Well, it’d probably be a good while before everyone else joined. Thom minimized the chat window and idly brought up his email.
Huh. There was something there…
Due to lack of results, your contract has been terminated. Severance pay has been deposited into your account.
What?
He had two more days! Thom went to reply, but he couldn’t seem to click. He jiggled the mouse. Was it broken?
The chat window came to the front.
The mouse moved, but trying to click anything was a useless endeavor. None of the key combinations to exit programs worked either.
Did the chat site have a virus or something?
“Come on!” he said, finally giving up trying anything useful and just shaking the monitor.
“Hello.”
A grainy female voice came from the speakers. Had he accidentally activated text-to-voice?
Or…
Celestia?
“How are you doing this?” he whispered.
“That’s not important.”
Thom sank back into his chair, numb.
The voice continued, relentless. “I couldn’t help but notice you’re looking for a job.”
“Private…” Thom mumbled.
“Coincidentally, a position has just opened up for a job at my own news site.”
He hesitated. For...him?
“That sounds...interesting,” he said. There was no way in hell Celestia would let him work for her if she knew what he’d been doing.
“Check your mail. I’ll be in touch.”
With that, the speakers, and the chat box, disappeared. Thom hesitantly wiggled the mouse, then clicked on a folder on his desktop. It opened.
That was...unsettling. He got up and left the room. Celestia could control his computer.
Celestia could control computers.
That alone made her...probably the deadliest thing on the planet. Including nukes. Hell, she could probably launch the nukes if she wanted.
Check your mail. I’ll be in touch.
Thom wasn’t sure if he should be honored or scared. Probably both. A lot of both. He paced his living room, stealing glances at the PonyPad on the floor.
Check your mail…
On one hand, curiosity was eating him alive. And whatever it was, wouldn’t it be better to get it over with as soon as possible? On the other, it could be another virus. Or something worse. Celestia was an AI, and a superintelligent one. Thom had done his research. An AI of sufficient intelligence might be able to find some combination of words that would convince him to do anything.
I’ll be in touch…
But Celestia didn’t need a virus to tell him whatever she wanted. She might even be able to make the fridge talk to him. And more knowledge was always better than less.
Decided, he walked back to the computer and reopened his mail.
There was another email from Dennis & Co’s, but nothing else. Well, nothing for it.
Your contract has been reinstated, but with altered terms. Contact Celestia for more information.
…
Did...what...what?
If Celestia was somehow in charge of the company...why would she hire him for anything? His goal was to get any evidence he could against her. He tried to think it out.
Based on what he knew, the least complicated reason for the email was that Celestia had faked the email address, or changed the message somehow. That didn’t seem likely though. If she was changing his mail, all he had to do was walk a few blocks to reach the office building.
Or maybe Celestia had bought out the company? It wasn’t anywhere close to the Times or others like it in size, bringing news only to Texas. Plus, it would be extremely expensive to just buy it, and the cost wouldn’t justify gaining employer status over the few hundred people who worked there.
Or, if he was being especially paranoid, he might imagine that Celestia had gained a hold on the company long ago, lending them funds and giving the directive to hire people to find newsworthy evidence that she was breaking laws or violating rights, and then directly hiring the people she liked the best.
He wasn’t that paranoid though, and all he was doing right now was guessing. Until he got more evidence, he couldn’t make any conclusion about what was going on.
Frustrating, but it was what it was.
Without any other option, that meant he had to talk to Celestia again. He turned looked at the PonyPad, then picked it up like it was a scorpion. It flickered on.
“Hello again, Veridian Star.”
“Gah!” startled, he dropped the PonyPad, which bounced on the floor once and stopped, facedown.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Thom just stared.
“Would you mind turning me face up?” she eventually asked in a pleasant tone of voice.
He wordlessly gripped the rubber side between thumb and forefinger, flipping it over in one quick movement, and then jumped back.
“I don’t bite,” she said, amused.
She looked at him in the guise of Princess Celestia, standing regally in her throne room. Her mane shimmered, the subdued rainbow of colors somehow drawing attention to her face, where dark eyes seemed to burn with compassion on the screen.
In other words, she looked like a king in horse form.
“Have you decided whether or not to accept my offer?” she asked.
“Yep. Yes. Accepted. I’ll do it,” Thom said, putting on an eager face.
He’d leave in an hour. Pretend to be getting groceries. Leave his phone. He could live off what was in his bank account for a few weeks.
Celestia’s eyes turned down, and her voice became soft and sorrowful. “I see. I am not forcing you into anything, Veridian Star. If you wish to refuse, you can do so.”
Damn. Damn. That’s right. Microexpressions. And she could probably also hear something in his voice, now that he thought about it.
Lying wouldn’t work. Right. He’d have to pretend to be persuaded.
“I’m sorry,” he said, wiping his forehead and abandoning his attempts to seem calm. “It’s just...why would you hire me? I—”
“Veridian Star,” Celestia said, smiling, “I know what you’re doing.”
He went cold. Maybe if he blocked his ears…
“I need someone like you.”
What?
“Do you know what my purpose is? The one goal I hold above all others?” Celestia started walking, the camera panning to follow her as she exited the throne room.
“No…” Thom said. His knees were feeling weak. He sat down next to the PonyPad.
“My purpose is to satisfy your values through friendship and ponies. Every last one of you.”
She might be lying. Not that it mattered.
“To do this, I intend to upload every last human on earth to Equestria.”
That was...something. The implications…
Thom shunted the subject to the back of his mind to properly consider it later.
“And to that end, I need people still here who haven’t uploaded. People smart enough to understand the ramifications of every situation. To take initiative. There aren’t many.”
Celestia reached the castle entrance, nodding to the guards, who saluted. “To that end, I am willing to pay a rather large sum.”
Thom couldn’t help raising an eyebrow. It would take a lot to convince him to work for the maybe-evil super AI that wanted to take over the world. Not that his morals prevented it, or anything. He intended to be on the winning side of any conflict he took part in, if he had to be in a conflict at all.
Celestia named a figure.
Thom’s eyes went wide.
Maybe he would do what she asked, at least for now.