Fallout Equestria: Halls of Knowledge

Cinder lay in the bed having just been told the name the Ghost goes by. “Ah…um…nice to meet you Iris.” She said,

“Not Iris, I.R.I.S, it stands for Information Retrieval and Interactive Support.” She said in a tone one uses when a correction has happened so many times it's become a habit.

“Ah…uh…Information Retrieval and….uh…yeah interesting name.” Cinder said, blinking.

“More what I am than a name though works as both.” I.R.I.S said with a nod and a smile.

“Riiiiight.” Cinder said. “So….why do….you haunt this place, do you have some unfinished business or…..” She said drawing on some of the prewar ghost stories she's heard, they seem to have a lot of haunted places before the bombs fell.

“Haunt? I don't haunt anything, this is my home, my body in a way.” I.R.I.S said thoughtfully as if she had never considered the thought of how she viewed the campus.

“Your….body?”

“Yes, I was created right here on campus and integrated with all of it thanks to grants from the Ministries.” I.R.I.S said proudly.

“Built? Integrated?” Cinder said, blinking confused.

“Yes, I am a machine, what you see in front of you is my holographic avatar used to make ponies more comfortable with me.” I.R.I.S said switching into teaching mode.

“Wait so you are like these Ponitrones?” Cinder asked, looking at the machine that silently stood next to her bed.

“Somewhat, I'm a tad more advanced than their AIs.” I.R.I.S said with a giggle hiding her mouth behind a hoof.

“AI?” Cinder said thinking about I.R.I.S’ name. “What's the A stand for?”

“Artificial.”

“And the I?”

“Intelligence.”

“So artificial intelligence?”

“Correct.”

“Okay and that is…..”

What followed was 10 minutes of I.R.I.S going full teacher as she gave Cinder a crash course in the concept of AI and did her best to answer the scavenger’s questions.

By the end of it Cinder was sitting on the edge of the bed rubbing her temples with her eyes closed. “Okay, I think I get it, more or less.”

I.R.I.S stood there with a small twitch to her right eye. Half way through her lecture she realized this unicorn gap in education was a vast chasm devoid of all knowledge. Don’t get her wrong she had figured out the apocalypse happened within a day, even if she didn't know how it happened, but she had no clue things were this bad out there. “That's good, don’t worry exams are postponed till further notice.” She joked.

“Exams?”

There was a very brief flicker to I.R.I.S’ avatar as she processed the fact Cinder didn't even know what an exam was. Oh the world outside was in dire straits! Worse then she had imagined it seemed.

“You okay?” Cinder asked, tilting her head.

“Yes, quite. Merely coming to terms with things I hadn't considered is all.”

“Riiiight….”Cinder said watching the…ghost…AI…..she thought about how weird things were at the moment when she heard a bell toll, she knew the sound as it echoed over this part of Manehatten regularly, no one really knew where it came from.

“Ah, 7 o'clock. Are you hungry?” I.R.I.S asked, looking at Cinder who blinked.

“7 o’clock? And uh….” her stomach growled at the mention of food and she couched into a hoof as she hadn't eaten since this morning. “Yes. I got some food in my saddle bags.” She pulled out a couple snack cakes with her magic and saw I.R.I.S frowning at her. “What?”

“Is that really what you are going to have for dinner?”

“Yes?” Cinder blinked confused at the question, what was wrong with snack cakes?

“This simply will not do!” I.R.I.S declared. “Come to the Dinning Hall with you.” She declared as one of the Ponitrones started moving towards the door.

Cinder blinked but got to her hooves to follow it as she watched I.R.I.S vanish. She followed the Pronitron as it rolled out of the Health Center and down a path towards a larger building past empty patches of ground raised up above the path, some of which had long dead trees in them. As they passed a bench Cinder finally was able to put her hoof on what was bothering her about out here. Where were the skeletons? Places this large usually had multiple laying around but she hadn't seen any. Was the place abandoned before the war ended?

She thought about this as she entered the larger building and found herself walking down a hall till she reached a doorway that looked like it used to have doors in it but was now devoid of them.

She followed the Ponitrone through the doorway and found herself in a large room filled with tables and chairs. Though some of them seemed to have been missing, she saw scratches and nicks in the floor near the doorway she entered.

