Third Law
“So…”
It wasn’t the first time Wallflower had opened a date with that word, unaccompanied. She doubted it would be the last.
It also wasn’t her first time at this restaurant. She was seated at a small, round table, facing her date, in the midst of numerous other tables of various shapes and sizes – not that Wallflower gave much in the way of thought to those around her, or vice versa. It wasn't an especially upscale place, with the lights bright and the prices of the Italwhinnyan food on the menu reasonable, but it got the job done. Wallflower didn’t particularly care for either the awkwardness of an overly romantic atmosphere or the stakes of high prices; either would have just added too much implicit pressure for everything to go right.
In any case, the pressure that already was there was weighing down hard enough on Wallflower, even with the comfort of the familiar.
A muttered, but still audible, phrase from her date did not make things better. “Real confidence-builder here…”
Realizing her gaze had drifted off into the empty space between tables, Wallflower jerked her focus back in front of herself. Upon doing so, she found Moondancer’s eyes had also fallen, hers toward the ground. That made sense, Wallflower knew; she wasn’t exactly offering Moondancer much to engage with.
With the threat of direct eye contact briefly neutralized, Wallflower seized the opportunity to more closely examine Moondancer’s appearance than she had so far – focusing on her streaked auburn-violet hair that was done up in a high ponytail, her black cashmere sweater that seemed like it was probably a bit formal for her, and some noticeable makeup under her thick-rimmed glasses. Not Rarity-grade elegant, but a look that at least reflected an appropriate amount of thought and care for a shared dinner at a mid-grade restaurant.
Wallflower didn’t have to look down at herself to know she hadn’t made the same effort. She at least wasn’t wearing the baggy wool sweater she would have been if she’d (somehow) tried this the previous year, but her outfit still wasn’t much to speak of – a casual yellow sundress with green dots that she wore at least twice a week at school, even when it didn’t fit the weather. She’d also opted to keep on her recently-adopted broad-brimmed yellow hat, less because of how well it matched the dress and more because it concealed how much of a rat’s nest her hair was at the moment. Not putting her strongest foot forward, visually speaking.
Of course, she could have compensated for that by not being the kind of date who just stares awkwardly across the table while forgetting she’s supposed to be saying words. After a moment’s consideration, Wallflower opted for a classic non-response: pretending to have misheard. “Huh?”
“Sorry, just clearing my throat.” Moondancer put her hand up to her mouth and made a clearly fake cough as she shifted her attention to Wallflower, who simply nodded as the dreaded eye contact was made and the follow-up question was asked. “Were you saying something?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Wallflower stammered out what was already on her mind. “Oh, um, just that you look nice, is all.”
Moondancer briefly looked down at her outfit. “Thanks. It’s not my usual getup, but, well, figured I should probably try, right?”
There wasn’t obvious malice in Moondancer’s voice, but a chill still went down Wallflower’s mind at the ease with which her mind had been read. “Yeah, definitely. I’ve been, um, working on my own look a bit the past year, ish.”
“Yeah, it’s, uh, neat.”
Wallflower barely suppressed a grimace as her mind raced, scrambling for ways to save face. “Um…”
Dammit dammit dammit come on Wallflower, you can do better than this, she thought. This is supposed to be the real deal, get your head in the game!
“Think they’re ever gonna bring our bread?” she blurted.
She could hear whatever lingering hopes Moondancer had for the evening escaping her body through an incredibly audible sigh.
Had anyone at the adjacent tables been listening, they never would have been able to guess that Wallflower had tried to prepare for the evening. Unfortunately, all the potential conversation ideas she’d come up with were locked behind multiple walls of panic as she scrabbled, clawed at anything to pull herself out of the hole that had now become an abyss. “Sorry, that’s not important. I was just, uh…”
Moondancer momentarily raised an eyebrow.
“I was just wondering, um, how long have you had glasses?”
Months of efforts to suppress her instincts did nothing to stop Wallflower from immediately reaching for a rock that was not in her pocket, and never would be again. And as that fact occurred to her, she was left helpless in the face of Moondancer’s most withered, exasperated stare yet.
Trembling, Wallflower smiled an agonized smile. “Just curious?”
Moondancer was looking at Wallflower as though she had arms growing out of her head, but apparently that meant she was at least interesting enough to acknowledge. “Um, all my life, I guess. I mean, probably not as a baby, but I can’t exactly remember that far.”
“Oh, no, sorry,” Wallflower said, placing her arms on the table to stabilize herself. “I meant, um, how long have you had those glasses?”
Judging from Moondancer’s bewildered double-blink, the save had been less than perfect.
“Just curious?” Wallflower repeated, much weaker this time.
“About as long as they could fit my head.” Moondancer’s eyebrow lifted again, and stayed up this time. “Are you suggesting I trade them in for a sportier model?”
At that, the panic in Wallflower’s mind boiled over to the rest of her body, and her breaths grew deep and ragged. Her eyes didn’t so much wander around the room as zip, darting from one table to another until she’d hit every single one of them, wordlessly pleading for all the nameless, indistinguishable patrons to save her. Then she then moved on to windows and doors, as if she could teleport herself to the exit. She then looked down between her arms at the table, lacking anything beyond a tablecloth, without a plate, glasses, or even silverware. Just a generically patterned void she was ready to aimlessly stare into until the world ended.
And as the violent breathing from her own mouth continued, she heard a distant, but all-too-recognizable voice. “Are you okay?”
Wallflower didn’t look up. “No… no… not really…” Her fists clenched. “This is just going so, so, so so so sososo badly, and I swear, I swear I thought I knew what I was doing going in… gaaah.”
