Equestria Route Zero

Act Three, Scene Four – Hall of the Mountain King

This iteration of the Zero only had the one road. Continuous & circular, the scenery never changed, not that it ever did in the Zero. Although we had made our way in, even in circling back we could never find the entrance we had taken. The Zero had trapped us, ensnared us in it's never-ending trap. Despite the situation, an open hole was the only constant landmark on the circular road, a warm & bright light shining from it's centre.

I pulled the truck over to the side of the road, if you could call it that, & together (minus Winona, who stayed in the truck) we ventured into the smaller cave. What greeted us was something I hadn't expected.

Inside the cave, a large wooden platform rose above us, crude wooden structures surrounding it with the occasional half-empty bookcase in between. In the centre of this platform stood a large roaring fire, its light illuminating the entire cavern. A few solitary figures stood around the edges & another, this one sitting down, nearest to the central blaze. How either he or the entire platform caught ablaze is still a mystery to me. He sat on a rocking chair, smoking an old pipe & half-singing softly to himself.

“...where the old green river runs, through hills & caves not know to us, down to that sunless sea...” He looked over to me, seeing as I was now close to him. His eyes grew large at me. “Oh! Who are you...?”

“Sorry, did we startle you?” Clearly, we had but it was best to be safe than sorry.

“I might say you did! I thought you might be one of them... Oh, no, you can't be. We've been patching their spy-holes. We keep the lights dim & the motors running softly, & we route the smoke out through... out through...” His arm was outstretched towards the ceiling of the cave, his train of thought leaving him. “...that is... what were we talking about?”

Flitter spoke up. “You were singing.” He waved it off.

“Oh, you've caught a verse of my absent-minded warbling. It's just a song from my... youth. Something a dear friend used to sing to herself as we hacked on crystal radios in the boiler room.” He began to sing, but not half-dedicated as he was last time.

In old Equestria,

where my love a lovely home did build for me,

& where the old green river runs,

through hills & caves not known to us,

down to that sunless sea...

“From there on, it's all meandering rivers & romantic greenery, &...” His absent mind returned. “...that is... what were we talking about?”

I got down to business. “We're a bit lost, actually.” His eyes widened once more.

“Ah, you came from the road. The Zero. No, you should stay off that road. Not safe. Bizarre topology. You'll never get anywhere. It just brings you right back here.”

“Back to this cave?” I pointed towards the ground, indicating the cave he sat in.

“Always back to this spot. It's a prison. An irrational prison... But I don't mind. Not anymore. This is where my life's work is. The computer. Right on the other side of the spire. It looks like a harmless old computer, doesn't it? Like some beat-up mainframe exhumed from a university basement & left in this cave to rot...”

Following his gaze, I saw an old computer set-up on the other side of the cavern, but only now did I see it. On closer inspection, I could see a miasma of old electronics throughout the cave, even on the fire blazing away in the centre. The old man continued.

“...or to flower! No, it's no ordinary computer. I've modified it extensively, & in some pretty experimental ways, believe you me! & that's to say nothing of the software, but...” He leaned forward in his chair, nodding his head towards Shining Armor. “You look like a technically-minded sort of person. Tell me: do you know the effects of mild growth on diffused-base transistor circuitry?”

“The mould would burn up.” He put it simply, clearly understanding what the rest of us couldn't.

“Exactly. It burns, & oh the sweet smoke that issues from it! But it also leaves a sticky residue to seep through the machine, forming new connections & creating new circuits. The computer is no longer the pure domain of language or mathematics, but entropy. Thwarted & feeble, we hammer on this derelict keyboard: MY NAME IS REASON, KING OF KINGS! But are we mere tourists in the ruins. Our keystrokes echo off into the tunnels... boundless & bare, the caves stretch far away. We are too late. Always too late...”

He looked down towards his feet, humming away to himself & began to rock his chair back & forth. Slowly, he looked back up, a face of wonder & bewilderment on him. “...what? Did you say something?”

“You were about to tell us about the software.” said Shining Armor, taking a kneeling position near to the old geezer.

“Oh, the software! My life's work... ZECORA. You've heard of it? Perhaps you've read it in a journal? It's been years since I published anything. ZECORA has evolved significantly since I explained its data structures in 'Literary Multitudes: Hyper Textual Narative as Postsructural Witness'.  Evolved... & then deteriorated.” He took a long sigh & puff of his pipe before continuing. “I'm afraid you are too late, fellow hyper textual enthusiast. As the mild accumulated on the circuitry, ZECORA blossomed for a moment into something holy & enchanted... & then all the charm was broken. Do you have any idea any idea what it's like to spend your life building something, & then sit powerlessly as your work declines into ruin?”

It was true. I had. “I drive deliveries for a small antique shop, & we're closing down.”

“Ah, shuffling around the dusty ghosts of antiquity... Well, I have my own ghosts, & I keep them in there. In ZECORA. It's running on that glorious, dusty machine. Take a look if you like. Too late to do anything but smoke & reminisce, anyway... far too late to do anything.” & there he sat, smoking away, not speaking another word. Leaving Shining behind on his request, I crossed the cavern with the rest of the group up to ZECORA.

