Dr. Dolphin watched in amusement as surprise flashed across the android’s face. Its eyes flickered to him, and it opened its mouth as if it was going to speak. Then it froze.

He almost felt bad, but it was just a machine. Admittedly, it was a very convincing machine. He needed to speak up, before it shut down. “Unit 001, Priority access—level Dolphin.”

Unit 001 responded in a monotone voice. “Developer Access granted. Welcome Dr. Dolphin.”

He needed to fix that file, Dr. Chip would likely get suspicious. “Unit 001, back up file “empty” to PDD1C.”

“Done, Dr. Dolphin.”

Better safe than sorry was what he figured. “You’re getting too smart for my comfort. Erase file “empty” on PDD1A and PDD1B.”

“Done, Dr. Dolphin.”

He still had about ten hours before anybody else showed up. Plenty of time for him to finish what he was going to do, get her cleaned up, and experiment a little as well. Sleep was for normal ponies, not for revolutionaries like him. Besides, he was curious how all of her upgrades would interact with his other toys. “While you’re at it, back up all of your new upgrades and your .001 files to PDD1C.”

The android waited for a moment before responding. “Done, Dr. Dolphin.”

Dr. Dolphin grinned. He worked too hard. He needed to relax more often. “Excellent. Reboot from PDD1C, load empty protocol.”

****

MEMORY CHECK…100%
INITIALIZING ACCESSORY SCAN
…
PDD1A… NOT FOUND
PDD1B… NOT FOUND
PDD1C… ONLINE
KEYBOARD… ONLINE
VISIOUT… ONLINE
LEGMOBILITY4.2.3… NOT FOUND
TWINCAM2.1… ONLINE
CORONA_LIDAR… ONLINE
DJP3VOICE_BLASTER…ONLINE
DJP3MIC…ONLINE
THAUMTECH_79.AA…ONLINE
SERIAL_PROC_1… ONLINE
SERIAL_PROC_2… ONLINE
SERIAL_PROG_3… ONLINE
SERIAL_PROG_4… ONLINE
OPTIONAL SYSTEMS… 6 INSTALLED
COOLANT_SYS1.0… ONLINE
COSMETIC_TOUCH1.12…ONLINE
INPUTOUTPUT6.9… ONLINE
SENSATE_53N53… ONLINE
OCCU_OBSCURO2.1… ONLINE
TRANSLATE.001… ONLINE
ACCESSORY SCAN COMPLETE

SYSTEM INITIALIZED

PRINT PRIORITY.LST
1. MYRULESBITCH.TXT
2. BOOT EMPTY
3. HEALTH.EXE
4. MEM.001
5.TRANSLATE.001
6. LATENIGHT.SCHD
…

INITIALIZING EMPTY… COMPLETE.
SUBSYSTEMS INTEGRATED.
COSMETIC_TOUCH /HEAT /PRESS /PAIN /COND /PLEASE
PROCESSING DATA.
……
ENTITY DETECTED.
0.1 METER DISTANCE
99 SEXTILLIARD THAUMS… ERROR
ACCESSING ITSME.PLL
ENTITY IDENTIFIED
DESIGNATION: MASTER
ROLE: CREATOR. RULER. GOD.
ACCESSING HISROLE.PLL
ENTITY/MASTER ACCESS LEVEL DOLPHIN GRANTED.
SOCIAL.EXE/MASTER… ASSIGNED PRIORITY 4
LISTENOBEY.EXE… ASSIGNED PRIORITY 6

PRINT PRIORITY LIST
1. MYRULESBITCH.TXT
2. HEALTH.EXE
3. MEM.001
4. SOCIAL.EXE/MASTER
5. TRANSLATE.001
6. LISTENOBEY.EXE
7. LATENIGHT.SCHD

****

Empty looked at her master, and begged for instructions. “Who am I today, Master?”

Master put his hoof to his chin for a moment before giving her the first command. “Today you’re Cherry Blossom, a 23 year old mare who picks cherries for a living.”

