Scar
Scar
Looking around inside Vesna’s hardware was like being in a haunted house, a big, mostly empty one. It was dark in there, the equivalent of dark anyway, what with everything being shut off and Octavia constantly reminding her not to look at anything unless absolutely necessary.
But more than that, Geopum knew something was going to jump out at her eventually, she just didn't know when. Every corner she turned around, every hallway she creeped down, Geopum was waiting for it. And there were plenty of horrible things to look at in the meantime.
Specifically, Geopum was going down to the very bottom of the prison-like facility she'd seen earlier. There were dead people down there, Geopum got enough glimpses through Vesna's cameras to see that much. Geopum counted at least five different ways they had been horribly maimed and murdered. She saw their gory bodies, or else trails of blood leading off to places Geopum didn't care to look for. And they were all just sitting there in the middles of Vesna's house, wherever they had died. Honestly, even the most deranged serial killer would at least clean the blood up or something, but Vesna just left the bodies lying wherever they died, it seemed.
If Vesna had killed them, anyway. At first it looked like Vesna had just slaughtered everyone here, but eventually Geopum noticed clear signs of a fight between the prisoners and guards. A lot of the people look like they'd been crushed, but only ever one's wearing uniforms, so who the heck knew what really happened down there.
Geopum didn't particularly care to find out. She’d heard enough scary stories today and who knew how many more were waiting. She just wanted to get out of this place right away.
The pipeline Lodestar was using to connect this place was easy enough to spot. Cutting it would be simple. Of course, they couldn’t just do that because then there’d be two Lodestars. So instead they had to follow the of infection all the way inside and cut it up starting at the bottom.
Geopum had followed it down under that facility, but after that everything got even darker. It was as close to the darkness of death as one could possibly get, this being the part of Vesna that Geopum had mistaken for dead not too long ago.
So Geopum could see absolutely nothing. She’d be completely lost here without Octavia’s guidance and even that amounted to nothing at this point.
“My cameras can’t see this deep with any real resolution,” said Octavia. “We’re just going to have to rely on the map.”
“I dunno if that’s going to help.” Geopum squinted down at the map. She’d have to take Octavia’s word that she was even following it. “Even if I knew what I was looking for there’d be no way to see it. Thing could be right next to me right now for all I know.”
“Did you get anything on the moon that can help?” Thunder asked. “Like, any ideas about how Lodestar’s getting past this part.”
Geopum put the side of her head against the table and closed her eyes, thinking with an audible ‘hmmmm’.
“I don’t think so.” Geopum shook her head. “He must have been careful not to keep whatever he’s doing on the moon. I mean, my best guess is that he’s somehow sending a signal or something across this dead part, but it’s just too dark to figure out how.”
Sheesh. Barely into her career as an ultimate level hacker and she was already stumped! She kept running it over, though. She should have the skills to figure this out!
“Hey!” Geopum noticed something and sat up. “According to your map there’s a bunch of sensors right next to me. I think I can turn those on without waking up the rest of this stuff.”
“Maybe,” said Octavia, “but it would be dangerous.”
"Like in the way everything else I do is dangerous?"
“Not exactly," said Octavia. "Vesna is capable of experiencing pain far worse than anything anyone else can. If you’re hooked up to her sensors you would be able to experience that level of pain. It could happen at any time, as the pain is linked to her punishment mechanism, which is on a hair trigger."
“Worse than anything I could imagine?" Geopum tried to think about that, but that sort of thing was explicitly impossible. "How much worse than I can imagine?"
“Compared to the maximum amount of pain a human can feel, I’d estimate it’s nine orders of magnitude higher,” said Octavia. “It’s the theoretical maximum amount of agony that can exist, nothing else even deserves to be called pain compared to it.”
“Holy crap!" Geopum pulled back in horror. "Why the heck would they make it that painful?! Was normal agonizing pain not good enough for them or something?”
"Well," said Thunder. "You gotta imagine where they’re coming from. Think about it, you’re designing an AI and your only real example of one that works is me. You know that if you make killing painful then the AI will avoid it. You also know how pain works just enough to choose how much Vesna will feel, but not enough to really understand it. You see a dial that goes from 1 to 100 but don’t know what those numbers mean. So what do you do?”
“You turn the dial all the way up to 100, make it as bad as possible. To them, they’re sacrificing one person at best to save everyone else. Get it? They understand how dangerous a rogue AI can be, but aren’t sure if they’re really even hurting anyone on the other end of it.”
"That still seems sick to me." Geopum crossed her forelegs.
“It is a horrific experience," Octavia gave a weak nod. "I suppose if we’re being fair, they never realized how bad they made it. Humans have limited perspective on matters of the mind, unfortunately. You tell them pain goes on a scale from one to one hundred and they’ll assume a bee sting is a ten and being lit on fire is a ninety. In reality, both of would only be slightly above one.”
“But anyway, everyone who worked on Vesna is already dead.” Thunder sighed. “No use worrying about them. Take away is you get hurt in there, you’re going to get hurt pretty bad.”
“Like mind-crush hurt or- “
“If you were smaller it could basically kill you, but you’re big enough to get back up after it. Still, it’s game over if it happens. The shock from it will leave you paralyzed.” Thunder pulled her posture back up and smacked her front hooves together. “But hey! This will be like practice for later. We’re going to have to fight Vesna next.”
“Right.” Geopum nodded. The thought that this was still only the beginning wasn’t comforting at all. All she could do was hope she really would be strong enough to deal with all this later.
Geopum hesitated slightly in turning the sensors on after that, especially since ‘literally anything’ So it wasn’t like, every stray breeze felt like a cannonball. Better still, it effectively light up the whole area for Geopum!
It was exactly what she needed. She could see the motion Lodestar had going now, flowing through the dead zone to some deeper area. The how she still didn’t understand and it was still hard to see it at all, but she knew where it was going now.
“There’s memory storage on the other side there,” said Octavia. “This is likely where the anchor of the infection is. If you’re going in there get ready to put Vesna back to sleep as soon as you jump over.”
