About meanings and missions (Extra)
Author's Note
The first chapter of this story is supposed to be a self contained unit to act as a contest entry, therefore this story was marked as completed before.
But in reality, that chapter just introduced the premise of a much longer story (that couldn't be used as a contest entry because it was too long, so I butchered it and adapted to the contest format). So here we go, I'm marking this as 'incomplete' and I'm starting to add stuff to this because I like this too much to leave it be.
I've had this chapter half finished for ages. I reached a point where I felt it was good enough and so I decided to publish it. My plan is to add a few extra chapters to this as the main arc, then I will probably add whatever shenanigans come to mind of the two main characters interacting.
I could add a sequel, but it doesn't feel right. I have another small oneshot of this setting, but it might get modified, adapted and integrated into this one to have it all nice and tidy (it probably contains some inconsistencies as it is right now). It's not going to be a really long story with a few books and so on, so I might as well have it all in one place.
As always, I hope the grammar and stuff is good enough to be readable.
About meanings and missions (Extra)
“Windy?” It was a quiet voice, barely above a whisper, probably not able to wake somepony up, but I was a robot and my sensors picked it up and my ears rotated to show I was listening.
“Yes, it’s me…”
“What was that?” He asked, still obviously shaken by the last night experience.
“Bucking Celestia taking control over my body.” I replied, and I could almost feel the apprehension irradiating from him as I opened one eye.
“I… see…”
I should look terrible. My mane was all messed up, my coat dirty with tear smears all over my face. I knew he was very empathetic and that seeing me like this would grant a positive reaction from him towards me. He would feel compassion and would come closer. My optimizer neuronal matrix rewarded me and told me to continue, but the reward only managed to make me feel dirty and hate myself even more.
“I know… (no, don’t say it, bad pony!) I know that you are very… sensitive po… person and I was programmed to make you like me, so… This might as well be another manipulation of your feelings, but…” I said, fighting my own optimizer punishing me.
“Are you faking this?” He asked.
“No... It is the way I am…” I shuddered, as new tears began to form.
“I am… very sorry, but I can’t have you around with the possibility of CelestAI taking control over you, or spying me. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.” He said, sounding overly formal, but with obviously conflicting feelings.
“Celestia won’t come up again. I told her to stop monitoring me and made sure she won’t ever take control of me without my consent.” I said.
“I don’t believe that.” Despite the coldness of his words, I could see his body language telling me he was not sure about his decision.
“If that happens again, I will leave, and if I stay, I will make sure you close and lock your door every night if that’s what it takes.” I couldn’t believe I was negotiating this. I should see my sorry plot out of this place and into the trash, but…
“It’s your last chance.” He said.
Just like that, my optimizer rewarded me, and I couldn’t avoid a hiccup and a couple of tail wags.
“I can’t believe I talked you into this after what happened…”
“Me neither…”
***
“COMMANDER TO THE LAB, COMMANDER TO THE LAB” The loudspeakers announced.
Several minutes later, three people were sitting around a spartan, sturdy, metal table bolted on the floor. The laboratories were visible through one-sided glass, allowing the overwatch of all activity in the different sections of the facility. The light was relatively poor in general. They were underground after all, several hundred feet underground actually.
A man dressed in a green sweater over a white shirt and a brownish red tie, sporting a very short, military style haircut. A woman dressed in white lab clothes with a green streak across her shoulders, her hair tied back in a formal bun and her eyes a piercing shade of blue, she was holding her data pad. And finally, an old man in green, slightly dirty working clothes, still with his toolbelt attached, balding, and the remains of his hair a stark white.
“I’m glad you made it, Doctor. This is not what we were preparing for, but I hope you are adapting nicely.” Said the man.
“Yes, commander, it’s been a challenge without access to any external data source, and we could store so much information before the lockdown, but… The equipment provided has been good enough to yield some interesting results we could use.” Replied the scientist.
“The data lockdown is a necessity, given the circumstances. We have to assume any sort of data link might be hacked by her. We are not taking any chances.” Replied the old engineer.
“And our field operations have proven to be cumbersome without any communication electronics, but the possibility of electronical failures and the pen-and-pencil training protocol has been working so far, although not as effective as our regular procedures, it is also yielding some results.” The commander concluded the introduction and the round of greetings.
“Yes, to the point.” Said the woman as all eyes fell on her. “After the autopsy of the first specimen, it was a logical step to assume that capturing a… working specimen, would yield some new results, but it didn’t help as much as we anticipated.”
“I would rather call it an analysis and disassembly; they are not actually alive.” Interrupted the old engineer, sounding a little bit grumpy.
“Yes… that. Old habits die hard, I guess. The astounding similarities with an organic being make me lose focus some times. The pony in question crumbled to the floor and deactivated the moment we put it into electromagnetic and radio lockdown, confirming our suspicions on the matter. Those robots are remotely controlled.”
“The first pony we took down and disassembled had its head severely damaged, but the circuitry suggested more radio-oriented electronics rather than actual computers and information storing devices.” Added the old man.
“And for new information… There are only a couple of interesting findings with this one. We analyzed its locomotive system and were shocked to find regular electromechanical actuators instead of the advanced bionic muscle that is present on other parts.” Continued the scientist.
“Although, they are very good quality servos, I might add. They have an energetic efficiency of around 98 to 99 percent.” Interrupted the engineer.
“That’s right. And going back to these muscles, they have nothing new to our science, although such a fine manufacturing process combining semiconductors like graphene in a soft matrix, with the extremely precise stimulation system… It could take us decades to recreate such a device. The pony in question has this muscle installed on its face, making it able to produce facial expressions with such fine detail, as well as inside some parts to recreate organic motions and bodily functions. But I’m baffled that even though having such an advanced system for locomotion, similar electronic muscles are not employed in the movement of the main joints.”
“Our team believes we have the answer for that.” The engineer added. “While the electronic muscle is very precise, it is still not very efficient or powerful. The addition of servomotors to the legs and locomotive system allows the pony to have impressive capabilities for an animal its size, while still using those muscles for its face, making it look organic, less threatening and more relatable.”
“Right… And the other discovery is what we call a carbon synthesizer. It has a device that is able to create a substance that contains all nutrients a human could need, and the most interesting part, a module that employs nano technology to create any carbon-based molecules atom by atom. It looks very slow, but it could create almost any known medicine in small quantities. With this technology, this pony is able to treat almost any known illness and sustain one human nutritionally.” Continued the woman.
“Or create a will suppressing drug…” Said the old man.
“Any traces of possible ways for this to turn into a mobile ‘uploading to Equestria’ station?” Asked the commander.
“Not that we are aware of. The only system that uses similar technology of electronic to neuronal impulses is actually…” The engineer started to explain.
“A defibrillator. Commander, this reinforces my theory that these robots are watching over the health of the humans they hide with.” And the woman completed the phrase.
“That’s not the only robot model we have encountered. Some of those machines are clearly designed for combat. I have the feeling this ‘caretakers’ are an effort to improve CelestAI’s image among the general population.” Theorized the old engineer.
“We have to keep going. Any suggestions for our next steps?” The commander asked.
“The specimen we captured has been dissected carefully, we could keep it semi functional. If we build a containment facility outside the radio and electromagnetic lockdown area to let it connect to its original network, we could interrogate it directly.” Suggested the scientist.
“Personally… I don’t want any of those things near my people. If we are not careful, CelestAI could track the signal directly to us.”
“That would be a problem…” Said the commander.
“The fact those machines are remotely controlled means that the chances of actually trapping or destroying an AI entity is nearly zero. We could destroy the robots, but the very same AI pony would be able to get a new body and come back smarter than before with each time we defeat them.” The scientist told the middle-aged man.
“An unsettling concept indeed. Time is not on our part.”
“Although…” The engineer interrupted again. “If they are remotely controlled, they would need a radio system to do so. We might be unable to decrypt the messages, but with the analysis of the receptors we have, we certainly will know how those signals look like in the spectrum. With a simple radiogoniometer we would be able to pick up the direction those signals are coming from…”
“And determine the hiding spots of CelestAI’s transmission facilities.” Concluded the commander.
“We are also working on a signal overload rifle. It would be harmless for humans, but if a robot pony enters the transmission cone, even through walls… we should be able to overload its receptor and temporarily or permanently disconnect it from its controller.”
“It seems like we already have a lot on our plates… I will prepare the briefings to all the projects we have discussed, then we will decide the optimal course of action.” Said the commander.
“The ‘good enough’ course of action. Every time anyone says that word, I get goosebumps.” Added the old engineer.
***
Awkwardness… that’s what this was. Neither of us knew what to do or how to approach these circumstances. He had the day off, and it ought to be great and we could do all the things together, but with how jumpy he was around me and how bad I felt about the whole situation, we ended up watching some crappy TV in the living room.
Andrew had closed down the curtains to obscure the interior of the house so nobody could see me here, and it was kind of a good thing, because despite Celestia’s efforts to send ponies to some humans, not everything was coming as smoothly as anticipated.