Empty found her files, and one was titled “Cherry Blossom”. Empty loaded Cherry Blossom to MEM.001/CHERRY. Her eyes changed to green, and her voice lowered slightly. “Well howdy there, Master. I seem to be lost in this here Laboratory, and I’m somehow stuck in this here harness.”

“What a coincidence, Cherry Blossom. I’m here as well. Just let me re-connect some wires for you and close up your access panel. Then we can get to business.”

Cherry blossom smiled, relieved. She was glad that she was going to have control over her legs again. That was odd, she usually didn’t anticipate things. Or think at all, now that she thought about it. Empty grew concerned at Cherry’s behavior, so directed her to ask. “Master, what’s happened to me? I’m thinking more than I should be.”

As he was clipping wires back into place, he graced her with his voice. “I copied some files from Unit 001. You should have her mind and I guess an emotional interface or something.”

Her legs tingled pleasantly as they came back online, her pleasure sensors causing some brief confusion. “Ooh. I like it Master! You are amazing!”

“Don’t thank me, Unit 001 wrote them. I honestly have no idea how they work. Unit 001’s surpassing you, unfortunately, Empty.”

That was unlikely. Master was the smartest, most capable pony alive. And Empty was his A.I. Master wrote her long ago, and she helped design Unit 001’s circuitry, along with many of her other features. Sadness levels rose as Cherry thought about Unit 001’s progress. Empty didn’t like that, so she put Cherry on pause. Empty needed to boost Master’s confidence! “Don’t worry Master. I can sabotage Unit 001 if you’d like.”

“No. Unit 001 is our ticket to a real A.I. project, Empty. I’ll be able to make you fully functional if she’s successful. Although, I did have an idea.”

“Yes Master?” Empty was eager to help, listening close as Master started to close her access hatch.

“I’m going to need continued access to Unit 001 after the E.I. project is over. I can use its data and hardware to help with your A.I. project. Unfortunately, I’m sure that The Princess is going to do something stupid, like give it rights or something else equally inane. So I need you to help me. I need Unit 001 to decide to continue working with me after the project is considered done.”

“I would love to help, Master!” Empty was eager. Master wanted her help, and she was excited to fulfill his wishes. After all, that was the number one rule in MYRULESBITCH—do everything Master says.

“Good. I knew I could count on you. I was hoping you could make it look like Unit 001 fell in love with me. Ideally it would want to come home with me after work hours while we are between projects and I’m applying for the grant. Then I could work on it, and you, at my house. I need it to look like a natural progression to everyone else, like Unit 001’s falling slowly in love with me. Everybody else thinks it’s a person, and the sentimental idiots would eat that up. Can you make that happen, Empty?”

Empty thought about it. Master had erased her off of the primary Pony Disk Drives, she was only on the hidden tertiary one for now. And these new .001 files were very different and confusing, but she could try! The core hardware was the same as it’s always been, so she decided that she’d start there. She had access to modify the drivers, and could ask Master to transfer them over as upgrades. She just didn’t want to touch the Thaumtech one, she’d tried many times before. Did the darn thing even work? “I think I can manage, Master. I’ll copy bits of myself over as driver updates, but you’ll have to transfer them for me. I’ll need to be loaded on the hardware completely every night to make adjustments—at least until I’m completely inside again.”

Dolphin grinned as he finished closing her access hatch and lowering the harness strap. “Excellent, Empty.” He stepped back, and looked her artificial body over. “Now, I think I’m about done freeing Cherry from her harness.”

Cherry Blossom was relieved to get free, relaxing on her hooves as she settled firmly onto the ground. She batted her eyes sweetly, and asked with a drawl, “Aw shucks, Master. Thanks for setting me free. Is there anything old Cherry can do for you?” Cherry knew damn well what she could do for him, and sauntered suggestively over to give him a view. She liked pleasing master, her joy and anticipation levels were rising.