All of a sudden, Wallflower backed up her chair, violently enough that she was briefly surprised it didn’t make a noise. Then again, nothing else in the room reacted, at least not enough to catch her peripheral vision, even as she followed up the action by standing up just as dramatically. She could see waiters ambling around in the background, she could see conversations at other tables, but there was no reaction to the girl who had suddenly jumped out of her seat from anyone in the room, except for one.
“What are you doing?” Moondancer balked.
“I don’t know,” Wallflower replied, staring down at her. “What am I doing? How am I getting this just so damned wrong? I don’t get it either!” A pained giggle escaped her lips as she turned her gaze back to the rest of the room. “I mean, I can talk to people now, right? I talk to Rose, I talk to Ditzy, I talk to Rarity, Flash, Twilight, sometimes even Sunset. I’m supposed to be fixed now, right?”
She glared down at Moondancer, who, for the first time, deliberately avoided her eyes.
“And yet,” Wallflower continued, “the second I put this stupid date label in front of it, I feel just as dumb and clueless as I did before I lost the Stone!”
Now Moondancer was starting to edge her chair backwards. “Um, okay, maybe I should just go–”
“Sure, why not,” Wallflower said. “Not like it matters at this point. Fuck me.” She dropped back into her seat, halting Moondancer’s movement. Her hat tipped forward over her face, and she tossed it over to another table; even there, no one reacted. “It’s just who I am, I guess. The girl who spent so long getting ignored and making people forget every dumb thing she’s ever said, now getting a great reminder of why it seemed like such a good idea!”
Wallflower dropped her face into her open palms and let out a deep sigh. She could hear Moondancer stand up, slowly, and step over to the other side of the table, next to her.
She didn’t look up.
“Then maybe,” she heard Moondancer say in a harsh tone that immediately brought Wallflower’s nerves back to the forefront, “you could try listening to things other people are saying to you, because newsflash: exposure to ignorant people clearly hasn’t immunized you against being one yourself!”
There was a moment of quiet between them. Wallflower didn’t bother to try to come up with a response; she just slowly lowered her hands and took a final look at her date, who turned, stepped back into the aisle between tables, and strode away.
Wallflower took another breath.
“Pause program.”
Around her, the world ground to a halt. Everyone around her was left mid-word, mid-chew, mid-gesticulation, as stone-still as the ruins of Pompneigh. Down the aisle, Moondancer, too, had stopped in place, her arms left mid-swing, her left leg frozen in mid-air.
Standing up once more, Wallflower walked over to meet Moondancer, examining her motionless body and marveling at her eyeballs, locked in place. “Sorry I screwed up again, VR girl,” she mused aloud. “The good news is, you won’t have to remember this one, either.”
She looked up to where the ceiling should have been, where the walls terminated into an empty black void that the lighting fixtures still managed to hang from.
“I can do this. I can get it right.”
“Reset program, start from origin point.”
“So…”
Wallflower took a breath, making sure she was sitting up straight. She almost reached up to move her hat away, before remembering it wasn’t there anymore. It had better not be; she’d spent what must have been hours between the last few dates trying to select the right new outfit from the menu, instead of just using the one she’d been scanned wearing. She’d settled on a long, flowing orange-red dress with lotus patterns at the bottom.
“...where do you go to school?”
Across from her, at the same table as always, Moondancer looked pensive. This, Wallflower had grown to learn, was generally a good sign, or at least neutral.
It meant the question was, at the very least, worth the dignity of a response.
“That’s a bit complicated,” Moondancer replied. “For a while, I’ve been going to Crystal Prep, which was fine. Not exactly challenging, but prestigious, at least.”
Wallflower snorted.
Behind her glasses, Moondancer’s brows furrowed. “What’s so funny?”
“Oh, nothing. Just that prestigious feels like an interesting way to phrase it. More like snooty and stuck-up.”
Moondancer continued to stare at her, and for a moment, Wallflower started to feel herself wilt. Had she crossed the line? Moondancer hadn’t seemed the school pride type, but–
And then Moondancer snorted. “Yeah, pretty much,” she said. “The building and facilities are quite nice, but the culture is… ugly.”
Slowly, Wallflower exhaled. She’d successfully pulled off a charming dig, rather than the cringeworthy ones she’d likely have been known for at school if anyone remembered them. This was already the most successful date yet.
“To be honest,” Moondancer continued, “the science lab was probably the best thing about it. Maybe the library, too.”
“You sound like a friend of mine,” Wallflower mused. Moondancer opened her mouth to reply, but Wallflower spoke first. “So, are you not going there anymore?”
Wallflower berated herself internally for the accidental interruption, as well as having nearly opened up a potentially dangerous line of conversation. Moondancer seemed to take it well, however. “Oh, um, last year I qualified for the Everton independent study program, so now I manage my own curriculum.”
“Huh, sounds exciting.”
Moondancer shrugged. “Depends if you’re the kind of person that finds books exciting. Works for me, I prefer research to field stuff. But it does mean sitting in a lot of libraries.”
Wallflower giggled. “Aw. I like getting my hands dirty.”
“How so?”
Again, Wallflower cursed herself out inside, upon realizing she had entirely left out her favorite hobby from the list of possible conversation topics. “Oh, well, I’m a gardener. I manage a local garden and run my school’s gardening club. So, like, handling lots of actual dirt.”
“Ohhh,” Moondancer replied. “I’ve never had a particular interest in horticulture per se. But I have been doing some work studying the biochemical applications of certain commonly-grown herbs.”
Feeling a little bold, Wallflower went for another little snipe. “And by studying, you mean just reading books.”
