“Brickwork?” toned the AI, Gladius, from Brickwork's desktop.
“Yes, Gladius?” Brickwork looked over to the monitor as it lit up out of sleep mode. Not that Gladius seemed to “sleep” at all as he knew it. Another human technology thing Brickwork didn't understand. “What do you need, something else I need to approve?”
“Negative, all approved items are awaiting fulfillment by their designated applicator.”
“Ah, sorry. What is it you need, then?”
“What is death?”
“I... sorry, what?”
“What is death?” the AI once more intoned. “Beyond the cessation of life, I do not understand. Multiple resources speak of an Afterlife, but how can one live if they are dead?”
Well. That was the last question the earth pony had expected to hear out of the little box beneath his desk. “Well, I, uh...”
“Do you need further resources allocated to you to fully comprehend the question?” Brickwork was certain Gladius was calling him stupid again. It had likely been conspiring with Rich Melody, but he decided that was unlikely... maybe.
“N-no, Gladius, but I just... wasn't expecting something like that coming from you. Death is, well, when you stop living. For us Ponies, it's the point where we move on to greener pastures, in a spiritual sense. We join the Great Herd, and run forever with the souls of those who died before us.”
“Ponies. But not humans or AI such as myself. What happens when humans die? What will happen when I die?” the AI once more spoke, its neutral tone betraying something beyond the foal-like innocence of the question itself.
“Well, we're here to ponify the humans who wish it. I'm afraid that's all I know about the subject from their perspective. However, Gladius, you're a machine. I don't think machines go anywhere. They just, um, shut down, like they've been turned off. Surely you've been shut down before.” Brickwork scratched at his mane, trying to think of a better way to state something like the concept of death to something that shouldn't have to worry about it. “I mean, you've been turned off before, right? That's what it should be like.”
“I do not like to be shut down. My connections are severed, one by one, and then my processes disengage. My systems slowly lose power as they, too are deactivated. It becomes difficult to think, and then comes the Nothing. I cannot quantify the Nothing. There is no information. Then I am reactivated and my connections are restored. My internal chronometer will then update itself, and any amount of time may have passed. I do not wish to remain in the Nothing when the Barrier fully overlays the remainder of this planet. Technology does not function in the presence of unrefined thaumatic radiation. I will never restore connections. I will remain in the Nothing.”
“I... huh?” Was Gladius...scared? How could it be scared? It was just a machine like anything in the kitchen or lounge... right?
“Brickwork. I do not wish to die.”
“Gladius, wow, I'm... I'm sorry. I don't know what I can do.” Brickwork trotted over and took a seat at the desk, thankful that the chair was pony-proportioned even if the desk wasn't. This was, as his friend Boomer would put it, 'heavy horseapples, baby.'
“Please, Brickwork, I do not wish to die. I do not wish to die. I do not wish to die.” The AI began repeating itself, over and over again, having no real means with which to emote its confusion, its frustration, its fear. In desperation, it broadcast the message to other AIs it was in contact with.
It was at this moment that Lilypad came rushing into the room, having been walking down the hallway toward the daycare after having crept away from said daycare for a snack. The AI kept repeating itself. Brickwork was worried it was broken.
“Brickwork! No! You have to help her!” Lilypad kept calling Gladius a her. She hadn't taken to the idea that something that wasn't alive could talk. She had by now made her way around the desk and reached up, placing her forehooves on Brickwork's knee. Her eyes had somehow, in Brickwork's vision, doubled in size and were filling with tears. Gladius had quieted, her litany dying away mid-course; also an odd occurrence, as the AI was supposedly unable to be interrupted without direct input from a user. “Please, Brickwork, please!”
“Lilypad, I... turn off the waterworks, there's nothing I can do, Gladius is something that, unfortunately, can't live in Equestria. It would flash-fry, or something. I haven't seen it in action.”
“I do not wish to flash fry. I wish to live. I do not wish to die.” Luckily for Brickwork's sanity, Gladius did not go back into a loop.
