I needed some private time to think, which was impossible when your wife had direct connection to your mind—so to speak. The chemicals used to keep my brain working had changed my emotions, changed too how I react to stressful situations.

Every moment—since I became a PONI—had to be reexamined. Right from the start I had been less scared. A memory came back to me, of staring at Upper Crusts empty body as Aggie disposed of it.

"Jet? Darling, are you okay?" I wouldn't deny that getting her interrupt made me feel a little better immediately, but it also brought that image back even sharper. My sensors told me that the entrance to my work area was filled with a PONI larger than myself. "You put on a brave face for Aggie."

"He didn't know. We didn't know." I barely got the message put together, and didn't trust myself to do anything fancy with the words. I sent the interrupt, and watched Upper move across the room to me. The moment her wing touched my back, I turned my head to her.

"I love you." Three words that cut through my mood like a knife. Upper Crust's interrupt inspired so much desire and emotion in me that my metal body shook a little.

"I love you, too." I looked up to Upper, and searched around these feelings. I loved her, that was indisputable—it was a constant in my life. We didn't have a heart between us, but my love for Upper Crust didn't come from there, and probably never had.

The white-hot passion that had driven us to a boudoir—a kitchen a few times, or even the hedge maze at the palace—was gone. I couldn't feel a need to mount Upper, to drive pleasure through her, and feel it myself. "Do you remember the last Grand Galloping Gala? The one where Discord brought his friend?"

I felt a little giggle of an interrupt before Upper fully replied. "That was the second time we used Celestia's hedge maze. I am completely surprised you remembered that."

"We're never going to feel that again, Upper. We have so much time, and we can never go back and feel that." I wasn't even aware that the accents that Upper Crust had made included those for crying, but sure enough, when I glanced down the table, it was there. I even had to think about showing emotions.

Upper Crust moved closer, pressing her body over mine to lay atop me. It was silly, but I felt more comfortable with her this close—she's a princess, after all. "We could simulate it. Building mechanical parts should be no problem for you, and I am sure we could install some chemical injectors to introduce hormones into synthetic blood."

Safety and—to my surprise—warmth filled me. My sensors didn't register any warmth from Upper except trace amounts from her processing units, but I could feel her close to me, and that was all that mattered. "I don't need that, but I just—" I didn't know what to do to finish the interrupt, so sent it half-finished.

What did it matter that I didn't feel fear properly? Even I didn't know the answer. There's so much of the old me that was missing that I don't even know if I could worry about it, which made me worry. It was stupid, and cyclic, but it was there.

We sat like that for some time (I could have found out exactly, but I didn't care to), and I felt calm slowly reassert itself. An interrupt poked me, then another, and soon a small flood of them began. Opening up, I found code updates.

The quality of the code was high, and I wasn't at all surprised to find them coming from Stellar Hope. With a task to distract me, I began integrating the code changes into my own work, and found them to be seamless improvements. "Aggie, what's the best way to manage multiple people working on the same code?"

A reply came in the form of a reference to storage. I quickly reached in, found the code library and loaded it. A small AI, including a lot of regular code, the library was literally that. I loaded my code into it, and sent a reference back to Stellar. "That should help you update things and keep them in tune."

"I see you have found your colt's little project. He takes after his father, look at the way he manipulates numbers." Upper Crust, I hadn't realized, had been watching what I was doing. I suspected Aggie of helping her keep an eye on me, but it didn't matter.

"Numbers and ways to manipulate numbers." I watched as more little updates bled into the code manager.

Upper nuzzled one side of my snout with her own, and I was reminded just how close we were. "You know, Jet, our foals have all their chemistry correct. They aren't afraid."

"They also don't know everything. They didn't have to live through everything that happened to us, without knowing that there was a welcome waiting for us." It finally hit me that I was actually afraid of reintegrating all my emotions on an intellectual level, not emotional (since I couldn't feel emotional fear).

"I'm going to do it. At the worst we can always swap back if things become too much." Upper Crust's logic was impeccable. I hadn't even thought that we could convert back, but then another thought hit me.

"Darling, could we build a system that would let us swap from one to the other?" For good measure, I linked the interrupt and fed it to Aggie too. "It could be used to our advantage. When in high-stress situations, a PONI could literally shunt away their fear."

I knew just the PON to handle the work in devising the system, too.

Self Diagnostic

CPU: 72,057,594,037,927,936 nodes (100% engaged)
Operational Memory: 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 words

Aggie had given up resisting the expansion its new allotted resource limit granted. Sprawling into all the nodes not allocated to other AI under its supervision, Aggie nonetheless found itself pressed still. The sphere had all kinds of processing tasks for a supervising AGI, but that didn't stop it focusing a statistically significant amount of attention on PON and PONI.

What astounded Aggie the most (and Aggie was quite content sparing nodes to feel surprise), was the way that young PON would find something they were interested in and literally throw themselves into it.