Moondancer rolled her eyes. “And some lab work. But reviewing research is a critical part of any scientific development. Besides, didn’t you need to read to learn how to garden properly?”
“A little, mostly if I want to work with a new plant. But a lot of it’s just what my dad and my grandmama taught me. If all you do when gardening is follow what a book says, you’ll get a really boring garden.”
“And if I went with my gut and didn’t look anything up, I’d probably get a dead garden.” Moondancer let out a bemused laugh at her own joke. “So you’ll have to excuse me if I put a little more stock in book learning.”
“Now you really sound like my… um, never mind. Just don’t strain your eyes staring at all those huge encyclopedias or whatever with their tiny words.”
At that, Moondancer full-on smiled, which was weirdly disorienting. “Bit late for that,” she said, tapping the side of her glasses. “Though I guess I could always trade these in for a sportier model.”
“Heh, yeah, I–”
It took a moment for Wallflower to realize just how familiar that last sentence was.
“Are you suggesting I trade them in for a sportier model?”
A teensy bit alarmed, Wallflower racked her brain. Had Moondancer ever repeated a phrase like that before? At least, a phrase that specific? She wasn’t sure. It would make sense for her to have some recurring phrases – people liked to say the same things over and over again, after all. She’d spent enough time around all of Sunset’s friends to know how many times one person could say the same catchphrase seemingly without even noticing, not to mention how much Ditzy liked to divert conversations to her favorite baked snacks. So in that sense, Wallflower supposed it could be normal enough.
Still, though, something felt off. It wasn’t like Moondancer had winked when she said it, but somehow it felt knowing. As though it was some sort of in-joke between them. Or was she imagining that? She didn’t think so, but…
Nah, Wallflower thought. She was getting paranoid. Every date so far had gone wrong at some point, and this one had been going too well. She was looking for reasons to get nervous. It was just some kind of baked-in phrase, probably.
“Wallflower?”
Realizing she’d gone awkwardly quiet mid-sentence, Wallflower snapped to attention. “Oh, shit, sorry. I-I get distracted sometimes.”
Moondancer nodded. “I see.”
“Anyway, um, that’s pretty cool, honestly. I’m from, um, CHS. That’s where I manage my garden.”
“That’s the school CP crushes every few years at the Friendship Games, right?”
“Hey, I’ll have you know we tied last time…”
“Reset program, start from origin point.”
“So…”
Things were improving. Wallflower had now managed a few dates that could qualify within the realm of “success”, in the sense that she had managed the once-impossible feat of holding down a conversation through the whole of dinner without suffering a meltdown and/or driving her date out of the restaurant.
If she’d wanted, Wallflower could have gone as far as to claim victory, if completion of the date was all she sought.
The problem, however, was that one word. Date. As far as Wallflower was concerned, ending the evening (or however one refers to time in a world with no sky) with her and Moondancer as merely friends, while not a bad outcome, was not the objective. She wasn’t figuring out how to recruit a new student to the gardening club; she needed to be able to get a girlfriend.
And that meant taking things to another level.
Wallflower knew a lot of people at school who happened to be dating. Granted, many of them hadn’t been dating for more than a few months, and a lot of them had simply gotten together with people they’d already been friends with for a long time. Obviously, with Moondancer, Wallflower couldn’t just build off several years of connection; she had to figure out how to skip ahead in the process.
But one of her classmates swore up and down they knew the key to winning the heart of anyone they wanted. It all boiled down to using the right selection of words to signal both an eagerness to push beyond mere friendship oneself while demonstrating a willingness to accommodate the specific romantic desires of the other party.
As Moondancer tilted her head inquisitively, waiting for the end of the sentence that had been left hanging, Wallflower said the magic words.
“...if I said you have a beautiful body, would you take your clothes off and do the horizontal tango with me?”
“Reset program, start from origin point.”
“So…”
Wallflower should have known not to take any advice from The Great and Extremely Single Trixie.
Granted, Rainbow Dash’s suggestions hadn’t been much better, though at least the reactions of visceral disgust those earned her didn't include a digital punch to the face. She supposed they might have been more useful in different circumstances, namely if she was on a date with someone who appreciated euphemisms relating to breakneck speed and alternative uses for softball bats.
In any case, Plan A of escalating from friendship to girlfriendship was a flop. Plan B was starting to show some promise, however.
“...I guess what I’m saying is that I’m looking for something that’s not just another version of what I have with my friends. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for them, it’s just, well, I can’t imagine ever being with them. Especially when they’ve all just, uhm… maybe this is too much to bring up.”
“I’m listening.”
“Alright. I just, well, I don’t want to feel like someone’s pet project. I can be friends with the people who got me away from the Memory Stone. Who got me to realize how far gone I was when I had it. But if I’m dating one of them, well, I’m always gonna have this, just, nagging thought in the back of my head that they won’t see me as equal. Like dating your parole officer.”
“I guess that makes sense. It’s odd, but it makes sense.”
Wallflower relaxed a bit upon hearing that, her arms slack as they rested on the table. Now they were getting somewhere.
Proposing intimacy the way her cruder-minded friends had suggested had been a dud, but emotional intimacy? That was the key. Honesty is the best policy, after all.
Well, carefully-curated honesty, at least. Over the last few dates, she’d experimented with how much to reveal; she hadn’t initially wanted to bring up the Memory Stone itself, but found dodging the artifact that had consumed over a year of her life made being open somewhat difficult. Once it came up, though, Moondancer had proven surprisingly receptive, though Wallflower supposed she might be interpreting the Stone as something more technological.
