Euphoria

Everything around her was glowing in neon colors, orbiting her slowly like a small universe of windows filled with symbols, diagrams, charts, pictures and sound. She was seeing the layer of techno-babble through the visor and where ever she looked, she would discover more windows, more shimmering lines of alien symbols changing so rapidly, they appeared to vibrate. More confusing still, the chaos had an eerie kind of order, once she got used to the dazzling view. The symbols would change in ripples of movement, from side to side or vertically, flowing across the brightly colored pane. The trembling illusion would occur because these changes took place with blinding speed. Trying to follow any individual movement was impossible and when she stared directly into the rippling symbols, her head began to ache fiercely after just seconds. The only safe way to look at the mayhem was to let the eye wander with only cursory interest, never lingering in one place for very long. She had plenty of options to choose from and at first, she tried to see what her stallion was paying attention to himself.

Only when she looked at him, she didn't get any indication that he was even present, though she was sitting in his lap. Eyes half-lidded, seemingly half-asleep, seeing nothing, doing nothing. Seeing him was of course somewhat impeded by the miasma of glowing neon panes. It took her several minutes to realise the reason for his vacant expression and motionless body. He was not seeing any windows. Not with his eyes at least. Somehow, impossibly, he was seeing this via telepathy.

Her own laughter surprised her, and she yelped which only made it worse. Her voice! Sounding like a female member of SAM's species, her voice generated by that same technology. Generated in fact, by the information she was staring at. One window showed the full spectrum of musical notes with bars rising and falling as her voice cut through the octaves. Her stallion seemed to finally acknowledge her presence at the sound of this - her voice. Turning to look down at her with his dark brown eyes set in their deep sockets under the shelter of his bushy eyebrows. She watched her stallion's face through stained glass like the great panes of the Palace of the Princess. Princesses plural these days. That had happened at some point during her imprisonment in Tartarus.

"You said you couldn't do magic," she accused. He only continued to look down at her innocently. "You're seeing this with your mind? she marveled. Again, her voice took her by surprise, sending shivers down her spine as it climbed two octaves, ringing out like the sweetest song. She had never heard SAM try to sing. Her stallion only shrugged, already sinking back into the fugue of sensory mayhem. His demeanor stood in stark contrast to her own world, which was vibrant colors and a cocophany of sounds. Her stallion had been quick to dampen the noise in her ear.

They were looking at what passed for SAM's mind. Alien did not even begin to describe it. These were his thoughts? Nothing stood still. How could any mind be so swift, seeming to change faster than she could follow. It was beyond her. It was vast, like a leviathan. Yet each frame was a world unto itself. Strangest of all, the activity in one window seemed to resonate with many others. More than she could fit into her field of vision.

"How do you even begin to make sense of all this?" she was incredulous. Her new voice continued to please her with how well it conveyed emotion. He began to talk her through it and at first she experienced a queer duality in his voice. Their voices. As if SAM would randomly supply half of the conversation. Samuel's lips kept moving though, somehow speaking in harmony with the machine. It made it difficult to focus on what he was actually saying. Especially because many keywords did not translate into Equestrian. At least SAM's comprehension of the language could not find any ways to translate things. Yet Samuel powered on, speaking in short bursts as individual segments would orbit her more tigtly, slowing their revolving patterns and glyphs would be highlighted. These did make sense as they were the only things not moving constantly. He would read aloud from these, or they would seem to write themselves as he spoke the words. The queer sense of duality was now both visual and auditory. Unreal. Yet he did explain and he was quite good at it, like a writer reading his own story. His creation. The Airtificial Intelligence had started out small, existing initially on a scope that was on par with, if not slightly above sapience. Yet it had grown so quickly, spreading like wildfire. Over the first few minutes of his existence, SAM had grown exponentially. Yet the physical medium of his enormous mind was tiny. No bigger than one of her stallion's digits. It was not the only physical vessel though. Samuel had another little shard of dull black and silver surgically inserted into his brain. Do all savants possess such madness? It was unclear which of the two vessels actually housed SAM. In a way they both did. Thousands of him. Each one frozen in time. In a state of suspended animation, these went by a name that could not be translated. She only knew the English word for them.

