//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3: Poor poker faces 
// Story: The Equestria Diaries 
// by Istaran 
//------------------------------//

I was left alone for a few hours, which suited me just fine under the circumstances. I was still healing from the manticore attack, but mostly I was just playing with my spiders. I had dreamed of this day, but actually living the reality was incredible. I soon had a handful of small spiders parked around the outside of the small house, watching for Fluttershy's return, while the others roamed about, doing random things. I used the dust in her house as raw material to make more spiders, and tried combining them up to various sizes. As I expected, the larger spiders could handle more complex orders on their own, while the tiny ones needed constant micromanagement. Deus handled most of that on his own, but even he lacked initiative of his own. 

It was very obviously strange percieving things as a collection of independant bodies scattered about the room, but when I thought about it it was much more profoundly but subtly strange sharing Deus' mind. Mathematics had become trivial, memorization (once my greatest bane) was instant and inevitable. When I concentrated, I could feel many of my thoughts drift from my brain to his. I would start thinking about what I wanted to do, and he would pull the thought-train from my mind and start filling in the details of how to do it. It was surreal to a degree I could barely comprehend.

One of the little watch-spiders on the roof got eaten by a bird. It was strange and a bit painful to experience, but ultimately harmless to me. Deus had some rather.. unkind suggestions for how to deal with the bird, ranging from converting its mass to more spiders to enslaving it by hijacking its mind. I cringed at all of them, and instead ordered Deus to convert as much of its mass in the bird as it could to nutrious proteins and such the bird could digest. Deus obeyed, but I could sense his discomfort with my choice. [<You will not win the survival game through kindness.>]

I tried to distract myself from going down that dark path for now. I ordered Deus to build me some lasers. Nothing big or fancy, just some spider-mounted laser-pointers. They could be fun, possibly useful, and more importantly it was an interesting diversion. [<How?>] he replied, leaving me speechless for a moment. Until now, Deus had been able to sort out the how of anything I'd wanted him to do with no trouble. 

[<Don't you know how?>]

[<I began existance with only a single nanospider with blank memories. I have my core operating system, and the data I have been able to gather from your mind and our surroundings, and nothing else. You are fortunate that my core operating system includes the required information to integrate with your mind and body, or we would not even be having this conversation. If you knew what the physical structure of a laser is supposed to be, I could manufacture it for you, but since you do not, I cannot without more data. At most I could begin conducting experiments until I hit upon a configuration that works.>]

[<So if I wanted you to make a lightbulb?..>]

[<I would have to try assembling different alloy filaments and running power through them until I hit upon a combination that produced light.>]

[<Much like Thomas Edison..>]

[<Yes, but with much more rapid iterations.>]

I put that thought aside, as someone was coming. The yellow wings pulled tight against a buttery flank was easily recognizable as Fluttershy. A white furred, purple maned pony with a small white horn protruding from her forehead tugged at my memory. I felt like she should have been familiar, but I couldn't place her for the life of me. She carried heavy laden saddlebags, and seemed to be quite eager about something. The third and final figure of their group was a human. I vaguely recognized him from the bus ride.. a stocky and well muscled man in his 30s or 40s, he looked like a stereotypical lumberjack to me, but he had a broad, friendly grin and an overly colorful flannel shirt and overalls. Somehow his clothing felt.. more at place here than in the dreary gray world we had both come from.

As they approached, I hid my spiders from view. But what I failed to hide was the unnatural cleanliness of the place. I didn't notice until the ponies entered and exclaimed about it. As clean as the place was now, it literally sparkled. Somehow, the spiders couldn't perceive it, but looking around with my own eyes it was glaringly obvious. It felt like.. cartoon logic on display, for lack of a better term. When my visitors came into the room where I was sitting on the bed, Fluttershy was on me in a moment.

"Oh, mister Daniel, did you clean my house? That was very thoughtful of you, but you really should be resting. You're too hurt to be doing housework!"