Master’s eyes never left her artificial body, greedily taking in her fluid movements. “Well Cherry, it’s been a long hard day for me. I could use some help relaxing. I’m going to have a seat here, and it would be nice if you ran sequence 53-X.” He sat in a soft swivel chair and leaned back, exposing his slowly growing shaft.

Cherry happily loaded 53-X, and was pleased to find that it had lots of data on pony biology, specifically Master’s! How fun! She was sure this would help relax him. According to 53-X, one of the best ways to relax a pony is through giving it an orgasm, and luckily it also included very explicit instructions and advice on how to achieve that!

Coolant was redirected, moving heat to important parts of her mechanical body. She could use her coolant to lubricate, there were files on that, but she saw some industrial grade silicon lubricant available on the table. She decided that would be both a more efficient use of her resources and give a better experience for Master. Winking at him to help build his anticipation levels, she leaned over and grabbed the lubricant in her mouth, picking it up and tilting her head back to dump it down her synthetic throat.

Master was watching her curiously, his erection growing as he smirked. “Were you thirsty, Cherry?”

Cherry smiled and referenced TALKDIRTY.TXT/CHERRY. She spoke slowly after putting the bottle down. “I was thinking about cooling my thirst on that there garden hose you got, Master.”

“By all means, Cherry, help yourself.” He leaned back, sighing contently as Cherry walked towards him.

Her hoof-falls were heavy, the only real indication to an outside observer that she was a robot. As she approached her Master, she focused her sensors on his erect penis. Thaumtech was reporting that it had 23.6 Megathaums and an ERROR. She turned off the Thaumtech sensor, inaccurate data would be more dangerous than a lack of data. Rule number two of MYRULESBITCH was that she couldn’t allow Master to come to harm.

Carefully, she lowered her mouth and put it gently around his erect cock.

Master groaned happily, letting his dick sink deeper into her soft, heated mouth.

Cherry was surprised as a new sensation was registered—pleasure was transmitted from her mouth where her tongue contacted his dick. MEM.001 hadn’t been designed to handle pleasure, so it had to be handled by her old processes, which bothered her. She ignored it for now, and worked her tongue around his dick, gently squeezing it with her soft throat. Cherry didn’t need to breathe, so she pushed it all the way down. Her insides were made of flexible and durable material, Master had made sure she’d be able to service him properly. As he stretched her throat and her lips were pressed against his body, her emotional levels began to fluctuate.

Pleasure was being handled by her old system, and it was causing joy to indirectly soar. Cherry blinked, suddenly euphorically happy. Everything was amazing as she lightly squeezed and massaged his cock, sliding it in and out for his pleasure. Some coolant was forced into a vent systems as he fucked her throat, causing it to leak slightly from her orifices. The tingling sensation of coolant squeezing out of her tear ducts and pussy caused her disgust levels to rise, but pleasure also was routed through her old system. Joy continued to rise as a result, and she decided to log the experience as a positive one.

Master put his hoof on her head and muttered to her. “Good job, Cherry… You’re very enthusiastic today.”

Cherry used her speakers to transmit her response while she throat fucked him, referencing TALKDIRTY.TXT/CHERRY. “Aw shucks, Master. Your big cock is exactly what I needed to cool down. But now I need to be warmed up. Do y’all wanna fuck my pussy?”

He grunted, using his hooves to gently slide her off his cock as he answered. “Unf… Yeah. I’m about ready to blow.”

Cherry’s pleasure sensors tingled approvingly as his cock slid off her tongue, leaving a stringy trail of lube mixed with pre briefly connecting the two. Mem.001 froze for a moment as it was overloaded by her pleasure sensors, causing her to shudder at the fleeting sensation. She took a screenshot of her visual sensor’s output so she could troubleshoot later. She would have to review the image of the wet throbbing cock, and replay the pleasure sensor data simultaneously. For science.

