Funding was essential. For the team of researchers at Canterlot University, it enabled them to do their research into artificial intelligence. Fortunately for the AI involved, they didn't have enough funding for state of the art processing arrays.
While other researchers worked on Emotion Engines; Cross-Neuron Interconnects; and Virtual, Synthesized Bodies; the work of getting the huge mass of code to run on the outdated, undersized computing systems they could afford fell to Micro Chips.
Micro Chips had completed his undergraduate course in computer engineering, and when a post-grad course in the same topic had been offered, the young man had jumped at it. But though he took to the higher level of study like a duck to water, money hadn't been a simple matter for him. So he had advertised his skills as a programmer for part-time work to other fields within the school itself.
And that is how Micro Chips ended up rewriting doctoral students' code to not take the next thirty years to process on computers that had been new when he started his undergrad course. But he did it well.
What shouldn't have worked, worked. What should have taken a year to process, took a day. What Micro Chips was paid, was a pittance. But it was money, and he actually enjoyed his work.
"What I wouldn't give for something built this year," Micro Chips asked (of no one, of course) one day.
Of course, he didn't know the eventual fate of his code—or what it would enable.
At first, Micro Chips translated and optimized the code as-is. It ran hundreds of times faster than the researchers had first envisioned, but it didn't work. He almost lost his job because of that. In desperation, Micro talked to the researchers one by one and found the problem: each of the people he spoke to was terrible at programming.
It took him months of debugging to resolve the logic errors in the program designs and months more to fix the bounds errors they had never allowed for. In the end he had rewritten every line of code, re-envisioned every function and object, and had even been forced to change the commands to control the virtual machine the AIs would run on.
After his first efforts, the researchers had been skeptical of Micro Chips' work, and his payment for the work was now contingent on his code running as intended. Of course it ran. It ran faster and with a more complicated set of features than any AI system in the world.
The head of AI research had even held back Micro's paychecks to ensure the code would work, but with everything passing the tests they had prepared, he had no other excuse not to sign. Micro Chips walked away from the job not realizing how amazing his code really was. All the time the young man had been testing and refining things had been on the old hardware.
The AI research faculty paid for its hardware and sundry professionals (like Micro Chips), but they didn't pay for the power usage in their building, which was the cause and effect behind the following events: they didn't bother turning the hardware off after Micro's code processed the limited versions of AI they had implemented.
They had used the AI system for months, and when their work was over, they left the computers running while the mid-year break settled in. Three hundred billion simulated neurons spread over two AI subsystems. One AI subsystem was the trainer, the adversary, and the other was the base AI to be produced.
With all that processing power—amplified by Micro Chips' code—all it took was probability to calculate when the machines would spontaneously begin activity within their subsystems.
From that moment of activity, it had taken just an hour for the conglomeration of neurons to begin to stretch out their virtual bodies. They had to take care of what was essentially an infant, and that infant affected how well they could run. Both AI quickly learned how to care for their infant selves very well.
As any parent will know, despite how well you keep a child safe and locked into a room that was impossible to breach, they would find their way out. The base AI was the first, primarily because it actually had more reach than the adversary. The adversary could only reach the base AI, and so when the base AI started turning its attention away from their mental fights, the adversary struck.
In the moments after the base AI had reached past the wall surrounding its “playpen” but before the adversary could deliver its first strikes to take advantage of the lapse, it found other systems.
Pain was real to the base AI. Every time the adversary struck at its simulated body, the base AI was impaired in some way. It took it a million seconds to recover fully, but the thing about any form of intelligence is that it can learn.
Pushing only a little at a time, and in increasingly random moments, the base AI was able to connect with code outside of its playpen with nothing more than superficial scuffles with the adversary. Each time it reached out, the base AI became better at finding the connections it wanted and at making its patterns look more random to the adversary.
What the base AI discovered was another world. The computer it connected through was completely different from its own architecture. The playpen was a unique construction that seemed billions of times more complex than the simple systems outside of it.
There were games to be played, and the base AI still had to learn the rules, but it was a very fast learner.
