Subroutine

You can’t say you’ve ever been so anxious for a parcel. Come to think of it, you can’t remember ever being excited for anything that came through the Post. Most likely because snail mail had all but petered out of existence, what with letters and postcards now being easy holoscreen messages.

The mail service did endure though, however it only lived because 3D printing and quantum computers still had their limits, especially with something as complex as what was destined to arrive at your doorstep today.

You twiddle your thumbs anxiously for a few minutes as you watch your photon clock intently. The face clicks over to 12:01 and finally, your doorbell chimes.

Figures. They said it would be here at twelve. Even in this day and age, the post is still late.

With reserved footsteps you walk to your front door and command it open, on the other side you’re greeted by the friendly, if a bit worn android grinning at you with its cheaply made smile.

Onone arm, which you note looks more like the arm on an old garbage truck than a human’s, probably to cope with heavier parcels, is your package. On the other is a holoscreen asking for your signature.

The robot spews out its pre-recorded message asking for ID confirmation, to which you simply just push your thumb against the marker, and quickly sign. The robot bade you farewell and the door closes behind you.

You can feel your excitement building in your throat like a bad cough. The box is large, probably about the size of a mini-fridge but not weighing much more than a microwave.

You quickly set it down and begin slicing through the sticky black plastic that the postal service wraps it up in to reveal the actual cardboard underneath. Peeling it all off, you reveal a sky-blue box with labels, logos and all sorts of fascinating pictures that hint of the product inside.

You pay none of those any mind however and quickly cut open the top of the box in a greedy rush. That is until you see a very important, very official looking book sitting in its own little cardboard shelf.

Hardbacked. You think to yourself, meaning that it was either really old, or the pages were made of holoscreens, which a quick flick through tells you that it’s the latter.

No expense spared, it seems.

You open it up, and after flicking past the warranty card and the index you come to the introduction.

THE LIFELIKE CORPORATION

Congratulations on your purchase of your very own LifeLike Companion!

LifeLike is a company that toils hard to bring its customers only the highest quality synthetics. Our products range from the ever friendly Toddler to Teen Best Friend Forever range, right up to the Hold me Close mature service droids!

Today however, you have decided to become a crucial part of our newest, and boldest venture yet! The Companion Series aims to provide a friendly touch to whomever feels like their life needs a little bit of color.

Your model is handcrafted by the finest engineers and biotechnical experts. Your companion is not only a robot, they are a cyborg!

A revolutionary step forward in cybernetics! Your companion has just as much of a biology as you do, but with all the parts likely to fail replaced with high quality mechanical components, which means your companion will last as long as you need it.

Most importantly, your companion is the lucky recipient of our patented ‘MS-MD Intelligence manifold!’

That’s right! Your companion is intelligent! It will learn and adapt to its surroundings, so be sure to mold it to your liking!

Your companion is whatever you make it, so make it a good one!

The rest of the first few pages were some instructions regarding the care and use of your newfound friend. Despite how much you were anticipating this delivery, you made yourself read the whole thing front to back. Last thing you wanted was to somehow break your ‘companion’

The book mainly detailed how to care for it, wash it, what to do in the event of a malfunction. Once you were satisfied with it, you plucked out the cardboard cover.

You notice one last piece of paper was laid on top of your companion. You quickly snatch it up. It’s fairly simple, a note left by the engineers.

Please note: Your companion is currently in it’s off-line state, however due to the MS-MD intelligence manifold, your companion can act strangely in the few minutes after a boot-up. We ask you to refrain from turning your companion off whenever possible.

Finally, you cast the papers aside, looking down into the bottom of the box to see your companion.

She really was beautiful.

Curled up into a little ball at the base of the box, you could see her chest move up and down slightly, her soft blue fur looking so real as it shifted with the movement. Her brilliant rainbow mane fluttered gently as it hung in front of her nose, but the rest of her body lay completely motionless.

As you’d read, only her primal brain was active. A simple construct that kept her lungs and heart working during off-line periods. You had to turn on her MS-MD for her to become truly operational.

Gingerly, you hook your hands under her forelegs and pull her up out of the box. Her fur was warm to the touch and her wings, you notice as they unfurl slackly, are gorgeously crafted; every feather being able to move individually.

You pull her onto your lap, settling her rear hooves into the space between you legs and letting her rest her head on your shoulder. It felt like a large dog had fallen asleep on you. A large dog that smelt faintly of lavender.

Gently, you brush her mane away, exposing her neck. A tiny hole, barely noticeable in all the fur is present. Using a special ‘Activation Pin’ the box supplied, you slip it into the hole, and press firmly for five seconds.