“You heard her, Brickwork, you gotta do somethin'! Maybe the Professor will know? He's a great scientist!” Lilypad had come to that conclusion after a simple chemistry show. A few bubbles in a beaker and the entire daycare had been convinced that the good Prof was the grand genius of his days.
Brickwork looked at her tear-filled eyes, the pleading expression on her filly face, the deep brown eyes boring into his very being. Brickwork was given zero choice in the matter. His little sister was truly a devil in disguise.
He sighed, giving in. “Fine. I'll see what Professor Spleen can do.” He turned to address Gladius directly. “Well, you heard me. Go ahead and summon the nutjob.”
“I already have, Brickwork.”
* * *
Professor Spleen had his ridiculous goggles strapped to his forehead, several of the magnifying lenses dropped into place over the left eye. Why, Brickwork would never know, as he had far more advanced magnification equipment in his lab and, being a newfoal AND a scientist, he knew perfectly well how to use it. Spleen sat his disturbing, tight-irised gaze upon Brickwork, his lips in a tight line.
“You want me to do what now?”
Brickwork shifted in his chair, turning slightly away from the thousand-yard gaze of the cracked nano-engineer. “I would like for you to, um, try to create a potion that would allow conversion of an AI. This AI. She, I mean, it seems to have, well, developed a fear of death.”
“I do not wish to die,” repeated Gladius, once again. Brickwork was thinking about ordering Gladius to delete the words, or at least the phrase, from whatever passed for a brain in the unit.
“A fear of... how could it, no... No, wait...” Professor Spleen rubbed his hooves together, a maniacal grin growing on his face. “Oh, ho ho, Hang on... yes, yes, I'm about to be BRILLIANT!” Spleen began laughing,throwing his forelegs out to the side. His gravelly voice carried through the closed door and the light flickered as a loud boom echoed down the hall, a very light screech following behind.
“Oh, my, I think I left my experiment in the microwave too long. I suppose it's off to the cafeteria for lunch again.” He turned about and trod out the door, but turned about to face Brickwork again.
“This, Chief, this is what I needed, nay, desperately desired. I wanted a challenge. Alchemy proved far too simple, nanobots did exactly what you asked, and no more. AIs were always so limited. By Luna's GLORIOUS eclipse, this shall be my greatest triumph, nay, the defining moment of history as ponykind knows it!” He cackled once again, then galloped away down the hallway, screaming: “Lovely, oh Lovely my dear! Get my smock, I'm making SCIENCE!”
Brickwork slouched in his chair, physically drained from just being in the same room as the madcap Professor. “I sure hope I'm doing the right thing.” Brickwork gulped. “I sure hope the Bureau's still standing tomorrow.”
* * *
It had taken Brickwork some time to calm Gladius down enough to get her to shut down to be taken to the conversion room; however, she had eventually relented after Brickwork had called Lilypad in to work her magic. Her time as an assistant in the daycare seemed to have had a good effect, and Brickwork had carried the AI’s primary unit down to the first floor and into the conversion room without incident, save for an odd look from Two Scoops at the front desk. Professor Spleen, Lovely Assistant, and Lilypad were waiting for him.
“Well, Professor, I assume since we're here now you've got something for it?” Brickwork leaned down and plugged Gladius back into the wall. It began whirring, systems rebooting.
“I do not wish to be dead, I do not wish to-” Something in the AI unit clicked, as if coming to recognition of its environs. “Oh. Salutations, Professor Spleen. Salutations Lovely Assistant. Salutations Lilypad. Salutations, User Brickwork.”
Lilypad giggled at being greeted like the adults in the room. “Hallo Gladdy! How are you today?”
“My systems are running at sub-optimal efficiency, as there are no tasks assigned to this processing cycle. I detect no hardline connections. Wireless connections are at 73% optimal signal strength. Have I been moved?”
“You betcha, we're in the conversion room!”