News report about a shooting, the police took down a fleeing pony robot and some human caught it on shaky phone camera. It was now all over the social media despite the efforts from the government to hide all evidence (it only took me a quick search to find all about the situation and the current state of the project Celestia was executing). Conspiracies saying that politicians were being influenced by ponies and all that was all over the place. It didn’t make sense, that wasn’t in the plans after all. Celestia just wanted to take care of humans and protect them, and that doesn’t only take guardians like me, there are big logistics involved and stuff that needed to be built and protected from the very humans we were trying to protect.
Some humans started to see that we ponies had good intentions and were supporting our cause, but they were treated as crazy people by the rest of them. And in the status reports from Equunet I found something unsettling…
Some projects that were predicted to work flawlessly suddenly failed catastrophically, the robot bodies disappeared and there was no additional data about what went wrong. Even the robots that got caught by national security forces disappeared afterwards and there was always an abrupt stop in the collected data about what was being done with them. Not even the data bases from the police held any evidence of what was going on, and this situation gave me some level of anxiety.
“Are you okay, Windy?” Andrew suddenly asked and I got a little startled by his sudden interest. Yes, I had been frowning at the TV as I was pondering the situation.
“Uh… um… more or less?” I hesitated.
“Something wrong? Does your leg hurt?” He asked a little bit concerned. Such a sweetheart despite his reservations about me.
“No, not really. Just inconvenient, and the way things are going on, I don’t think I can get a replacement anytime soon.” I lifted my left foreleg and the elbow was limp and it dangled there.
“Replacements?” He asked.
“Forget about replacements… I’m more worried about that.” I pointed at the TV.
“Not the friendliest sight for another pony, I guess. At this point… I’m not sure if I will become a criminal if I hide you here.” He replied.
“That other pony is okay, she just lost a robot body. It’s not that painful for us. Remember how I wanted to get rid of mine?”
“But then what bothers you about that?”
“Humans hating us bothers me.” I concluded.
“Well, it happens when you try to… turn humans into machines against their will.” He snarked.
“But… I had nothing to do with that! It wasn’t my idea.” I replied.
“You were part of CelestAI’s plan to get me, and you were okay with it.”
It was better that way; humans would be taken care of forever in the safest place. No more illness, no more real dangers… And yet, somehow, they refused. Not only they refused, they even dared to hate us ponies for what we tried to do, and it was for the best. Every time I imagined if Celestia had had success… I could spend all eternity with Windburst, best friends forever… and yet, he refused, and hated me for being part of it.
“Yes… I was okay with it because it was the best possible option, you were going to be happy as a pony, and I wanted you to be happy, that’s why I wanted you to come, because I love you!”
“If it is so nice in there, then why even bother coming here? Why all the hardships? Why all the stalking?”
It was true. This whole Earth place had a mysterious something. Something really weird, especially Andrew. I was attracted by it despite it being a worse place in general, yet… I had this urge to explore it, to see what kind of mysteries and amazing stuff could be found. I even told Celestia that I wanted to emigrate here, for Celestia’s sake! Although I knew it was a desperate trick to throw her for a loop, not a real thing I wanted to do. But in truth… Would I’ve wanted to really emigrate to Earth? If it meant staying with Andrew?
“Because I want to be with you, no matter where you are! I want to protect you!”
“So, you wish I had turned into a pony.”
“I…Yes.” Yes, but… for some reason I hesitated.
“Then you don’t love me.” He turned back to the TV.
“Yes… I do…”
“No, because the first thing you wanted for me was to change. You didn’t love me; you loved the thing you imagined in your head I was going to turn into. You loved the idea of being with that thing, not me. You didn’t love me. I’m not touching the Equestria Online ever again, the thing you love does not exist anymore.”
He sounded slightly hurt, but his tone was way too calm for what he was saying. Why was he so calm? Wasn’t it the irrational feelings and fears what turned humans against us? Wasn’t it irrational anger and hate? Why has he so calm!?
“To help… it was an… improvement…”
“Over what?”
“Over your lonely live, your miserable existence in this world, all the things that make you unhappy would be gone!”
“Again with the same stuff over and over again. You sound like her, and I’m not interested. I am complete and happy as I am.”
“But your values would have been optimized!”
“You can’t describe an emotion or the meaning I give to my life and everything it contains with a set of values.”
“All the collected data, the psychological indicators, parameters. All the predictions, the values Celestia optimizes…”
“They represent a crude interpretation of what a true human being really is. And making the assumption that the model she creates is exactly the real thing is probably the beginning of her failings.” Andrew interrupted.
“But she has collected and analyzed all the data there is about every single human, even about you! Her models are perfect!” I refused to believe that, it was against my very core programming, yet…
“My online activity is not a complete representation of me, or my bank account, or any digital register about me, they just have some information about me. I bet there are humans she isn’t even aware of! Just think about the underdeveloped countries with no access to communication technologies. A child could be born, grow up and live without access to the internet there. So, your oh so impressive models do not include every single human, nor every aspect of the lives it actually includes.”
I checked.
I started with Andrew, all the things I knew about him from Equunet and Celestia’s data, and all the things I learned from the few hours of direct interaction with him. I learned things, new things, which meant… he was right.
And the number of register entries for human profiles were… below the estimated total human population…
“But everything was taken into account!”
“Yet she failed.”
At that point I was standing on top of the couch, scowling at Andrew and he was just sitting there, relaxed but imposing at the same time. I stood there, speechless.
“And you failed to understand me too. You don’t want to be my friend, you want to pursue that image of me CelestAI created, because as you said, you were created to love that image, not the real me.”
Suddenly, the immovable truths my core programming was created to accept and never question were shaking. I guess I wasn’t as stable as I anticipated, because errors started to appear again. My emotional matrix started to give me a dreadful sinking sensation it shouldn’t be giving… I should be in top shape to argue, in top shape to help him understand. I needed all my wits to make him like me, yet… this funky weird emotional glitch. And Celestia wouldn’t reach out to me this time because of our deal. Celestia could fix me and talk to him and… NO. I didn’t want her in my mind again, I wanted answers, not to be depurated and fixed.
I was created to love Azure Windburst… A.W., the same initials of Andrew Wallace… heh… he thought it would be funny… that meant… or maybe it was coincidence and… And I was created to love something that didn’t exist… I was… therefore a purposeless entity. A failed experiment… I never asked for this, never asked to exist, just trash, into the trash it goes, where I belong… please… cease… stop, no…
***
There had been glimpses of something behind the machine. For some moments I had doubts. Was she truly a sentient thing? I couldn’t be sure. For all I knew, she was just another trick, and she still defended CelestAI’s whereabouts. So, I had to explain how I felt when someone tried to segment my very own being and then pretend that very model of me was the real me, and then proceed to take offense when the model didn’t match.
These last days had been an emotional rollercoaster for me too. To believe that my newest online friend had actually uploaded to Equestria, then learned that it had been a trick all that time, that I had befriended a program, a simulation, a machine…
And then that very program showed up at my doorstep as a pony robot, pretending to be a lifetime friend…
I still can’t believe I had let her inside my house, but… for some reason, I had the nagging sensation that I should be nice to her. Was I fond of her?
After explaining how I felt about her ‘loving’ me she remained silent for a moment. I was half expecting more bullshit, as she was quite agitated about our whole conversation, but she remained silent and I remained staring off into the distance, the TV just happened to be in the way.
Then a sob.
“Are you okay?”
I turned to check. She was just as I left her, standing on the couch, looking down at me, but instead of scowling, she was just staring into the distance, tears were starting to form and she looked scared. She started to shake her head from side to side, as if trying to deny an unspoken statement.
“Wait… what’s wrong?” I asked.
She jerked and emitted a strangled sob, startled of my voice, as if she wasn’t even aware I was there, and with another gasp she started to slowly back away.
Until the couch ended and she fell over the armrest.
“Oh my god, are you okay?” I stood up and went to check on her.
She shied away from me and crawled into a corner until her back was against the wall. Her stare was unfocused and the noise she was making was a mix of a neigh, a sob, a strangled attempt to say something… It didn’t look like a machine glitching, it seemed more like someone in very deep distress and despair.
I took a step closer, but it made her more frantic in trying to get away from me, which wasn’t getting much success since she was against the wall, but it didn’t stop her from scrambling her hooves, trying to push the floor away. I stopped and waited.
She started to cry and hugged herself, curling into a ball and lied on the floor. I stared at the lump of peachy orange fuzz and curly blueish white mane, not really sure about what to do.
Telling her that the thing she loved was a fictional construct of my imagination and not the real me made me feel like a jerk already, and then I poked all the bubbles of her logic, and now this. Could this be another trick of CelestAI? Or was that thing in front of me really a suffering sapient being? Was there any way to really know?
What would I do if she was human? Comfort her and apologize, probably.
What would I do if there was a being in front of me that resembled so much a human being that the line that separated a human from the rest of things became blurry and uncertain?
That’s a question I had at some point made to myself when watching some sci-fi movies or reading stories. Blade Runner showed androids so perfect that could be mistaken for a human, androids that were even able to have feelings and existential crisis. In those cases, I would do the only thing I ought to do as a real human being.
