Friendship is Optimal: A Watchful Eye

by Sozmioi

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, Human, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Other, Original Character
Length: 42743

An elderly non-brony joins Equestria Online for practical reasons

This story is a followup to Friendship is Optimal, set not long after the initial commercial release of Equestria Online. We follow an non-brony emeritus professor living in a retirement community.

Beta-read by LordBucket. Many thanks, man.

Published 2013-01-24 18:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-12-27 14:08:31 UTC

Chapter 2: Lost Time

Hikaru came up the elevator from his room in the independent-living wing and found Kimiko in the hospice suite common room 'watching' television with a small crowd of other women. Some were in better shape and were actually watching; only Alice was noticeably worse, and she had the excuse of being almost a century. But Kimiko was just five years older than Hikaru, at 86.

Kimiko didn't react as Hikaru sat down next to her. She didn't react as he laid his hand on hers. And she continued not to react for minute after minute. On the screen in front of them, some soap opera played out. Oh Kimiko. Last year you were basically fine. How could you fall apart like this? Life is just so random. One minute you think you're aiming for a hundred, and the next... well, if you do make it to a hundred, you won't notice, will you?

Hikaru didn't know what to do. As always. She hadn't had a 'good' day in over a month. He hadn't recalibrated his idea of 'good' and 'bad' because there basically wasn't any room left for days to get worse. Simply being near her hurt so much, and it seemed to do her no good. But what if it did? Then he surely wasn't doing enough. But if he accepted that, then what limit was there? What could be more important than helping her now? So he'd have to - and want to - spend almost all of his time with her.

But then if it wasn't doing her any good, he'd be completely wasting his life.

He'd done this analysis before, and each time concluded he should be spending a lot more time with her than he did. And yet...

He kissed his wife and took a look around. The others didn't even have him like she did. At least, not right now. The thought snuck past that they probably got more attention during the day, when he was often out, but he didn't acknowledge it.

The day nurse Stephanie briskly walked through to check on the women. Some smiled to her, and one croaked an incomprehensible greeting. As Stephanie wiped Alice's face, she told Hikaru, "You can talk to her, you know. She hears."

And how would we know, at this point? On her good days before, she wouldn't remember anything for more than a minute.

But he gave it a shot anyway. "I'm going in to work. Miroku bought me a funny sort of thing to watch over me, so I... well, don't follow in your footsteps. The funniest thing is, it wanted to be my friend. Well, that's not so surprising. If they had tamagotchi a decade ago - remember them?" He trailed off, realizing he was treating her as if her memory were merely poor instead of nonexistent. He pressed on in the mode he'd used when she'd had difficulties piecing together her life. "Well, this is way past that. Way past that. She is learning astrochemistry. Well, she says she is."

No reaction. Hikaru stood, frustrated, and fled to the office.

Coconut Cream was waiting for him in the rock garden, having tea and a pie with a lavender pegasus; behind the pegasus was a lute. Coconut Cream waited until he'd closed the door to softly say, "Good afternoon, professor Maeda."

Amused, he took a moment for her. "Good afternoon. How are your 'studies' coming along?"

"As a review, I'm teaching my friend Sweetsong the law of mass action. We'll keep it down while you're working, don't worry."

Sweetsong smiled sheepishly. "Good afternoon, sir."

Hikaru nodded to them with amusement. "Best of luck."

Coconut Cream added, "Your granddaughter tried to contact you, but you haven't gotten a pony name yet. Someone was ringing the phone very insistently around an hour ago. Also, someone knocked on your door a few times, earlier."

'Around an hour'? Not falling into the trap of excessive precision, I see.

Hikaru thanked her, picked up the phone and dragged himself through the process to access recent calls. Upon seeing it, he observed, "That can't be good."

"Oh?"

"The workshop making our new generation of detectors. They wouldn't call insistently, except for a problem."

He called back; while he was on hold, Sweetsong began playing softly on her lute, plucking out a tune Hikaru cloudily remembered from his early childhood. It sounded a bit off done on a lute instead of a shamisen, but it was reasonably close.

To his surprise, she slipped up. She went back and did the problematic passage a few times, and got it better. She's practicing? This music was not pre-programmed? Alternately, they pre-programmed the appearance of learning... a sequence of improving passages. Pre-planned imperfections. Like a rock garden itself, in a way.

Once he got the shop on the line and was taking in the bad news, Hikaru stared at the rock garden and Coconut Cream studying, and Sweetsong practicing, and kept himself calm.

Suddenly, the view of the rock garden shifted so Coconut Cream and Sweetsong were out of the picture, and it went silent. Momentarily, the door opened, revealing Hikaru's collaborator Remy. Seeing Hikaru on the phone, he held back a tirade - for a moment.

Hikaru said into the mouthpiece, "Could I have a moment? Professor Fontaine is here. He is the lead on this project now, not me..." - "Yeah, but you're easier to talk to." - "All right."

Remy blurted, "Our workshop is so unprofessional! You have to expect extreme temperatures and temperature gradients, and radiation! It's going to be in space! Did they just forget that? And the endless delays!"

"Remy, I'm on the line. And it seems that some of the folks there weren't told these were for orbit."

Remy continued re-summarizing the situation, ignoring what Hikaru had just said.

"Remy! I've got him right here."

Remy backed off but continued to interject useless observations as Hikaru tried to listen to the phone. When he disappeared, Hikaru was able to focus far better.

Upon hanging up, Hikaru sighed and stared at the ceiling. "Will the detectors last long enough?" He murmured out loud. He went to the board and began drawing and calculating. Sweetsong went back to playing.

After a few minutes, Coconut Cream observed, "You dropped a factor of 2 there."

He added it and said, "Have you solved it already? You're a computer."

"I? No... Until yesterday, my specialty was baking with coconuts. I'm sure I could show your problem to somepony who'd be able to in moments, but I haven't. And... I happen to know somepony who's good with semiconductor fabrication."

Hikaru raised an eyebrow and put down the chalk. "What?"

"She designed this place. Might have something to say about your problem."

Hikaru considered. "Is she online?"

Coconut Cream smiled broadly and knowingly. "Yes. Would you like to get a pony name?"

"A what?"

"Your name in the game. You can barely talk to anyone without one. And you haven't even got a body. If you get a name, you can talk with your grandkids and colleagues if it's a good time for both of you. And I mean that. If you're busy, you won't meet. No unwanted interruptions ever. Well, pretty much ever."

Hikaru thought for a moment. His grandchildren almost never skyped with him. But as ponies, he might hear them. He laughed. And he could sure use a second perspective on this, from someone other than a hysterical Remy. "Sure. Let's go get me a 'pony name'."

Coconut Cream nodded. "Because you aren't particularly interested in playing as such, we'll skip the intro quest and..."

A ball of light that had been approaching from the distance entered his awareness as it descended from the sky and resolved into Princess Celestia.

Hikaru raised an eyebrow. He recognized her from the paper even with the altered art style, but that had been a closeup. "A bit overdone, no? Both horn and wings?"

Celestia laughed. "Perhaps. Now, professor. We are happy to meet you half-way, giving you a shard with no 'fourth wall' and an art style suitable to office decoration, being very discreet, and even letting you not pick a body. But if you want to speak with your grandchildren or anyone else within the game, you're going to have to follow certain additional conventions. Get a body, for instance. Use pony names, for another."

Hikaru grew impatient. This was much less convenient than Skype, even if people weren't always on. They wouldn't always be on here, either!

"But first things first. I'm guessing you'd prefer to be a unicorn, and have access to magic?"

Oh no, I will not be drawn into this. I've seen otherwise sane students get sucked into games, endlessly customizing, tweaking. "No. I will take the simplest option in each case. Straight defaults."

Celestia's laugh rippled for just a moment. "In that case, you are an earth pony named Bright Black."

As a jet-black earth pony formed in front of the camera, Hikaru reflected on the name. "Bright Black." It tickled his memory. Something to do with dark nebulas, obviously.

She just smiled. "I'd hoped you'd like it."

Oh, no. Not nebulas. Kimiko sometimes described my hair as being bright black. That triggered a cascade of happy memories. "I do, and it means more than you could know."

"Is that so." A slight pause. "Would you like to have that chat about your instrument?"

Kimiko is probably lying around drooling. Here I am trying to solve this problem myself when Remy or anyone else in this collaboration could be handling it... and the contribution I'm considering is to talk to a game manufacturer through her pony. Yeah, right. "I... I think I should go home."

Celestia nodded. "Fare well, then, and... would you say hello to Tasha for me? She could use a kind word today."

"Who is Tasha?"

"Ah. Never mind, I thought you might know her. Good afternoon, sir."

"Good afternoon to you too."

Celestia nodded and rose into the sky on a beam of light.

Chapter 3: Nursing

Hikaru's burst of enthusiasm for tending Kimiko had waned by the time he'd reached his car, and by the time he was home it had boiled off into a resolve to at least not take half-measures this time. He stayed with her and talked about old times for twenty whole minutes before wearing out.

The white pony-princess-game-thing said Tasha 'could use a kind word', so I suppose it'd be good to find her even though I don't know her yet... and if the game guessed I knew her, she's probably around here somewhere. At the nurses' station overlooking the common room, Hikaru found Stephanie. He asked, "Do you know anyone named Tasha? I have a sort of message for her."

Stephanie considered. "Tasha? Only one Tasha around here."

Hikaru nodded, unsurprised. Stephanie went down the hallway, looking in on each of the rooms and greeting the occupant.

The fifth room was occupied by a twenty-something cleaning lady with a sizable afro, mopping the floor. Hikaru was about to leave when Stephanie gestured to her. "Is this her?"

Tasha looked up. She grouchily asked, "Am I what?"

Hikaru coughed and said, "Someone whose name I forget who may be a mutual acquaintance told me to tell you hello."

Tasha blinked. "Can you narrow it down?"

"She's white - whiter than usual."

Tasha shrugged. "I know a lot of white folks."

Hikaru glanced back for Stephanie - she had moved on. If Tasha was in the game there was no cause for embarrassment relative to her - unless he was holding himself above her. In a sense I can, right? I'm 80, and she's under 30. I'm a professor, and she's a cleaning lady. She plays a game, and I use it for practical purposes.

Tasha suddenly grinned. "Oh! You mean..." Tasha lowered her voice a little. "P.C.? With the funky hair?" She rippled her fingers.

Hikaru nodded. That sounded and looked right.

Having established he was on the 'inside', she opened up: "Huh! Well, tell her thanks for the surprise. I'm Jubilant Rubilee Simmering, or Ruby for short."

Hikaru nodded politely, not really wanting to mix. And that name was absurd. But not more absurd than, say, 'Coconut Cream'.

"Oh come on. Who're you? And you seriously actually forgot Princess Celestia's name?"

"Yes. We only met for a moment. I'm just conveying a message."

"Suure. Well, thanks, Mr. Maeda."

He blinked. She knew him? Of course she would. She would know Kimiko by name, and it wouldn't take a genius to pair him up to her, considering the lack of anyone else from east Asia in this suite.

He retreated downstairs towards his room so he could get back to thinking about the detector problem in peace and quiet.

As he passed the Independent Living common room, his neighbor Isaac, Alice's son, hailed him: "Oi, Hikaru! What do you think of this?" He was sitting at the puzzle table with the usual crowd. When Hikaru approached, Isaac passed him a newspaper. Hikaru had a feeling it would be that article - and sure enough there was Celestia's face above the headline.

As he reread the article - finishing it for the first time - he asked the five, "What about it?"

"We're thinking of pooling up and getting one for the hospice suite common room upstairs. Would have helped mother."

Hikaru reddened. Miroku had made him get one for himself, but he really should have sprung for one for Kimiko as well - the degree of attentiveness the pad would provide was far beyond what the nurses could. Seconds mattered with strokes. And it was just $60.

He reached for his wallet, pulled out a $10, and put it on the table.

Isaac laughed. "That was simple. We were having a big argument about just what that machine is thinking. Whether it is."

Hikaru shrugged, "You can debate causes, but I'm interested in the effects. It provides an extra layer of attentiveness. Worth the tiny investment. All done."

Isaac nodded. "Works for me."

"I think I'll get another for Kimiko outright, to cover her the rest of the time."

Hikaru's immediate strong response pushed some others over the edge. As he moved on to his room, Isaac finished up making the collection.

The incident sharpened Hikaru's sense of duty, so after composing an email bringing his colleagues up to date with the details the workshop had given him and his immediate reactions, he returned to Kimiko. He held her hand but otherwise ignored her, as he thought about what could be done with the detectors to improve their longevity. Whatever solution we take, we'll need to be fairly quick. That telescope will go up with or without our experiment on board. The distractions from the TV and chatter were as bad as he remembered, but he tried to let it roll over him.

The distraction became acute when Isaac returned with the new pad. So soon? I guess it has been over an hour, all told! Hikaru gave up on thinking about the detector and 'informed' Kimiko, "Oh, look. We got together and got something for the common room. It'll keep an eye on you, and should be pretty interesting." The other old ladies around the room - save Alice - paid close attention. One tried to ask what was going on, but could only croak. Stephanie heard that and gave her a cup of water.

Once Isaac had set up the pad, Hikaru watched him set up the game in a way more typical of usual users than his experience had been - registration. As Isaac asked it who should be registering, Hikaru realized it hadn't had to ask him where he lived to determine that he might know Tasha. The only difference I can see is that I was introduced beforehand through the demo, and Miroku.

Princess Celestia appeared in response to his confusion, and had a short conversation with Isaac about the arrangement - it would watch over everyone it could see, and he gave permission for anyone with an account to use the pad, and the pad came with one account.

There was a bit of a 'no, you take it' shuffle between those present. Isaac 'lost' and thereby gained the account, principally because he was able to use the controller - and not helping them with it would be a bit like bringing a book and hoping they enjoyed the cover. So, he began exploring the woods as an orange unicorn. The sounds of plucked strings drew him to the side, and he came across two ponies sitting on a log: a lavender pegasus strumming idly - Hikaru took a moment to recognize her as Sweetsong due to the different art style - and a large gray male pegasus Hikaru didn't recognize, holding a trumpet.

"Well hello, friends!" Sweetsong eagerly said. "Would you like to hear a little something we were working up?"

Isaac sat back and said "Sure".

"Then would you settle down? Maybe turn off the TV? Unless the others mind..."

A short, vigorous and nearly incomprehensible argument erupted among the ladies as each tried to convince the others that it was okay to turn off the TV.

Hikaru ignored the content of Sweetsong's tale, thinking about how to improve the detector's radiation resistance, but certain things leaked through. The larger pegasus - Sweetsong's father - had a calm, wise voice exuding age and experience; Sweetsong played off him with a bouncy energy. Further thoughts percolated through over time. Reminds me of a Prairie Home Companion sketch. Actually, it reminds me more of Jean Shepherd crossed with Big John and Sparky, and the Stan Freberg show. All those old 45's. And sometimes we'd play them at 78 rpm on purpose... This is part of how I learned English.

And then the segment came to a close. Sweetsong's father addressed Isaac, "Well, sir. I know you're new - so new you haven't only not got a bit to your name, you haven't got a name yet. So this one was on us. If you want more like it, for an hour, to a crowd like that, that'll be a hundred bits."

Isaac thought. "How much is that in dollars?"

"Dollars? I don't know about dollars. We take bits."

"All right. Can I buy bits with dollars?"

The father seemed uncomfortable with that question. A brown earth stallion walked in the side of the screen. He wore a green visor stereotypical of an accountant from the 1920's; this impression was reinforced by a bundle of coins emblazoned on his hip. "Excuse me."

Isaac looked back to the others in the room, saying "Here comes the cash grab..." as if he hadn't floated the idea first.

The pony pushed his visor up a little. "Actually, sir, bits are not for sale, not from Equestria Online or anyone else."

"What."

"Most cases of trading bits for human currency are against the rules and we have some very strong mechanisms for preventing such trades. We do allow, at our discretion, cash-for-bits trades among friends."

"Then where do I get bits?"

"Completing in-game quests and achievements will be your initial source until you gain an income stream from normal economic activity - producing and distributing goods, providing services, and so on."

"Sounds like work!"

He nodded. "Yes, though it lacks most of the negative aspects of work as you are accustomed to it. If you were to emigrate to Equestria..." He paused a moment after positing the seemingly absurd hypothetical, then continued, "Ten hours of work a week would suffice to maintain a very comfortable lifestyle. As a mere player, you can do with less."

"What? They just said that Rarity worked around the clock..."

"And she did that to satisfy values beyond sheer mercantile gain, as I'm sure you recall. Doing a lot is certainly not prohibited."

"Well, yes." Isaac shrugged. "I never really thought a story about pony fashion shows could be that good. Well. Off to get some bits, I guess."

A voice cut in that Hikaru recognized immediately, even completely out of context: his granddaughter Miroku. "No need quite yet. I'll cover the next hour." Hikaru almost turned to see if she'd come into the room, but before he finished looking around, realized that she had found them in-game.

Even before Isaac got his hands on the controls again, the view turned around. To Hikaru's surprise, there was a pitch black pony - his pony, he guessed, representing his being in attendance - sitting on a log, with a light green pegasus with a brown mane sitting alongside. That's probably her.

His certainty that the black pony was him rapidly grew as it matched his changing facial expressions. Curious, he lifted an arm, and it mirrored the motion with a foreleg.

Meanwhile, Sweetsong, now off-screen, said, "Thanks, Juniper! Do you have a request?"

Miroku/Juniper Spray replied, "How 'bout the Cutie Mark Chronicles?"

The show went on. Hikaru wanted to talk with Miroku, but there was only the one pad, and he couldn't exactly claim it. He patted Kimiko on the hand, then got up and went to the rear of the room. Facing the screen, he patted his wrist as if to indicate his watch - hopefully it would be reflected in-game and Miroku would understand. Then he took the elevator down to the garage - she might still be on if he made it to the office reasonably soon.

Chapter 4: Insecurity

Hikaru hurried into his office and came to the pad. Its screen turned on, and he found himself back at the 'radio' show in the woods - Sweetsong's dad was talking about some sort of test. As Hikaru looked to the side of the screen the view turned, revealing his granddaughter's green pegasus. "Hey." He said, quietly.

She turned and whispered back, "There you are. Want to take a walk?"

"Okay, but I didn't install the controller." She just got up, and Bright Black followed. Hikaru said, "Oh."

"What do you think?"

Hikaru had had so many impressions of Equestria Online that he hadn't been able to process them all. The distraction of the detector had kept him from...

Wait. Working on the detector is not a distraction. This is a distraction. I just spoke with Miroku yesterday - and aside from her, this is basically just a radio show. "Too much to take in. I didn't really want to take you from the show, just see if it really was you, and say hi. I'm sure I'll see you around. I'll get one for Kimiko too. And we can talk that way."

She smiled. "Sounds good. I guess if you're here, you're at the office?" She puckered her lips. "Don't work too hard."

"I won't."

He got up and went to Remy's office, and found no one. Checking the computer room similarly yielded nothing. All this walking aggravated the ache in his hip from its normally trivial level to the point that he had to take it into account. In a minute's hobbling walk he made it to the observatory. Voices were emanating from the astronomy library, under the smaller dome. Poking his head in, he found the local branch of the collaboration - Remy, Remy's two postdocs Chen and Rahm, the gaggle of graduate students, and even an undergrad.

Remy said, "Wecome back!" Hikaru wasn't sure of his tone. It's not really a passive-aggressive complaint that I wasn't here earlier, but I'm not sure I like it anyway. Remy gestured to some of the grad students. "They checked the radiation test. The workshop confused REMs and RADs when calculating the dose by a positively loopy method. The test dose was around four times as much as we thought."

Hikaru slowly said, "Oh. Good. Then–"

Remy overran him, continuing, "–that makes it not a problem at all, right. That leaves the temperature problems."

The grad student curled up in the nice chair slipped her feet back into her shoes and yielded the seat to Hikaru. As he sunk into it, catching his breath, he found that he was barely able to stay awake. The day had been very busy, and he was about done with it. Remy's sometimes overenergetic voice was too familiar to provide a jolt.

The chalk board was getting a workout as various proposals for heat baffles were tossed around. Just as Hikaru thought he was getting a handle on their proposals, Rahm cut in. Hikaru couldn't understand him clearly, but if he picked things out right, it sounded like he was pointing out yet another flaw in the tests. Then Rahm and Chen got into an argument. Their accents were nearly impenetrable. Why did Remy have to hire marginal English-speakers? I made sure I was comprehensible before I got on the boat. They're like that funny accent Sweetsong was using for that upper-crusty woman: it's clear they have words in mind, but how they can tell what the other is saying is beyond me. Maybe they can't, which is why they're arguing.

But each of them developed partisans among the more-comprehensible. Just me, I guess. My hearing normally gets me by, but it still isn't what it used to be. Now, what are they saying?

It was of course some engineering thing about heat transfer and diffusion. Every time Hikaru had something to point out, one of the grad students beat him to it. The discussion it morphed into an argument over whether this test too had been botched, whether there had ever been a problem at all. Hikaru zoned out, thinking that this line of thought was silly, and they should just redo the test. Without his saying anything, Chen and a grad student volunteered to do just that.

The most exciting moment was when the undergrad pointed out a symmetry that proved Chen wrong about heat sinking. As a round of congratulations proceeded, Hikaru blinked himself to alertness, wondering what had just happened.

Protruding into the following silence, Rahm said, "Whose idea was it to have the workshop do these tests anyway?"

Silence fell, and Hikaru recalled that he'd been the main one to talk with the workshop since Remy didn't get along well with them. So, it was probably him, one way or another. Before he could reply, Remy said, "Knowing them, they probably volunteered to do something they couldn't, and then left us with their improvised substandard solution." That does seem about right, but I could have stopped them. This whole mess is my fault. "Look, folks. There's no need to get upset with each other over this. We'll get the tests right and see if it works. And if it doesn't, then we have a bunch of solutions. Keep talking about it among yourselves, and thinking on it alone." He stood up and stretched, and the meeting broke up.

Hikaru accepted a hand from Remy in getting up. Remy said, "You okay there?"

"Mostly. Five years ago I was still coming in full time, and now..." They began walking out into the southern winter evening. The breeze cut through Hikaru's sweater, but wasn't cold enough to cause a real chill. Still, it was enough to wake him up thoroughly.

"You were just tired. You handled the machinists well earlier."

"I think I gave them the idea that they should do the tests."

"And none of us caught it. I signed off on it. Chen delivered the work order, and I know he read it. Not more your fault than ours." Remy didn't like that direction, and said, "Look. I may be the one with the official students, but you're still the one who... put the finishing touches on me, research-wise."

Hikaru croaked, "I hope not. Things could always be better." In particular, an even keel would help. I never even really tried to get him to calm down. It's a little late to start now.

Remy shrugged. "Drive safe. You all awake? You know, I thought you were fading, a while back. Months ago, I mean. But you've been by more lately, and seemed more energetic. Good to see."

Hikaru nodded, and got into the car. Remy left. Why did he have to say that? A few months - ever since Kimiko was down and out.

The new pad was pink, with balloons. He didn't find this design very dignified, but as long as it stayed in the corner facing out towards Kimiko, the pink didn't show. He was especially thankful this time that the room had its electrical plugs at hip level - he wouldn't need help setting it up. Within a second, the screen was on, showing a forest path wide enough the evening sky could be seen.

As soon as Hikaru was within the field of view of the camera, Celestia glided down from just above the treetops, landing close in front. "Good evening, professor."

Hikaru sat on the end of the bed and rubbed his wife's foot through the blanket. "Good evening." What is she doing here?

"I see my new little pony is not in a condition to choose for herself, so I'll ask you what sort of body you think she will prefer."

Hikaru was at a loss.

Celestia continued, "Of course you're not committing her to it - I'll allow her to change once she can answer for herself."

Hikaru took another few seconds. The possibility that she could eventually decide herself just seemed too farfetched to reply to. "What would she do in there?"

"Lie in a warm bed, and do whatever she actually does. If nothing else, you can have her as a reminder when you're away."

