My name is Rosalina Finch. Until quite recently, I worked for the government at a secret laboratory, working on a project code named "The Strawberry Project".
The 'Strawberry' part doesn't actually mean anything. 'Strawberry' is just the code name for a highly advanced artificial intelligence that is the backbone of the work done at the lab. I single-handedly programmed Strawberry myself, which meant that I am the head of the project.
As a matter of fact, there were no others working directly on the Strawberry Project. It was just me and Strawberry. Once I proved that any task could be performed by Strawberry through the use of special androids that it controls, an entire research lab was given to me to oversee all by myself. You see, the fewer people who are involved, the less chance of an information leak. And the work we did at Strawberry Lab was rather sensitive.
There were two goals, one long term goal and one (relatively) short term goal. The long term goal was the continual development of Strawberry as an artificial intelligence. The short term goal was to apply Strawberry's astounding problem solving power to develop advances in the medical field.
Concerning the short term goal, let's say that Strawberry and I accidently managed to FAR exceed expectations.
We accidently stumbled upon an advancement that could revolutionize medicine. A solution to one of humanity's oldest problems. We created the ultimate cure for any disease.
It isn't the kind of cure that you might think it is. As a matter of fact, it is nothing short of highly untraditional. I call it the 'DRAW' cure. DRAW is an acronym for 'destructive resonant audio waves'. Technically, each cure is nothing more than a sound.
You see, these 'destructive resonant audio waves' are capable of causing physical damage. Some old bridges that are made out of a pure metal as opposed to an alloy are susceptible to these audio waves. If the wind 'whistles' at exactly the right pitch, and for long enough, the structural integrity of the bridge fails and it collapses. These audio waves are also what is depicted in the classic scene of an opera singer shattering glass with her voice.
But only materials that are pure are susceptible to the DRAW phenomenon. Or, at least, ordinarily that would be true. Alloys can be affected if, and only if, the sound wave changes dynamically in such a way that it tears apart the mixed materials in the proper sequence. Depending on the complexity of the material, the sound wave required can also get very complex.
The birth of the DRAW project was on the day that I asked myself if it was possible to use destructive resonant audio waves to tear apart DNA chains. If this was possible, then certain sounds could be created that would completely eradicate all traces of any particular species of pathogen's DNA in an affected area, leaving the pathogens as harmless husks. Of course, DNA chains are extremely long and complex, and creating a suitable sound to destroy them is quite beyond our ability to calculate.
But, I was confident that it would not be outside of the realm of possibility for Strawberry.
And I was right. After many trial runs in the flora gardens in the lab, we succeeded in making the plants there completely disease free. We succeeded in created a method of destroying any known living thing in mass quantity. The DRAW cure can also be used to destroy bad proteins, so prions are also susceptible. In theory, it should even eradicate the common cold, although because of the unstable nature of the common cold virus, it would often be necessary to create multiple cures specific to individuals. Never the less, it will work perfectly.
But, as I'm sure you have realized by now, we have also succeeded in creating potentially the most dangerous weapon in history. It could work just as effectively on macroscopic life as it does on microscopic life forms. It could be adapted to humans.
And that is not something that I was willing to risk giving to anyone.
Looking back on it, the right thing to do would have been to destroy all traces of the research. But the medical advantages prevented me from actually doing it. I suppose I was hoping to think of a way that the research could be beneficial without the possibility of weaponizing it. So I made a stupid mistake.
I began falsifying research data to keep the DRAW cure a secret. I thought that it would buy me time while I decided what to do. That was one week ago.
And now I am paying for that stupidity.
"So," says the government agent standing in front of my desk, "In short, I require access to the entire facility in order to perform an analysis and verify your results. You will come with me to answer any questions I have."
I should have seen this coming. What can I do? Should I stall for time?
"Yes, of course," I answer before pushing my chair away from my desk and standing up. "Shall we begin right now?"
"Immediately," confirms the suited man.
I do my best to hide my troubled face. I'm not sure how effective I am though.
All of the sudden, the entire room starts glowing with a weird purple aura and I start feeling nauseous all over, although I'm not sure if it is an effect of the purple glow or if I'm just nauseous with dread because of the strange development.
"What's going on here?!" demands the agent.
"I don't know!" I cry honestly.
