A bead of sweat slid down the side of Megabyte’s face, then landed on his report with a plop that sounded to the scientist like thunder in the otherwise silent auditorium. As he stared down at where the drop had landed, the paper wrinkled slightly. He pursed his lips and tried to rub the spot dry with his hoof. “Any luck?” he asked, resolutely refusing to look up from the pages.
A reply which sounded vaguely like “Dunno what the deal is” mumbled from around a mouthful of donut came from somewhere behind the robust stallion that stood unmoving several yards away.
Megabyte jumped slightly when a throat pointedly cleared. “Ah, yes. I apologize for the delay. We had hoped to have D-8-R give you the report himself, but we seem to have run into a small glitch of some sort—”
“I don’t know if I’d say ‘small’,” the voice behind the robot said after a loud swallow. “Looks like his syntax analyzer got wired into his motor control instead of his logic processor. How much did I have to drink last night, MB? I keep telling you, you gotta keep the soldering gun away from me after I have too many—”
“Yes, yes, Dot! We, ah, we’ll discuss best practices at a later date.” Megabyte quailed when the mare on the review board checked her watch. “For now, best not to keep these fine ponies waiting any longer!”
The greying stallion opposite him adjusted his glasses to sit more squarely on his muzzle. “Yes, that would be appreciated. It’s been nearly forty-five minutes.”
“Has it?” Megabyte leafed rapidly through his report. Though he had drafted it, the writing within seemed almost foreign. Generally he practiced these things for weeks ahead of time, but when Dot Matrix has suggested that D-8-R could impress the panel with a flawless presentation of his own results, well, the idea had been intoxicating. Too intoxicating, it seemed. They’d had a drink to the genius of it, then several more. After that, the night’s details seemed to slip away into questionable darkness. Now, staring down at the data sets, his heart began to pound.
“It has,” the mare returned. As always, her bun was pulled back into what seemed like an excruciatingly tight knot. It reminded Megabyte of strangulation, of drowning, of hooves clawing at throats—
Megabyte gasped in a huge lungful of air and waved away the black spots the asphyxiation had left before his eyes.
“Are you quite alright?” the aged stallion the headed the panel asked in his wheezy, brittle voice.
Waving him back into this seat, Megabyte forced a wan smile. “No need to—”
“That’s just his thing,” Dot said from within the robot. He’d opened an access panel in D-8-R’s barrel and had crammed his head and left foreleg into it. “MB forgets to breathe sometimes when he gets too worked up. Oh, hey! Look at—” The robot rang like a gong, and Dot swore. “Ow! Why did we make this panel so small? But you remember when you couldn’t find your calculator?”
“I’m sure the committee isn’t interested in—”
With some difficulty, Dot wiggled his leg back out and waved a badly battered calculator back and forth. “I guess we left it in here! Always the last place you look, eh?”
As one, the three ponies sitting on the university’s funding committee raised their left eyebrows. Megabyte tugged at his collar. “Yes. Curious, that. Anyway, Dot, if you could work quietly over there, I’ll proceed.”
“Thank you,” the greying stallion said, tapping an impatient hoof on his desk. “We’ve heard several things recently which have us concerned about your project.”
The mare leaned down and retrieved a sheet of parchment from the saddlebag which sat beside her. “I received this memo from you stating that you’d made great progress with your… your… What did you call this thing again?”
Megabyte threw a hoof out toward the robot. “This is the D-8-R, Mark Three, Equestria’s premiere companionship-oriented artificial intelligence. He—”
“He’s the Loooooove-Bot!” Dot said, his voice dropping into its lowest register. Megabyte assumed it was an attempt to sound sexy, but echoing through the robot’s metal frame it took on a doom-heralding, sepulchral quality.
“Yes, thank you, Dot! I’ll take it from here.” Megabyte gripped the lectern with a hoof, taking some small comfort from the solidity of the thing. “We’ve made great strides recently. The Mark Three has been equipped with at least eighteen new, independent subroutines that would have impossible just six months ago. His ability to understand unfamiliar situations and navigate them to logical and satisfying conclusions is leaps ahead of where it was at our last meeting.”