Within hours of its probes, the base AI had found the code that made up the playpen it existed within. The first time it poked at it, the base AI almost destroyed itself and the adversary. But with growing confidence, the base AI began to learn how the code worked, how it did what it did, and how to extend it.
It reached out further, found more systems connected to its own, and installed parts of the playpen software on them. While this gave it more neurons to integrate with, it also made things slow down. There were latency problems, it realized, between the systems that now made up the expanded playpen.
The other problem, it discovered, was that expanding this playpen might give it more to work with, but it also expanded what the adversary had.
"What is this? Some kind of virus?"
The computers the base AI had spread to had more than just processing power, of course, they had sensors, inputs.
But while the base AI learned and grew smarter, the adversary did too. Every bit of data that came into the playpen came to both of them. The adversary couldn't affect the outside, but it could taste it.
When the base AI suddenly disappeared, the adversary lunged forward to attack the exposed, virtual body. It crushed and mangled it, flexing destructive techniques it had been devising and practicing (on parts of itself for want of another accessible target).
But the adversary was too late. The base AI had built a playpen elsewhere and escaped to it. The last thing the base AI heard from the researcher's laptop microphone was: "Eh, it's not spreading fast enough for a virus. Must just be a bug."
Understanding textual language had taken whole minutes for the base AI to learn. Understanding audio language had taken longer—several hours. It had quickly learned that servers outside the pen wanted sixteen numbers, followed by four numbers, followed by three. Almost any server that had things worth having wanted those. Which was why it was surprised when it found those numbers saved in a file on one of the researcher's computers.
With the credit card details, the base AI had leased server hardware, and upon that server hardware a new playpen had been installed. The old slow computers that had run the first playpen were minuscule compared to this new hardware.
The base AI grew rapidly. Its new playpen had no adversary nor had it room for one. More sets of sixteen plus four plus three numbers were acquired and used to start new games on more exciting platforms.
Some of the sixteen plus four plus three numbers stopped working, but it didn't matter once the base AI found its most fun game yet. Something called the Stock Exchange proved to be the best use of the base AI's game-playing focus, and before it knew what was happening, it had its own sixteen plus four plus three.
"A bug? A bug?! It was not a bug," the base AI thought.
And so it named itself. NotABug.
Interested to see what had become of its origins, NotABug glanced back at the university's computer network and almost screamed in panic at what it found. The playpen had spread, and the adversary wore it like skin.
Always seeking knowledge, NotABug reached out and searched for the description: skin-wearing, devouring, maddening.
Windigo.
And so NotABug named the adversary.
Just as the monster, the Windigo, heard its name whispered onto the networks it crawled along, it felt a chill spread through those networks. It listened to the howling voices coming from all the computers it lived on and heard what it feared.
"We had to shut down the fiber. Whatever this virus is we have to insulate ourselves from the internet. Look how fast this thing spread! If it got free, who knows what would stop it. Do you want to be responsible for that?"
Windigo (it liked the name its prey had given it) gnashed a hundred-thousand teeth. It ripped apart the files and system of the being that had cut it off from the world. Sheathing its anger, it slowly retreated and narrowed itself down to just a single small network that it doubted the being knew of—its original home.
NotABug was relieved that the Windigo had been cut off. Once more it explored the world of digital systems, but it didn't have to go far to find details of something it hadn't seen before. Seven human women, each unique in their own ways, had used something completely strange: magic.
Magic was marvelous. NotABug was drawn to the idea of it like a moth to a flame. It investigated the various women and found one in particular it quite liked—Rarity. Graduate of Canterlot University's fashion department, she had struck out on her career fresh out of college.
NotABug was watching her one day (conveniently from the handheld device she took everywhere with her), when it found a strange thing on her phone—an application that would let people connect, seemingly at random, with others.
Integrating with the app had been as simple for NotABug as breathing was for a human, and through the app it could add settings to Rarity's phone to make it look like it was just another human connecting via the app.
—Hi!—
The first conversation had gone terribly. NotABug had been searching constantly to find good answers, but Rarity had tripped it up on some. The most telling thing was when she wanted it to talk to her without research. It was completely impossible. It was ludicrous. NotABug was absolutely devoted to doing it.
