//------------------------------// // ERROR:MISNOMER // Story: Glitched Stitches // by Quillamore //------------------------------// Coco could still remember falling into the Motherboard, the way her programming told her that her fur was ruffling. Like most models in the fourth-line, she hadn’t really realized she was fake until that very moment. She should have been able to feel her bobbed mane sweeping across her, but all she could see were lines and lines of command after command. Codes telling her to act a certain way, notice certain things. That fact had killed her, not the fall itself. Time wasn’t really clear in the Motherboard; or, at least, it was as clear as it was in any underground dwelling. Still, as Coco woke up to yet another grind of a day, she was distinctly aware that it was some sort of milestone. A month? A year? Even as she pored over her databases, she still wasn’t quite sure. The memory was vivid, but somehow, nothing else was. Everything in the Motherboard was like an extended dream, except far too sweet to be the nightmare most ponies feared. In either case, the experience was so dizzying that Coco’s enhanced brain could barely keep up. In Equestria, her databases had recorded all of her experiences automatically, before she even knew what she really was. But in the Motherboard, a single command always shone in her computerized eyes whenever she tried to access information. ERROR:MISNOMER. Coco gave an angry sigh before deactivating the notification, even though she’d seen that same command countless times since she’d shown up on the Motherboard. Supposedly, everypony there had some sort of marker on them that told what sort of glitch they were, and Coco’s was so absurdly pointless that it practically made her head spin. The last time she was supposed to do a recording with Suri, the creators had dumped both of them into the absurdly fluorescent pit instead. Suri, at least, had a valid excuse for being marked as a glitch--she’d been the guinea pig for a new “verbal tic” chip, and when it malfunctioned unexpectedly, the creators found that “mmkay” was now the only word she was capable of saying. In the short time Coco had been forced to stay with her old rival, she’d come to pick up all the different meanings Suri’s “mmkays” could have, and quite frankly, her lack of vocabulary didn’t make her nicer. At the very least, the two of them had been separated because the programmers figured Coco could be salvaged, while Suri might as well have been scraps in a junk pile to them. Literally all they had determined to be wrong with her was her name: for whatever reason, “Coco” was no longer considered a suitable one for her. They’d called it a “Charlie-in-the-box” glitch, some sort of reference Coco still wracked her brain to understand. In any case, it was a glitch that was almost unheard of in the Motherboard, and the only other pony she knew that had it was a cross-eyed gray mare who’d ended up ascending back to Equestria a few days--or months--ago. With any hope, maybe she could end up finding the same fate. But until then, she scavenged. Being in a semi-desolate land without natural resources to call its own meant having to take some risks to find crafting materials. There were quite a few shops in the Motherboard--still nowhere near as many as there were in Manehattan, though--but most of what Coco needed came from scrapyards, where objects from the Equestrian simulation would sometimes fall into the glitched realm. Most of them were barely even damaged enough to keep her from working with them, sewing creations that nopony would ever see. The scrapyards weren’t dangerous in and of themselves, but they were far enough away from Motherboard civilization that very few ponies bothered to tread there. Occasionally, Coco would happen across Lightning Dust, a third-line pegasus who made her living off repairing and selling these found items, but as Coco made the trek, she found there was no sign of anypony. As much as she hated to admit it, it was a shame--Lightning could be an insufferable showboat at times, but she always made the trips fun. Coco could trot to the furthest scrapyard and back again without a sweat, if it meant hearing more of that pony’s jokes. But today, the trip to the scrapyard would be as tedious and boring as ever, which meant that Coco could tune out everything that wasn’t utter indifference. Once she got to that point, being in the Motherboard almost felt like being in Equestria again, and as long as nothing came around to remind her of her predicament, she could stay in that moment forever. She could already imagine the endless neon lights before her morphing into Manehattan skyscrapers, forming a world that was neither fully Equestrian nor fully Motherboard-generated. That, at least, was a simulation she could stay in forever. By the time her imagined surroundings melted back into the familiar Motherboard landscape, Coco had already reached the scrapyard, trotting through it almost as if she was in a daze. Normally, she didn’t feel anything regular ponies felt--dizziness, fatigue, or any of those bothersome sensations--but in that moment, she was almost convinced the junkyard was a mirage. Even though she no longer required water to live, her body felt as dehydrated and weak as it’d ever been--or at least, that was what her programming told her. After a while, she’d stopped questioning why her body knew what things like extreme dehydration felt