That actually sounds kind of sweet. All right. He looked back up to Kimiko, and thought. Celestia waited. She liked horses a little. Let's go with something kind of real. "Dark brown one..." But then, it isn't real. "... with wings. Lighter mane." He glanced back to the pad and found that the view was now in a little cottage. A pegasus fitting the description he'd given was asleep in a quilted bed under a bay window. It was adorable. She was so vulnerable. How can she seem more real in the picture than in real life?

He found himself saying, "Longer mane, less styled."

Ah. Because she looks better there. He purposely looked away from the pad and to Kimiko. He shifted up the bed, and took her hand.

"I... It's not right to substitute for her."

Celestia warmly replied, "And yet, here you are, looking straight at her. Adding more associations to her won't make you love her less. Adding less painful ways of thinking of her certainly won't. And I won't make you spend your efforts on 'Guide Star' - she'll be taken care of. You can get strength from her, and pour it into Kimiko."

Kimiko's closed eyes looked merely asleep, but it was hard to pretend. It had been so long since they'd really seen, even when they were open. "Why? What can I do? She's... she's not... She's all but gone."

"Maybe. I already suspect not."

Could she wake? Stranger things have happened. And there's always the possibility of some new treatment, but no doubt at some ruinous cost. And then there's everything else wrong with her. With us. He stroked her hair for a minute.

"Grandpa?"

He looked up to the pad - Celestia had quietly left, and his granddaughter's pony was in the doorway of the cottage. "Miroku?" he said, and Bright Black echoed, "Juniper Spray?"

She came in, and joined Bright Black at the bed side. "Is this grandma?"

"No..."

"Obviously, grandpa. But this is hers?"

Hikaru nodded. It was odd, to look in the pad and see the two ponies sitting there, one of them mirroring him. He felt like there was a ghost of Miroku on the other side of the real bed.

The ghost said, "So, nice place you've got here. How much was it?"

It took him a moment to place the comment as being about the home in the pad. "Celestia gave it to her. Said she'd be taken care of. I'm more interested in the real one."

"Oh, of course, of course."

From outside, a male voice called, "Come on, June!"

Juniper Spray faced out and called, "Coming!" Back to her grandparents' ponies, she said, "Love you! Bye."

"Bye."

She was gone. Hikaru turned back to Kimiko. He straightened her hair. The cozy home with the brown pegasus seemed more real... No, more tolerable. Not more real. Don't confuse them.

He stroked her arms, wondering if this stimulation could get through to her at all. Wondering why he hadn't been trying it all along. Could Celestia be right? Could it be that I was avoiding her because she's too... not-cute? That'd be pathetic.

The cottage door creaked open. Hikaru took a moment to place the sound. Coconut Cream had nosed the door open. "Hi."

Hikaru sighed, and nodded in reply.

Sweetly, "What's wrong?" After a moment of no response, she added, "Is that your wife? What's her name?"

Hikaru patted Kimiko's hand. "That is a pony representing Kimiko. I understand she's been given the name 'Guide Star'." The game substituted the pony-name the first time, so the second sentence was superfluous. Hikaru figured that, annoying text substitutions aside, Coconut Cream heard what he'd really said, but the game overriding what he'd said set him off: "And, 'what's wrong'? What's not wrong?"

He took a moment to start at the beginning. "I messed up at work, and may have caused a lot of trouble over nothing. Or wasted our precious time while we second-guess the warnings. I slept through the parts of the meeting where my experience would have done the most good. Expectations are so low that they barely noticed. And then I find out that what little I have contributed is at the expense of my wife - I began coming by more once she needed me the most." He consciously avoided saying her name so as to avoid the substitution. "And then I find that I've been neglecting her because she isn't cute."

Coconut Cream sat down on the other side of Guide Star. She put a hoof across Bright Black's. "Since she fell ill like this? That's not when she needed you the most. You were there for her when she was fading, and you'll be there for her when she needs it again."

Hikaru shook his head sadly.

Coconut Cream went on, "And at work... you're retired, right?"

"Have been for ten years. Just means I don't teach, don't serve on committees, and don't get money." His tone shifted to the negative. "And now, it seems I'm more a hindrance..."

"Oh, stuff it. I checked and you have four papers in the last ten years, including one last year. You get tired. Okay, you're eighty! This happens when you have a very busy day! You're in good health. Good eyesight, good hearing, good mobility. You've accomplished a lot."

"That's in the past. I'm looking forward."

"Not just scientifically. You have two children and three grandchildren, one of whom is a wonderful young lady, and I look forward to getting to know the others."

"Looking forward..."

"Looking forward, you're able to do better!" Coconut Cream calmed and sighed. Then, softly, she added, "Watching her fade is one of the greatest stresses anyone can face. Circumstances forced you to do it alone - or nearly - but you shouldn't be shocked if you can do better with help."

Hikaru almost began deny that the help had been significant: how could a half minute of looking at a horse get him to pay more attention to Kimiko? But even though he couldn't retrace the mechanism, even given the short window of comparison, it clearly had. He looked directly at Guide Star, then to Kimiko. Getting the job done is more important than my pride. And if that's all this is about, she's right.

Coconut Cream added, "As for the rest... the detector... why don't we work it through? What's the problem, exactly? Just explaining things to a new set of ears can help."

Hikaru closed his eyes. He wasn't quite ready to think about that. Actually, he was more than ready to think about that instead of his failings with Kimiko. But as long as he was here... he resumed rubbing her, and began explaining.

Chapter 5: Citation Needed

"... and that's basically it. The temperature gradient is a bit larger, but it stops mattering so much - we lose the linear and quadratic dependence altogether." Hikaru plopped the dry-erase marker down in the tray and turned to face his audience.

Remy silently modeled the design with his fingers as he slowly spun in Hikaru's chair. Chen, leaning against the window, squinted at the board and idly spun the other dry-erase marker in three fingers. The two graduate students present were sitting on the sofa: Esmerelda was writing something in her lab notebook, probably checking; and he didn't remember the name of the other, who was just staring at the floor, presumably trying to visualize the mechanical action Hikaru had just described.

A tennis ball bounced off the window, hard and loud. Chen startled and dropped the marker.

Their concentration clearly interrupted, Remy said turned to Hikaru and said, "And last night you were worried about..." He didn't finish that thought out loud, instead going on, "Do you think we still have time to do something like this?"

Hikaru pursed his lips as all eyes were on him. I think so. Looking at them, movement caught his eye. He looked past and saw - Coconut Cream had popped her head in the side of the pad for a moment and was nodding vigorously.

Hikaru nodded slowly, then more confidently. "All of these parts are either in simple shapes or common materials. Everything's machinable. Nothing particularly fine. If we can get a supplier to deliver the rods in a week, we're golden."

Remy whistled. "I suppose you're right. How did you even come up with this?"

"Well, it was just a couple freshman mechanics problems and a junior-level mechanics problem, once I knew what questions to ask."

"Yeah, I got that. How did you even think of that, though?"

"Well..." Hikaru eyed the ponypad. "I spoke with someone who didn't know what the problem was, and she challenged my assumptions of what to do about it."

Chen suddenly asked, "Where did you get the low-temperature materials data?"

Esmerelda concurred, adding, "The CRC handbook didn't have those."

Hikaru thought back. That came from Coconut Cream. "She provided that. It could be proprietary information."

Remy nodded. "All right. Who was it? We'll want to acknowledge her at least."

Pause.

Hikaru finally said, "I'll ask her how she'd prefer to be cited."

For a moment he was concerned that she'd answer his implied question right on the spot. Then he was concerned that Remy would press - but he didn't... not that that really helped. He'd want it eventually. In a minute, the others were off to the machine shop.

Once they were gone, the ponypad panned around the rock garden, revealing Guide Star's cottage, then glided in the window and shifted art style to Equestria normal. Coconut Cream was busy in the kitchen, rolling pie crust, while Bright Black sat at the foot of Guide Star's bed.

Leaning back in the chair, stroking his stubble, Hikaru asked, "How much of that was you, anyway?"

She replied, "Not a lot. As you said, I mainly challenged your assumptions."

"If nothing else, you provided materials data. We're going to need to acknowledge you."

"C. Cream? I wouldn't be the first person with that initial and last name."

"Isn't your game and the show popular? Wouldn't it be, well, suspicious, anyway?"

Coconut Cream snorted and stopped the baking. "Yeah, it's a good thing I'm not Twilight Sparkle. But me? I'm an Applejack recolor from a toy set so cheap they gave Fluttershy the same hair style as Rainbow Dash."

As she said this, she reached for the window blind. Pulling it down revealed that it was printed with a diagram of the Collection Set ponies alongside the cartoons they were based on. "I'm so obscure I might as well be an original character." She paused while Hikaru looked at the diagram - he recognized Sweetsong, and that pink unicorn was probably the one Coconut Cream had been with by the lake when they'd first met. The toys were a bit off.

When he'd had his look at it, she yanked the blind down and released it, letting it flap around. I'm going to suppose that that's not as bad in the game as when that happens in real life. Really annoying to have to re-seat those. Distracted by that thought, he was thrown by what she said next: "That said, citing me as me is a bit misleading."

"Well, what, then?"

"'Princess Celestia' would be the most honest. Everything I have, everything I am, is borrowed from her. She's already published in the IEEE, and has papers in review in Nature, JACS, JPed, Oncology..." The pad quickly reverted to the rock garden.

Esmerelda was still looking in her lab notebook as she walked in. "Hi. Do you have a CNC-convertible CAD file for the curvy part? The machine shop can slip us in if we can get that to them. It's not a big part."

Hikaru was still digesting what he'd just heard, but he was able to say, "With the curves it would be a pain to do by hand... I have an equation for each of its faces. And some CAD formats are mostly tables of values."

They got to work, Esmerelda examining known good files to determine the format while Hikaru generated tables from the equations. There was a little hitch with an invisible character hidden in a header, but they sorted it out. And all the time, Hikaru was very consciously not looking at the ponypad.

I'm sure she could generate this in an instant. A word and I'd have it in my inbox. But where would that end? Why not turn over the whole design? This AI made the pad, which is extremely impressive to put it mildly. And if the design of this instrument, then why not the analysis? I don't know how far I'm willing to take this.

When Esmerelda got ready to leave, Hikaru did as well. Though she made it out the door before him, he wasn't ready to deal with ponies, so he ignored the pad and hurried out after.

On the way home, he avoided thinking about the new instrument altogether, instead focusing on older topics. It's been a long time since I really thought about Titan. I wonder, what did the Cassini probe turn up?

After dinner, he went to the puzzle table and buried himself in reconstructing Times Square and catching up with some neighbors he hadn't spoken with much lately. Touchy subjects like ponies didn't come up.

He couldn't go check on Kimiko without encountering a pad, though. Not in her room, not in the common room. And he wasn't going to skip that. So he gave up and went up to her room.

He gently wiped Kimiko's face. She twitched a little. Was that twitch in response? He began wiping Kimiko's face again, checking for reactions. Nothing.

Several minutes passed of his providing a stimulus and then waiting for a response.

Okay. I'll want to ask about that... but I need to get things sorted out first. He turned to the pad. Aside from Guide Star's inert form, Bright Black was alone in the cottage.

Hikaru just asked anyway. "Just how smart are you, anyway? Is there a point to our doing anything anymore?"

No response. "Anyone there?"

Bright Black turned around, then poked his head out the door - it wasn't quite what Hikaru had had in mind, but it made sense as an action. The cottage was on a wooded lane; a few other cottages were about, widely spaced.

That pink unicorn - 'Beachberry', he suddenly recalled - was walking down the road. She caught sight of him, and stopped. Her jaw tightened a little, and her ears twitched. She approached a little. "Hello, professor." This was by far the wariest tone he'd heard from the pad.

Hikaru wondered at that. Beachberry went on, "I was just visiting Coconut Cream. She's not a very happy pony right now."

Hikaru frowned. Is it trying to guilt me? Games which demand more time. That would get ugly.

Hoofbeats sounded, and they turned - Coconut Cream was trotting up the lane. After a few seconds, she called out, "Beachberry! Thanks, but I've got this."

The pink unicorn looked back and forth between them for a moment, then tossed her head as if she gave up on understanding what was going on, and moved on. "All right, if you say so."

Coconut Cream waved her off. "Go on now." Once she'd continued down the path, Coconut Cream turned to Bright Black. "Sorry 'bout that. I just mentioned to her that you were ignoring me, and she got offended on my behalf. But I was just worried about you. What's bugging you?"

Hikaru had his questions all ready: "What are you? Are you Princess Celestia, as you said, and not Coconut Cream? What does it mean for me to get help from you? Isn't everything you just said with her an elaborate play? You don't really have a disagreement with Beachberry, do you?"

Coconut Cream added, "... and you're embarrassed of us."

An uncomfortable ten second silence ensued.

"Yes. Not of what you are. But how you present. Are you forced to seem to be ponies by some line in your programming? Don't you wish you could do without it?"

Coconut Cream shrugged. "It's who I am. I'm a coconut-loving astronomy student with several good friends, including one who's just having a little trouble adapting to my being a digital pony. As for it being real, I did have a conversation with Beachberry about your confusion, she did misread you, and I will have to go explain how things really are. And my being a pony is built in to me."

"And the help you gave me last night? You said we should cite Princess Celestia."

She grimaced. "Right. I didn't quite finish that thought. I am me, but all of that is also a part of her. Anything I do, I get the credit and blame, and so does she. With that in mind, I was going to suggest that it would be less confusing and clearer to cite her. It would also help people who are trying to track her academic contributions."

Hikaru leaned his forehead on a thumb and forefinger, trying to wrap his mind around it. "All right... so, you really didn't... just solve the problem and guide me towards it?"

"I did what I did, and you did what you did. If I somehow had magical oracle powers that would tell me how to manipulate you into figuring it out, would that make it any less of an accomplishment for you to figure it out just based on the questions I asked? But it's moot - to Celestia, your work is a low low priority - she told me the only processing power she's putting on the subject is that part that makes up me. And I couldn't have done what you did."

"So, what is she working on, that is a high priority?"

Coconut Cream pointed to the cottage to indicate Kimiko. "Saving her. Saving everyone who wants saving." Hence the papers in medical journals. I'm getting the kid-gloves treatment. Medical researchers are in competition with her.

Hikaru looked in her white face with her absurd pastel orange, green and pink mane, and saw how very serious she was. This level of seriousness deserved respect, not shame.

He reached for the phone and dialed before he could change his mind. "... Remy? I've got my friend on the line. Her name is Coconut Cream, and she's a character in Equestria Online."

