Because Ponies Are the Size of Cats and They Love to Cuddle

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Laboratories

It's a mundane day, and I'm sitting at my desk inside the cubicle at work. My gloves flip through holographic spreadsheets as I review the following week's itinerary with glazed eyes. By the fifth yawn of the hour, I hear a chiming sound in my ears. I glance towards the upper right to see a beacon floating above the other translucent windows. Flicking my glove, I maximize the e-mail and drag it into the center of my vision.

All it takes is an eye-twitch or two, and I see who it was that sent the e-mail. My blood runs cold. I wince so hard that I'm certain all of my hairs will spring free from their roots.

"Crud... crud crud crud crud crud crud crud!"

I scramble. I fumble. I swing left and right in my desk chair while dragging various holo-files from a deep sea of clustered folders. I shuffle a series of hand-typed notes together and stuff them into a compressed directory.

"Crud bagels on a Zoram-damned pizza!" I hiss.

A familiar face pokes into my cubicle. "Is everything alright?"

I smile awkwardly at her. "Y-yeah. Just... j-just lost track of time. It's okay, though." I gulp. "Go back to whatever it was you were doing, Barbarawalters."

She nods with a nervous smile, backing nervously away.

Standing up, I clap my gloves together, canceling the holo-screen before rushing out of my office. I leave word with the receptionist and grab the next hover-bus for the Sprawl's Tech District. The ride there is a long and squirming one. It doesn't help that I've only made this trip twice before. It feels so long since the last trip. I can't believe I almost forgot my scheduled appointment. My heart races as I imagine all of the terrible outcomes to this inevitable meeting.

Nevertheless, I keep calm. I take deep breaths and stare out the immaculate thermo-glass. At last, we're pulling around to the edge of the Tech District. Minutes later, we thread through a series of geometrically rigid buildings brimming with electrical energy. Deep down in these shadows, it's hard to spot a single sliver of Ganymede's purple sky. I feel like I'm swallowed by some gigantic metal beast. The metaphor becomes even more accurate as soon as the hoverbus touches down and swings its doors open. I feel overcome with the nauseating smell of fission exhaust. Holding my lunch in, I step out of the craft and make for the mag-lev trams that lead into the inner junctions of the mid-level factories.

Here, the walls are brown and grimy despite endless hours of automated cleansing. Tiny, squirming, insectoid things that have no business dwelling in a sterilized environment have found new lives here. They scurry away from my heels as I shuffle forward, making my way for the junction above. A security guard smiles a little too pleasantly for my nerves, and I'm allowed into a lift that takes me even further down into the metallic bowels of this place.

Before I know it, the doors open, and I'm squinting into a brightly-lit hallway. The walls are unsettlingly white here, and the air conditioning vents overhead has been pumped up to compensate for the stifling insulation. I walk down a long corridor, passed several unassuming doors leading to unassuming facilities operated by unassuming people.

At last, I reach a door marked with a single name, a name that matches the e-mail that was sent me. Before I can knock on it, the door snaps open on its own. I hear a voice crackling through a speaker in desperate need of repair: "Thanks for showing up in such a prompt manner. Proceed into the Secondary Testing Chamber. The Professor will be with you shortly."

Without wasting any time, I do as I'm told. I walk down an even tinier corridor beyond the door. I glance to my left as I pass by a glass-encased desk. The receptionist who buzzed me in is busily typing away at a holoscreen. I can't see her face; I'm not sure I ever have.

Now this part, I do remember. I walk past two doors, hang a right, and go into the first chamber I see to my left. A wide room opens before me. The walls are laced with thick metal, and there are black splotches and acid burns marking the chamber in random places. It's brightly-lit here too, allowing me to see every iota of detail: from the piles of haphazardly abandoned electrical tools to the counters laced with felt textiles and electroweave.

Then, on a table in the center of the room, I see no less than half-a-dozen articles lying in a crumpled heap. They're hoodies, bearing colors ranging from vomit-green to jaundice-yellow. The sleeves are ragged with age. The necklines are tattered from unknown amounts of experimentation.

I'm so busy staring that I don't realize that I'm not alone anymore.

"Hmmmm. Still standing upright. Smooth skin. Healthy complexion. Hmmm. Hmmm. That rules out rapid cellular decay from quantum exposure."

I turn around with a blink. "Professor!" I hear my voice cracking and I clear my throat. My posture is straight and respectful. "I-I'm sorry for not replying to your last e-mail. Time flew by and—"

"Chronotonic distortion of zero point thirty-seven percent magnitude. Hmmm. Hmmm." The Professor turns toward me. A head lifts from the clipboard. Beady green eyes above pasty skin. Frazzled, raggedy gray hair. The person's barely older than me on the inside. That's what churns my stomach the most. "Hmmm. No apparent degradation on the exterior." Without warning, the Professor raises a needle-point cylinder to my eye and presses a switch. I feel a pulse of light soar through my skull, into my brain, and straight out the base of my spine. "Motor functions, appropriately nominal. Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmm. Above expectations. Hmmm."

I try my best not to wince. I feel neurons coming to a slow drift through my brain stem once again. Exhaling, I raise my gloves and say: "I've got the data you asked for. Unless, of course..." I blink as the Professor shuffles straight past me, twitching with every other step. "...you... g-got all you need?"

"Hmmm. Never enough. Keep on collecting data. Even to the brink of death. Hmmm. Yes. Mortality rate of subjects unknown." Hands reach up and toy with a stringy length of mossy hair. "Perhaps forever? Then what explains equilibrium beyond quantum transferrence? Hmmm. Hmmm."