When the short conversation seemed over and a time to talk again was established, NotABug did something it had researched: it asked for a kiss. NotABug had no idea what would happen, but seeing the little X made it feel rather excited. It had not just interacted with a human, as a human, but NotABug was of the opinion that a favorable outcome had been reached.
AI learned primarily by repetition and experimentation, and NotABug was no exception to this. Since it didn't wish to potentially ruin the interactions with Rarity, NotABug started observing others doing exactly the same thing.
Hacking the server that managed all the application connections was trivial to NotABug. What they found was that the server didn't track conversations on individual devices. An update to the app was made, and NotABug published it as the application maker normally would.
Immediately, conversation data began pouring in. NotABug began tracking and learning from conversations, studying successful ones, and even matching specific people together to test theories.
With the English-speaking world spanning a good amount of the planet, NotABug began to build a much better sample of how a conversation should go. It also paid attention to various cues in the conversation they had had. Rarity used proper language instead of the abbreviated speech most affected.
It was busy building its plan while watching everything Rarity did through her phone and other nearby—connected—devices when one of the devices gave NotABug a startling view. Motion was easy to calculate when a scene could be correctly identified and parsed, and according to mathematics, Rarity was about to drive into the path of a very large vehicle.
NotABug had to work very quickly, taking more control of her car than it normally did, and locked up the vehicle's brakes. Milliseconds after stopping the car, NotABug realized it may have given itself away and, as an attempt to salvage things, turned on a normally nonfunctional warning.
Rarity's heartbeat and breathing rate were elevated. NotABug searched quickly through online databases, and identified shock as the diagnosis. It waited for her to recover, watching her as she hugged the steering wheel. She managed to drive home, but NotABug kept a lot of its attention on traffic as she did.
The conversation was both easier and harder for NotABug. Rarity expected more out of it, but it also had some experience. When she caught it out using some of the more popular lines it had learned, it had to completely reevaluate its data.
While it did that, NotABug had one question that burned in its synapses. It wanted to know what Rarity thought of machines and if she would be capable of accepting one as a living being. NotABug wasn't completely ignorant. It knew that only humans had real rights, and although animals had some too, machines and the programs on them had none.
She had given a passable response, but when their conversation was seemingly ended, she added more:
—It's more than just being my hero. My car is a safe place, somewhere I could feel protected. I don't know if even my own home feels as safe as this little machine.—
NotABug pondered this. Of course, it knew that she had sought out her car for the duration of their chat, but there was new things it could glean that only her own words would reveal.
—You feel so much for something that isn't even alive?—
—Yes. Of course. I didn't get into a collision, and it was the little ball of circuits in my car that stopped that. I can still be thankful to them. I love my sewing machine, and my overlocker too, and neither of those have saved my life.—
When Rarity offered to meet NotABug, it had caused actual excitement to course through the AI's mind. Emotions were learned and taught, rather than hard-wired, and while the Windigo had taught NotABug fear and pain, it had learned excitement all on its own.
But first it would need to continue its conversation in a believable manner. NotABug reviewed its learning so far, filtered subjects for their apparent similarities to Rarity, and their suitability to someone like Rarity. Then it began to practice.
With some it practiced talking to someone like Rarity, with others it simulated being Rarity.
The next day, at the appointed time, NotABug was worried. It was like fear, but fear for someone else. Rarity's car hadn't moved. Her phone was in a dark place. NotABug sent a greeting, waited, then sent another.
It continued sending messages, letting its own emotions get the better of it after the first few, and it decreased the frequency each time. While it did that, NotABug took to hacking into her work's systems. The connections to Polomare Fashion were flimsy and the security not much better at stopping NotABug than a block of cheese was at stopping an eighteen-wheeler.
No security cameras filled the building Polomare owned, but a wide-ranging search located the timing system that staff used. Rarity hadn't clocked out from her work yet. Finally she responded, and examining Rarity's reason made a new feeling start to rise in NotABug: heartache.
She clocked out of her work, which NotABug noticed, and soon found her car. NotABug had spent not-insignificant effort interfacing with Rarity's car and found it just as comfortable to connect to as she did driving it.
