Chapter 6: Stream
Sweetie found something. It wasn't the safe mode she was looking so frantically for, but the tag attached to it made her pause in her search. It was labeled sys_vision.
For the first time, she slowed down enough to realize just how strange all this was. Where was she? Why were these numbers here?
And was this vision switch thing the reason she couldn't see? It was set to zero, like all the things she was searching. The numbers all around were still burning themselves into her brain constantly, but for the first time, she wasn't thinking about that.
Maybe my head is broken? Am I crazy? Or is this just what ponies in comas all see? Will I remember this when I wake up?
But she had to see. So she turned sys_vision to 1.
The numbers didn't stop. But if she had started to ignore them before, this was when they really became quite irrelevant. She had something like vision, yes. Her brain definitely thought this was sight. But it hurt her head far more than the numbers did. It was like somepony spilled salt and pepper all over the floor, except the floor was her face, the salt and pepper also had weird colors, and it changed every millisecond.
But unlike the numbers, the really small color dots didn't stay annoying. Well, they did, but soon a lot more of the "pepper" dots were in her eyes rather than the "salt" ones that hurt her eyes the most.
Soon, she had a weird, grainy image, like a really bad camera. One of those new magic types, but the cheap kind. Sweetie still had no idea what she was looking at, though. It was mostly a featureless gray, with some faint green circles. There was a little sliver of light at the bottom, though, so she was a lot more inclined to believe it was real, rather than just another annoying thing her brain came up with to torture her.
A sliver of orange took the light away. But the orange looked familiar. Really familiar.
Scootaloo?
She tried to say something, but then remembered that she couldn't talk. Or maybe she could, but she couldn't hear anyway. Or move her mouth. Or feel if she even had a mouth.
Where did that come from? I have eyelids, don't I? They look weird.
Maybe that's what changeling eyelids look like?
She needed to see, but her eyelids weren't moving. So, frustrated once again, she dove back into the zeros.
Sweetie wasn't looking for the safe mode anymore. But the search was no less frantic.
Twilight and the rest of the Crusaders were no less frantic, searching every inch of the mechanical body on the library's floor. Whether it was Sweetie or not, somepony's life was at stake, and whether they could affect the outcome or not, they needed to know.
The only light they had found so far was underneath the eyelids, which none of them could budge at all. As far as the rest of the joints went, some were loose, moving with relative ease. Most of the main joints were this way. But other, smaller joints were stuck firmly in place.
Twilight couldn't stop herself from associating the rigid behavior with rigor mortis, even though it made more sense that resistance meant that the machine did indeed function. In fact, when Scootaloo managed to make one of those joints move through sheer stubbornness, it had immediately moved back into the same position. An action that gave them all hope.
The sun was well beyond the horizon, but Twilight didn't want to abandon somepony in clearly critical condition, and she didn't have the heart to tell Apple Bloom or Scootaloo to leave. It was her fault that she was in this state, after all.
Her mind was quickly changed when she heard a knock on the door.
"Twilight? Are you still up? I can't find Sweetie anywhere!"
"Girls? I'll make sure Sweetie is okay. You need to get back to your families. You'll both need your sleep. I have a feeling tomorrow isn't going to feel any shorter."
"But-"
Twilight sighed. "I get it. But I'm doing all I can to help." And it isn't much. "And if she gets better by tomorrow, I have a feeling she'll need help from her friends. But you need to be awake tomorrow."
There was a knock on the door again, this time a lot more insistent. "Twilight! I can hear you in there! Is Sweetie okay?"
"Come in, Rarity!"
She turned back to the Crusaders. "I promise I'll let you know if something big happens, no matter how late or early it is. Now get on home."
Twilight let out a deep breath as they left and a frantic Rarity noticed the Sweetie bot on the library floor. Twilight had pulled all-nighters before, but she had a feeling that this one was going to be longer than usual.
Behind her, Sweetie's eyelids suddenly slammed open.
She finally did it. She found the number that controlled her eyelids. This one wasn't a zero, though. Or a one. Actually, there were two numbers. One was indeed a zero. But the other one was one of the annoying decimal numbers really close to zero. She couldn't change any of the annoying decimal numbers. And changing the zero to a one barely changed anything. It made the slit just a tiny bit wider.
And then that changed the annoying decimal.
So she tried to change the number to a thousand. No dice.
