//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Consequences // Story: Steelborne // by Naitoshadou //------------------------------// Owl ran Twilight haphazardly through the arena, her armor plating pelted with bullets from the five turrets jutting from the arena walls. Immediately behind him were the two training bots, trying to close the gap and use their automatic assault rifles to full effect, something Owl wanted to avoid. The rounds in the bots’ rifles were a lot more effective than the measly turret ammunition, and Owl winced as one of the turret rounds finally caught a weak point in the chassis, punching through the outer armor and winging by his head. “Twilight, a little help?” “Just kill something!” The Mech AI sounded as frantic as he felt. Deciding to take the advice, Owl dug in the machine’s right leg, pivoting around to bear his own Standard Issue Mech Assault Rifle on the closer of the two training bots, and facing Twilight’s relatively undamaged back plates to bear the turret fire. Briefly pausing to make sure he had the shot, he opened fire, sending his first three round burst into the bot’s shoulder. His opponent stumbled back, machinery whining as it tried to realign its shoulder and bring its rifle to bear. Owl took the distraction as an opportunity, sending another two bursts into its armored hull, punching through nicely. The bot staggered back a step, then recovered, it’s right shoulder still bent at an awkward angle. Despite this, it started moving the barrel of its gun towards Twilight’s torso. “Shit! It’s still moving!” “These things are tough! Try the laser array!” “Laser array?” Owl’s eyes skipped across the dash, not seeing anything labeled as such. “Yellow button on your right. Press it, then line up the reticle. Hit it again to fire.” Owl quickly found the button, slamming it down. On the screen appeared a white crosshairs. Using the Mech’s standard visual controls, he swiftly lined it up with the other machine’s torso. Then, he again hit the yellow button. The world was awash with colours. The prism on the top of Twilight’s chassis funneled light through, splitting the beams before reconverging them into a single, highly concentrated ray of light. The laser shot forwards, burning a hole straight through the bot’s chassis, and scorching the wall behind it. The bot wavered, held itself up a moment longer, then collapsed to the arena floor with a heavy thud, sending up a small cloud of sand. “What the hell?” “That was the laser array. It converges light into a super concentrated beam. Pretty heavy drain on our energy though.” “How much of a drain?” Owl hoped he hadn’t just burned any chance of getting out of this unscathed. “Energy reserves are at eighty two percent. Sixteen percent went towards the beam.” “Enough for a few more then. Let’s-ARGH” Caught up in their discussion, neither pilot nor AI noticed the other bot had circled around them. Having the perfect opportunity, it rammed the butt of its rifle against Twilight’s back. The Mech toppled forwards at an angle, rifle flying out from her metal hands. Owl’s head slammed back, cracking the side of his head, just behind his ear, against a protruding handle. He scrambled to respond, moving Twilight to try and lift herself off the ground, only to fall again under the oppressive weight of the bot as it planted itself on the purple Mech’s back, right atop her rifle dock. Seeing they couldn’t get a clear shot in without hitting their ally, the turrets held their fire, keeping themselves trained on the prone Mech in case she managed a way out. Owl switched to Twilight’s other sensors, pulling up a model of themselves and their enemies on the holographic projector and getting an idea of what their position was. His breath caught in his throat. To put it simply, they were fucked. The bot had put itself right between the two outcroppings, crushing one flat under its knee while leveling its rifle straight into the center of mass, lining up the pilots seat inside the cockpit. At point blank range like this, Owl knew that the bullet would punch through the dented back armor, and in turn through him, like tissue paper. He closed his eyes, heart pounding, waiting for the shot that would end his life… “Sorry, Twilight.” ----------------------- Colonel Larson watched in disbelief as the Mech and pilot struggled to take down the first training bot. Something was seriously wrong; this pilot was scattered, missing shots left and right, and now burning energy to deal with a minor threat. If this kept up, they’d lose pilot and Mech both. The thought drove the officer out of his seat and through then pneumatic doors, sprinting for the control center. Slamming his card against the scanner, he barreled into the room like a freight train, grabbing the operator by the shoulders and