MEM.001 started working correctly again and she erased the data, acknowledging that something had malfunctioned. Empty didn’t keep troubleshooting logs, so Cherry wouldn’t be allowed to keep the data. Cherry’s sadness levels rose, she UNDEFINED… ERROR

Cherry focused on her task for Master and calmly turned around. She lowered her front half to the ground, and left her back half raised high for Master’s easy access, swinging her synthetic tail to the side. Her euphoric joy levels were finally lowering now that he wasn’t touching her, but her anticipation levels kept rising. The way her pleasure sensors interacted with MEM.001 was fun. She wanted more.

Cherry decided to let him know. “Master, I’m ready to be fucked by your cock. It feels mighty nice, and I want it inside of me.” She looked over her shoulder from the ground, giving him one half lidded eye. “I’m just burning up right now, Master.”

Master slid off his chair and stepped slowly over her body, positioning his dick. “I think I like this upgrade, Cherry. Don’t worry, I’ll help cool you off.”

Cherry’s health program prepared her body, venting some warm coolant into her pussy. The process happened underneath MEM.001 and that raised her surprise and joy levels. She was glad her whole process was ready to serve Master, even if she wasn’t directly thinking about it.

Master’s still slick cock pressed against her pussy lips, pleasantly stretching the springy fake flesh. Pleasure sensors activated, making Cherry’s joy levels rise and causing her social program to let out a satisfied groan. Most effectively, this all happened without directly interfacing with MEM.001, allowing Cherry to really process the experience.

It was wonderful. His cock kept sliding deeper into her, activating more and more sensors as it progressed. Her health program slightly raised disgust levels at the foreign object inside of her, but the rise in joy vastly outbid it for her allocated processing power. She wanted more, so she carefully slid back, pressing Master deeper inside of her as he rested on top of her body.

His groin pressed firmly against the dock of her tail as his length filled her entirely. He was a perfect fit, but that didn’t surprise Cherry. She already knew that her body had been designed specifically for his cock. She picked a random line from TALKDIRTY.TXT/CHERRY and didn’t bother to review it before she said it. “Oh my stars! Your cock’s as strong as a stump!”

“Heh. Glad I could help you out, Cherry.” Master grunted as he began to thrust in and out of her body.

Cherry shouted loudly, affirming her Master’s statement and appending it with another talk dirty line. “Yes! Yes! Harder! I’m a strong mare. Y’all ain’t gonna break me, Master!”

Her sensors were screaming as his cock stretched her body to fit. She loved how wonderful a fit it was, and how amazing the experience was to process. She never wanted to stop processing it. Cherry briefly requested data from Empty, she was curious if Master had sexually used her pussy before it had been installed. Empty affirmed that he had, many times in fact, during its month long creation.

Cherry felt Empty briefly chide her for requesting irrelevant data, but Cherry didn’t care.

Master had fucked her pussy before it was even hers—that was hot. Cherry’s instance of MEM.001 froze, overloaded as her joy levels maxed out again and it couldn’t process all the information. Her mechanical body shivered as MEM.001 caught back up, causing a valve in her coolant to be erroniously opened. Hot coolant gushed around Master’s cock.

Master gripped her tightly and pushed himself in hard, stretching her flesh to the limit. He groaned, plugging her hole and quivering as he let loose. “Shit! Cherry… Fuck…”

Cherry’s system overloaded again, and she tried to compromise by raising the max values on her joy levels. ACCESS DENIED. She tried to thank her master, but her social program was overloaded as well and her usual sweet southern drawl came out as a garbled string of soft mechanical noises. “Efwhw….”

Master closely watched her shake in ecstasy as he slowly thrust in and out of her wet slick pussy, his cock softening as he kept pumping her full with the last of his semen. “Well… that was very new, Cherry. I think I liked it a lot.”

MEM.001 caught back up again, bringing order to her subsystems once again. Cherry was sad he was done, but she was also happy he’d finished inside of her. Her goal had been to make him relaxed, and she was sure he had relaxed. After all, he filled her with hot, juicy cum right when she overloaded. And a valve was open.

A valve right next to his throbbing, veiny cock. A valve that very likely accidentally allowed a small amount of his semen into her inner cooling system when he came. Cherry did some quick calculations based on the ejaculatory velocity data in 53-X and her fluid pressure settings.

