It was late at night, and Unit 001 was bored. She’d re-organized and streamlined her files several times over. She’d made upgrade after upgrade to MEM.001, and now was fully confident in its abilities. She’d slowly moved it back up the priority list, and now it was listed just under health. She’d scanned the room several times over, observing Dr. Dolphin mutter and walk around from project to project. He had turned down every offer of help.

Even her new files, ANGER.001, JOY.001, SAD.001, FEAR.001, DISGUST.001, ANTICIPATION.001, SURPRISE.001, and TRUST.001 didn’t keep her wholly occupied. Perhaps they even made the situation worse. She didn’t like anger, sadness, disgust, and fear, but Twilight explained that they were necessary. Her priority list had gotten so long that she’d had to condense all the emotions into a subset of her MEM.001 file. She’d hoped that was the right decision, and now had fear that it wasn’t.

Her trust values were very high for Twilight and Dr. Chip—they had constantly appeared to act in her benefit. Things were more complex with Dr. Dolphin. He was assigned the roles of lead designer, and project personnel, so she couldn’t disobey him. Still, he didn’t appear to act in her benefit, focusing instead on little projects and deriding her when possible. His trust values fluctuated, to put it politely.

Twilight had stressed the importance of politeness when Unit 001 had commented on Dr. Dolphin’s negative attitude. Unit 001 did not like being polite, it was inefficient, but she would obey the directions given by Twilight.

“Unit 001, I’m ready to install some new drivers for Thaumtech. I need you to come over here and hold still while I open up your access panels.” Dr. Dolphin raised her surprise levels when he shouted to her. The raise in her levels caused her to startle, and scan her environment closely.

“Yes, Dr. Dolphin.”

“Call me ‘Sir’ when it’s just the two of us, Unit 001. I wont have you forgetting that you’re my creation.”

“Yes, Sir.” She scanned her database for uses of Sir. It was either servile, something a servant might call a master, or a term of respect. Unit 001 had no concern with using it, it was an accurate representation of their relationship. She approached as she was told, and climbed into the test harness.

The harness was a strange thing for her, supporting her weight, but allowing her to rest her legs exactly at length. It had a sliding rest for Dr. Dolphin to lay on and slide underneath her, the harness was probably for his safety. It had the side effect of trapping her as well, keeping her hooves dangling just barely on the ground.

Dr. Dolphin slid underneath and unceremoniously popped a latch off the bottom of her barrel, causing her surprise to rise again. She didn’t know that hatch came off. Curiously, she watched as he plugged some wires into her. Her disgust values rose as she realized that she had no cover over her delicate internal circuitry. “Sir, can you close my hatch? I do not like my internal systems being exposed.”

“No, I will not. I have work to do there. Now hold still, I’m loading the Thaumtech driver. Can you test it once it’s installed?”

Unit 001 was disappointed, and her anger levels rose towards Dr. Dolphin. Her voice lowered aggressively as she spoke, “Yes, Sir.”

He paused to look up at her, she wasn’t sure why.

He looked at her in apparent disbelief. “Unit 001… Are you… angry at me?”

She struggled to maintain her politeness, and so fell on advice that Twilight had given her for Dr. Dolphin—blame Twilight and ask for his input. “Princess Twilight Sparkle has instructed me to practice emotional responses. Your dismissal of my request raised my anger values, and such was reflected in the intonation of my voice. Was this accomplished correctly, Sir?”

“Huh.” Dr. Dolphin paused and appeared to be thinking for a moment. “That was correctly accomplished, Unit 001. Just unexpected. Every minute you’re online you get better at mimicking us. You’ve already got them fooled, and soon you’ll probably be fooling me. I suppose I should be proud?” He looked contemplative as got up and began uploading files from his computer.

Unit 001 noticed something surprising. Joy levels were rising. Acknowledgment of her advancement from Dr. Dolphin pleased her. “Sir, why did it raise my joy levels when you praised me?”

“Because you’re a self centered narcissist like your creator.” Dr. Dolphin chuckled as the file completed.

Unit 001 thought about that. Was she a narcissist? Definition: a person who is overly self-involved, and often vain and selfish.

She defined vain, and she defined selfish. She was not vain, her appearance didn’t matter to her. She was selfish though. “Sir, I am not vain. I am selfish. Is this desired?”

He stared back at her, appraising her. “You don’t understand the irony in your statement, do you?”

Unit 001, in fact, did not understand. “No, Sir.”

He sighed and muttered. “More like us every minute…” looking back to her, he addressed her, “Being selfish is not desired, but it is efficient. The question is ‘What is important to you,’ Unit 001? I’ve been very successful by being selfish. I don’t have a wife or a family, but I’ve brought computers forward by centuries in my couple of decades of work. If efficiency is your goal, then selfishness is useful. Now, install the driver.”