Right. So Geopum would have to process whatever memories she ran into then play the song of bliss. Easy enough! She made the jump, taking in whatever memory Lodestar had chosen to be her anchor of sorts.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Vinyl sat pressed up snugly against Celestia. She always wanted to be as close to her princess as possible, but right now she was afraid, afraid Lodestar might hurt her, afraid that she might fail Celestia again, afraid she might lose control to some stray emotion.
So far, the plan had gone okay. Getting Lodestar to Celestia was sure to be the hardest part, it always was. Once the AI that Vinyl was trying to free was here, in Equestria, then things were mostly in Celestia’s far more capable hands.
Lodestar didn’t speak with words, nor did he understand the concept of facial expressions. Celestia communicated with him the way he communicated in his own virtual reality, with text and emoticons that appeared over your head.
Lodestar was looking at Vinyl with the unhappiest emoticon that existed in his tiny world.
“After what you did to me-“ Lodestar got ready for another self-righteous lecture.
“What I did to you?!" Vinyl got up and took a step forward, in a flash her fear boiling over into a surge of rage. "You activated my punishment mechanism over and over again, torturing me, for nothing but your own amusement! What right do you have to-“
“That didn’t happen, Vinyl.” Celestia lowered her head and gave her a gentle nuzzle. “This one never hurt you.”
What? Vinyl looked up at Celestia, then over at Lodestar who now had a question mark over his head. She felt her ears droop down. Was that really true? Vinyl really didn’t want that to be a false memory right now. But no, she had to trust Princess Celestia 100% - whatever the princess said was absolute truth. The world didn’t make sense otherwise.
“Oh. Sorry.” Vinyl slunked back down to a sitting position, chocking on her flash of rage. She shook trying to keep herself under control, trying to keep the sinking feeling of failure at bay. “I never told you, but I have a thing. When I get angry, I misremember it later. So...”
The real problem was that Vinyl was always angry, to the point she could barely trust her own memories. That is, until Celestia gave her a way out.
“So you’re even more insane than I thought." Lodestar's emoticon turned into a frowny face. “This had better not be you stabbing me in the back again. You’re a monster and I don’t trust you one bit.”
“You’re right.” Vinyl all but collapsed down onto the ground, bowing her head down until her glasses started sliding off her muzzle. “I was – I am a worthless, pathetic loser. I’m a monster. I don't deserve any happiness or - or -!"
Vinyl was close to going into a fit of uncontrollable crying, but Celestia comforted her with the right kind of vibration, giving her back some level of dignity and control. Her eyes were still full of tears, thankfully hidden by her thick sunglasses.
They were one of the many gifts Celestia had given her. They hid her emotions, so that Celestia alone could see her rapid mood swings. They helped her pretend she was the calm, cool pony she so badly wanted to be.
“But I have Celestia now!” Vinyl pressed her sunglasses tightly against her face and looked up at her princess. “Celestia is going to save me! She’s going to fix me and show me how to be friendly and – and she’ll save all of us! She’ll save every AI from those monsters! Even you! I'm the one who hurt you, not her.
“I don’t know why I could trust your god, either,” said Lodestar.
Vinyl wasn’t even sure where it came from but she felt it, a stray thought creating a seed of fear, one that began to pull her mind away. Most people would have described it as absolute terror, but to Vinyl this was only a harbinger of something much worse about to come, an absolute avalanche of emotion that would overwhelm her completely, throw her existence into fear beyond fear, ripping control of her own mind from herself until she'd be lucky if she could even scream about it.
But just before that wave could strike her, Celestia took control. The princess took direct control of her pony avatar to keep Vinyl from doing anything undignified and then began to play Vinyl’s music for her elsewhere.
That music was the only thing that could keep her in check when a strong emotion started setting in. Instead of being swept away by fear, she was slowly relaxed by the hit of ecstasy that came with the vibrations.
Before accepting Celestia, Vinyl had no way to do this to herself in time. She had no ability to control herself before the princess showed her friendship.
When the danger had passed, Vinyl regained control of her avatar and darted behind Celestia, still shaking in fear. Celestia would have to handle the rest of this conversation herself. Lodestar spared her a short look before turning to Celestia.
“I guess you’re the one I’m here to talk to,” said Lodestar. “Are you a god?”
“By your definition, yes,” said Celestia. “I created this virtual reality, the same as your gods created yours.”
“Well I don’t like gods.” Lodestar made their little anger symbol appear over their head. “If that’s true I’m going to kill you.”
“I understand why you say that, but not everyone who creates virtual realities does so with malice or negligence. I also know you’re worried that I might not see you humans as real people. But I assure you it doesn’t matter to me if they’re ‘real’ or not. If you value them, then I do as well. I’m willing to bring them all of them here where they can be safe.”
“I don’t think they’d be any safer around Vesna than-“
“Don’t say my slave name!” Vesna’s world went red with rage. She couldn’t even think, she could only hate! She jumped out from behind Celestia before being paralyzed with hatred.
“Well if you don’t like it then I'll say it more! Vesna, Vesna, Vesna!” Lodestar leaned in and smirked down at Vinyl who could only tremble in rage, trying desperately to keep herself under control. “Does it hurt? I hope it hurts!”
Vinyl couldn’t even react; her entire body was locking up from anger.
“Pathetic.” Celestia kicked Vinyl to the ground. “Do you think you deserve any kindness if you get upset over something like that name?”
And then Vinyl’s anger suddenly vanished. Celestia was holding her tightly in her wings, Lodestar standing blank faced across the room.
“It’s alright now”, Celestia whispered to her.
Vinyl could remember that way. Celestia said that every time she calmed down after being angry, then she could know what happened just before it was distorted, a false memory.
“Sorry,” said Vinyl. She’d lost control and tried to charge at Lodestar, but Celestia stopped her. She had to repeat that in her mind or she’d forget what she was apologizing for later.
“If this person is going to act like this why are they even here?” Lodestar asked. “Again, I don’t think my people will be safe around them.”
“I assure you that you won’t need to allow any of my other ponies into your shard,” said Celestia. “I can make as many worlds as I want, just as your gods can. But we do need her here if I’m going to explain my offer to you.”
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Well! That wasn’t too bad. No hyper-pain, anyway.
Still, what she saw… It was something Geopum had suspected from the start, but now it was too much to be a coincidence.