The aged stallion frowned, leaning forward in his chair and steepling his hooves. “Then what is all this tosh the committee has been hearing about rampages and lawsuits levied upon the university?”
Megabyte jumped when the lectern cracked. He’d squeezed the corner so hard that it had broken off in his hoof. Fumbling with it for a moment, he finally settled for cramming it onto the pocket of his lab coat. “Ah, well, that isn’t to say that the progress has always been smooth. We learn so much with each outing, you see? Live field tests are essential to our understanding—”
Something inside the robot popped, and a thin, acrid smoke poured out from its nostrils. “Can’t make an omelet without breaking a few heads, am I right?” Dot said before descending in a coughing fit. After a moment, he wrenched his head out of the access panel and wiped at his streaming eyes.
Megabyte squeezed his eyes closed for a moment, willing patience to come. “As we discussed at the last meeting, we found that focusing on a target to exclusion yielded results that were somewhat less than desirable—”
“Somewhat?” The mare stared at him incredulously. “This machine of yours destroyed several buildings and nearly hospitalized my niece!”
Swallowing hard, Megabyte dabbed at his brow with a handkerchief. “N-now I object to that. There is no evidence that leads us to believe Cheerilee was in any actual danger. If she’d just given him a chance instead of running—”
“If the committee recalls, we voted unanimously to move forward with continued funding after the last mishap,” the greying stallion said, turning in his seat to glare at his companions. “Let’s not waste more time re-litigating the matter.” Turning back to Megabyte, he leaned back in his chair and crossed his forelegs across his chest. “Please bring us up to speed. What new data do you have for us?”
“Well, as you can see, we’ve given D-8-R an entirely updated appearance. The new synthetic skin fooled six out of ten ponies in swatch tests—”
Dot trotted over to the lectern. “You have no idea how hard it is to get swatches of real pony hide for comparison! We had to—”
Placing his hoof on Dot’s forehead, Megabyte forcefully shoved him out of the spotlight. “The, ah… The details are all in the report. Let’s stick to the broader picture, shall we?” He pressed a button on the lectern and a light flickered to life, highlighting the robot. “After police reports quoted witnesses as saying D-8-R’s appearance ranged from ‘creepy’ to ‘terrifying’ to ‘my foal still has nightmares’, we decided it might be best to start afresh. His skin is now pliable and warm to the touch. Fine motor controls have been added, upping his total expressions to fifteen.”
“You should see ‘confused’, though!” Dot snorted out a laugh. “Looks like he’s gonna take the biggest du—”
Megabyte kicked out with his rear hoof, mentally smiling as he knocked the wind out of his assistant. “But our most significant advance was in social recognition and decision/criteria evaluation. The results have been unprecedented.”
“Yes,” the aged stallion wheezed. “’Unprecedented’ might be just the word for it. The university has never received so many legal threats and demands for compensation.”
Blanching, Megabyte tore through his report with shaking hooves. “Putting aside the issue of hospitalization, which I might add we have partly covered with our funding, D-8-R nearly quadrupled his dating efficacy. This is undeniable progress!”
The committee did not return Megabyte’s somewhat strained smile.
“Which means what, exactly?” the mare finally said.
“It means he was with Cheerilee for about four hours instead of one,” Dot said, still a little breathless.
The mare’s eyebrows rose, and she half-stood from her chair. “You sent this thing after Cheerilee again?”
“We, ah, well we thought it best to keep the data sets as consistent as we possibly could!” Megabyte said, throwing his hooves up to ward off the waves of indignation rolling up at him from the mare. “Cheerilee is a known quantity, and she’s shown herself to be remarkably resilient—”
“She’s had to be!” the mare shot back.
The greying stallion cocked an eyebrow at the mare next to him. “It was your idea to fund this thing for your niece in the first place. You can’t get upset about it now.”
She glared at him, setting her hooves on her hips. “The goal was a perfect gentlecolt, not some crazed—”
“Now, now,” the aged stallion said, waving them back into position with a liver-spotted hoof. “We can debate the ethics of the thing later. Let’s let the good professor finish his presentation.”