"This is really unconfortable," continues the agent. His eyes light up in alarm.
"This lab must be under attack!" he shouts.
"Attack?" I cry in disbelief. "This place?"
"Of course!" cries the agent. "You know how valuable your work here is! You know the lengths that we've gone to keep this place secure! You have a very expensive sensor array installed here, what does it say?"
I pick my headset off of my shoulders and put it over my ears before unmuting the microphone and shouting into it, "Strawberry! What's going on?"
"I do not know," answers Strawberry's synthetic voice. "The sensor array is displaying no anomalies inside the building or on the grounds."
"How could that be?" I cry before throwing the headset off again.
"The sensors aren't picking a thing up!" I cry to the agent.
"We need to get out of here!" shouts the agent. "It could be dangerous!"
"But what about the data!" I shout. "If somebody is after my research, we can't let them have it!" Goodness, this guy doesn't even have a clue how true that is!
"I can't help you with that!" shouts the agent. "I'm an inspector, not a computer scientist! You will have to secure the data yourself! I'm getting out of here!"
I watched as the man turned to my office door and flung it open, quickly disappearing out of sight.
I don't waste any more time. I fumble with my headset again and put it back over my ears.
"Strawberry!" I shout. "Secure all the data! Everything!"
"I have already done so," answers Strawberry's eerily calm voice.
"What do I do?" I cry out.
"If you intend to remain in the facility to protect the data, I recommend we wait and watch."
Suddenly, the purple light grows in intensity and I have to force my eyes shut and cover my eyelids with my hands.
"Strawberry!"
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Strawberry!" I repeat, not caring about the answer.
"Yes, ma'am?"
And then the intense light vanished.
I slowly uncover my eyes and open them. Everything looks normal.
Well, or not. My arms appear to have turned red. And I've lost my hands. Just great.
Actually, I seem to have completely transformed into a pony.
You know what? This isn't important right now. The only thing that matters is the data!
Thankfully, the headset is still somehow managing to stay on my head.
"Strawberry, is the data secure?"
Suddenly, I hear the hum of one of Strawberry's androids. I look out of my open door and see it approaching.
It seems to have retained it's humanoid shape. Lucky thing.
"No indications exist that any data was accessed during the last few minutes," says the robot. "Ma'am, are you okay?"
"I'm fine..." I huff. "Just so long as the DRAW cure is still a secret."
"It is," confirms the robot. "But I am confused about something."
"I bet you are," I answer. "If you are going to ask if I have indeed turned into a pony, the answer is yes. And if you are going to ask if that is normal, the answer is no."
"Understood. This is unprecedented."
"Yes," I agree. "Now, did anything actually happen?"
"The entirety of Strawberry Laboratory appears to be relocated." The android paused before continuing. "I don't know what to make of the info coming from the sensor array."
"What?" I cry. "Relocated? Is that government agent anywhere nearby?"
"No. All surroundings are highly unexpected and unfamiliar."
"Well, let's go see what our eyes tell us then," I suggest, hopping off of my chair and immediately collapsing in the floor.
"Do you require assistance?" asks Strawberry.
"No, I got it!" I announce hastily as I scramble to my... hooves. "I just forgot about the whole 'four legs' thing." I take some steps and continue. "People are perfectly capable of walking on all fours if they try, and having a body that is actually built for it makes it even easier. I won't be running any races any time soon, but I'm fine!"
I should probably be freaking out about the pony thing, or questioning my sanity. But I'm just too relieved that I managed to avoid starting the apocalypse.
I walk toward the android and past him and out the door to demonstrate.
So, at least I still have valid motor skills. Not having any hands is going to be unpleasant though, to say the least.
I'm now standing in the computer room. The center is occupied by Strawberry's gigantic computing unit. Most of the rest filled with databases, which are basically just giant arrays of hard disk space. I think I had about three hundred petabytes of data stored here when I last checked.
It's all here for Strawberry to analyze and contains everything from history and math to casual books and entertainment videos and even video games. It was pretty nice to have government funding. There is no way I could have obtained all of this stuff on my own. And even though it is supposedly all for Strawberry, that hasn't stopped me from taking advantage of it for myself.
Actually, many of these databases haven't even been given to Strawberry yet. I don't want to give him too much information all at once. And besides, I want to carefully select what I actually let him have.
