Short Circuit

         I opened my eyes to find myself somewhere entirely new. It was unlike any of the places I had seen since leaving Doctor Sparks’ lab. The walls were pure white, almost glimmering in the light.

The sunlight.

I only now realized that I had not seen the sunlight anywhere else. I know it had to have been there, but it had been dark on my escape from the laboratory. My surroundings also had not had much meaning to me at the time, my only goal being to run.

The sunlight was shining through a large window to my right, which took up most of the wall. Once my eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness of the world, I could see flowers planted outside, and a lone tree in the middle of an expansive courtyard.

While looking through the window, I saw something else in the corner of my vision. A vital monitor was perched upon a thin rod, tubes coming out of each side, which I deduced to be for drug administration. Following the tubes, I found them to converge into one, and connect to one of my forelegs. It was now I saw that I was lying upon a bed.

I looked up. Ahead of me was a door, its color matching that of the walls, but with a golden trim. A clock hung above it, reading half past noon. I looked to my left, and saw a yellow-coated mare with a blue mane done up in a tidy ponytail.

“Hello!” She said suddenly, as if she had been waiting for me to notice her, “You’ve finally woken up I see. We’ve been waiting for you.”

An enormous grin on her face, she walked toward the door I had seen just moments ago.

“We?” I enquired, “Who else is here? Do you mean Iron?”

I had not exactly met many ponies since my initial awakening, so if somepony had been waiting for me, I thought it had to have been either Iron, or the ponies that had raided Doctor Sparks’ laboratory. I hoped it wasn’t the latter, but simultaneously my relationship with the former was now questionable.

“We’re Doctor Sparks’ students of course. Just like you! Just look outside.” She poised a forehoof toward the window.

Looking over, I now saw at least four dozen other ponies wandering the courtyard. Some were hurrying from place to place, while others slowly trudged along. I couldn’t make out much detail of the ponies aside from their colors.

“Why didn’t I see them just a moment ago?” I asked, remembering having looked out at the tree less than a minute ago.

When I looked back to her, she was already opening the door to let in a stallion. His colors were a reverse of the mares, having a blue coat and yellow mane. He slowly stepped inside and tilted his muzzle to peer down his glasses at me. A toothy smile formed on his face.

“Well, well. How was your nap?” He said, dragging a stool out from the wall closer to my bedside, “Sparc, isn’t it? Pleasure to make your acquaintance, my name is Professor Beaker, and you’ve already met my little angel, Glitter Gauze. She was your nurse, and she hardly left your side during your recovery.”

Glitter Gauze’s cheeks went red.

“Oh it was nothing, Daddy, just doing my job!” She turned to me and gave a little bow. I nodded back to her.

Now seemed like a good time to start asking questions.

“Where am I, and how did I get here?”

The professor straightened his glasses.

“Right down to business, very good,” he said, adjusting himself on his seat. “You are at a facility for the former and present students of Shimmering Spark, or as you know him, Doctor Sparks. You got here because we brought you here. What else would you like to know?”

I took in his answer for a moment before asking for another.

“Why did you bring me here, and why are you calling me Sparc?”

“You have been brought here just like every other student of Doctor Sparks because we need your abilities to help realize his dream of a utopian society brought about by the evolution of technology. You in particular are a special project of his, so to say. You are his first succesfully operating cyborg. He has given ponies plenty of implants, and built plenty of robots, but creating a thinking, feeling being out of dead parts was a whole different matter.

“You are half pony, half robot, and most importantly you still have most of your original brain intact. He had to destroy your memories, unfortunately, but your motor skills, your ‘book smarts’, your language he was able to retain, making you perfectly capable of integrating into society. That is, if they don’t attack you on sight.”

“Why did he have to destroy my memories?” I questioned further.

The professor chuckled grimly.

“Well, you weren’t the first attempt at a cyborg, and bringing ponies back from the dead, with half of their body replaced with metal.... If they didn’t die from the shock of their body rejecting the implants, they usually lost their sanity within days.” he explained solemnly, “Removing the memories of their ‘true self’ seemed to be the best solution to the latter of the issues.”

“I see.” I replied, “I have heard rumors. Are the ponies Doctor Sparks experimented on... kidnapped?” I knew there was a chance that regardless of the real answer, this pony was going to deny it, he seemed to hold Doctor Sparks in immensely high regard.

“Ah, who told you this, exactly?” He squinted at me through his glasses.

I did not answer.

“Well, whoever it was, they are not entirely wrong. Doctor Sparks was very infamous in some parts of the city, many saw him as a fanatic, a mad scientist even. He would go to these areas on purpose in the hopes of being attacked, so that he could incapacitate his assailant with whatever gadget he had. These are ponies that were trying to kill him, so you could say it was in self defense. Though I cannot deny that he may have enjoyed plunging a scalpel into them just a little more than the cadavers his suppliers provided him.”

This did not exactly tag Doctor Sparks as the malicious type, but I was certainly beginning to question his ethics. I recognized now that I was still awaiting an answer to an earlier question.

“Why do you call me by the Doctor’s name?” I pressed once more.

Professor Beaker took a deep breath.

“Well that... that has to do with why you are here. You aren’t exactly named after the Doctor, it’s just a coincidence really. SPARC is....”

“Is what?” I coaxed.

The professor bit his lip, as if trying to decide how to tell a foal their puppy had been run over. I could see Glitter Gauze backing into the corner, her expression nervous as she looked at the floor. I quickly turned and looked out the window. There were no ponies anymore, and no tree, either.

As I suspected.

“Are you having trouble keeping all these stories straight, Professor Beaker?” I asked with a smirk.

“W-what do you mean, I...” he struggled. “I didn’t-”

“The clock still says half past noon,” I began, “There was a tree in the courtyard when I woke up, and no ponies to be seen. My vital readings on the monitor haven’t changed in the slightest since I arrived, and I don’t feel any side effects of any injury, nor do I feel the effect of any of the drugs apparently being injected into me. Yet you act as if I’ve been in here for a long while.”

“Y- you must be hallucinating, Sparc, you need to rest.” The professor was becoming quite visibly stressed now.

“Your daughter stayed silent until the moment I looked directly at her, and then she sprang to full attention, but even more telling than that, I wasn’t surprised to see her there, as if I was fully expecting her to be there waiting silently for me. I do not know how you are doing this, but you are imprinting exactly the things I expect to see onto this reality.”

Both ponies remained speechless. The fact they were not calling me insane being confirmation enough for me, I quickly bounded out of the bed I was upon, and burst through the door Professor Beaker had come out of. I was met with an abyss. I had no time to catch myself. I fell, deeper and deeper, watching the light from the doorway I had jumped from grow smaller. I fell for several minutes, until finally, I awoke from the dream.

“It’s smart, I’ll give you that much. This isn’t over yet though. I’ve got a few more tricks.”

“Of course it’s smart.... I built it. By all means though, continue your attempts. I find it entertaining. It’s just a matter of time, after all.”