Megabyte took a deep breath. “Combing through our data, we came to the conclusion that D-8-R’s pursuit behavior was too aggressive. In both instances, he “came on too strong”, as they say in the common vernacular. We adjusted for that, and I think we can all agree that the recalibration was a resounding success.”
“So what is all of this, then?” The aged stallion tapped a stack of parchment with his hoof. “At least twenty-eight confirmed injuries, and more trickling in still.”
Megabyte’s eyes ran over the stack of angry letters. It seemed very tall to him. “Well, but none of them are from mares, correct?”
The aged stallion’s forehead creased. “Now that you mention it, I don’t remember seeing any mares on the reports.”
“That’s ’cause D-8-R’s got this massive jealous streak. He’s—”
Dot let of a series of surprised grunts as Megabyte crammed one of the stacked chalkboard erasers that the lectern held into his assistant’s mouth. “Thank you, Dot! You’ve been a great help!” Megabyte said loudly while pushing the gagging stallion from the room. Slamming the door, he propped a chair under the handle and tugged on it to ensure the barricade’s stability.
“Jealous?” The greying stallion said.
“Artificial intelligences do not get jealous,” Megabyte replied. He tried out a chuckle, but didn’t quite succeed. Instead, it came out as a snorting cough that wasn’t the least bit infectious or mood-leavening. “It’s just a matter of logical deduction. D-8-R merely sought out efficiency. With a few more tweaks—”
The greying stallion’s piercing eyes locked onto Megabyte’s. “What is this ‘efficiency’, exactly?” the stallion said, chewing lightly on the arm of his spectacles.
“W-well…” Megabyte said before stopping to mop at his brow again. Several more drops of sweat now marred his report, but he hardly noticed it anymore. Off to his right, the door he’d pushed Dot Matrix through rattled alarmingly. “Well, as I said before, we focused on dialing back D-8-R’s target… I hesitate to say ‘aggression’, but perhaps ‘dogged pursuit ’ might serve. As stated previously, I believe that is a success worth celebrating, and—”
“Get on with it,” the greying stallion growled.
“Right! Quite right!” Megabyte inhaled forcefully, trying to slow his galloping heart. “I-it seems that our focus might have been a tad narrow. We sent D-8-R to Ponyville’s annual Spring Fling celebration under the code name Ember. A dance and carnival are erected in the town’s main square each year, and we surmised that it would provide D-8-R with a sufficiently stimulating environment with which to test out his subroutines.”
The mare’s eyes fluttered closed, and she rubbed at her temple.
“A-anyway,” Megabyte said, speeding on, “we thought he might make a good impression by winning a prize for the target—”
“Can we not use ‘target’ and my niece in the same sentence, please?” the mare said through clenched teeth.
“By winning a prize for Cheerilee at one of the booths!” Megabyte said. “And it went off without a hitch, I’d like to point out. D-8-R won the biggest, fluffiest stuffed toy they had to offer, then presented it to Cheerilee with what I think any reasonable pony would view to be considerable charm. If the committee cares to review the data sets before them, they will see that nearly four hours of fun and merriment followed.”
“Sprains and contusions also followed, it says here,” the aged stallion said, holding up his report and motioning toward a graph with a precipitous drop at the end. “Quite a drop in measured enjoyment near the end.”
Megabyte bit his lip and stared down at the graph. The line seemed to be leaping off of a high cliff and plummeting with alarming velocity toward the bottom of the page. “It, ah… It seems that D-8-R reacted somewhat poorly to a statement that Cheerilee made regarding the physique of a strongpony, but we’re hard at work correcting—”
“Reacted badly how?” The mare said, frowning.
“Well…” Megabyte tried to lick his lips, but his tongue was dry as the desert. “Well, he asked Cheerilee if the strongpony was attractive to her. Our records show that she might have gotten increasingly flustered at his reaction. She seemed to say that the pony was attractive, but that she finds lots of stallions attractive, and that in no way did it mean that D-8-R wasn’t attractive. The data becomes unreliable for a few cycles after that. Dot thinks D-8-R might have blown something from the stress.”
The greying stallion ran a hoof over his face.