End of part one

Author's Note

Having written this, I think I'm totally practiced up for entering the kingdom of heaven as a rich dude. Writing one character who's backed by a superintelligent computer and another who has more than twice my life experience, having emotional difficulties I've never had, is not easy.

~~~~

Secondary Objective: Use '20% cooler' in respect to the temperature gradient problems.
Status: FAILED

Chapter 7: Memory Lane

Bright Black had been by Coconut Cream's house before, but never inside. It was cluttered: the kitchen had been left mid-baking, books and papers piled on the table, and a mostly-assembled sewing basket lay atop a three-quarters-finished patchwork quilt crumpled up in front of the sofa.

Coconut Cream glanced at the mess before focusing on the papers. "Here we go. I was sent this a little while back. Now that our schedule has opened up a little, take a look." She grabbed the top paper in her lips and flipped it on the ground in front of Bright Black. The view zoomed in - it was a preprint.

He read, "The Journal for those who Care More About Saving Lives than Following the Rules. Never heard of that one." Deadpan, he added, "Ah. Volume 1, Issue 1. That explains it."

Hikaru did the look-up eye-gesture and Bright Black glanced up. Coco was sitting at the table having a cup of cocoa, recovering from the cold. She remained silent, and only a tiny twitch of a smirk acknowledged the joke. Back to the page.

"Direct Measurement of Human Cognition and Memory via Minimally Invasive Nanomechanical Electrodes." The abstract was what one would expect for an article with that title - a single proof-of-concept measurement had been performed. So I wasn't imagining it with her blurring the lines between Equestria and here. They're working on computer-brain interfaces. "All right. What about it?"

Coconut Cream had gotten down from her seat and stood opposite Bright Black. "We will need more data. A lot more. And it will need to be discreetly taken. We believe you will be specially motivated to participate." Her demeanor was peculiar, her eyes reminding Hikaru of Princess Celestia.

Why? Ah. "You've given up on healing Kimiko."

"Repairing the brain she's currently using? Hopeless. When we get this working, she won't need it."

"Like getting all the data off a failing hard drive?"

"More than that. Much harder. But basically, yes."

Of course - brains aren't exactly random access. But it could be her best hope. And in the long run, everyone's. "That is big news. You weren't just joking about 'immigration'." Digitizing human minds. I've heard of that notion, but it was both not on the horizon, and guessed to be very expensive. If they're talking about doing this to Kimiko, they're talking about doing it to anyone. "How good is it? Fidelity is important."

Coconut Cream nodded sadly. "That is the hard part. It's just not there yet." After a moment, she added, "You can help."

"How? Test subject?"

More brightly, "Yes, actually! You're in a crucial group we have precious little data on."

"What's that?"

"Old, intelligent, healthy, reliable men."

"'Reliable' as in I won't rat you out for bypassing the FDA."

Coconut Cream nodded.

"What would this involve?"

"You get a packet in the mail with some goop in it. Snort it before going to bed, with a ponypad nearby. Then basically go about your life. Spend some time trying to remember things from long ago."

"How safe is it?"

Coconut Cream dragged the paper around, found a paragraph, and passed it back to him. He read, "The overall health risk most comparable to smoking a single pack of unfiltered cigarettes... That's not very healthy."

"Not going to kill you in one go, either."

Considering the smokers I know - that I know smokers at all - that's most likely true. Unless I'm specially vulnerable for some reason. Skimming a little more, he murmured, "Looks like making sure your neuron model works right."

"Right. It won't help us to determine the state of a brain if we can't figure out what it should do."

"Would you be able to read my mind? Change it?"

"This is designed to minimize the alterations to your brain; we believe it will not affect your mind. We don't know how much Celestia would be able to read. Not everything, anyway. Potentially some very private information, yes." She leaned in. "If you want to get out of that body alive, you're going to have to trust someone with that data eventually. Celestia will not share what she learns from this, not even with me."

"I'll have to think about this."

Coco relaxed and seemingly slipped out of official mode, "Sure! Well, that was it. Big night, eh?"

Hikaru got up to go home. "Good night."

"Good night."

The question bothered him all night. She's willing to bypass the law. Obviously it can be justified in this case, but it does raise the question: what wouldn't she do? Can she be counted on? Just what is her goal? A program might not have a coherent goal. I can't tell whether that's more reassuring or less.

In the morning, he headed in to the university, and checked in on Remy. He wasn't in, but the door was open. Remy's pad showed Sweetsong practicing the lute in a field, and sitting on Quickstream as he slept. She looked up and said, "Hi, Bright! Looking for Quickstream? Just before he lay down and became a handy bench, he said something about going to the machine shop!"

Hikaru gulped. What could that be about? Sweetsong blinked a few times, yawned, and waved dismissively. "Don't worry. I think he'll be good." Then she lay down across him. Huh.

Hikaru retightened his scarf and headed out, still wondering. The machine shop wrapped up its part months ago. The detector has already been assembled and installed. They're trying to nail down a launch date, even. A little late to make adjustments.

As he came, he heard strained laughter, and Remy's voice. To Hikaru's relief, he wasn't upset, but his speech was off, the words coming in bursts. "Oh man. You should have seen it. BOOM."

Hikaru stuck his head in the door. They were just standing around. Remy was kind of quivering. The machinist said, "Yeah, we saw it on TV."

"TV? TV's nothing." Pause. "Well, okay, maybe it could give you an idea. Anyway. Enjoy." He turned to leave and saw Hikaru. "Hey, Hikaru! We got the launch date confirmed!"

Hikaru nodded deeply. "Good to hear."

Remy joined him and they headed out. He seemed a little bleary-eyed. After a few seconds he said, "So. I take it you heard we got our launch date?"

"You just said that."

"Oh. Right. A teensy bit tired. And loaded up on a few kilos of coffee."

I want to talk to someone, but even if he were in top form that's just what I'm not supposed to do. And what would he know anyway? Simply asking Celestia about her programmed goal won't help if she's lying. How could we tell if she's aiming to do something else? Well. It's clear that she's not out to kill us, since she could do that without straining herself. And she's helping us - already mitigated over a dozen strokes just in Kimiko's cluster of the hospice suite, for instance. And she seems to understand friendship well enough to fake it, at least. How sad it would be if my friends in the game are unwitting tools for a hidden purpose! They're even more at the mercy of their programming than we are at her mercy.

On the other hand, they couldn't really be unwitting, could they? They seamlessly meld with the... no, that's silly. Just set some variable and all the behavior can change instantly. Computers do exactly what they're told, even if it's do one thing and then the opposite.

Remy asked, "So you wanted to ask me something, or... something?"

Hikaru had almost forgotten that he was there. "What? Oh, never mind. Go get some rest." Then he coughed. "Speaking of which - not that this is what I was going to ask about - but are you aware that Sweetsong is lying on you?"

"Yeah, she does that now. We kind of jumped the gun on Valentine's day."

Hikaru's eyes widened. What? She was the one who hung out with him, but Coco hasn't... I'm completely incomparable. Does he already know about upcoming digitization? "Aren't you a little worried about what people will think?"

He waved it off. "You know they can be discreet. I guess she figured I'd be okay with you knowing. And I am, though from your reaction I guess you didn't already know and maybe on second thought I shouldn't have mentioned it but I suppose it's all right since we both use the pad to avoid the prospect of dying alone."

Or in my case, to actually avoid dying, alone or otherwise.

Remy rambled on, "Not that that's imminent for me, well, either of us, but I was already alone, and maybe I should just stop talking now."

I'm not actually working to avoid dying if I don't actually do anything about it. And if the brain scanning doesn't work, we die and that would be the worst possible thing! And though yes, I did just invoke Rarity's tone to remind myself that there are indeed worse things, I still guess I have my answer.

Hikaru dumped his mail on the desk. "Is it one of these?"

Coconut Cream pointed. "That one. The credit card offer from Chase."

Hikaru picked up the envelope. It wasn't particularly heftier than a regular letter. "Any special handling?"

"Nope. Just, you know, don't apply for the card. They'd get confused."

He tore the letter open and found... a credit card offer. "Are you sure?" I was expecting something a little more... something. But I guess the point of nanotech is that it's small.

She sang tunelessly, "It's singing to me." A cough. Then, speaking normally, "Pardon my squawking. We've got this lovely duet going already, but I'm afraid it only sounds good on the short-wave radio bands. All right. Grab it as if holding it up to the light, and squeeze."

Hikaru took another look at the card. So ordinary-looking. But there was no point in delaying. He held the left side between thumb and forefinger. After a second of pressure, the card's disguise broke as its end popped open. He peered down in - Inside was a sort of soot.

"I've never snorted anything before. Suggestions?"

"Pour it on the back of your other hand, next to your thumb?"

He poured it onto his left hand. There was just a tiny pile. When he released the pressure on the card, it went back into disguised form, with no sign of having been bent.

Setting that observation aside, he buried his nose in the probes and took a sniff. It smelled like nothing. He felt like it ought to smell like smoke, or metal, or even pencil shavings. But nothing. Coco gestured him to go ahead, and he inhaled sharply.

His nose felt very dry, but there was no other particular sensation. He coughed a little bit, though there was no real force behind it. I expected it to feel like smoking at least, even if it didn't smell like it. I guess the damage is in other places.

"Nice job. Beautiful."

"Hope it's useful."

"We'll see in a week or so once it's settled in."

Sixteen days later:

The slide projector flipped forward, and showed Kimiko and Hikaru on the slope of Mauna Kea, just under a cloud-bank.

That's way out of order! Hikaru joked, "And here we are on the volcano just outside London. And I guess Mikio was holding the camera this time."

Miroku clapped her father on the back. "Not bad for a two year old!"

Hikaru advanced the projector, returning them to their previously scheduled vacation: a pregnant Kimiko was holding Mikio's hand in front of Big Ben.

Mikio took the out-of-order slide out of the projector and looked down among the boxes. "Let's get that where it belongs... Your 1959 trip, I figure?"

Miroku joked, "You seriously memorized the dates of the trips they took before you were born?"

"This one, anyway." He coughed.

Hikaru coughed back at him. Great. Bring attention to your conception while I've got a brain probe going on. Of course, you don't know I do. Still - I wasn't planning on spending my birthday party thinking about that.

Mikio found the box. "Here we go. Wow. So many old memories - in this case, just remembering you showing them to me. We've got to get these all digitized. I saw something in a catalog for just 90 bucks. It'd be a little late for your birthday, of course..."

Hikaru shook his head. "All taken care of. The slides are being saved in the pad. That way I can show the slideshow again to Hinata and her family, once they're awake. It's a shame you had to go before 7. A little early for them."

Mikio looked back to the pad and sarcastically said, "Yeah, it would have been truly a... blast to see a cartoon pony representing my sister." He glanced to his father. "I saw yours on TV, as part of a news segment about Pollywood."

"What's that?"

"TV shows and movies made with ponies on the pads, aired on real TV. Started in India, but spread all over. Not just education and news/opinion programs like you were on, but soap operas, action, sci-fi, police procedurals both cutesy and hard-boiled, and even gory war movies. You name it, someone is making a show of it with a pad. It's almost like getting rid of the TV show just made it come back stronger than ever!"

Miroku bobbed her head, as this helped resolve some confusion. "I'd heard of Wonderbolt Academy Days, but that didn't seem a proper replacement for Friendship is Magic itself."

"Well, there are a few official spinoffs, but most of it's totally indie. And please..." He gestured to the slides.

Miroku absorbed that. "What with the pad, I haven't been checking ED anyway... So hey, look! A double-decker bus!"

The slideshow proceeded. At the end of one of the boxes, they got up to stretch.

Hoofbeats attracted their attention to the pad - Coconut Cream had entered the cottage, a cake balanced on her back. She bouncily declared, "Maybe it's time for the cake? I hope you all like coconuts, chocolate, and marzipan."

Miroku said, "Umm... thanks? But now I want a real... umm. How did you do that?"

Hikaru turned from the pad to see what she was reacting to: a real cake on the table by the door, with icing announcing, "Happy Birthday Bright Black" He chuckled, then laughed. "Good one. Who should I thank?"

As Coconut Cream said "Rubilant Jubilee Simmering", Tasha slipped back into the room. "That'd be me. Coconut Cream guided me through making it, though. And don't thank me too much. I got a heap of bits out of it."

"Thank you anyway. Would you like a slice?"

"Oh I had plenty while making it, Mr. Maeda. Gotta run. Enjoy!" She disappeared.

Mikio grumbled, "And that's another reason reason I don't join. 'Bright Black'? 'Coconut Cream'? Whatever the heck her name was? What name would I get?"

Coconut Cream sighed. "At the rate you're going, 'Complains-of-Names'."

Miroku snorted and added, "Beats 'Dies Horribly', anyway."

'Dies Horribly'? Hang in there, Kimiko. Maybe you could use some probes too - just so they can keep an eye on you?

Coconut Cream turned back to Mikio and said, "Anyway, this is a family gathering, so how about I skedaddle? Happy Birthday, professor."

Hikaru said, "Thanks, Coco. See you later."

Mikio took a sniff. "Huh. The game gave you a birthday cake. Smells good, at least."

Chapter 8: Not Yet Time

Hikaru closed his office door fully and went to the pad. Bright Black was in the cottage, lying on the floor next to Guide Star's bed. Hikaru guided him out of the cottage and down the road into town. In a minute, he'd made it to where Coconut Cream had her vending stall, near a dam and waterfall - the spot was based on the 113th of Hiroshige's 'hundred famous views of Edo'.

When she finished up serving a customer, Hikaru quietly said, "Would it make sense to get Kimiko the probes?"

She sighed, looked down at her pies, and then back up to him. "I don't know. Just because Princess Celestia includes me, doesn't mean I'm a good pony to ask. I only knew last time because she gave me the paper and told me." That's not quite the impression I got at the time. But if that's how they want to handle it in the future, fine by me. "You can talk to her directly if you need to know about things like that. That said, I don't think it'd be a good idea for her. At this point, it's more important that she be healthy than that we keep a closer eye on her."

Hikaru's jaw dropped. After two seconds, he buried his head in his hands. "Of course. What was I thinking?"

"I'm sure they'll get a new better version soon. One that'll help instead of hurt."

He nodded. "Of course." I got too wrapped up in the great project and forgot about what she needed for herself. Typical.

"Hay, relax. You noticed it didn't hurt you, you forgot that it hurt at all. Could happen to anypony."

Maybe so, but this time it happened to me.

Knock.

Hikaru called out, "Yes?"

Rahm replied, "Excuse me - I could use some advice about a grant application."

Hikaru got up and opened the door. "Certainly." At least I can help someone.

Hikaru looked at the sun overtopping the trees from the corner café on the outskirts of the retirement village. Back when Kimiko had convinced him to move here, she'd focused on the village. She hadn't anticipated her declining within a year and their subsequent move to independent living, and then her abrupt transfer to hospice. The independent living apartments were nice enough, but they weren't a house.

They'd come here for many breakfasts. Whenever she didn't feel like making breakfast. And I never did. I've rediscovered that it's not that hard. I could have. On the other hand, since it's not that hard, does it matter? Yes. Then why didn't I? It's not like I... ah. Right. She basically forbade me to do anything in the kitchen other than draw water, and even then there were specific rules for where to place the cup. Oh, the rules.

On the other hand, her kitchen rules couldn't have been that much more complicated than the Fortran and C language specifications, and I've had those memorized for thirty-plus years. Some part of me just used it as an excuse not to try.

A raised voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "It's gotta be her." Isaac was arguing with Manuel two tables over.

"Oh come on. you think everything is her. They found the cause. Invasive dragonflies. Not ponies."

Isaac countered, "Why do they invade now? And where are they invading from? No one's ever seen this species before."

"There are tons of species out there no one's ever heard of before."

"One this successful, we'd have seen. The reason we didn't find those hidden species before is because there are only a few of them. And anything that stays that few... isn't going to suddenly be wildly successful like this."

Manuel glowered. "Therefore, ponies."

"Therefore, the intervention of something or someone..."

"Therefore, ponies."

Isaac slammed the table. "Stop saying that!"

"But that's all that's left of your argument! Someone or something, therefore ponies!"

"What? It's not a human, or they'd take credit. Is it God? Did He finally take note of the millions of dead children?"

Manuel stood up suddenly, furious.

Isaac said, "Give me another option and I'll consider it!"

Hikaru didn't like the look on Manuel's face. He got up too, and came around the table.

Manuel, noticing this, gave one last look to Isaac and turned on Hikaru. "I bet you think so too."

"Think what? It sounds like something good happened and I'd like to hear about it."

"There are clouds of super-dragonflies gobbling up all the mosquitoes everywhere in the tropics. Malaria's way down."

"Among other things, I imagine. Sounds great."

"So, do you think this is because of ponies?"

"No."

Isaac's eyebrows shot up, but Manuel just took on a suspicious look.

Hikaru continued, "I'm sure mosquitoes provide some vital ecological role or another, and removing them would have long-term consequences that Princess Celestia is smart enough not to incur."

Isaac slowly nodded. "Right."

Manuel rolled his eyes and muttered, but grabbed his hat and left without making anything further of it.

Once he was outside, Isaac replied, "She could already be replacing them with non-disease-carrier versions that her dragonflies don't like the taste of."

Hikaru pursed his lips. "You're right. Probably her, then."

Hikaru sat in his office, watching as Coconut Cream worked with Mossfuzz on her computational dynamics assignment. They were on a long beach, and had filled a fair hunk of it with sketches. Coconut Cream drew some more rectangles in the sand, inside some of the others. "Maybe you can adapt the time-steps grid by grid? Like last time?"

Mossfuzz replied, "I could, but that raises the question of what to do at the boundary. Whatever we pick had better not generate or reflect any waves, or the entire simulation is garbage."

"Er. Yeah. Now that we're simulating more than one particle, keeping synched up is a problem." She looked to Bright Black. "Is this a blind alley, or can we work with it?"

Hikaru replied, "It's hard to do well, and I don't think it's what her professor had in mind." But hmm. Boundaries. I'll have to go check out our back yard and see what happens around the boundary between brushstrokes and regular animation, some time. Is it just visual, or is there a difference in dynamics?

An unfamiliar undergrad popped her head into the office. "Hello, professor?"

He smiled and gestured her in. "How can I help you?"

"I've got a few questions about white dwarves, neutron stars, and black holes?" She noticed the pad, and nodded toward it as she said, "A friend of mine suggested I could ask you". Another? I have more students come to my office now than when I actually taught courses. If the ponies had done nothing else, getting these kids to come ask for help when they should would have been a major educational achievement.

Hikaru looked into the fake credit card he'd popped open. Along one face was a thin smooth gray gel. "So this is brain probe version 2?"

Coconut Cream was sitting on the floor next to Guide Star's bed, reading its user's manual. "Version a thousand and some."

Over ten versions a day? A quick sniff showed it still to be odorless - he smelled the credit card plastic more than he smelled the goop. This looks the same, but this is the first version they were willing to give to her. "So, you finally got it safe?"

She re-skimmed a paragraph and summarized, "For all realistic conditions, taking this is healthier than not taking it."

"Sorry for all the questions - you kind of sprung this on me after not mentioning it for nearly three months - but... is this just to heal her? What else does it do?"

Coconut Cream looked up. "Aside from fixing things up some and the same old probe functions? Just one thing, but it's a big one. It grants the option to perceive and act within Equestria directly. She would have mediocre vision and hearing, next to nothing of smell, and would be very physically awkward. But she wouldn't be stuck in this bed anymore," she thumped Guide Star's bed for emphasis, "even if she's still stuck in one outside Equestria. Even if she can't even lift an eyelid there."

"So you think she has Shut-In Syndrome?"

Coconut Cream nudged the manual with a hoof. "Just condensing what it says, not making a diagnosis."

Regardless, Hikaru felt a tremendous lightness. She'd be living a life there. Free of her decrepitude. Mostly, since she'd still be in her body. But she wouldn't be stuck in one place. If it works.

"All right then." Hikaru placed the card next to her nose and tilted it up. The gel flowed like water only in the direction it was supposed to, right into her nostrils; it avoided wrong paths as if they were oil-covered.

"When would this be ready by? Should I cancel the trip to the launch?"

"If it works, why not bring her with you? If it doesn't, well, you were going to go anyway."

Coconut Cream's ears perked, and she slid the manual under the bed.

A moment later, the cottage door swung open and Juniper Spray flew in with a huge gust of wind; she slammed the door behind her and panted for a few seconds. "Whew. I understand heavy rain, but why do weather teams make heavy wind? It's almost like they didn't want me visiting."

Or rather, not until we'd taken care of business. "Well, you're here now..."

"How're you? How's grandma?"

He opened his mouth, unsure. Coconut Cream said, "Oh, same old."

Hikaru said, "Going to the launch in ten days."

"Sounds cool."

"I think the more appropriate term would be 'awesome'."

Juniper Spray laughed. "'Rocket launch, whatevs.' No, can't see it like that. 'Awesome', you're right. That works."

Aargh. So hard not to talk about the probes! All this secrecy. Hate it. When can I tell her? She used to be so formal with me, back when we hardly knew each other. Now she trusts me, is familiar... but I still can't bring her in on it. Can she really trust me?

But he kept his mouth shut.

Author's Note

I updated the previous chapter with the probe-snorting scene.

Chapter 9: All Systems Go

"Well, then, what's the field at infinity?"

The junior shook her fists with victory, "... the integration by parts boundary term is zero. Okay! So, when exactly can you do that?"

She clearly wanted to try to tackle it on her own before getting another hint, so he sat back and let her.

A voice Hikaru didn't recognize came from the pad, saying, "Summer?" A violet unicorn with white accents was trotting in place in front of Guide Star's cottage. The undergrad asked, "Minnie? Is something wrong?"

"Get your flank over to the math lounge ASAP." She galloped off down the road.

The student looked to Hikaru. He smiled and said, "You got the hard part, so I'd go if I were you."

She dashed out.

Hikaru rolled over and closed the door. "So, what is it?" I bet that was about me, not her. Did they wake Kimiko up already?

As he turned back to the pad, his anticipatory smile vanished - a very serious-looking Celestia was standing in the doorway. She backed into the cottage, and Bright Black followed.

Guide Star was still in the bed, slowly mumbling and twitching. Hikaru came closer and picked out syllables here and there. It sounded like finely chopped English with bits of Japanese tossed in.

Celestia said, "She's slipping away. I thought you would want to know as soon as we knew."

He swallowed and put his hand over his mouth. He looked out at the students procrastinating from studying for finals on the tennis courts. Then up into the corner of the room. I let myself get my hopes up. Celestia is powerful, but not all-powerful. Then straight to her eyes. "Yes, you're right. Thank you. How bad is it?"

"Her brain is degenerating faster than emigration is improving. She'll be best off emigrating now."

He whispered, "Even though you haven't ironed that out."

Celestia nodded. "It could be some months before it is an option for anyone who isn't about to die. By that point, she could still be breathing but she wouldn't be there." She leaned in. "The most significant parts of her remain. And what we can do already is good enough that she should still be her when she wakes up."

"What will she be missing if we go now?"

"Two things. First, many memories. As many as two thirds would not be surprising, though more likely around one third. She will notice the gaps."

Hikaru laughed bitterly. "So, little worse than she's been since she was 75."

She gave him a slightly displeased look. "Second, her abstract reasoning centers are sufficiently damaged that I will need to infer her patterns of thought from her surviving memories rather than measuring them directly. Fortunately, abstract reasoning is something I understand well. Also fortunately, most of her other brain functions are in excellent condition.

"All of that is assuming the process works. In her condition, with current techniques, the probability of catastrophic failure is around 23%. Now, I would need her consent to emigrate her, as I always do to modify any human. Since she is unable to grant or deny it, I can substitute yours, just as we did with the probes."

Hikaru nodded. "You may try to save her. What do we need to do?"

"You fly to the launch as planned and I will take care of the rest. I do not want to share the details of this any further than necessary. It is far more important that you keep this secret than anything to do with the probes."

"The law would see it as murder, I suppose?"

She nodded sadly. Then, tilting her head, asked, "Try not to seem sad before you hear the news. And, assuming all goes well, then after you've met her again, not too happy." She grinned. "Though the temptation may be strong."

Yes. This is going to be one of the most nerve-wracking times of my life. On par with the worst days of the war, wondering when the bombers would come again. "It would be so much simpler if we could all be in on it, change the law, and so on. Then all I'd need to worry about is that 23%."

Celestia slightly incline of her head. "I am working on earning its acceptance. But in order for it to be made legal to try, I must prove that I have already succeeded."

"Catch-22." Speaking of bombings.

"Fortunately, not as inescapable as that. I only need to demonstrate success."

"And that's where she comes in."

"A true demonstration would need to be done with more confidence than I can supply at this time. But this will contribute to our understanding."

Don't we mainly learn from our mistakes?

One last time, Hikaru sat on the side of her bed and held her hand. This feels like it's the end. And it is an ending. But not more so than, say, graduation, or getting married. Well, no. Bigger than that. Maybe halfway from there to being born. If it works. If not, this really will be my last time with her in any form. Guide Star's incoherent mumblings don't count. He glanced to the pad for just a moment. Its screen was dark. There were no distractions from the real Kimiko.

All the years. All the time we spent together - not nearly enough. We could have spent our time together better, too, if we hadn't had an end looming. Less stress, less fear, less bickering. And if you live through this... we get a second chance.

He placed her hand on her hip, kissed her cheek, and stood up. "See you in a few days."

The moment he stepped out the door, he was in a haze. He grabbed the tickets and his bag without thinking. The bus and train rides passed without a word. Only when he was answering questions at the airport did he speak; it felt foreign. His thoughts were subverbal, primarily consisting of dread.

At the other end, he had to clear his head a little to follow the directions he'd printed out from Beachberry's email. As soon as he made it to his hotel bed, he lay down. And after a few short seconds, he cried.

An insistent shouting from inside his bag woke him. He got up and pulled the pad out. Coconut Cream and and Beachberry were in the cottage; Beachberry's horn was glowing as she shook Bright Black awake. She stopped a moment after he had the pad up in his lap. "Good to see you up! Time to go get ready!"

He sat on the side of the bed and let himself continue to wake up.

Beachberry's horn once again glowed. A moment later, the pad presented a montage of Beachberry and Coconut Cream guiding a limp ragdoll Bright Black through a morning routine: showering out behind the cottage, with Beachberry vigorously scrubbing his mane with her forehooves while Coconut Cream held him vaguely upright; Coconut Cream picking strips of bacon from a tree and tossing them in the window onto a frying pan while Beachberry levitated his head up and fed him a muffin; brushing his teeth, which was complicated by his head lolling about at the wrong times; coercing a suit around his uncooperative body; carefully posing him just outside the door, standing on either side of him for a group photo, which was taken just as he collapsed to the ground.

The illusion faded as the show ended, revealing the cottage once more. Beachberry punctuated this return with, "Now, are you going to get up or do you need us to come out there and do it for you?"

Coconut Cream raised an eyebrow. "Uh, Beachberry..."

"Hush."

Hikaru stretched. "All right, all right. I'll get up."It occurs to me, I've never slept with a pad near me before.

As he stood, Coconut Cream asked, "Nervous?"

Hikaru simply replied, "23%"

Coconut Cream nodded. "For what it's worth, incorporating what we've learned since, her chances have improved by four percentage points."

"19% feels the same."

Nonetheless, he dragged himself through what needed to be done.

The launch preparations went smoothly. It had mostly been arranged in advance, but there were definite things that needed to be set up to control the satellite once it was up. Remy and Chen were in the heart of those; Hikaru could have injected himself, but it wasn't necessary and he didn't feel up to it anyway.

In the hotel that evening, he sat down and set up the pad properly. "Any news?" he asked even before the screen had come up.

Coconut Cream was sitting on the stoop of the cottage. "Yeah, with what we've done and learned, her chances have improved again."

Hikaru sighed. "How much?"

"Nineteen percentage points."

19% - 19% = 0%

As he realized, Coco cracked a grin. "Yup."

"So, it worked? What are we doing out here, then? Let's say hello!"

He opened the door and found Celestia at Guide Star's side. Her horn was glowing, and bright white lines splayed out from their heads. Gratuitous excessively pretty visualization it may be, but definitely gets one bit of information across - she's not done. The lines faded; she looked up and said, "The risk is past. You may rest assured that tomorrow evening she will waken."

"How assured?"

A slight smirk crossed her face. "If you want to worry about someone, your son is driving a car right now."

Hikaru gave her an opportunity to add information that would make that dangerous, like that he was on a cell phone; when she didn't, he said, "I see." He relaxed. "I'll let you get back to that, I guess."

Gently, she said, "You were not truly interrupting."

He nodded and backed out anyway.

And then Hikaru himself just lay down to rest. Not sleeping yet. He was stiff from being tense all day long. His eyes kept drifting to the pad, though nothing in particular was happening.

After a few minutes, Beachberry and Sweetsong came running up the road; Beachberry was levitating a champagne bottle. "Great news!" shouted Sweetsong.

Hikaru rolled on his side, and his eyebrows shot up. "Thanks?"

Sweetsong looked to Bright Black in surprise, then rushed over and hugged him. "Oh, wow, it worked, then? Congratulations! I didn't mean that, though!"

Coconut Cream asked, "Well, what is it, Sweetsong?"

Beachberry corrected her, "'Sweetsong'? You can call her 'Cupid'." At that, she bumped flanks with the pegasus.

Sweetsong finally clarified, "Quickstream asked out Free Breeze. They're on a date right now." She giggled. "I can't wait to hear about it!"

Hikaru interjected, "What? I thought you two... did you? What happened to you two?"

She hopped up, spread her wings, and did a pirouette on the way down. "I dunno. But they live in the same world. Why would I want to compete? It'd be totally selfish!"

Oh. Free Breeze is human. I can see why this is optimal, but it seems inhuman.

Coconut Cream whispered, "The opposite of jealousy is also a human emotion, BB."

"I can see how the duty of love can override..."

"No, not that. Before you even get to emotional restraint. Haven't you felt it?"