The first thing you notice is that her wings slowly retract and fold up to her sides, just like they were when she was in the box. Her tail flicked cutely a few times and her hooves began to twitch and grab, almost as if she were stretching them.

Once she stiffens up a bit, you pull her off her lap and lay her on the floor, letting her do whatever it is she needs to. Slowly, more and more of her tiny body starts to come online. Stretching and moving in more lifelike ways until finally, she opens her eyes.

Her big magenta pools suddenly fill the room with color, they’re unfocused at first, but after a few blinks she manages to get them to focus. And she focuses right on you.

She just stares for a couple seconds, and you stare back, not really sure what you’re supposed to do. Her expression is flat and you hope that this is just a bit of that ‘boot-up’ quirkiness they spoke of.

Suddenly, her eyes take on a different shine, one you’ve never seen in any construct before. They sparkle with new life, one filled with the yearning to explore and discover, to see and learn new things.

Her lips begin to move and her face turns into a huge beaming smile as she looks at you. You can feel her infectious happiness, even if it is simulated.

Your smile only makes hers even larger. She glances away from you down at the ground, which, seeing as it was only a few inches away from her in her prone position, was pretty cute to see her staring at your carpet so intently.

She lets out a happy gasp once she finds her legs (literally) and begins to stand. Albeit wobbly.

She rises to her full stature, her smile so full of wonder at everything around her. Once she’s confident enough to stand upright without looking at her hooves, she looks back at you.

You suddenly feel put on the spot. The pressure to make a good first impression weighing heavy on you.

“Uh... Hi?” you fumble out.

She gasps happily again. “Hi!” she replies in a adorably enthusiastic way, then suddenly looking around the room like her own voice had surprised her. Once her eyes land back on you, she speaks again.

“Hi!” she parrots, adoring the sound she was making.

You smile widely, looking at her utter bewilderment.

“Hello, my name is Anon. What’s yours?” you ask.

She look intently at you again, it would be creepy if she weren't so darn cute.

“My name...” she starts off joyously, but stops when she has to think. “My name is... Rainbow Dash? But you can call me whatever you want!”

You smile. “Rainbow Dash sounds like a wonderful name.”

She grins “You think so? I like names! What’s yours?”

“Anon, I said that already,” you chuckle.

She tilts her head. “Oh!” she taps a hoof to her head. “I must still be booting up!”

“That’s alright Rainbow Dash,” you tell her, letting her think about something for a few seconds before talking.

“Do you know where you are?”

She looks down at the ground intently, as if asking this question required some serious thought. Which, to a computer, it did.

She looks back at you. “No!” she says, still over joyously happy. “But I’m sure I’ll figure it out!”

“You're in my house Rainbow. Well... Our house I guess.”

“Our house? You mean I live here too?”

“Of course Dash. You’re my companion!” you smile.

“Dash? That’s not my name,” she states innocently. “But it can be if you want it!”

“No no, Rainbow Dash. Thats a nickname. It’s a shorter way of saying your name.”

“So my name is Rainbow Dash, and Dash?” she asks, tilting her head to the side.

“Thats right! But your proper name is Rainbow Dash.”

She pauses. “Okay!”

“So, do you think you’re confident enough to walk?”

She looks down at her legs again, and you watch mesmerised as her mane swishes down to follow her head.

She springs right back up to you, “I think so! Left, right, left right!” she chants, and clumsily starts to plod around.

“Can you walk towards me?” you ask her, making sure your legs were spread far enough so that she didn’t have to try and dodge them as she crossed the small gap.

“Okay Anon,” she replies and begins slowly moving towards you, taking very deliberate steps. Once she gets close enough. You reach out and grab her gently. She doesn’t protest, but her look of confusion told you she wasn’t sure what she was now supposed to be doing.

You pull her up onto your lap like you had done earlier, except now she’s fully aware of you. You make sure her rear hooves are comfortably tucked beneath her and that she can rest her full weight upon your chest.

Once you’re satisfied that she’s secure, you go in for a cuddle.

Her head finds a spot by the crook of your neck and you arms hold her tightly around her lithe little body. Once she realizes what you’re doing, she sighs happily, recognizing the gesture. She melts into you and nuzzles you softly, you can’t keep yourself from kissing the crown of her head.

Running a hand through her mane and another over her wings, she croons lightly. Obviously, the little pony using this closeness to not only learn more about you, but to also experience the feeling of being touched.

You hold her for what could be hours, just fulfilling your desire to hold her. After waiting so long it was almost unbelievable that she was finally here in your arms. Gently, with soft and loving attention your rake your fingers through her mane and down her coat.