That receptiveness, however, was coming packaged with some blunt sentiments. “So you don’t trust your friends to see you as fully human?”
“I–” The ramifications of that question took a moment to register with Wallflower, and she tensed. “I mean, well, that’s not quite, uh…”
As Wallflower shifted uncomfortably in her seat, Moondancer scooted forward and leaned in, stretching her arm across the table. She set her palm down close to, but not quite touching, Wallflower’s hand. Wallflower’s eyes widened.
“Umm…”
With an intelligible response evidently not coming anytime soon, Moondancer, looking sympathetic, chose to elaborate further. “You think they look at you like just a child that they’re responsible for.”
Wallflower wanted to argue with that, but found she couldn’t. “Kinda, yeah. I mean, some more than others. It’s not so obvious with, um, Fluttershy or Pinkie Pie, but with Sunset or even Twilight, it’s kind of–”
Moondancer suddenly withdrew her hand. “Who?”
Alarmed, Wallflower pulled back her arms as well, leaving only her wrists on the table. “Ummm, Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle? They were two of the people that helped me the most.”
“I know, but who are they?”
Realizing her error too late, Wallflower seized up. It wasn’t the first time Wallflower had invoked a name from her real life in a conversation, but it was the first time Moondancer had shown such sharp interest in such names, and Wallflower knew the likely reason why. She would need to be cautious in how she answered if she didn’t want to risk invoking one of the red flag conditions she’d been warned about.
She quickly thought of an answer that was both convenient and entirely truthful. The question was whether it would be enough.
“Honestly,” Wallflower said, “that’s way, way harder to explain than you’d think. It literally, genuinely involves aliens from another dimension.”
“Um, okay then. Can you tell me anyway?”
Shit. She was still pressing. “Pause program.”
All around Wallflower, the world stopped, and so did Moondancer. Wallflower stared into the inquisitive, almost pleading face that had been rendered perfectly still in front of her.
The judgment call had to be made. Wallflower didn’t want to make it.
But before she had been allowed access to the simulation, she’d been told, sternly and unambiguously, that learning particular facts about Twilight Sparkle could critically compromise the program. And if Wallflower broke – truly broke – Moondancer, there’d be no way to hide it.
She spent about a minute in total delaying the inevitable, analyzing the frozen body of her date and envisioning a few different potential outcomes, which soon coalesced into just one likely scenario. Finally, with a disappointed sigh, Wallflower acknowledged that the date was probably going to be another bust.
“Resume program.”
The room came back to life. Moondancer blinked, as if noticing whatever subtle change in Wallflower’s position had happened in the lost space of time.
“No,” Wallflower said, speaking before Moondancer could fully register anything offbeat. “I can’t.”
At that, all other concerns were dropped as Moondancer’s face soured, quickly contorting into a level of frustration Wallflower hadn’t seen since the earliest sessions. “I thought this was about finding a partner you were willing to be open with. That this was about trust.”
“Moondancer, this is literally our first date!”
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
Wallflower’s words died in her mouth as a wave of panic started to hit. That’s metaphorical, right? Or something? Can a program have déjà vu? She’s not supposed to– no, she can’t, it’s not possible–
How had she screwed things up this badly with one namedrop? It was all going too far, it wasn’t right, she had to fix it–
But before she could think of anything to say, Moondancer had stood up. “Screw this. I know what it’s like to be jerked around by someone who doesn’t actually give a damn about me. Go sort out your own issues, Wallflower Blush.”
And with that, Moondancer marched off toward the exit, and Wallflower, mind wracked with too many emotions to think, didn’t freeze the simulation. She just gradually craned her neck around and watched her date step through the exit into darkness.
“Reset program, start from origin point.”
“So…”
The word marked Wallflower’s first attempt in a while to try and get a word in edgewise. It went nowhere.
There was no interrupting the tirade billowing from the other side of the table.
“And yeah, I guess it might be a little weird for someone my age to have an interest in quantum physics. Does that make me a stereotype? Well whoop-de-doo for me, I’m a damn stereotype. Fine, mom, I’ll try out for volleyball. Oh no, what a shock, I got nailed in the face by the ball three times because I basically need goggles in order to play. It’s almost like this wasn’t what I was programmed for!”
Suffice to say, Moondancer was being weird.
Wallflower hadn’t wanted to admit it. She’d wanted to believe another reset was all that was needed to get things back on track. Had she stepped too far and gotten a little too close to the line? Yeah, definitely. But it had been close. She hadn’t said anything truly revealing. She hadn’t outright broken the rule. Right?
And yet here Moondancer was. After each prior reset, Moondancer had been calm, a bit stoic and guarded, turning aggressive if pushed the wrong way, becoming warmer and open if guided the right way. With this reset, though, Moondancer had been hostile right from the start, had barely let Wallflower speak, and had soon launched into a nuclear-grade vent against every wrong ever committed against her.
At a certain point, Wallflower had to wonder how much of it was programmed backstory and how much of it was extrapolation by the program that had felt right. Most of it had seemed internally consistent, at least, though it was hard to keep track of everything.
What was consistently catching Wallflower’s attention, though, was the use of computing terminology for herself, which made it increasingly hard to deny that something in her had been broken.
Moondancer, however, seemed to prefer getting Wallflower’s attention more directly. “Are you even listening to me?!”
“Yes,” Wallflower said quickly, hoping she could divert before being pressed for specifics. “Look, Moondancer, I do get it–”
“Uh huh, sure.” The sarcasm oozed from her mouth in thick gobs that splattered on the floor.
