//------------------------------// // Day 2 - Points: 6/9 // Story: They're... ON HOLIDAY? // by Nameless Narrator //------------------------------// The workshop is now empty with the exception of Gem who now has three tables set up in an angular C around herself, all filled with glassware containing powders and liquids of various colors. Despite its current philosophical conundrum, 36658 can’t help being interested, so as it approaches Gem’s workspace it grabs a chair and hops on it. “99111 said you could use some help, Miss Gem. I’m 36658.” “Nice to meet you, 36658. I was told you had some experience with chemistry. I need help with refining a particular substance, and I myself am not sure what exact result I’m looking for,” the zebra flashes it only the shortest glance. 36658 looks around, taking in the strange shapes and functions of the surrounding glassware. “I, umm, I don’t think we mean the same thing, Miss. I just eat various things and then check if my goop makes getting smacked hurt less.” “Things such as?” “It used to be zebra bark but now I use poppies, and I’m experimenting with slimy hoppers, but that’s not working as intended yet.” “Standard painkillers, hospital-grade,” mumbles Gem while examining the level of liquid in one of the bendy bottles, “...frogs?” “Not just any slimy hoppers, this is a small yellow kind from the swamp north of my poppy patch. I tried licking other kinds but they were just bleh.”  “Hayseed Swamp, got it. What makes the frogs special?” “Ehhh… they smell different?” 36658 replies hesitantly. “I mean, what effects do they help you produce? What makes them different from morphine?” “Mor-what?” “Poppy-based drugs.” “Ah, you mean tormentannihilators. Well, these new ones kinda make me feel less worried up here,” 36658 taps its head, “Smiley helped me once and I swear it kept making happy faces at me all the way from the hive, and 10013 told me it felt a bit more active. I call them sufferingobliterators.” “Less worried… so, a psychoactive substance,” Gem pauses, “You just might be what I needed.” “Really? I haven't done anything yet.” That dismissal makes Gem pause what she’s doing and lean over the workbench to the drone. “You seem troubled. Is there a way I can help?” “Huh? I’m supposed to be helping you, Miss, not the other way around.” “Friends help each other, don’t they? Besides, this is going to likely take a lot of time, and sitting here in silence would be a little boring. What’s bothering you- wait, first, do you have a sample of that sufferingobliterator?” 36658’s jaw drops. “YOU SAID IT RIGHT!” it regains a little bit of the usual drone enthusiasm. Gem remains looking at it with a questioning look, “Oh, yeah, this… yeah… very experimental,” it opens a leg hole and puts a small green chip on the table. “Thank you,” Gem smiles, pulls out a small silvery flask from her saddlebag, takes a swig, swishes it around her mouth, swallows, and then eats the green chip, “Zebra transformation potion. With it, I can copy yours to a degree,” she says before pulling three green chips out of her mouth, “Can you analyze these by smell or do you need a taste?” 36658 sniffs the three samples. “They all smell the same to me, sorry,” it shakes its head, “And if they work, I’ll kinda be a bit dizzy to properly say which one does what. At home, I experiment only once every few days at most to avoid mixing stuff. What are you trying to make here, anyway?” it points at all the chemistry equipment. “Antidepressants. For reasons too complicated to explain, I can’t simply visit a doctor and have them prescribe those. Besides, I think the current state of magic and chemistry research regarding that topic is woefully inadequate - too many side effects, too many dependencies, too little… customization. It’s like trying to forge a delicate necklace using only a maul. You can probably beat some shape into it but it’s not the best solution,” looking at 36658 and seeing a face completely empty of understanding, she simplifies it, “I’m trying to make something that helps with the pain in the head, not the rest of the body.” “I think even my agonyslayers help with that too. We get hit in the head often.” “That’s not it. Have you ever heard of depression?” “Like… a shallow hole?” “Ah, I see…” Gem pauses, pondering for a moment how to translate her problem to the drone’s understanding, “What do you enjoy, 36658? What makes you happy?” “Digging, carrying, tending to my patch, thinking about new stories to tell about High Score, and helping drones heal after getting hurt,” replies 36658, its expression brightening a little. “Now imagine if all that went away. You had to keep doing it, but all it did was exhaust you. You tried different things too but it all ended the same way. And that went on and on and on, and the only way out you saw was ending your own life.” 36658 freezes, its expression turns grim, and finally it starts bawling. Loud, sobbing, snot dripping down, wailing echoing through the workshop. “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Gem leans back at the reaction. “It’s okay-” she pats its head to zero effect, “Stop imagining! Stop imagining!” 36658 stops and wipes its face. “That was horrible!” it looks up with teary eyes at Gem. “... that worked?” Gem tilts her head, “Nevermind, so that was an extremely simplified description of an incredibly complex problem. Now imagine that- wait, no, not again. Look, some ponies feel like that at some point in their lives. Reasons why can vary, but finding the strength to break out can be difficult or downright impossible without help. I know a stallion like that and I want to help him. While dealing with the root cause is bound to be a colossal effort, I can at least start by fixing the chemical imbalance in his brain.”  “I want to help,” says 36658 firmly, “Even if it can mean I don’t get points for today, no one deserves to feel like that. I imagined it only for a moment and I never want that again. That’s kinda how we lived before the new rules, but at least we liked digging and carrying. If that went away then we might have as well jumped into the crusher on our own. There was no hope, nothing more than a dark tunnel and inevitable death.” “So I heard…” Gem frowns, “Can you transform into a pony?” 36658 nods and, with a burst of green fire, it turns into an earth pony. “...hmmm… only a surface-level transformation, this won’t do…” Gem whispers to herself before speaking out loud, “I think I have an idea. Transform back,” when 36658 does so, she says, “So, you’ll transform into a pony and take one sample of these drugs. I’ll monitor your reactions, ask you a few questions, and then we’ll reset you into a changeling and then back into a fresh pony under no external effects.” “I… think I understood, uhh, parts of that,” 36658 rubs its head. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you exactly what to do. Pony up again, will you?” *Whoosh!* For some reason, the transformation is much easier this time, even though it takes a little longer, but 36658 feels much more solid. It doesn’t know how to explain it properly even to itself, or what changed from when it did so less than a minute ago.  “I feel weird.” “You’ve never looked better,” says Gem with a smirk, “Now eat this, and while we’re waiting for results you can finally tell me what’s bothering you,” she resumes fiddling with the various burners and beakers on the tables while 36658 makes itself comfortable in its chair. “It’ll be a long story, Miss.” “We both have a long day ahead of us then,” she winks at 36658. “Heh, now that I think about it, my problem sort of fits into yours, actually.”  “How come?” “Uhh, I think I don’t know how to explain it properly, otherwise 99111 would understand me, but I believe that things are better if we believe that there’s more to life than digging and carrying. I mean, we gotta do all that and that takes us most of our time, but we are more than… things or tools. Everyone thought Smiley was just a thing that does what anyone tells it, but now it’s getting better at thinking and it can even communicate a bit, so we can become more.” “I’m with you so far,” agrees Gem with a distant smile undecipherable to 36658. “So, there was this drone, 9999, who managed things no other drone could, and I want its example to inspire everyone back home, but it got killed. I don’t want its legacy to be - no matter how far you get or how good you are you’ll just get munched because you are a tiny and weak drone and you’ll never become anything else. I want us to feel like there’s someone helping us, like we’re not alone, like there’s hope and that we can achieve so much more past digging the next tunnel. So… I mix made-up stories with what 9999 really did and spread those to others, because it’s not enough to know that there was once a drone who saved a bunch of other drones from monsters over the course of its short life. I want us to feel like 9999 is still with us, and it’s inspiring us to work hard and then play hard as a reward. That little spark that makes you flee from hissy melters faster than your love levels should allow? That’s its helping hoof. It’s to motivate you to not give up if you get into trouble you know you can’t get out of, but to squeeze everything out of yourself, and maybe that tiny bit more you don’t know where it comes from. If it means saying that High Score’s tears could cure crushing, but a tough drone like High Score only cried once when it hatched and never again, is that so bad?” Gem’s eagerly listening ears twitch at that final part, making her look up from her chemistry equipment with a raised eyebrow. “How do you even come up with this stuff?” “Mostly when I’m trying to make new agonyslayers and get the dose wrong. The world gets all wobbly and then whoosh - a new idea,” 36658 makes a mind-blown gesture with its forelegs. “Ah, that explains so much…” mutters Gem, which makes 36658 pout at her, “But there’s more to it, isn’t there? You miss your friend a lot, don’t you?” “Yeah…” 36658 breathes out, “But it’s about much more than that, and 99111 refuses to see that, saying that my stories are dangerous and make others careless. I wish I knew how to make it see what I see.” “Hope is a double-edged sword,” she says carefully. 36658’s shoulders slump as it realizes it probably lost… again, “Look, I’m not a good pony to talk to about the psychology of faith, but I know it can drive ponies to justifying insanely evil things as well as bring motivation. My mettle is more the natural sciences,” she gestures to all the chemistry equipment around, “If it helps, I think your approach has merit but it still needs a lot of refining.” “I’d give my stash and my poppy patch away if it meant getting 9999 back…” Gem walks around the barrier of tables and hugs 36658. “Believe me, I know how it feels to lose someone irreplaceable,” she whispers into its ear, “That’s why I’m doing all this - so that someone else doesn’t have to go through the same thing. We can take a break if you-” “No,” breathes out 36658, “If I’m sharing examples of what High Score would do, I can’t be following them only when it suits me. I’m here to help, and if you’re saying this will take a long time, then I’ll be here a long time.” Gem kisses the drone’s nose, and 36658 feels a rush of love revitalizing it. “Sticking to your principles? I like it,” she says with a renewed smile, “So, while we’re working, how about you tell me about life in the hive and in turn I can tell you about Canterlot?”