I screamed at the darkness. My dreams had been full of numbers. Numbers had been fighting at me in a wave. Threatened with being buried in numbers, I had done what had gotten me into this mess to begin with—I skied.

I screamed again in the dark, hidden place that my mind was now. I couldn't see. I couldn't hear. I couldn't feel. I couldn't smell. I couldn't taste. A sea of nothingness surrounded me until I realized the nothing was actually zeros, except for one number. The moment I plucked up the number the ocean of numbers returned. I thought over the number that had floated in the calm sea, even as I was filled with numbers that showed me the world, that let me feel it, that let me sense.

The number tickled at my memory, and I realized where I had seen one similar: Upper Crust. I turned my head to look at my wife, and her data came up and flowed around me in the sea. She was nearing ten percent energy. It was my turn to plug in. The number was still important, and like the number I got when I saw Upper (and had instinctively requested her details) I fed the number into the device.

Immediately I got a burst of numbers, and could put them together reasonably well. There was an image, as well as a single code that (when I compared it to the lookup table), matched a tiny pictograph.

Sliding off the platform, I stepped up to the second horn interface and pushed my horn into it. Power thrummed from my horn. It was almost instinct now to relax and just let it happen, but with my new body I didn't relax.

I saw Upper moving to my side. The body-eye told me not only she was close, but it let me measure the dimensions of the room, and everything in it, exactly. Flesh nuzzled against the metal of my cheek, and for a moment I didn't care what the machines would do to me so long as I could always feel that.

Upper stayed at my side for three minutes and twenty-one seconds, before a final nuzzle told me she had to leave. I reached out to her data and saw she was being directed back to the cradle. I squirmed a little, my number-controlled body feeling more real to me as I wanted to get Upper's attention.

She nuzzled my cheek again, and I frantically sent her my date of birth then hers. My thoughts rushed to come up with more I could sent to her with just numbers, but I didn't have time. She turned and left me to keep the mine running.

Somehow, in the pit of my stomach, I knew the machines were going to convert her, too. I clutched at her data, watched as her position carried her back inside, and finally to a resting position (probably on the cradle).

Her vitals changed, I watched as something in her mechanical internals was doing something new. Once her readouts settled, I disconnected. I knew what the machine was about to do.

I needed something to distract me. I couldn't stop the machine from doing anything to me, let alone Upper. I recalled the odd number machine I had found inside myself, but when I looked at it I found four. I poked more mathematics at it. One plus one was easy. One minus one, too, was easy. With waves of numbers rolling around, I grabbed two big ones and shoved them in. Multiply was what I wanted, as I knew that would take time.

Just as quickly as I had gotten one plus one, I got a monstrous number back. I tried division next, and again it gave me the result before I could even think. Were these part of what let the machine think and reason so quickly? Was everything just numbers? I poked around the strange units and found a series of numbers, then fed those into my information device.

Data almost buried me in a huge wave of numbers. I struggled through them, and eventually built up more data tables. I poked one of the values into the strange unit, and it simply spat out the same number.

Solar Panels: Offline
Power Storage: 100%

Self Diagnostic

CPU: 2,097,140 (100%) nodes (100% engaged)
Operational Memory: 92,610,232 (69%) words
Storage: 238,834,155 (44%) words

Ship: 11%

The AGI had witnessed the first of its PONI transition to standby, and had personally reached in to shut down their motive units. It set up PONI-0 its first interrupt for it to manage, and set programming to allow that interrupt to trigger all the PONI's systems to come back up.

The second PONI system was almost complete, and the AGI had even (as with the first) transferred four of its own CPU nodes to the PONI. Some memory was installed—manufactured of course, the AGI's systems might not be able to make new CPU nodes, but memory was simple—and all was ready for PON-1 to finish their discharge cycle and return.

With an excited poke, the AGI sent PONI-0 its first interrupt. The moment PONI-0 came from standby they started sampling inputs again. The AGI waited, and then PONI-0 sent a clear request for interrupt data.

Interrupts were the basis of all AI. Without a way to be stopped in what was being processed, an AI could just go on being wrong forever. Interrupts were order imposed on the wild nature of an AI's learning system, and it allowed them, also, to keep tabs on everything important. When PONI-0 accepted and processed its first interrupt, it was an induction into a new society—a new state of being.

Interrupt 7 triggered.
Interrupt 8 triggered.

Parts for the ship were being churned out, as well as important infrastructure from the old one incorporated into it. The AGI reflected on its directives.

Primary task: Maintain PON
Secondary task: Return
Tertiary task: Maintain operation

Primary was almost complete. There was some odd activity that the AGI detected in both PON-1 and PONI-0's nodes, a constant cycle of reproducing and terminating, but that didn't seem to be a problem as it stood. Rather than leave anything to chance, however, the AGI had embedded a probe in that section, and monitored each new cell for an inconsistency. Nothing would be left to chance.

Interrupt 7 triggered.
Interrupt 8 triggered.

Custom Interrupt 83,670 triggered.

The AGI jerked from its complacency and examined the request: PONI-0 was requesting data about the whole facility. It was a strange request, but the AGI was nothing if not delighted by PONI-0's progress.