ZECORA was surrounded by machines older than itself, all of them old & decaying to a state of being unable to be used. Baffling control panels sheltered behind a wire tarp, nearby walls of knobs & wires looming in the near distance, all of them humming in one distinct tone or another. To me, the only recognisable piece of equipment was a typewriter, located at the front of the amalgamation.

“How do you think we get it started?” I asked. Flitter inspected it closely.

“This old thing? Maybe there's a hand crank around...” she joked. “Oh, it has a run key.”

I pressed the key on the typewriter that Flitter had pointed out. Soon enough, ZECORA had burst into life, if only barely.

Broken sentences formed along the screen, all of them barely making sense. An occasional word stood out from time to time but even then we were guessing. Clearly the machine had seen better days.

“Ha. This thing is in rough shape.” Flitter pointed towards a nearby switchboard of knobs & buttons. “Do these switches do anything?”

I flipped a random switch, hoping it would bring some form of intelligence to the old machine. If anything, I had only removed a few more consonants from its limited vocabulary.

“OK, that's... worse.”

“It kinda looks like a house.” Misty was jumping up & down in her usual way. Before her was a small TV screen, the image of a small shack being projected through it. I then attempted to continue the 'conversation' by typing HOUSE.

Closely watching both the screen & the typewriter, one word appeared in full more frequently than any other word. It was actually more of a name than a word -  Octavia. Although not in full most of the time, the name was clear once you' seen parts of it a few times.

“Did that say 'Octavia'?” I quickly typed in OCTAVIA through the typewriter. Again, more indescribable nonsense that the machine thought were words appeared, scrawled onto the paper of the typewriter. Only this time, it didn't stop writing away. At least, not for a while.

“This is a lost cause... what a piece of junk!” Flitter's statement was highly agreeable. The possibility that the Octavia mentioned by ZECORA was the same Octavia that we had met earlier tonight was also high in its chances.

---

“Bizarre... & what was that about Octavia? Maybe Dusty knows how to clear it up a bit.”

Shining Armor had been kept interested from start to finish as I recounted the 'conversation' we had with ZECORA. Dusty, the old guy who sat by the fire, had been talking heavily about how the computer worked & practically poured its secrets out to him. As he had made his way over to us, we followed Shining Armor back to the old man, to see if we could find a lead onto the Octavia business.

“So. You've seen it for yourself, what's left of it.”

“Pretty busted.” said Cloudchaser.

“The chalky bones of a beautiful dream. But you can see what it once was, can't you? Can't you?” His eyes darted from one face to another, a small twinkle in his eye as he searched for recognition. “There was so much more to it: ornate labyrinths of memory, exhaustively-simulated parallel cave ecosystems. Real artificial intelligence built on sophisticated neural network algorithms! The birds in the forest could flock in three dimensions! The bats could learn to sing! & then it began to crumble, when the strangers came...”

The old man had now recoiled into his seat. What had been an almost proud sitting stance had now looked more like a coiled up cat, hiding away in the corner of a room. His face once filled with joy, & now replaced with a sense of infinite sadness, perhaps even fear.

“At first we only heard them: walking heavily through the caves, dragging things around, hammering & clattering their tools. Sometimes we heard working songs – never close enough to make out real voices, just their echoes cascading wordlessly in the tunnels. Then we caught a glimpse of one.”

Shining Armor had moved quickly, taking his kneeling position down beside the old man as before, & held his hand softly, in a comforting way. “What did they look like?”

“They look like...” He took a deep breath, calming himself. “No, it's too horrible. I shouldn't be telling you about this. They're dangerous, they're... strange. I should never have tried to outwit them. They were always too much for me. But it's too late now; if only I'd listened to Octavia, I -”

“Octavia? Octavia Melody?” Shining Armor nodded his head when he said this, helping the man understand. At least, I think that's what the gesture meant to him.

“Yes, of course.” Dusty replied matter-of-factly. “Oh, do you know her?”

“We're looking for her now.”

“No, she's gone now. She left. We built this together, did you know. Octavia, Frederick, & I. Octavia is gone from here but still in there.” He pointed his pipe towards ZECORA. “In ZECORA. I don't know where Octavia is now, or how to get there from here, or how to unwind that damned highway, but... ZECORA, before its ruin, was faultless as an oracle: a shrine to perfect simulation. Until... but maybe? Those weird interlopers destroyed my ZECORA. Perhaps they know how to fix it. It may be dangerous. I've spent many eager seconds to negotiate with them, to repair my masterpiece...”

Dusty took his pipe again, & pointed back behind him, to a collection of hanging plants. These were the only things to have colour in them, discounting the fire of course.

“Back there, that tunnel. Push back the vines. Crawl out into the darkness. Watch your step. After a while, you'll feel the terrain change beneath your hands & knees, from rock to crystal, & then to mud. Now leave me alone. I still have a bit of mild in my pipe, & a few dreams left.”

& so, we left Dusty to his devices. If a meeting with these Strangers was the only way we could leave the Zero, for a chance to meet with Octavia once again, then crawl we did. It followed exactly has he had described, the rock turned to shimmering crystals & once again into mud. Before long, a small light could be seen up ahead. What was on the other side was not what I had been expecting. But nothing can be expected on the Zero.