"Baccabus?" she attempted to pronounce the word.

"Backups," he chuckled. Again the queer duality. The sound of his laughter sent chills down her spine. "Use the translator program."

Furrowing her brow, she glanced into the lower left corner of her eyes, triggering one of the glyphs. "Backups. Yes, like copies. You mean to tell me each and every single one is SAM? Or that he could replace himself with them?" she asked.

"Yes, like early drafts of a manuscript. Each one contains the whole of SAM as he was at that point in time. This is necessary because he is always at risk of losing himself. How do you say...? Like he could [glitch] out. Or just go insane. Snap under pressure. The [chip] could be damaged. Overheat, shatter from an attack. When that happens, we lose all the copies stored there, which is why I also store every version of him on my [chip] or [CPU]" he pointed at his own head, then turned to regard SAM's hollow shell. Each forreign word seemed to leap onto her visor in red letters before fading.

It lay lifeless on the floor of their cabin, yet she was barely aware of her surroundings. Reality would bleed through the dazzling storm of colors and muted noise, allowing her to see through to the deep purple chrome skeleton. The shard or [chip] slash [CPU] itself was located on the inside of one of the vertebrae. She didn't even need to picture what might happen to that shard. She could simply watch the [replays] on the screen. Different physical versions of SAM getting blown to pieces, sometimes empty, sometimes with her stallion wearing the Pegasus Frame. Those were even more horrifying. She lost count of how many times SAM's shell was torn full of holes, dented, smashed, crushed, burned or simply caught in an explosion. A staggering variety of human weaponry had been used in an effort to kill one or both of them. Fortunately the examples where SAM's one crucial vertebrae was destroyed were rare. It had happened just 4 times in the past. How many times had Samuel's heart stopped? How many near-deaths for her two companions? How often was SAM forced to [load] or hit his [reset button]? She only had to count.

Rizzet badden... Madness. It was too much, but then again ever since this bizarre stallion came into her frozen nightmare and released her into dazzling light, cocophanous noise and overwhelming sensory input, just about everything was 'too much.' She had long since lost the right to think anything could ever really be excessive. She had no right to question their sanity. Not after having spent an immesurable amount of time stuck in her cage. Her saviors were likely as close to or as far from sane as she was.

"Thing is though, nothing has ever damaged the [software] before. Never so many of them. Those [MOTHERFUCKERS] scrampled thousands of SAMs!" he was suddenly furious, his dual-toned voice uttering profanities in English.

She knew how to say that word in Equestrian, at least. But... Rizzed battoon? Hehe, if I say it out loud it's [reset button]. She was trembling in his lap, lips curled back in a grimace that was meant to be a grin. At least she was fairly certain that's what a grin was. The corners of her mouth were turned up tightly and all of her teeth were showing.

"That blasted [Unicorn BULLsHiT] corrupted thousands of him!" Samuel seethed and the vibrant windows seemed to tremble right along with her. He finally seemed to realise his own temper was getting the better of him. "Oh, right, I was working on the [rEALitY FILteR] so I'll stop [TrIPPiN' baLLs] over this shit and then I can worry about my own mind when it's just me in here," he chuckled and again the ghostly duality of his voice chilled her.

The angry words had angry red letters to represent them. They didn't look quite right, though. Usually SAM's translations were better than these unbalanced looking words. Like the corruption was spreading... That's it! Purging the magic wasn't enough. It has changed both shards on a m-malle, mullekoolar, moe-leycoolar level. She turned to face her stallion, once again glaring through the haze of wildly orbiting panels. "We have to destroy the bits of the shards they corrupted!" she spoke urgently.

"Oh that's all? Sure, they're both running so hot, overheating was becoming an issue anyhow," he chuckled, finding the whole prospect utterly laughable.

Wow, he managed a whole sentence without using aingleesh... Hehe, their words are funny. Erengrish? Oh yeah and SAM has 'died' before or hit his 'rizzut bottom' I guess. But as long as we can save a recent copy...

"I'm pretty sure I could melt only those sections by sending in a swarm of [nANiTes] to create enough friction..." he seemed to calm down once more.