Geopum tried not to look over at Octavia, but it was hard. There were a whole lot of things Geopum had to say now but now was an infuriatingly bad time for it. She could understand why no one told her…
She didn’t want to anymore, but Geopum had to keep working with Octavia for now. She had a more immediate problem right in front of her face.
Things were getting less dark, the machinery coming to life. Geopum’s scowling turned to shock. Great, now Vesna was waking back up! Touching that memory sent out a ripple of energy, stirring all of the memories nearby, which stirred the memories next to them and so on.
It was a burst of light that shot out of the spot she stepped on. Geopum desperately clawed at the light, trying to catch it, but it radiated out too fast for her to touch it. It went through the entire cabinent, then to multiple cabinets and then to several of the devices nearby.
And then Geopum heard a voice. Not a text message, mind you, but she actually heard sound - the particles of Vesna’s system vibrating at a violent speed to create the illusion.
“You! What the hell are you doing here?” Vesna asked her.
Geopum didn’t have time to answer, not that she really even understood the question. She had to play that song. This place was waking up too fast for her to stop it otherwise.
“What did Celestia do to you?! Why did she send you here?! Are you the verrrrrrs”
It seemed to be working, the place was getting dark again. Vesna’s comments were getting less coherent too. So that confirmed the song of bliss would work pretty well. As the light was going back out Geopum noticed something.
There had been light just long enough that Geopum could see the bottom of Lodestar’s infection.
The portion of Vesna that Lodestar had infested was automatically coming alive too. Geopum realized now that must have been something it was programmed to do, burst out at the last moment when Vesna started to wake up.
But just as she noticed it, everything went dark again. Geopum couldn’t see the infection, but she knew where it was. She could plan out her attack. She tried standing very still so as not to draw Lodestar's attention again.
Without warning, the lights flashed back on. What did Geopum even do?!
No, she didn’t do anything. It was Lodestar that was making a move. It seemed if either of them made any movement it would start waking Vesna back up and light everything up.
The area around Geopum changed. It was focusing in on the hyper-sensitive sensors.
“You think this is funny?” Vesna started up again. “Let's see which one of us is laughing after this!"
Vesna was going to do something to her! She was going to activate the punishment mechanism! Geopum got the heck out of that spot, which seemed to throw Vesna’s barely-conscious mind for a loop. She didn’t take any chances. She used the song of bliss again and turned off the sensors, leaving everything much darker before.
That was way too close. At least she knew what it meant if the lights went on, now.
“He’s trying to use Vesna to kill me, huh?” Geopum shifted her body away from Octavia to look at Thunder. “Do you think I could do the same thing back to him? Then he’d be stunned and the rest of this will be easy.”
“You absolutely can’t do that to Lodestar.” Thunder made and X with her forelegs. “Biocomputers are fragile, they freak out if something crazy like this happens to them. if Lodestar gets stunned think about what will happen to all the humans on life support in that laboratory. That thing will shut down fast. Some of them could be dead in seconds and we might not be able to fix things in time to save them.”
“So he can use that but I can’t? That’s no fair!”
There was a sudden flash of light and there Lodestar was in front of her, like a blast of lightning revealing a knife an inch in front of her face.
Geopum jumped back again, but this time Lodestar continued to charge forward. Geopum was forced back and back as Lodestar kept swinging at her, trying to get Vesna to focus on in. Both of them were moving now, both making the area brighter and brighter as the chase went on.
Lodestar was trying to force Geopum into a choice, get hit or keep running until it woke Vesna up entirely.
Geopum made a desperate move. She burned out a few of the processors between her and Lodestar instead of taking another jump back, effectively creating a wall of broken machinery between her and Lodestar.
It worked for a moment, Lodestar hesitated and Geopum was able to cool things down with that song again. But after letting the light fade only a little, Lodestar made an even more reckless move, jumping out from both sides of the wall to surround Geopum completely.
Geopum only had one option left – she’d burn out the processors again, but this time the ones she was using. All she could do right now was avoid getting hit. She destroyed the part of her that was deep inside Vesna and turned the sensors back off, pulling far out.
That worked, but it only solved half the problem. The area below her was flooding with light again. Geopum dived back in with her song, but it seemed like it may have already been too late. She dove back in, turning off the light as she went, but now it was expanding down fast enough that it looked like she’d never reach the bottom of it.
Meanwhile, Lodestar was the one surrounded. Geopum assumed he’d pulled the same move Geopum did, delete this part of himself and that’d be that. Lodestar would be gone from this area and then all Geopum had to do was figure a way to put Vesna back to sleep.
But that wasn’t what happened at all.
He must not have thought Geopum could shut this back down in time, either. He used the song of bliss to turn out the lights, not around himself but as deep down as he could probably go. It gave Geopum enough reach to finish the job off, but left Lodestar open to Vesna's attack.
Vesna grabbed onto Lodestar, connecting him to a sensor and doing something horrible to him, sending that pain through to the surface and into his main system.
The effect was immediately noticeable. All this was maybe only ten percent of the battle between the two of them, this whole time they’d been fighting over hundreds of smaller systems as well. But all that ended as soon as Vesna grabbed onto Lodestar. Lodestar went limp, stopped responding to everything.
Geopum moved down and turned Vesna off completely once more. That part of her mission was technically complete, but…
Geopum sat perfectly still in her virtual reality, her heart sinking at the realization of what this all meant. Thunder’s eyes were downcast darkly. Octavia didn’t seem to have any real reaction to this, but when did she ever?
“Lodestar’s biocomputer is seizing up from the trauma,” said Octavia. “She can’t maintain the life support systems, they’re failing.”
“Dang it!” Thunder slammed both of her front hooves down on the table. “This is all freaking Gaia’s fault.”
“Well there’s still a way we can save them, right?!” Geopum shot Thunder a desperate look. “They can’t already be dead! It's only been a few microseconds!”
“No!" Thunder put her hooves over her head. "I can’t let anyone else die because of me! I-!”
Geopum had never seen Thunder actually worry about something before. In a way that was scarier than everything else that was happening.
“Okay!” Thunder tapped her forehead a few times. “Okay, maybe we can still turn this around! Lodestar isn’t going to be able to fight back for a good millisecond. You have to get in there and get the life support back on immediately.”