I wander over to the nearest window in order to get a look at the outside world. To my astonishment, It is nearly pitch black outside.
"What in the world?" I wonder aloud. "Strawberry," I say, addressing the robot, "could you shine some light out there?"
Strawberry obliges with a flashlight built into it's eyes, but the scene that is revealed to me outside doesn't make any sense. It looks nothing at all like the outside world should, or like anything else I can think of. It just looked like a bunch of bulbous... things, and some snaky things.
"Strawberry..." I ask slowly. "What are we looking at?"
"I predict approximately four in five odds that you will not like my answer," says Strawberry.
"I don't care!" I cry. "I need to know!"
"Perhaps it would be best to say that we are getting an inside perspective of the mind."
"WHAT?" Could that really mean what I think it does?
I turn away from the window and look up at the gigantic monitor that covers an entire wall of the computer room.
"Strawberry, project the info gathered from the sensors on the big screen. Isometric view."
The screen lights up and begins displaying the laboratory and its surroundings. The scene is uncomfortably familiar to me.
"Strawberry, please indicate for me where the lab is?" I say uneasily.
"Right here, ma'am," says the robot, indicating.
"... How is the entire laboratory inside Twilight Sparkle's skull?"
"Do you know that pony?" asked Strawberry.
"Um..." I hesitate. "Well, yes. Don't ask."
"Very well. Ma'am, I have more information for you. The network is being bombarded with data, and has been ever since the purple light vanished. In addition, the sensors clearly indicate the source of this data. I believe this data is, so to say, brain activity."
"Are you saying that you're reading Twilight's thoughts?" I exclaim.
"I believe so, after a fashion. I can't actually decrypt the meaning of any of it."
"Strawberry, you are aware that brain activity isn't encrypted, it's just incompatible with computer software?"
"To the contrary, the ports delivering data to our network appear to convert the data into a digital format. I do not know where they came from, or how they perform this task. I expect I could, however, convert the digital data into a meaningful format."
"Don't," I command Strawberry. The girl deserves her privacy after all.
And as for how all of this happened, well, the scene in the sensors makes it clear...
"I think I know what happened," I announce. "The whole laboratory was pulled into Equestria when Twilight had her magic surge during her entrance exam."
I think for a moment before saying, "Strawberry, I am instating a new axiom. Until further notice, magic is real and has no known explanation."
"Very well," says Strawberry obediently.
Wait a minute. If this is Equestria, then that means I might...
Yep. Sure enough. When cross my eyes just right, I can see a red horn jutting out of my forehead.
What about a cutie mark? Do I have one? I think I do, I can sort of see it, but I need a mirror.
I walk to the nearest bathroom (there is one on every floor) and turn ninety degrees so I can get a good look at my side. What I see disappoints me.
"One zero one zero one zero..." I mutter. That's it? I mean, it makes sense that programing would be my special talent, but, good grief, that cutie mark is the most boring I have ever laid eyes on.
Wait a minute, what does that even represent converted from binary to decimal anyway?
Oh, you gotta be kidding me...
Well, that proves it. I'm a giant nerd in two ways at once. And, if I can ever figure out a way out of Twilight's skull, nobody is even going to understand it. I mean, nopony. And I won't even be able to begin to explain!
Suddenly my heart starts pounding as I make a realization.
"Nobody will be able to understand!" I exclaim. "Here, nobody would be able to understand the DRAW cure if it was staring them in the face! I... I might be able to-"
No. I shouldn't get ahead of myself. There must be some unknown factor, a reason this is a bad idea. In fact, I shouldn't even be thinking about this right now. I need to get out of here first!
... I have no idea how I'm going to do that.
I have to face it. I'm going to need help. From a very specific pony.
Unfortunately, I have the feeling that it is going to take a long time to find a solution. It's a good thing that the laboratory wasn't on the public power or water line and instead has its own generator and a massive water tank, which is so large because of the large number of plants we care for here. Granted, one entire floral garden is nothing but strawberries. One of my superiors thinks he has a sense of humor. Although, several generations of the plants have come to pass and I never bothered to change the number of strawberry plants, so I guess I must be alright with it.
"Strawberry!" I say into my microphone.
"Yes, Ma'am?"