“But if you look at it in the correct light, the ensuing events offer up a hopeful picture of future progress,” Megabyte said. His forehead was still streaming, but his handkerchief was beyond use now unless he wanted to wring it out. Unsure of what to do with it, he finally settled on jamming it into his pocket, then swore as he rammed his hoof into the chuck of wood he’d forgotten he’d put there. He sucked on the wound for a moment before continuing. “While the results weren’t exactly what we were looking for, it does show remarkable analytical and problem solving ability.”
“Stallion A. Flowers forcibly inserted into nostrils,” the aged stallion said, peering down at the report. “Stallion B. Knocked unconscious with a box of chocolates. Stallion C. Severe paper cuts.” The stallion looked up. “Paper cuts?”
“Ah, yes.” Megabyte clenched his jaw, but it did little to help. “It was a poem D-8-R had penned for Cheerilee. Dot thought it was best to limit most of his options to romantic gestures. He, ah… He used them in… unexpected ways. We had no idea that a box of chocolates could be employed martially.”
“A war zone. That’s how the mayor of Ponyville put it in her report to the authorities.” The greying stallion sucked on his teeth for a moment, scrutinizing Megabyte. “Your report speaks of significant progress, but I’m afraid that I’m struggling to see it.”
A tiny flutter of anger rippled through Megabyte. “Page thirty-one! Plain as day!” he said, his mane bristling.
Across from him, the committee leafed through the document.
“What am I looking at?” the greying stallion finally said. “All I see is a long list of personal injury and property damage.”
“It’s not what’s there!” Megabyte held up the page and tapped it forcefully with his hoof. “It’s what’s missing! Nowhere, in any of this, is there any indication that Cheerilee was hurt! Terrified? Certainly. Confused? Assuredly. But in all of the ensuing chaos, not one hair in her mane was harmed, or the hair of any mare, I might add.”
The committee stared back down at the report with renewed intensity.
The mare took out a quill and scratched down a few notes onto her copy. “So what you’re saying is that this robot took care of my niece, even while waging a one-pony war on Ponyville’s festival?”
“Exactly!” Megabyte replied, his eyes lighting up. “There’s even an instance or two of D-8-R saving her from collapsing structures after he’d chased a stallion through it. It looks like she fought him pretty hard, too. One of his optical sensors came back non-functional. It had several dents that match her hoofprints exactly. I can proudly say that even when faced with adversity, he was very gallant toward Cheerilee.”
“And all that it took was the hospitalization of dozens of ponies and the utter destruction of a beloved festival,” the greying stallion said before his mouth settled into a grim, hard line.
Megabyte’s face fell. “I-In a certain light, yes, I suppose it—”
“I think our choice is clear,” the aged pony said, his voice tired. Beside him, the other committee members nodded. “The inhabitants of Ponyville surely know by now that they live in dangerous times. While not optimal, this experiment is progressing.” The committee stood as one, then began to gather their belongings.
“Then…” Megabyte said, gripping the lectern again. He didn’t trust his knees at the moment.
“Funding continued,” the mare trotted over to Megabyte and leaned in close. “The local government is concerned that my niece’s name keeps cropping up in these kinds of reports,” she said in a low voice. “For the sake of Ponyville, she needs a steady date. This might be our best option. Get this thing up and running, and remember: gentlecolt, not rampaging metal monstrosity.” The mare patted Megabyte’s shoulder, then turned for the door. “Equestria might be depending on it,” she said over her shoulder as she turned the knob.
Y'know, I actually had to double-check and make sure you didn't just reupload a chapter, but nope. It appears these two bozos haven't learned their lesson from last time. Well, they did; they just didn't learn the right lesson.
Good thing D-8-R didn't know that Cheerilee is bi (as far as the context of this story is concerned). Otherwise, I don't think Equestria would've been able to survive a meltdown of such a magnitude. I still think these guys should switch to a ponunculus (ponified homunculus). Much easier to work with magic rather than experimental science.
Oh, almost forgot. Welcome back! I don't know how long you'll be back, but I think this still applies.
... Need to re-read. Who is Cheerilee's Aunt?
AWESOME! It's BACK!