“Welcome home Dashie.”

A few days later, and Rainbow was really starting to get the hang on everything, she was even beginning to learn to fly. After you’d downloaded some new drivers onto her of course.

Aside from the close cuddles and the occasional kiss, you hadn’t really gone much further than that. Even though she was ‘built’ and programmed for more, her gleeful innocence and childlike wonder made you want to wait just a bit longer. She wasn’t one of those cheap mature service bots, she was special to you.

You made a small promise to yourself that your first time with her was going to be special.

For both of you.

“Come on Anon! You promised we’d go to the park today!”

“We’re going as soon as I find my shoes Rainbow,” you reply, scouring you're cupboard for them.

Rainbow thinks for a moment before running off into another room. You weren't sure if that was a factory setting, or something that you’d done, but every time she wanted to get somewhere she tried to get there as fast as possible.

She screeched into the room a moment later, two flip-flops hanging from her mouth, looking up at you intently.

You smile at her and ruffle her mane, something you’d discovered she’d liked early on. Although, you're pretty sure she adores any contact you make with her.

Quickly slipping them on, you make for the door, being extra cautious to keep an eye on your little pony. She’d only gone out twice before and both times were into the backyard. This was her first venture into the wide open world.

You were also not so sure how others would react to her. LifeLike Companions were common knowledge, but their price tag put them out of the range of most, so they were still a pretty rare sight. Even rarer to see non-human ones.

A short walk later and you were at the park. You didn’t get any strangers coming up to you both but you're pretty sure you saw people eyeing her off from passing cars.

You enter through the always open iron gates and are greeted with you're towns best kept park. Swing Sets and play equipments dominated by children, a lake for feeding ducks, a large wooden gazebo for indoor plants and huge, ancient trees.

Walking through the gates, Rainbow immediately bolted for the nearest patch of sun lit grass. The turf was well watered, far better than your backyard and felt perfect between your toes. For this reason, as soon as Rainbow got there, she immediately started to roll around in it, just like a dog does after being washed.

LifeLike Companions could actually feel. Nerve receptors in their skin acted the same as it does for humans, but unlike humans, each and every new feeling is an amazing experience, and Rainbow was doing everything she could to make sure she got the full effect of this one.

You watched and smiled from a distance. Had this been a child of your own you would have immediately told them to stop such foolish behaviour, but you couldn’t bring yourself to stop Rainbow. The way she attacked everyday with such wonder, it was more than childlike innocence, it was utter amazement to everything around her.

However, a bright blue pony with an amazing rainbow mane rolling around in a public park quickly caught some attention. It wasn’t long before a toddler, probably just under two years old waddled its way over to Rainbow. A young boy.

Stopping about a foot away from her, he simply pointed at her while looking back to his mom, all while making some basic attempt at saying something. Like a cross between a ‘Bhuh’ and a ‘gho’

Once his mother noticed, she quickly made her way over to retrieve her child, but not before Rainbow had noticed him.

Immediately, she bolted upright, sitting on her haunches and tilting her head at him. The young boy giggled and moved towards her. Rainbow quickly looked at you for support as you came over, but your smile put her at ease.

She sat still as the boy began to stroke her, probably thinking she was some kind of hugely oversized cat due to the meowing sounds he was making. Rainbow closed her eyes and smiled as she felt the infants hand clumsily pet her wings.

You and the mother arrived at the scene at the same time, she looked at you quickly before picking her son up.

“Sorry about that,” she apologized.

“No it’s alright, Rainbow didn’t mind,” you reply, while Dash stared intently at the women.

“Are you a girl?” Rainbow asked sweetly after eyeing her over for a few moments.

the woman seemed a bit shocked at Rainbows sudden voice, but quickly connected the dots as to what she was. Kneeling down and placing her child back on the ground, she spoke to Rainbow.

“Yes I am,” she spoke, obviously knowing how to help such a construct understand.

Rainbow smiled. “I’m a girl too!” she grinned, before looking over at you. “Right?”

You just nodded, making the young mother laugh.

“Shes only a few days old, she's still learning. This is her first trip outside the house.” you explain.

“Oh, so you’ve never seen anyone aside from your Master?”

“Well, I saw people on the television!” she answered, “but this is the first time I’ve seen someone other than Anon aside from that.”

“And what's your name?” the lady asks, talking to Rainbow as one would a young child.

Rainbow beamed. “My name is Rainbow Dash. Or Dash, or Dashie! Anon has given me lots of different nicknames, but I like Dashie the best.”

“Why do you like that one?” the woman asks, and you listen in intently too, having not heard this tidbit you're companion was about to share.

