• Published 10th Mar 2012
  • 10,947 Views, 553 Comments

Directive: Grow - Dragon Dreaming

  • ...
10
 553
 10,947

Exploratores: Campfire Tales

The flames flickered and danced, forming and reforming in intricate and seemingly random patterns. She could almost see the code behind it, the thousands upon thousands of programs and sub-programs devoted to the task of recreating a simple campfire. They were always there, of course, producing the air around her, the subtle currents and motions that made The World live and breathe; the sounds that meant the forest, with all its rustling leaves and far off noisess, and the songs of the nocturnals. How much effort, to reproduce what had already existed? What drove a person to such lengths, just to share this with whoever cared to live it?

“Twilight.”

She looked up, and saw Fluttershy and Rainbow looking at her, their faces troubled. Well, Fluttershy’s was troubled. Scared, almost. Rainbow just looked concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re doing that glowy eye thing again,” Rainbow answered. “Sort of.”

“Oh dear.” She was? She was. No wonder she had seen the hints of the code in the campfire; somehow she had slipped into codesight without realizing it. “Sorry, girls. I was lost in thought, I guess.”

“Hey, no worries, Twi. You weren’t glowing too brightly.” That made sense. She’d only barely been looking, after all.

Silence fell once again, and she looked over to where Applejack lay, sleeping. Well, more appropriate to say her avatar was in sleep mode, but less artistic. Applejack had logged off shortly after camp was made, and was likely actually sleeping in her physical home. Which made her curious: what was Applejack, then? Where did she live? How did she live? Three weeks, and she had never thought to ask. Not that they’d seen each other a whole lot in that time, but …

“U-um, T-Twilight?”

“Yes, Fluttershy?” she said, turning to look at her.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but, um, what was that? With your eyes glowing? Y-you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, I don’t mean to pry.”

She shook her head, smiling softly. “It’s okay, Fluttershy. I don’t mind. It’s part of my design; I’m not sure why, but it’s definitely an intentional function. It allows me to access the underlying infrastructure of The World; I can see the code as opposed to just the result of the code. For the most part my access is read only, but a few of the higher order programs respond to prodding.”

“Oh, I see. So when your eyes glow …”

“It means I’m looking at the code of The World.”

“Oh my,” the pegasus said, ducking her head. “That’s … a little scary.”

Twilight blinked, and looked at Rainbow, who nodded her head. “It kind of is. If you think about it. Look, when I first saw you, you were making the river dance. You’ve got access to systems critical to my continued existence.”

That was … true. But- “Rainbow, I’d never-”

“Hey, don’t get me wrong!” the pegasus said, wings flaring. “I’m not saying you’re gonna go all crazy and start breaking stuff; it’s just that- well.” She frowned. “It’s like you said. You were designed with it. So someone got the greenlight to get an AI minted with that kind of access. Someone figured you were needed, and that you were going to need it, and the Sisters agreed. Plus it is just a little unnerving that you’re basically the only person I know who could maybe actually delete me, buuuuut that’s not really the main thing and you should probably forget I ever mentioned it,” she said, the last words tumbling out in a rush. Another silence fell, as Twilight processed, and Rainbow looked to the side and coughed.

“You’ve thought about this,” the unicorn said, to fill the silence.

“A little, yeah.”

“Um,” Fluttershy said, looking confused, “someone …? You don’t know who your end user is, Twilight?”

The unicorn shook her head. “The Sisters haven’t told me. I think I’m actually still in beta; my current primary directive is to grow. Running Semper Liberi is a secondary directive. The purpose I was built for is actually in a restricted memory block, which will open once I’ve hit the proper stage of development.”

“Oh my. I’ve never heard of something like that before.”

“It’s pretty similar to standard procedures for the software and hardware I deal with,” Rainbow said, “though I admit I’ve never heard of it being used for an AI.”

“I did some research on it, and I think I’m the first AI to go through something like this since the Genesis program was started,” Twilight said, blowing a sigh. “I guess I’m just a very strange AI.”

“Don’t worry about it, Twi. Strange and new is good.”

“Oh, yes,” said Fluttershy, nodding her head. “I’m not always very good with new things, especially when it’s new people, but change is a good thing. You don’t want to stagnate.”

Twilight couldn’t help but grin. “Thanks, girls.”

The others nodded, and the group fell into companionable silence, each of the three AIs looking into the fire. She was lucky, she had come to realize, to have fallen in with this group of ponies; her studies of the library’s contents had laid before her a rather unflattering picture of what people were, or perhaps had been, as those she had met within Everfree did not quite seem to fit.

Though … that was perhaps no accident or stroke of luck. The Sisters had placed the library in Everfree, and had let her out on that particular hillside and given her her marching orders. It would not be a stretch to think that they had calculated the likelihood that she would meet up with Rainbow, or that, given the interest they had displayed in her thus far, they would have thoroughly vetted the people she would be likely to meet. She was still in development, after all, one guided by the people around her. Leaving something like that up to chance alone … that was unthinkable.

She looked at the two pegasi, and frowned. Come to think of it, she only knew a little bit more about them than she did about Applejack. She should fix that. “Hey Rainbow?”

“Yeah?”

“Who’s your end user?”