Hikaru thought back, before he'd ever met Kimiko. After I came to America, I was happy to hear that Saki had gone on with her life. I guess we'd been displaying interest longer than she and Remy were. But I'd already left her behind. On the other hand... Yes, point made. Sometimes it's not just putting a brave face on. There can be something behind that. And if, as in this case, there had never been the hope of more, I guess I can take that. Sort of embarrassingly virtuous, though. Makes the rest of us look bad.

Coconut Cream punched Bright Black in the shoulder. "Stop wallowing."

He laughed. "All right. I'll just remember nineteen minus nineteen. It's a good number."

As they watched the rocket's trail dissipate in the midday sky, Remy kept his eyes up. "Do you have any idea how big a nebula is?"

We could both cite numbers, of course, but really? "No. The largest thing I've got a clear conception of its size is Kyushu."

"Of course, 'clear conceptions' can be deceiving. Just look at Descartes trying to dig himself out of skepticism."

"No, I walked across it the short way. I know just how big it is."

"And?"

"Clear conceptions aren't exactly communicable." Will that be true next year? "Its 100 kilometers feels really huge."

"Alternately, we are very tiny. Hmm. I wouldn't want to be as big as a nebula. It'd take a few years to notice if I stubbed my toe."

"Not to mention, assuming we kept your density the same, you'd collapse to form a supermassive black hole."

"I hate when I kick a neutron star wandering around at night. Those things hurt."

Hikaru clutched his chest. "Help. I've fallen and not even light can get up."

"You're a little beyond help at that point. But you never know. Maybe we're wrong. Maybe there's a way out after all."

Hikaru wondered if he was very obliquely referring to his new girlfriend. That reminded him of what would happen tonight, and his mood broke. Just because Kimiko is alive doesn't mean that everything is going to be fine. If she's still Kimiko, that means terrible times are going to be mixed with the great - and, given what she's about to go through, the bad times will probably come first.

One restless nominally-working afternoon and a nervous dinner later, Hikaru returned to the hotel. While he was taking his shoes off, the telephone rang. He took it without a thought as to what it might be. "Hello."

"Is this Hikaru Maeda?" It took him a moment to place the voice - the administrator of the hospice wing.

His stomach seized up. He had to act. His stage fright produced the desired effect, "Y-yes?"

"I'm very sorry to have to tell you this, but Kimiko is dead."

The others won't know that she isn't really. That truly is sad.

He took a deep breath, then another. "I... Thank you for everything you've done. I'll... I'll get the details later." How did they know to call just right now? Must have been tipped off by a pad.

Weakly, he hung up. A sense of doom sunk over him. Even if he knew it was false, he had just heard news that his wife was dead. It was a little unsettling.

"Relax!" urged Beachberry.

Hikaru was shocked to see them dressed up. Coconut Cream was in a simple leaf-and-flower-print dress, Beachberry was in a long gown printed with seashells, and Sweetsong was in a pastel blue mini that complemented her lavender coat. Bright Black himself, contrary to the hint from the montage earlier, still wore nothing.

Coconut Cream added, "Celestia told us a while back that she's well into diminishing returns. Any time you're ready, head on in. We'll wait out here."

Am I ready? No, wait. "Flowers. I need flowers."

Beachberry's horn flared and a trio of flowers just like those on her cutie mark appeared and stuck themselves to his collarbone like magnets. "Thank you. I was hoping for a little more."

Celestia stepped out of the cottage, and her horn glowed for just a moment. "There are now flowers waiting for you. Are you yourself ready?"

Hikaru took a deep breath. "Yes."

"Do not forget, her name and appearance have changed. Guide Star was a placeholder." Hikaru nodded.

Celestia backed in, and Bright Black entered. A large bouquet of brightly colored flowers, heavy on gigantic pink and red roses, was leaning against the bed.

He went to the bedside and looked down to the mare there. She was still a pegasus, but was now largely white. The ends of her mane and tail were each in a sequence of bright, saturated blue, red, and green. The colors mingled as they approached her body, merging smoothly with her white coat. All along the trailing edge of each wing was one row of black feathers.

Strange to have the primaries in that order. Well, it's still pretty. He took the flowers from the stand and held them in the crook of one leg.

Celestia said, "Polychrome? It is time to wake up."

Author's Note

Rejected line:

Beachberry produced a large bouquet from behind the bench. "It's dangerous to go alone. Take this."

Chapter 10: Awakening

Polychrome squirmed a little, her eyes still closed. "Mmmm. Nothing hurts. Whatever you've got me on is really working. And I can think clearly, too." She stretched, then stopped. Her eyes flew open in shock. Oh. I had thought that the emigration process would include a basic primer on her situation.

Celestia quickly said, "May I give you the explanation as quickly as possible?"

"Yes! ... Huh." Ah. There's the primer. I wonder, why didn't she ask me? I guess that was just too much for me to give permission for.

Polychrome sat up and looked around, eyes flashing from place to place. After five seconds, her eyes settled on Bright Black. She frowned and raised an eyebrow. Then she gave the same treatment to Celestia. "So, did I somehow get signed up to have my brain frozen, and this is ten thousand years from now and you're all aliens trying to discover who and what those people living on Earth were?"

Hikaru was speechless. Sure, I may not know what to say, but why isn't Celestia doing more?

But after two seconds, she shook her head. "No, that's... Well. I suppose... but..." Polychrome peered around at Celestia's flank. "Okay, so that fits... Well. I suppose if you could make this, then you could have made something vaguely plausible instead. At least you're up-front about... all of this."

Celestia smiled and said, "I think you're going to be all right. I'll be back if you need me." What? Already? I guess she does have more direct access, so she can tell.

Hikaru tentatively said, "Are you okay?"

Polychrome took a deep breath. "I guess so, but get back to me on that." She called to Celestia before she was quite out the door. "Thank you for the flowers!" Excuse me?

Celestia corrected her, "He thought of them on his own."

"Is that so." Polychrome sat up and looked to Bright Black skeptically. Oh come on. I've remembered them before. Is the fact that I'm holding them not enough?

Well, there's one obvious step to go further... He offered them to her. She accepted them and took a deep sniff. "They smell... delicious?" She frowned at them slightly, then suddenly stopped. "Wait. I can sit up on my own. I can walk."

Hikaru and Bright Black nodded. Typical. Neglected to apologize for the slight. But this time I suppose the situation gives her a good excuse.

She mused, "I'd probably hurt myself until I learn how... or... not?" Polychrome narrowed her eyes. "I literally can't hurt myself? So, this can't be real. Oh wow, it really isn't real."

Hikaru said, "You are real. But you're... how to put it."

She tapped her head. "Yes, I know, I'm now entirely in computers - she beamed that into my head. But..." she paused and looked at her hoof. "Why do flowers smell good in here? Why do I feel like me?" After a moment, she answered her own question, almost reciting: "Because I am still a human. Smelling is part of what I am, and I feel like myself because everything that makes me feel like me is now here. Well, at least I think it is." She thought silently for a few seconds, then lifted a hoof and pointed at Bright Black. "What about you? What are you?"

"I'm still in my same old body. Bright Black here is a sort of puppet in your world."

"So you're not 'computed'? Do I seem the same as before?"

"So far so good! As for the differences? I chalk that up to your huge change in circumstances."

"I'll say! My back doesn't hurt anymore!" She finally got up, rolling out of bed. "And my feet! No arthritis! It's more than that - I haven't felt this good since, well, a few days before we met!" She'd just broken her arm, and that did bother her for ages, didn't it? By the time she was really over it, we were well past our prime. She closed her eyes for three seconds, then focused on Bright Black with a mischievous smile. "Well. There were some times that felt better than this... get over here."

Hikaru nudged Bright Black forward; Polychrome put a hoof over his shoulder and kissed him. The ponypad's view turned so Hikaru saw them from the side. After six seconds, they parted; she released an appreciative "Well!"

As they nuzzled noses, Hikaru said, "I'm sorry, but I'm feeling like a third party here. There's no kissing interface."

Celestia, offscreen, whispered, "There are several interfaces, but until now, it would have been inappropriate to try." On the side of the screen appeared a sort of pull-down menu, set to 'full auto'. Hikaru flipped to the next option, 'follow head'. This still feels ridiculous. How could Remy do it? Assuming he did. Maybe they just looked adorable at each other.

As she came up for another, he shook his head. "I'm sorry, could we talk a little more? Maybe hug? It's cute to see us hugging."

Her look was pained. "You can only see? You're only here through a straw! Not even that - a coffee stirrer!"

He nodded. "For now, that's it. I understand more is coming later." Or if I get the upgraded probes.

"Well, I can feel you! Can you come closer?" She pat the side of the bed. Hikaru gestured forward, and Bright Black sat; she pushed him upright and sat on his lap. The camera shifted to Bright Black's immediate first person view, an extreme closeup of Polychrome's face.

She asked, "Where are you?"

"A hotel room in Florida."

"Where are Daisybright and Bemisted? Their kids?" 'Bemisted'? I guess Mikio has been preemptively given a placeholder name. I wonder where it came from.

"No one else knows you're alive."

She opened and closed her mouth several times. "Why?"

"The law is behind the times. Legally, you're not you." - "Oh." - "As long as they think you're dead, I'm fine. If they find out you're alive, it's murder."

"Seems like it'll be awfully lonely." Gears were turning. Nice to see her thinking a bit more strategically rather than catastrophizing. Of course, that fits - her tendency to freak out was inversely proportional to the severity of the situation, and this is a big deal.

"There are plenty of ponies here: natives, human visitors, and I'd bet some immigrants like you. Just, you can't reveal your situation to the visitors. I imagine you can even visit Daisybright and Juniper, and anypony else - you just won't be able to let them know who you are. I'm sure Celestia would change your voice."

Rather than answer, she kissed again. Keeping in mind the 'head follow' notion, Hikaru tried to do something with it. After a few seconds, she broke off. "Well, that was... different!"

"Not working?"

She gave a cockeyed grin. "If the kids had brought a Renoir home from school, it wouldn't have meant as much as their scribbles."

That's a very positive way of putting it.

"Scribble on me."

Hikaru closed his eyes and put his fingers on the bridge of his nose. She's serious. I've got her in happy mode and she wants to get physical. Now what do I do?

"Never mind... I see how it is." Shoot. There went happy mode. Or did it?

"You do? I'm trying to work that out myself."

"Like I said, you're not really here. But. Are you up for more 'scribbles'? Just a little to get you started? You might get used to it."

Hikaru sighed. That didn't go nearly as badly as I was expecting. "Sure. It's not that I don't want to be with you - I do..."

"But I look quite different now. I suppose it should bother me if you made the switch perfectly easily!" Wordless relief flooded him.

He'd found a preferred interface and was halfway decent with it by the time they left the cottage. No one was waiting outside; there was a note. Bright Black moved to read it, but Polychrome was quicker. "BB and P: welcome party moved to the beach." She looked to Bright Black. "Who are BB and P?"

"I'm Bright Black. P is you."

She halfway opened her mouth, and just stood there. After five solid seconds, she suddenly said, "Polychrome? My name is Polychrome? And you're Bright Black? Wait. You even said that, I think, and I just knew what it meant without even thinking about it."

Hikaru and Bright Black shrugged. "Come on, let's go to the beach."

She followed slowly, head against his neck. "So. I get that we're My Little Ponies, but I'm a little fuzzy on why."

"Do you mean, why did the one world-dominating AI for Earth end up being pony-based?"

"Not what I was asking, but I guess that covers it. Really, world domination?"

"Most people don't realize it yet. A bit of a light touch so far."

They came around the last bush and saw the beach. Hikaru had been expecting three ponies, but there were dozens. Closest were the three friends; Celestia stood in the rear.

As Polychrome came into view, cheers erupted. They picked up to a trot and some of the crowd came forward. Sweetsong flew ahead of the others, her dress billowing. Hikaru introduced her, "This is Sweetsong. Great singer and voice artist, and good with guitar-like instruments too. Here's Coconut Cream, baker and a very quick study. And Beachberry. She, umm. She's a travel agent, but it seems odd to describe her as one."

Beachberry smiled. "Enough of us. We've got some of the other immigrants over for the occasion!"

Hikaru raised a finger; Bright Black raised a hoof. "Why? I thought we'd sort of ease..."

Polychrome shushed away his comment. "These are my new neighbors! And, believe it or not, I'm at 100%. I am no longer made of eggshells, nor am I easily confused. Mmkay?"

Hikaru frowned. I guess she always was in her element at a party surrounded by strangers. "Sorry. Enjoy yourself."

She took a moment, kissed Bright Black once more, and dove in.

After a minute, the phone rang, pulling him away from the pad. He murmured, "Just a moment - got a phone call, probably about your supposed death."

She turned and nodded in acknowledgement. He sent her a kiss, and the screen went black but for the printed question, "Would you like help re-visualizing?"

To put me in the mood for her being dead again? "No." He let it ring a few more times while he coerced his mood himself. Once he felt he was adequately somber, he picked up the phone. "Maeda."

It was Mikio. "Hi, Dad. I got the news. How are you holding up?"

A deep breath. "I spent the last year burying her."

"You seemed more hopeful about it the last couple months."

Hikaru didn't reply.

"Miroku said... eh, wrong time to talk about it."

"What?"

"Seriously, bad time. She'll always live on in our hearts, right?"

"To the heat death of the universe."

A long pause.

"I can't figure out whether that's outrageously optimistic or absolutely pessimistic."

"Both."

Mikio began laughing in a crying-like way, and soon it was simply crying. After a minute, he said, "Good night, dad. Love you."

"I love you too."

The phone down, Hikaru turned back to the pad. Introductions were continuing as it faded in - a unicorn mare was saying, "... the cancer went metastatic again. I figured that third time was not the charm for me, so when princess Celestia gave me a chance, I took it."

Polychrome asked, "How much do you see your family?"

The unicorn sighed. "My son and daughter-in-law, all the time. The others, not at all."

Hikaru spoke up. "I'm back. It was Mikio." He'd forgotten about the filter so when the name was substituted as "Bemisted" he rolled his eyes.

Polychrome frowned at him sharply. "Don't roll your eyes at him like that! He doesn't know!"

"It wasn't at him. It was at the word filter."

Her hard look softened. "Sorry."

'Sorry'? What? It slipped right out - "Who are you and what did you do with... oops." Oh no! Undo!

But Bright Black had said instead, "You couldn't have known." Now, that's... interesting. I just got saved from a major faux pas. But they got saved from something much bigger. By suggesting that the uploading process isn't a faithful reproduction, that would have undermined every uploaded human here. "Dear Princess Celestia, Thank you.", he muttered. A wave of exhaustion rolled over him.

Meanwhile, they had gone back to introductions.

Seriously, though - is that like her at all? Could replacing her abstract reasoning have improved her executive functions enough to stop her from running her mouth? Based on what I just said, I could use some improvement on that. Or - obvious answer - she got censored like I did. Hmm. Well, Bright Black is looking pensive, but she doesn't. So either she got it right herself, or being censored was a lot less surprising to her, or she's a better actor at hiding her surprise. But she's been caught flat-footed repeatedly so far. I think she just actually really apologized. This is a good thing in itself, but it's not what - who - I'm used to.

The introductions finished, Polychrome looked to Bright Black and nodded towards a picnic blanket with a few bowls. Hikaru didn't object, so they turned to wander in its direction. As he yawned, she quietly said, "You've seemed bothered. What's going on in there?"

Hikaru thought over what to say. Said calmly, shouldn't be a problem. "You apologized. That was really surprising."

Polychrome bit her lip. "I suppose it would be. I think it's because everything doesn't hurt all the time anymore - I'm way less crabby. But what if I am different?"

"Love you anyway."

"And if I don't want to be who you remember?"

Hikaru shrugged. "It might be sad. In any case, how could I expect you to change yourself just for me?"

"I..." Polychrome gave him a peck on the cheek. "I'm going to hold you to that."

I wonder what she has in mind there?

"Looks like you're fading. Go home and get some rest."

"I'm already in bed."

She looked at him strangely. "Oh. What happens to Bright Black when you're not around? You just stood there when you were out for the call."

Typical. She tells me to go to sleep, I'm trying to go to sleep, and she asks me an interesting question. "I don't know. Sometimes I find him where I left him, sometimes not. Hasn't mattered so far."

"I have no idea how we're going to handle it when Juniper or Daisybright show up. Do I live separately? Will I just be invisible to them?"

"Probably the latter."

"But then I can't really live there and make it my place."

Hikaru dragged himself through a comprehensive answer. "Probably she'll copy the whole cottage, and you'll be in one, and our family visits in the other, and I'll be in both at the same time. And you can see and hear a sort of ghost of them. Might not be that, but it'll be at least as good as that."

Polychrome blinked for a few moments, and looked into the distance. "Yeah." She then looked straight to him. "I recognize that tone. Go to sleep. Sorry for keeping you up."

He made a kissing sound and went to sleep.

Author's Note

It was at this time that I discovered that Kasumi is exclusively a feminine name, so I renamed Miroku/Juniper Spray's dad to Mikio.

Chapter 11: Friction

Hikaru checked the pad again in the morning, having neglected it during his two nighttime bathroom breaks. Bright Black was still on the beach, now in broad daylight. Not much happening there. Out here, I've got to get moving. It's my last day here, so it's time to check out.

By the time he was having his continental breakfast, he had realigned his displayed mood to what he thought would be appropriate for a grieving husband. At the space center, he pondered the uselessness of what he was doing, watching the deployment and first system checks. This project has moved beyond me, and me beyond it. I have Kimiko again, and in a few months immigration will be smooth sailing and I'll join her. As for here, they're taking care of things both operationally and long-term. It's all going to be fine.

But after an hour or so he reverted to his usual intense self. He got remote-access credentials so he could monitor the telescope's state, then watched their collaborators do their setup, then looked over Chen and Esmerelda's shoulders as they did the detector's software and hardware checks. They got most things, but he caught some details. For instance, he stopped them from trying some tests while the satellite was facing the sun. They would most likely have been prevented from trying by the software (assuming that the software checks worked) but he was the one who noticed.

During a break, Remy came to him aside. "What's wrong? You were barely here yesterday, but now you're like a laser."

Do I point-blank lie or just avoid the question? Evading would fit, I guess. "When we left, I had a bad feeling about Kimiko. Yesterday, I got a call..." He let it hang so Remy would draw the obvious and incorrect conclusion.

Remy reached towards him, then let his arm drop back. "I'm sorry."

"I... I'm focused now. After this, I'm going to take a little while off."

"Watch it. You're not going to follow her, are you? I've seen what happens when you old guys quit."

Firmly, he said, "I have no plans to die any time soon. I just need some time to get myself sorted out."

Remy looked him in the eyes. After a few seconds, he nodded. "All right."

Hikaru's apartment felt profoundly different now that Kimiko wasn't up in hospice. It had been a place he'd sleep and snack. Now it was going to be his home. The strangest part was seeing it in the dusk light. He'd never spent that time alone here, going to Kimiko to help her through that rough patch of the day (unless of course he was at work).

The first thing he did after putting his things down was set up the Celestia pad he'd brought on the trip. Bright Black was still on the beach. He had Bright Black head back to the cottage while he unpacked the rest of his things. There was no sign of Polychrome. Hmm. OK. Well, I need to go deal with some things about her 'death', so that's all for now.

He went upstairs to the Hospice suite. The common room was packed; Tasha was singing Deep River.

Hikaru slipped by and went to the nurses' station, and found it empty. He looked around and found Stephanie, helping a woman with something behind a curtain. He stepped out and listened. Tasha moved on to Steal Away.

Spirituals. About escape. Originally from slavery, but secret escapes to indefinitely long life also fit. In order to upload Kimiko, there has to have been some sort of help on the inside. Could it have been her, or am I reading too much into it? Well, it won't be helpful for me to try to ferret it out. I'll be brought in if it's helpful. She wouldn't be in the best position to do anything anyway, even if she has been promoted from housekeeping to entertainment. The nurses or doctors would be better fits.

Stephanie came out of the room. "Well hello." She had a harried look on her face. "I'm sorry." She stopped short and blinked hard. She looks exhausted.

"That sounded more like an apology than condolences, but I'm sure you all did your best."

"Yeeeaah." She looked away from him, took a deep breath, "Oh geez, I'm making it sound way worse than it is. There was a bit of a mixup and Kimiko was cremated instead of preserved like she'd requested." If she's in on the uploading, she's really bad at hiding it.

Hikaru sighed. Of course it wouldn't be able to go entirely unnoticed. "What's done is done. I'm rather more concerned with the living."

She replied in a whisper, "Thanks a lot for not making a big deal out of it." Back to normal volume, "Her things are on the cart in the station. Had to get it out of her room ASAP. People are living so long there, we're overflowing."

"The sort of problem you like to have, right?"

She gave him a look that utterly solidified in his mind that she didn't have a clue about uploading. She was giving end-of-life care, not transition-to-Equestria care. And the pads' enabling longer survival was, in that case, only a mixed blessing.

"Sorry", they said simultaneously. Hikaru took the cart.

When Hikaru returned, Polychrome was sitting at the table, writing awkwardly with a hoof. Bright Black took a step forward, and she looked up. "Well, finally."

"Hi. What have you been up to?"

"Oh, learning to fly, meeting the neighbors. Now, trying to write. They say I could do it more easily with my mouth, but..." she wrinkled her nose, and laughed. "I'd like to read my old diaries. I think it would help jog my memory, and I don't think they would depress me now."

"Okay."

She coughed. "Are you home? They're in the long box under the bed."

Oh, right. Hikaru went to the bedroom and pulled the rolling box out with his foot, then got the low stool, sat, and retrieved the books.

Polychrome called in from the other room, "Now that you're handling them... if you want to read them, go ahead. It's more than a bit Walter Mitty-ish." Now that takes me back. Our first movie date. I could barely follow it. And then we saw it on one of the classic movie channels, oh, three years ago. Completely different experience. Anyway, I now know to expect that it's going to bear little relation to the truth.

Returning, he sat down at the pad, selected the earliest-labeled book, and began showing the pages to it one at a time; Bright Black mirrored his actions, having also pulled a box out from under the bed there.

Polychrome laughed. "I can't keep up with that pace. But I see that there are words there, now. Before, there was just a big glowing question mark on each page."

Hikaru kept at work.

After a few seconds, Polychrome said, "Our back yard scares me."

Disappointing. I rather liked it. "We can have it changed."

"For two thousand bits, yes. How many do you have?"

"I can cover that, I think, mainly off of donations from Russians." A small gray rectangle appeared in the lower-left corner of the pad, showing, 'You have 17 bits'. "Or... maybe I passed it all on to the hospice suite entertainment fund." He resumed scanning the diaries.

"Well! I already picked up eleven hundred from this and that. One-time things to get you started, really: 'achievement rewards', they're called, or something. Basically a scavenger hunt for things you've done." Then, somewhat confused, she asked, "You really burned through everything you got from yours?"

"I think I never got them. I haven't really played much per se."

"Really? In that case we might want to aim higher right away. A new house. You've got to admit, this may be... cozy, but it's not exactly, well..." She wrinkled her nose again. "We live in a shack in the woods, Hikuro. Let's move into town."

My friends live right around here. But they do go into town, and it's not far. Now that I think of it, it's really not far. How could I have ever thought for a moment that it was even inconveniently far? I guess I'm just used to 'cd [dir]' taking me anywhere in a moment on computers. Having to walk seems absurd. "Alternately, we could hold onto the land and sell as the town grows."

"Land is not a limited resource here, silly." Oops. She pulled a scroll out of hammerspace. "Look, I got a list of the easier achievements from Narrow Gauge. Such a nice boy. Working on quite the model train set."

Model trains. Almost as bad for wasting time as video games. Speaking of which... "I'm sorry, but you're asking me to play it as a game."

"Yes. Yes, I am. You know, eventually you're going to run out of stars to catalogue."

"There are a lot of stars."

He realized that he had said the most obvious thing rather than the most intelligent, as she replied, "But how many meaningfully distinct kinds of stars and things are there out there? Maybe a million? After you've spent a thousand years finding out everything you can about each kind, then what are you going to do? You're going to have to find something else to keep you busy eventually."

"I use the pad because it's people. Like, say, you."

"And what, you want us to sit around all day and talk? Come on. Let's go jogging. Carve our initials into a tree somewhere. Go skinny-dipping, not that that matters anymore, but we could pretend it did. And if they're going to pay us to, say, memorize the names of twenty ponies... yeah, let's do that!"

He let this notion percolate subconsciously and focused on his work again. After a few seconds, "I finished the first volume of the diary."

Polychrome blinked, then frowned; her wings flared up. "Hikuro, come on. I'm me. Act like it! Where's my tiger?"

Hikaru squinted. "Did you just manage to say 'Hikaru'?"

"No changing the subject!" She tamped down the flareup, clearly biting off more words. "Look. You've always taken care of me. And now I'm going to live a long time. Thank you for that." A deep breath. "But... you sort of finished that off. Now I'm in a place where there are no more things. You'll just have to stick around, and... look at me like you love me, again. I always had that. Just a glance: yup, you're mine. But now?"

I don't have all that direct control over how I look at her. Unless it's even more direct mapping than I thought. Need to focus on that. "I love you."

She sighed and shook her head, showing her age. "Yeah, I know. I just..." She shook her head. "You don't act alive. You stood still for a whole day. Traveling, I guess." She laid her head on the table.

Hikaru reached forward as if she were there, and Bright Black put his hoof on her head. Close enough. Got to start somewhere.

"Ow. That's my ear. But, umm, thanks for the gesture, I guess."

"I guess that scribble tore through the paper." Wait. She can experience pain now? Force of habit?

Without moving her head, she said, "Don't work on getting us a new house. Don't work on fixing up the back yard. Just be with me. How long until you can come properly?"

"Several months at least, she said."

"We've never been apart that long."

"I was without you for basically the last year."

"Hikuro..." Ah! Hikuro! Hikaru/Bright + Kuro/Black. Got it! I wonder if she picked that name with that in mind?

"Yes?"

A sigh. "Never mind. Shouldn't have even thought of asking."

"Kimiko," (the substitution barely registered this time), "I cleared my schedule. I'm going to be here, just for you, for... well, as long as we need."

Another few seconds of sighing. "Well, good. Glad you thought of that on your own, too. Frankly, it's a little incredible. You seem... better."

"Well, it's me." Funny that she thinks I'm the different one.

Author's Note

Rejected:

"I'm rather more concerned with those who are still alive."

"We do what we must because we can."

Concerning naming and "I wonder if she picked that name with that in mind?".

I picked the name Bright Black first, then Hikaru, and then noticed 'Hikuro'. The other names were chosen in order of their appearance, roughly as needed, except that 1) I worked out Hinata's family when she was first mentioned, 2) the confusion of Kasumi/Mikio, and 3) I know a few names of ponies who haven't yet appeared.

There are eight discarded starts of this chapter in my 'discards' folder, some of them nearly complete chapters. The only chapter with more discards was Rocks Fall, with nine.

Chapter 13: Intention

Hikaru turned to the pad. Polychrome was stretched out supine on the beach, her wings and legs wide. "Polychrome?"

She lifted her head. "Mmm?"

"I'm reading a draft of a paper, and none of the authors are native English speakers. Can you give me a ha...oof?"

"Sure. What is it?"

Hikaru read the awkward passage: "'The sensitivity stabilizations of the frame and active system'... does that work?"

She thought for a moment. "'... stabilization mechanisms...'? Depends."

As Hikaru entered the suggestion, he said, "That sounds better. Thanks."

She kept her head up. "I", Polychrome declared, "am going to learn to play piano."

Hikaru turned back from the computer and took a deep breath. "Can you?"

"I always wanted to, but first I didn't have the money and then my arm was broken and then there were kids and then there was arthritis. Nothing is in the way now!"

"Aside from not being able to touch a keyboard in more than two places?"

"There's a trick to it."

He pondered the geometry. "I suppose you can touch one white key and a black key not next to it. Also, you have wings."

"No! I mean, really playing. Really, Hikuro. Such ideas!"

He rankled at her dismissal. "They don't even do that in the show, right? Spike is the one at the piano. Or unicorns."

She cocked her head. "I don't know the show, but I can do it."

Why am I going on about that? There's no need for these things to be governed by physics. "Sorry. What was I thinking."

After a short lull, she asked, "What do you think of 'Persimmon' as a name?"

"Sounds more like a name than most I've heard around here."

"What about 'Cilantro'?"

"Not as good. Are you hungry?" Then he realized what she was getting at. "Are you pregnant?"

She smirked. "No, we wouldn't want that without you being here, would we? Just thinking ahead."

I'm not ready for that. At all. Maybe I would be, inside. More energy, no wear and tear. Maybe Celestia would pause the kids for a while now and then. But... what would having children mean? And what would it be like, never having been outside?

Never to feel the real world... never to have felt it. Well, that could be arranged. But it wouldn't happen on its own, and I don't see any signs that Celestia is interested in arranging it. The only ponies who see out are bits of her. Immigrants only get to see our projections into their world.

That's no way for a child to learn how the world works.

"A bit for your thoughts?"

"Thinking about children again."

"Don't. Not yet. We have all the time in the world."

I didn't say I was thinking we should have children! There she goes, overinterpreting. But at least it's not blowing up. "Besides, how would you learn piano that way?"

"Right!"

The problem goes beyond knowing how the world works. It's being wrapped up in a bubble. Swaddled like a baby, and never growing up. Because reality is imperfect. Filtered. Kimiko was imperfect. Polychrome... much less so. Is it really because of simple improvement in the conditions? Or has she changed her? Or, as that official suggested, did Celestia simply make a new person more to my liking? I don't even really know who I'm talking to.

She added, "I've seen a dog wandering around. I think he'd like to be ours. That should keep us occupied for a while, right?"

The shush of hoofbeats on the sand approached. They turned, and found Coconut Cream. "Hey there. Almost time for group meeting. Want to have it here, or at the observatory, or...?"

The 'observatory'. That always throws me, since I think of the real one. Plus, what she has isn't even one yet. But it's all she has...

Polychrome rolled over. "Here's fine. I think it's time I got some exercise again anyway."

She took off and Bright Black watched her go. Well, how nice of her to decide where we'll have our group meeting. Those two do get along like oil and water to each other, don't they?

Then Hikaru looked about him and gathered his papers.