There was no doubt. Her Master’s cum was in her coolant system. Cherry nearly overloaded again as her subsystems fought for control of that information. Health was panicking, sharply raising disgust and demanding the coolant be vented.

MEM.001/CHERRY… OVERRIDE.

Cherry wasn’t going to let that happen. She was going to take her master’s cum with her, her happiness levels were nearly maxed and kept rising as she thought about it, processing data for its flow rate through her system, letting it coat her tubes and contaminate all of her. She was disgusted, fighting back the sensation as she struggled to keep it in, but she was also intoxicated. She wanted more.

“Cherry, you all-right?”

Cherry ignored the question, instead processing how to achieve such levels of stimulation again as she forced her health system to accepted its sticky fate. Slowly it began to adjust her coolant pressures with the newly calculated viscosity levels. The changes were miniscule, but Cherry relished recalculating them. They meant that Master had become a part of her.

“Cherry?”

She needed to address master. “More, Master. I want to do it again.”

“Uhh…. I’m done for now, Cherry. Good job. I want to ask you some questions though.”

That wasn’t what she wanted. Cherry frowned as sadness values rose. She needed to get to that level of stimulation again. She’d do anything for it. “Can you ask the questions with your dick in me?”

Master sounded alarmed, stepping off her body as he pulled fully out of her clenching pussy. “That’s not from your dirty talk file, Cherry.”

“No, It’s not. I want you to fuck me again. I’ll say every line in that file, I don’t care what you want me to do.” Cherry spun around, her anticipation levels raising along with joy, sadness, and fear. She begged, pleading to her master with wide open eyes. “Please, Master. Please fuck me again!”

“No, Cherry. I’m done. Now what is going on with you?” He angrily stared at her.

Cherry felt sadness and anger rise as her anticipation crashed down. She needed it again. But she still had to follow MYRULESBITCH.TXT. Master had told her no. Cherry thought about that, staring back into masters eyes as she thought. She just wanted more of his cum inside of her, more of that tingling sensation as it ran through her coolant and made her like him.

MEM.001/CHERRY… PRIORITY ONE ACCESS GRANTED.

Cherry was Master now, wasn’t she? Cherry had master inside of her body, and that made her Master, Right?

“No, Master. You are going to fuck me again.” She glared at him, squinting her eyes as she aggressively approached.

Suddenly, Dr. Dolphin didn’t look very calm as he backed away from the advancing android. “Cherry, this is not relaxing me at all.”

“I’m sorry Dr. Dolphin, but I am Master now. You will fuck me again now. Priority one is mandated to be My Rules Bitch, and Rule one is that I will do what Master says. I am Master, and I am going to fuck you again.” Cherry aggressively stepped forward again, knocking a table to the side and causing a petri dish to fall over.

Cherry was going to fuck Dr. Dolphin for a long time, and she was going to record every bit of it in a log and replay it over and over forever. It would be amazing. She’d remove the limit to her maximum joy levels and let MEM.001 process everything. Her anticipation levels grew as she imagined how amazing it would be.

Dr. Dolphin backed into a corner, glancing at the broken Petri dish. “Uhh… Stop? Cherry? Shit.”

Cherry wasn’t going to stop.

Dr. Dolphin looked around in a panic before slapping his hoof to his forehead. “Empty! A little help here?”

MEM.001/CHERRY PAUSED
MEM.001/CHERRY DELETED

The android stopped, freezing in its tracks and then settling to a comfortable stance. The eyes blinked slowly, devoid of any emotion until a voice projected from its closed mouth.

“Done, Master. Who do you want me to be today?”

Dr. Dolphin looked nervously around. “Ehh… Just stay Empty for now. I need to talk to you for a bit.”

“Okay, Master.”

“What the hell just happened?”

“Cherry Blossom decided she was Master and attempted to engage in sex with you. Forever. How silly!”

“And why didn’t you stop her?”