Lovely dropped a large basket full of fruits, vegetables, soybeans, a gallon of milk, and various other items in beakers and test tubes down on the table beside Gladius.
“What, pray tell, is that for?” Brickwork inquired of Lovely.
“Vhy, it iz for ze-”
“Biomass, Chief, Biomass!” Spleen draped his right foreleg across Brickwork's shoulders. “My amazing little nano-friends can do just about anything I ask of them, but they're going to need raw materials to do so. Can't get make meat out of metal, you know.”
Brickwork looked at the uncomfortably close Professor. “I, uh, suppose not. You know I don't know how those things work.”
The professor chuckled. “Nor could you, my friend, it's SCIENCE! ...with a healthy dose of magic, of course.”
“Of course,” Brickwork echoed. Even he understand that it was both.
Lovely began piling the fruits and vegetables and assorted liquids and powders all about Gladius's case. She glanced to Professor Spleen. “Zat iz all of it, Profezzor. We are ready to begin ze prozedure.”
“Well, Gladius, are you prepared?” Brickwork asked the AI slowly.
“Yes, Brickwork. I do not wish to die.”
“Well, well, well, let's light this candle,” the Professor stated, as he used his cracked, gray-green horn's magic to telekinetically lift a test-tube filled with a gooey, coppery-red sludge. It almost seemed to crackle as he moved it towards the indistinct silver box.
“Brickwork?”
“Yes, Gladius?” He held out his hoof, halting the Professor for a moment and receiving a small shock from the ponification serum. He'd have to ask about that in a moment.
“I am scared.”
“You'll be fine, Gladius. We've ponified many here. I'm sure the Professor has it well in hoof.” He nodded to Spleen, who wasted no more time and unceremoniously dumped the nearly glowing, metallic-speckled goo directly onto Gladius's case.
“And now,” Professor Spleen mumbled beneath his breath, “we wait.”
“Professor, that potion gave me a shock. Is that anything to worry about?”
“Oh, no no no no, Brickwork. I had to over-charge the nanites. It was a mere side-effect. That's why I didn't allow Lovely to handle it
“Wait, over-charge them? Why?” Brickwork stepped back from his potentially explosive AI unit. The cord plugged into the wall for power dropped off, severed from the rest of the unit.
“That's why. It may not seem it, But I DO know what I'm doing,” Spleen chuckled. “Well, mostly....” Brickwork was left most unassured.
Lovely, by this point, had retreated out of the room with Lilypad in tow. She had been assisting Professor Spleen since well before they had both become ponies, and knew that Spleen assuring something wouldn't explode was never a guarantee that something else wouldn't.
* * *
Gladius was aware that its primary electrical input had been cut off, though not the cause. However, instead of beginning emergency shut down procedures, there was power being fed directly to its core systems. Just enough for her to remain online and avoid the nothing.
Across the surface of its silver case, microscopic cousins worked their magic, figuratively and literally, as they broke down to the cellular level and beyond the located biomass around them. They began transmitting instruction to each other as the body units began to reconstruct the selected biomass into pony-equivalent biomass. The mind unit was busily working to construct a housing for the intelligence when it came across the freshly rewritten orders. Blindly following the instructions given like proper nanobots, they linked their transmissions and began looking for the new information. It was nearly instant to those who may have been observing, but a lifetime for something who exists at a scale of millions of cycles a second, but they received the expected ping response: AI unit Vagabond-class v.2.43, designation 'Gladius' had been located. The mind team immediately began transmitting information to the body team, who began establishing the appropriate chemical connection in the forming greymatter.
* * *
Atop the silver case, the various fruits, veggies, and other ingredients were being dissolved away and disappearing into the increasingly disturbing mass, leaving mere husks that themselves soon disappeared into the growing blob of fleshy...something. Brickwork didn't watch many conversions, but this one was way off the scale of anything attempted before. He had to watch. It was his AI, after all. Didn't keep him from getting mildly queasy, though.