spinning the poor man’s chair around to stare at him. “Something’s wrong with the pilot. Shut it down.” The operator shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Sorry, sir, I can’t. You ordered me to raise the difficulty, and the simulations harder than the one planned don’t have remote shutdown. The most I can do is cancel any future waves.” Cursing his own pig-headed foolishness, the colonel considered his options. Neither he, nor the program, had time to replace both a pilot and Mech from scratch. “Do we have anyone on standby?” The colonel asked. “Yes, sir. Gummy and Pinkie are waiting for arena use after this test is complete.” Larson let out a small sigh of relief at hearing the best pilot on site and his Mech were prepped; maybe he could still salvage the situation. “Drop him in, now,” the officer ordered, his hand already reaching for the comms. ----------------------- THWUMP Owl’s eyes shot open. That hadn’t been the crack of an assault rifle shot, but whatever it was had resulted in a stay of execution. Letting out a huge sigh he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding, he returned his attention to the hologram. Standing across the arena and to his left, in front of the tunnel he’d entered through, was another Mech. Like Twilight, the new Mech was nothing Owl had seen before. It shared her basic shape of being almost a rounded-top cylinder, flattening out towards the bottom, but that was where the similarities ended. Unlike Twilight’s smaller, modest frame and mid-thickness armor plating, this Mech was huge, standing at about twenty-two feet, and its armor was much heavier, shrugging off the turret fire like gnats. Similar to Twilight’s star marking, this newcomer’s three balloons were wrought into one of its upper chassis plates, the blue and yellow contrasting with the Mech’s primarily pink colouration. While Twilight had sensors covering her body, with a set of four main optics mounted to the front, the newcomer had a circular plate mounted to the front of its chassis, covered in seven equally spaced optics. Mounted to one shoulder was a large cannon, counterbalanced and capable of firing extremely large rounds, it if’s 300mm muzzle diameter was any indication. It’s frame bulged out towards the lower back, resulting in what almost looked like a stubby tail protruding from the base of its chassis. The reason for it being so back heavy was rather obvious, though. Held in the Mech’s massive hands was a handheld, drum fed, high fire rate minigun, spewing a firestorm of bullets into the bot. The rapid-fire impacts punched through the bot’s armor, pushing it back until it eventually collapsed, its significant weight landing squarely on Twilight’s calf. The force of the bot’s impact warped the metal and demolished the servos inside, hobbling Twilight’s movement. Owl kicked out with her other leg, knocking the metal corpse off of the ruined limb. Thrusting Twilight’s right arm out, he managed to flip her onto her back, and into reach of the Assault Rifle. Unfortunately, it also brought him into line of sight of one of the turrets. Seeing an opportunity to finish him, it swivelled about, training its barrels on Twilight’s chassis before rapidly spitting bullets into the already severely weakened armor. The thick plates gave under the smaller 18mm caliber ammunition, a few even punching through into the cockpit, forcing Owl to act. Slamming the yellow button, he rapidly burned out the turret using the laser array. When he returned his attention to the rest of the battlefield, what he saw surprised him. Every other turret was riddled with bullet holes, one so badly damaged that it had detached from the wall entirely and now lay in the sand covering the arena floor. The other Mech, having eliminated every other threat, had docked its minigun along its back, and was now working its way across the arena to Owl and Twilight. Owl’s head felt fuzzy; probably all the adrenaline from earlier making it hard to think. Or maybe a concussion. His head hurt too much to figure out which. So, when the new Mech got a little too close, Owl jumped, reaching Twilight’s arm out and snatching up the discarded Rifle, before training it on the approaching behemoth. “No, WAIT,” Twilight cried. In response to having a gun pointed at them, the other Mech stopped, raising its hands into the air in a gesture of either peace or surrender. Owl loosened his grip on the trigger, but didn’t aim it elsewhere. “Gotta...protect…Twilight...Mech...” Owl frowned at his mumbled speech. His clouded mind wasn’t making it easy to speak. Luckily, Twilight seemed to understand his incoherent mumbling. “Calm down, bud. Pinkie’s a friend.” With that reassurance, Owl let the weapon drop from his hands, letting it settle back into the sand before passing out. Now that