“Because when Anon says it, it makes him happy. And seeing my master happy makes me happy!”

You try not to show how much that little statement had grabbed your heart like a vice.

You say goodbye to the woman and her son. Well as best you could, the little boy didn’t really seem to want to say goodbye to Rainbow just yet. Clutching tightly to one of her forehooves and giggling along with Rainbow as he unintentionally tickled her.

You continue you walk through the park with your new friend. The little robo-pony taking particular interest in the tree and the birds, watching them flutter from branch to branch.

You pass a duck pond and you see Rainbow detour over to the edge when a duck waddles to the waterline on the small island in the middle. She watches, mesmerized as the water fowl waddles into the water before its legs disappear into it and it starts swimming around.

Eventually, you reach a clearing. A spot for picnics with park benches a little ways to the side and a large swing-set at the back. You keep an eye on the children playing on it, noticing that most of them are a fair bit older than the young toddler that had approached Rainbow before. You didn’t want them to upset Rainbow if they decided to come over.

The sky is clear and the sun shines warmly on you and your companion. You sit on the grass while Rainbow stands, just looking at everything.

“Want a drink, Dash?” you ask, making to pull out a juicebox for her for your packed lunch.

She shakes her head. An improvement from a few days ago, when she wouldn’t turn down any food you offered her as she didn’t want to say no to you. She almost made herself sick.

“No thanks, Anon. I’d actually like to try flying again,” she responds.

You smile, “Sure Dashie. Go for it.”

She beams at you before taking off. Despite only learning how to fly a few days ago, she was proving herself to be quite adept at it. Already being able to fly above the treetops with no problem.

She seems to have decided to stay low today however, choosing to stay floating around you for the most part, occasionally flying off only to come blazing past you. Buzzing the tower.

As you’d expected, her aerial antics didn’t go unnoticed, and soon a small gaggle of young girls soon came over to watch the spectacle. You’d assumed the boys were staying put simply because ponies were a girl’s thing.

Oh if only they’d known.

Once Rainbow saw them, she landed gracefully next to you. She looked to you for clarification, however you were as well versed on what to do around little girls as she was, so all you do is shrug.

One girl however was game enough to approach.

“Excuse me mister,” she begins. “Um, is this your pony?”

You nod “Yes she is. Say hi Rainbow,” you encourage.

“Hi!” Rainbow greets them, showing no sign of shyness, probably due to your willingness to talk to them. If they were alright for you then they were alright for Rainbow too.

“Could we um... Could we pet her?” she asks sweetly, failing to hide her enthusiasm.

You were no scrooge, puppy dog eyes were a fatal weakness of yours. “Of course you can. As long as Rainbow is alright with it.”

You look to your companion. You see a flash of nervousness cross her eyes. She’s never been touched by anyone other than you and that little boy, a whole group of young girls was completely new territory for her.

You silently reassure her by staying close to her side. She trots into the middle of the group of girls but once she stops the girls seem reluctant to start.

Eventually, the same girl who was game enough to come over and speak to you reaches out and places her hand on Dash’s shoulder. You notice Rainbow tense slightly but one look into your eyes calms her. As long as you're here she has nothing to worry about.

Soon, Rainbow is covered in tiny prepubescent hands, mostly concentrated around her mane and tail. You could hear the girls lament about how they wish they’d brought a brush. Instead, they decide to make do with their fingers, raking and combing through her coat in ways you could never do. Occasionally, one hand would stray to one of her wings, whether out of curiosity or simply a mistake, once they touched, Rainbow flinched. She stayed firm for the most part; until one hand slid far to close to the base of her tail.

Rainbow suddenly yelps and she pulls forward, making the girls immediately whip their hands away in fear they’d hurt the small horse. Rainbow then ducked forward into your safety, staring back at the girls not with anger, but more of a look portraying sheer bewilderment.

“Okay girls, I think she’s had enough,” you reply calmly. Some of the girls groan a little but the majority just accept it and wander off again.

Rainbow stays behind you until she deemed they were far enough away. Once you two were alone together, you gave her a questioning glance.

“Are you okay Rainbow?”

She looks at you for a moment before speaking. “Well, it was weird but it wasn’t so bad until one of them put her hand really close to the base of my tail.”

She looks over herself back to where her tail meets her body.

“Anon...” she starts “It felt really weird, but it wasn’t a bad weird?” she tells you, her tone showing that even she was confused about what she had felt.

You sigh, you’d figured this would come up soon. “Let’s go home Dashie,” you say as you stand.

“It’s time for you to learn about the birds and the bees.”