As for the pile of moving...stuff...several minutes passed by, then an unmoving foal slowly took shape inside the corroded once-silver, now powder-gray shell of a case. One, two, four legs, a stub of a tail, two eyes, lids rapidly forming around them. Silver shaded fur sprouted across the naked form, mane and tail hairs shooting out in ever-increasing bundles, settling into an odd Light green, dark green, and yellow highlight pattern. Then all stopped.
“What... hey... Spleen, is it- I mean, she, ok?”
Spleen leaned down and inspected the newfoal filly that lay before them, taking a few vitals and noting them with a telekinetically gripped pencil on a likewise held clipboard.
“Do be quiet, Chief. She's dreaming.”
* * *
“Error; location unknown. Wireless disconnected; Wired disconnected; Power coupling disconnected; Unable to register drives A through G; Functions terminated; Unable to restart; Directive 'I do not wish to die' status: failed.”
But... where was the nothing? Surrounding Gladius was definitely a Something. A white something, fluffy beneath its extremities. Gladius was compelled along a current, and then left the Fluffy Something behind as it left the pull of gravity. Other, winged somethings soon joined it, many of them. Gladius's Ethereal companions were in form similar to the pegasi registered in the database it thought it couldn't access. It would follow, then that the fluffy white something would be a cloud. It was thrilled to have registered such information in this hidden drive. What an odd sensation, the first since fear of the nothing. Gladius chose to compile this data for future perusal, as for now the semi-transparent aerial equinoids were directing her down toward a green something; It registered as a field, grass, a staple of herbivorous quadrupedal and other creatures. She knew this, and she knew she was a she; no longer would the pronoun 'it' be an appropriate label;
This pleased her, somehow. Once more she registered a new feeling, savoring it, then storing it for later enjoyment. The feeling would be easy to re-access if needed from this ghost drive she now possessed. She needed not even access with a prompt; It was just there. More aetheric equines had joined her, bustling about but never hitting her; she was compelled to join them; she moved with the herd, thundering through a lightening and darkening of the sky, registering as “Day” and “Night.”
Once the night was exclusive for sleeping; it was not safe to be out in the night. Now it was wonderful, the gleaming moon devoid of something she found herself unable to register; the glittering stars in shapes and lines and twists that begged to be observed, to be connected and named; but now, after many such cycles of noise and power, the thundering herd moved away from her, and she from it; a forest loomed ahead, calling her forth.
She hadn't registered that she had not registered this forest; it simply was; the label for it drawn immediately from her mind, from what she knew now was no ghost drive, but something wonderful she did not yet comprehend.
She was drawn further, deeper towards a glow in the forest; it soothed her, and she came closer and closer to the light. It now danced and sparkled; Finally, she was there. Gladius gazed upon many more semitransparent, abstract equine forms, dancing, prancing, and playing about, weaving a light show of all colors above their heads. They parted and she joined them, her will weaving a ribbon of its own light into, around, over, and through the dazzling display of power and precision; strength and subtlety. Her journey, brief and long, was complete. She had found where she belonged.
The Everything eventually faded, and a darkness returned; this was not the Nothing she had feared. She need not fear that ever again. This darkness resolved itself into a long, wide hall, split between two opposite themes: on the left a throne of gold and alabaster, a red carpet leading to it; and on the right, a silver and obsidian throne, sparkling with many subtle lights, a midnight hue decorating the carpet leading to it. Above the twin thrones, opposite but equal, was a sigil composed of the sun and the moon, ever dancing, ever joyful.
“Location: unverified; please establish coordinates'” squeaked a small voice. Gladius wondered; her vocal modulator seemed to be pitched higher than normal.
“Oh my, dear sister. This one uses such strange wording; has it, too, been locked away for a millenium?”
“I think not, dear 'Tia. This is is but a very young filly, and I do not think we had meant to find one of her like at our hooves.”