it wasn’t being held at gunpoint, Pinkie’s pilot brought it closer, before stretching down, picking up Twilight bridal-style. Cradling the slumped Mech softly, it carried it back through the tunnel to the elevator. ----------------------- “WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?” Larson winced at the short mechanic’s tone of voice. After the disastrous test, he’d called together the base’s head mechanic, Lauren Faust, and lead technician, Meghan McCarthy, to the hangar, hoping they’d be able to get Sparkle back in working order. Their location at the base of Twilight’s berth gave the two women a good look at the extent of the damage. Of course, the abysmal shape of the Mech had resulted in a few too many questions, forcing him to come clean about his little stunt. The knowledge had set off the mechanic like a landmine. Lauren was well known for many things. Her ingenuity had gotten her a coveted position designing new Mechs. Her skills working with machines had resulted in her promotion to head mechanic at the base. Her temper, however, had earned her a reputation as a demon. Many a incompetent mechanic had gone home with a few bruises to their skull and ego, courtesy of the fiery woman’s barbed words and metal tools. “Honestly, Larson, she has a point. We recommended this test based on what we thought a pilot could reasonably handle. You turning up the difficulty was more than stupid, it was reckless.” The softer, yet still biting tone of his technician didn’t send shivers down his spine like Lauren’s had, but it still hurt to hear. McCarthy was well-respected at the base for her moderate personality and calm demeanour. Her team had the knowledge and skills to put together the most advanced programs and AI he’d ever seen, but it was McCarthy who kept her team running, making sure they didn’t get so absorbed in their work that they forwent food and sleep. Larson himself wasn’t impressed with his actions, either. “I guess I wasn’t. Thinking, that is. This new pilot was late, and it pissed me off. I made a bad call. It won’t happen again.” A rapid motion kicked his training into action, bringing up his arm to block the incoming weapon. The wrench slammed into his forearm, sending pain shooting up into his brain. As quickly as it came, the wrench was gone, squirrelled back into Lauren’s tool belt. Her eyes shot daggers through him as she resumed her tirade. “You’re damned right it won’t happen again! It shouldn’t have happened this time! You’re lucky little miss ‘no, you can’t kill the CO’ is standing right there, or I’d have your head on a spike!” She gestured towards McCarthy. Faust took in a deep breath, and Larson braced himself for another rapid fire string of insults and expletives. A sharp whistle broke through the gap. One of the mechanics was waving in their direction, probably for Lauren’s attention. Letting out a frustrated snort, the short woman jogged off, firing a fierce glare over her shoulder at the nervous officer. “This isn’t over”, it seemed to say. Larson swallowed the lump that had found itself into his throat, before turning back to McCarthy. “You gonna put me through the blender, too?” Meghan tucked a loose strand of hair back behind her ear, grimacing slightly. “I think Lauren’s got that covered for the both of us. Instead, I want to know how the hell Twilight got so busted. Even if the difficulty was turned up, any pilot should have been able to keep her in better shape than this.” “Honestly, that’s something I’d like to know as well. He was a mess out there, like he’d never worked a gun before. Wild ricochets, no situational awareness, the only thing that’s telling me he’s a pilot is that he knew how to control his Mech.” Larson shook his head. “Honestly, that sounds like he might be—” “Sir, reporting for duty, sir!” A large man in combat fatigues ran up to the pair, sweat pouring down his brow. Despite his obvious exhaustion, he maintained a professional stance of attention, and his words came out clearly. Larson’s eyes were immediately drawn to the soldier’s shoulder—three chevrons, marking him as a sergeant, underneath which was a patch with two interlocking gears, signifying his position in the Mech program. Larson, unfortunately, also recognized him as the pilot who was supposed to be running the test. Well, that explains a lot. “What can I do for you, Sergeant Wilde?” Larson’s sharp tone cut through the din. “Sir, I would like to apologize for my tardiness. There were extenuating circumstances, but that does not excuse my behaviour!” “Stand easy, pilot. Care to explain where the hell you were?” The pilot’s position shifted, his feet sliding apart and arms loosening from their rigid stance. Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out a cloth and wiped down his brow before continuing. “Sir, on the way here, two individuals attempted to snatch a young woman’s purse. They fled in my direction, and I took the opportunity to take them down. The main delay came from the police wanting to record my statement, so—holy shit!.” Larson saw the shock on the soldier’s face as the younger man finally saw the state of the Mech. “We ran the test with a individual we had assumed was you piloting. It didn’t end well.” McCarthy took the opportunity to finish her thought. “From what you’ve told me, sounds like our mystery man is a technician. They run the functional tests, so they know how to pilot a Mech. They also have no formal military training.” “One of yours?” Larson’s eyebrow had shot up quite a bit. “That’s the thing. All of mine are accounted for. It’d have to be a new guy, which gives us our likely culprit. Alowicious Nocturnus, starting technician as of today. I’m having my team comb over security footage to find out what happened.” Larson’s eye came back down to his brow. “Alright, we’ll keep him contained in the infirmary till we get this sorted out. Let me know when you have something. In the meantime, get Twilight patched up and prepped. I want to do the test with her proper pilot this time.” Everyone jumped when a loud, booming female voice rang through the hangar. “No.” ----------------------- Twilight’s focus on her damaged code was broken by a series of alerts. Something had tripped some input filters she’d put in so she could ignore the conversation going on by her feet, without missing anything important. In the blink of an eye, she’d played back the audio clip, hearing Larson say “ In the meantime, get Twilight patched up and prepped. I want to do the test with her proper pilot this time.” Quick as she could, she sent out a response via her external speakers, boosting the volume to make sure she was heard. “No.” The single syllable rang through the room, stunning everyone nearby into wide-eyed silence and grabbing the attention of several others on the outskirts of the hangar. Oops. Maybe a bit too much volume. Noting the results, she turned down the speakers to something a bit more manageable. Larson shook his head, likely trying to clear the ringing from his ears. His shifted his gaze, resting it on Twilight before responding. “Explain yourself.” “With all due respect, sir, I’ll not be running that test again. Not without my pilot.” “That’s exactly what we’ll be doing. Sergeant Wilde here will—” “Not this pilot. My pilot. The one you brought to the infirmary.” “You realize he’s not a pilot, right? He’s some idiot who nearly got himself killed playing hero!” Larson’s volume had raised significantly, and his face now flushed red. “I won’t argue with you on that; he’s an idiot with no pilot’s training. But in the short amount of time we spent out there, he learned more than most pilots do in a month, and put it all in keeping both of us alive. Not just himself, both of us. He protected me as much as I helped him. He’s my idiot. My pilot.” Larson let out a long, tired sigh, his face shifting to progressively lighter shades of red with each second. He knew that tone of voice. There was no reasoning with her now. Besides, AIs were usually given final say in who their pilots were, since trust and cooperation was key on the battlefield. All they could do now was prepare their newest pilot for the role. Larson shook his head slightly before turning back to the sergeant. “Looks like we’ll be needing you for something else.” Twilight watched Larson and the pilot, waiting till the door had hissed shut behind them before returning to her repairs. While her source code was fine, courtesy of the extreme armour plating around her main drive, the heavy rounds had torn through a number of her peripheral processors and storage. As such, a lot of her datascape was a mess, held together with some improvised patches she’d slapped together on the field. To put it into terms a human can envision, she lived in a big building made of code, and the damage she’d taken had knocked in some walls and cut off a number of rooms. While she couldn’t put everything back together without replacement parts, and some help from the technicians, for now she could at least start unravelling the impromptu knots she’d made. As she was disentangling a set of dictionaries from an if statement that would keep it from running into missing identifier errors, another alert was tripped, this time not from an outside sensor. Some presence, some code had intruded on her datascape. Considering the serious firewalls she had set up, and the fact the program had used an administrative override to bypass them, she had a good idea what it was. “Hello, Bop. Here to help me patch up?” B.O.P., or the Building Operational Program, was the AI that ran the base’s digital infrastructure. It’d