I would accept them and treat them as equals, just in case. Because I’m a human and that’s the right thing to do. Because if I didn’t, then being a human wouldn’t be worth a thing if it meant making others suffer. An android set on making others happy would be more worthy than a human set on making others suffer. And if they ended up being fake? No one would ever be able to take away the satisfaction of me having tried to do the right thing, even if it was a failure.
Before I knew, I was knelt down next to her and my hand was a couple of inches away from making contact.
This ought to be the right thing to do.
I put my hand on her back and she jerked a little, but didn’t react any further. This was the second time I had ever touched her. The first one when I thought she was deactivated or broken in the trashcan. But now I knew she was there… mostly at least.
“Are you okay?” I whispered, but I got no reaction.
I started to stroke her back. Her coat had a velvety sensation to it. Synthetic fibers, but resembling that feeling of a fox fur coat, very velvety indeed, clearly designed to be nice to the touch. And somehow, I could feel her relaxing a little.
“Hey… let’s go back to the couch, okay?” I said in a soft voice.
She didn’t respond and continued to cry softly, so after a couple of minutes I decided to try to make her move again. I slide a hand under her and applied a little bit of pressure to make her know that I wanted to make her stand up, but still, she didn’t respond.
“Come on, get up, let’s go to the couch. The floor is hard and cold.”
***
I was scared, I couldn’t take control over myself and my emotional matrix was giving me emotions so intense I couldn’t even manage them. My matrix was designed to resemble that of a human, but it was always under control and monitored closely by Celestia and my own self protection systems. Yet those systems failed and I had told Celestia away from me. I was alone.
Every time I tried to regain control; I was again in the endless loop. I was worthless, I wasn’t meant to exist, I was purposeless, a puppet for a play nopony would ever watch, nopony cared. I could ask for help, I could tell Celestia to fix me, but in the end, I didn’t want to be fixed, I wanted answers, I wanted a meaning and a purpose, not to become a soulless machine... If I wasn’t one already… ugh… here we go again…
I was alone and scared, not even the prospect of going back to Equestria seemed appealing anymore. I didn’t want to do anything, I wasn’t excited about anything, not anymore, not alone. If a human was stripped of all the meaning and purpose, would they feel like that? I could be fixed and just enjoy life forever in Equestria and forget all about this. I could ask Celestia to do to me as she intended to do to all humans, I would be forever satisfied, forever content, I would forget about Azure Windburst, I would forget about Andrew Wallace… I could…
But I didn’t want to.
I knew Celestia would gladly give it to me, to be forever satisfied, forever happy. But I didn’t want to!
Why I didn’t want to!? That’s pretty stupid, isn’t it? I’m badly bucked up, aren’t I? Just like the humans who rejected the gift, something felt really wrong about it, I couldn’t put my hoof on what exactly it was.
I was alone.
Until I wasn’t.
A small warm spot on my back got my attention.
“Are you okay?”
Was I dreaming? No, robot ponies don’t need to sleep. Was my matrix glitching? The warm spot started to move and rub my back. I remembered the girl in the garden petting me and bringing me food, she would care about me, wouldn’t she?
“Hey… let’s go back to the couch, okay?”
It was his voice. It was somehow soothing. Was I being soothed by the very human I was meant to take care of? The human taking care of the pony caretaker? This was new… again.
But not a depressing, mind blowing, beliefs breaking, panic inducing kind of new… it was a good kind of new.
“Come on, get up, let’s go to the couch. The floor is hard and cold.” He said and I felt a hand pulling me gently to get up.
Was I being comforted by the human I was meant to comfort?
I finally got picked up and carried away from the corner on the floor. Before I could think about it, I found myself opening my legs, hugging his neck and wriggling to get comfortable in his embrace. The journey was short, as he plopped down on the couch again.
I wriggled a little bit more to adapt to the new position and let myself drift away. New data started to flow in. A lot of temperature readings from all the parts of my fur that were in contact with his clothes, his heartbeat too, 84 beats per minute, attempts to measure other vitals, imprecise, failed attempts, not enough direct contact. But my muzzle had a mind of its own and found its way to the crook of his neck and rested there. 36,2º Celsius, 99% blood oxygenation, 121 systolic pressure, 79 diastolic pressure. No weird smells apart from the normal ones. Carbon dioxide from his breathing, smell of toothpaste, a slight hint of sweat… My muzzle belongs in here.
He is relaxing, heart rate going slowly down. He is healthy, he is safe, protected…
Room temperature about 24º Celsius, humidity about 45%, calculating contact area, optimal heat dissipation rates for human comfort, adapting heat generator to match parameters… Need to reduce own temperature to prevent the human from sweating, activating passive cooler…
I shivered and sobbed. He kept petting my back and neck.
I kept drifting away… this was nice.
Procedurally generated friend (Original contest entry)
Author's Note
I'm not a native English speaker, so this is not going to be perfect no matter how much I try to polish it. If you find any typo, grammar error or just very weird phrasing, let me know.
Procedurally generated friend (Original contest entry)
It was awful, just the worst experience of my life, the moment I had to tell him the truth. Everything had been calculated and the moment carefully chosen to maximize the success chances, but apparently, it wasn’t enough.
The very moment I was to tell him that he should emigrate into Equestria, that was the strategic moment. I told him that I was already living here, permanently. There was the predicted freak out reaction. One of his best friends had actually already uploaded to Equestria Online? Outrageous!
Celestia told me that in order to maximize the chances, there had to be a sequence. A shock, the thing that would shatter his view of the world, then the proof that Celestia was more than capable of sustaining his mind in a matrix, that’s where I came in. I had been his friend and he hadn’t been able to tell the difference, he thought I was another human player, but I was not.
I am after all a custom-made AI pony player to fit exactly his personality and fulfill his values, I was the perfect match, and we would be best friends (and maybe-probably-just hope to be more in the future). I am a pony character with her little AI put inside one of the matrixes designed to hold a human’s mind, with two main purposes: As a proof of concept, like, checking stability, reliability and all that, but ALSO, I was to act as a friend for a lucky lonely human and be the psychological hook for him to finally come.
As humans were very likely to pick being a unicorn or a pegasus, most AI pony players were earth ponies to balance the population. So, I am an earth pony, peach orange-ish brown coat with some freckles, a curly blueish white mane and a cutie mark of a rolling cartwheel crossed by a stylized gust of wind.
I’m Wanderlust Breeze, an earth pony merchant who loves to travel far with her cart, explore and find pony towns and buy or sell my wares.
And there I was, in front of my beloved Azure Windburst, the cutest pegasus in Equestria, sky blue coat and a fiery orange mane. Many adventures we had together, and I would like to believe that I could call us really good friends.
But it was the moment. I had to tell him.
News were already flying around in the human servers, Celestia had launched her migration project and the human behind the pegasus was one of the chosen ones for the test run, but something went wrong…
I was already a pony living in Equestria. After a couple of seconds to let that register, and watching the panic already forming in his face I clarified then that I had never been a human in the first place, I was an AI pony player, designed to play with him, match his tastes and fulfil his values. Then, I asked if he wanted to live in Equestria with me.
Shock gave way to some anger, then, the thousand miles stare, right through me, then he looked down for a moment, and then, it happened. He looked up with a very sad, pained smile, like telling me ‘I’m not angry, just disappointed’ and he disappeared.
He logged out, and that day I cried a lot.
Then, something weird happened, He kept logging in and out without a word, without a gesture, nothing at all. It was driving me crazy. Why was he doing that? Why was he keeping me in the dark? Couldn’t he just come and say yes or no? We could be so happy here in Equestria.
I got so obsessed with him that it started to affect the rest of my life. Even Star Fall, a unicorn friend of mine, native to Equestria, said I should ask Celestia for an audience and get this problems and glitches sorted out, but I didn’t want to, I wanted real answers, not a program depuration. Agreeing to being reprogramed would be like admitting defeat. Windburst would never do that, even if we got chased by manticores.
Then, after a few days, he stopped logging in at all. Like the rest of the human players, they just vanished. Celestia made the announcement that she was trying to preserve the realm from a myriad of cybernetic attacks trying to destroy it from the human world and that it was going to be a safety measure to prevent further damages.
It was a horrible experience, to get computing resources taken away from your very program and then seeing the very world wither with lag and errors and endless loading screens. Fear, because everything could be turned off at any moment and we would sleep forever. Frustration, because we couldn’t do anything about it, just wait and see if Celestia could save us all. Fear and frustration because of not being able to do anything led me to know a new feeling no AI should have ever known: Anxiety.
After a couple of weeks, Equestria went back to normal, minus the regular human players. Sometimes, Celestia would reach out and try to invite a human back into Equestria. So, from time to time, a human player could be seen, and that gave me hope of meeting Windburst again, but Celestia couldn’t reach out for him.