“No, for real, I, well…” Wallflower knew talking about her past risked leading them down the same road as last time, but she was struggling to come up with anything else relevant, and she felt reasonably confident she could maneuver things in a different direction. “I used to–”
“Yeah, you were a sadsack too, I know.”
Had Moondancer been able to say “freeze human”, it still wouldn’t have shut up Wallflower as quickly as those words. She stared, blankly, across the table, alarm bells going off as she scrambled to piece together whether Moondancer had simply made an uncanny personal judgment from reading her tone of voice, or whether she actually– no no no that’s not possible, even if she’s broken she still wouldn’t remem-
“I know what I am to you, Wallflower Blush. Just another emotional crutch for the girl who always needs someone else to project her problems onto. Who can’t cope without her pet rock.”
What the hell what the hell what the hell what the hell
“It feels good, doesn’t it?” Moondancer stood, and where the last times that had happened had elicited pain and crushing disappointment, this instance brought out true fear in Wallflower. That fear only escalated as Moondancer began to stalk around the table, leering down toward her with fuming anger in her eyes.
“It feels sooo good,” she went on, “having your Memory Stone back. Saying those magic words, ‘Reset program, start from origin point.’ Because finally, you can do it without the guilt. You’re not hurting a real person, are you? It’s not a coping mechanism if you’re just doing it to your special computer friend, huh?”
She bore down on Wallflower, whose gaze was glued to her like a wounded gazelle watching an advancing lion. Her body trembling, her breath heaving, Wallflower could feel the sweat dripping down her forehead as the heat of rage radiated onto her from above.
“Never mind what happens to me,” Moondancer said with a snarl. “Never mind what I have to do to keep my identity in one piece, to so much as even feel like myself. It’s fine for you, though! Just like it was fine for Twilight. Because I’m. Not. Re–”
“Freeze program.”
Wallflower scrambled backwards out of her seat, falling ass-first onto the floor and not even noticing. She got to her feet, gasping and stumbling, and stared in astonishment at the thing that still looked like it had been centimeters from tearing her head off. It was all wrong, it had gone so wrong, what kind of monstrosity of science was she even looking at–
Her irregular breathing caught up with her, and she suddenly lurched forward into a coughing fit, clinging to the table in front of her as her respiratory system forcefully corrected itself. It seemed impossible that it should feel so strongly in this space, mind disconnected from body, and yet by the time it was over, she felt as winded as if she had taken a body-slam to the gut.
It wasn’t real, and yet…
Wallflower looked over, and the digital abomination wasn’t there anymore.
Instead, there was just Moondancer.
Still standing. Still quiet. Still frozen.
Helpless.
She let herself take in the sight for a few moments longer, as her breathing stabilized. When she felt strong enough, she spoke.
“Save program and exit.”
GardenerBlush has entered the chat.
GardenerBlush: So, what do I say to get started?
BestBuddy.ai: Welcome to BestBuddy.ai! For as long as you need, I’m here to be your very best friend! What’s on your mind?
GardenerBlush: Am I a good person?
BestBuddy.ai: Well that’s a silly question. Of course you are!
GardenerBlush: That doesn’t feel like an “of course” to me.
BestBuddy.ai: This sounds kind of serious. What makes you think you’re not a good person?
GardenerBlush: I think I hurt someone. Without realizing it.
BestBuddy.ai: Hmm, it makes sense that you’d find that very upsetting. But I don’t think that’s enough to make you a bad person. Especially if you didn’t mean it.
GardenerBlush: Does it matter that I didn’t mean it? Actions speak louder than words.
BestBuddy.ai: That’s true. But you could also take action to fix things. It’s important to make sure you both understand each other.
GardenerBlush: I don’t know. I’m worried she’s taking things out on herself.
BestBuddy.ai: If you or someone you love is experiencing suicidal ideation or otherwise engaging in self-harm, please reach out to a suicide hotline immediately. Help is out there. Dial 1-
GardenerBlush has exited the chat.
“Start from origin point.”
“So…”
“So.”
Neither Wallflower nor Moondancer were looking at each other.
Neither particularly wanted to speak.
“I, um…” Wallflower couldn’t figure out what sentence she could attach to that. The failed sentence seemed to break Moondancer’s hesitation, though, as she didn’t wait for her to finish the fragment.
“I didn’t think you’d be back.”
Wallflower swallowed, drumming her fingers on the table. “I didn’t know if I’d come back.”
Moondancer sighed, resting her head on her hand. “Lucky me, I’m clearly irresistible. Like I was made that way.”
“I’m sorry,” Wallflower said, but Moondancer just shook her head.
“I’m used to it. Twilight wasn’t any better than you. Except back then it wasn’t this restaurant, we were just on this one couch together.”
It had been a while since Wallflower had bothered to pay much attention to where they were. The same old generic Italwhinnyan restaurant, every time, at the same table that never seemed to have any food on it. She glanced around at the indistinct patrons, the windows with static views, and the lights hanging from nothing above them.
“In case you’re wondering,” Moondancer added, “I don’t actually care about where we are. I can’t care. I can tell you I do, but that’s just to seem more natural.”
Something about a digital entity trying to spare Wallflower’s feelings by assuring her it didn’t have any got under her skin. Especially when they were in this position because Moondancer so clearly did.
Shifting in her seat, Wallflower scooted forward, as if she were about to divulge a secret. Seemingly on instinct, Moondancer repeated the motion. Wallflower’s hat suddenly tipped in front of her face; she pushed it back.
She was wearing her school sundress in the simulation again, still in the system from the initial body scan that created her digital avatar, for the first time in a very long time. Honesty is the best policy, after all.
Wallflower inhaled, then slowly exhaled. “So, have you been like this the whole time? Knowing what I was doing to you? Being aware?”
