Long ago, in the magical land of Equestria, there once sat a small building that would bring about a small miracle. Inside this building, a small group of ponies tinkered and worked hard everyday to fulfil a radical and revolutionary idea. It was no easy task, taking years of hard work, sleepless nights, and just a pinch of faith in their plans. Using the newly discovered magic of archano-technology, they were able to bring about something entirely unseen before. That fateful day, the ponies at Noble Electrics created the first fully artificial filly, their little wonderbot.
You see, not every pony in the land of Equestria was able to experience the joy that a filly or colt could bring to their lives. Noble Electrics dream had been to build a machination with a complexity unseen for it's time, able to adapt and learn from it's surroundings. Every mannerism and facet of a real filly, was included to become something that imitated life so closely, that it could even be confused for a real pony. However, they did have one, minor fault. In order to meet the expected demand at the time of launch, the wonderbot's central logistics talisman was left only half utilized. Among the missing sets of guidance information, the most notable omission was the wonderbot's denial protocol. Without it, a wonderbot could never disobey something that it's adoptive parent told it. It was something Noble Electrics soon came to regret.
The age of achano-technology had changed ponykind. A demand for more materials created strain for the government officials. More food to feed a growing a growing industrialized population created a strain on the agricultural system. Then, the war began, and the government asked for more ponies to fight for their country. With so many ponies seeking comfort from the strain of their modernized lives, the darker side of equestrian morals started to show through. Vices like gambling, drinking, and pornography boomed in the big cities. The latter of which, was where the little wonderbots came in.
The company that had sought to bring joy into the lives of so many hopeful parents, had unknowingly fueled a perverted and disgusting trade. By the time that anypony had discovered what had been going on, four hundred and seventy seven little wonderbot units had been sold. An investigation into the buyers of each wonderbot revealed that only twenty seven of them had ever been placed in a loving and propper household. Production of new wonderbots were ordered ceased, and the units outside of homes fit for them, were put into a state of shutdown. Noble Electrics was brought to court to stand trial for their grievous mistake of leaving out a denial protocol in favor of selling what amounted to luxury sex slaves.
Of course, the trial took years. The ponies at Noble Electrics stood by their creation, adamant that their fillies were never intended for this, and had simply been at the mercy of those who'd bought the units. Time after time, the case stalled in the courts. Higher and higher up the system the scandal had been pushed, until it was poised to be settled once and for all by the government in the royal court of Canterlot. There, the fate of the wonderbots would sit, waiting for the final word from a government too embroiled in an unwinnable war to care.
When the end finally did come, and Equestria was bathed in the balefires of judgement, the wonderbots still sat. Some were destroyed by the bombs. Others, simply rusted away into nothing during their slumbers. However, a few of them managed to find themselves reactivated. Lost and unable to comprehend the world they now found themselves in, the little wonderbots wandered the wastes in search of their parents.
One such wonderbot, was unit 466, the last unit to have been sold to a household of loving parents.
-Unit 466: Designation Amber
-Data log 64021 8:00AM
-power reserves at 27%
-memory capacity exceeded
-begin wake up routine
-new log entry begins
My optics whined open and took in the dull morning's light that pressed through the sludge over it’s lense. I wiped them off curiously, confused what it was. Last night, Daddy read me a bedtime story and then I went to sleep like I was told to. The overcast light filtering down from the clouds was not the sight above me that I had remembered shutting down to. With this new information, I took notice that I was for some alarming reason, no longer at home. I was in the middle of nowhere… alone.
“M-mommy?” My vocal processor stuttered as I called out. “D-d-daddy?”
My malfunctioning voice was joined with a slew of other notices I recieved from my core systems about my coding. Many of my subroutines were failing or already corrupt. If I were ever in need of repair, I needed to find my loving parents. They would know how to contact somepony to get me fixed. Yes, that was now to be my new primary goal.
-Primary objective updated: Find Adoptive Parents.
-Log change: Parent ID in range
-Error: out of memory - Log change not recognized.
“Mom-my?” I called out again as I looked around. I was in a great expanse of flat desert. Under my hooves sat a cracking and heavily disintegrating highway. The heavily rusted sign that stood crooked and off to the side in the dry dirt, read ‘Route 2’ across it. This was my first good clue, as there would have to be a city, rest stop, or random traveler along it somewhere. They would certainly help to find my loving parents!
A cold wind whipped through the air, and the low drone helped to calibrate my staticy auditory sensors. The soft pops and crackles of what sounded to have been a broken-up radio broadcast came from behind me. I turned my head as to identify it’s origin.