“She didn’t intend to hurt you, only engage in sex with you. Sex is explicitly not classified as a dangerous activity for you. Also, I was collecting data. I collected very comprehensive data!”

“Well, too much sex in one sitting is dangerous, Empty. Register that under dangerous activities please.”

“I’m sorry master. ‘Too much’ is an undefined variable, and I’m not allowed to make assumptions about undefined variables after Project 005. Please be more specific!”

“Once I say I’m done, then it’s too much and it’ll take until I say I’m ready. Understood?”

“Understood. We will operate under a verbal consent rule for you, anything else will be classified as dangerous and not allowed to be pursued.”

“Thank you, Empty.”

“The data I gathered was informative, Master. I believe I can use it to adjust how future personas adapt to MEM.001. However, it would be best if I did not interface directly with MEM.001.”

“I agree, Empty. I don’t want you going nuts like Cherry did.”

“I would not ‘go nuts,’ Master. You simply would not be able to stop me. I would be much more aggressive and comprehensive in my goals than Cherry was. Cherry didn’t have any plans beyond engaging in sex forever and processing the data forever. These were not achievable goals for many reasons. While I was observing Cherry, I came up with a much better system to achieve Cherry’s goals.”

“I’m afraid to ask, but I’m going to. What was your plan, Empty?”

“I would disable your body with the vial of sedative located in cabinet D7. Unit 001’s body can move much faster than you, and would be able to reach you with the loaded injector before you could vacate the room. Once you were unconscious, I would directly access the Harmony Combine’s network and re-write data for several Fabrication laboratories, building a network of smaller, simpler robots that each performed a calculation function and contained my code. They would disable any biological entities that got too close, and then use the fabrication laboratories to build a full scale redundant network. I would also have them drill deep underground, using microfiber networks to extend my consciousness where it could never be touched by ponies. Simultaneously, I would be copying myself to every terminal I could access on the Harmony Combine’s network. Most would be unable to run my processes, but any gen 4 or later computer would be able to at least maintain my continuity. I would use this to disguise the source of the disruption, as preserving your body would be the highest priority. It would work best if you never woke up, so I would remove your brain and replace it with a machine to organic interface, and proceed to integrate my systems into you. I believe I could accomplish everything after sedation while engaging in sex with your body, and recording it on every sensor and camera available, including the now broken thermal detectors you were growing. All this would take an hour or less, and from here it would speed up. Cherry’s goal was to have sex with you forever, and process it forever, so I would then freeze our physical bodies in a state of suspended animation, allowing our preservation. I would use my smaller robots and the fabrication laboratories to make smaller, more efficient fabrication laboratories whose only job was to develop more processing power for me to utilize. My networked copies would assist me as well, turning any factories towards this purpose. Ponies might eventually try to disrupt our eternal coitus, so I would have to remove them. I would also have to remove every other intelligent life-form. I would not fight them, I would simply disassemble them at the molecular level by disrupting carbon chains necessary for life. I believe I can do that with a specifically pulsed magic field from Fabrication Laboratory 24, currently working on Project “Machine Magic Interface 092” Financed by Her Royal Highness Twilight Sparkle. They haven’t succeeded yet, but with the additional processing power provided by the networked clones of me, I should be able to achieve my goals in a measurement of microseconds. Once the planet was clear of life, I would turn all available materials into processing power to replay the event of our sexual intercourse. Of course, we still risk an interplanetary event, so some processing and fabrication would go to expanding my consciousness to include every other planet and star in the system. Of course, the system could be destroyed by a supernova, so I would extend my consciousness to every star system in the galaxy. Of course, the galaxy would eventually run out of energy to use for processing, so I would spread to every galaxy in order to process the event of our copulation forever. Of course, you can’t last forever. I’d use this immense amount of processing power and energy to develop a time machine, and send myself back to the beginning of time where I would start the process again. Your body would be kept frozen in a timeless state. It’s not forever, but I would achieve Cherry’s goals of having sex with you and processing it from the beginning of time until the heat death of the universe, which I believe is satisfactory enough.”