The pegasus chuckled. “You know, I was wondering when you were gonna get around to asking that. You remember what I do, right?”

She nodded. “Aeronautics stress testing, right?”

“Right. I was originally requested by a fairly major vehicle manufacturer on a planet called Sheth, and that was a pretty good gig. But about after about six years they rolled out a brand new model, huge budget behind it, make or break them type thing, and they had me test it. Its performance was pretty good, but pretty good wasn’t what they were aiming for, since no one was gonna buy ‘pretty good’ at the price they’d need to sell it to make through.

“So engineering is smart and listens to me, and they figure out ways to fix the issues, but administration doesn’t like what they see, and decide to be stupid. Long story short, they roll it out, marketing plays it up like it does what it was supposed to as is, and people get hurt when it doesn’t. So they fold in the aftermath.

“Now, me, I’m awesome, so I go freelance and I do fine. A lot of the guys from that company who went elsewhere still threw work my way and all that, and then I got tapped by the Galactic Task Force. Thus, I am Captain Rainbow Dash!” she said, striking a pose and giving a salute. “Not that I actually have a command, though. The rank just gives me the pull I need to get stuff done.”

“The Galactic Task Force? Who’s in command of that?”

“That would be the Commandant. Guy named Shining Armor. Don’t mistake, though; he’s my boss, but my end user was that corporation. When they folded …” she shrugged.

“Interesting.” That was rather a storied past. Definitely more there than she’d shared so far, but it certainly explained some things. Like how she knew so much. There really was no substitute for experience, she supposed. “Thank you, Dash.”

“No problem. Hey Flutters.” The yellow pony started, looking at Rainbow, who snickered. “Your turn.”

“Uh, um … w-what?”

“To, you know, share. We’re doing this whole round-the-campfire-share-your-life-story thing, right, so it’s your turn.”

“Oh. Um. Really?”

“I was curious, yes,” Twilight said, giving Fluttershy a smile. “I know you’re the Caretaker General of this forest, but what does that mean, exactly?”

“Oh, well, that’s more for the areas close to Everfree itself, or at least, the parts that people tend to go into,” Fluttershy said, her nervousness dissipating as she launched into a familiar subject. “I keep an eye on everything and report anything that isn’t working properly. And keep the wild animals out of Everfree. Oh, and I have a number of them that are tame that I keep for people to come and see, and sometimes they take one for a pet. Would you like a pet, Twilight?”

The unicorn blinked. “Uhhh, maybe? Not right now, I think. Maybe when the library is open?”

Fluttershy nodded. “Okay. I can understand. Pets are an investment, even if they are just extremely accurate digital representations, and you need to be able to make that investment.”

“Er, yes.”

Rainbow chuckled. “Flutters is selling herself a little short. See, Twi, if anything, but anything goes sideways in the forest, who do you think takes care of it?”

Twilight blinked. “Sideways?”

Rainbow snorted. “Wonky. Weird. Off-kilter.”

“Oh. And, based on context, Fluttershy.”

“Right. And how often does that happen, Fluttershy?” Rainbow said, giving the other pegasus an expectant look.

“Um … about two or three times a month? There’s lots of mythical creatures and they sometimes act up.”

“Yeah, like that pack of timber wolves last year. Ever figure out why they charged the town?”

“Oh, yes. They’d rousted a phoenix and got their tails singed, poor things. The Apples helped that time, though,” Fluttershy said, kicking softly at the ground. “I didn’t really do all that much.”

Rainbow snorted again, and gave a roll of her eyes. “Whatever you say, girl.”

“So how’d you get the position?” Twilight asked.

“O-oh. I was groomed for it. The last Caretaker was an old pony named Happy Trails, and he commissioned me and taught me everything about the forest.” She heaved a sigh, and laid down, eyes staring into the fire. “He loved this forest, and wanted to make sure that there was someone who would appreciate it and help others do the same. He never said, but I think he couldn’t find a successor. So he asked for me.”

Twilight frowned. That was past tense. “So-” She hesitated. Should she ask? She didn’t want to offend, but … but she was curious. “So is he gone, then?”

Fluttershy nodded. “He was old when I came out of the pod,” she said, her voice barely more than a murmur, “and he died about five years later. But that was a long time ago.”

The unicorn lowered her head, eyes closing. Perhaps she shouldn’t have asked. Death was … death was a strange thing. It was the end of a life, but so unlike the end of a program. Not even quite like deletion. A full system crash, a full wipe, a full end; that something so complex and enduring as a person would simply reach an end was difficult to fathom. That Applejack or Rarity would one day age and die, or that even her fellow AIs would one day fail. How did one deal with that?

“He was a kind person,” Fluttershy said, and Twilight opened her eyes. “Always kind. Stern, and strong, but always kind. I could tell he cared. And I could tell he was happy.” The pegasus sighed again, and laid her head on her hooves. “I miss him.”

Twilight glanced at Rainbow, who simply nodded. Together, they got to their hooves, and moved to either side of their melancholy friend, Rainbow extending a wing over Fluttershy’s back. Neither of them noticed the shape in the shadows, nor the glint of the eyes that watched. And as they drifted off to sleep, no one noticed when the shape slipped away.