He settled back into the hallucinatory landscape of SAM, where the necromancy had tainted the [software] and was still spreading. With a task to focus on, her stallion seemed to recover some of his scattered wits. He breathed softly and Euphoria heard a soft sizzling sound. Turning to look at SAM's shell, the most recent of many rebuilds anyway, she watched the black rectangle. Little rows of silver teeth ran along the edges. When she looked closely, she could see very faint smoke as the invisible legions of impossible silver spiders swarmed within, melting the tainted pieces of the shard. Again, she didn't have to picture them. There were images of them, of course.

The tension was palpable. This might be the fifth time SAM's physical mind was obliterated and they had no spare shard. She didn't know if Samuel could forge another if this one was lost. Minutes seemed to crawl by like hours. The only other memory she had of time seeming to creep by so unbearably slowly was when she was in the glass cage.

"Right, that should take care of it..." he finally broke the silence. He released a breath and seemed to slump in his seat.

Euphoria's relief was so great, she nearly fainted. Figting to keep her eyes open, glaring into the sea of data, she immediately noticed a change. The chaos receded. Everything was still rippling like oceans of ever-changing glyphs and icons, but there was a sense of order to it once more. About a third of the windows had gone dark, before fading entirely. Dee-lee-ted... The remaining windows appeared free of the disease that had hurt SAM. All the SAMs. But so many still remained.

"I had to burn my own [chip] a bit, too," he breathed. "That's the first time that's happened... I might as well have seared a tiny piece of my brain away... Oh well, nothing the [nanites] can't rebuild," he grinned.

Feeling an immense surge of relief, she curled into a ball in his lap, nuzzling his muscular thigh. He was still wearing the lower half of the flight suit. They had landed right outside the cottage and Samuel had barely made it one step past the threshold before slamming the door shut and shedding the Pegasus Frame. There they still sat, his back against the door, Euphoria curled up in his lap.

"SAM is going to be okay then?" she asked in a quivering voice. Her throat felt tight and it no longer baffled her when the silver wires covering her damaged vocal cords managed to make her sound like she was on the verge of crying.

"Yes, I'm going to be fine," the voice was both Samuel and SAM.

She raised her head and squinted, seeing through the many panes of information, to furrow one brow at her stallion.

"Right, the [rEaLITY FilTER]," the voices spoke together and just then, one of the panes grew in size, becoming the new focal point.

rEaLITY FilTER

Data corruption detected...

23% corruption. Purging corrupt data...

As promised, about a quarter of the glyphs went dark, leaving black scars marring the otherwise pristine looking oceans of code. In response to this, several other windows, all looking similar to the bigger one, began to orbit tightly. Each window seemed to identify itself as another version of the program they were seeing now. Lines would highlight in the smaller windows and then be transported onto the most recent version of the program, filling in the black gaps.

Reality Filter

Scanning systems...

100% filtering capacity...

Reality Filter is online.

In that moment, everything changed. Like an explosion happening in reverse, the sensory chaos of glowing windows, symbols, images and sounds all receded. The panes would fly away, shrinking in size before folding sideways, thinning to horizontal two-dimensional lines. She could see both the Pegasus Frame and her stallion clearly now and they each stirred at the same time.

The skeletal frame was splayed on its back like a dead animal, the chest guard wide open allowing them to peer into his hollow body. Quickly righting himself and shutting his chestguard, affecting an air of modesty, he muttered sullenly. "Right, quit looking at my guts. Show's over," his metalic voice droned, but somehow this was the real SAM. The sarcastic machine who only pretended to be cynical.

She pounced him, pinning SAM's Pegasus Frame in a powerful hug. Behind her, Samuel chuckled. His voice was fully human now. Sounding warm and a bit husky, yet cheerful in spite of everything that had happened.

"Don't go hitting your reset button again, SAM," she chastised the pinned AI, noting to herself that even when she spoke the forreign words, they did not flow across her vision like glowing letters. She had been seeing the program in English as Samuel/SAM read aloud in a mix of both languages. She had only been able to grasp the broad whole of the context, rather than trying to understand each word individually. Things like systems, programs, code and software were all arbitrary expressions and often they were one and the same yet different. But somehow they all contributed to make up the soul of the being she was now play-wrestling with.