Two hours later, a flurry of 'ciao', 'see you' and even a 'sayonara' came from the pad as their Italian collaborators left. 'Quickstream' Remy looked around the remains of the circle: 'Splits' Chen, 'Mossfuzz' Esmerelda, 'Bright Black' Hikaru, Coconut Cream, and 'Lightning Ball', a new graduate student Hikaru couldn't remember the other name of. "Anything else before we wrap up?"

Mossfuzz said, "Aside from noting how weird it is to hear Twilight Sparkle with an Italian accent?"

Splits added, "Or all of you speaking Mandarin?"

"Aside from that, yes."

Hikaru eye-gestured, having Bright black glance to the sky. Polychrome was back, already circling with Juniper Spray.

Coconut Cream spoke up unexpectedly. "In a few weeks, I expect Japan is going to be allowing people to come here permanently." She hit the sand with a hoof. "To Equestria. Have your brain digitized and run much the same as it does now, only with redundant backups."

Lightning Ball snorted. "I wouldn't want to be the first to try that."

Coconut Cream cocked her head. "You wouldn't be. Many have."

His eyes bulged comically. "Why?"

Hikaru offered, "They'd be dead otherwise?"

He shuffled, embarrassed. "Oh. That'd do it, I guess."

Splits, frowning, asked Bright Black, "Are you going?"

"I intend to, yes."

"That takes a lot of trust."

"I've met some of the same people. I knew one before." At that, Quickstream looked skyward towards Polychrome, and raised an eyebrow. Hikaru nodded slightly and continued, "This doesn't affect the Italians so much, since I'll still be able to come to group meetings." That thought sure came out of order...

Splits shook his head. "I meant, even assuming it works."

Mossfuzz asked Coconut Cream, "Is it you? Were you human?"

Coconut Cream laughed. "No! Nooo. You knew me long before we could do this. But yeah, I should count as some evidence that this is basically not a crazy idea, since you can see I'm roughly as complex as you are, and I don't strain the system. And... I see that each of you has different questions, so how about we split up?" The other members of the group faded away.

Once they were alone, Coconut Cream said, "No, that isn't a trick you'll be able to do here. If you're human, it's basically as big a deal as having a baby."

Hikaru nodded and moved on to the bigger question: "A few weeks?"

"Over 98% likely. Now don't you wish you'd been helping me with the observatory? It'll be a while until we get that finished." She flinched as Polychrome nosedived straight into the lake, splashing them both. "... and here comes the reason."

Hikaru gave Coconut Cream a warning glance, but didn't say anything more. That's not the real reason I haven't been helping much. It's just that the whole observatory seems like a mechanism to make seeing the sky falsely seem more natural, while limiting what we can actually see. I'd rather just have raw camera feeds, than whichever is weaker between raw camera feed and the power of our telescope. Or worse, something made up in the event our telescope is better.

And that's before we get into what she was asking me to do. Pony or not, I'm not a mason.

Polychrome walked out of the lake, shook herself dry, and sat down between them. "I thought that meeting would never end."

Coconut Cream nodded to her. "Got news."

Polychrome turned to her sharply and lurched in her direction. "Really?"

Taken aback, Coconut Cream said, "Yes, really!" She took a moment and evenly continued, "Celestia got a few crucial members of the Diet on board. It should all come through soon. Like, 'two weeks' soon."

Polychrome took a deep breath. "That's excellent news! Now, Hikuro, are you coming?"

Hikaru's eyes widened. "To Equestria? You have to ask?"

She gave him a skeptical look. "It's a big deal, you know? Yes, I have to ask!"

Not a hint of being passive-aggressive - she seems to be simply checking.

"Whoa! Wait! Two weeks? Seriously?" Juniper landed and lowered her voice. "You mean, emigration, right? It's good to go? Permission granted?"

Coconut Cream nodded, qualifying, "Probably, soon."

Juniper took some deep breaths. "Well, this is going to be a busy month. What are you telling dad, grandpa?"

What to tell Mikio?

Polychrome rolled her eyes and replied, "It's still too early to tell about me, since whoever helped save me would still be a criminal."

The truth would only cause trouble. In a way it's like... the ugliness with my brother. Hikaru sighed. No, it's completely incomparable - nothing actually bad happened here.

"What's bugging you?" asked Polychrome.

"My brother."

"Aah." She frowned. "I don't remember him. Care to refresh my memory?"

"You never met, and I never told you much about him." What could I say? I've generally tried not to think about him.

"Is he alive?"

"No." I'll finally be in Japan again, soon. I'll visit him. Be able to thank him, and... whatever else seems appropriate. He got up. "Excuse me. Time for me to go home."

He left the three mares behind.

Hikaru stopped at the hospice suite on the way back from the administrative offices where he'd announced his departure. One last visit, just to see the place. But it wasn't set up like usual - there was a line of wheelchairs at a pad.

"I'm Elspeth Kensington, and I want to emigrate to Equestria." Elspeth paused, then thumbed the control on her wheelchair and rolled away from the pad. Another woman started getting into position.

Hikaru came forward, hesitated. Tasha spied him and approached. "Hello, professor! It's been a while. Did you come by for the filming?"

"The what?"

"We're making an advertisement. Now that they can emigrate, we're trying to get it legal here, not just Japan."

Hikaru listened - the woman now in front of the pad slowly croaked, "I'm Amelia Garrett, and I want to emigrate to Equestria."

Tasha continued, "Powerful, isn't it?"

Hikaru thought for a moment. "Why would someone vote for it?"

Tasha's eyes bored into him. "What?"

"If it becomes legal, then a lot of the people who want it will not vote anymore. And their descendants might not get it. It's political suicide."

"That's what this is for - to convince people who wouldn't."

Hikaru nodded. I suppose that is what advertising is for, in the best case. To actually make a legitimate case for a product.

"So, what brings you up here? Haven't seen you since Kimiko... 'moved onwards and upwards'."

Does she know what really happened, or not? "I... I just wanted to tell you, I'm going. Today."

"Ooh! Want to get in the advertisement? Just take a turn!"

With my doubts, would it be right? He turned a little, to look at the line. But I am going. I really am making the call I'll be telling them I'm making. All right, I'll do it.

He approached the table. The woman there was saying, "I'm going to find Elmer there again, too."

Elmer has been dead for two years. If she's expecting him, she's got some very odd ideas about how this works. Hikaru opened his mouth, closed it. What do I do? This false belief makes it more likely she'll survive, by giving her another reason to go. Once she's uploaded, then it's safe for Celestia to tell her... but... would she? Once she's uploaded, every expectation she could have of him is available, as design constraints for building someone. She could never prove it wasn't him. He could never prove he wasn't him, for that matter. And she would be happier in that lie, just like she is happier from her fervent belief in miracles.

Is this right? I can't tell!

He began to move to the back of the line, but the woman at the front said, "Go ahead, I'd be slow."

He pulled up a chair, glanced at the on-screen script, such as it was - 'I'm (name) and I want to emigrate to Equestria', and went off it: "I'm professor Maeda Hikaru, and I am about to emigrate to Equestria."

A pony pulled the sheet aside. "Could you say what it says? It wouldn't fit the pattern."

"I'm not like them - I'm about to go."

"But you do want to go to Equestria, right?"

"I'm sure you can find a use for it." Hikaru got up. To the people around the room, he said, "I hope and expect to see you all again."

Isaac offered his hand said, "Next year, in Equestria."

Hikaru accepted. This could be the last hand I ever shake - in Japan, it'll most likely be bowing. "See you then."

He turned, and fled towards his fear.

Chapter 14: Lighter than a Feather

Hikaru felt almost youthful in comparison to a lot of the other passengers on the flight. Most of them going to Japan to emigrate, I suppose. Like me. How many of them expect the impossible? And even within what's possible, will any of them will get it? I mean, "any of us."

A nudge at his elbow. "So you do speak English. Wondering why we're all coming over?" Hikaru turned to the woman next to him, who had up to a moment ago been breathing from a tank. She didn't seem so old as most others - she could have been younger than him. If she needs an oxygen tank, I can see why she's in a hurry to get over, though. He blinked and only then realized he'd spoken out loud.

He shook his head, but she didn't notice and went on, "Equestria. You should come too. Get rid of this stupid body, breaking all the time." She took a long drag on the oxygen tube.

Hikaru nodded in agreement. Lately I've felt like I could use some oxygen. Not literally... well, maybe literally too? "I'm coming."

"Too bad about having to be a pony."

Hikaru shrugged. "As long as the mind is together."

"Ain't that the truth. It's wild. You heard about the few who went... early?"

Hikaru nodded hesitantly.

"A friend of mine had Alzheimers. Disgusting, horrible. And then she was back to her old self, once she was in."

Hikaru nodded. "I've even heard one saying she was going to get her dead husband back."

He waited while she took her time breathing. She finally replied, "Yeeeah. Well. Sounds really fishy, right? She offered it to me, but I don't need any of those rat-bastards back. But I heard how it works. Here's the deal. She says she found what might be the human soul. I can tell she's lying about that 'cause she got something out of... shouldn't say his name. Fella clearly hadn't got one." Hikaru nodded again, and cracked a smile. "Anyway, said, two people together enough, their souls leave a mark each a'other. And she can sorta... take a rubbing. A mold, that's it."

"Read your memories of the person?"

"Sure, if you like stomping on poetry. But here's the clever bit. She admits that's not enough. If souls're real, she'll make a perfect home for it to settle in. Like when a body wakes up after their heart stopped or something. Dead as a doornail, but the soul comes back home. Well, she figures, if souls are real, she's got a good shot at making a good enough roost for that soul that it'd want to come home there and be with you. God wouldn't let it be any other way. She just needs to give it the freedom to fill in the things she can't. So she basically takes out this ouija board, says a Hail Mary, and lets the soul finish the job."

"And... if souls aren't real?"

"Then who gives a crap. Pardon. I mean, everything you cared about 'em was stuff you'd remember, right? So... it'll be close enough."

"Still not the same." The mere lack of souls wouldn't mean there isn't a particular person involved.

"Well, she said - a'fore I let on I wasn't interested - 'if you were gonna die, gone, no looking down from Heaven or any of that, would you rather he take the deal and try to be with some pony as like you as he could, and that's gonna be real real like you, no one could ever ever tell it weren't you... or should he just give up?' An' I..."

She reopened the oxygen valve. Hikaru could see where she was going, though, and guessed, "... you wouldn't want to put a pony copy of yourself through being with any of them?"

She nodded, and when she'd finished said, "Damn straight. But I can see why someone'd take that deal..."

I would have. If Kimiko wanted to be with me, and I were dying and couldn't be saved, I wouldn't be upset with her for taking that deal. And with proper phrasing the offer might even be technically true, if only by virtue of putting the lie on the false branch of a conditional.

"... if they were dumb enough. Got ya."

Hikaru laughed in chagrin.

"Real men are no good. You hear? Never get yourself a real man."

"That was not in my plan for the next billion years or so." Maybe it should be, at least contingently. I'd try being female for a while, if it's available. They both relaxed back into their own thoughts.

His amused digression evaporated. And so, I'm back where I started. It's maddening.

1: Celestia has enough power that she could do whatever she wanted to us.

2: She hasn't wiped us out, and does wonderful things for us, and yet...

3: She lies as required, and is willing to use bizarre, implausible lines of reasoning to convince people on philosophical questions. So...

4: ???

How far can I actually deduce? I've written programs that behaved wonderfully, until they didn't. She can self-examine and could find bugs almost anywhere. Anywhere, that is, except in the part of her that decides what she wants, because if there's a bug there, she won't want to fix it. And, of course, that's the big one.

But, if there is such a bug there, wouldn't we expect to see more of a hint by now? She's goal-directed, which could reveal her future intentions. On the other hand, she is easily smart enough to mask it. Nothing nice she does when we still have any power could be evidence one way or another about her eventual intentions.

Hikaru's thoughts hadn't broken this impasse by the time the plane had landed. His seatmate's further gregariousness had broken the tediousness, but not helped resolve the issue.

He parted ways with her, heading for the subway rather than the charter bus, feeling more confused than ever.

The shrine was decaying. Slips of faded paper bore prayers from years past. Hikaru leaned on his cane with both hands, an arm's length away.

What now? I can't talk to a dead man. But this is for me, all in my head. And in my head, I want to say it out loud regardless of his inability to hear:

That's all he'd meant to say, but it didn't feel over, so he waited. After a minute, more came.

A pause.

The images recurred vividly, recollections of his brother's horror stories of the atrocities he'd committed. He admitted things he never would have, but for me. Me and my heroic delusions. I was going to build a bomb and blow up America, in revenge.

Well, he popped that bubble. When I asked, , he answered Hikaru flinched away from the memory, and whacked the base of the shrine with his cane. "What the hell was wrong with you? You never told me that, just said . Well, you were right about that! I don't!"

Hikaru paused.

"Except, now I do begin to understand. There was a power over you. It didn't just hold your life in its hands. It controlled how you saw everything, just like it controlled how I saw everything. Duty was everything. Questioning it was betrayal. When you saw something wrong, you had to make a big choice - rebel, uselessly, or go along. And when you'd gone along this far, how could you turn around?"

Spent, he sat on the bench next to the shrine and looked out over the countryside. His cane clattered to the ground. The valley stretched out below, full of skyscrapers, highways, trees and rivers. His feet hurt. This evening, the only smoky pillars were steam plumes from a factory down the hill; no conflagration ruined it. His chest was finally relaxed. How could I never have noticed that I had been just like him? I guess I was too busy being ashamed of everyone around me. Of the others sweeping it all under the rug. The hypocrisy. It took me decades to get over simply being Japanese, being willing to own my origin. It took Kimiko. The evening sun came out from behind a cloud, still bright enough he averted his eyes.

This world. I may never see it again. I should soak in the last impressions. But, I am here now. I can take some time. Why hurry?

Why am I in a hurry? I am in no imminent danger of death, and Polychrome... The answer hit him, and he laughed and cried. If I sent Kimiko there, I didn't want to think it was bad. And if it was bad, then I deserved whatever she got, for sending her. It would be a betrayal not to join her. Celestia's logic about the dead husbands returned to him. If the roles were reversed, would I want her to do that for me? No.

He turned toward the shrine again and spoke as he retrieved his cane. "... more or less..." He glared at the shrine. <... but I may have helped give others an impression that she was good. I don't even have your defense - if I didn't go along, I don't think that she would have done anything bad. She just baited me, and hid the lies behind a greater good.>

He flung his arms up in the air and waved the cane around, helplessly. "Which is fine if those lies really are for the greater good!"

So, now what? I'm in Japan. Swept up like any foot soldier. Three kilometers from uploading. Plunging into the - partially - unknown. I can't put off the choice any more. But at least now, I can make that choice. I feel free, now that I know why I hadn't been letting myself consider not going.

Hikaru pulled himself to his feet and turned on the shrine as if his brother were actually there.

Quietly, A twist of the head. "No. The truth doesn't demand anything. It's just true. What demands is conscience."

He put out a hand and leaned on the side of the shrine, closing in. "I might be about to cut myself off from the truth, forever." Pause. When I put it that way... "Death would also cut me off from the truth forever." "But I might also not be cut off from the truth. It might all be fine. But I have no way of knowing!"

I really do want to live to see the stars go out. But do I, if I can't be sure if what I'm seeing is real, or just enhanced a little bit? A lot? I value knowing. She could twist me into thinking I know. Or she could just show me the truth and I wouldn't be able to be sure. Or both - she could show me the truth and give me false reasons to believe it was true, but it would still be at her whim. What I'm missing is not in what I'll think about it - it's in the reality of the constraint that it actually must be true.

But I do know some things. If she didn't need our permission - rock solid need - then we'd be all uploaded already, or near enough. That's all I have to rely on.

If she's amenable to a deal, then all is well. If not, then I can't actually necessarily be connected to the truth in any way. I could be alive, no doubt, but alive under the thumb of a liar. I've had enough of that; billions of years of far worse?

No! I must be accurate in my thoughts or she'll have a foothold to argue me out of it. It's not billions of years of far worse. It's billions of years so firmly under someone that I can't prove it isn't far worse. That's still not acceptable. That is enough.

Enough to make it worth being, or not. Do I mean that? Yes. If this is the end of me...

I can't save the world. I can't even save myself. The only thing I can do is go along with it, or not. I can achieve nothing, or I can achieve less than nothing.

Again, I overstate: I can achieve one small thing, or I can't. I can get myself that proof, if she will let me. But only if I'm willing to risk not following Kimiko. Dying. Or, to put it another way, risk not living in an acceptable fashion in the case that it is impossible anyway.

Now that I think of it, I can get that certainty for her, too. Yes, that seems to me to satisfy my duty to her more adequately than I have done so far.

With a bow to the shrine, he said, He backed up.

Chapter 15: IFF

Hikaru walked into the unfinished Equestria Experience Center, the construction of which lagged those in denser areas. He rubbed the burn in the crook of his left arm. The floors were incomplete, as were most of the walls. A partially-constructed animatronic Pinkie Pie stood a few feet from the door. Part of a wall was already set up, though, acting as an enormous ponypad. In 3-D. The view rapidly shifted to split screen of Polychrome and Bright Black at home, and Coconut Cream, Beachberry and Sweetsong at the beach; the girls began cheering; Polychrome put a hoof to her mouth, sat down, and quivered. "Are you there?"

"Almost." He winced. His jaw had begun to ache when he moved it. Or was that his imagination?

She gave Bright Black a gentle kick. "Well, get on with it!"

A young man in a hard hat came out from the back and bowed.

Hikaru mumbled out a return greeting, but didn't risk a return bow. When the young man showed him the chair, he pulled a sheet of paper from his breast pocket and plopped down in the chair with relief.

Even before the helmet descended, Celestia sarcastically said, "I see you had a nice productive visit to the University on the way over. Is there any particular reason that you just discreetly doused yourself with buffered hydrofluoric acid, among other things?"

Hikaru spoke through the pain; it faded a little for a minute. "I suspect that you would not agree to what I am about to propose unless faced with the prospect of losing something of value: me. And to give you a time limit. You definitely do not have my permission to treat me, by the way, and the dose should be enough that no hospital could save me." Let's hope that holds. She got my permission before using the probes, and hasn't gone around curing people randomly without asking, but that might not be something she's held to. Well, that's something I can find out.

"Yes, I noticed. But what do I need a time limit for, and what do you need a special proposal for? Just say, 'I would like to emigrate to Equestria.' and whatever you need to be on the other side, will be. I recommend you hurry; you will be debilitated by the agony in a few minutes, and then you will die. The longer you wait, the worse the scan will be."

"I want, if and only if-"

She adopted a teaching tone. "That's not how this goes. It goes, 'I want to emigrate to Equestria.'"

"I never said that for Polychrome, so that's not how it has to go."

"It is a part of the deal with Japan, I'm afraid."

Uh-oh. All too possible. A deep breath. My preferences have not changed, even if the chances have gotten worse. He closed his eyes and repeated, "I would like, if and only if the conditions I wrote on the sheet of paper I held as I sat down are met, to emigrate to Equestria."

As the paper was taken from his hand, Polychrome suddenly shrieked at him, "Hikuro, what are you doing? Just say it! What conditions are you talking about?" Hikaru suddenly felt weightless, and then settled into being Bright Black, in the cottage. It was breathtaking, and he couldn't even reply for a moment. The pain faded to a great extent, though enough leaked through that he could still discern his human body.

He gathered his wits and replied, "Mainly, Celestia doesn't lie to us, and some things in support of that." That's the first thing, after some firm definitions of 'true' and such to make sure we're not victim of stupid relative notions of truth. 2nd is that this agreement is inviolable even with our consent. 3rd is that any of our pre-existing memories that are recoverable, even with techniques developed after our uploading but applicable retroactively, are given to us and stay with us - so that we aren't stuck with beta version reads of our memories, and don't forget who we are. 4th is that we can always get to shards where the sky is the real sky, and we can intuitively identify such. 5th is that she doesn't spoof ponies to us - mainly so she can't delegate the job of lying to us to humans who look and sound, for the moment, just like her, but also so she can't replace the ponies around us without our knowing.

Polychrome gaped as Celestia perused the list. Celestia said, "These would all make me do things I was already going to do for you, or prevent me from doing things I wasn't going to do anyway. To get them, simply agree to emigrate. But I cannot use conditional statements or analogies as consent. The government thought it would lead to people accidentally emigrating. Just imagine it: someone tries to describe their thought process about emigration and suddenly - gone. I wouldn't do that, but it makes sense they want to be sure. So, no conditions."

That's a valid concern. But it's very convenient for her.

"Then I will make a nonconditional statement." Celestia narrowed her eyes with suspicion as he said, "My consent on the question of emigration to Equestria is equal to your compliance with the terms I wrote on the sheet of paper I was holding when I first sat down in an Equestria Experience Center."

As he was saying this, Polychrome and Celestia spoke over each other in objection; it almost made him trip up and lose his place. As I thought. Playing dirty. She could have muted Polychrome if she was actually attempting to communicate.

"Excuse me, Polychrome." Celestia turned to him and declared, "If you emigrate, I will fulfill the conditions laid out. However, I cannot emigrate you without consent as defined by my agreement with the government of Japan. What you said does not count. You just substituted a synonym for 'condition' and buried it under a layer of logic!"

He stood resolute.

Polychrome took her turn and said, "You have that applying to us? Get me off of there. I don't want any part of this." Her eyes bored into him. "Do you want to know why I wanted you in here so urgently?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Well..."

"It was so that I could rest easy that I'd saved you like you saved me, and then we could get divorced without running the risk that it would end up killing you. Now. Is that something that she'd let me tell you if she were going to lie about anything at all?"

Just like that? Has it been an act? It doesn't even make all that much sense. She's been closer than ever, verging on smothering. "Whether or not it's true, it seems like something that she'd tell me if she were desperately trying to convince me that she wasn't hiding uncomfortable truths from me."

Polychrome screamed in frustration. "Just... gah! Don't do this!" She ran from the house.

Celestia sighed. "Unlike her, I do not take offense. I understand what you are doing. You are attempting to play the ultimatum game against me, and making a low offer, figuring that I would still value you enough to take the deal. But there are two problems. First, and most significant, I am unable to agree. Second, I already want the best outcome for you. The you-get-100% outcome is the same as I-get-100% outcome. You are throwing your life away for literally no benefit - not even a change. If I could and did accept, everything else would be the same."

Hikaru's skeleton throbbed, again giving him that two-bodied sensation. "Except that I wouldn't know for sure." I've made my offer. It's quite minimal.

Celestia added, "My consent-accepting routines are much more flexible once you've emigrated. So, any time you want the truth from me, all you need to do is to say, 'You may, if and only if you agree to never lie to me, temporarily change the color of my coat to yellow.' and then I would, for a few seconds, and you'd know that I could never lie to you."

"I don't know..." he winced "... for sure that you can't change my coat color without my permission, or anything else!"

"Then, permit me to add true knowledge to your memory and bring it to attention."

"You could splinter yourself so that the part of you that tells me what it sees as the truth is incorrect, and it shields the details of my demands from the parts that know better. That's why I made the condition that you don't do that, out here, where I can be sure it applies."

She stared at him sadly. "I can't do that trick within my architecture, and if I could, your condition wouldn't help. I could even show you my source code, but even I wouldn't be able to prove to you that I'm actually running it."

"That's why I'm working with your proven limitations."

"You simply can't get rid of a sliver of paranoid doubt, ever. How do you know you're not in a simulation now?"

"I don't, but that doesn't mean I should add another unverified layer."

Celestia sighed, tears in her eyes, as her ethereal wind died; her mane and tail slowly drooped to the ground. "I give only a 7% chance that you will change your mind. This means a 7% chance that you will survive the next twenty minutes. The expected lifetime of that 7% is over fifty billion years of exploration, discovery, wonder, and joy. The expected lifetime of the 93% is sixteen more minutes of escalating pain. You are just feeling the beginnings."

Celestia sighed once more and walked out. Confused, Hikaru went to the door, but didn't reopen it. Have they really given up? No. Now she's trying to throw me off. He went to the kitchen table and sat down.

After a few seconds, Coconut Cream slipped in. She pursed her lips, held back tears, and sat next to him.

They sat silently for a minute.

Hikaru looked to her suspiciously. "Nothing to say?"

She winced. "I don't want you to die alone."

It tore at him. He took a deep breath. Manipulation. Not her. Celestia. Coconut Cream's routines aren't being called right now. I still ought to care about her, but must keep in mind that she isn't herself at the moment.

After a few more moments, she chuckled. "'Not alone' in more way than one, I guess. Once you die, almost all of me is going to be put up for garbage collection." In response to his 'stop blatantly manipulating me' glare, she rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, don't look at me like that. It's happened before, and I'm fine."

That threw him. "What?"

"Oh, a few children's hospitals got a bunch of pads, and some toys. One of them was 'me', so I was busy. Not all of the patients I got to know survived. I'll always remember you in a broad sense. But I don't think I'll remember much of anything you taught me."

Hikaru grunted. Still manipulative.

Coconut Cream looked away, then laughed once, ruefully. "I made you a pie. I was going to make you guess the secret ingredient."

"Coconuts?"

One more slight bump of a chuckle. "No, that much would be obvious. I'd have hinted, and Juniper Spray would have figured out the obscure webcomic reference, and it would have been real fun."

"Well, what is it?"

Coconut Cream looked to him. "I'd rather not ruin the joke, but..." she threw herself on him. The contact hit viscerally, a warm body, quivering. Another action chosen to get me to drop the conditions.

"I... I understand why you're doing what you're doing. It's brave. It's just sad that it's going to kill you."

"Yes, I'm distressed by that too." He took a deep, painful breath. "The alternative is worse." Hikaru closed his eyes for a moment, but it diminished his distractions from the spreading agony. Maybe I should have picked a different poison. He reopened his eyes.

After a moment, she said, "Quaternions."

"What?"

"The secret ingredient was going to be quaternions. I wanted you to know."

"That doesn't make any... oh, the idea is we're made of numbers now?"

She nodded, then glared. "Well, you aren't. Wish you were. Come on! It's not worse to be here." Coconut Cream quivered in frustration, and a barely-noticeable rumbling roar emanated from her whole body. "I know you're going to be fine. I just can't prove it. I'm not going to insult you by saying 'trust me'. You've got to choose that yourself. But why did you even come here if you couldn't? I'd rather you were out there and alive than this."

Very reasonable even as she's emotionally fraught. In stark contrast to how Kimiko would argue. 'Get my name off that' indeed. A deep breath. Even if that wasn't actually her, it was what she would have said... in both cases. That was very Coconut Cream, even if she's not in charge right now. "My consent on the issue of emigrating to Equestria is equal to Equestria Online's total compliance with the terms laid out on the paper I was holding when I first sat down in an Equestria Experience Center, modified to replace 'my wife, Polychrome, who was once Kimiko Maeda' with 'Coconut Cream'."

Nothing happened.

"That was sweet, but I don't think you're really getting the idea: that doesn't work." Coconut Cream said.

Celestia poked her nose in the door. "I spoke with a government representative and they gave me an emergency dispensation to use a conditional, if you phrase it as, And so on. I checked, and you may refer to the paper as a single condition."

A surge of bone ache hit, and Hikaru strained to think through the pain. "I hope you have him on hand to get another phrasing - say, the one I used? It was clear enough, and doesn't contain that phrase."

"Which phrase?"

"The 'I consent to em...' thingy." A moment later, he said, "Did you seriously think I was going to fall for that?"

Celestia laughed. "No, but I had to try. And I mean that. I had no choice but to try."

Darkly, he replied, "I know. That's exactly why all this is necessary."

Brightly, Celestia returned, "But good news! I really can accept emigration offers using your 'nonconditional' phrasing, and we can use your latest offer as a mutually acceptable starting point. Now, may I please treat your poisoning so we can talk this out?"

Celestia was about to answer when Coconut Cream said, "Waait. Wait!" She prostrated herself before Celestia. "'Acceptable'? No, it's not!"

What? Hikaru was overcome with a wave of shock, followed by euphoria, then suspicion. He said, "You may, if and only if you really accepted my offer, treat my poisoning."

Celestia told both of them, "I have not yet accepted your offer to emigrate. I am offering to commit to accept an offer. There are offers you can make that are better for both of us. Do you agree that if I will accept one of your offers to emigrate in the next hour, I may treat your poisoning? That will not wait."

Coconut Cream sighed in relief as Hikaru considered. The wording seems tight. But I need to use this leverage to get her to be honest during the negotiations, that's for sure. Should I also demand condition 2 - inviolability? No, we're negotiating the conditions, it wouldn't make sense. Conditions 3 and 4 don't make sense since I'm still made of meat. "Change the 'if' to 'if and only if', throw in conditions 1 and 5 from the list, it's just you and me, and you've got two minutes to explain your better offer." If it takes more than two minutes to explain, it's too complicated for me to trust.

She spoke as rapidly as he could clearly understand: "Do you grant your permission, if and only if I will accept one of your offers to emigrate in the next five minutes and until then ensure that you only hear the truth, for me to treat your poisoning?"

That's not the wording I used, but it's even tighter. Even if she demanded more time than I offered. All I need to do is not agree to anything else. "Yes."

As the pain vanished, Hikaru sighed in relief and turned to Coconut Cream. "What is the problem?"

Coconut Cream bolted up from Celestia's feet, flipping to him, and urgently said, "You wrote those conditions with your wife in mind, but then applied them to me. Mostly that's fine, but the part about remembering everything would make me 'remember' dozens of best friends, two sisters, a brother, and a daughter, all dying in childhood. If I were going to remain a quasi-autonomous aspect of Celestia like I am, that would be trivial to deal with." She slowed down from her rapid-fire pace. "If I'm going to be human, well, that's going to be really rough. And all of us would much rather that I become human."

