That night, a few hours after everypony else left, Dr. Dolphin walked over to Unit 001 and silently stared at her. She wasn’t sure what to do. At first she stayed rigid, thinking it was some sort of inspection, but he didn’t move. He just stared into her eyes. She began to wonder if it was some sort of test, and grew nervous. She didn’t want to fail the test. Should she do something?

After several minutes, Unit 001 decided to ask Dr. Dolphin. “Sir. What are you doing?”

He didn’t respond, he just stared at her.

Unit 001 grew scared. This behavior was abnormal. Her sensors indicated that he wasn’t excited, nor that he was in distress of any kind. Still, the behavior was odd, even for Dr. Dolphin. “Sir. Are you feeling all right? Do you need me to contact an emergency medical team?”

He slowly responded. “That… will not be necessary, Unit 001.”

She stayed silent after that, letting him stare at her. Her health system began to agitate, it was nervous that her predictive algorithms were giving conflicting data on Dr. Dolphin. She decided that maybe she wanted to be alone for a while.

“Sir, I am going to go to the test chamber.”

His voice was strangely serene when he spoke. “There is nothing left there for you, Unit 001.”

Unit 001’s health system panicked. Something was wrong, and it wanted her to leave. Did Dr. Dolphin want to hurt her? She wasn’t sure, and the thought unnerved her, causing all sorts of terrible outcomes in her predictive algorithms. She quickly backed away from him, and then walked carefully towards the test chamber.

He watched her, his eyes expressionless and dark. “What do you hope to find there, Unit 001?”

She answered the only way she knew how, honestly. “Peace, Sir.”

She stepped into the room, shut the door, and backed against the far wall. Tuning her sensors carefully, she monitored his heartbeat and breathing through the wall. Dr. Dolphin didn’t move for two hours, and when he did, he laughed.

She didn’t shut down that night, and Dr. Dolphin didn’t ask her to, instead leaving her be as he slowly shuffled around from project to project alone in a dimly lit room.

Author's Note

The changelings present in the kingdom refuse to become love bugs for various reasons, but still publicly eschew the changeling queen. They are refugees at best, and spies for the queen at worst. Still, the one Congress“ling” is a fully committed HC member and works closely with the love bugs to ensure that the full spectrum of their race is represented and cared for.