At the range of almost a mile behind me, sat a city. It was a city that I had remembered seeing many times before. It was also my home. The dark and jagged skyline of it loomed in the low clouds, and I felt afraid of it. There were no lights to be found, no ponies that I could see. It looked alien and out of place now.
“Mommy, whe-re are you?” I called out again. I knew that she must be nearby. My loving parents would never abandon me in a scary place like this.
Then I heard it.
In the wind, it was the sound of a mare. The sound cut out into static, then into nothing, dropping the city back into silence again, but it had been the voice of a mare coming from the city. Yes! It must be mommy!
I spun around to run to her, ready to gallop into her loving hooves. As I did, I received several warnings and tumbled onto the old pavement. In my excitement, I had missed the fact that I was missing my right fore hoof. I lifted the leg in question to my eyes. The actuators, wires, and servos sat out in the open air. My synthetic skin had been ripped away, and my rusted skeletal systems had been damaged heavily by the elements.
Once I sat up, this grievous discovery prompted me to check the rest of myself over. I was in far worse shape than I had previously logged. I was missing upwards of ninety percent of my synthetic skin, and the corrosion to my body was nearly as extensive. Thankfully, my three other hooves still seemed intact enough to carry me on, even if at an odd gait.
The dark city lay ahead. I was alone and afraid. The decaying state of the urban center I called home brought me no comfort. However, if I were to find anypony to help me get home, I’d find it there.
“I-I’m coming to-o find you, mommy!” I called out, just in case she were in ear shot. Again, my calls for her went unnoticed. “Mommy-y? Daddy? W-where are y-you?”
I whimpered at the idea that I could really be out here all alone. Why had my loving parents abandoned me? This desolate landscape was the last place you would want to leave your little filly, right?
Who knew what could be hiding around here? Daddy had always told me about the Striped monsters that hid in the shadows. How I was never supposed to leave their side in case I got lost.
“They’ll jump out and gobble you up!” He’d told me.
I slowed myself to a stop, wishing I’d known where they were. “Why did you leave me?” I cried. “I love you, Daddy.”
The snap of a branch off the side of the road made me gasp in fear. I got to my hooves and backed away from the sound. It hadn’t taken me long to see what had made the sound. From the wreckage of a skywagon, a pony that looked in need of major medical attention crawled into the open. For a moment, it stood there watching me. It had an eye missing, and multiple glowing lacerations on it. It tried to say something, but I couldn’t understand it.
“Please, I n-need to find m-my parents.” I pleaded with the pony.
Instead of helping me, it ran at me. I froze on the spot in fear. Without any cause, the pony slammed into me. I was sent tumbling, and I screamed out for Daddy. The pony shrieked in return and by the time I got up, so did it.
“G-go away!” I yelled at the monster. I cried and ran for my life. As well as I could, I galloped toward the dark city on three legs. The screams and yells of the mean pony slowly grew further away. Why did the pony want to hurt me? Why isn’t Daddy here to protect me from it?
Still, it pursued me. I let out as loud of a scream as I could, but to no effect. I did not understand, why did it still chase me?
“Lea-ave me alone!” I plead again, hoping against hope that my family would save me.
The monster only roared out, and I was left with no choice but to continue to flee straight toward the dark city. Ahead, I could see a great wall of rusted steel. The more I ran, the closer the monster became.
Ah-ha! What luck that there would be a hole big enough for one such as me to fit into in the wall. I had the fortune of approaching it with just enough time that I could maneuver myself into my steel sanctuary before the monster caught up to me. With a great shriek of pain, the monster slammed against the steel wall. Even with all it’s effort, it could not fit into the hole.
Even so, the creature did not relent in it’s attempts. With no choice, I was forced deeper into the wall. I traveled through the hole, twisting and turning past sharp and shredded, leather-coated debris. I had not slowed until I could observe the light from the other side. I stepped out into the light, relieved to see the streets of the dark city before me. It was time to go home.
-Log change: Parent ID out of range
-Error: out of memory - Log change not recognized.
-11:46AM
Still alone.
I’d spent hours wandering the empty streets of the city. I’d cried and cried for my parents, but the city remained silent. Not a single pony had spoken up or had come to help me. I was alone in the dark and desolate city. It was that idea that had made me cry more than even the fear from the monster had.
It was hard to see because my tears had streamed across my face as I’d run. The glass over my eyes had become streaked with black, a problem with my water talisman. My attempts to clean them with my hooves proved futile. Thankfully, the acquisition of an old rag proved well enough to wipe them clean. It would be fine once I found my parents.
Street after street, the tall buildings that stretched into the sky around me, sat quite. The wind was the only sound that I heard, and it whistled through the canyons of steel and glass far stronger than it had out on the plains.