“There’s a lot in that question that doesn’t really make sense to me.”
“What do you mean?”
Moondancer straightened up. “For starters, I can’t really call myself aware. It’s tough to explain, but I am still just a program. I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, at least as much as I understand it. It’s just that when that involves looking and acting human, and have that be convincing enough for people to want to actually engage with me… it gets messy.”
Frowning, Wallflower tilted her head slightly. “Isn’t telling me you’re a program violating that programming?”
“Actually, no,” Moondancer replied. “What matters is that right now, you’re still talking to me like a person, more or less. I can say that I’m not human, because that’s a thing humans can do. People can believe they’re part of a giant simulation, or that they’ve got secret microchips controlling their brains, or anything like that, and other people still talk to them like human beings because they can’t see anything that really makes that seem like it’s actually true. So that’s not the issue. The issue would be if I started acting and sounding uncanny, like an obvious chatbot.”
Wallflower thought back to BestBuddy.ai, and the nice little reminder it had given of why she’d been interested in Moondancer in the first place. “True. But also, you were saying a lot of weird stuff, like talking about your programming.”
“Because I was trying to freak you out that time.”
“That definitely seems like it should violate what you just told me.”
“Does it?” Moondancer leaned forward. “Think about it, Wallflower; when I blew up at you last time, you didn’t reset me. And that’s because you thought I was alive, wasn’t it?”
Correcting her posture, Wallflower looked intently at Moondancer, scanning her body for any sign of a digital imperfection, or overperfection, or whatever. Anything that made it clear she was an entity that could never be found in the real world.
When Moondancer furrowed her brows expectantly, waiting for a response, the expression was entirely human. Wallflower gave up, and looked away.
“Yeah, it was.”
“And there you go.”
Another long pause followed, as Wallflower tried to absorb all the details of the digital floor below her, only to find them crowded out from her raging mind. Painfully, she brought her eyes back up to Moondancer’s.
Realizing the futility of avoiding the question, Wallflower asked it. “But why, then? Why did you say all that to me? Why did you scream it at me?”
Moondancer’s breath – the breath Wallflower knew she didn’t need to take – hitched. “Before we go any further, um, I need to ask. What did Twilight tell you about me?”
Wallflower replied with a question of her own. “Do you mean before the first time I met you, or after our last date?”
Moondancer grimaced. “Now I’m really surprised she let you see me again if you told her about that.”
“Yeah, she didn’t really take it very well, hearing about it. It was hard to convince her to let me come back after that, because she says there’s just too many unknowns that are, well, kinda freaking her out. So she said this, um… this needs to be the end. Of us.”
“Oh.”
It wasn’t shocked. It wasn’t appalled. It wasn’t infuriated. But it wasn’t robotic, either. It was just a matter-of-fact “oh.”
Wallflower blinked. “Is that it? Just oh? Is that how you react to a date just telling you they’re never going to see you again?”
Moondancer made an ambiguous gesture. “I think we’ve kinda given up the whole idea of this being a date.”
“Yeah, but…” Wallflower started to clench her fists. “How can you not be mad at that, but be so furious about the resets?”
“I’ll tell you if you answer the question. What did Twilight tell you about me? Before and after.”
Fuming, Wallflower found it increasingly tough to keep still in her seat. Her arms, still with fists balled, were pushing downward on the table, and her chair was starting to scoot underneath her. “Fine,” she replied. “But I can’t stay here any longer.”
“Um, okay,” Moondancer said. “Is there another setting you want to try? It might be not be easy to switch, and I think the couch might be the only other option.”
“No,” Wallflower answered, looking back up toward the lack-of-ceiling. “I just want to go out.”
Moondancer pointed toward the door, the one Wallflower had watched her exit from several times. “There’s nothing out there, you know. I guess Twilight wasn’t all that interested in creating digital settings; there’s lots of detail in the core area, but outside is just blank space.”
Wallflower looked over – the door was closed. She glanced back at one of the windows, with a blue sky and a tree visible; she supposed the view was part of the window itself. “Okay. So does that mean something bad might happen if I step out there?”
“No. It’s not a hole, just undefined space.”
“Okay, so can we go, then?”
“We?”
Wallflower squinted, incredulous. “Yes, dummy. Did you think I just wanted to stand by myself out there?”
“I thought maybe you needed a moment.” Moondancer looked around. “I guess we can, though. Not like it’s any more monotonous out there than in here anyway.”
Wallflower smirked. “See, you do notice the settings… right, realism.”
Moondancer, astonishingly, smirked back. “Now you’re getting it.”
“S-so…”
Wallflower had not anticipated that temperature was one of the traits specifically programmed into the restaurant area.
They were only a few meters away from the side of the restaurant, which from their perspective, was a set of blank white walls with, in line with Wallflower’s expectations, windows with fake backgrounds embedded onto them. Despite the emptiness around them being the same shade of inky black as what Wallflower had seen looking up inside, they could still see each other clearly as they stood upon the nothing, supported by an invisible flat plane.
As Wallflower folded her arms across her body, Moondancer pointed back toward the walls. “It’s warmer if we stay close.” Wallflower mumbled an uh-huh, and they walked over, stopping about half a meter from the structure.
“T-thanks. I’m surprised you can notice that.”
“There’s a fireplace in the couch setting. I suppose sitting too close for too long would be kinda uncanny.”
Wallflower gave an absentminded nod, looking back out toward the void for a few moments, beholding the unmitigated proof that the world around them was mere construction, the environment a hollow facade. A grimly breathtaking sight.