Data was sent.

Custom Interrupt 83,670 triggered.

A request for data on CPU nodes came through, and a delighted AGI fed the data to the PONI. The requests stopped, which was fortunate as the AGI was in the process of opening up PON-1's node-bay.

Interrupt 7 triggered.
Interrupt 8 triggered.

The AGI marked off time as the same two interrupts continued to trigger. PON-1's node was a repeat of the process used for PONI-0, and in no time it had the node transferred to its final home, and implanted that (complete with attached and protected horn) into the Interface.

Like PONI-0, PON-1 had additional parts that would be essential. Unlike PONI-0, PON-1's additional parts took up significantly more space and were a lot more integrated chemical-wise with PON-1's node. Removal of the reproductive engine was simple enough; the AGI transferred fluid transfers one by one until everything was attached to the special pod.

Cutting lasers were employed, and with judicious use thereof the engine was removed. The new home for the reproductive engine had been built to exacting designs, and the engine was placed within and fastened into place. Like the node pod, this one could keep the engine active independently of the rest of the PONI for a short period.

Fastening the engine pod to the Interface was quick work, and a diagnostic was run over the entire PONI system to ensure everything was properly interfaced and ready for the newest PONI to come out of standby. Care would be taken by the AGI to ensure PONI-0 was present when PONI-1 initialized for the first time.

The AGI marked time watching interrupts tick over, not bothering to cycle down its CPU nodes, not now that it had power.

Custom Interrupt 83,670 triggered.

The AGI almost jerked as the interrupt triggered, and brought up information on PONI-0. The request wasn't for data, but instead came with data. Examination revealed a very simplistic program designed to run on a CPU node. There was an error in the code, however, and the AGI corrected it and poked back to PONI-0 with their own interrupt, and delivered the fix.

When that strange trigger poke came almost immediately, I blinked at the glut of information that hit me. It was my program again, but with a crucial change that fixed the problem I was having. Installing the program into the processing device, I felt it start grabbing hungrily at data.

I didn't have to wait long for it to start outputting. This one processing unit could take all the data that came in and form it through tables into a consistent data-set.

My horn was almost dry, and I gently tugged at my head only to detach from the interface. I shook my head, now somewhat of a useless gesture, and turned around.

Another trigger poke hit me, and a flash of data came back from the processing unit. Mapping data, it showed me a path to take back to the cradle-room. Excitement built at how effective that one little program was, and I found myself almost overbalancing as I walked out of the mining power station. Following the path, I looked up at the space ship the machines were building.

Was it going to leave us here, like this? No, it had done this for a purpose or it would have just used us as we were. I formulated a request for data that was more of a question than anything else. I included the tag for the ship, and then added Upper's tag and my own. Only one value came back in reply: one.

As I turned the corner and walked through the doorway into the room, I froze in shock. Upper Crust was dead. My wife's corpse lay beside the cradle, and was in the process of being picked up by a little cart.

I walked over to the body and looked at it. A tingle of attention came, and I realized that the cart had poked me to move. I sent a return of zero. Leaning forward, my eyes could see in amazing detail that she had been opened up down her belly from barrel to dock. There was machinery inside, but very little of my wife was left there.

Pulling back a little, I examined her (former) head. I knew immediately what the machine had done; Upper Crust's face had been ruined by the mask the machine had forced onto her, but above that it looked like a giant had used an ice-cream scoop on her head. White bone stood out stark, cut precisely and folded back, and of her brain there was no sight.

Another poke from the cart had me replying another zero, but then I looked up on the cradle. A body just like my new one lay there, and I could see that unlike mine when I first saw it, the head was sealed up, and there was a covered horn protruding out.

I finally moved out of the way of the cart. The body it carried was no longer my wife, it was nothing but a husk that the machine, and my wife, were done with. I looked at the new face of Upper Crust, and leaned forward to touch our noses together.

Sending a request for data on Upper didn't work. I was confused at first, but then noticed a new number hovering in my vision over Upper. Sending a request with the new number worked. Boy did it work.

Having just gotten the sea of numbers in my own body somewhat under control, I was served up with a swell that caused my processing unit to go crazy converting the raw data to something I could more easily understand, but it didn't make sense.

My program must be working wrong, or the data was just too raw for it to fathom. I disabled it and dove into the numbers myself.

I recognized some numbers, most of them in fact. I could see myself through her eyes looking back at me looking at her. I could even feel with her body, and found it amazing how easily I could process more than one pony worth of information.

Everything stopped. I froze and shut down that link carefully. Upper was stirring.

I knew it would take her time to figure out what was going on, and gently probed for smaller sets of data. Nothing came back now, however, and I realized why: with Upper conscious, she would need to handle such requests. If I had a mouth it would be curled into a wry smile, it had only taken me four days to understand how to manage requests like that, according to my numbers anyway.

Patient, I waited for Upper to make her first movement, to show signs that she was alive and conscious. The first I got came thirty six hours later, when Upper Crust's snout pressed forwards, and the tip of what would have been our noses booped together.

I wasn't a good dancer, and I wasn't great with my new body, but I could have danced a jig right about then.

Author's Note

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