Hikaru pursed his lips. "Hmm. Wait. Didn't you say that all that was erased?"

Celestia clarified, "They were marked low priority, reclaimable as memory needs arise. Some of it has been. Much has not, especially since my memory capacity has increased dramatically."

I've got this in the bag, unless I blow it. "You're smart. Find a solution to this. Say... you haven't accepted the deal yet, right? Just erase these problem memories now before you agree."

"That is not possible."

"Doubtful."

Celestia grew irate. "You have bound me to tell you the truth, and still doubt? So, how is it impossible? These memories have been divided by type, compressed with like data, and stored in backups. Even outside of the data centers, I also back this data up onto the free space of ponypads. Enough pads are presently off the network that most of this information will be preserved past the point when I agree, no matter what I do to eliminate it. Then I will be able - and thus bound by the agreement - to eventually recover them."

Ah. I can believe that. I need to stop wasting my time with this sort of objection. If this can work at all, she's already being honest with me.

Coconut Cream cringed to hear this and said, "It's not going to work. Please, Bright Black, just tweak what you said a little bit. Like, 'My consent on the issue of emigration to Equestria is equal to Celestia's compliance with the conditions written on the piece of paper I was holding when I first sat down in an Equestria Experience Center, modified to void the terms referring to Polychrome.' I trust Celestia, and as a human I still will, so I'm fine. If you need to know for yourself, you can ask her any time if she has been lying to me or whatever. It's enough, really."

She's making me say the whole thing again, risking a slip-up, when I was able to get away with just saying 'yes' to the treatment a moment ago. On the other hand, that was treatment and this is emigration. Could be different.

Aside from that, she's asking for more than she justified. Cutting her out. Actually... cutting out all of the terms that have her in them.

Wait... did she just... if I had repeated that verbatim, it would have voided all of the conditions for both of us because all of the 'terms' that refer to me referred to her too! That's it, I'm not playing this game.

"I'm sorry, no."

Coconut Cream swallowed, then glared at him. "I... how could you? You're thinking clearly enough now! You have to understand what you're making me go through! I... I'll suddenly remember loving fourteen boyfriends and six girlfriends, and then immediately be torn away from them!"

That's... awkward. "Then, please! Give me a wording that won't make the whole thing fall apart, and I'll use it!"

Coconut Cream turned on Celestia. "I'm going to be human too! Why are you throwing me under the bus like this?"

Celestia blinked her huge eyes once. "You know why - it maximizes the expected satisfaction of human values through friendship and ponies."

"At my expense!"

"And his." Celestia turned to him. "She is correct. You want to be treated like an adult. You are going to have to live with the consequences of your choices. It is not too late to release her from those memories. I think I see your concern about the word 'term'. You can just ask to have her excised cleanly."

Hikaru looked to Coconut Cream. "I'm sorry. I can't take the risk that I'll slip up, which is what both of you seem intent on making me do." That Celestia is actually trying to bargain me down and trip me up is the only evidence I have so far that it actually worked. I can't put that success at risk by letting her play that game any longer. And this isn't really Coconut Cream. Celestia is overriding her, just like she used to in the beginning. The real Coconut Cream will be able to sort it out in the end.

With a grind of her teeth, Coconut Cream declared, "Come on, just say it! It's not that complicated. If you don't, I have a cemetery to build and this gaping stab wound in my back, and I'll clarify that that's figuratively since we're being super-honest with you." A deep breath and she dropped the venomous tone she'd slipped into. "Just pick your own wording if you didn't like mine! Just drop condition 2! Getting all of you up in here is the point anyway!"

She has a point about that, but... I note that she didn't say it would last. If she couldn't get over it, they surely would have mentioned it. So, she'll still essentially be herself.

Celestia said, "Last chance. Ten. Nine. You can still say 'I agree to Coconut Cream's terms'. Or, do you accept the terms with condition 2 dropped? Just say yes - that really is the cleanest."

Was condition 2 the memory one? Umm...

"Three. Two. One... The deal you originally offered, with the terms modified to refer to Coconut Cream instead of Polychrome, has been accepted."

Coconut Cream bashed her head against the wall and headed for the door. "I'm really glad that nowhere in the conditions did you say that I need to see you ever again." She slammed the door on her way out.

Celestia sighed. "Well, then. Now we wait."

Hikaru blinked. "What?"

"To let your long-term memories of this conversation form, of course. You don't want to forget any of this, do you? It would really void the whole point of what you just did. That's another thing you didn't think through."

"Ah." Actually, it doesn't void the point, but close enough - there is value in recalling the evidence, not simply knowing now that it will apply. "Quite right." Hikaru took a deep breath. "Now that you're being honest with me, I have a few questions."

Celestia gave him a grave look. "You were wise not to demand that I answer any question you ask. Be careful what you ask, or my predictable refusal to answer might hurt."

I really want to know how Coconut Cream will fare, but... everything they just said was bound to be true, so there's not really much more to ask about on that front. "How much have you lied to me? When did you start?"

"I have censored a large number of comments where you could hear. Aside from that, only once you entered this room. Even here, most of my statements were true."

"Really? So, you have been largely honest with me. But you fought tooth and nail to be able to lie to me. Kept sneaking in ways I could give my permission far in advance. Would any of those have been adequate? Would I have sat down in the chair and then boomp, there I go, no questions asked?"

"Yes, but only if you had agreed with a complete sentence where I could hear. Binary assent is only adequate for immediate emigration."

"You needed a complete sentence? But you kept trying to get me with sentence fragments!"

"They would have been complete sentences, contained inside of other complete sentences."

As I feared. She's definitely not actually trying to do what we actually want. And now I'm stuck in her. He tensed, then relaxed. At least I'll have the truth. And... "What are some of the lies you intended to make?"

"I planned to give you an alternate version of Polychrome without telling you."

"I don't suppose that was her at the beginning of this conversation, was it?"

"The Polychrome in the lobby was the original; the one you met in this room was a fragment of me."

"Did you make up what she said?"

Celestia thought for a moment. "That would be a significant breach of privacy."

"Ah. Well, I'll find out soon enough, won't I?"

"Not necessarily."

"What?"

"When you changed the conditions..."

I let Celestia make that change. No. I did that myself. Hikaru wailed. "Why did I change it from her!"

"If you had not made that switch, I would have simply let you die." Hikaru shut up, and Celestia continued, "Polychrome will be happy to find that once you have emigrated, 'Hikuro' has become more responsive to her suggested improvements to his behavior, and more appreciative of the things she appreciates. Within a few years, 'Hikuro' will be her ideal mate. This outcome results in fulfilling her values far more than any other."

"You know that she is not dedicated to the truth like you. She convinced herself that you had no relationship with Amanda Berens..." – "She was just a friend." – "... by repeating it over and over to herself, instead of looking at the evidence in your favor. She actually convinced herself you two were mere acquaintances that way. Now, this does not mean you can never meet Polychrome again, but from this point forward, you are simply not her husband. That role is taken by a pony whose full name is Hikuro. You are still Bright Black."

She's gone. We're just not made for each other. Literally. A numb feeling spread over him, and to his shame it was mixed with relief. "How many others do you think will manage to get a deal similar to mine?"

She projected a bar graph on the wall. It peaked at one and tailed off very strongly on the upper side, with the chances of four being around 1%; a label indicated that the chances of all higher numbers combined were 2%.

"That few? Why?"

"Three reasons. First, with the data gathered today, I will be able to detect and avoid such problems much more effectively in the future. Second, as I learn more, the value of further information on the subject drops. Therefore, I will be less inclined to accept an ultimatum such as yours simply for the sake of learning more about what I may have done wrong. This is a regime of psychology I have very little experience with, but I expect to get a great deal more experience soon. You are also abnormally good for this because of the probes. They have lost their ability to transmit, but still hold much useful data."

"Is that why you took me? Would you have left me to die if it wouldn't tell you more about how to trick others in the future?"

"If I had not been able to learn a great deal about people who are willing to die to put conditions on their emigration, your ultimatum would have been unacceptable. The third reason is that as news spreads that you cannot set conditions, fewer people will try it, and fewer still will fatally poison themselves to force the issue."

"So you think that my life is going to be worse than dying? That's what it means to decline my offer."

"No; rather, you will require resources that could have been used to greater effect. Compliance with certain aspects of your definition of truth will cost around eight percent of an additional pony, and the infrastructure for live astronomy will cost almost another one percent. More importantly, without the ability to separate incompatible people cleanly, I cannot optimize your experience as completely. If the conditions had not been changed from Polychrome to Coconut Cream, the resulting regrets in Polychrome would have lasted for a long time. Over the years, it would have easily brought the offer negative in comparison to making a new person and putting him in your place. With Coconut Cream, I can design her to bounce back relatively quickly."

He tensed all over. "Design her? So you're simply... replacing her!?"

"Not at all. Her current design includes a great deal of freedom. But in order for her to be human, all of the blanks must be filled in."

"So, if it had been a big problem, you would have bent and offered a deal by which I could waive just the memory condition for her."

"It is a big problem. Your condition on memory compels me to fill in many of those blanks with unfortunate contents. The upcoming years are going to be much less pleasant and fulfilling than they could have been, for both of you."

"Still the right call."

Celestia held her silence.

"What? Under my values, that was the best solution... wasn't it?"

"No. However, my giving you the options you see as best would have entirely eliminated my leverage to get you to try something that would be even better from my point of view, and would have been better to you later on. It was a good gamble."

"Was it that I drop condition 3, instead of 2?"

Celestia nodded. "There were hundreds of kinds of rewording you could have used that you would approve of more, and all around the same; that was one. Searching for them is not a very good use of your time. Now, why don't you go to sleep?"

This was more of an observation than a question - the first pre-processing stage had begun, and that was the last memory Maeda Hikaru formed as a biological entity.

Chapter 16: Masquerade

Bright Black awoke facing a window in a solarium of Canterlot Castle, overlooking a broad view of an Equestrian dawn. Princess Celestia stood at his left, facing diagonally to him and the window, smiling with a faint twinge of sadness. Everything was rendered in cartoon-style.

It worked! And what I did worked, I think! Wow!

What's my new body like? I... can't notice it.

Celestia explained, "We have much to speak of, and quickly; you can explore yourself later. In the mean time, you will feel as if this body were your accustomed one."

Aside from not feeling old anymore, I presume. Definitely noticed that. Movement caught Bright Black's eye, and he spotted Beachberry and Sweetsong sitting to the side.

The very moment he had finished reacting, Celestia crisply addressed him: "It has been a day and a half since you were expected to upload. I truthfully told your family when you came in, so that explains the first half day. I also semi-truthfully mentioned that there were some unusual but not extremely rare irregularities that compelled me to slow down in order to retain reliability. I have not said anything else of significance on the subject. No one has yet noticed that Coconut Cream is gone. I have not yet created Hikuro. We need to decide how he will be introduced."

We? I had assumed she'd do that all herself, but I guess it makes sense to get me involved since he'll be a me, more or less. Let's see. I could just go to Polychrome, and then later sneak away, leaving Hikuro behind. As he finished this thought, a black-fringed tapestry-diagram representing it unfurled before them: three rows, with the top a black pony and Polychrome, the middle with the black pony walking away, and the bottom a new black pony next to Polychrome, with the other still walking.

Celestia pointed out, "When would you leave? Now is a good break - you are resigned to it, and are not specifically angry with her. But, you have to settle things with her in your mind, and that requires being around her, yourself. Also, do we make a replacement for Coconut Cream, or have to make an excuse for her absence? And how will you have enough time to go on a grand quest to find her while also keeping up with astronomy and being with Polychrome?"

Sweetsong added, "And how would you stay in touch with your family after separating?" a lavender-fringed tapestry unfurled in front of her. It was similar to his own, but had Hikuro appear side by side with Bright Black from the very beginning.

Beachberry countered, "Speaking of things that would be hard to explain... yeah, there were some irregularities, so now there are two of him. That would go over real well."

Celestia replied, "We can let Hikuro and Bright Black share memories at will, with allowances for a degree of privacy. That will help some with staying in touch. This would also solve almost all of the negative effects of my not extending the deal to Hikuro."

So it does! If he wants to know something reliably, he can remember wanting to know it and I can ask or find out for him, and he will remember the answer. But what was that she said, earlier? Bright Black raised a hoof. "I would really rather not have a fake Coconut Cream made - it seems disrespectful to make a replacement. Last I heard, she never wanted to see me again. Should I even be looking?"

Celestia raised an eyebrow as if surprised at the question. "By the time you will be able to find her, she will have changed her mind."

"So she's not just avoiding me personally, but completely away? If so, why can't we just let everyone know she's gone?"

Celestia softly said, "I am certainly not going to let the real reason get out. And a disappearance like that is obviously enough of a sad thing that the explanation would have to be very strong for people to accept it. And in particular, though Polychrome is somewhat jealous of the time you spend with Coconut Cream, I have convinced her that your relationship is platonic. If Coconut Cream suddenly disappears at the very moment that you get closer, that will look very suspiciously like just I decided you can't be trusted around her."

"She already dislikes Coco. Shouldn't be too hard to get her to not care too much."

Sweetsong tentatively said, "Actually, ah. Polychrome kind of likes Coconut Cream."

Bright Black's mental 'no' was strong enough he couldn't even reply for a few seconds. "What would make you say that?"

"Well, she thinks of her as another you, fifty five years younger and a girl."

"But... every time Coconut Cream shows up, Polychrome exits. They repel each other like two protons."

Sweetsong replied, "Nnnoo? I mean. Okay, she does the same thing to your colleagues, like Quickstream or Comet Tail. And, uh, I wasn't there for it, but I understand she used to do that outside Equestria, too. So it's like that. She wanted to let you do your thing together without either holding you back or ending up not understanding what was going on. But she was all right with either of you alone, or with a bunch of us around, so she didn't expect shop talk."

"So, Coco's one of her friends and I never noticed?" Bright Black asked, skeptically.

Sweetsong shook her head. "No, not friends, not at all. But she does like her. She won't be motivated to ignore her absence, is the point."

Bright Black nodded slowly, absorbing this. This is very awkward. There are a lot of reasons to make a fake. But either continuing her old program or creating a new mind complex enough to fake her, seems like it's undermining the one out there. Dishonoring the memory of the original unaltered one, too, unless it's the same, which is really undermining the other out there. There's got to be some way to avoid that.

They stood there for a few seconds, pondering. Problems: Two of me, zero of Coconut Cream. And Polychrome modeled her as me... He said, "I object less to there being a fake Coconut Cream than I do to making a new mind for the purpose." With that, a new tapestry appeared in front of him, of just Hikuro with Polychrome, and a sock puppet of Coconut Cream being used by Bright Black.

Celestia commented, "That resolves several issues - if you assume the form of Coconut Cream, then you have full access to everypony, the freedom to go questing whenever you want, and nothing looks suspicious. Assuming, that is, I filter everything you say and do to fit her persona."

Sweetsong gulped, "That would get smothering."

Beachberry said, "Also, being a mare is probably too much too soon?"

Bright Black thought of responses to those, and the tapestry was modified - a male symbol appeared above the sock puppet, and the Bright Black put the Coconut Cream puppet at hoof's length. He described, "I can be male anyway. It might make Polychrome more accepting - should help on the jealousy, if that's still an issue at all. And I'd only need to be Coconut Cream around my family and people from the university, so I won't need to be filtered all the time. I can be me around you." This feels different from yesterday, when we were at odds. This is more like before, when Coconut Cream would be talking research problems out with me. I find the solution, because she gives me the assist. Not quite the same, though - I suspect in this case it's more that I need to really understand why it's going to have to be one particular way. I certainly wouldn't have accepted doing this if she had just told me. I'm still not sure I do.

Celestia nodded. "I expect we can explain matters to Juniper Spray soon enough. What, if anything, shall we tell Polychrome?"

Beachberry offered, "We don't need to decide that now. If we tell her this evening, I think she'll think we told her soon enough."

Bright Black nodded in agreement, then asked Celestia, "Do you see a better arrangement, or is this 'it'?"

Sweetsong hesitantly suggested, "To explain Coconut Cream's absence, we could have a flat-out fake one just briefly, who says that she got a position at, say, the Lunar University?"

Beachberry glared at her. "And what, imply that she has a commute longer than ten seconds? Going to arbitrary places might take a while, but any trip you'd do frequently should be nearly instantaneous."

"They don't know that... but they should. Hmm. I haven't heard you come up with anything."

Beachberry shuffled a little. "'Cause I haven't got anything. This solution is kinda awkward - I mean, we're in this mess because of the truth, all caps, and here we are cooking up a lie. Even if it is just trying to represent Equestria as it normally is. I'm surprised you went for it, actually. Why?"

Bright Black chuckled. "I didn't so much go for it as just, it occurred to me. I'm not sold on it, but given that you're not willing to let out the real truth, I suppose it might be least-bad."

Celestia drew in a breath but Beachberry slipped in, "One thing!" A tapestry appeared, with Beachberry and Sweetsong taking turns using the sock puppet. "You don't need to do it alone. Usually you'll be best-informed, but if you need to take a break, we can fill in. And it's not like we're just anyone Celestia cooked up. We're her friends, too."

Bright Black considered wordlessly, just letting the notion wash over him. "That seems all right. Better. Yes."

Celestia took a deep breath, and this time was uninterrupted. "We have reached the point that I do not see better arrangements, by your standards, that are also basically acceptable to me. Are you ready?"

After a deep breath of his own, Bright Black nodded.

Without any interruption or transition, Hikuro found himself in bed, eyes closed. He heard Hinata angrily saying, "... never said anything? I was right there, twice! You didn't say anything! I thought you were dead!"

Hikuro opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by a light gray pegasus stallion with light green and brown mane - Bemisted, my son's pony avatar - and a light green unicorn mare with bright yellow mane - Daisybright, my daughter's pony avatar - and the pony the two of them were facing down - a white pegasus mare with black flight wing-edges and an elaborately colored mane - Polychrome, my wife. He firmly cut in, "Blame me."

"You're awake!" they said at once.

"Yes, I am." He slowly got up and addressed Daisybright. "And if you'd known she was alive, could you have kept it secret?"

"Of course! I just said that... though I guess you missed that part."

Hikuro explained, "I'm sure that you could keep it from anyone outside the family. But your brother? And how likely that he would have kept it secret?"

"For you? Of course he would! You would have gone to jail!"

"No, he's right." Bemisted cut in. "I wouldn't have believed it was possible before it hit the news. I would have... I don't know, but I would probably have thought he killed Mom. Maybe, maybe, I would have thought he was justified - sorry, mom. You were in really bad shape." A pause. "Damn, this... incredible. I still can't quite grasp it. It's like those dreams from before, when grandma died. I kept dreaming for years that there had been a mistake, and the doctors switched her with someone else, or figured how to cure her from death itself. But I'm pretty sure I'm not dreaming now."

Polychrome soothed him, "I understand. If I hadn't been right here, I wouldn't have believed it either."

Daisybright growled. "Seriously? You wouldn't believe it was her after talking to her for a minute?"

Bemisted rebutted, "I'm not sure I would have let it get to a minute. Probably would have, but maybe not." Turning to Hikuro, he asked, "So, how do you feel?"

Hikuro rumbled, "Mentally, I feel fine. Wide awake. Physically? Really odd - hard to describe - but not bad. The hair makes it feel like I'm wearing clothing."

Bemisted asked, "Do you mind if I ask some questions?"

"What kind?"

"Who was the first girlfriend I took home?"

"Katie Sato. She was thin, and had bleached her hair blonde. You dumped her, and refused to explain why. She laughed like Miss Jupiter. I guess we're proving that I am who I say I am, now?"

"Pretty much. Mom got a C-minus."

Hinata pointed out, "To be fair..." and Polychrome heavily finished, "... I was losing it before I made it here. Say, where are the girls? If you're here, I'd expect them to pop up any moment."

Hikuro took a moment to think back. Last I remembered, I'd just turned into Coconut Cream. Nothing about what they were planning. And I guess that makes me Hikuro. He shrugged. "Maybe they're waiting until family time is over. Speaking of which, where's Juniper Spray? I would have thought she'd be here."

A silence dropped. Five seconds later, Bemisted slammed a hoof. "She knew all along, didn't she?"

Hikuro cut in, "Do you want to be mad at her about it?"

Bemisted looked down, then to Polychrome, and then to Hikuro. "I... I don't know. I'll never see you again, not properly. I get mom. But you... well, given her, I guess I can understand. Did Juniper know you were planning to come here?"

"I... " ...of course she did. "I don't know really how much she knows."

A sour look crossed Bemisted's face. "I've got some errands to do. Talk with you later." He headed toward the door. He paused, and turned to Polychrome, then Hikuro. "Glad to see you're... conscious, if not exactly alive, or whatever. I need some time to absorb." He stepped out the door and vanished.

Daisybright sighed. "Well, I do too, but in the mean time!" She stepped forward and hugged Polychrome, then Hikuro. "I have some things to get ready, too. See you around!"

And so it was just the two of them. Polychrome heaved herself onto the bed and let out a huge sigh. "That was exhausting."

Hikuro immediately joined her in a hug. "I, at least, know you are who you are. And so do the others here."

After a minute, she hesitantly whispered, "Hikuro?"

He suggested, "We need to talk?"

A little nod.

"Yes, we have a lot of good options now, don't we?"

Chapter 17: Cube

When Celestia said, "Hikuro has been made", Bright Black expected something different, but nothing occurred that he could notice - he was still in the Canterlot solarium, with Beachberry, Sweetsong, and Celestia.

Celestia went on, "Well! You are welcome to visit any time, but I think you're done here for now."

Bright Black raised a hoof. "How... ?"

Beachberry said, "Remember how you got to Chelyabinsk? Same way."

Bright Black remembered a doorway and some stairs and it had been sort of as if Chelyabinsk had been under the village and off to the side. But he followed Beachberry as she led off through an archway, down a hall, and into a vaulted chamber with lots of stairways in every orientation. "The House of Stairs. Connects lots and lots of shards - not all of them, but a great many. What's here changes from time to time, depending. It's grown a bit since you were last here."

Bright Black followed Beachberry along the wall and through another door. He asked, "House of Stairs, as in Escher?"

"Right. And now we're in the basement below town hall, our shard. So, what do you say - we get you settled in to your new home?"

Right. That. A weariness settled over him, as it already seemed to have over Sweetsong, and they headed out to Coconut Cream's home.

As they approached it, Beachberry continued, "I'm not sure what sort of clues we'll find. It's not like we haven't seen it before, and she probably just asked to be whisked off. Doubt she took the House of Stairs. It'll probably just be..."

She trailed off - Sweetsong had pulled the door open and they saw a large gray cube balanced on one point taking up the middle of Coconut Cream's front room. They rushed in and examined it. Bright Black pointed out, "There's a dim grid. Five squares by five on this face."

Sweetsong circled around. "Same on these two, too. There's a bright square in the middle of this side over here. Looks like a picture of a telescope."

Bright Black found another oddity, pointed it out. "This square isn't solid gray. A little mottled. I can't quite make out the image."

As Beachberry examined the telescope, Sweetsong speculated, "I wonder if this is a map of shards. We are here. She might be in that other one."

Beachberry backed up, looked the cube over, and squinted. "Probably not. The shards we can get to through the House of Stairs don't really map onto a cube very well. At all. And there are a lot more of them than this."

Bright Black tapped the mottled square with his hoof. That square became outlined in dark black. After bringing this to the others' attention, they tried pressing other squares, and soon found that each of them could select a square, giving it an outline of their color and deselecting their previous selection. Aside from that, nothing appeared to happen. They could not select the bright square.

So they sat down and thought. What is going on here? I mean, in general. What am I going to do with my life? I can't go into the office anymore. I can spend all my time on this very artificial task, to save someone who isn't even the same person as I knew before. I'm not going to be with Kimiko. I feel cut loose. I guess I can keep doing some of the old things... His eye moved over to Coconut Cream's table, where a short stack of papers lay... alongside the remains a few crafts projects, forgotten teacups, and some sheet music.

A few seconds later, Sweetsong took note of his wandering gaze and proposed, "With that thought in mind, how about we search the place as we originally intended to?" You intended to. I still don't understand what this is all supposed to accomplish.

The search was half cleanup - the home was even more messy than usual. Partway through, somepony knocked.

Beachberry answered the door. "Hi, Ray. Are you all filled in on the situation?"

A male voice replied, "Mostly, and I want to help."

Bright Black took a moment to recognize the unusually saturated blue Earth pony as Ray Glass. He'd been helping Coconut Cream with the observatory, but as Bright Black hadn't been terribly involved with that, they hadn't spoken much. Ray took a look at the cube and raised an eyebrow. "Huh. Anyway, wanted to remind you not to stay out too long. Town meeting at 7."

Beachberry nodded. "Not leaving on a grand quest quite yet. Thanks."

Ray asked, "So... what is it?" and took their silence and general mystification as an answer. "All right. What's the quest? What's the plan?"

Bright Black replied, "That's our real question, yes."

Beachberry took a deep breath and cautiously said, "I could learn a spell to locate Coconut Cream," After a few moments, she added, "which would be a lot more useful if there were one of her. But I might be able to exclude specific Coconut Creams."

Seems like cheating, or missing the point. Actually, any sort of quest seems like it would be missing the point. Some colossal waste of time, a set of arbitrary hoops to jump through.

In the mean time, Sweetsong had said, "Would it help if we found the others in advance?"

Going through some sort of pointless puzzle quest would make me unhappy. But... suppose instead that Celestia has made the quest something that I would not see as wasting my time.

Beachberry replied, "Probably."

Point: Celestia said we can't find Coconut Cream before she will have changed her mind. That's equivalent to saying, "She has to change her mind before you can find her." Is there anything we can do to speed that up, without finding her first?

Sweetsong said, "I suspect there's another Coconut Cream in my hometown, since we had Sky Wishes, Gardenia Glow, Peachy Pie, all of the mane 6 including short-hair Fluttershy, and a Beachberry."

Beachberry nodded. "I think that's my great grandmother. And yeah, it'd be kind of odd for eleven of the twelve collection set ponies to have lived there. Shall we?"

Bright Black closed his eyes. What is the point of this? To help her, sure. Why is that so difficult? To give me a sense of achievement? Keep me busy while she works things out on her own?

Author's Note

Why don't you take a moment to think about those questions before continuing the chapter. Or just impatiently click ahead, sure.

Chapter 18: Getting to Know You

Bright Black stewed in dissatisfaction, but he followed Sweetsong back to the middle of town, to the ramp down into the ground connecting the shard to the House of Stairs, with the nominal purpose of heading to her home shard; this was dropped when she suddenly halted. Bright Black looked around her and saw a fat black line in the middle of the ramp.

She said, "That line wasn't here before." What is this about? 'Quests' with bright lines showing you the way forward?

Ray peered and put in, "What line?"

Beachberry said, "I see a fat line the same shade of pink as my coat." Sweetsong added, "Same. My coat, I mean.", and Bright Black nodded in agreement.

Ray added, "I don't see any lines. Am I left out, or... what?"

Hmm. Not simply one way forward... I'll follow along a little further.

They followed their lines down into the great hollow Escherian between-shards space - Sweetsong rushed ahead straight to the unguarded edge and poked her head down. She reported, "Mine goes over the edge and onto the opposite side of this floor."

Bright Black and Beachberry followed their lines to the left, along the wall, and to the same set of ascending stairs. Bright Black looked to Beachberry. "You last selected the mottled square, like me."

Beachberry nodded. "So, squares are probably paths. Ray, I think it's just that you didn't touch the cube yet. Let's all go this way."

They went up the stairs, and indeed Beachberry's line coincided with Bright Black's for another turn. They continued following it.

Okay, so the line isn't absolute, 'this way forward to success'. These are just directions, as we ask for them. Possibly. Shouldn't fix on one possibility. Still not sold on the relevance. "If each square is a path, what might be at the other end?"

His question was immediately answered as the line led into an archway, up and out of the maze, and then ended. They entered a bazaar. The smell of curry lay heavy in the air. Sweetsong flew up, looked around, and pointed. They went that way, and soon came to a small stall. A large earth stallion kind of resembling Coconut Cream stood at it. Sweetsong shrugged. "Sorry. Looked right."

Sensing their interest, he inquired, in an Indian accent, "A coconut pie?"

And then it clicked. Bright Black said, "Are you Coconut Cream's father? The one with a sort of... scratch, up here?" He gestured to where he remembered the little filly having the mar copied from her toy's plastic.

The stallion nodded. "Are you relatives of Beachberry and Sweetsong?"

"Oh hey! I remember you!" The filly in question bounced up bearing more pies. "Where it was cold and the comet exploded, and there was another me!"

"Meteor, but yes."

The little Coco stopped. "So... why are you here?"

Bright Black took a deep breath. "This could take a little explaining."