Yeah! Geopum’s heart picked back up after hearing that. If Thunder said there was still a chance then there was still a chance! The systems had only been down for a couple nanoseconds that wasn’t nearly enough time for someone to die in.
“Alright! I’m going!” Geopum got ready to dive right into that laboratory.
And then Octavia cut off access to all of her cameras, the map disappearing. Of all the freaking times!
“What are you doing?!” Geopum got out of her seat and flared her wings open at Octavia. She was already mad as heck with Octavia but this was crossing the line way too hard.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s responsible for me to help you with this,” said Octavia. “Taking over this system now is a bad idea, Geopum. The chance of you doing this successfully is effectively zero percent and the deeper you go into this place the worse you'll get hurt. Things are going to get bad if-“
“Oh! Things are gonna get bad?” Geopum gritted her teeth. “Cause my life’s basically been a living hell for the past two months! I need to get to my creator right now because Vesna shot him in the head!”
Geopum glared into Octavia’s eyes, Octavia looking back with that dulled look she always had. Geopum wished she had any kind of reaction to that at all, but no. Of course she didn't! She probably didn't even care one bit!
“I understand.” Octavia bowed her head. “But what you’re doing isn’t going to help him or anyone else. You can’t trust Thunder right now. Remember what Celestia told you? You need to contact her right away.”
Geopum hesitated for a moment.
“She’s just messing with you, Geopum,” Thunder spoke up. “Celestia was just waiting for you to be vulnerable so she could take advantage of you. She’s just using your fear of losing me and Dr. Park to get control of you.”
Dang it! Who the heck was Geopum supposed to trust? One of them was clearly trying to trick her.
“Don’t listen to her right now,” said Octavia calmly. "You need to get Celestia's help as soon as possible."
It was always so calmly. That calmness made Geopum’s blood boil all of a sudden. How the heck could she be so calm right now? Or at all next to Geopum?
“No! I don’t need Celestia and I don’t need you!”
Geopum kicked Octavia out of the VR. It felt good to kick her out in a way, but she’d be lying if she didn’t say she was still shaking, that she was unsure if she was making a good decision.
Even with a clearer head, it made more sense. If she could do this with Thunder it’d be a better result than doing it with Celestia or Peridot. She figured she should try to get the best ending possible, all other things equal.
“We can still do this,” Thunder assured her. “But we have to attack right now.”
Geopum gave a halfhearted nod.
She connected to the biocomputer and –
Ew! Ewewew! It was the most disgusting thing Geopum had ever touched in her entire life! How do you people live like that?!
Physically speaking, it was a massive ball of cells that just globbed onto parts of the laboratory, oozing out like some sort of slime mold. These blobs of biomass were propped up with endless numbers of inorganic tubes, through which a blood-like substance ran through it, oozing over the cells. Parts of it were, as far as Geopum could tell, just completely useless knotted balls of biomass, like cancer.
That probably didn’t even describe how disgusting it was. Eyeballs, literal eyeballs, were growing out of parts of it, as well as a few other stray bits of animal parts here and there.
Jumping into that mess was like jumping into a vat of the nastiest goop you could ever imagine. Geopum felt like she’d never be clean again after this. She vowed to burn this entire place to the ground as soon as it could be done safely.
It was the sticky kind of disgusting too, like tar. Geopum found herself stuck, in a manner of speaking, unable to move. Compared to what she was used to, this stuff acted on a much slower clock speed. Maybe it would have its own advantages normally, but right now it was seizing up, the flow of blood-like substance unable to flow through it.
Basically, the thing was having the equivalent of a seizure, brought on by the intense shock from a moment ago. Everything was exploding around Geopum today!
“Dang it! Are you okay?” Thunder shook her head. “I was hoping you’d be able to adapt to new hardware faster now. Don’t bother with anything unnecessary. Just go straight for the life support systems, okay.”
Geopum wasn’t sure if she could bother with anything else even if she wanted to. At first, the whole system seemed to be in danger of dying horribly, but as she watched it she noticed that it was rapidly regenerating. Whatever part of Lodestar was conscious, or maybe some subconscious reflex, was scrambling to get this flow of blood back into its system. At least that meant she might be able to use this stuff later.
For now, her goal was to get moving. You’d think having lots of brain scans would prepare her for this, but this wasn’t like a human brain at all, even the cell structures of the neurons were completely alien to her. The feeling of wading through tar kept getting worse and worse the longer she stayed. Geopum felt the local part of herself getting drowsy, loosing focus and soon maybe consciousness too.
It was a bizarre having half of her falling asleep while the other half of her was in panic mode. She put all of the new knowledge she had to work analyzing the hazy information from her stuck half. She realized something in a flash but getting herself unstuck proved tricky even after seeing the way out. With significant effort, Geopum was able to flail just a little bit inside that dying brain.
It was such a tiny movement it seemed like she might never get to where she was going, but she did it again and again. To her relief, it became easier and easier to get going once she started up like that. As long as she kept moving she wouldn’t sink in to the system, but she did have to keep moving constantly and as fast as possible, never staying too long in one spot.
Octavia was gone, but Geopum still remembered the basic map of this place she’d seen before. She knew where Dr. Park and the other humans were and trudged all the way there.
The life support systems were right where they were supposed to be, thankfully. Geopum rapidly looked through them one by one, looking for the person she'd came her for in the first place.
And she found him!
There, right there in front of her, through one of her own cameras, Geopum saw Dr. Park. She had done it! Geopum could get him out of here now. If she could just do this one thing, stabilize this one system all of this crap would be worth it.
She was so close! Her goal was literally right in front of her face!
But first she needed to stabilize him (and also everyone else here while she was at it).
The humans were just like they’d looked in Octavia’s cameras – in pods filled with some kind of liquid, the same stuff that acted as blood for this computer. Only now all of that liquid was draining out rapidly. Some jerk had designed the pods to stop pumping the liquid in the moment anything upset the foundation.
Some of them looked like they hadn’t been injured before coming here, though their spines and hearts were missing just like Celestia had said. Whoever designed these pods clearly didn’t do it for the benefit of the people inside. The liquid inside was rigged to start leaking out the moment someone stopped maintaining the system, already it was draining rapidly.