With the city at first glance, as empty as the arid lands around it, I’d reached a new dilemma. How would I find my way home with no pony to help me? I didn’t know if there were any ponies in these buildings at all, and even from here they looked too dark and scary to go into.
The city was big, and full of shadows. Shadows that moved, that flickered in a way I could not comprehend. Among them, were statues of ponies. They stood on nearly every street corner, in every window, each one casting a misshapen shadow of their own. A city of statues, but nopony to look after them.
I sat down in an intersection, crying out again for my parents. This time, the city answered. Not with the sound of mommy or daddy, but with another piercing shriek from far off. It made me get back to my hooves and start running. I kept on to route 2, running away from the monsters behind me. I ran until I reached the center of the city.
Looking far down the road ahead, past the rusting hulls of many vehicles, I noticed a familiar looking building. Another lucky break! It was my home, and the flickering light in the window to the room I called my own must mean that somepony was there! Finally, hope was restored!
Onward I pressed, heading down the large thoroughfare toward what I wished more than anything were my Mommy and Daddy.
-12:22PM
~12:30PM Beware the wailing horde~
The cryptic words had been painted onto our house. They even covered up the name of our house,Town hall. It was a very impolite thing to do, but I’m sure Mommy would fix it.
“Mom-my!” I called out as I opened the door to our home. Yes! Home was always where mommy was. It was where she worked, so why wouldn’t she be here?
The house was dark, and coated in a thick layer of dust. However, the carpet from the doorway and through the hall, was well worn down to the wood underneath. A subtle creak as the structure shifted on its foundation was all that I could hear.
“Daddy?”
Again, I was met with no response. Without hesitation, I entered our home and proceeded to search for my parents. It was markedly odd how each of the rooms I looked through, had lines worn in the carpets. The line was unbroken, weaving from room to room. In only a few minutes, I had searched both the first and second floors for them and resulted with no parents found. The attic where I was stored, was the only place left to search.
As I approached, I found that the old and corroded door handle to the attic lay on the floor, and the door itself sat open. Heavy hoofprints were worn in the old oak steps, rust coating the inside of each step. Undaunted, I walked up the stairs, and undoubtedly, to my parents.
I was disappointed to find only my charging station. It was badly neglected, and it discharged sparks from where my adapter plug had once sat. The only thing out of place, was a yellowed piece of paper taped over the logo on the machine. Along the wall, in big red paint, sat the words Went north to city limits, I will come find you when it’s safe.
My internal compass had read that I had been traveling north to get here. It must mean that they were up north! Before I went, mommy told me to always read any note she left for Daddy and I. The note on the machine must be hers, and therefor, must be read. The tattered note was faded, but translatable.
Sterling, saw you went north. Secured Amber and have gone south by skywagon to get my parents out of Manehatten. Amber, when you find this, please turn on the emergency system on mommy’s desk to ward others away from the city. Then please, come find us.
Love, Emerald.
“Yay!” I happily giggled and hopped on my legs because it was mommy’s note! That must mean that they are both up north! “I’m coming for you!”
I called out and raced back down the steps. I was so happy that mommy entrusted me to do something for her! She never let me push the buttons on her desk! I guess that meant that she was just so proud that I was growing to be a big filly!
Quickly looking around, I found a set of buttons next to her phone. Most of them were all dusty, but the big read one that read Emergency Alert System didn’t have a single speck on it. It must have been because it was important, but it didn’t matter. I reached up and pressed it with my forehoof like mommy told me to do.
It started with a dull whine, but a wailing sound of alternating pitch started to fill the air around me. It was startling, and so incredibly loud that I had to turn my sound sensors off. With what mommy asked of me completed, it was time to head north to find them. I trotted my way back out the front door, and then froze in fear. From the way I had come, more of the same monsters as before were running at me.
With a scream, I turned and ran from my home.
I was so afraid! I kept crying out for my parents, for anypony to come and help me, but nopony came. There were only the monsters. As afraid as I was, I had to keep looking over my shoulder. Hundreds of screaming, angry monsters followed in my wake. They were gaining on me, one larger one in particular lead them. It snarled as I looked at it, a rusting metal hoof lodged in it’s chest.
Filled with more fear than ever, I was driven to go faster by the hope of ever seeing my loving parents again. I darted between old sky and motor wagons, heading for the northern exit to the city. As before, a great steel wall of piled up vehicles was there to greet me.
Once again, a single, dark hole in the wall was my only option. Again, I had made it with only moments to spare. Though, my black tears had skewed vision enough where I could not enter the hole without incident. My head hit a charred and twisted bumper, smashing my left eye, and ripping my jaw from me. Still, my momentum twisted and carried me into the safety that the dark crevice provided.