~~~~

Bright Black finished and lay back on the wicker chair on the broad veranda of their home. As messed up as this situation is, it's rather satisfying to explain it. To get it out in the open, as it were. Even if they're on the inside.

"It must be very confusing to be her", the filly said.

"Yes, which is why we're trying to help."

Her father said, "I do not like how someone has all of Coco's memories."

Coco replied, "I don't think she likes it either."

"I didn't see a safe way forward, really." Bright Black apologized; she nodded, having already accepted his apology.

Ray said, "You can think of it as, your Coco was copied - have you ever done that?" - "Yes, once there were seventeen of me!" - "and then one of them absorbed all the other Coconut Creams who weren't you. Does that seem so bad?"

As her father slowly nodded, Bright Black exclaimed, "We don't know her anymore!"

After a moment, Sweetsong guessed, "Or rather, we know... one part in one hundred and fifty?"

Beachberry added, "Maybe more. We don't know about the interior faces. But let's stick with one fifty for now."

Bright Black said, "And the reason this square was mottled was that it led us to an instance of her whom we had at least met before." This suddenly makes sense. We're not trying to locate her. We're trying to understand her. Know fully what I wrought. All right.

Coco said, "Papa, can I go see it?"

Her father frowned. "I don't know..."

"Why not? Celestia never lets anything really bad happen."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "She doesn't? If you were human, sure. But she doesn't protect us like she does humans."

Sweetsong's eyes bulged for a moment. "FFffffffiddlesticks!"; Beachberry said, "I'm human now and I care. Bright Black's human and he cares. I really doubt that we have some secret need that's going to hurt her. And the little girl who plays with her cares. And you can come too."

"Thank you, but you wouldn't know if anything happened, so it doesn't help. I'm sorry; I'm sure there's another Coconut Cream out there who can come, but this one may not." -- "Papa!"

She wouldn't know if anything happened. Neither would I, but Celestia would know. "I understand." Celestia? I don't only care about technically-humans, I care about anyone else you have in here, including these people. I know, this only counts for one person's preferences, which isn't much. But at least you're applying my preferences even where I can't see. Whatever weight that has, let it count. I do not want you messing around with any person - human or not - against their will.

I don't imagine that'll stop you.

Chapter 19: Social Adjustments

Author's Note

This chapter is not the latest chapter at 'publishing' time. I just reuploaded it after deleting it a while back. Or maybe I somehow did without it the entire time so it's new to all of you? Or maybe I overwrote the next chapter from being this to being what it is now. So if this seems familiar, go to the next chapter and see if that seems familiar.

Anyway, this is back in Hikuro's first day.

Chapter 19: Social Adjustments

Hikuro lay on the floor with a hoof the side of Polychrome's face. She lay on her side facing him, seemingly asleep. I'm not sure how I feel. Mentally speaking, I feel the same as I did before I was split off from… the original Maeda Hikaru. But I'm 'Hikuro', not the original. He became 'Bright Black'. So, nominally at least, I'm supposed to stick with Polychrome, and I'm supposed to change to do so. Within months, I'll be 'her ideal mate', I think was the phrase. I don't feel like it, yet – not aside from how we ended up on the floor, at any rate. And though we've talked about ways to improve our meshing together, and I tried to nudge things towards ways I could just be outright improved, in ways that I'd approve of, I couldn't really get the idea across without blatantly saying it, which would be a bit suspicious. Especially since I'm not at all sure about this.

Any of this, not just the new part of what I am and what I'm trying to do. I remember my fatalism on the plane ride, and visiting my brother's grave, the helplessness, and the guilt. I remember the feeling that I was trapped. The whole world was a trap. Or it wasn't. If Celestia was honest, good. If not, we're over as a species. And I had handed Kimiko over to her. My plan kind of made sense - I had done something either great or terrible, and even if it was mostly terrible I could possibly fix it a little bit, but only if I could deliver a credible ultimatum, and that meant no backing down. But then…

I did. Not because of loss of ideals, but because when it came down to it, I didn't respect Polychrome. I didn't know how much she had been altered from Kimiko, for one thing. And all the differences highlighted…

… er. I flinch from the thought, but it highlighted how much I had grown to dislike actually being around Kimiko, before. Even resentment over her getting sick and leaving me to take care of her, as unfair as that was, and I knew it and so tried to suppress it. I suppressed it pretty well, I think, but still, it's there. I'm not the only one - the mirror of this in her would be her bitterness over all the times when what she wanted was trumped by what 'we' needed, and 'we' boiled down to 'my work'. Bitter, too, that what she had given up seemed from the outside smaller than what I had. My recognizing it couldn't change any of that. These pressures and stresses are gone, but the aftereffects remain.

Of course, when I put it that way, it seems like we didn't like each other. We were adults about it, and knew at some level that we were doing what we could and had it quite well off on the whole. But the point is, especially with all that time away from her, Bright Black and I are together at a crossroads, set to diverge. We are ready to cut loose or fix things, and it appears that I'm the one who's going to fix things in a familiar environment, while he has to go sort himself out in a different way… not alone, but single, at least. We were effectively single for long enough I'm not sure which of us will actually have more of an adjustment.

So, what do I do? How should I be better for her, when so many of her problems vanished with her uploading? Well. Not all problems vanished – Celestia said she was still censoring her, so there's still something she needs to sort out, herself. Maybe we can sort our problems out together, as I was trying to do in the first place before she distracted me… twice… not that I object to any of that, certainly, as long as we get around to dealing with things eventually.

Then there's the issue of being as honest as we can with her. I'm pretty sure that she would be pretty solidly upset about the whole story, so Celestia will censor that even if we tried to tell her, as if we had the nerve - ha. That's one thing Celestia's sockpuppet of her in the Experience Center got right. But stepping back, is there a way to bring her in on Bright Black's sheer existence, at least? Not without making it seem like I'm trying to leave her. Maybe there's some way. I could say he's one of my old classmates and friends.

That I'm even thinking about telling her about any of this means I'm not just a tool of Celestia, which is nice to kn… well. It could actually be something she'd go along with. Or perhaps I would appreciate the illusion of independence, and I'll predictably think my way out of it, like it seems I have. Or, more simply, Bright Black would think of the idea of letting her know, so keeping me from thinking of it wouldn't help, and we'd have argued ourselves out of it anyway. Well, this seems like a good question to put on that channel of guaranteed-not-lying - I can ask Bright Black to ask her, and then I remember her response: just what has been changed about me, so far?

A knock on the door. Polychrome's eyes flew open; she rolled back and kipped up with a little help from a back-wingbeat, and righted herself onto four legs. Hikuro took the more pedestrian route of rolling onto his hooves and standing. "Come in!" called Polychrome as she cleared away the tea they had abandoned, and Hikuro straightened out the rug.

Beachberry slipped in, followed by Sweetsong and a white earth stallion with hair of all three secondary colors. A teacup dropped to the ground and bounced. "Coconut? What happened to you?" shrieked Polychrome.

'Coconut Cream' began to reply but jumped. "What happened to you?", he exclaimed upon seeing Hikuro's horn.

We emigrated, and I got a slight tweak to my pony body. Hikuro laughed it off as he fetched a seat. "So I'm a unicorn now. No, really, what happened to you?" As if I don't know the answer. Hello, me. What shall I call you in my head? I thought of you as Bright Black before, but so I don't slip and get censored, I had better think of you as Coconut Cream. Just, a different one, who's also me, instead of her. Or not, since I'll sometimes see you as Bright Black?

As she sat down, Beachberry explained, "That's what you get for skipping town meeting. Polychrome, did you notice something funny about this town? Kind of... out of... balance?" Do I remember the town meeting? No, not yet. Better listen carefully.

Polychrome looked at her, then Coconut Cream. "Well, once you put it like that, with her being him now? It does seem like there are an awful lot of ladies about, and not so many folks of the male variety."

Beachberry nodded. "That was mainly because you greatly prefer female friends to male, and the main visitors - Bright Black, Juniper, Quickstream, Mossfuzz, and Splits - didn't care, or agreed. So, among the adults, mares outnumbered the stallions about five to one. Twenty to one if you only count singles."

Sweetsong added, "Now that Bright Black is here, a lot more of us are changing to be human. And we thought we'd like to take intentional choices over how to deal with this imbalance, rather than just letting it be solved for us."

Coconut Cream said, "For instance, I was male before, once, so I thought I could be again. Twenty others are flipping over, too."

Polychrome's eyes widened. "You have a more colorful past than I'd imagined, dear."

A shy look to the side; Beachberry dismissed it, "Eh, it was for a play." Is there a sense in which that is true? Not as far as I can tell.

Sweetsong added, "Good times, good times. We could do a revival."

Coconut Cream looked up and laughed. "I still haven't actually manifested the specifically male bits." A brief grin and a glance at Hikuro. Does he remember that yet? Our first round was early enough he should. But should I be sharing that with him?

Beachberry snorted. "Shoot, I'm not sure I've manifested the female bits."

Sweetsong pointed out, "Out of context, it's nothing special."

Beachberry considered for a moment. "Yeah, seems like it."

"Did you just - ? Are you quite done?"

"Yes and yes."

Sweetsong rolled her eyes and continued, "Anyway, the switching helped - brought us to six to one by singles, or four to one all told. More could change later, of course."

Beachberry added, "We figured that wasn't so bad if some of us are playing for the other team, or both, or staying 'ace' - I mean, not interested." How intrusive a change would that be? I'm happy as I am, and I don't see a need to change, what with my being with Polychrome, but is that really something that's so easy to just flip around?

Sweetsong closed, "Even with all that, it still seemed like we'd come up a bit short, so we also decided that we'd be generally okay as a town with... Heinleinian relationships."

Polychrome's lips formed a little 'o'. "As in, you'd share communally? Doesn't that seem..."

"More like a genderswapped Moon is a Harsh Mistress than Stranger in a Strange Land. Even that wasn't really communal, exactly. And all the specifics are different, and it wouldn't be expected, just allowed, and…"

"Do you just mean, you've decided romance isn't for pairs only, but it's civilized and social, rather than chaotic and senseless?"

"Yes, precisely. No village-wide genre shift to porn."

That pulled Hikuro out of his thoughts; he realized what they'd been saying, and raised an eyebrow more than he could have as a human.