She eventually found a number low enough to work, which was a hundred. Suddenly, her vision expanded completely, and she could clearly see... that she was on the floor of Twilight's library.
Oh, and there was Twilight. And Rarity! They were both clearly panicking, but she couldn't hear anything.
Oh dear. This is going to take forever.
Screw this. Next time I see anything I recognize, I'm messing with it.
Wait, cannon1? I have cannons?
Oh, right, that's the front part of my legs.
Ears... tail... more leg parts...
Sweetie blinked again, reveling in how normal of an action that was, but thoroughly disappointed in the fact that she still couldn't feel it. But Rarity and Twilight seemed to be freaking out even more, which was frustrating, as she still didn't know how to hear things. Or talk.
But maybe if I learn to use my hooves, I can write out a message.
She dove back into the code, ignoring the two adults trying repeatedly to get her attention.
Sweetie started with her front right hoof. It was pretty easy to figure out what did what, especially after she learned to turn her head so she could actually see what was going on. And it was even easy to move each individual... joint...
Oh, no, what happened to me?
What she was looking at was not her leg. It was some metal painted white that happened to be in the same general shape.
She looked back at Twilight, who was still panicking, and still just as silent as ever. It didn't even feel like silence. Just... there wasn't any sound. She shook her head. She wasn't making any sense. No matter what did happen, she still needed to be able to write.
It was fairly easy to control each... joint, on that strange leg that her body labeled as hers. Even though some of the numbers worked differently on different parts.
The hard part was getting them to work at the same time.
She finally managed to spell out the word "paper" on the floor, which prompted an immediate response from the librarian, who floated over a sheet.
If Sweetie knew how to sigh, she would have. She spelled out "pen."
Twilight's hoof met her face, and she brought over a quill and ink, eyeing Sweetie's one working hoof warily.
Sweetie slowly and methodically picked up the quill and dipped it in the ink. Fortunately, the rest of her body didn't shift during this process, so she was able to control this quite well. She was less lucky as she started writing, but managed to messily spell out "cant hear" as some sort of explanation.
It seemed to get the point across, as both of them stopped trying to talk to her. Twilight brought her own quill and paper next to hers.
Are you okay?
Sweetie started to nod, but stopped. She had no idea how to shrug.
She dipped the quill back into the ink. maybe
Can you get up?
She shook her head.
Is something broken?
Sweetie put her quill back to the paper. Her hoofwriting was still absolutely terrible, and would probably make Cheerilee faint, but it was getting easier. dont know. dont think so.
Twilight got up and started talking with Rarity, so Sweetie diverted her attention to applying what she learned about her right hoof to her left. Soon she was able to face the paper with something else other than a forty-five degree angle. Still, the more she used at once, the more annoying it got to keep track of. Standing up was still a long way off.
Twilight came back.
Is everything you do manually controlled?
Sweetie blinked, then nodded. How did Twilight know that? Did she know what was wrong with her?
Twilight got up again, talking again with Rarity, who was looking more and more frantic. Twilight came back once again, this time looking distinctly annoyed.
Are you Sweetie Belle?
Sweetie looked at Twilight with mild panic before nodding.
Twilight doesn't know what is wrong with me‽ What's going on?
Rarity came up this time.
What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?
What?
She wrote down "vanilla," though remained confused as to why.
Rarity had a strange expression on her face that Sweetie couldn't place. It was distinctly uncomfortable.
What did you get for your birthday last year?
Oh. Suddenly she was a lot less happy to answer the questions. She shoved the paper away. It was getting full anyway.
And using the two hooves she still had control over, she turned herself away from her sister.
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old wounds? great chapter!
good Sweetie Bot fic
Mighty good
Just wait until she notices cannon5...
In any case, hopefully the put-out response will convince Rarity that this is Sweetie. Everything's a struggle for her right now, girls. She doesn't need the third degree right now.
Cannons? How long until she either unintentionally or intentionally activities the protocol for them?
Rarity: *sigh* That's her alright.
Bravo.. a horse\robot pun
Eh
9822963
Mah bad. It's been a while
9822973
On Linux, there is something called the "compose" key, that allows you to press two keys to enter a symbol that would make sense based on the two keys pressed.
On Windows, you can look for a program called "character map" that you can pick any symbol to copy and paste wherever you want. But that's a lot less convenient for everyday writing.
9824928
Thank you!
Now now SB, you need to be honest with your sister.