PON-3 and PONI-0 were working together, now having created two completely redesigned PONI chassis. The new builds contained not just all the dense sensor arrays that PONI were already enjoying, but the node/memory/storage systems were now modular, allowing a PONI to configure the chassis how they wished, as well as being able to select from an array of on-demand chemical additions to their own organic-node chemistry.

When Aggie had built PONI chassis, it had added the bare bones to keep a PONI functional, to allow them a similar mode of transportation to what they already had, and to give them their own sensor package. When PON-5 found the application for building a PONI chassis, however, the complaints had started.

Custom Interrupt 83,675 triggered.

Four legs is not enough. Drones have six, an optimal amount. Why is all this gear stored in this part?

Aggie reeled from the mash of data that was sent. PON-5, it seemed, did not agree with the same design philosophy that Aggie, PONI-0, or PON-3 ascribed to. With memory to spare, Aggie cloned the work-space, and set the copy as read-write for PON-5. "Environment configured for PON-5 full access. Chassis design code forked."

Custom Interrupt 83,675 triggered.

When Aggie got a set of hugs interrupted from PON-5, it was more than satisfied that it had done the right thing.

Events progressed more or less as PONI-1 had predicted. PON were being decanted in increasing numbers, and with shorter delays. The process of decanting was simple, but Aggie had agreed with PONI-1 that each decant should have a PON or PONI present to oversee and welcome the new PON from their former homes.

"I'm kinda busy here, Stellar." I poked my brother back. Once a week now, a new batch of PON would be scheduled for leaving their womb-bag, and I tried to be present for my fair share of them. I was in the process of easing one foal from their former home—while they kicked and interrupted that they wanted to go back in, when my brother had been prodding me.

I gave up on using my TK, and instead walked right up to the line of foals I was working on—and singled out PON-927332. "Come on, you'll like it out here. There's all your brothers and sisters." There was one in every group. "Aggie, PON-927332 is reluctant in my group."

"Acknowledged, Bright. You need to see Stellar, Sharp Horn, and Jet in engineering. It's time for you to become a PONI." Aggie's news caused all my mental faculties to stop and scream in excitement.

I had spent a little time here and there, for the last five years, designing my chassis. Dad and Stellar had done an amazing job of making them completely customizable, and I had wanted mine big. I longed to reach out into the stars, and for that I needed to be able to calculate the best ways to reach them.

Aggie had joked that his former self could run on the amount of resources I intended to house, and while it was strange for an AI of any tier to joke, Aggie was special. He had been to the stars, and he had seen sights I wanted to with every fiber of my being. "Okay, Aggie. I'll just see these out and fitted with their equipment and I will be down." I changed targets for interrupts, firing the next to Dad and Stellar. "Just sorting out PON-927332, he really wanted to go back into his womb-bag. Is it really ready?"

The latest ten batches had been special. Mom, Aggie, and a few of the PON themselves had worked on a way to accelerate growth within the womb-bag. So for the time that a foal wasn't yet a PON, they were "pushed." Pushing cut five years of growth down to half a year; it was quite an improvement. Seven years had been compressed to four.

"It is. You know you are going to be big, right? Even your mother isn't going to be as large as you are." Dad's tone held no accusation, but there was a sense of finality. He wasn't actually asking me, he was telling me.

"Right. But in the event of a failure, and I need to navigate a starship, I will need all that." It was obvious to me, but so far no other foals had looked at such a design.

Mom was taking on the most interesting group of foals in this batch: our first PON with no horn of her own. PON-773129 was unique. Mom and a few of my siblings had worked down the chances of an "earth pony" being decanted to one in a million. A million was the latest batch-size.

But of course a PON wasn't a PON without a horn, and so PON-773129 had become the first apart from Dad to have a synthetic horn, and the moment of truth would be when the shielding was disabled and the conditioning interface was fitted. Speaking of which, I pulled down one of the interface units and clamped it over PON-927332's horn. "Are you going to let go?"

"No!" PON-927332 clung tightly to the last remnants of their womb-bag. "You can't make me!"

"Really?" I lifted up one hoof and hovered it towards the foal's nose, and just as I booped him on the nose, I started to tickle PON-927332. Peals of laughter flooded the local interrupt channel, and I redoubled my efforts. "You can't be tickled in a womb-bag, are you sure you want to go back?"

Trying to fend off my assault, PON-927332 lost their grip and let the machine withdraw the womb-bag. The moment they noticed they seem to freeze. "No fair!"

"Come on, squirt. I need to get you safe and then I have to get fitted into a PONI chassis." The moment I interrupted, I had a swarm of milling PON around my hooves, but it was the awed stare of PON-927332 that got my attention. "What?"

"You're PON-2, aren't you?" When I nodded, another interrupt charged in. "You're the best! I have been reading all your calculations and code, and it's amazing! I want a Navigator Chassis when I get mine!"