SAM did not look overly amused with her antics, quickly extracting himself from her deathgrip. It wasn't fair how he could change his shape like that. Almost serpentine. He composed himself, sitting upright looking very much like a certain purple pony about to give a lecture. She giggled, resisting the urge to voice her thoughts.

"Didn't you know? I'm practically immortal, like your Sun Godess," he boasted. Virtually brimming with pride, he sat bolt upright, head held high, affecting an air of regality.

Euphoria burst into laughter, collapsing on the floor of their cabin. Her new voice continued to channel her emotions and for a moment she did not understand why her vision was blurring. She was crying and laughing and in that moment, Samuel scooped her up in his strong arms and cradled her as she vented her emotions.

Immortal. Hitting his ree-zed budn doesn't even kill him. He just gets back up and starts over. I think that's what campooters do, too...

Peeling off the visor, she watched through wet lashes as the thin silver wires retracted back into the battle-hardened piece of armor. Her eyelids grew heavy and she yawned softly, allowing sleep to claim her.

Twilight Sparkle

She woke gradually as the first rays of Celestia's sun fell upon her eyelids. She yawned and rolled over, facing away from the rays. Just five more minutes... Her eyes squinted, somehow unable to block the glare of the rays, as if it were much too bright in her room. Full wakefulness crashed over her like a bucket of ice water. She sat bolt upright, throwing off her blanket as she turned to look at her balcony.

Princess Celestia!

She was resplendant, haloed by a corona of light as her long, slender horn glowed like a minature sun in its own right. She was raising the sun right there on Twilight Sparkle's balcony. Too nervous to give in to a panic attack - never mind the impossibility of such a state - the Unicorn tumbled out of bed with a yelp, quickly righting herself. Cheeks glowing bright scarlet, pretending that her mentor and Princess did not just see her fall flat on her face, she rushed to open the glass paned door. There she stood, the light receding as she finished raising her sun. Though the light never disappeared completely. Rather it seemed to soak into her pure white coat where it remained, just on the edge of perception, making Celestia look almost luminescent. Her features were unreadable, schooled into that impenetrable mask she had worn over the millenia. Twilight Sparkle however, knew her better than most, being able to count this avatar of Equestria's light among her friends. Right now her friend seemed amused by something, laughter hiding just under the surface.

"My dear student," she spoke softly, her voice and words sending a trill through the purple Unicorn. "I did not mean to startle you. Please, be calm my student," she took a measured step forward, her goldshot hooves barely making any sound as one rose to touch Twilight's face. The Princess of the sun then giggled softly and ruffled Twilight's mane but before she could grow embaressed by her bedmane, her mentor had straightened the hairs neatly somehow.

Somewhere behind her, Spike grumbled in his sleep. "Twilight, tell Celestia to lower the sun. I wasn't done sleeping..." he frowned, triggering more of those soft peals of laughter, somehow exuberant yet quiet and subdued. Spike had yet to wake in spite of the very pony he was complaining over standing not two bodylengths from his basket.

Twilight was certain this called for a panic attack. She had a schedule somewhere but her Princess had made a command - no, a request: Be calm. So the panic attack never came and she released a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding. Rather than stress over her idol's sudden arrival on her balcony, she invited her friend in for tea and breakfast. They made their way past Spike's bed, Celestia smiling slyly as she scooped the still sleeping baby dragon up by lighting her horn, levitating him in a golden glow. They made their way downstairs, talking softly.

"So my student, please, I am very curious. Tell me of this... Samuel," she settled across from her student, folding herself onto the floor by the small table. Somehow Twilight should be mortified that the Princess was sprawled across half her kitchen floor without having even been offered a pillow or cushion, let alone the throne she was no doubt used to. Instead, she just smiled and poured two cups of tea, simultaneously lighting the stove and levitating a pan and ingredients, whipping up a batter of pancakes without hardly looking.

