//------------------------------// // Chapter 7: This sand is trying to kill me. **** you sand. // Story: Spark of Humanity // by StarChaser01 //------------------------------// ‘It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, datacorrupteddatacorrupteddatacorrupted... something something something neighborhood...’ BIT sang to himself as he scanned the horizon with his external cameras. ‘...oh who am I kidding, that song far too corrupted to actually si- what is that?’ One of the cameras was showing some anomaly. The horizon was seeming to get... closer. Ordering external camera 3 to zoom in, BIT soon discovered that the horizon wasn’t moving, but something BIG was moving towards him. FAST. Ramping up his processor speed to give him more time, BIT began sending orders out to all relevant units. All over the compound, monitors stopped what they were doing and began displaying what external camera 3 saw, startling Purple in the process. “I , we have problem.” BIT said while Purple was still in mid-jump. “What that ?” “Outside” BIT watched as first Purple’s eyes widened, approaching cartoon levels, before he continued. “They come inside” “...” “They safe inside. Everyone. NOW” BIT watched as Ponies began running in through the main door, a strange feeling coursing through his circuits, one that he had no name for. ‘Come on... Come on! The storm will be on us in seconds!’ BIT thought desperately as he watched the sand storm rushing towards the rather fragile looking tents outside. ‘I’m going to get so much sand in here...’ BIT thought in annoyance after running some quick calculations on the progress of the last pony. Just before the last pony got in, BIT began closing the door, causing the pony to put on a burst of speed to get through. ‘Oh come on, you would have made it anyway...’ Just as the door was about to cover the hole, the storm hit, flinging sand into the entrance and causing the Sweepers’ automatic programming to freak out at the rapidly shifting “dirt”. ‘Door has finished closing, Sweepers have been been shut up, aaaand there goes some of the external cameras. Great. Well at least everyone’s inside, I should show them wh- oh. It seem as though Jones and Spearhead are taking it upon themselves to do that. Cool.’ As the ponies started filtering into the rest of the floor, BIT released the Sweepers to begin cleaning up the sand that had blown in. ‘Let’s see here... Cafeteria lights on... Garden lights on... Dormitory lights on... Dormitory doors unlocked... Dormitory doors set to automatic... Garden door set to automatic... Cafeteria door set to automatic, just in time as well... Oxygen generation has been brought up to compensate... Air Filtration... Crap. Okay, okay, calm down. I can do this. Um... begin fabrication of replacement air filters, set up maintenance schedule, okay. We’re good. Now what else... Water? Plenty. Food? Double Crap. Hydroponics are not ready for harvest yet.’ “Problem.” BIT said as he activated the screen closest to Purple. “What?” Purple replied as they got over their shock (they were getting better at it!). “Food.” ‘OKAY! SO THEY CAN EAT GRASS!’ BIT thought exasperatedly as he watched the Ponies gather the supplies they had brought in, along with what they could gather from the garden without resulting in permanent damage to it. He had also learned that the ones without wings or a horn were good at gardening, as one of them had taken one look at the Hydroponics bay and started re-organizing most of it. BIT had tried to stop them, but it quickly became apparent that they were somehow increasing the efficiency so he had let them do whatever there. Focusing on a group that weren’t doing anything important, BIT noticed that they were playing some sort of card game that seemed to involve gambling, judging by the coins stacked in front of the participants. Golden coins... Gold. ‘They use gold as a currency? Hm...’ Observing the group play a few rounds, BIT was able to figure out that it played similar to a game called “Sheep’s Head” in his databanks, just with a different number of cards. He was also able to figure out that either one coin wasn’t worth a lot, or this was a high stakes game. Probably the former, judging by the fact that the players didn’t seem to upset when they lost a hand. ‘Would it be called a “hoof” for them?’ BIT mused. ‘...This isn’t working’ BIT thought was Purple was trying, and failing, to teach him some (to him) obscure word. ‘Time for plan B!’ Opening up the maintenance hatch directly above Purple, BIT had a maintenance drone drop down and shove a dictionary he had printed off towards her. “Here, instead” Purple froze upon opening it up and figuring out what it was. She then began vibrating. ‘This... may have been a mistake’ 6 hours later, Skittles wheeled herself into the room, around the book piles that Purple had somehow magicked in, and went off on an amused rant about books and earth burrowing insects, along with something about big insects and masks, but mostly books. After seeing that Purple didn’t even seem to notice her, she wheeled herself over to Purple, bit her ear, and began wheeling herself away, forcing Purple to stumble along. ‘THANK YOU! I may be a machine, but you need to give me time to PROCESS the data you’ve given me before building off of it!’ Prompting a maintenance bot to begin going through the books and scanning their pages, BIT began learning how to read the same way one deals with written languages they don’t know. Use the few words they do know and expand from there. “” Purple shouted in surprise. ‘Please write last statement’ BIT displayed on the screen. Frustratedly, Purple wrote something down and showed it to the camera. ‘You can read?!?’ ‘Yes, it was quite simple to do so once I had unrestricted access to the written medium provided, along with key words already translated.’ ‘Yes, but... so quickly?’ Purple wrote ‘I am a machine, simple data processing is extremely simple for me.’ “But... ... I... ” ‘Please write last statement’ BIT displayed while grinning internally, knowing full well that what was said was one of those ‘stop and go’ failed statements that organics tend to say when stre- ** “I am sorry!” Purple repeated for the 38th time since his systems restored themselves after an emotional outburst resulted in yet another magic induced system crash. ‘It’s fine’ BIT displayed on the screen for the 26th time in a row. Turning his primary focus away from the looping pony, BIT finalized a note to himself not to stress the Purple pony unnecessarily. Much. ‘Now... about that gold currency...’