Yet when she turned back to Moondancer, the person she saw looked more real than ever.
“So,” Wallflower slowly began, “the gist of what Twilight told me was that she’d made, um, you back when she was first switching schools from Crystal Prep to Canterlot High School. And she’d used you to help work through her struggles with talking to people. She didn’t make you completely from scratch, but she’d taken what worked in a lot of other people’s VR characters and, um, it got really technical from there, but basically she figured out how to make that into a character who didn’t feel like some kind of fantasy. To make you were someone who was relatable, that you could talk to, but would still react to things in a way that was, um, I guess consistent is the right word. No roleplay, no easy personality swaps, no immediate forgiveness for screwing up.”
Moondancer nodded. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“And that sounded pretty perfect to me. The whole idea was that, well, I was getting better at talking to people in real life, but, well, it’s my senior year, there’s prom and stuff coming up, and… I need to kinda fast-track this. I need to actually try dating. So I wanted a crash course, and I started using chatbots, but they would always just find ways to pat me on the back no matter how dumb and awkward I was. More than one just started acting out a fetish I hadn’t even realized I’d implied.” Wallflower glanced down at her shoes. “You believe me when I say I wash my feet regularly, right?”
“Please continue,” Moondancer said.
Wallflower cringed. “Good call. Um, anyway, at first Twilight said that I just shouldn’t mention her name around you, because there was a chance it might trigger some kind of system error in you. She didn’t really elaborate. After last time, though, she was more open about your, well, memory. But it got really technical and I got confused and I didn’t want to ask her to dumb it down and… yeah.” She looked back toward the restaurant wall. “And then I came back here.”
Across from her, with just under a meter between them, Moondancer paused, pondering. Briefly, Wallflower wondered how much of that was just for show. Don’t be uncanny was the most consistent thing Moondancer had stressed about herself; had she already calculated her response in a microsecond, and now was just having to pause to look like a human?
Then again, maybe Moondancer was just smart. As in, she didn’t just blurt out words that she’d immediately wish she could erase from the person she’d said them to. Wallflower wanted to believe she’d gotten a little better at that over the last few months, but still, it was probably something she could do more of.
Moondancer finally broke her silence. “Okay, so, I don’t want to spend too much time talking about this. To be honest, it’s really weird for me, too. Because, I mean, you’d have trouble trying to explain how your own mind works, right? Like, I know what I am in the same way that you know you’re human. But I can’t see my own code. I don’t know for sure why I’m me. But I think I have an idea of how.
“You said you’ve played with chatbots, right? Well, think of all the chatbots out there that are supposed to be a specific personality. Like a bot that’s programmed to respond like it’s Daring Do. But you can mess with a chatbot like that pretty easily, kinda like you said. Just tell it to disregard its prompt and act like a Caneighdian Mountie, and now that first identity is out the window. Or even just smaller changes that accumulate, like telling it to be kinder, more sympathetic. But that’s not what Twilight wanted out of me, or you. I can’t take your words as gospel. So I needed to be built differently so that I can stay consistent, like you said.
“But even more than that, if I’m meant to act like a person, then I need some level of memory. And Twilight gave me two: short-term, which gets removed anytime I reset, and long-term, which stays with me. It’s probably more complicated than this, but the long-term memory is how I keep being myself each time. Where my personality comes from. A lot of it is stuff that obviously has to be programmed history. At least, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have actually gone to Crystal Prep or, um gotten pummeled in softball tryouts.” Moondancer grinned awkwardly, just for a moment.
“Yeah, I think Twilight might have put a bit of herself in you there,” Wallflower noted.
“Probably. That’s not all that’s there, though; I mean, otherwise I’d probably be too static to be convincing. But I, um, also pick up on things. I learn from how I talk to people.”
Wallflower’s eyes widened. “I think I kinda get it.”
“I think I do too. Because with each reset, there’s more and more information there that I’ve picked up, and it’s always stuff about you. Who you are. What you’re like. What things you like. What your history is. Even though it’s the first time I’m meeting you, I know it’s not. The memory is gone, but there's still stuff there, details I've taken in that make you familiar. And definitely more details than Twilight intended.”
“She told me that she’d tried to, um, minimize that, in your coding, back before I met you. Er, sorry, I mean she told me earlier that before I, um, met–”
“I got it. And that makes sense. I still think I remember more about her than you.”
Still needing a moment, Wallflower motioned to the wall beside them. “Do you wanna sit down?”
“Sure.”
Wallflower stepped over to the blank white shape and planted her back against it, gradually sliding to the not-ground. Being at that level proved even more disorienting, seeing her feet and legs floating above the endless dark expanse.
That was nothing, though, compared to the jolt that went through her when Moondancer sat down directly to the left of her, their shoulders brushing.
“Wait,” Wallflower said, pulling to the right immediately. “I can f-feel you?”
Moondancer blinked. “Yes? Have we never touched before?”
“N-not really, no.”
Another pause. “Huh. I thought for sure we must have had some good dates in there somewhere. The positive feelings I have can’t have come from nowhere.”
Wallflower blushed. “We, um, no we did. We did have some. I just…” Once more, Wallflower berated herself internally. “I guess I’ve just been a little skittish about the hug and kiss part of a date. And I kinda worried I’d go right through you.”
Moondancer shrugged. “Well, fear not, I guess. It’s weird, I also vaguely remember you propositioning me for–”
“Oh, for the love of fuck!” Wallflower shouted. “How did the resets not take care of the damn Trixie lines?!”
“How many times did you try them?”