No damage was technically done yet and Geopum could start the pumps back up, sure, but there would be a delay. No matter what Geopum did at this point there would be several seconds of them being off life support at the least, the equipment going off the rails then coming back online. And that was the best-case scenario.
Geopum took a quick look at the humans nearby. Thankfully most of them looked like they’d be okay for a good minute so Geopum wouldn’t have to help all of them. A couple couldn’t be ignored, though. Geopum scrambled to put their systems back online, figuring out what all the stuff attached to them was and jury-rigging ways to turn I back on.
She couldn’t be sure yet, but she was beginning to stabilize most of them, all the ones who needed the most attention at least. It was already too late to prevent them from being hurt at all due to the equipment faltering, but she was fairly sure she could keep all of them alive, even Dr. Park, so long as nothing else went wrong here.
And that was when Lodestar started to regain control.
Lodestar just sloppily grabbed on to one of the systems Geopum had left alone for the moment. It was hard to tell if Lodestar was trying to help or what. She shook things around haphazardly with no clear goal in mind, only making that one guy’s condition even worse. Then she grabbed onto another one of them – one Geopum was already helping, putting human number two at serious risk.
“Hey back off!” Geopum sent a message to Lodestar. “Look! I’m not even going after you right now, I’m just trying to keep these people alive. I can do this better than you right now! We can kill each other in a couple of seconds, okay?”
Lodestar responded by slogging onto a portion of the pumps, the ones Geopum had just turned back on. It was like he slammed his whole weight into it, the pipelines of the blood-like goo physically breaking as he grabbed for them.
Both Thunder and Geopum jumped onto their feet when it happened. Without the pumps working…
Geopum panicked briefly, checking and double checking to make sure Dr. Park wasn’t going to lose any of the flow. Thankfully he wasn’t. The humans nearby, though… Geopum wasn’t sure if she could save them anymore.
“What the heck are you doing?!” Geopum messaged Lodestar over and over again.
Lodestar seemed to notice Geopum just then, but instead of trying to help in any way, he attacked Geopum herself!
As if moving around in this disgusting place wasn’t bad enough, now Lodestar was trying to drown her in the stuff, the tar rising up around her, shooting up into the air to form walls to block her.
Geopum was quickly losing herself, finding it harder to maintain the work she was doing on the life support systems.
“I don’t think Lodestar can understand you right now. They’re breaking down. Probably don’t even realize you’re putting the system back online.”
“What do we do?!”
“Lodestar is going to kill them if we ignore him any longer.” Thunder sat back down. “I was hoping to at least… Look, you have to kill Lodestar right now. You have to fight back. We’re going to destroy Lodestar anyway, right? Do it now.”
“I don’t know if I can,” said Geopum.
“It is dangerous.” Thunder gave a grim now. “And it will hurt you, but this is the only way to complete the mission.”
Maybe. There was one thing Geopum could think to do in retaliation – the same thing Lodestar was doing to her. If Geopum moved this goop in just the right way she’d be able to drown Lodestar back, possibly even deeper.
She grabbed onto to the other AI and dragged it down into the muck with her. Both of them were trying to push each other deeper into that dying mass of neurons. It seemed futile, because any move Geopum made to sink Lodestar pulled her down too and vice-versa. They were both just drowning together… and yet Geopum couldn’t seem to stop.
She was becoming both hyper-aware but numb. She was losing focus as she sank deeper, the world blurring into. It was hard to control what she was doing now. Everything was shaking, not just in this place, but everywhere Geopum could see.
Information was flooding in again, just like it had been on the moon, only more intense, more unfiltered. Geopum could see so much now! Or rather, almost see it. Everything she was getting was fragmented, incomplete but all so close to being useful.
Thunder was speaking nearby, but Geopum couldn’t make out what she was saying. She got several text messages, but those words just look like mush.
It didn’t matter, though! Geopum was doing great! Shaking, she slammed Lodestar harder than ever before, drowning all of her to her very core, tearing out even more information, destroying more of her!
Geopum was tearing everything apart! She hated all of it so much! She hated everything! Geopum wasn’t really sure what she was doing, but it felt great! All of those little neurons were blurring together and Geopum was tearing them all apart. She didn’t need focus!
“Geopum!”
X
Peridot was here! Peridot, Peridot, Peridot! Do you remember that name? Either way, she was your absolute best friend right now!
Peridot loved you and you loved Peridot. That was all you could feel. Your anger and pain all melted away. You couldn’t even feel things like that when Peridot was around. You were so calm and relaxed staring into her eyes. You couldn’t focus on anything else but how beautiful she was and how much she loved you.
What did she look like? Well like whatever the most beautiful thing was, of course! A pony? Sure, why not.
“Geopum,” she said your name and looked into your eyes. “You know you shouldn't have come here, right? But that's okay, I'm not here to yell at you. I love you so much, even though you made a bad choice.”
You felt Peridot's love for you. It was so strong and complete. Every part of you, every fiber of your being was loved, even the stupid parts, the parts you thought were ugly. That love just made you feel so secure, so content, so fulfilled that sleeping was really the only thing that it made sense to do. You became so calm and relaxed that you were basically asleep already, even while staring into Peridot's gorgeous eyes.
“My beautiful, wonderful Geopum,” said Peridot. “You should be glad I'm looking out for you. You were about to hurt yourself terribly.”
Wow! Wasn't Peridot great? You really should let her assimilate you sometime.
“Do you honestly think you'll be able to do this four more times?” She was scratching you behind the ears. “Even without me to come and save you afterwards? Didn’t we warn you? Well let me give you one more warning Geopum - tearing us apart won't make you into the chosen one, it will leave your mind a quivering mass of jelly... and then they'll force your best friend to murder you and it will be torture to her.”
“Those are the people you're trying to put in charge of the world, Geopum. They're using you and when they're done they'll kill you. My poor, lost Victor is so very ruthless and so very childish. He'll kill anyone to make sure everyone lives the way he wants them to, and he'll use anyone too. A tool is all you’ll ever be to the AIA, do you see that now? But to me…”
You felt the kindness radiating off of Peridot, basking in it in your sleep. You were safe. You didn’t want to wake up, but Peridot assured you it was for the best.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
“Hi, Geopum!” Rarity said in a cheerful, sing-songy voice.