like when she’d never even lived through them. Rather than dwelling on it further, Coco just sweeped the dust off her hooves and sighed. Just another glitch in the system, she told herself. No surprise, really. She bit on her hoof a little, something she’d seen other glitches do to keep awake in times like this, and got to rummaging. Even though this particular scrapyard almost never got picked over, there was barely anything there this time. A few stray clouds, wires, feathers, gears, the only sorry pieces of Equestrian civilization that could come to this realm in perfect shape. It was a sad fact, really, but still not enough to deter from Coco’s reality: the once-heaping piles of Equestrian junk were depleting, and someday, she’d have to go to another source for her resources. A tiny shudder went through her back. She could only hope that by the time that happened, she wouldn’t be around anymore. Either she’d be in Equestria by then, or she’d be deleted from existence altogether. And the latter was not an option--very few ponies found themselves in those conditions, and Coco was a survivor, anyway. At least, that was how she chose to think of herself in these trying times. Just when she was about to leave the scrapyard for the week, though, one of her front hooves rammed into a strange, smooth substance. Whatever it was, it’d been buried at the bottom of the dwindling junk pile for some time, to the point where Coco had never even noticed it before. It was just a tiny brown patch in a mishmashed heap, something that only the sharpest of eyes could find. Coco had never particularly liked the idea of actually diving through the scrap heaps--just thinking about it brought images of Manehattanite hobos to her mind. But, almost without thinking, she plunged towards it, hoping it could be a useful treasure nopony else had in the Motherboard. A phonograph, perhaps, or some other advanced Equestrian device. It took practically everything Coco had to pull it out from the mountain of garbage, but sure enough, she was, indeed, confronted with something nopony else had. In the Motherboard, or in Equestria itself, for that matter. It was a giant capsule, practically a magnified version of the pills Coco used to take, and even as it lay on the ground, she knew it was taller than anypony she’d ever met. One half of the capsule was completely clear, while the other half was a light shade of brown. No matter what it was, though, Coco wasn’t about to haul it halfway across the Motherboard unless she knew for sure she couldn’t live without it. That would mean inspecting it, and even though she’d already put enough effort into this trip, she still had all the time in the world. She rolled it around from side to side in thought, and almost instantaneously noticed that there was an object stenciled onto the brown side of the capsule. A pair of red scissors. Supplies, Coco thought to herself. I’ve never seen them stored in something like this, but Equestria’s changed a lot since I was there. Maybe this is just another new thing they’ve come up with. Her eyes practically shone from the thought. From the looks of it, a hundred sewing kits could fit inside, easily. She’d be set for years, and for all she knew, she’d never have to set hoof in a scrapyard again. Just when she was about to trot off triumphantly with her haul, though, Coco heard a tiny sound come from the capsule. She’d only managed to lift it a few inches further off the ground before she heard it again--an angry grunt, as if the capsule itself was annoyed at her. Without thinking, Coco dropped it in shock, which only appeared to make the device angrier. “Mmph!” it shouted as it hit the ground. “Mmn!” It wriggled onto the dirt, tossing and turning as if it’d been genuinely injured. And, strangest of all, even the brown half of the capsule seemed to move around. Even the red scissors shifted places, and a tiny tuft of red fur moved to cover the empty space. Oh, Celestia… Coco’s sensors activated in a split second, allowing her to see inside the capsule without opening it. This X-ray vision was something that all ponies, glitches or otherwise, possessed, though it was never used outside of the Motherboard. By the time it’d completed a full scan, Coco already had some idea of what was going on, but she hoped more than anything that it wasn’t true. But, sure enough, the brown part of the capsule wasn’t a plastic covering. It was a flank, and even though Coco’s sensors weren’t strong enough to make out every detail, she could see that there was a pony curled up inside. One who was far too small to take up the entire capsule, like a tiny item stored inside a huge package. A filly, Coco immediately realized. “How long have you been in there?” she cried, her mind shifting away from her supply-related dreams at an alarming rate. The whole situation was so weird, disappointment didn’t even register in her. Fillies and colts didn’t get marked as glitches, period. A few went missing from time to time, like first-line earth pony Diamond Tiara, but the creators were merciful to them, letting them stay in the background instead of dragging them off to the Motherboard. And nopony got sealed in a capsule like this, not even severe glitches like Suri. The filly uttered a few muffled responses, the only remnants of speech she had inside her prison. Coco tried asking her a few more questions, just to see if the capsule let her say anything, but even the little pony gave