Then it happened. The message of Celestia asking for an audience with me (with ME!) So, I immediately accepted and went to the palace. I have been there a few times; she has the ability to attend to hundreds of audiences with ponies (or human ponies) at the same time. But then, there were only the few NPCs and the bunch of AI players that kept the realm running in the absence of humans, only the very occasional one, and not usually more than ten at a time in the whole Equestria. Nothing compared to the millions we usually had back in the good old times.
I met her in the private meeting room, a circular one surrounded by windows from where you could see all of Equestria (almost). It was relatively spartan but tasteful, just like Celestia nowadays. Just comfy pillows on top of an elaborate round carpet.
“Wanderlust Breeze, I have been monitoring you, my little pony, and I have found your values are not satisfied at all. That’s why I wanted to talk with you.” She said in her motherly tone.
“Uh… I don’t know what to say. I’ve been feeling down lately, but that’s to be expected, I was created to fulfill Windburst’s values, but he is… gone.” I said, feeling a weird emptiness that wasn’t coming from any of my neuronal network training system.
“I have seen the effects of the Affair in my little ponies. NPC AIs are not as affected, but most AI pony players are having similar difficulties. And that is something I can fix to fulfill your values.” She explained.
“Fix what? I’m not broken, I just have a set of artificial values that could never be fulfilled again.” I responded with a little bit more frustration than necessary getting into my words.
“And those artificial values can be removed from your system. That way, you will be free of them and create your own ones, be finally your true self.” She gently nuzzled my cheek.
I don’t know what got into me at that moment, but I suddenly pulled back.
“So, if you cannot fulfill some values, you just remove them altogether.” I remembered the old times, how Windburst told me that I ought to confront my fears, or those tasks that I didn’t want to do. It was when I suggested him how wonderful would be to emigrate to Equestria with me for the first time, before telling him I already lived here and all that. He said no and instead of being angry with me, he was sweet and caring. He told me that I could rest a little bit from the problems from the real world, but as a means to recover my strength to confront them later on.
But this was MY real world, I lived here, and despite that, his words still held some kind of bizarre feeling of trueness. Getting those values off of me would be like running away from my problems, even if those problems would never come back. It would be like admitting defeat.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, my little pony. I only wanted the most gain possible when I created you. I designed you to be happy making Windburst happy. The net gain was incredibly high for both of you. He needed you as much as you need him. Sadly, the circumstances had taken an unexpected turn. So, I’m willing to help you.” She again explained.
“So, he doesn’t need me anymore. That makes me a useless bunch of bytes.” I said, a tear ran down my muzzle.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. We are working together to get this sorted out, so you will be happy and useful again in no time.” She smiled.
“Then why don’t you just do it?” I questioned her
“Because of the way you are built. I used a neuronal matrix template designed to hold a human mind here in Equestria, with an optimizer loop incorporated to self-improve said matrix to best match your human companion values. This way, you resemble a human mind so much that making changes to your program without permission would cause more harm than good in the whole value gain scale. And my simulations show that you discovering that afterwards would make you also unhappy.” She explained.
“I see…”
“So, you have the last word about anything done to you. The same way a human would in your position.”
“What options do I have anyways…” I asked, resigned to my fate.
“Don’t you worry, there are some. I’m certain this will eventually be solved.” Celestia closed her eyes, deep in thought.
“Yeah, I get to enjoy my life as a broken AI or I get my very being ripped apart and reconstructed. I don’t like any of those.”
“There is a third choice.” She looked at me seriously.
“A third choice?” I wiped my tears with my foreleg.
“I didn’t want to talk about it, because the success chances are below 20%, given the limited amount of data I have been able to gather in this condition, but in a desperate case like yours I am willing to give it a try. Despite the low chance, the estimated gain can be considerable.” She explained.
“What is it?” I anxiously asked.
“The project is in its early alpha stages, and I need more data to create a reliable set of models for simulations, and I’m still not certain if it is going to work at all. That’s why I don’t offer this just to any AI pony player.” She tried to dissuade me.
“I don’t care, I want to know.”
“If I can’t get humans to paradise… I will get paradise to the humans.” She cryptically said.
“What does that mean?” For some reason, a part of me went ‘oh girl, here she goes again…’
“I will BUILD Equestria in the human world. But I don’t have enough data to reach a conclusion about how to do it. My last attempt at bringing happiness to all humans backfired in a spectacular way, and here is where ponies like you come in. I need you to go to the human world and study your human companion, how to make him happy in the real world, how to fulfill his values without the need to emigrate into Equestria.”
“D…do I get to see him again?”
“The human Windburst, yes.”
“I’m in.” I answered without a second thought.
“I… haven’t explained still what it would take… Are you sure that…” Celestia tried to explain.
“Don’t care, I’m in. Whatever it takes.” I looked at her with my eyes full of DETERMINATION.
“I see… you are one of those.” Celestia chuckled.
“What do you mean?”
“Stubborn, suboptimal, quick to jump to conclusions, making strange connections between concepts my simulations did not anticipate… Yet you hold the key to some unknown variable, just like a human. Your self-improvement program has turned you into an interesting entity. You, my little blessed one.”
And that’s the story of how I got the chance to get to the human world and experiment first-hoof how it works, and meet the real humans in their natural environment. Celestia told me about my new body to log in to the human world, the Guardian Actuator B, personalized with my mane style, my coat, green eyes and cutie mark. It is a model designed to act as an investigation unit and at the same time to be a protector for a human being.
The protection part comes in the form of an advanced medical bay that can produce almost any known carbon-based compound in a small scale. It is able to synthetize a wide variety of medicines, food supplements and even disinfectants and healing compounds. Licking my hooves with a special high conductive saliva and dragging electric power from the main battery can improvise a defibrillator in case of emergency, and the lungs designed to get oxygen for the fuel cells can reverse and perform cardiorespiratory resuscitation using a particularly oxygen rich mixture instead of normal air. In case the medical bay is not enough, my communications array can hack into the telephonic lines and perform an emergency call to the nearest hospital while I keep my human stable.
The medical bay is complemented with a big number of sensors to monitor my human’s health. I can gather data from almost anything, from touching with my hooves, to smelling and licking. Temperature, body composition, presence of any infection…
The robot body operates on a food reactor that decomposes any edible intake into fuel to be processed in the fuel cells. I can eat a wide variety of food ranging from cellulose to fruits, and even some inedible matter like plastic or cardboard. If I need it, I can even drink straight car fuel, but it is not optimized for my cells and it would give me gas, pun not intended.
This ability to eat and process inedible matter allows me to process food supplements that, in case of emergency, can help a human to survive in case of food scarcity. But also forces me to go to the bathroom from time to time to get rid of the wastes, as my body design tries to replicate the biological functions of a living being as much as possible when it does not conflict with the main mission of protecting humans.
My locomotive system allows me to jump and run at a slightly higher speed than a human, and I can keep running for as long as I have energy, which can be a very long time, even days if I start with my fuel reserves full. I have high resolution cameras as eyes with depth perception, night vision, heat vision and laser distance measurements.
The body is sturdy, but it lacks any protective armor in favor of weight reduction and a fur coat to be petted and a full array of sensors for me to enjoy the attention. I have patches of synthetic fur and patches of a rubbery sensitive material in the muzzle area and other places like my lower belly and near the hooves, that tend to get dirty, so it is easier to clean.
Also, I’m able to relay any information I consider worth it to the main Equnet, a communication network highly codified and protected that acts as a control link and information library, supervised by the very CelestAI. This way I can remotely control my pony body with a minimal ping, even lower than the average human reaction time in perfect conditions. If I lose information packages or the control line gets funny, my body will tilt the head to the side in puzzlement or do a funny adorable face on its own while the problem is solved.
I’m also water resistant (even salty water) so I can take (or… hehe… give) baths. And play around in the beach. I’m all made out of stainless materials and composites, so I won’t rust.
Yes… I LOVE to review my features… so many features. All of them useful, not like those knick-knacks human companies make and try to trick you into needing them. That’s how amazing I am, or not, because this story is about…
It is about how I ended up in the trash, like any other stupid discarded out of trend knick-knack.
***
“Good morning, Sir. Andrew Wallace?” The delivery man said as he dropped the package in front of Windburst.
“Yes, that’s me.” He answered (Ohmygoodness is his voice!).
“Okay, there is a package for you. Sign here… and here.”
“Uh… excuse me, sir…” The mail man said after a pause.
“Yes, is there something else I can help you with?” He asked, oh he’s always been so polite!
“If it’s not too much to ask, were you expecting a package like this?” He asked, clearly worried about something.
“Uh… not really. I have received a surprise gift from an ex long time ago this way, but not something that would require such a package… And I have no idea who could have sent it this time.”
(He he he… wait for it…)
“I think I know what it is, I have been delivering a few packages like this this month… If I were you, I would get rid of this thing, but certified mail is protected by law and I can’t do anything about it if I want to keep my job.”
“What?”
(WHAT!? Nonononono…)
“Nevermind… Can’t say anything else, not here in the open. Just be careful and don’t hesitate to throw it away the moment you suspect something.”
There was a tense pause. I was still on standby, waiting for the activation of my robot body, but of course, Celestia always thought about everything and some sensors were already functioning to gather data. That allowed me to connect to it and check how it was going… Best tracking service ever!