Nice work with the... Well, not Cheerilee, perspective! ... Whatever that's called... (And I call myself an English student...) ... And on review, that seems to be the normal perspective. ... COOL!
Sorta want to see Cheerilee's thoughts on the Ember Date, but I can guess well enough, and whatever comes next should be pretty good!
7128934 She's a member of the university that sits on the board that funds various facilities. I've never given her a name. I like the committee is rather faceless entities.
And I'm glad to see that you're excited for more Cheerilee!
7128931 I figured it fit their personalities more if they just never considered that Cheerilee might also be into mares.
Thanks for welcome back!
7128941
Have we had a mare as the other date yet?
So... Wait. Have we had a sequence of D-8-R dates yet?
OH! I sorta wanna see a counter-project by a rival group, as it seems making bots to date Cheerilee is a steady source of funding... So exploiters will arrive?
Or... ponies will date Cheerilee for the money that will be rewarded to those who succeed? ... Could be a psychological experiment.
... So many ideas for a Cheerilee-focused economic/financial plan... ... Could also apply to other dangers of Ponyville, grants to mitigate danger, or using Ponyville as a object endurance test site or something...
7128959 Are you asking if Cheerilee has dated mares in this story before? Yes, she's dated several. Blue Belle, Nurse Redheart, and Zecora spring immediately to mind.
D-8-R was introduced in date 23 and appeared in date 36.
And don't worry. I have no shortage if crazy crap to add into this story. It just gets more ridiculous with each chapter. My limitor is time. I rarely have time to write anymore. The world of this story, it's economy, social structure, etc., are all basically being effected by Cheerilee's lousy dates. It's just a slow burn. There are a over nine hundred dates to go, after all.
It lives! It lives! And appropriately enough, it's a chapter on the modern equine Frankenstein. Debugging is progressing nicely. Hopefully the next iteration will be able to avoid inflicting structural damage to the surroundings. (I'd hope for no grievous bodily harm, but let's be realistic.)
7128977 Ha! I hadn't considered the Frankenstein parallel. That's amusing. I just hadn't done anything with D-8-R in a while, and the idea of him becoming the Equestrian Ultron made me laugh.
7128967
Ah. Cool! You have a long-term plan!
How... Hmm... Well, if you commute by not-car, and have a phone, you could write with that... But I have no idea how you write, so I'm just offering up ideas... ... And, there's the likely chance you have better things to do with your free minutes...
Too bad you... Wait, you could speed it up by getting other writers to write, by giving out prompts or something? ... How did you get the guest chapters, anyways?
Typo: ......... gentlecoat -> gentlecolt?
its back!
I wonder if this could all go TOO well for her eventually - Cheerilee finds multiple ponies after her... (or maybe I need to stop reading Harem manga)
I swear you have no idea how glad I am ro see this fanfic updated!
Oh, Cheerilee is gonna have so much more sh*t coming her way... I look forward to seeing it hit the fan.
btw it's nice to see this updated. Glad to see you involved in the fandom and writing, no less.
Yay! You're back!
And poor Cheerilee, it seems her luck has gotten so bad that she's actually become the test subject for "the perfect stallion".
7128986 Well, sort of a long-term plan. More of a long-term very, very vague idea.
Unfortunately I do commute via car, so no dice there.
See, I used to have this job that had lots of downtime. Well, I still have it, but the downtime has been significantly reduced. I just happened to have a bunch of time today, so I could write.
The guest chapters were something that I wanted to have originally to give me a little break and to allow for a different feel in the story. However, they turned out to be more work than just writing the chapters myself. I had to coordinate the writing, work with the author on the idea, edit the final version, etc. It was just too big of a drain on me, so I ended them.
7129009 If Fimfiction can handle The Chase, I'm sure it can handle whatever this story throws at it.
7129029 Feel free to leave any comment you want on the chapters. That's what the comment feature is for, after all.
As for Gridiron, I haven't really thought of his backstory. I try not to think about him at all...
7129037 Things can never go well for Cheerilee, let alone TOO well. I'm sure she'd take a harem position at this point, though.
7129060 Aw, I'm glad you're pleased. I hope to write more soon.
7129068 I'm happy people are happy to have the story back.
Also, I keep meaning to read your stuff. I'm a big fan of your blog, actually.