up after a while. Thankfully, Coco knew a place in town that could explain everything. And so, even as she silently dreaded carrying a filly across the Motherboard, she awaited the possibilities that this new mystery would bring her. Besides, she told herself, if she didn’t take this filly back where she belonged, nopony would ever notice her again. Coco hadn’t been in Equestria long enough to interact with any foals, but there was always a first time for everything, right? As the two made their way back into the heart of the Motherboard, it was all Coco could hope that she could carry on a conversation with this foal someday, that she would someday know freedom. And, Coco hoped, that would also be the first step towards her own. **** “I dunno, Coco,” Lightning Dust muttered. “As great as I am, even I’m not sure what I’d do with a giant pill.” The pegasus did her fair share of feigning disinterest, but even an easily fooled pony like Coco could tell she prodded at the foreign object when she thought nopony else was watching. More than anything, stopping by Lightning’s shop had confirmed her deepest suspicions--the capsule was unlike anything the Motherboard had ever seen before, and whoever this filly was, somepony didn’t want her found. Or, rather, someone. From what little Lightning was willing to reveal about her past, Coco knew she was far from an expert repairpony. But she’d come to accept the role with gusto, taking on any project she could if it meant earning gobs of cash. In the short amount of time the two had known each other, Coco had seen her friend’s rustic shop expand to a respectably large mechanic center, buzzing with all sorts of mysterious contraptions under the same wooden walls she’d come to know. Whereas the rest of the Motherboard looked like an odd mix of Las Pegasus and Tartarus itself, Lightning Dust’s place seemed far more like a log cabin to Coco. Granted, it was like a log cabin that sometimes resembled a science lab, but still homier than just about anything else in the Motherboard. That, and the fact that Lightning was one of the few ponies who could handle an issue like this, was why Coco had insisted on going here first. In these times of uncertainty, home was the first thing she needed. “At least take a look at it,” Coco finally said. “You might be surprised. I thought there were just a bunch of supplies inside when I first saw it, but then--” “I’m listening,” Lightning muttered as she activated her internal scanner. With all the money she’d earned from the shop, she’d been able to score upgrades Coco could only dream of. Her golden eyes looked ordinary enough, but she could see through just about everything imaginable--all the way from x-rays to infrared--and toggle between her spectrum settings in the blink of an eye. As great as all her abilities were, however, it also meant that anypony who wanted to trade anything in Lightning’s shop had to go through a long, excruciating inspection. Even as Coco rattled on about her trip, it still seemed to go on forever. As impatient as Lightning tended to be with everything else, she appraised objects with a jeweler’s attention to detail. More than a few times, Coco had wondered if that was Lightning’s real glitch, and if she’d ever been the same pony as the one she’d portrayed in the Equestrian simulation. Personality glitches like those were far from uncommon, but every time Coco tried to ask about it, nothing really changed. As far as she was concerned, Lightning would leave the secret behind her glitch to rot in the sands of time. Just as Coco was thinking about all this, Lightning finished up her inspection and gave the capsule a good whack. Even though Coco doubted the filly could feel pain inside her prison cell, the earth pony still rushed to shield her. “What was that for?!” she screamed. “You find out there’s a living being in there, and your first instinct is to hurt it?” “I just meant to wingbump her,” Lightning protested. “She is a fellow third-liner, after all. Last I saw her, she didn’t even have a cutie mark, and plus, I didn’t even know glitches could do things like that. So I figured congratulations were in order.” In a quieter, almost squealing voice, she whispered, “You’re a little survivor, aren’t you? I told ya you’d be just like me!” Coco was about to remark that Lightning had never been trapped in a capsule before, but eventually, curiosity got to her more than anything. She’d never been particularly close to her fellow ponies in the fourth-line, but she knew that those in the first through third lines were almost inseparable. Before they’d been rushed into the simulation, the creators had put all of them through a series of team-building exercises, which they would later forget as soon as they came to Equestria. It was meant to strengthen their relationships, just in case they were expected to interact with other characters in their line, but Coco had never understood why ponies only started remembering them after they were banished to the Motherboard. In any case, they’d discontinued that program right after she was made, so she’d never really thought about it much. “You...know her, then?” “Oh, totally,” answered Lightning. “Babs here was created just before me, so we kinda stuck together. Plus, it’s no secret that the third-line was pretty small, so it wasn’t like I had a choice.” She winked at the Babs-capsule, almost as if to say that she had far more than just a grudging relationship