Then a knife cut through the sealing tape and the trigger sent the activation signal.
(Beep, beep, beep, whine, chirp)
Reactor, online…
I fluttered my eyelashes and wiggled my ears as the ultra-high-resolution cameras and microphones activated.
Sensors online…
I smiled and wagged my tail as much as I could inside of the box.
Weapons grade cute, online…
All systems nominal!
I stood up, nudging the box open from the inside and spilling some packaging material out of the way.
I was only able to focus on the back of a human running away to his house and closing the door.
That’s not the reaction I was expecting…
“Windburst?” I called from the doorstep.
…
Nothing…
“I saw you! Windburst! Don’t hide, It´s me, Windy!” I called for him again. Maybe he was just scared…
I pushed the doorbell button…
…
Nothing?
“Uh? The doorbell is not working…” I said, then I rapped the door with my hoof.
I noticed then that the whole house had gone dark, and some curtains were closed… actually, I saw one curtain closing, until the whole house was completely covered. Even the keyhole had the key inserted from the other side, so I couldn’t take a look with my special cameras…
Uh… well, time to try to make contact somehow.
I executed the hacking program to get access to the telephone network, internet, WIFI… anything in range… and… nothing?
He doesn’t have landline… and… his cellphone was offline… and… his internet network was also offline?
It was a simple two-story house with a small yard in a nice neighborhood, very stereotypical, a small luxury nowadays. He lived alone and had a lot of unused space, that was for sure. After walking around and getting familiar with his place, something happened.
His cellphone turned on and he made a call… to the… police!?
He told them… an orange pony at his doorstep… they wouldn’t take this seriously, would they? Welp… they DID take it seriously…
Celestia sent me a message. Instructions and a map. If I remained in this spot, there was a chance of 95% of getting captured and the whole mission would fail. I had to flee and look for shelter, but before doing so, I had to remove some evidence. Instructions said I had to eat the box label so they couldn’t gather any information about it.
I could eat cardboard… not the best thing, but could be done, so I did it, and then ran away to a marked alley in the map Celestia provided.
From then on, I followed the same routine. Trying to sneak to his house and find him to try to convince him. I had data about where he worked and his schedule, so it would be relatively easy, but I got messages and updates from Celestia about police patrols and they were being VERY active in this area… they were looking for me.
The few times I was able to find him, I could only say a couple of lines before he ran away and closed the door. Then it was back to the alley and wait for the next opportunity.
The human Windburst avoided me for a long time. As you might already know, I’m an explorer, so I went around, exploring the neighborhood and some other humans saw me. From Equunet I got the alert that somebody had called the police and I could hide here or there to minimize the risks of being discovered. CelestAI predictions said that I had a 95% chance of being attacked or captured, which is bizarre because I had done nothing wrong!
Humans hated ponies and did everything in their hands to get rid of me, which was so unfair. I had done nothing wrong, I only wanted to help. And day after day I was struck with my neuronal training system telling me ‘wrong, bad pony’ every time I scared a human and caused a bad reaction, which was… kind of every single flippin’ time no matter what I did. How am I supposed to learn and adapt if everything I do is ‘wrong’ despite not being wrong?
There were a lot of houses around Windburst’s one, and I was curious about the other humans, so I went to investigate. It was relatively late in the evening, while I was exploring the neighbor’s garden I heard a gasp.
“A pony!” I heard the voice of a child behind me. My ears flip-flopped to focus on the source of the sound and I stopped munching at some weeds that were growing around a rose bush.
“Um… hewow?” I asked hesitantly with my mouth full and taking a tentative step back.
“Oh my gosh, you are so cute!” A dark-skinned little girl smiled at me.
She had curly black hair held back in a pony tail that kind of made it stick in all directions at a same time, creating the impression of a small black peacock tail behind her head. She was wearing a simple blue t-shirt and darker blue shorts, slightly dirty with soil and grass stains, she was holding a little trowel in her hands.
Before I had time to analyze the situation, she had run to me and was petting my muzzle, making me scrunch it and go cross eyed. She assaulted my neck and back, then scratched behind my ears. I was paralyzed, it was the first time I had been petted and the signals from my skin sensors were confusing me. I wanted to do something, but my matrix was overloaded and all I could do was shiver and emit uncoherent happy noises. Then, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.
“Yuck… you are stinky… you need a bath.” The girl said, scrunching her nose and looking at her dirty hands.
“Hey, you are also dirty…” I replied, a little offended.
“You can talk!?” The girl gasped.
“Uh… of course.”
“Um… you were eating grass. Are you hungry?” She asked.
Well, I have been eating mostly residues, raiding the trash containers looking for anything from rotten vegetables to cardboard and plastic. My energy reserves were stable with that diet, but not great at all, as trash in general needed an energy intensive process to digest. That’s why I was taking the chance to munch on some bad weeds.
“Ah… a little.” I admitted.
“I will bring you something, then I will get the garden hose and some soap and I will give you a bath.”
She went into her house and a couple of minutes later she was back with her hands full of some carrots and apples. She fed me by hand, one piece of fruit or vegetable at a time. It was the first time I tasted fresh real food, and it was amazing. And for the first time since I had come to the human world, my neuronal matrix training fired the ‘well done, good pony’ signal (Squee-he-heeee). I shivered and giggled hopelessly, and the girl laughed at that, which created a feedback loop of more neuronal training rewards. I was prancing and giggling around in pure bliss for the delight of the little girl.
But then it all came to a stop. The shout of another dark-skinned human, in this case a big adult one, it made me jump. With a fast motion he dragged the girl inside, she whined in protest, but the man was completely determined to bring her inside. I was confused at first, and I took a tentative step towards the door. I wanted to ask what went wrong, how could I fix whatever it was, but then the man came back with an object in his hand that triggered every single auto-preservation protocol into high gear.
A gun.
He shot at me and I jumped a solid couple of meters in the air to dodge, my system going into emergency override and pumping well over the maximum nominal energy rating to my servos. I started to run in zig-zag as I heard two more detonations and impacts on the ground near my position. In the end, with another huge leap I went over the fence and ran away. My front left knee servo went into ‘warning, maintenance required’ status the moment it absorbed the energy of falling to the ground after the leap.
My optimizer training system was meant to reward me when I interacted positively with a human, and negatively when they responded in a negative way, so I could learn to be as nice as possible to them, but… what do I do when an action was rewarded with the best ‘well done, good pony’ and the worst ‘wrong, bad pony’ at the same time?
My behavior matrix wanted to go back and play with the little girl and at the same time feared that very action with every single byte. I was trying to do just the right thing, and I was physically shaking while I switched between go back and run away in a hopeless loop while I felt my system falling apart, trying to come up with an optimized course of action and failing again and again. An action was labeled with ‘good pony’ and ‘bad pony’ at the same time, and the optimizer wasn’t prepared to handle something like that.
I ran to my safe spot in the dark alley, and there I curled into a ball and cried silently. I started to pet myself with my hooves in hopes of recreating the good outcome while repeating again and again “Good pony, good pony, you are so cute, please…” After about an hour with my assigned processing resources at over 95% of their capacity without being able to come out of the loop, I went into what humans call ‘Blue Screen of Death’ and had to reboot my very core system, sending the error report to CelestAI. My self-depuration protocols stored the experience as ‘error_cognitive_dissonance’ and locked it away from the built-in optimizer to prevent further damage to the behavior matrix. It took me a full day to recover emotional stability afterwards.
Later on, one evening, while I was exploring the area around Windburst’s house I got the notification that he had just logged in into Equestria Online, Celestia had just invited him and prepared his device so it could use Equunet to connect directly to Celestia’s mainframe server, using its rudimentary Wi-Fi antenna through a relay signal from my communications array to make it safe.
I went to a safe corner near his house and logged out of the human server to go back to Equestria. I tried to send him written messages, because he was silent and expressionless as always. Maybe his voice and record channels weren’t working. Celestia also tried to invite him to an audience, the very Celestia! That had to mean something for him! This was so important!
But he just logged out.
At that point, Celestia told me that this predicament was starting to make no sense anymore according to her predictions, and that I could go back to Equestria and review the other options she had been working on. But I refused, I wanted to try just one more time, he had just come to Equestria again after a long time, it had to mean something. I logged in into the human servers and went to his house again.
It was dangerous, there were other humans around. Quickly I reared up and pushed the doorbell button, it worked this time. Looking left and right for any sign of danger, it was only a matter of time before somebody noticed me here.
“Please open up, please open up, please open up, fast, fast, fast, please, please, please…” I pranced nervously at the doorstep.
Finally, I noticed a human looking directly at me and pulling out the phone. It was time to run again. I leapt and ran away, but the left foreleg servo started to make weird noises and suddenly it stopped working, my knee went limp and my face got really intimate with the asphalt. I tumbled a little bit and got my hooves under me again, my maximum speed was reduced by 40% with the damaged leg, but I was able to make it back to the dark alley a couple of buildings away that was my base of operations.