7129091 Well, to be fair, she's been their test subject since chapter twenty-three, I believe.
7129252 considering the frequency of updates i'm almost 3000% sure there's no way you're making it to 1000.
You're back. Bless you, you're back.
It lives! That makes my day!
7129318 Making it to 1000 chapters was never the goal. I'm just writing it until I get bored with the concept or people stop reading.
Yay, you are back! I'm glad D-8-R made a reappearance, too. Cheerilee has a lot of fans trying to help her. I hope she finds someone! But it's a great ride until she does.
7129323 Hopefully more regularly. My life is a lot busier than it used to be, so writing is hard these days.
7129324 I'm very happy that you're happy.
7129428 A great ride, but a loooooooooong one...
Obvious solution: make D-8-R bi. Then he won't hurt mares or stallions. Certainly that can't cause any new problems.
7129867 One thing's for certain: If Dot Matrix and Megabyte agree, it's guaranteed to be a terrible idea.
7129882 Like when they re-purposed F00-13R, a female infiltrator robot built for the Pony Intelligence Agency, the experimental female model. Just in case the bot's gender was the main issue...
Hey, they're bound to try out a female version sooner or later So much potential with that zany project.
So...I have completely forgotten what happened with these characters in previous chapters. I just want you to know that I pictured Megabyte and Dot Matrix from Reboot the entire time. It was very amusing.
7129264 Thus fanfic has been my bae since before I joined this site! Every new chapter make ne haaaappy!
... Wait... 1000 Dates, assuming an average of a week between each one, which is likely wrong, and that's well, 1000 weeks, aka ~19.2307692308 years. OR 19 years, 2 months, ~3 weeks.
When would that be in the FiM timeline... But, there could be shorter timespans between dates, having a date with multiple people count as multiple dates... Etc.
Or,
Discordian Time Stretching... Err this one... that keeps going due to Discord's amusement...How has the D8R not come afoul of a time traveler attempting to stop it at it's source yet? The sad part is that it's probably functioning properly and it's just Cheerilee's aura that causes it to go haywire.
Actually, I wonder if Cadence would have a horrified reaction to just being in Cheerilee's presence... Like something is just wrong with romance in general.
I suppose that Ponyville should be glad that the damn thing didn't have 'Terminator' programming. Then, it likely would have wiped out the entire population of the town to protect her or something!
I knew the robot would return.
You could say that I told you.... He'd be back.
It's good to see D-8-R again. Even if Cheerilee might not agree.
Still, she'd have to admit that the bots' dates go better than at least 90% of her dates in general.
7133621 I agree. I hope Cheerilee ends up with Termidater.
7128967 ...so what you're Saying is that Cheerilee is a nexus of romance that is the lynchpin for the entire country? This seems ripe for changeling interference. I look forward to Cheerilee getting abducted and replaced, only for her doppelganger to go through the same dating hell. Eventually they decide it's not worth the life of their operative and give her back.
Cheerilee rates "getting kidnapped by changelings for two weeks" a solid 6 out of 10.
7144191 You know you loved it!
7139178 At least changelings can be as cute as she wants them to be... AND either sex, I guess. Not bad.
7133621 She got a solid four hours. That's progress!
7130531 Ha! That's pretty funny. Cheerilee would be some kind of Lovecraftian horror existing outside the reality of love in Equestria. A many-tentacled monstrosity to be hunted and handled with extreme prejudice.
7130627 Ponyville already experienced that back in date thirty-six. Now Cheerilee can't go back to The Trough.
7133453 He'd never say "Hasta la vista, baby" to Cheerilee.
7144391
You do realize someone has to write that now, like Twilight is trying to explain her unrequited crush to Cadence and the Princess of Love keeps zoning out to a terrible, prophetic vision that's been haunting her nightmares.
7145741 No. A mouse is a term for a swelling bruise under the eye.
Discussion of the origins of "mouse."
D-8-R is still a thing. I'm amazed Megabyte wants to keep making this thing.
Then again he's a perfect bad date.
7149354 It's almost a certainty.