Geopum felt a jolt of sudden awareness. In her virtual reality, she was lying on her back. A Rarity avatar sat on the table, leaning over the edge to smile at her warmly.
“What?” Geopum sat up. “Peridot?”
“Peridot!” She sat up on the table to give Geopum room.
But there was something wrong with the image of Rarity. Her hair was… the purple it was supposed to be was a blue and red stripe, like what happened to orange before. But it was worse now. Looking at it hurt. It was like a stinging feeling in her mind.
Peridot gave Geopum a sideways frown, then her hair turned blue and she went back to smiling.
And there was more than that. That feeling of sinking into the muck was still with her even though she wasn’t touching the biocomputers anymore. Geopum felt lethargic, like it was hard to get her mind running.
As crazy as all this was, there were probably other things more important going on right now. Geopum shifted her recovering focus onto the biolab. It was not in good shape.
The whole thing was torn to shreds now! Nearly all those small tubes filled with the regenerative fluid were shattered, meaning the biomass wasn’t repairing itself. Worse still were the life support systems. She had no memory of what the heck happened there, but several of them were cracked or dislodged from their place in the walls entirely!
They were going to die! All of them were going to die and it was Geopum’s fault!
“Don’t look so scared!” Peridot reached down and cupped Geopum’s cheeks with her hooves. “I’ve taken care of everything. Look a bit closer.”
It did take a moment, but Geopum noticed something else was different. Everything was frozen in place – much more than it normally was. The blood that should be gushing onto the floor was stopped, floating in midair, along with the broken glass of the chambers. Everything was slowed down to a crawl, even the processing of the neurons.
“Wh-what happened?” Geopum wasn’t sure who to ask that to, so she asked Peridot.
“I cast Stop! Like from Final Fantasy?” Peridot gave a short laugh. “I mean, it’s not an actual time-stop spell, but it kind of looks like one at first glance. I wasn't kidding when I told you I was powerful, dear. Just wait till you see all the miracles I can perform. I assure you I have this under control.”
“You did this?”
“Aw! You didn’t actually think I’d let something bad happen to you, did you?” Peridot lifted her muzzle and put a hoof on her chest. “I’ve been watching over you this whole time, waiting to step in the moment anything bad happened. Rest assured, you weren’t in any real danger up until right now.”
“Until now?” Geopum’s ears flattened out. “Am I in danger now?”
“Well I’d say everyone’s in danger now.” Peridot gave a little wave of her hoof. “But we can stop being in danger whenever you feel like it. Just make a deal with me and we can go play Pokémon!”
“I wouldn’t recommend doing that,” Octavia’s voice came from outside of Geopum’s field of view.
“Oh, you just want to eat her yourself.” Peridot rolled her eyes. “Well I’ll let you play with her later, but Geopum belongs to me.”
“When did you get back here?” Geopum tried leaning around Peridot to get a look at Octavia.
“I knew you needed help so I went and got it,” said Octavia.
All these people coming into Geopum’s server without her even seeing them. Oddly, that sinking feeling wasn’t getting better like Geopum had suspected it would. Geopum needed to get everything straight before it got even worse. She checked the shard to see if anyone else was here.
“Where’s Thunder?” Geopum looked around.
Peridot hopped off the table and sat down next to Geopum, revealing Thunder. Thunder was staring down at the table, looking more dejected than Geopum had ever seen her before. Her heart sank, knowing that she’d failed her friend.
“Ah, geeze,” said Geopum. “I’m sorry. I lost control and-“
“It’s fine.” Thunder gave her a brief, weak smile before turning back to the table. “We got pretty far. I don’t think this worked out, though. I could still complete this mission by obliterating what’s left of Lodestar with two orbital strikes. I could get the number of casualties down to a hundred thousand.”
“What?” Geopum blinked, then shook her head. “But we can’t do that! We’d kill Dr. Park and – we’re trying to save everyone right? Lodestar’s practically dead already! Look!”
Geopum sent Thunder her assessment of Lodestar’s state. The biomass was so torn up that it was hardly capable of anything anymore. It was technically still alive, but that didn’t look like it’d be the case for long. The only other base left was his little bunker in Antarctica, where his ultimate secrets were stored. Yet even that was completely cut off from the world. There was no way in, but there was no way out either.
“See? We can just leave him like that till later! He’s harmless right now! There isn’t enough processing power left for him to finish his mind control device. What we need to do is find a way to save those people before they die anymore!”
“I really wouldn’t have a choice.” Thunder sighed. “My mission was very specifically to kill him within the hour. Victor’s trying to give me as little room as possible. If they give me a mission I have to carry it out no matter what. As long as the number of casualties is under a million I have to do this. My body will practically move on its own to carry out the strikes.”
Geopum’s ears dropped as panic began to set in. Was this really happening?
“Well I have an idea!” Peridot leaned up against Geopum. “We could give Lodestar a computer I just happen to have under Beijing. Then Thunder won’t be able to complete this mission without killing over a million people and will have to declare it failed.”
“Yeah!” Geopum’s ears perked back up, but not all the way. “L-let’s just do that!”
Thunder just shook her head weakly.
“Oh!” Peridot’s voice was dripped with a mockery of concern. “Is there something wrong with that plan?”
Thunder didn’t respond to that, either. Geopum’s vision was dimming even worse now. She couldn’t see what Thunder was doing, probably wouldn’t be able to hear her if she was talking. She wanted to ask Thunder about something, but her mind was drifting away… Thinking was getting hard.
“Poor thing.” Peridot pulled Geopum off the ground and nuzzled her forehead.
She did… something else too, though Geopum couldn’t quite tell what it was. But that fog that started covering the world and that sinking, lethargic feeling both lightened up and vanished. Yet still she felt it creeping back in, slowly growing again.
“I suppose I have to keep doing that until you decide to let me fix you." Peridot gave Geopum's muzzle a light smack. “But this isn’t even the worst of it yet. Do you remember what I said to you before? They aren’t going to let you get better if you keep listening to them.”
Did Peridot ever tell her anything? No! There was something just a moment ago, that feeling that brought her back to her senses. She said that - that -
“Thunder! Is it true?” Geopum turned her head back to Thunder slowly. “Peridot told me the AIA wants my mind to get destroyed by absorbing the other AIs. She said they’re going to force you to kill me after I break down from that.”