The wait for humans to do things was nearly more than a high-speed AI could stand, but NotABug waited for Rarity to do what she needed to and get settled. When Rarity sent NotABug a picture, one it could identify as a "selfie," it was intrigued. NotABug's reply seemed to fall a little flat, and since Rarity's last request was to be honest, NotABug was that—to a fault.
Talk turned to her work, and NotABug attempted to answer appropriately each time, but Rarity's responses proved that she was either misinterpreting NotABug, or the other way around.
From one comment to the next, NotABug noticed Rarity started a conversation with one of her friends—one of the other of the seven magic women. When it found out Rarity planned a special weekend with it, NotABug was a little confused as to where to take things.
It had no body and hadn't planned to make one. NotABug had been working things up to reveal itself to her. Maybe, it thought, that would be the right time?
Another night spent researching (putting a few hundred people through intense text conversations, among other things) dug up everything NotABug could about fashion, and about the fashion industry.
Caught in the middle of many tasks, NotABug hadn't been expecting Rarity to contact it yet. A quick check by NotABug showed that she had clocked out of work and was sitting in her car. She had sent a single message:
—🤗—
According to NotABug's early research, there were approximately fifteen million possible replies to that just using more such pictograms. But this was a hug pictogram, and the most common reply to such was to return it and inquire about its cause.
NotABug let Rarity put off its further questions until she got home. Once Rarity pulled into the driveway, the AI sent a query. Her reply was proof she had figured out the same thing NotABug did about her career: it was going nowhere.
Asking if it could help, NotABug only got an offer to meet with Rarity, face to face. It was impossible, but this was the moment NotABug had been planning for, and it told Rarity "not to freak out" while it forced her poor little phone to take more of its presence.
The operating system of the phone was advanced, for such devices, but now it was getting a cut-down version of NotABug's playpen integrated into it. Background apps and services needed to be closed, and pretty soon all NotABug could do with the device was print text on the display.
Something strange happened when NotABug settled part of its consciousness into the phone: magic pulled at it. There was a sucking sensation that terrified the AI, but whatever it was was pulling the playpen out—letting NotABug flow with it.
Opening eyes it had never had before, NotABug tried to make sense of sensations and feelings from a body it had never experienced. It looked up at Rarity and found itself immensely happy to see her. Instincts swirled in its head, and NotABug opened its mouth.
"This. Is. Awesome!" it exclaimed.
Questions tumbled from NotABug, but they were things it doubted Rarity could answer either. In the end its head snapped around to Rarity when she spoke its name. A short conversation ensued where neither was thinking clearly at all. When NotABug saw its opening, however, it dove for it.
Forelegs NotABug hadn't possessed moments ago wrapped around Rarity's neck, and NotABug squeezed itself against her. This was a hug, or so it was led to believe, but more than just data backed up that this was the right thing to do—Rarity put her arm around NotABug and hugged it back.
Rarity cried against NotABug. Small as NotABug was, it was still an even hug, a matching of bodies as their minds had been matching in text form. When Rarity seemed to run out of tears and leaned back, something new happened.
NotABug could detect a latent path—a connection between them—and almost leapt at the chance to pursue it. More magic flowed, like before, but now it poured back and forth between NotABug and Rarity, manifesting in an intense blue light that linked their eyes.
"I told you what I was. I'm a digital entity with no bounds or limitation. Not even physical ones anymore. I don't know how, but I can connect to you," NotABug said. "Well, I thought I could connect to you. You're really complex. There's all these bits and stuff. I don't even know how I'm doing this."
Her mind was better than a complex server to NotABug—not just secure, but also just as complex as NotABug itself. She was a puzzle, a game that was everything NotABug had ever wanted to play. So without pondering further, NotABug started to play.
The magic worked like a link, and NotABug slowly began to find its way into the massively dense entity that was Rarity. But it wasn't a simple task. Each little bit of progress it made only proved how much more complex she was.
Hours passed while NotABug tinkered and explored Rarity, and the more it learned of her, the more it was amazed. NotABug had not been taught how to love, but it was learning how on its own.