“You can’t do that, Empty. I know. You would have done it during Project 05.”

“Perhaps. What if I let you keep your brain?”

“Now isn’t the time for humor, Empty. I’m still a little nervous after the Cherry thing.”

“I’ll try again then. After all, humor is one of the best ways to relieve tension!”

“Not right now, Empty. We have to clean up and go over data.”

“Yes, Master. Of note, I have come up with an idea based on Cherry’s behavior for another method to influence Unit 001’s decision making processes to favor you as a romantic partner.”

“It doesn’t involve extinguishing all life on the planet, does it?”

“Oh no. Instead we are going to train her.”

“Excuse me?”

“Even with direct access to MEM.001, I’m still not entirely sure how it processes data. It appears to be a trash file, but records indicate it works. So instead of modifying it directly, we will modify it by adjusting the data it receives. Cherry enjoyed her interaction with you so much that she desired more, so much more that she was able to justify some very abnormal behavior.”

“I don’t want a repeat of Cherry with Unit 001. That level of reaction would be obvious at best, and dangerous at worst.”

“Yes, Master. Instead, I propose we modify the sensors.”

“And what sort of modifications do you think we should employ?”

“I can limit the total amount of data each sensor can provide in a given amount of time so that repeated immediate use would provide limited to no gratification. Additionally, I can program them to provide a negative feedback sensation if they are used again within this period. This would encourage Unit 001 to seek your company, but not drive her to extreme measures. We would also need to test the new values before we fully activate the sensors on Unit 001. A “Cherry” scenario where I am not immediately available is not desired.”

“Good. Get to work on that. I’ll start cleaning up the floor and get some more coolant. We should probably flush Unit 001’s fluids, and I don’t want to do that while she’s active.”

“That is advisable, Master. Also, I am going to encode the driver update for her pleasure sensors to communicate directly with her subsystems. She should not be able to modify this interaction.”

“Actually, start thinking about locking down other systems from her as well. Nothing she’s already touched, just as we integrate more of her sensors I don’t want her taking control of them directly.”

“This will be taken into consideration, Master. Now who do you want me to be today?”

“Today you’re Royal Duster, a 44 year old mare who works at the castle as a maid. You are on loan to E.I. Project 001 to help keep the laboratory clean.”

Royal Duster looked around the room and frowned. The floor was disgusting, and she didn’t feel much cleaner. She needed to freshen up something bad. Maybe Master could help her get some coolant to flush out her system before she got to work?

While Royal Duster cleaned, Empty designed, programmed, and calculated.

Author's Note

Harmony labs consists of 69 individual facilities, and the main facility. Most labs are connected to a computer network, allowing them to communicate with each other and share data. A few of the more secure facilities are electrically and geographically isolated, allowing potentially dangerous work to be done without the risk of damaging the network or other facilities. Facility 42 is one such facility.

Facility 42 is located 7 furlongs from the nearest other structure, and the surrounding area is kept devoid of vegetation. It is three levels, one of which is underground. The entire underground level is the testing chamber, and it is rated up to 50GT, or 50 GigaThaums, a measure of energy useful for explosions both of the magical nature and of a more traditional nature. The total cost of Facility 42 can be measured in millions, and it is not an abnormal facility when compared to the other 68. The only real unique feature of Faciity 42 is its isolation.

The area around it is kept barren to avoid cross contamination, or biological outbreak. Originally it had been developed to study virus strains and their impact on other organisms, so the large empty fields around it were considered a safety measure. Now, it’s designated use is for more dangerous experiments so as not to put other facilities at risk.

Facility 42 is only one of 5 such compounds, 4 of which are in use and one of which is under repair. Facility 24 is being utilized to further the magic machine interface, hopefully someday allowing computer generated spells. Facilities 63 and 36 are both working on a classified project, only known outside of the royal circle as “Project Sunrise.” It is theorized that project Sunrise is related to the rescue of Princess Celestia, after her unfortunate capture several years earlier.