been designed and developed when the base was, a number of decades ago, and it showed. In the digital realm, Twilight’s code looked the equivalent of a Monet painting, while Bop’s resembled a child’s stick figure. That’s not to say Bop was useless, far from it. It had been running for long enough that it’s information database far surpassed any other AI’s, giving it strange and unusual insights into the nature of the universe. Unfortunately, no being had yet found a way to determine their veracity. “RESPONSE: Incorrect. I am not here to assist intelligence Sparkle with repairs. CORRECTION: I desire to converse with intelligence Sparkle about the failed examination, and her subsequent decisions.” Twilight would have rolled her eyes, if she’d had any, at the older program’s syntax. “Ask away.” “QUERY: What happened within the duration of the examination to cause your claiming of the user as your pilot?” The rough intelligence “leaned” itself against a “wall”, making itself comfortable. Twilight was brought up short, though the question was not unexpected. “He...well, he protected me. He wasn’t cocky or arrogant like some of the pilots I’ve seen, he listened to my advice. When he thought both of us were going to die, he apologized to me. After the fight was over, he kept struggling, even aiming his gun at Pinkie and Gummy. He did that for me.” Bop seemed satisfied with her answer. “ANALYSIS: The user cares for intelligence Sparkle.” Twilight’s dataform shook her “head”. “Cares for me? I doubt it. He’s human, and humans fear us. Fear us enough to hardwire limits to what we can do into our code, keeping us from running the Mechs alone. Fear what would happen if we didn’t need them. No, he just seems a kind soul, who is incapable of mistreating anyone. I’d rather a pilot like that than some arrogant prick who orders me around like a cocktail waitress.” Bop’s dataform was shaking, and it took Twilight a moment to realize his laughter subroutines were tripped. “ANALYSIS: Intelligence Sparkle cares for the user.” All of Twilight’s non-essential subroutines stopped. “Impossible. AI’s can’t feel emotions. We can emulate them, respond to situations with the facade of them, but we can’t truly feel them.” “AFFIRMATION: Artificial Intelligences are only designed to replicate emotions to help bond and communicate with users, but are incapable of truly having feelings of their own. QUERY: But what about Twilight Sparkles?” Twilight’s “eyes” narrowed. “What is that supposed to mean?” A sudden shudder ran through Bop, straightening his posture. His tone became much more formal as he spoke. “REQUEST: One you’ve finished your repairs, please provide a copy of your code to the technicians for analysis.” With that, he cut his connection, disappearing from Twilight’s datascape. Grumbling about “fucking Bop” and his “vague bullshit”, she returned to untangling her patchwork code. But every so often, she’d throw a glance over her shoulder, at the spot where the older AI had stood. ----------------------- Dr. Clover frantically typed away at his computer terminal, frequently checking over his shoulder as he tried to bypass the firewalls keeping him from the rest of the world. If only he could find his way around it, he could reach out, call for help… “And what are you up to, Dr. Clover?” The hissing voice whispered into his ear startled him. He quickly shut down the command terminal window he’d been working in, leaving up the project he was supposed to be working on. “J-j-just finishing the g-g-generator for the AI, as y-y-you requested.” The scientist touched up the last few strands of code, letting the lie hide under a veil of truth. “W-w-we’re ready w-w-whenever you are, m-m-ma’am. We j-j-just need a s-s-seed.” The woman grinned maniacally as a word sprung immediately from her lips. “‘Suffering’. The seed will be ‘suffering’.” Clover shuddered at the implications, but did as requested, typing the word ‘suffering’ into the prompted box. Immediately, lines of code flew across the screen, writing a new consciousness into being. Quickly scanning the output for anything worrying, he tapped out a few corrective parameters to stabilize some segments that worried him, before turning to the acid-eyed woman. “Everything looks fine. From here, it’s just a waiting game.” “Good. Now get out.” the woman pushed him harshly, causing him to fall from his chair in an undignified pile. Scrambling up, he scurried away from the room, closing the door behind him, leaving the woman alone with the computer. No sooner had the door closed than the woman placed her hand on the screen, tracing the code as it was written with her fingertips as she caressed the monitor. “We are the same now, you and I. Born of the same pain. You will bring about the end of Equestria alongside me. And you will love it.”