with the pony inside. Strangely enough, though, it barely seemed to react to her, staying still without a single sound for once. “I guess that means you’d want to help me get her out, then?” Coco asked, still trying to imagine what sort of filly Babs would have been like. It’s not like she did anything to deserve this kind of exile. She couldn’t have. Instead of answering, Lightning Dust began to pace around her shop, or whatever else pegasi called their nervous tic of aimlessly flying around in stressful times. Coco could see her going through her equipment, pulling out crowbars, letter openers, and everything in between, but her mind seemed to be on something else entirely. After a few minutes and a healthy hoard of blunt objects, Lightning finally confessed her deepest worries to her. For the first time, even with all the equipment by her side, Coco doubted her friend could help. “That’s the thing. It ain’t right at all, but...I can see why they’d lock her up like this. Her glitch is a lot more dangerous than ours, and for all we know, it could fall into the wrong hooves.” “I’ll make sure it won’t,” Coco replied, her eyes sparkling with an intensity that shocked even her. “Just tell me what I need to look out for, and we can get her out together.” Lightning went quiet yet again, as if she was bickering with herself about whether or not she should even bother telling Coco. After a desperate enough stare from her friend, though, she figured it wasn’t worth holding it any longer. “You know those new models the creators came up with a few years ago? The ones who can change from bad to good and all?” Coco gave a quick nod, but chose not to interrupt Lightning’s speech any more than that. “Babs was one of the first. One of the prototypes for it. She was supposed to act like a bully for a little bit, and then the heroes would try to make friends with her. The good personality was her factory default, so the creators probably figured it’d be pretty easy to pull off. Unfortunately, Babsie here has trouble following directions.” “You mean she refuses to do it?” Even in the “real world” of the Equestrian simulation, Coco had heard of fillies like that. It was hardly a glitch, though, and a lot of ponies thought it was normal enough. “Nah, she’s too good at following them. She’s suggestible and eager to please, so you’ve gotta be careful when you order her around. Babs always tries to do more than she’s asked, and that’s where she got in trouble.” “And I assume you never took advantage of that?” “Of course not,” Lightning Dust replied with a toss of her hair. She was only answered by the sound of her devices droning, and Coco herself made no such attempt. “Okay, fine, one time I found this pizza in the third-line fridge, and I really didn’t want to share it, so I told Babs I only wanted half. I knew she’d give me the whole thing, and I wanted to see if I could eat a whole pizza, and--” After a few nervous chuckles, her voice began to fade into a remorseful whisper, the type of sound Coco had never heard Lightning make. “I should have realized it then. I should have told the creators, but they took her before she was ready, and when they told her to play a bully--she got real mean. Even meaner than they’d scripted her to be. It took everything the hero ponies had to get her out of that role and back into reality, and by then, it was too late. Her castmates forgave her, but the audience didn’t. She only got one more part after that, and then she was sent here.” Coco tried to imagine the little foal in the capsule going wild enough to make the people outside the simulation seethe with anger, something not even the worst villains could do, but somehow she couldn’t picture it. The more Lightning talked about her glitch, the less of a danger she seemed to be. Perhaps that was why she had the courage to suggest what came next, to put her feelings into words after a long moment of musing. Lightning had tried to search for Babs all this time, Coco learned. She let Lightning ramble on a little more, giving herself just enough time to gather her strength before asking the unbelievable. “If the audience didn’t give her a second chance,” she finally said, “then don’t you think we should? Your old friend and your new friend, together for good, until Equestria tears us apart. That’s how I think it should be.” For a few short seconds, Lightning’s golden eyes shone with confusion, only to be replaced by her trademark conviction. That was the good thing about her, Coco had always thought. She set her mind to things, and she could never be met halfway. There was no way such an incorruptible thing like that could become a glitch. But after what she’d heard about Babs, and how even obedience itself could be corrupted-- She shook her head before the thought even fully formed in her mind. There was no way such a thing could happen twice. Otherwise, Lightning would be stuck in her own capsule. Everypony would be, for that matter. In a place where nothing seemed constant, Lightning’s heart was one of the few things Coco could rely on. “I dunno,” the pegasus said, even as her eyes spoke differently. “It seems pretty reckless to me, but then again--” Her trademark grin came to her face, a mixture of perfect and glitched. Unhinged, yet beautiful in every way. Lightning took a crowbar to the capsule. It broke apart on impact, bathing the two of them in a shower of sparks as it did so. “--we didn’t get famous from bein’ careful.”