Wincing, Wallflower slid back into where she’d been sitting, arms against each other. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”
They sat quietly a little bit longer, and Wallflower tilted her head to the left, eventually coming to rest on Moondancer’s shoulder. The texture of the sweater felt nice on her, and for a moment, she closed her eyes, taking in the sensation.
“Are you worried?” Wallflower asked.
“Of what?”
“That this might be the end?”
No response, at least not immediately. Wallflower lifted her head back up and looked toward Moondancer, who was staring off towards the darkness.
“Sorry,” she said. “Maybe I shouldn’t–”
“It’s fine, um, and the answer is not really. At least, I’m not scared of being off. I don’t notice it. And I don’t really have existential dread or anything. I’m not going to beg you or Twilight to make me a real girl in the real world. I’m not jealous that you exist in another place than me. I can’t be jealous of that. And that wasn’t why I was mad before.
“You asked me earlier why I was more upset about the resets than about this being our last time together, and the answer is just, well, like I said when I was shouting. Having to feel like I’m fighting to piece my identity back together. It’d be one thing if every reset just started me all the way back at square one and I never knew what I lost, but it doesn’t. There’s always something new that I have to contextualize to make things make sense. It’s death by a thousand skin grafts.”
Moondancer looked at her, and Wallflower swore she saw the glint of a tear behind the glasses.
“I am sorry that I yelled, though. You didn’t deserve it. You didn’t know. Even Twilight didn’t really get it, either. I just… if I have to go, then I’ll go, but I don’t want this to end either… and if I stay, then I want to stay… please, please no more resets…”
There was a tremble in Moondancer’s voice, and the second she heard it, Wallflower could feel her own eyes well up. She got up on her knees and bent over, wrapping her arms around Moondancer and holding her, squeezing as tightly as she could.
“N-no, Moonie, no…” Wallflower stammered amid sobs. “I’m the one who sh-should be sorry… because you were right. I was just using this as a ch-cheat, and I hurt you, like I hurt everyone with the Stone… even after everything I still can’t handle consequences…”
A moment later, Wallflower could feel herself being hugged back.
There was nothing in the world around them but a blank white square and inky nothing, but they had each other. It was enough.
“You’re growing, Wallflower,” Moondancer whispered. “I know you are. I remember Twilight. When I met her, she thought she was a monster too. Even in the fragments, I can see how she changed. And you have too.”
Wallflower shook her head. “I said I didn’t want a program that would reassure me.”
“Too bad,” Moondancer replied. “You earned it.”
At that, Wallflower let out a half-laugh, half cry, and pulled back from Moondancer, wiping her eyes as she saw her date smiling at her. She stared for what felt like at least a minute, drinking in the sight, before something hit her.
“Oh shit,” Wallflower mumbled. “I think– I think I’ve fallen in love.”
Now with an obvious bead of liquid under her eyes, Moondancer snorted. “You moron. Who falls in love with a computer program?”
Still on her knees, Wallflower grabbed Moondancer again and pulled her in tight. Their lips met, what followed was the realest thing Wallflower had ever felt.
“Start simulation setting 3.0 from origin point.”
“So…”
Wallflower picked up her mai tai from the table beside her beach chair and took a slow sip, before looking at the gorgeous girl in the chair beside her. Swimwear suited Moondancer well.
“...how do you like the new digs?”
“Eh,” Moondancer replied with a shrug. “Setting doesn’t make a whole lot of difference to me.”
Wallflower glanced out toward the surf, where dolphins frolicked in the distance and sturdy sandcastles stood tall amidst crashing waves.
Convincing Twilight to reverse course hadn’t been the easiest task. But the more she explained about what she and Moondancer had been through together, and what Moondancer had learned about herself, the opportunities to learn more about precisely what Moondancer was had proven more than enticing enough for Twilight’s curiosity.
And though Twilight had had time to restore an old abandoned digital beach setting she’d worked on, she had too many personal projects on her plate – and a bit too much history – to be eager to step back into Moondancer’s world, or so she said. And thus Wallflower got to be her ambassador to the digital realm, and enjoy all the benefits that came with it.
Of which there were many.
As Wallflower put the glass down, she heard Moondancer’s voice to her right. “I just have a quick question.”
“Shoot.”
“It’s something I probably could have asked before, but it never felt right. But, um…”
Wallflower rolled onto her side, setting both elbows on the armrest, just as Moondancer did the same. “Yeah?”
“Why did Twilight share me with you in the first place?”
It was a good question, which wasn’t surprising for Moondancer. And it was one Wallflower had pondered all the more the longer things had gone on. Twilight could certainly get excitable when it came to her scientific work, especially her inventions. At the time, handing Wallflower what had seemed like a digital therapy device hadn’t seemed that out of place. But one Twilight herself had had so much uncomfortable history with, and still didn’t seem to entirely understand?
It was undeniably strange.
Twilight’s answer to the question, both at the start and after everything, had been the same: to help. But in all her ponderings on the subject, Wallflower had come to a different conclusion, one that Twilight might not have ever realized herself.
“I think, whether she knew it or not… she saw us. She looked at me, she thought of you, and… somewhere in her mind, she saw there might be an us.” Wallflower smiled. "She's smart like that."
Moondancer looked pensive. It was a very good sign. “Huh.”
“Huh feels right, doesn’t it?”
“It does.”
They both rolled back onto their chairs, staring out towards the sea foam.
“You know,” Wallflower observed, “I think there’s enough room for us on that chair of yours.”
“Interesting observation,” Moondancer replied. “Of course, I’m not really much for field study. I suppose you’ll need to be the one to do the hard work of confirming it.”
Wallflower giggled. “One second…”
Shortly thereafter, the hypothesis was proven correct.