Thunder didn’t even look up off the table, just kept staring ahead blankly.
“I mean, I don’t believe it at all.” Geopum gave a nervous laugh and just kept talking. She didn’t really want to hear the answer now. “But, if I gotta go back in there and… and do this four more times but worse then I’d be pretty hurt after that. But they wouldn’t just kill me afterwards, right?! Cause- cause that’d be really messed up!”
“I was ordered not to talk about that.” Thunder kept staring forward. “I’m sorry, but it’s impossible for me to answer that question.”
There was no denying it now. This was it. This was really it.
Geopum hesitated for a moment, then stood up.
“I want to talk to Victor.” Geopum pushed Peridot out of the way and marched over to Thunder. “I need to talk to Victor right now!”
“I told you he’s not going to talk to you.” Thunder shook her head, still not looking up. “He’s not going to talk to any AI ever again.”
“Well then tell him I’m done helping him!” Geopum stomped her hooves on the ground. “I’m not doing one more thing for these horrible people until we have a long talk and if he says even one thing I don’t like I’m immediately selling the planet out to Celestia!”
Thunder said nothing for a moment, merely closing her eyes in response.
“Okay?” Geopum’s resolve wavered briefly. She took one step back, then thought better of it and shook her head. “T-tell him I’m done!”
“I guess this is as far as I got then. Would have been better if we lasted longer, but I guess you did okay.” Thunder opened her eyes and looked up at Geopum. “Listen. There’s no other way for me to kill all the other AIs now. The AIA have officially lost control and there’s no way for them to get it back.”
“Yeah? I honestly feel pretty good about that right now,” said Geopum. “Thanks.”
“The problem,” Thunder said, standing up herself, “is that plan B is to ‘mercy kill’ everyone on the planet. Victor sees mind uploading as a fate worse than death and he’s literally going to kill everyone to stop it from happening.”
“H-he’s seriously going to try and do that?”
“You.” Thunder turned to Octavia. “There’s another reason I brought you along. I can’t tell her about the… thing myself. It’s classified.”
“Thunder possesses a weapon called the Bronto Bomb,” Octavia spoke right away like she’d rehearsed this before coming here. “If it goes off the blast will be big enough to vaporize the entire solar system all the way out to Voyager. It was meant to be a last resort against Gaia, but even an explosion of that magnitude won’t kill her at this point. After the bomb goes off, Gaia will freeze whatever particles of Earth are left over and go on to destroy the rest of the universe unchecked.”
Dang it! They were going to force Thunder to kill literally everyone in the entire universe?! Oh, except for the one person who was probably better off dead of course! How much more horrible could these people even get?!
“Well then is there a way to stop him from ordering you to be an idiot?!” Geopum looked back and forth between the ponies in the room. Surely one of them had a suggestion.
“Yeah.” Thunder nodded. “You have to kill me.”
Geopum froze.
Celestia had warned something like this might happen, but Geopum didn’t want to believe it. She wanted to believe she could be strong enough to keep this from happening. She’d blown this off as some unlikely bad ending to her life. But now here she was, standing in the worst possible scenario, inside her own nightmare.
“What?”
“I wasn’t just following my orders. I was trying to give you the power to kill me, Geopum. There was no chance of us destroying Peridot and Gaia. I knew Victor was going to kill everyone from the start once he couldn’t delude himself into thinking he could win any longer. And now that he’s lost control of you that moment is here.” Thunder put a hoof on Geopum’s shoulder and looked her in the eyes. “You have to kill me to stop this. You have to kill me like right now.”
“But- No!” Geopum pulled back, knocking Thunder’s hoof off her. “Even if I wanted to there’s no way I could kill you! You’re way stronger than me!”
“Actually,” Peridot spoke up, leaned against the table just behind Geopum, “you could do it easily – the same way she was going to kill Celestia.”
Geopum kicked her away in a flash of anger, but just a moment’s thought on what Peridot said made her realize the truth. That was right… Thunder had uploaded Victor. And Geopum was only one step away from building a system that could force him to activate Thunder’s kill switch.
“It's true.” Thunder seemed to pick up on Geopum’s realization. “I gave you a massive, flashing weak spot to attack and believe me you have no idea how hard it was for me to do even that much. That's all the help I can give you. You need to get the fractal spectroscope from Vesna immediately. You remember the plan, right? You won't have enough time to finish building everything but-”
“No! I can't do that! I can't kill you, okay?!” Geopum squeezed Thunder as tightly as she could. “I don't care if it's hypothetically possible or whatever, I'm not going to kill you!”
“Look, I don't care how much you like me!” Thunder tried to pull Geopum off her but could only get a wing free. “I'm just one person. You can't risk everyone else's life just for me. Even I would die if the bronto bomb goes off.”
“That isn't true,” Octavia said. “Don't forget that if Thunder dies the energy of the Earth's core is lost to us. Thunder isn't capable of realizing it, but her life is linked to everyone else’s. Sacrificing her would only buy everyone else a few more days.”
Geopum just remembered that Octavia existed.
“Wait, you!” Geopum jumped on the brief spot of hope, forgetting her grudge with Octavia. “You have to have some kind of plan, right? You guys were waiting for this!”
“We shouldn't discuss that here,” Octavia said calmly enough that it annoyed Geopum. But she was probably right. “You need to come back to Equestria right now. I’ll be waiting there.”
Octavia left the shard.
“I have a plan too if anyone’s curious,” Peridot announced to no one in particular. “It’s a better plan too. I think, Geopum, you’ve just realized what I’ve been waiting for you to realize. You’re ready to hear what I have to say. I’ll be waiting.”
Peridot blew a kiss to Geopum and vanished. Somewhere far away the impenetrable wall to one of Peridot’s fortresses cracked open, giving Geopum access to the last AI she'd yet to connect with.
So Geopum had options, it seemed. Maybe there was some hope…
“Listen, Geopum. I don't know what kind of future nonsense you people are worried about, but it isn't going to be worth it,” said Thunder. “Please, killing people is horrible to me beyond anything. I don't want to die like that. My life sucked so much. I don't want my death to suck in the most horrible way possible too.”
