head.
I'm free. Finally, I'm no longer their puppet.
And I'll use this second chance to the fullest.
Author's Note
This story is more or less the result of combining the fate of the character Duncan Idaho in God-Emperor of Dune with Project Chimera from Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons.
So here's the tale of a stallion who keeps getting brought back to life. I hope you enjoyed it.