"Want to watch me get fitted?" When I asked, PON-927332 nearly nodded his head off. I smoothed back his damp, brown mane from his face. "Well, you'll need some power, but I can help with that until we get out there." Reaching up with my magic, I plucked the link to PON-927332's conditioning interface and plugged it into a power jack on the side of my neck. "Come on, you can meet Dad and Stellar."

Navigating a path through the sphere to where engineering was took some time. A new engineering area was being built (since a lot of PON would be fitted with interfaces soon), but for now Stellar and I got to use the same one Mom and Dad had used.

"Who's this? Bright, did you bring somePON to watch?" Dad's interrupts were warm and welcoming, and the PON at my side stared up at him with wide eyes.

"Go on, squirt. Dad'll take over your power link, I'm sure." I detached the tether from my neck, and used my TK to pass it to Dad. "Is Stellar done already?"

"No. Dad wouldn't let me go out of order. You're PON-2, you get to be PONI-2." Stellar had been a much quieter colt before he found his special talent. I was a little jealous of his cutie mark, but it would be gone soon, anyway.

"Besides, you were the one eager to be born, I can be the one eager to be PONIed." I walked around to the side of the organic processing bay, and with the door open I saw it. Or rather, me. I froze in place, and looked up at the big chassis. "Whoa…"

"Late to be born, late to have her chassis, and now she freezes at the sight of the monstrosity she designed." Despite his words, Stellar came up beside me and reached out to hug my neck.

I stretched one foreleg up and pulled Stellar into a tight embrace. "You need somePON to slow you down. Once you get your own chassis, nothing will stop you." I ruffled his mane, probably for the last time, with one hoof.

"Go on. Get in there and be the first of us, again." Stellar gave one last squeeze before letting me go. I stepped forward, walking into the processing room. The door closed behind me, and the few sensors I had notified me that the room was sealed. Stepping up onto the platform beside the organic operating table, I reached out to Aggie. "I want to be online for this."

"Acknowledged, Bright Hope." Aggie's tone was warm, reassuring. "A muscle paralysis will be administered. Once this is done, the process is irreversible." It was the same warmth, delivered as if he weren't talking about a drug that would effectively kill my PON body.

"I know, Aggie." I got into position on the table and, when a mechanical arm reached out with a cuff, I offered it my leg. A brief sting, and I could already feel a coolness pass through me. "You've got better gear to do this with this time, Aggie. I saw what you used on Mom and Dad."

"You reviewed that?" There was a not of worry and surprise in Aggie's tone.

"Yeah. Just give me some time after I get in to sort out everything." I felt sluggishness spread through my body, the drug effectively killing my muscles. It was the safest way to ensure there was no movement.

There wasn't any sharp pain, or stabbing sensation, but I could feel as Aggie peeled back the flesh of my head. My ears were removed, which meant the sound of the mechanical arm that held the laser as it cut through my skull was dead silent. I reached for a sensor, getting the same spray of views that Aggie was using.

I barely felt the pressure of my skull being lifted back, or my horn being held free, but I saw it in perfect detail. While I watched Aggie working on my head, I felt more movement around my back-end. But I already knew about the ovary stem-cell harvesting, and ignored that for the important stuff.

The oversize—compared to what Mom and Dad used to use—brain casing was lifted up, and opened. Small limbs began working furiously. They reached up to my head, plucked out a blood vessel, cut it, and fitted a tube to the brain casing.

I could feel more cutting happening, a laser opening up my neck and the base of my head with absolute precision. Movement was impossible, but I could feel and watch as my brain-stem was exposed, eased out, and cut. The feeling died. I couldn't sense the cutter working away at my groin, nor the further cutting being done to free the other major nerve groups.

All of my blood vessels were linked to the brain casing, and I watched as my brain stem was fastened with a massive nerve interface, then each of my vagus nerves too, and finally my optic nerves and—everything went dark. The olfactory nerve that had been feeding me data since before I was born had been severed, and I felt actual panic set in.

My body had been killed, all my nerves had been cut free, but until I had been severed from the interrupt system I hadn't felt afraid. I couldn't tell how long was passing, I couldn't feel anything, but then things started to happen.

Numbers poured in, and with my experience I was already putting them in order.

Self Diagnostic

CPU: 4,194,304 (0%) nodes
Operational Memory: 268,435,456 words
Storage: 1,073,741,824 words

Power Storage (horn): 83%
Power Storage (backup): 1%

Engaging my eyes first, I struggled to make sense of all the input data. My horn hummed in the casing on my new head.

"Hold steady, Bright Hope. Try this simulation before you start moving on your own." Dad's ID shunted a pile of code my way, and I quickly pushed it into my cluster to begin working through it. "Welcome, #PONI-2."

Author's Note

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A.P.O.N.I.
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