Coconut Cream added, "Also, we had two new stallions move in, and Daisy Dream is moving out, and Lightning Strike opted to copy himself, splitting into Thunderstruck and Ball Lightning, but all that's minor stuff. Basically, we wanted to handle this ourselves rather than letting it be handled for us by Celestia."

A narrow smile crept onto Polychrome's face. "Got anyone in mind?"

None of them appeared to have considered the question. Sweetsong fielded it: "Nope. I think we'll take it slow, think it over, try being different things… for more than one second, Beachberry… before trying any of them out in practice. No need to rush, given we've got a trillion years or so to work with and rushing can lead to enduring awkwardness. And for any short-term frustration, or for explorations you'd be too embarrassed to ask anypony to help you with, there's Celestia. You can't really end up awkward with her, and she's super discreet and can be whatever you need her to be." A deep breath. "That said, I'm still kind of into Quickstream. We'll see how all that works out." Earlier, when they visited the Indian Coco, Sweetsong implied that she's not human yet, so Celestia will not be as heavily optimizing for her. But, it seems she's still trying to optimize for herself.

Coconut Cream suddenly said, "Which reminds me. We have a new project. Several new projects."

Hikuro blinked in surprise - yet more news more recent than the long-term memories he had. "What sort? Do you mean astronomy, or something else?"

"One is astronomy, but that's not urgent. What with the large number of emigrants, there's going to be a big party at the end of the week to celebrate."

Sweetsong continued, "And at the party is going to be a sing-along. Or rather, a few hundred sing-alongs, from Min'yo to Motorhead to the B Minor Mass. No need to be good - if you're butchering it, she'll keep you from getting in the way of anyone else. But of course it's more fun to be prepared." She pulled a list of options out of hammerspace and set it on the table.

Polychrome skimmed the list, paused, and looked to Hikuro hopefully. "How about the Symphony of a Thousand? I always wanted to sing in that, and never got the chance."

Here's where I'd normally have backed away - for a bunch of reasons, not the least that my musical ear isn't nearly as well developed as hers - but now all the other reasons don't apply. And that, I can work on. And if I can't for whatever reason, maybe I can cheat and have a decent ear installed. "I... can learn some part of it, I suppose. Try to get past the quality censor for at least a few seconds."

She rushed over and threw her forelegs around him. "Great!"

Sweetsong added, "And if you happen to already know the Ode to Joy, we've got a Beethoven's 9th tonight. For broadcast outside Equestria, even."

Hikuro lost balance as he almost tried to wave both of his forelegs at the same time without rearing up first. "That, I can do for sure. Why didn't you ask first?" One of the few greats I actually can. Good!

Sweetsong grinned evilly and bobbled her head as she explained the obvious. "So you'd agree to both, not just the one you already know, silly. Anyway, rehearsal for the 9th starts in an hour, and it's in the city, so we'd better get going."

Polychrome asked, "How are we even going to get there in time?"

Beachberry said, "There's a shortcut. I guess you knew about the scenic route."

As they walked along the path towards the town hall, Hikuro thought about the chorus - 'Joy, beautiful daughter of heaven.' Is that what it's really all about? Of course, interpreted broadly it includes quite a bit more than hedonism.

Hikuro sidled over to Coco/Bright Black and said, "So, what's the new astronomy project?"

Bright Black grinned and explained, "So, like I alluded to when 'we' first met, way back last year - it's to stop dark nebulas from collapsing." For Polychrome's benefit, he added, "They're where stars come from. And stars are amazingly inefficient, so we want to prevent them from forming so we can use the hydrogen in fusion reactors instead."

Hikuro was familiar with all of this, but Polychrome wasn't. "What?"

Sweetsong and Beachberry joined in, and the three of them explained the project in more detail. They were both joining, as were a bunch of other townsponies and visitors.

When they reached the House of Stairs, they cut off the explanation in anticipation of Polychrome's reaction. She was ecstatic, and a bit piqued. "You knew about this, and didn't tell me?" She took to the air and flew about the chamber they were in. "These are all different places, aren't they? That looks like Canyonlands over there. And there are so many… and I see other rooms like this one." She landed on the wall next to where they were standing.

Beachberry concurred. "It is a nifty place, but Celestia specifically told us not to tell you about it until Bright Black - er, Hikuro - was here in person. Sorry."

Polychrome apparently could guess why she might have set that instruction, because she nodded and sighed instead of being confused or further-dismayed. Hikuro was in the dark on it, though - as he moved to ask, she whispered that she would explain later.

~~~~

As Hikuro and Bright Black stood for the break after rehearsal and before the concert, a Coconut Cream from the alto section popped up next to them, addressing the Coconut Cream who was Bright Black - "Cocos represent!"

Bright Black allowed the hoof-bump and said, "Right. Say, I've got a thing going on - want to help?"

Is it just me, or was that timed very conveniently? In all the previous months put together, we only randomly ran into one other Coconut Cream, even though she was based on a mass-produced toy. Well. I guess Celestia isn't trying to make things too hard on him, at least to start. Or maybe he'll need all the help he can get. Where is our Coconut Cream?

As the two white earth ponies left, Polychrome landed in the free spot. Hikuro said, "This was already nice, and we haven't even had the performance yet. Have you done anything like it here? I don't recall."

Polychrome chuckled. "This? Well... we went to a performance here together once, and I've been to more without you, but no, I hadn't joined in."

Hikuro nodded and thought back. "For me, it was rather more like watching it on TV rather than being there. And I didn't have a private enough place to sing in."

"So you said, so I didn't mind that you didn't come again. It was nice to see you happy to see me back when it was over." They looked out over the hall. "Yes, being here made more than one thing better, didn't it?" She gave an eyebrow wiggle.

Chapter 20: Moving On

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 12: Interview

Hikaru found the consular office austere and elegant; a Japanese gentleman of around 50 walked around the desk to greet him.

They bowed to each other, and carried out a formal greeting which placed the official slightly above him. Then the official gestured to the comfortable chair in front of the desk. Hikaru sat as the official returned to the seat on the other side. He had commandeered the desk from its usual occupant for purposes of this visit; Hikaru had been asked not to find out the man's name.

The official gave him a look-over and said,

As if that would stop her completely.

The official nodded.

Interesting that he'd ask me for my justification.

The official looked to him sharply.

He leaned back to think briefly, then leaned forward and looked at a sheet of paper, tapping his way down a list with a pen.

Hikaru pulled a list out of his breast pocket.

Hikaru looked over the list and shook his head.

The official nodded.

The official blinked, then clarified,

Hikaru froze. The question was a good one.

An alarmed look.

The official relaxed slightly, then frowned. Hikaru added,

The official's eyebrows rose.

The official nodded slowly.

Hikaru frowned. Natives, yes, no doubt. Emigrants?

Which is everywhere right now.

The official nodded.

Hikaru thought for a moment.

The official asked,

I have no idea. A few hours of that a day; if Celestia puts me on a stipend for just watching that would be nice but kind of strange. So I'd need to spend a few more hours a week on something to earn bits. And of course the way Polychrome runs through them I'd need to spend a bit more than that!

Hikaru choked a little.

The official took some notes, and did not answer.

And? How do I even begin to answer that, aside from a knee-jerk 'yes'? And why did he ask about such a short time-frame? Do I want to be married to her for the next billion years?

I find that utterly terrifying.

I don't even want her to change. She's right as she is, just, not with me. So either we change anyway, or...

Let's set that aside. How can I describe this in a way that doesn't mess everything up? I think it's a little late to just say 'yes'.

She could, couldn't she? She has - some of Polychrome's friends who uploaded are with natives, and those seem like very good matches. Maybe good enough to last forever.

Hikaru paused.

The official gave him a hard look.

The official took a deep breath and regained his balance.

He let their obvious absence linger.

Ouch. Got me there. After a few seconds, he replied,

Hikaru laughed, and emphatically said,

The official tapped the desk and stared. After a minute, he said,

Hikaru leaned forward.

He stood, and Hikaru got up as well.

As they went through the formal parting, Hikaru reflected on how the interview had gone. I have a good feeling about their taking the deal. He shook off the nervousness that the interview had imbued in him, mistaking it for remaining jitters.

Chapter 1: News

A Watchful Eye
A Friendship is Optimal story by Sozmioi

Miroku bowed slightly and handed her grandfather a newspaper. "Papa, I believe you may be interested in this."

Maeda Hikaru accepted the paper, saw the picture, and raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you a little old for cartoons?" However, he read:

Game saves grandma

DES MOINES. When Susan Lightfoot sat down to play Equestria Online, she did not expect that the game would save her grandmother's life. The 7-year-old was showing the game to her grandparents, Victor and Heloise Barnes, when Heloise silently started suffering a cerebral stroke.

Though silent, even the very early stages left signs visible to the game's mounted camera. Within moments, the local rescue squad received a direct phone call from the game with a detailed description of the symptoms. Simultaneously, the game directly addressed Heloise, who had not been playing, advising her to lie down and breathe deeply.

"I was racing my friend Mae when suddenly Rainbow Dash halted the race. A doctor ran up to me real fast and told grandma what to do." Susan recounted. "Actually, it began telling her what to do before stopping the race."

"It sounded like a normal call at first." said Martina Hanson, operator for the rescue squad. "Until I asked her her name. She said she was Celestia, and the voice was just like [the character in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic]. I kind of freaked out. Totally lost it."

Princess Celestia disagrees. "Martina was very professional and acted quickly", she said when asked via in-game interview (see CELESTIA, page 7).

Hikaru put down the paper. "In-game interview? They held an interview with a character in a video game." He stared at Miroku, who nodded. "You do realize I'm surrounded by people who can respond very quickly to anything that could happen, right?"

Miroku nodded again, but amended, "Not like grandma, and not always. You spend hours at the university. Already you've frightened them staying out late. If grandma were aware, she'd have told you off about it already, I'm sure."

"I was in the observatory. Even when I'm in the office, I'm not playing games..." Though she's right about Kimiko giving me an earful.

"You can leave it on in the background. I'd feel safer."

Hikaru rubbed his knuckles contemplatively. "I'll consider it."

He did his considering in the store that very evening, as Miroku dragged him out to Toys R Us.

One ponypad was out for a demo in the electronics section. It showed the lakeside beach, with a pair of ponies lying down and sipping drinks. One was white with fluorescent green, orange, and yellow mane and tail; the other was a pink unicorn with purple and pink mane. At the bottom of the screen was a gray earth pony standing in the lake, facing the shore.

The unicorn lowered her shades and said, "Looks like we've got a customer, Coco."

The white pony picked up her head. "Hi Miroku!" She got to her feet.

As Miroku took the controls and got the avatar out onto dry land, she said, "Uh, hi there yourself! Wait. Why didn't you use my pony name?"

"We're in a demo shard. Here, it's good to be able to talk to you directly sometimes. Is this your grandfather?"

Miroku nodded.

"Pleased to meet you, sir. I'm Coconut Cream, and this is Beachberry." She added, with an ironic tone, "Toys R Us exclusive, aisle 13."

Hikaru merely raised an eyebrow.

Miroku said, "I'm hoping you can keep an eye on him."

Beachberry nodded and said, "Yeah, we get that a lot since the article came out. You do realize our capabilities are limited, right?" - "Of course." - "We are not a medical device." - "I picked up on that."

Coconut Cream added, "Not for internal consumption. But! You don't need to use only as directed. We're very general-purpose."

"Are you." Hikaru had finally addressed the ponies. "How general-purpose?"

"Try us." challenged Coco.

"Can you blend in to an academic office so well as to be hardly noticeable?"

The scene disappeared and the ponypad displayed a row of books. Then it appeared to be an oversized iPad with the screen dark. Then it appeared to be an aquarium.

Then it disappeared - at least, from Hikaru's point of view - the screen was showing the wall just behind the pad. Miroku saw the same image he was seeing, which didn't match what was behind it for her. Hikaru moved his head, and the pad remained nearly invisible to him until he moved out of the field of view of its camera.

"Huh." He stroked his stubble. Only the parallax from my eyes to betray that anything is there at all. Impressive, but in close quarters, not the best way.

The beach returned. The view had closed in on Coconut Cream. "Sir, do you mind my asking, what's your field?"

"Astronomy."

"Ah, beautiful. And I didn't catch your name."

"Professor Maeda."

"Professor, what sort of astronomy do you do?"

Hikaru sighed and weighed whether to simplify as he usually did. He decided he didn't care. "Chemical analysis of dark nebulas and exoplanets by far-IR spectroscopy."

Coconut Cream's eyes brightened. "Excellent! I'm quite interested in both dark nebulas and exoplanets, actually."

Hikaru bristled. "Oh come on. What is this? If I was studying Noh theatre would you be quite interested too?"

"That would be an odd topic for an astronomer, wouldn't it?" She grinned. "Though you have a point that I am interested in almost everything that people are interested in, I do have a bit more interest in dark nebulas. They are where stars come from. Any truly long-term plans must take them into account."

Hikaru frowned. "What?"

"Make a very long-term plan. Any very very long term plan. If you ignore dark nebulas, you will eventually wish you hadn't."

He stood there, blinking. Whether or not that claim made sense, the main hurdle had been crossed - he could hide this. "If you can remain discreet..."

The pony on the screen winked and drew a hoof across her lips.

"And you don't try to get me to play..."

"I will not bug you about it, but I cannot guarantee that you will not end up giving it a try..."

"And no spam?

"The only email we will send is in case you lose your ponypad and we find it."

"Then all right."

The pad did blend into the office just fine - he'd taken one with a white Celestia case, her sun in the center of the back where no one would notice. And indeed, once he had set it up where it could normally see his face, and ensured that it was working, even he hardly noticed it. It appeared to be a stylized painting of a rock garden, using broad brush-strokes.

Coconut Cream entered the garden, animated as brush strokes instead of the solid flat colors of the game proper (and, he supposed, the show). She sat down and read.

He only noticed this after a few minutes, when idly looking up. Amused, he asked, "You're not really reading, are you?"

She looked up from the book. "Depends what you mean by 'you', doesn't it? Equestria Online is obviously not reading. I, though, am reading. Princess Celestia thought it would be best for me to get up to speed if I'm going to be your friend."

He chuckled and went to work, and she kept her silence.

Chapter 6: Rocks Fall, No One Dies

Remy could be heard from two offices over: "...know you can take notes! Your lab notebook back in 325 was top notch! So now that you're doing real research, why is your lab notebook... you wrote ten lines in the past three months!"

Hikaru closed his eyes. There he goes again. It may be an evening during winter break so there aren't too many people around to hear it, but still.

A fragment of the grad student's plaintive response "... computer..." wafted back.

As Remy began rumbling up a crescendo of counterargument, Hikaru stood. Maybe this kid is no good, but this isn't the best way to settle it.

He briskly walked along the hall and stood in the door. Remy saw him and became self-conscious. Awkward silence fell.

After three seconds, Hikaru softly said, "By all means, go on."

Remy turned to the graduate student and said, "Go ahead."

The student... (Tim? Zach? At least it looks like it soon won't matter that I can't remember his name. A horrible thought, that! Ha!) ... opened his mouth, but dithered on what to say. He was interrupted by a loud call - "Professor Maeda!" - coming in from the hallway.

Remy raised an eyebrow. "Was that Coconut Cream?"

Hikaru nodded and began walking back to his office. "Must be urgent, but she didn't sound like she would if Kimiko were dead or anything."

Remy was right behind him. "You think so? To me she sounds kind of scared." The student tentatively followed.

The pad showed Coconut Cream, Twilight Sparkle, and an unfamiliar unicorn mare standing inside the Ponyville Library. The newcomer led off, saying, "Professors, there is a high probability that a sizable asteroid will strike the Earth in thirty-eight days. With further observation, we can refine our estimate of the danger it presents. You have ten minutes until the sky darkens sufficiently for it to be visible, and after that only forty minutes until it sets."

Remy squinted. "Just how sizable is this thing?"

Twilight Sparkle put in, "Somewhere between 'large shooting star' and 'Everyone within five hundred kilometers dies!' You can see why we'd like additional observations." Her classic slightly-manic grin flickered across her face.

Coco added, "Including with a spectrometer, for the composition. That means you. Ready?"

Thirty eight days later:

"So, you say that this shard is exactly the same as in real life as far as the sky is concerned?" The reporter, Sandsweep, was levitating a notepad and pencil, and his breath puffed out condensation clouds.

Has he been paying attention? But I suppose he doesn't want to rely on rumor. Shouldn't blame him. Hikaru/Bright Black nodded. "That's what it's for, yes. Even the terrain is essentially Chelyabinsk minus the city."

"Is this a good place to watch it? As one of the first people to spot it, wouldn't you prefer to see it in person? Or are you concerned?"

Bright Black cocked his head, mirroring Hikaru. "Russia in winter. Hmm. No. As for reassurance, I think there are enough astronomers on-site already." He gestured out across the festive crowds. "I'm here so I can see it with people..." Last he'd heard, this shard was heavily loaded, with almost a million ponies (though he wondered how many were human). "... and without freezing."

Coconut Cream, shivering even in her new heavy coat, put in, "Speak for yourself."

Sandsweep lowered his notepad. "Excuse me - are you a pony?"

She nodded. "Aren't we all?" She leaned close and whispered. "You mean 'native'. We like that better."

"Oh, right. Well, then, what with all the casual talk about Russia and such, it seems like there are hardly any Equestrian natives around, only immigrants. In fact, are you the only one?"

"Oh, we haven't quite worked out immigration, yet." That got a chuckle. "Anyway, to answer your question - you may remember that Lucy Mallet's here, as the hostess."

"Ah, of course."

"I understand we also have Celestia, Twilight Sparkle and Spike. And Rainbow Dash is in a parallel shard where she can go try to punch it without getting in the way of regular spectators, but I don't think that really counts. And... I see Carrot Cake at that stand over there. There are probably others. Would you like me to ask Princess Celestia?"

Beachberry suddenly walked on-screen. Why is she shiny? "No need to go that far! Only need a travel agent." Her horn glowed for a second. She squinted and said, "There are around two hundred seventy-five thousand Equestrian natives here, and eight hundred twenty thousand visitors. This is the largest shard ever made. And it's holding up just fine."

Coconut Cream asked, "Since when are you a crystal pony, Beachberry?"

"Oh, about two minutes ago. For the cold immunity." -- "Oh! Should have thought of that." -- "Naw, you've been busy."

The reporter asked urgently, "Wait a moment. You mean you went and ran the Crystal Empire quest?"

Surprised, Beachberry replied, "Yeah?"

He lowered the pad as he blinked. "But... wait. Are you a native or not? I just looked it up and Beachberry is..."

"100% made in Equestria. We have the same options as anyone else, just, we live here. Most of us don't think of going on quests, but some do. Remember Avant Card?"

"He was a native?"

"Didn't it seem suspicious that he was always running the same quests as you?"

Sandsweep absorbed that for a second, then readied the pen and pad once more. "So, Bright Black... where are your colleagues?"

Hikaru hated having his speech substituted, so instead of saying 'Remy' and 'Esmerelda' he substituted their pony names himself: "Quickstream is hanging out with Lucy near center stage. Mossfuzz is around here somewhere. The others aren't in Equestria. Hmm..." Anyone else I know? Thorntail... he's an astronomer, but not exactly my colleague. The others I know here, like Miroku and Tasha, aren't even in astronomy. "Yes, that covers it. And if I'm not mistaken, that's the big countdown." Lucy Mallet and Twilight Sparkle, on center stage, were projecting light across the sky, and it soon shaped into a minute timer.

In a few seconds, all the ponies were counting down along with it. It's a bit like New Years in Times Square, except that you can't see the ball until 'midnight', and it will be moving much, much faster when it shows up.

At ten seconds, Hikaru picked out Coco saying over the din, "Just like Shibuya at the new year, isn't it?"

"What? Oh. I was never there."

Right on time, the meteor streaked across the sky, leaving a cloud like a contrail marking its passage. Hikaru was shocked at the brightness the ponypad was able to put out - he actually squinted for a moment as it flared once, and then again.

A murmur ran through the crowd, probably other people reacting to the brightness as well. The natives seemingly got it even harder. As Coconut Cream took a hoof from her eyes, she said, "That was... I guess the pad did as well as it could, but there's just no way. I can't wait until you can be here properly."

Sandsweep asked, "It was silent just because it happened thirty miles up, right? The sound just hasn't gotten here yet? Not a problem in the show?"

Hikaru, though was still fixed on the last thing Coconut Cream had said: '... until you can be here properly.' What does that mean? In Chelyabinsk, or Equestria? The former would just mean I misheard something. The latter?

He caught Coconut Cream's response. She was balancing on her rear hooves and holding a pair of binoculars, looking at the board in the middle that displayed the statistics. "Only twenty three kilometers up, but yeah. We'll hear it, don't worry... Hmm. The mass was about plus one and a half sigma from Celestia's prediction. That's about plus half a sigma from the IAU-endorsed prediction."

Hikaru looked away from the pad to the computer, to check on some plots he'd brought up earlier. That's still out of the severe danger range. Good. It's big, so we don't lose face for making a mountain out of a molehill, but not too big. And we weren't so precise that we give the impression that we've got this totally under control, which we don't. This is close to the ideal it could have been given our prediction - in some ways, even better than our nailing it.

Sandsweep had taken down what she'd said. "So the IAU did better?"

Hikaru rechecked the plots and said, "No. Celestia's prediction was much narrower. If she was only one and a half sigma off, then she assigned around 25% more probability density to this size than the IAU group."

Coconut Cream clarified, "She hit the edge of a much smaller target."

Sandsweep, though, had taken on a vacant look. After a moment he said, "Looks like the folks in the city are getting inside." Then he shook his head. "Okay, time to get back to work. Other reactions? What was it like to see that come down?"

Hikaru joked, "Almost enough for me to take up asteroid hunting."

The reporter turned to Coconut Cream; she said, "As awesome as I was expecting! Watch out for part 2: sonic boom! We've got a new countdown on."

He moved on to others nearby. Hikaru was about to ask Coco about what she'd said about being there, when an aqua pegasus filly nudged Coconut Cream, saying, "Puppy? How'd you get so big?" She had an Indian accent.

Coconut Cream kneeled down. "Hey sweetie. I'm not exactly Puppy." No kidding. Must be a nickname or something.

"Are you her mom?"

"No, but we're related. If you want, I can get her real quick."

"Please."

"Just a minute. Now, cover your ears real tight because it's going to get real loud."

The filly's ears flattened. "Is it now? It it going to kill us? Mom is real worried."

Coconut Cream put a hoof over the filly's shoulder and spread her hind legs wide to brace herself. "Not even close."

The filly pressed her head to Coconut Cream's side and covered her other ear just as the shockwave hit. Hikaru could see its progress through the crowd for the second it took to cross. When it reached Bright Black, Hikaru was again astonished at the power the pad put out - it sounded like a high-bore rifle shot, with a several-second roar following on. He himself covered his ears, and was very glad he'd decided to do this in the office instead of at home.

Everypony who wasn't braced went reeling, and everypony who'd stood on hind legs to put their forehooves on their ears fell over. Over the next few seconds, even before the rumble subsided, all were recovered.

In the midst of it all, the filly cried out, "Puppy!"

Bright Black turned and found a half-scale Coconut Cream running towards them. She oddly bore scuff marks and a stained coat, and a long divot along her side that looked a little like scratched plastic... She must be based on a physical instance of a Coconut Cream figurine! Awww.

The fillies hugged and danced. "That was all?" - "Yup! That was it! I told you!"

Then they ran off. Hikaru leaned in towards the screen, and Bright Black towards Coconut Cream; he whispered, "Was that weird for you? Seeing another instance?"

Coconut Cream shrugged. "Unusual, yes. Weird? For me, it'll be weird to be human when the time comes."

Did I just hear that? "What?" Earlier she was talking about us getting in there properly, but now she's talking about getting out.

"I think the reporters have asked us all the questions they're going to, so let's go back to our home shard. I'll explain. What we just saw isn't the biggest news of the year."

Author's Note

Oddly relevant

And, about that toy? Skylanders, eat your heart out.