"Oh, umm. It was no trouble." I thought as quickly as I could, before pulling out a fist-sized spider from my pocket. "My robot here did all the work."

"Oh! Well then thank you mister.. umm, what's his name?" Fluttershy didn't seem the least phased by the spider, but I could tell the unicorn was cringing a bit, and Frank's smile was looking.. a bit more faked.

"<Deus>," I said without thinking, before cringing. While, predictably, the ponies simply took it as a name, Frank clearly recognized what the word meant. '<God>'. It was going to make it a lot harder to downplay its capabilities, especially to him. I wasn't yet convinced that honesty was the best policy, at least in our situation.

"Oh, well then thank you very much, Mister <Deus>, I'm glad to meet you!" Deus returned her greeting by waving a single leg at her, which elicited a few excited giggles.

"So, that's the item you chose to bring with you? All I asked for was a Swiss Army knife." Frank said, drawing out the item in question from his pocket to show it off. "Nothing too fancy, but it has plenty of uses."

"Indeed, Frank here has been making himself quite handy all around town since he arrived here. I do so hope you will be as welcome of an arrival." The unicorn said. As I turned to her, she blushed a bit, realizing she'd forgotten something. "Oh! Forgive me for not introducing myself sooner. My name is Rarity, clothier extraordinaire. If you will allow me the opportunity, I would love to provide you with some replacements for your old, torn clothing. You can see my prior work on display on mister Frank here."

"That's quite generous of you, Rarity. I hope I will be able to repay your kindness before long." A thought struck me and I turned to the other human in the room. "Frank, how did you learn to speak Equestrian so quickly?" 

"Oh, uh, Twilight used some kind of translation spell on me." He said, waving dismissively. "It was quite convenient that I happened to appear before a unicorn with a knack for magic like that. Why, how did you learn?"

"I had to take a crash course in it from a zebra.. just be glad I didn't pick up her tendancy to rhyme everything. I'm just glad she had the patience to keep talking all day to make use of the old 'immersion' technique." I grinned fakely, and he nodded back just as unconvincingly. [<Hey, Deus.. so is language learning a part of your core operating system then? It seems like it'd be a non-trivial bit of software to put together on the fly. I certainly don't know how to make a language learning program.. >]

[<Actually, it's a part of your core operating system, so to speak. Human brains are hard wired to be able to learn languages, even though that capability falls off as you age. I simply took what was built into your brain and optimised it for my own purposes.>]

I realized my eyes had gone a bit out of focus as I was having my mental exchange, though the ponies at least didn't seem to notice anything was amiss. "I suppose Rarity will need to measure me for my clothing. I'm feeling much better now, and I think I'm up for it if you brought what you need?" I stood up, keeping the sheets around me as a measure of modesty, showing I was well enough for such activities. 

"Alright, but we should talk later, in private, if you don't mind." Frank said, a hint of nervousness creeping in his voice despite his best poker face. I nodded in return. 

"Be careful not to overexert yourself, if you don't mind." Fluttershy said before taking her leave.

I was left alone with Rarity then. Unsurprisingly, her saddlebags were full of measuring equipment, fabrics, and other tools of her trade. I blushed as she telekenetically pulled my sheets away, and started measuring my various proportions. She had a delicate touch, being especially careful around the scabbed over remains of my wounds. She was quite professional about the whole thing, and kept me distracted as best she could with conversation, mostly discussing clothing options. 

We were at odds almost immediately, as I wanted a simple pair of black pants and a grey shirt, as simple and forgettable as possible. But simple and forgettable were anathema to her, and grey was practically sacriledge. At one point she tried to suggest a rather nice-looking suit: I wondered how a pony had gotten the idea of a tuxedo nailed down so perfectly. But I insisted on something easier to move in. We finally compromised on a pair of black pants with navy blue highlights and a navy blue pressed shirt with black highlights. 

When we were done, I settled back under my blankets eagerly awaiting fresh clothing. But before I would have those, I had another visit from Frank.