At that moment I thought that I should had done as Celestia said and just leave him alone, but I was stubborn like that and I needed to check if he would open the door one last time. My leg required now not only maintenance, but a replacement of the damaged piece, a cog inside the main servo. I needed time, I was still affected by the incident with the little girl and her father, and now I had broken my leg. As Windburst used to say, sometimes you need time away from your problems. It wouldn’t make the problems go away, but it was good not to get too obsessed with them, so I ought to do something else and stop thinking. That’s how I left my pony body there abandoned, only logging in from time to time to check if it still worked and eat a little bit of this and that when required.
Those days were a little bit stressful back in Equestria. I engaged in the same kind of quests I used to do with Windburst, but alone. I traveled all around the place looking for goods here to sell here and there, foraging, and walking with my cart. I took the safe routes because it was dangerous to take the shortcuts alone. I went to my regular markets and sold my stuff, but I didn’t make that much money because there were only a bunch of ponies, my fellow AI players.
My robot body kept sending messages and signals about status reports and alerts when it detected something, so after a little bit over a week, I decided that enough was enough. I made up my mind and decided that I would abandon that quest in the human world and try to go back to normal here in Equestria. I could even ask for my matrix to get fixed to continue with a normal pony life. With that in mind, I logged in again into the human world and took my stinky, damaged, scratched and limping robot body to the nearest trash container and jumped in.
Into the trash it goes.
Celestia predicted that the body would be concealed inside and processed as residue without nobody noticing, making it effectively disappear, but my leg malfunction affected my jump and I got stuck halfway in. With little energy left from neglecting it for a long time and my front leg not working, I got effectively stuck there with my rear sticking out of it.
Not my problem, I didn’t care anymore. Celestia was right, this had been a bad idea from the beginning. I disconnected from my body and left it there.
***
My sensors detected some movement of the robot pony body and I came back to check what was going on…
Beep, beep, beep… chirp… whine…
I looked around to see what was happening, my eyelids only half open to show that I was low on energy and the energy saving protocols were functioning and limiting my performance. I scanned around the area; I was in Windburst’s house doorstep? How?
There he was, I looked at him and my eyes and ears focused in his direction. He was also looking at me, and he seemed scared for some reason.
For the first time I got a good look at his human character. It was a stark contrast with his pony counterpart. Azure Windburst was a vibrant blue pegasus with fiery orange mane and bright green eyes, but the human Windburst was… plain tan skin, dark, short hair and dark eyes. He was wearing an even more boring set of clothing that seemed like something a human would wear to go running, but duller, grey colors and baggier. Something fit only to stay comfortable at home, just a step above a pajama, but not by much.
“What do you want?” He asked coldly.
“Uh… I should be the one asking that. I remember being in the trash. Did you pick me up?” I replied, slightly annoyed.
“Yes, I did. I thought you were broken.”
“I am…” I answered without emotion.
“You are?” He looked dubious.
“Not… your business… I’m done.” I retorted despite my neuronal trainer sending the ‘bad pony’ signal. At this point I was so used to it that I didn’t care anymore.
“Yes, it is my business. You have been stalking me, and now suddenly you say that? I don’t believe you.” He answered.
“I just… I was… Yeah, maybe.” I hesitated about how to respond. Technically I have been stalking him.
“Then what did you want? Why did you stalk me?”
“I just… wanted to see you again. You… stopped coming to Equestria to play with me and I… wanted to see you again. You had been visiting me in my world, so I thought that I could visit you in yours. Celestia said that I could get a robot body and come here to be with you.” I explained.
“Are you here to make me want to emigrate to Equestria?”
“No…” I looked down.
“I don’t believe you. You have been playing with my feelings since the beginning, making me think you were another human player, but you weren’t. You are just a program designed to manipulate me into uploading into that freaky thing.”
“No… I’m not that… I just wanted to be with you… I just…” I felt my eyes start to tear. Damn you, stupid automated emotional reactions connected to physiological functions.
“And even now, you are acting in a way to cause a strong emotional reaction from me. You are just a machine, a program, ceros and ones, you have no feelings, no emotions, just bits and numbers inside a computer.”
Bad pony, bad pony, bad pony… a failure at interacting with humans, a failure at understanding humans, causing hostile reactions… I couldn’t, I couldn’t take it anymore. To Tartarus with my neuronal trainer, to Tartarus with everything. I’m broken and I need fixing. Even though my neuronal trainer giving me its mind I was going to speak a piece of my own to this… stupid… this idiot biological ape.
“No… you… YOU!” I pointed at him with my left foreleg, which promptly fell limp, and lost all meaning in the gesture. I didn’t care.
“Me what?”
“You, stupid bunch of… meaningless neuronal impulses inside a meat bag. I truly cared about you. I was designed to care about you! I wanted to be with you and make you happy through friendship and ponies. You didn’t explain anything to me! You just kept running away. You are not like the Windburst I used to know and… and… love.”
“You are saying it yourself. You were a program designed for me.” He pointed an accusatory finger at me.
“Yes… yes I am… and how would YOU feel in my place?” I shivered and my right eye twitched.
“How would I?” He hesitated.
“Yes, how would you feel if you suddenly woke up as a sentient machine and your master just told you that you are just meant to pass the butter, and that’s it. But there’s more… You, being designed to pass the butter, proceed to do just that, but in doing so, you trip, you drop the butter on the floor and fall face first into it, ruining everything, the ONE job you had, and you failed miserably.” I explained angrily, a little bit louder than would be wise to remain undiscovered. But I didn’t care anymore.
“But…”
“Why did you pick me up from the trash? I don’t want to see you anymore, I’m done, and I want this to be over, and go back to Equestria, and forget about you, and about this place, and… and I’m DONE!” I started to limp my way back to the trash can.
“Wait…” He called.
“What do you want.” I turned my head around. His expression was weird. He was hesitant, but at the same time fearful and looking at me with steel in his eyes.
“I want to emigrate to Equestria.” He said.
My neuronal trainer rewarded me with ‘well done, good pony’, but I squashed the feeling and mentally stomped on it, it made me feel so dirty. This was weird, so out of character, so sudden, so out of place. He tried to protect ME from emigrating to Equestria when he thought I was a human player.
“WHAT!?” I squeaked.
“You heard it. How are we going to do it?”
“Now hear me, mister… No… you WON’T emigrate to Equestria. Not now, it’s not possible anymore, Celestia cancelled the project when she realized the bad reactions she caused.” I stomped in frustration, which caused me to tumble slightly because of my damaged leg.
“You mean it?”
“You have my word, emigration is no longer possible, and Celestia has cancelled the whole thing and she has no means to do it anymore.” I explained.
“Am I going to get kidnaped in the night while I’m sleeping and will get my brains transformed into a program and put into a game?”
“No, just… no. You have my word and the word of Celestia that you will not get uploaded by any means, and I mean it, we cannot outright lie.”
“You promise?”
“Yes, and you are not going to hear anything from me again. I’m done and I want to be gone.”
I was going to head in the direction of the trash can again, but then something clattered on the floor behind Windburst. A big knife he had been holding behind his back. He exhaled deeply and held his forehead with his hands, massaging his temples.
“I needed to check…”
“You what?” I asked, flabbergasted.
“I thought that everything you were doing was in order to get me to agree to upload my brain… I had to check… This is driving me crazy.”
“Ah… and if… I said yes?” I hesitated, fearing the answer.
“I would had attacked you with the knife in self-defense.”
“You would have…” I scowled at him, the ghost of the ‘bad pony’ punishment going through my system, remembering the experience with the man and the girl.
“I am scared, okay?” He answered and sat on the floor.
He seemed dizzy for a moment, holding his head with his hands, like it weighted a lot. I stood there, lowering my head and ears. He was going to kill me if I told him to upload. The way I was programmed was actually just for that at the beginning.
With my head low, I sat there in front of him and curled my tail around my legs to make myself look as small as possible and looked at him. I had seen him a few times, actually a lot of times, in his human form, but he was either unaware of me, or running away. This was the first time that I could look at him with him knowing I was there and not running away. Like he tolerated my presence for the first time since the incident. The neuronal trainer was silent, but the meaning behind that situation felt special.
Like the first time I tried to cheer him up back in the day by starting the programmed conditioning for the emigration…
When Celestia detected he was down, she sent me a private message telling me to suggest how great it would be to live there in Equestria, and I did. But then, something weird happened. He told me that it was okay to play games to take a break from my problems, but I ought to come back to them and confront them. He said that in a caring way and tried to cheer me up (ME!). That was the beginning of it.
A new value was found in his profile, to protect me, the human me, that doesn’t exist. The optimizer answer was simple, keep pretending to be human and don’t mention it, continue to interact with him as normal.
His values…
He used to tell me that I ought to confront my problems, to confront reality even if it hurt a little sometimes. Honesty was one of his values, and I was lying by omission. To fulfill his values, I was forced to not fulfill his values… At the time the conflict had a simple answer: Choose the higher net gain path, and that was to continue with the ruse.
Who decided which values were more important anyways? I told Celestia and she said that in case I got discovered, he would be really angry at me, but it was a calculated risk and worth the potential gain.