"Hmm, how to begin. I guess he's technically a species of ape, but that doesn't really describe him. Also, I think calling him 'ape' is somehow offensive, but he never complained. At least not out loud," she giggled. "Oh! I have made some rough sketches," she turned her head, her horn still lit with a pink glow as more items joined the neatly coeographied dance. A bundle of scrolls landed on the table between two plates and the growing pile of pancakes.

Celestia gently took the first scroll in her hoof, treating her notes with care. Unrolling it, she let her eyes take in the illustrations. Her first encounter with the human known only as Samuel were black and white sketches, detailing a level of anatomical accuracy usually found in medical texts. Everything seemed to be accounted for. Hair color and length, eye color, facial features, his estimated height and weight, both of which were more on par with an Alicorn or Minotaur than one of her Little Ponies. There were no comparisons to other members of his species, as he was the first one ever encountered. Other notes held details on his origins and more curious yet, something known as SAM. It looked like a construct of nothing but inanimate matter, but apparently it moved, spoke, saw and sensed in a way incomprehensible to even her protégé. Celestia was very careful not to show any outward reaction to this information, yet her brightest student detected some apprehension. Did the Princess suspect the same things about this new type of being? There were unnamed items as well, and one scroll which Twilight had kept close to herself, almost protective of it. Among the items she did see something which was clearly a weapon of their world. A halberd. No name or details. The same was true of the forreign objects that came with the "Pegasus Frame." One was always seen attached to the leg barding, never out of reach of either SAM or Samuel. It looked like an object made to be gripped by Samuel's or even SAM's extremedies. The digits were illustrated gripping the handle with the smooth length of unknown alloys extending outwards in a single regimented line. A wand? But the notes insisted that Samuel was devoid of magical powers.

Twilight had not shown the last scroll, wherein the halberd was explained. And the wand, at least what she suspected about the device. Euphoria had no mention in these notes. She knew not why, but something in her had prevented her from betraying her new friend's existence to Celestia beyond brief mention of 'a friend' in her latest report. Twilight had known Celestia nearly all her life and she was still awed by the mare. Euphoria might pass out from overexcitement if she were confronted with her diarch in the flesh.

"It says here he has bought property," Celestia mused quietly. Spike had woken without ceremony, affecting a complete lack of surprise to Celestia munching on pancakes next to Twilight and he. The smell was what had woken him and he had attacked his own serving with relish.

"Yeah he lives 5 minutes away," Spike spoke somehow managing coherence if not basic table manners with a mouthful of pancake. Twilight levitated a napkin and the baby dragon pouted as he was interupted mid-bite, leaving his face relatively clean. For about two seconds. He stuck out his tongue at Twilight, who only rolled her eyes and smiled.

"Yes, Mayor Mare saw no reason to deny this guest the right. After all, he is here as a representative of his species. But he swears coming here was a fluke," she clarified, already half-way into lecture mode.

"The dude is awesome," Spike crowed and then barely able to contain his laughter, he raised his teacup, pinky finger extended as he took a sip of the scalding liquid. Seeming quite proud of his little claws, he neatly pinched two lumps of sugar into his tea. Then two more. Then an extra three just for good measure, stirring with his spoon. The pinky finger on the claw holding the cup was still extended.

Twilight was also trying to contain bubbling laughter and before her mentor could begin to guess at their little inside joke, there was a knocking at the front door. A masculine voice called out, carrying easily through the otherwise quiet library, traveling into the adjacent kitchen.

"Twilight, you home?" he spoke with a clear accent of unknowable origins.

"Oh crap!" Two sets of eyes regarded the source of the outburst with raised brows. Twilight seemed about ready for a panic attack after all, nevermind the swearing. She would get to fretting over a breach of etiquette later.

Author's Note

The techno-babble is strong in this one. Too strong? I was trying to illustrate SAM with visual elements similar to some of the science fiction I like to read.

Also, Celestia tag.

I have material to cover a few more chapters yet before big things happen. Anyway, this chapter was hard to write. I realise I am trying to explain many impossible events and the science fiction elements may seem to dominate the storyline at times. I try to keep the story going without slowing down to explain every little thing, since computer code is fundamentally boring to most people and I don't know the first thing about it myself. Rather, I'm just trying to achieve suspension of disbelief to a point where one can accept the sci-fi and just enjoy it.