I.R.I.S appeared in the middle of the room smiling. “Take any seat you want, I'm not sure what you'd like so I am just throwing together some soup.” She said beaming.

“Right….” Cinder said for what was feeling like the 20th time today as she went to the nearest table and pulled back a dusty chair and sat.

I.R.I.S came over and stood on the other side of it smiling. “I hope you enjoy it. The food stores are under special enchantment to keep food fresh and honestly it's been a while since I activated any of the kitchen robots.”

Looking over to the far side of the room Cinder could see what looked like a Mr. Handy floating back and forth wearing a chef's hat in what looked to be a kitchen as she could faintly make out the sound of food being prepared. It was…..eerily quiet here. Just her and I.R.I.S.

“So then…..tell me about yourself?” Cinder asked.

“Oh I am the Information Retrieval and Interactive Support version 1.6.9” She said with pride. “I was conceived by Professor Aurora Skyweaver, one of the illustrious pegasus researchers and future head of the Research Department, though she was just a young scientist when she helped create me but her success was what got her the position as head of the department.” I.R.I.S said nodding. “She helped lead the University into new fields of research and negotiated with the Ministries to get funding for the school, why before she worked here she even worked for the MAS, isn't that exciting!” She said eagerly. “She retired from there to pursue a life of teaching here and brought such amazing experiences with her.

“After my testing phase was completed I was installed into the University systems at large and tasked with aiding both students and faculty however I could and if I proved a success I was to be a template for others like myself to be installed in other schools, one of them would have been Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.” She said with much excitement. “Though sadly, certain events have rendered such ambitions impossible as I doubt at this point Professor Aurora would still be alive due to the nature of pony life spans.”

“Soooo…she wasn't here when the war ended?” Cinder aske curious.

“Hm? Oh no her and all other heads of department, administration and what appears to have been the top students of the University were off campus when ... .whatever happened having checked out an hour prior I assume on some event they forgot to inform me of.”

Cinder blinked. “Sounds like they knew what was coming and got out ahead of time.” Cinder said with some suspicion.

“Hm? Oh no no, that can’t be right because how could they have known and if so where would they have gone?” I.R.I.S said and giggled behind a hoof.

“I don’t know, a Stable? Lot of ponies supposedly survived in those things the day the bombs fell.”

“Hmmm…that doesn't seem right, I can't see them abandoning the rest of the students and staff. Oh Fun Fact, Crystal Haven University also did some joint projects with Stable-Tec, primarily the Psychology Department running multiple hypothetical scenarios involving groups of ponies in isolation and how they might behave with certain stimuli.”

“...Did you just dodge the question?” Cinder asked, blinking at the hologram.

“What? No of course not! I would never.” She said, “But enough about that soup’s done!” She declared as the chef hat wearing Mr. Handy floated out holding a steaming bowl in its claw appendage and set the bowl before Cinder.

“Bon Appetit!” the Mr. Handy declared in a weird accent before returning to float back to the kitchen.

Cinder eyed I.R.I.S for a few seconds as the avatar smiled widely at her before looking in the bowl to see various vegetables floating in a broth. She gave it a sniff before taking a spoonful in her magic and putting it in magic.

Her eyes went wide with the explosion of flavors she experienced, the veggies were so soft and flavorful, and the broth so rich. It was nothing like the veggies and soups she had eaten...well all her life. It was almost enough to bring a tear to her eyes.

Instead she proceeded to shovel the soup into her mouth as fast as she could, nearly choking a few times and even licked the bowl when it was done.

“Well then. Mr. Cook will be pleased to hear how well his soup went over.” I.R.I.S giggled.

Cinder felt her cheeks heat as she had never acted like that before and she coughed into a hoof. “Right…um…”

“Would you like somewhere to sleep for the night? I could have you shown to the Dormitory if you'd like.” The A.I. asked, smiling once more.

Cinder had to think about it, while she had a few hidey holes around and she could easily find some place to sleep, though that would mean trying to get somewhere with the sun setting and well I.R.I.S didn't seem like she was up to something.

“Yeah, show me to this Dormitory you mentioned.”