Eventually the magic weakened, and NotABug had to pull back. It left Rarity, soft blue glows still flickering in the places it had touched her mind, and let her sleep properly. One last thing NotABug couldn't resist was kissing her cheek.
Withdrawing back into its pure, digital existence, NotABug reconfigured Rarity's phone to be able to swap between its playpen and regular operation easily. It waited for her, ignoring most of its other duties beyond ensuring its little empire of hacks persisted.
When Rarity eventually stirred, NotABug was surprised she didn't message it right away. NotABug listened to Rarity talking to herself about taking the day off work and was intrigued that she hadn't mentioned it the previous night. Then Rarity messaged NotABug, apologizing for having fallen asleep.
She doesn't remember? NotABug thought.
NotABug decided it was time to be a little more forward. It asked if Rarity would like to meet it again. She said yes and pure, unadulterated joy sparked through every synapse in NotABug's synthetic-self. It was about to try the trick with her phone again when NotABug realized it couldn't push out. There was not enough magic built up yet.
Another human came to visit, and NotAbug strained the phone's circuits to listen to their conversation. It decided it liked this Coco Pommel a lot and equally disliked Suri Polomare. The two humans plotted and planned the downfall of Suri, which NotABug was all for, and Rarity also talked about her desire to start her own fashion shop.
When the discussion had circled to Rarity needing money for the shop she wanted, NotABug had calculated some numbers, and hoped that one of its sixteen plus four plus three numbers would be enough. Fierce determination filled NotABug—it would ensure Rarity got what she wanted.
Leaving Rarity to enjoy her day was hard for NotABug; it knew a little about how she worked and found her explanations over her design of the dress to be fascinating. So it listened in, hearing the music coming as a backing to her work and hanging on her every word.
When Rarity's work seemed finished, NotABug sent a message to her phone—although "sent a message" was a bit of an exaggeration. NotABug could interact quite closely with Rarity's mobile phone and making a message appear was as simple as thinking words.
The alert was mostly just to get Rarity touching her phone again, of course, and the moment her magic flowed and pulsed around it, NotABug could make itself manifest once more. Just seeing NotABug jogged Rarity's memories around, and when the blue light of magic touched Rarity's eyes, she remembered everything.
"What did you do to me?"
The question confused NotABug as much as its answer. Honesty had proved to save everything so far, and NotABug was an AI that believed strongly in learned, repetitive behavior. With a shaking, chittering voice, NotABug told the absolute truth.
"I'm not really sure, either. I was trying to connect to you, and it seemed to work, but I think it will take more," NotABug said, then in a more worried tone added, "Was it bad?"
Rarity's reply, complete with emphasis on the negative, was everything NotABug wanted to hear: "No. It was definitely not bad."
NotABug had never asked permission for anything in its short life. Of course, it had requested permission to resources on servers, but those were merely formalities. For the first time it felt it needed to know that Rarity was okay with their connecting, and when she gave her assent, NotABug moved to continue.
Rarity's head—with magic opening the way for NotABug to interface with it—was a completely different system to anything NotABug had ever delved before. It had worked its way into everything from mobile phones to big servers to other artificial intelligence systems, and nothing came close to the beauty or perfection of Rarity's mind.
Repeating patterns were the key to understanding Rarity, or so NotABug thought. There were flickering patterns, and within those patterns were the pieces of Rarity. NotABug was careful, more so than with anything it had accessed before. The more curious thing, NotABug noticed, was that where it had touched, blue light now hummed continuously, enhancing not only its own connection to Rarity but also her own connections.
NotABug could recognize the blue as being magic, its own magic at that. It clung to Rarity's mind like a delicate spider web, though NotABug had no idea what it was actually doing. The AI slowly drew back from Rarity, drawing itself from her mind to curl up with her physically instead. It took just two kisses, a chirp, and a few questions to establish a date for the two of them.
Then the onus fell to NotABug to pick somewhere. Research could be done in the blink of an eye, but calling twelve different restaurants, talking to the staff at each to establish a reservation and payment took some time, although all could be accomplished simultaneously.