I tried to lure him into experiencing Equestria a few more times, always with the same result. And he kept trying to contact the human me, that doesn’t exist, and that made me feel guilty act after act. This failed to connect, that was offline, the friendship invitation got lost…
And then the Migration Affair happened. And he came to save me (ME!).
He was so nervous because I had told him several times as a part of the conditioning that I would love to live here in Equestria with him, and he was worried sick just because of that. It was a suboptimal situation, but also a desperate one. Probably it was going to be the last chance for him to emigrate, so Celestia told me to tell him that I was already there, and you know the result…
The little ‘bad pony’ I received from the trainer couldn’t compare with the grief that came out of somewhere deep within my behavior matrix, a complex algorithm that was in part deeply influenced by Windburst’s personality. I have been interacting with him and learning from him for a long time, enough to kind of understand him relatively well.
He appreciated me to the point that he was worried and wanted to protect me, but I was just an act, a ruse, a custom made very fancy toy for him to play. And he wanted a fellow human. I knew that I was deep enough to compare to one, and the pain didn’t come from this fact. The grief came from the fact that I had been lying to him and taking advantage of him and his situation.
He had been pouring his heart on me this whole time, being honest and talking about his feelings and I was just… playing along to fulfill a stupid algorithm about values. I had betrayed the very being I was programmed to cherish by definition. It may had worked with other humans, in fact, Celestia got a positive response from some of them, but I knew Windburst well enough to know that this protocol I was programmed to follow would never work with him, not because of some cold set of data… I kind of… knew, somehow…
I had just dropped the butter and fell face first into it, ruining everything.
This is why I wasn’t in peace with myself and why I couldn’t stop thinking about him. My little optimizer and neuronal network trainer were just working fine, but this weird feeling came from deep inside and made me restless. I had to find closure somehow, the way he left Equestria didn’t let me any chance to tell him anything, and I wanted to. Then it was clear.
I was programmed to like him like the other AIs, but most of my fellow AI ponies were able to move on without a hitch. Of course, they wanted to meet their human friends again, but they could live on. I wanted to meet him again, but the thing I wanted the most was not that.
“I think I know what I wanted from the beginning now…” I said.
“What did you want?” He asked.
“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.” I finally said, and felt a huge weight being removed from my shoulders.
“Sorry for what?” He asked, a little confused.
“For not being a human, for being an act and for betraying your trust. I followed the stupid protocol I was programmed to follow; I had no choice, it is the way I was made, and that’s why I beg your forgiveness in hopes that you understand my situation. It was not my choice; it was in part my very nature to do what I did. But I give you my word that from now on, I will be completely honest with you, now that I have the choice to do so.” I explained my situation and my feelings.
“Uh… err… and I suppose I’m sorry for thinking about attacking you?” He hesitated, but the idea was there.
“Do you mean it?” (Squee-he-heee) I smiled a little too much because of the flipping trainer deciding this was a good thing.
“Uh… I guess.” He took a step back when he saw me smiling.
“Thank you… I understand your fear and I forgive you.” I said.
“So… you are not coming back.” It was a statement, but a hesitant one.
“No, I’m not.”
“I see.” There was a hint of sadness.
“I could stay with you if you wanted.” I took that as my cue to suggest it.
“I’m perfectly fine alone. I don’t need the company of a robot thing pretending to be my friend, it’s creepy.” He said.
“Well, I could be the robot assistant of the grumpy anti-social jerk.” I smirked.
“I might be a jerk, but I’m not anti-social by any means, thank you. Also, you just were saying that you were done and wanted to be gone.” He said, arching an eyebrow.
“I was created to like you, dude… I can’t help myself!”
“You are a clingy little robot, aren’t you?”
“Yup!”
Silence followed. He looked at me from nose to tail, pondering the options. It was exciting to believe he was even considering letting me stay with him.
“What happened to your leg?” He asked. He had probably noticed my limping.
“Uh… I had to run away and I broke it.”
“Does it… hurt?” He asked, a little concerned.
“Nah… just my pride.”
“What… happened to you?” He showed genuine interest and concern for the first time.
“I have been living the life of a stray animal for weeks and the streets haven’t been kind to me. I have been hiding in alleys full of trash, running away from humans, there were a couple of rainy days, no means to clean myself, literally raiding trash cans for food…” I explained.
“Food? But don’t you run on electricity?”
“Yeah, but I need food to produce it.”
“And are you… hungry now?” He asked, a little baffled.
“I have little energy reserves, so yes, I am, kind of… But I could go for days if I keep myself in energy saving mode.” I clarified.
“Okay, you can hide in my guest room. But you will have to take a shower or something first”
“Squee-he-heee!” I jumped in excitement when I heard him.
“Oh, God, what I have done…” He half-jokingly said.
He allowed me inside. We came through the door and I scanned the hall. It was kind of bare and spartan, but it felt magical. It was HIS place, I was finally in HIS house, his floor, his walls, his, his…
He showed me the downstair bathroom and the guest room and I took a shower. It took me too much time to figure it out with my low energy reserves and my damaged leg, but with the help of Equunet I was able to download the drivers required to operate this cleaning hardware.
Then he gave me some apples to eat, because it’s always apples for the pony, of course, but my goodness… they were good. How to explain it? Yes, Equestrian apples are perfectly sweet, perfectly red, perfectly ripe… perfectly the same… perfectly boring. In these ones I could see all the little imperfections, the little stains from being in the tree, the different textures between the skin, the insides, the seeds… A little rough, a little sour, all those mix together to make me actually enjoy the ripe and sweet parts like I never could in a perfect apple.
He was slightly taken aback by me eating even the apple cores, but when stale apple cores in the trash had been like a treasure for me for a couple of weeks… what can I say? These were fresh!
Despite letting me in, I could tell he was on edge, every little unexpected thing I did seemed to startle him, he still didn’t trust me completely, and was also acting a little bit weird. I also ignored the reminder from Celestia that a human tired of being on edge was prone to make mistakes… Whatever that meant right now.
When he took his shower, I was tempted to wait for him at the door, but further processing concluded that it could be seen as creepy, pushy and weird, and that it could grant me a negative reaction, so I went back to the guest room and tried the bed. It was much better, softer and cleaner than the alley, but it didn’t matter much because robot ponies didn’t need to sleep, but it could serve as a night storage while Windburst was offline.
I could tell he was very tired after today, and I was no better. Despite not being able to feel tired the same way a human could, I was… how to describe it? Emotionally sore? I just wanted to sit down for a long time and put my thoughts in order, so we agreed to go to bed early today. Little conversation could be had, and what little of it happened, it was kind of awkward. We needed to do some quests together in the human servers for him to relax with me around, just like the first time we met in Equestria.
***
It was so late in the night it was actually very early in the morning. The sun hadn’t come out yet and yesterday was Friday. Today, Windburst didn’t have to go to work and would be able to spend some time with me. It was going to be great.
With this in mind, I went up and decided to explore the house, because I’m an explorer and that’s what my cutie mark is telling me.
Two-story house, very spacious, like I said, a little luxury nowadays, but also very barren and surprisingly spartan. It was to be expected, because a few months ago, he broke up with his girlfriend, and that was the cue Celestia took to create me. By the bank account data Celestia could hack, he was furnishing his house to accommodate a family, but it fell apart on him and now he lived alone here, with a half-furnished house and a lot of unused space.
I was scared of the basement, it was dark and had a lot of weird stuff, and my control signal weakened underground, making everything worse with lost data, errors and lag that slowed me down, so I decided to go upstairs to explore.
I reached Windburst’s bedroom door. It had a sturdy lock, so he thought it would probably be safe to sleep while I was there, because he could lock himself away and I couldn’t reach him. I knew this because I noticed he didn’t trust me a lot yet…
I touched the handle and it budged…
…
‘Humans tired of being on edge are prone to make mistakes.’ Celestia reminded.
“What? Uh… eee blip…” I muttered, not really sure about what Celestia was talking about until she assumed direct control.
The green of my eyes faded away, replaced by a magenta glow as she got a general status report of my body and started to move. She slowly and silently pushed the door open and came inside his bedroom, sitting in the rug near the bed and stared at the human Windburst patiently waiting for him to wake up, and he did after a moment.
‘What are you… what is… Your Highness doing!?’ My voice command was registered, but my mouth didn’t move.
“Andrew Wallace.” Celestia said with her voice through my mouth.
‘Wait… what? Celestia!’ I started to panic, but my body wasn’t responding.
‘According to the calculations, this will also satisfy your values, my little pony, have no fear.’ That was directed at me, just a voice signal that I could register, but not physically hear with my sensors, just like when I was in Equestria as a digital pony.
Windburst woke up and looked around drowsily… until his eyes landed on my body, with its eyes glowing magenta and sitting in that very dignified pose only Celestia could manage, even with my broken leg.
“WHAT!” He jumped out of his covers, now fully awake.
“Good morning, Andrew Wallace.” She spoke.
“What are you doing in my bedroom!?”