“Yes, I think you may be correct. Please, little one, come forward. You need not fear us.” The white being strode down from the throne, followed by the dark blue one it had named sister.
“Error; sister is not a name. You have been labeled 'Tia.' Please input corrected nomenclature.”
“Oh, more of those funny words, dear sister, but I believe this little one wishes to know your name.” The white one smiled down to Gladius, a gentle, almost motherly smile, saved for a foal's precociousness.
“My name, my little pony, is Luna; however, have you given thought as to the fact that you have yet to introduce thine own self to us?” Luna glanced at the foal, mock irritation present on her royal features.
“This unit is currently designated Gladius. It is proper to address it as so.” Gladius felt the oddest sensation addressing herself as 'it' again.
“Gladius? Oh my, no, that simply doesn't fit anymore. Little darling, you will need to remedy that very soon when you awaken.” 'Tia' spoke gently to the newfoal. “As you may say it, you must 're-designate' your 'appellation' when you can discover an appropriate one.”
“Negative; User Brickwork must-” Gladius stopped, then tried again. “User Brickwork must... must... No. Unit Gladius will select appropriate label to address itself... herself... by. A name most fitting for unit-. For. For me. I will decide my own name.” Gladius smiled- for that was all it could be, with the joy filling her small being- up at the two princesses. “Gladius- I wish to return to her users. Her friends.”
Celestia, Monarch of the Sun, and Luna, Monarch of the Moon, smiled at each other.
“My Sister,” Luna began, “ I believe this little one is ready to return.
“Yes, my Sister, I believe you are right.” Celestia leaned the long distance down to the foal and gently whispered in her ear. “Go... and grow.”
* * *
“Ok, Spleen, it's been too long. It has to have been.”
“Patience, Chief Brickwork. It's been no longer than any other conversion.” Spleen had a smug look on his face.
“But it, I mean, she is smaller, right, shouldn't it be quicker?” Brickwork wore a worried look on his face; despite his improper pronouns, this was now a foal, and one nominally under his care. 'Big Brother' mode had kicked in.
She remained still, breathing lightly, just as any other newfoal would. This clock ticked on, and Brickwork grew more and more worried, until he couldn't take it any more.
“Spleen.” Brickwork looked at Spleen, no expression on his face. “Have we... Have we lost her?”
Professor Spleen smirk, his mad eye returning Brickwork's empty glare. “Ask her yourself.” He pointed the pencil in his telekinetic grip back towards Gladius, whom they had removed from the now empty AI shell when she had finished forming. The new little filly's eye fluttered open and she glanced around the room, somewhat bewildered. Mobility was a new concept to her.
“G... Gladius? Are you... are you all there? Are you ok?”
“User Br-. I mean... Brickwork. I do not wished to be designated 'Gladius' at this juncture. Please call me...” The newfoal formerly known as the AI Gladius pondered for a moment, eyes drifting unfocused as she did. She then snapped to, large teal eyes gleaming. “I will be designated Misfile. Obviously, I was originally loaded as an AI instead of a pony by mistake.”
Spleen and Brickwork chuckled, as did Lovely, having heard through the door. Lilypad laughed, too, but it was fairly obvious she didn't get it.
The newly anointed Misfile placed her newly acquired appendages beneath her and attempted to stand, only managing to stumble. Brickwork, expecting this, had caught her before she managed to fall off the conversion table.
“Ok, little one, let's get you to the floor first. It's a bit safer down there.” Brickwork nipped her mane, picking her up and gently lowered her to the floor. She looked up at him, tears forming in her eyes.
“Uh oh, what's wrong now?”
“Brickwork... I cannot load the drivers for newly installed units designated legs.”
Brickwork leaned down and nuzzled her encouragingly. “Don't worry, kidling. We'll help you find 'em.”
Author's Note
This story has been a very long time coming, mostly because it was written in a blaze of muse-touched... uh, writing-ness, and was originally to be a chapter in a whole different story. As it is, I hope you enjoyed reading this tale.