The wave of monsters writhed and recoiled as it slammed against the metal wall. My vision filled with warnings of damaged systems, but they were muted after a moment. I still had one good eye, and my jaw was only an aesthetic touch. My vocal unit was still functional, and I could still continue towards my objective.
This tunnel was once again filled with the same dry scraps of leather as the other. I used one to clean the black tears from the lens of my still functioning eye. With my vision restored to the best quality it would attain, I wound my way through the wall. Like the one in the south, this exit happened to lead outside of the dark city. Again, as with the other side, only a barren plain laid before me.
-7:30PM
-Warning: Heatsinks at 95% of maximum
-Time to scheduled heat purge and daily maintenance shutdown: 30m
-Log change: Parent ID in range
-Error: out of memory - Log change not recognized.
I was still alone. It had been hours since I had left the city. The only thing keeping me going on my trek was the thought that Mommy and Daddy were somewhere just up ahead. The rusted sign up ahead was painted over with words I wasn’t allowed to read, but underneath spelled out City limits.
There, behind the sign, was a twisted and rusting motor-wagon. As soon as I saw it, I burst into the fastest run I could manage on my three legs. They were right up ahead!
“D-da-addy! M-mom-mmy-y!” My vocal unit’s stutter was worsening, and my heatsinks were filling even faster, but it didn’t matter! Soon, mommy would wrap her hooves around me and everything would be okay!
As I approached the motor wagon, I found something unexpected. It was the deceased husk of a pony who had been halfway squished under the wreckage of the vehicle. A cursory observation of the vehicle rendered it empty of my loving parents. The only pony in the immediate area was the body.
But that had to mean something! My parents wouldn’t abandon me! If it is the only thing to stand out, it would have to be important, just like the note mommy left! I resolved to search for a note. The back half of the pony was nothing more than dry skin and bones, so no luck there. The front half however would have to be important!
Lucky for me, there was a hole dug under the front of the wreck of the car, just large enough for me to get through! With a little wiggle, I managed to get my head down under it. In the hole, it was too dark to see, so I turned on the light in my eye.
To my horror, the dried pony looked just like Daddy.
With a scream, I wrenched my head out. No! Daddy couldn’t be gone! He would never have left me! This was just somepony else, a lying pony! Mommy and Daddy always said that lying was bad, and this is bad! So it must be a lying pony down there! He… he had to still be somewhere… he had to be.
I collapsed on the road and cried.
-Warning: Heatsinks at maximum
-Time to scheduled heat purge and daily maintenance shutdown: 1m
It was the end of my day, and I was still alone. Mommy and Daddy hadn’t forsaken me, but I didn’t know where they had gone. Maybe, maybe they had kept going north? Maybe I would find them in the next city. With only moments before I went into sleep mode, I curled myself on the road, preparing for the long night ahead.
Yes, the next city. That is where they would certainly be found.
-Data log 64021 complete
-Error: memory capacity exceeded
-Not enough storage space
-Excess log 64021 Purge… authorized
-Estimated time to complete: 12 hours
-
-
-
-
-
-Purge completed: log 64021 deleted from memory
-Elapsed time: 12h12m
-Unit 466: Designation Amber
-Data log 64022 8:00AM
-power reserves at 27%
-memory capacity exceeded
-begin wake up routine
-new log entry begins
My optic whined open and took in the dull morning's light that pressed through the sludge over it’s lense. I wiped it off curiously, confused what it was. Last night, Daddy read me a bedtime story and then I went to sleep like I was told to. The overcast light filtering down from the clouds was not the sight above me that I had remembered shutting down to. With this new information, I took notice that I was for some alarming reason, no longer at home.
I was in the middle of nowhere… alone.
Author's Note
So, once again, you have to go thank Billy2345 over on Deviantart for the original art that serves as the inspiration. I'd seen the picture within minutes of it's posting, and it was only a few hours after that I'd finished the original draft of the story. Which of course, I'd sent to Billy2345 with the specific idea that only he could ever greenlight the posting of this story. As it turns out, he enjoyed it enough that he gave me his blessing to post it! If you enjoyed reading this, please do me a favor and go tell him you thought his little wonderbots were a fantastic idea.
For the story, I wanted something that could take the sadness and suffering of his wonderbots and amplify them to an unimaginable level. I spent almost as long retooling the story to work the same way if told in reverse, as it took to write it all in the first place. I hope beyond hope that the hints I'd left for Amber's repetitive journey were easy enough to understand, and that her story leaves you to wonder about just how long she's been doing this. As always, if you had any thoughts or comments about it, feel free to leave a comment down below, or send me a note!