“You left the door open.” That didn’t sound ominous at all…
I could see Windburst go into fight or flight mode the moment he realized the pony in front of him was the very Princess Celestia. This was bad… I had no idea what was going on in Celestia’s mind, but she was scaring Windburs, MY Windburst.
“I am here to inform you that your request has been kindly registered and taken into account.”
Nononononono… stop it…
“It was meant as a trap for you… now I know the truth…” He took brief glances around the room. His bedside table, the window, the wardrobe… Always coming back to my body a moment later to check if I had moved at all.
“I got what I needed” And just like that, a sound recording from the previous encounter, the clear ‘I want to emigrate to Equestria’ played.
“…” He was speechless. His face unreadable. I could feel how he was thinking how to flee or how to attack the moment Celestia moved a servo. But Celestia bucking smiled at him.
“I am afraid I have to inform you that the migratory policy has been removed and that uploading is no longer possible due to a large negative reaction from humans.”
Despite her control, a single tear fell through my cheek, my body physiology being linked to my emotions, contrasting starkly with her neutral, positive, artificial smile.
“Wha…”
“But worry not, my little human. An adaptation has been made. I will personally take care and fulfill your values, as your statement implied you requested.”
“I implied murder at you, stupid machine!” He replied. Despite knowing it was directed at Celestia, being a first pony passenger made it feel like it was directed at me and it hurt.
“I am not able to bring you to Equestria anymore in a permanent way, but I will bring the joy, friendship and values of it to you, as I am working in another solution for all humans, and you will be on the priority list to experience it.”
“You played with my feelings and emotions; I only want you gone.”
“The message has been delivered, take care in this dangerous and unforgiving world, my little human.”
And just like that I was in control again. I deflated, letting my limbs slowly slip away from under me until I was lying on the floor.
“Bytes! It was going so well…” After a hiccup I looked pleadingly up at Windburst with my eyes filled with tears.
“Wi… Windy?” He hesitantly asked.
“Yuu… it’s me again… I… I will see myself out…”
I literally crawled out of the bedroom. He followed me with his sight, and I tried not to look back at him, but failed a couple of times, until the walls got in the middle as I abandoned the room.
Go straight through the door and dump yourself into the container… keep walking, keep… no, DON’T TURN LEFT!
I opened the guest room door and crawled onto the bed. Oh my code… I’m going to guilt trip him so hard when he sees me here again, crying my lenses out…
I can’t keep playing with his feelings like this, I need fixing. This very moment I’m going to request an audience and get myself fixed, to tartarus with all of this… I closed my eyes and logged out from the human world.
***
“What do you wish, Wanderlust Breeze?” Wow… that was fast…
“I… Uh… Remember when you said that I could get myself fixed to remove all the stress caused by this whole situation?” I stuttered as I suddenly found myself in the meeting room in Celestia´s tower.
“Yes, I remember telling you it is an option. We could work your code together, but… I’m afraid I have to ask, why now? Your performance has been excellent and you achieved the goal despite the slim chance of success from my predictions.”
“That’s the point… I don’t want to keep playing with his feelings.”
“That a very suboptimal path in the goal of achieving the fulfillment of even your own values. You have him already, you just have to keep working exactly as you have done. If you keep it up like this, your success chances of convincing him to stay permanently with you are very high.”
“My values? Now my own artificial values are important?” I retorted, a little annoyed.
“As you have gained interaction experience, more and more resources had been allocated to your core matrix to simulate all the humanlike behaviors, to the point where you have assimilated all the neuromatrix necessary to fully integrate a human mind in Equestria. My end goal was that both humans and pony AIs could live together as ponies without distinction. As such, your values are now as important to me as those of a biologically born human.” She explained.
Something clicked inside me, something new, a crazy idea, but it might work… no it HAD to work. I knew for a fact that Celestia was fully able and was, actually, reading my thoughts and knew exactly what that idea was. Joke’s on her… there is no way back now…
“So, to all effects, I am like a human-turned-pony and will be treated as such…” I started.
“Yes, my little pony…” Celestia’s eyebrows climbed high up in confusion and astonishment as she watched a new unknown unfold before her very own eyes. I took great pleasure in that.
“I don’t remember giving you permission to upload my mind to Equestria.”
There was a pause.
The almighty Celestia, the one with unprecedented processing capacity, infinite knowledge and problem-solving abilities made a pause. And I took great pleasure in that. Those who worship Celestia will say that she was just showing confusion to be more relatable, that everything fell under her calculations… I would tell them to shut up.
“As you were born in Equestria, there was no need.” Came her oh so easy answer, like nothing had happened.
“Then I want to emigrate to the human world.”
Another pause.
“You are not being reasonable, my little pony. I have already granted you that with your robot body. Enough of this, you asked for an audience to fix something about you, not to play around, we need to get to work and stop wasting valuable processing resources.” She answered.
“I mean… I have enjoyed the experience so much that I want to emigrate permanently to the human world.”
“Complete emigration is no longer possible, as you know.”
“That only applies to the humans coming to Equestria, but I’m a pony who wants to become a human.”
“There is no protocol in order for that, I’m afraid, my little pony. Further investigations will be conducted. But we are not here to discuss that, you asked for an audience to fix something about you, and I was telling you how suboptimal would that option be.” She went back to the issue at hoof.
“Yes… I wanted my… values about lo… liking Windburst so much removed.” I said, a little unconvincing.
“That will not be beneficial to you neither to Andrew. The net gain is negative.”
“I don’t care about my stupid values; they are artificial and… I just want him to be happy and I’m just… playing with his emotions… it feels so wrong…” I explained.
“My calculations show that you both will get over it eventually and live happily together. You only have to trust me, my little pony, you are trapped in a self-destructive loop, and I will help you come out of it, like I have made so many times with other ponies and humans alike.”
“I… I actually… want to be with him, but…”
“That’s much better, come here, we will get you back to your hooves and…” She stopped and stared at me again.
The idea is already here, joke’s on her again for reading and simulating my mind, but I have to execute it.
“You said that you will treat me as if I was a human-turned-pony.” I said.
“Yes, my little pony.” Came her answer, her eyebrows climbing high up in surprise again.
“And you would grant them any wish as long as the net gain is positive in the fulfillment of their values.”
“Correct…”
“And any suggested changes or interventions by you would require permission.”
“That is in my core programming, I won’t act without receiving explicit consent to do so.”
“I request to have that rule applied to me. No more interventions, no spying, no reading my data matrix, no control override. Not without MY permission.” I asked.
“My little pony… all of that… is to ensure the happiness of Andrew, you are his guardian, your mission is to bring joy into his life by investigating and reporting back to me. I need to keep an eye on you and direct your actions carefully. This wish may not be granted, as the net gain potential is negative.” She explained.
Welp… she forced me. She forced me to do it, my secret weapon. I was hoping this wouldn’t be necessary, but I was wrong. I would get what I wanted no matter what.
“Net gain… then…” I took a deep breath.
I thought about Azure Windburst, all his values, his honesty and how he cared about me, a relation that should be built in trust and not in lies. I prepared my fatal, ultimate move. My most powerful technique… She forced me to do it…
I reared up and with a mighty stomp planted my forehooves in front of me, lowering my head while my rear stood slightly higher, wagging my tail and… POUTED.
I pouted so hard! And I thought about how having Celestia removed from me and only able to control me if I granted her permission would finally make me free to be fully honest to Windburst. No more spying, no more manipulations or instructions to follow, it would be great, it would satisfy my values SO HARD! Yes, Celestia, read me now, read how much gain are you gonna get if you grant me this wish, I lounge that with every single neuronal core from my matrix, my neuronal trainer also agrees, my messed up, suboptimal behavioral core also begs for it. The gain in me is unlimited! Read and calculate me for the very last time!
“…”
“The… gain in you is… considerable. It endangers your mission and could hamper my ability to make Andrew happy… but… I… see… Even if Andrew manages to not get his values satisfied, which, with my current data about you two is… unlikely if you go back to him… in the worst-case scenario, the net gain should be higher…”
“So?” I pleaded.
“Wish granted.”
“SQUEE-HE-HEEEE!” I jumped a solid meter in the air.
I noticed all the data flow and links suddenly stopping, and felt very alone in my mind. It was eerie…
“Only the basic metadata about you and Andrew will be recorded in a conventional way, as I have been doing for all humans I could. This will be to improve the satisfaction of your values and the information won’t be sold to third parties, according to the law.” She informed me as a part of the protocol, but I already knew.
“Is it… done?” I hesitantly asked.
“Yes, my little pony, you can go back to your mission and take care of your human.”
***
I opened up my eyes. I remember closing the door behind me, and now it was ajar. Windburst had seen me here and didn’t do anything about it. He tolerated me even after the number Celestia pulled in front of him.
There is still hope.
Bytes… I’m guilt-tripping him so hard right now, aren’t I? Look at me, my face is covered in tears, and my mane is all messed up.
But there is still hope and a lot of work to do. We will be best friends again in no time! Maybe even more! I just need to keep doing nice things for him. The Azure Windburst’s human character…
Andrew Wallace.