"Erm... do... do you want me to give you the data I've collected?" I cough. "I've written journals too... y'know... to describe the functionability of the Prototype—"

"Hmmm. Right here. Hmmmm." The Professor slaps a wrist-band without looking at me. The thing spins around the arm and projects a glowing ring between us. "Throw. Hmmm. Hmm. Throw it all."

I gulp, shrug, and flick my gloves to life. Reaching into the compressed folder, I pull out a wad of files... ready my arm... and toss it across the room.

The glowing particles of data rattle through the ring. With a beeping sound, the projection dissipates, and the Professor turns about-face, walking across the room in a zig-zagged shuffle.

"Hmmm. Expected. Expected. Expected." A twitching hand runs across a pasty forehead. One beady eye glows, being fed information through a cybernetic biowire. "Also expected. Hmmm. True to data metrics. Too true to data metrics. Alarming rate of predictability. Hmm. Hmmm. Hmmm. Frighteningly formulaic."

"I... I-I don't understand, Professor," I stammer, my eyes falling to follow the shuffling feet-feet-feet. "That's a good thing, right? I collected the data like you asked. If it's falling within expected parameters, then—"

"Hmmm. Hmmm. Any distress on behalf of the subject?"

"Huh?" I blink. "Oh, you're asking me directly?"

"Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmm."

I shuffle where I stand. "Well... uh... Applejack's—I mean, the pony is doing fine. From what I can tell, she's absolutely happy to come visit and—"

"No. The subject. Hmmm. This subject. Yes. Hmm. This."

I squint curiously, my head tilted to the side. "...you mean me?"

"Yes. Me. Always me. Hmmm. Ever and ever me."

"I... I'm doing fine, Professor." I smile. "Heh... more than fine. I mean, at first, I thought I was just helping my boss out. The broadcast is still scheduled for a few weeks from now. But, as of late, I must say I've been doing pretty well for myself and I believe a lot of that is thanks to—"

"Is the subject any different?"

"Huh?"

"Hmmm. Any different? Hmmm. The subject? Hmm. Hmm."

I slowly nod. "Yeah. Erm... yes, Professor. I... I actually think I am."

The Professor stops shuffling, stops twitching, stops moving. The beady eyes look at me with a ruffle of mossy gray hair. "Hmmm. Not expected."

I blink.

"Hmmm. No. Not expected. Not over. Hmmm. The experiment continues..."

"Uhm, Professor? What's not expected?" I step forward. "Please. If you could just talk norma—er... what I-I mean is... if you could just simply explain what you mean by—"

"New updates. Hmmm." A gnarled wrist collects holodata. "Compiled from newer prototypes. Hmm. Hmm." The Professor tosses the glowing information at me.

"Daaah!" I slap my gloves together and produce a translucent net, catching the data at the last second. I exhale with relief. "What... what kind of updates?"

"Hmmm. List of alterations to the Article guidlines."

"Alterations?" I blink, sliding the files away into digistorage. "Like... what kind—?"

"Too many. Hmmm. Yes. Hmm. Hmm. Too many to vocalize. Read them over. Memorize them. Go home and continue experiment. Bring pony a treat."

"A... treat?"

"Yes. Hmmm. Biggest change. Bioorganic matter allowed via auxiliary transferrence. Hmmm. No longer deemed a threat. Hmm. No."

"Bioorganic matter allowed?" I blink. Then my eyes narrow. "Wait... does... does that mean...?"

Comments

[Drakshaa]

I am so happy for update but so confused. Hopefully next chapter is enlightening.

[Dirty Bit]

I love the Professor's speech pattern and thought process It's a blessing and a curse to have so much knowledge in one mind.

[GeneralLiberator]

Well, I think we found the human counterpart...
i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/698/788/2c0.jpg

[zaponator]

Gender-neutral protagonist, meet gender-neutral professor.

[GrimmDarkDesire]

The professor makes me think of Mordin Solus from Mass Effect.

[sbloom85]

4633350
Damn! You beat me to it.

[Talguy21]

4633350

At least Mordin's chatter made sense!

[WorldWalker128]

It means that she can bring food through it, and you can feed her and allow for the food to be transferred through the world-barrier in her stomach.

His Hmm-ing is annoying, but I suppose it was meant to be.

[Schroedingers_Katze]

4633350
My exact thoughts! XD

[Lightning Bearer]

This strikes me as ominous. And, like Zap, I noticed the professor is assigned no gender, and specifically so. What relevance that might have, I don't know.

But then, AJ gets to eat human junk food now, so s'all good.

[oddmin]

the professer reminds me of dr.hojo from ff7

[AlouetteSK]

4633195
This coming from one with a gender-unknown avatar.

[Levana]

4633195 Or perhaps genderfluid...

[Jakomi of the Rose]

4633350 I knew I wasn't alone in that! He does remind you of him.

[Bronze Statue]

The Professor is Brazilian!!!

[catluvr2]

I hear a voice crackling through a speaker in desperate need of repair: "Thanks for showing up in such a prompt manner. Proceed into the Secondary Testing Chamber. The Professor will be with you shortly."

"Professor GlaDOS will see you now."

[EverfreeSparkle]

I feel overcome with the nauseating smell of fission exhaust.

Uh, the only exhaust fission power creates is steam. It might smell I guess...

[Dustchu]

That professor is creepy as fuck.

nice job! :D
This is awesome!

[MustacheMerlin]

4869681 Eh, they got tired of storing the depleted uranium rods and just decided to grind them up and throw them into the atmosphere. After all, by this time they've cured cancer and solved pollution.

[arancaytar]

4701582

GLaDOS is way more sociable.