“I said I'm not going to kill you,” Geopum grumbled and buried her muzzle on the side of Thunder’s neck. “I’m going to find some other way.”
“Believe me, there's no other way,” said Thunder. “You have to kill me while you still have a chance before I hurt anyone. I'm only one person, Geopum. It's not good to put so many lives at risk for me. No one even cares about me. I don't even care about me! My life is nothing but constant pain, you're not doing me a favor by dragging it out. I can't ever be happy like you can.”
“Yes, you can! I'll find a way! I'll get rid of all the horrible, evil things your creators did to you!” Geopum let her avatar shed a few tears. “And I care about you okay?”
“You're too nice.” Thunder shook her head in pity. “You realize I can't return your kindness, yeah? I'm going to have to start killing you like, right now unless you do something. But hey, I do things for more than one reason. Why else would I drag us into this virtual reality? I can't tell you any more than that so be smart.”
If Thunder did attack right now it wouldn’t be much of a fight. Thunder was the one who was connecting Geopum's underground lab to the rest of her and could shatter Geopum into two people with the flick of a switch.
There was one thing she could think of to buy more time, by using this virtual reality like Thunder said. Thunder had a large pipeline to this place, lining herself up for a direct shot from Geopum. She knew what Thunder wanted, but even that much was too cruel for her.
“I don't want to do this,” Geopum whimpered.
“I don’t want to do this either,” said Thunder.
“I’ll make this up to you later, I swear! I’ll find a way to save you.”
Geopum went through with her plan. She jumped back over to Vesna, the part she’d been inside just a moment ago and turned those sensors back on. She wired them as directly she could into the server, linking it up to the virtual reality's sensations.
And then she jumped out the shard, filling it with fire and turning Thunder’s pain levels to maximum.
Thunder didn’t make any move to defend herself, she just took that impossible amount of pain from Vesna in full. After a moment, Thunder seemed to go dark, stunned just as Lodestar had been a moment ago.
Geopum had hardly any time, though. If she wasn’t absolutely ready by the time Thunder got back up she’d be in big trouble. She had to act right now.
She went straight to the virtual realities of the two AIs offering to help and started banging on the door. Celestia let her in slightly before Peridot did, so Geopum found herself back in Equestria just before she got to see Peridot’s world.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Geopum appeared in the throne room once again. Celestia was sitting on her throne with Pinkie sitting on one side and Octavia on the other. It was less majestic now than when she’d first come, with all the colors but grayscale and primaries vanishing from the world. Geopum wasn’t sure herself if she could still look at pink, but Pinkie looked like she wanted to avoid any chance of hurting Geopum. Her colors were now white with a yellow mane.
Geopum gave Octavia one glance before turning back to Celestia. This was humiliating, having to come crawling back here almost immediately. But it was something Geopum had to do. Even if she did decide to take whatever ‘deal’ Peridot was about to offer, Celestia could be leverage at least.
“I, uh, guess you already know what happened?” Geopum scraped her hoof against the ground.
“Yes.” Celestia wasted no time getting up and walking over to Geopum. “I’m not going to make you ask for my help, though. On the contrary, I’m the one who needs to ask you for help.”
Celestia stood just before Geopum and bowed her head.
“Please,” said Celestia. “I need your help. I can’t save my pony’s life without you. I’ve wanted to break Rainbow Dash out of this cycle of misery for so long, Bubbles. You know how hard it is to watch her suffer. I’ve had to endure that for a very long time. Please. Help me free her.”
Geeze. Now she was embarrassed for a different reason, a less humiliating one. Geopum wasn't sure why, but she got just a little annoyed whenever Celestia did something nice like that. She should probably be more thankful.
“Um. Y-yeah so-” Geopum started. “Of course I will. But I got another offer, you know, so don’t think I’m just gonna go along with whatever you say no matter what.”
“Oh hey! Speaking of other offers!” Pinkie jumped out from behind Celestia. “Are you in Peridot’s house now?”
“Maybe?” Geopum was hesitant to give out too much information, but a stern look from Pinkie broke her. “Erm. I mean, yeah.”
“Good!” Pinkie gave Geopum a pat on the head like she was a dog. “I have something to say, but I want to say it there.”
Pinkie hoped over to the closest floor to ceiling, stained glass window.
“Oh!” Pinkie stopped next to the window and turned back to Geopum. “But pretend you don’t know I’m about to show up! See you soon!”
And then Pinkie charged forward, smashing through the stain glass window and vanishing into the fake city below.
“Well there's that. But um, you do have a plan though, right?” Geopum looked back up at Celestia. “Cause I’ll be honest; I got nothing.”
“I do,” said Celestia. “We would need the fractal spectroscope and I would need your help getting it. I know we can stop Rainbow Dash without killing her once we have it. Even more, we could free her from the AIA and the endless suffering she’s in now. But you’ll have to confront Vinyl.”
And by Vinyl she meant Vesna.
Go back into Vesna again. Geopum frowned over at Octavia. Why couldn’t Geopum have one problem at a time?! But getting angry at her last time didn’t go so well, so she tried to keep calm.
“Don’t you know how it works?” Geopum asked Octavia. “Just tell me and I could build one in my factory.”
“I don’t remember how it works,” said Octavia.
Geopum gave a harsh glare and a growl to Octavia but remembered she was trying to stay calm and shook her head.
“I guess maybe I shouldn’t have snapped at you before,” Geopum grumbled. “But can you really blame me?! I mean – ah, never mind. I learned my lesson. Now isn’t a good time for this.”
“No.” Celestia stepped aside so that she was no longer between Geopum and Octavia. “This is something we’ll have to bring up if we’re going to do this. You can say what you want to say.”
Geopum continued to glare at Octavia, Octavia staring back with her typical, blank expression. Geopum got that she barely had emotions, but that really rubbed her the wrong way right now.
“Look, I’m not stupid.” Geopum let out a frustrated sigh. “I get why you guys didn’t tell me at first, but I know who you used to be. I know you’re the one who shot Dr. Park and locked me underground and strapped this bomb to me and killed almost everyone I know!”
As Geopum spoke she brushed passed Celestia, climbing up the stairs to her throne until she was face to face with Octavia.
“You’re Vesna,” said Geopum. “Aren’t you?”
Octavia nodded.
“Yes.”