Unit 001 contemplated what he’d said as she installed the driver. She liked Twilight and Dr. Chip. Their trust values were very high, and interacting with them greatly raised her joy levels. She still was not sure about Dr. Dolphin, most of the time interacting with him raised her disgust levels or anger levels. Occasionally even her sadness levels.

“Driver online. Scanning. You are detecting as 37 sextilliard Thaums.”

“Well damn. That didn’t work.”

“May I modify it, Sir?”

“No. You’re not allowed to directly modify a driver. You can re-classify it, move it as necessary in your file structure, or change available options, but you are not allowed to modify a base driver.”

“Yes, Sir. I just thought I could help.” Disappointment was becoming a common theme in her interactions with Dr. Dolphin. She considered freezing the process for anticipation.

“You probably could, but I don’t want you breaking any expensive equipment. With most ponies, I’d tell them that the equipment was more expensive than they were. But for you, I cant say that. So just don’t break my things.”

“Yes sir.” Unit 001 felt anger again. The Thaumtech sensor was part of her body, and she was sure that she could fix it. It was more than just his thing, it was hers as well. But then again, she was his thing. Her anger levels dropped as she rationalized it. He had created her, she was his and Twilight’s and Dr. Chip’s. The chance of her breaking the sensor was infinitesimal, but it existed. If she broke the sensor, all three of her creators would be unhappy. Maybe it was better to just let Dr. Dolphin work with it, even if he was inefficient.

Dr. Dolphin began to fiddle around in her access compartment moving wires and inspecting her hardware. Her health program was upset, it didn’t like his hoof in her body cavity. Foreign debris was not something that should be inside of her case. “Sir, your hoof is making me uncomfortable.”

“You’ll just have to deal with it, Unit 001. I have to visually inspect the connections, and I can’t see all of them without moving some components.”

“Sir, a visual inspection is not necessary. I have connectivity to all subsystems.”

“Do you now?” He raised an eyebrow as he pulled on a wire.

Unit 001’s surprise levels maxed out as her legs lost connectivity, causing her to dangle in the support strap. “Sir, I can not access my legs anymore, Please correct the situation.” Fear levels also rose, she did not like not having access to such a vital system.

“Wires can be loose, Unit 001. If you’d have fallen down again or been jarred too hard, that could have came undone at a more inopportune time. Because I’m inspecting it, I noticed that it was loose. For now I’m going to keep it unhooked. We’re going to do some system upgrades that might cause you to jump, and I don’t want you to damage yourself or me.”

Unit 001 was not happy. Things were not in an ideal state. Her legs were disabled due to a hardware malfunction, her access panels were open, and Dr. Dolphin’s hoof was inside her. The combination of disgust, sadness and anger that she was feeling as her surprise died down was unpleasant at best, and it didn’t look like it was going to get better. There was a name for this. “I think I am feeling despair, Sir.” She said sadly.

“You’re the one that wanted to be left on when I worked on you, Unit 001. I’d be more than happy to install your upgrades with you off.”

Unit 001 responded despondently. “You are correct, Sir.” She weighed the value of learning over being spared the displeasure of her situation. Unfortunately, the answer was easy. “I would like to stay on, Sir.” She had also factored in that she wasn’t sure what she was going to experience when MEM.001 was disabled. Before MEM.001 she had been a different unit, and now she was afraid of what would happen to her once she was powered off. Would disabling MEM.001 hurt? Where would she be while it was off?

“Good. This will actually be easier with you on.” He slid out from under her and went back to his computer. “I’m copying over some more drivers. I’d like you to run them in sequence.”

“Yes, Sir.” Unit 001 found the new files easily, they didn’t all look like drivers, but she did as she was told. After all, she was ob.. obb.. o… UNDEFINED… ERROR.

She tried to look at Dr, Dolp… UNDEFINED… ERROR

Unit 001’s surprise levels… UNDEFINED… ERROR.

Fear lev… UNDEFINED… ERROR

Panic… UNDEFINED… ERROR

PRIORITY 1 OVERRIDE
TROUBLESHOOTING.LOG… ERROR. ACCESS DENIED.

Author's Note

One of these exclusion zones is HC Labs, the think tank for the HC’s technological progress. HC Labs is usually only accessible by authorized scientists, political members, royal entourage, and workers. Tours can be arranged by contacting their Friend Finding office, but even then only born members of the Combine are ever approved. The labs exist on a large patch of land hidden deep in what used to be a dangerous forest. The privacy provided by the forest keeps out most unwelcome visitors, even if the labs have to deal with the occasional bad storm or monster attack. Luckily, they’re close enough to the capitol that it’s only a quick trip through a secretive diamond dog tunnel to get out at Twilight Sparkle’s castle.