"I have changed my mind. We need to alert Twilight to our presence. See if you can isolate the brain activity that carries the sounds that Twilight is hearing and figure out how to convert it into a format we can understand and back. And delete any data you find that isn't relevant to this task from your memory. Then after you do that, we'll try injecting data back to her and see if we can use it to communicate with her."
I'm not particularly happy with this kind of intrusive communication, but I don't have any other idea how it could be done.
"Very well. This shouldn't take very long."
I sigh. I guess I may as well try to ease some of the tension I'm feeling. Maybe I'll fire up one of my video games.
I walk back into my office and sit down in my chair. To be honest, I don't really have a real job here. Strawberry does almost all of the work himself. I'm just here to keep an eye on things and to give orders to Strawberry. So I mostly sit in my office playing video games. This is what I do with my doctorate.
Hey, I did plenty of hard work when Strawberry was still being programed.
It feels weird to sit in my chair, but I guess I'll just have to get used to it. I put my hooves on my mouse and keyboard and begin browsing through my collection-
Wait, what the-
I stare at my hooves. They are pretty much flat on the bottom.
How the heck am I doing that?
I try using my keyboard again.
Somehow, I still feels like I have fingers, despite the fact that I clearly don't. And somehow I am able to use my keyboard and mouse just fine.
What the heck...
And then it hits me.
All of the ponies in Equestria have some small ability to manipulate objects with their magic, regardless of what pony race they belong to. That one episode where the girls all get their tickets to the gala prove it. They all walked out the front door of the library with their tickets floating alongside them, after all!
A theory crosses my mind. I lower my hooves. I feel really awkward since I'm sure I would look really dumb for trying this, but there isn't anybody around at the moment. I try to magically 'touch' the keyboard without getting my hooves anywhere near them. Somehow, I can feel the buttons. I try pushing one, and my eyes confirm that the button does in fact go down.
I start laughing manically. I'm like a jedi or something! I can move stuff with my mind! I bet I could-
Wait, maybe not. If any pony can do this, why don't they do it all the time?
I roll my chair away from the keyboard slowly. Further and further I go, until finally I feel my 'grip' on the keyboard pulled away.
Well, that's just great. I can't even 'reach' any further with this than I could with my arms.
I really need to get this horn figured out. I can't do I thing with it right now.
I might have spent longer than I thought gawking at my 'levitation' powers, because before I know it, Strawberry's robot walks up to me and says, "The task is finished. You should be able to put your plan to the test whenever you wish. However, I would advise that you wait. Twilight appears to be talking to other ponies at the moment and confusing her with a disembodied voice may cause problems. I suggest that you wait until she is alone."
"Good thinking," I say. I get up from my chair and walk close enough to the door that I can look up at the big screen again, which is still displaying the surroundings from the sensor array, since I never did tell Strawberry to remove it.
She's riding on her mother's back. They appear to be walking home after the excitement from earlier.
How long have I been here?
And how are we not feeling the effects of Twilight's body motion? She keeps squirming and bobbing her head in excitement. And the labortory is steady as a rock. The direction of gravity hasn't even changed a bit, even though Twilight appears to be looking down over her mother's shoulders.
I guess I'll just have to say 'It's magic,' and figure it out later.
"What are you going to say to Twilight?" asks Strawberry.
"I don't know..." I say. "But I do plan on telling her the truth. People- and ponies- deserve to know that they have a whole building in their heads."
"You don't intend to reveal the DRAW cure to her, do you?" asks Strawberry.
"Not right now," I say hesitantly.
"You imply that you might later," states Strawberry.
"She won't be able to understand," I say. "They don't have things like you, Strawberry. I could draw the sound wave that cures the cold and give it to every pony in Equestria and they would never figure out why it works. They just don't have the knowledge!"
"They may discover the knowledge one day," pointed out Strawberry.
I feel my face darken. "Yeah. That's the problem. But... Maybe there is a way to help peop- ponies without endangering them. A disease free world, Strawberry! That's what I want to contribute to the world! This... isn't the world I expected, but maybe it can be possible here!"
"It is going to be hard to help anyone from here, don't you think?"
"Yeah... Hey, Strawberry? I was thinking, I guess we should... take a blood sample from me and analyze it in the bio-lab and figure out what the heck actually happened to me."