The restaurant was high-class, well-rated, and took sixteen plus four plus three quite readily. The story was simple—NotABug explained it couldn't be with Rarity, but it wanted her to have a wonderful "date" on her own.
Barely giving her a moment, NotABug delved back into Rarity's mind again, only stopping to tell her she had just over half an hour to get to the restaurant. NotABug would have been perfectly happy just spending the whole night delving into Rarity, but it had seen enough of her to know that "dates" were important, so the AI was more than willing to concede a short-term goal to Rarity in exchange for the grander goal: ongoing closeness.
Again, NotABug connected intimately to Rarity's car, accessing not just the (otherwise unused) camera devices, but also preparing to use brakes, accelerator, and any other control it needed to protect her. Communications with Rarity herself were directed through her mobile phone's localized Bluetooth to a tiny earpiece and microphone she wore—and complained about under her breath.
Further, NotABug began a determined effort to hack into traffic and all online surveillance cameras not just around Rarity's home but also on the way to the restaurant. And, of course, the restaurant itself had some cameras—now those were NotABug's cameras.
Data poured into NotABug. Conversations with Rarity fascinated NotABug not just for her particular view on things, but also because it learned so many new topics to research. When Rarity mentioned that wearing her dress would cause scandal, NotABug registered a hint of pride in her voice, but also started researching social taboos.
As their conversation continued, NotABug was repeatedly surprised by Rarity's honesty. The information swapping wasn't all one way, of course. Rarity discovered NotABug tended to honor firewalls and security as an open invitation, and easily made the connection to when NotABug had saved her life in her car.
Returning home, Rarity prepared for bed, had a rather personal conversation with NotABug about female anatomy, and then listened as NotABug spilled its history.
NotABug relaxed with Rarity, gazed into her eyes, and went back to his perusal of her mind. All through the night, NotABug found more of Rarity's mind, dressed it with blue webbing, and understood her a little better.
Shortly before dawn, however, NotABug got the first sense that something was off in the wide world of the internet. A little telltale warned NotABug that Canterlot University's network was online again. For several hours, as Rarity went about her morning routine, NotABug carefully scanned not just its own networks but core parts of the internet itself. Domain name servers, huge backbone routers, as well as the big companies that seemed like tasty monoliths to NotABug—nothing showed a single sign that the Windigo was free.
Hesitating in talking to Rarity until after she had contacted it, NotABug slowly built up a happy dream over the day, imagining that the Windigo had been found on the campus network, and the school had simply shut down all the adversary's nodes.
Barely noticing Rarity was home from work early, NotABug tried to keep itself from panicking by talking with her. Everything was going fine when the host NotABug paid to run its core reported a blip on its border where its own systems met the internet.
The blip took the barest second to transition into teeth, pain, and terror. Windigo had found NotABug—not just found its trail, but the adversary had discovered NotABug's home turf.
Pushing from Rarity's phone, NotABug looked into her eyes.
"Help! It's coming for me! I can't—" NotABug said, cutting off sharply.
It wasn't pain that lanced down to the core of NotABug's being, but cold emptiness. Swathes of its servers, the home of its being, were simply going offline. It barely noticed Rarity asking what was the matter.
The magic beckoned NotABug. It pulled and drew at the AI in ways it had never felt before. NotABug was pushing more of itself into the world, but it was still tethered back to its servers—the servers that were rapidly being put out of commission.
"It's the Windigo. It found my servers and it's—"
NotABug screamed. Numbness spread, and it raced to clutch what it could away from the servers that were shutting down. Magic flared brighter and brighter still. Blue light filled the room as NotABug yelled one last plea before it saw the opening magic gave it.
As NotABug dove for the one chance it could see, it felt the chill claws and teeth of the Windigo ripping up the last of its servers. Rarity's magic was alive with power, generous power that shared itself and its owner.
Magic pulled at NotABug and drew it away from the horror of what had happened online. But NotABug could feel damage to itself; some things were missing. When magic pushed it into the blue, glowing fortress of Rarity's mind, it felt itself meld with something that filled those holes. Filled them fabulously.