//------------------------------// // Chapter 10: Soup // Story: #277 // by Unwhole Hole //------------------------------// In the laboratory, Celestia sat on the medical bench as Trixie walked around the room wearing a laboratory coat and periodically checking a clip board with a piece of paper on it—despite not being able to read. And despite the paper being blank, apart from a crude crayon drawing of Celestia with an arrow pointed to her nose and the words "don't boop" written next to it in Twilight's writing. “Um...Trixie?” “DOCTOR Trixie,” corrected Trixie. “You do not have a doctorate.” “Correct. Trixie doesn’t need a piece of paper to be a surgeon, she just needs knives! And GLUE! Red to red and yellow to yellow and black to white and all that.” “Are you going to...examine me?” Trixie looked up from her paper. “Trixie already is.” “You’re just walking around.” “Trixie’s simulated body is indeed walking—strutting, even—because the process too technical for you to understand. Metaphysics and all. And regular physics. I’m actually standing over you right now, in the real world. Look, I’m waving. Can you see it?” “Um...no?” “Excellent. Because that would mean you’re breaking through, and that would be very, very bad. Supposedly.” Trixie flipped the blank paper. Then she paused...and looked up. “Do you want to see how I see, or a piece of it?” Celestia’s eyes lit up. “Can I?” “Just a little.” Trixie held her hoof before her, and suddenly the room ignited with light. Celestia gasped as lights swam around her. Digits of some unknown alphabet, oriented around Trixie—and around herself. She looked down at her body and saw lights over her, at various parts of her body. When she moved her hoof, they moved with her, with lights activating to correspond to each individual muscle and secondary lights forming somewhere else, on a different set of unseen joints. Every motion was accompanied by complex annotation in an unknowable language—and so very much of it. Celestia found that she herself was surrounded in text and information, split into several cubes of various size, each linked to a separate and unknowable system and some assembled into a complicated set of crystals that grew denser as they approached her very core. “This is...this is amazing!” Celestia looked up, at Trixie, who was herself covered in her own set of rapidly-shifting annotations. “You can read all this?” “This is about one four thousandth of what I am currently perceiving. So yes. Trixie is both Great as well as Powerful, and is the very bestes of wizards. Also sorcerers, mages, magicians, warlocks and plumbers. ” She clapped her hooves together and the annotations vanished. “So yes. Trixie is not being lazy, she is working. Please let me continue with my job.” Trixie continued walking, apparently doing something unseen somewhere else. Celestia watched her for several minutes, but eventually she could no longer contain her question. “Trixie.” “Yes, I am. On a daily basis, too.” “Something has been bothering me.” Trixie looked up. “Pain or motor dysfunction? Or is it the itchiness? Trixie has the itchiness a lot. Trixie thinks she might be shedding, but the Major says I don't shed. I think she's lying, though, because I know for a fact I don't have scabies anymore...” “No. A question. Virginia and Yelizaveta, they’re Twilight Sparkles.” Trixie rolled her eyes. “And how.” “But they have names. But you...don’t?” Trixie frowned. “Trixie’s name is Trixie. Technically T.G.A.P. Trixie.” “That’s a lot of middle name—wait...” Celestia groaned. “Your name is actually ‘The Great and Powerful Trixie’, isn't it?” Trixie beamed. “Yes. It pleases Trixie that even the Princess admits it.” “And you don’t have any other name?” Trixie paused. “No. Just Trixie.” “Why? Why do they have names but you don’t?” Trixie’s expression fell. “Because I am not...like them.” “And I don’t think you realize how frustrating that is. To wonder what you look like under that adorable little blue exterior...” Trixie smiled wryly, but also shyly. “You...already know, though. We’ve met.” “We...have?” Celestia suddenly gasped and jumped, coming to a terrible realization. An image came to her mind, possibly not even of her own volition. Of a hulking shadow with reflective silver eyes. “That was YOU?!” “As I said. I am not a pony.” “Then what...what are you?” Trixie shook her head. “I am Trixie.” “Oh.” Celestia paused, looking down—and then slowly lifted her head. “And does that hurt you? That you’re different?” Trixie stopped walking. “I am not like them,” she repeated. “I don’t think so,” said Celestia. “You seem the same to me. You still have friends, and you were still born, just like we were. Or maybe hatched from an egg?” Trixie shook her head. “No. I was not.” Celestia frowned. “Meaning you're not from an egg?” "Trixie is not a Pegasus." Trixie paused, then looked around, as if Virginia and Yelizaveta might be watching. Then she sighed and set down her clip board. “They...are different. They had mothers who loved them and gave them names. But I did not. I was born in a tank.” “A...tank? Like, the water sort?” Trixie nodded. “Not water, sort of like goo? It's called amniotic fluid, it's super slippery and it gets EVERYWHERE. But yes. I was made in a tank. All of my species are. We are synthetic. Artificially grown in big farms. I was made by the Campbell Corporation, on a contract for the United States Government.” “Why?” Celestia immediately realized just how insulting that question was. Of course there was no reason for her to be born, specifically, nor should there have been one. That was a question she would never think to ask to any pony, and probably would never have asked—but this seemed to be a special situation. “We were intended to be soldiers. They say there’s going to be a war in the Middle West. But...” Trixie looked down, almost ashamed. “Something went wrong, didn’t it? If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to.” Trixie looked up. “A bad tie-down.” “What?” “When they were transporting us. Through the Ohio Exclusion Zone. We were in tubes. Mine was loose. I fell off the truck. And...” She paused, and then smiled weakly, unable to look Celestia in the eye. “...the cost of delaying the shipment was a lot greater than my value. So they left me behind.” “That’s terrible!” “Not really. The tubes have limited life-support. The problem should have taken care of itself.” “I don't think I need to repeat myself, but I will. That's terrible!" Celestia paused, thinking for a moment. "But you’re here, aren’t you?” Trixie’s smile became much more sincere. “Yes. I was found and decanted, and raised by wild Trixies.” “Wild...” Celestia groaned and put her face into her hooves. Whatever world was out there, it was a strange one indeed. “That explains a lot.” “It was a great life. We would spend our days roaming the forest, performing random magic tricks, or attempting to assert dominance to determine who was the Greatest and Most Powerful Trixie. That took up most of our time. It was usually a horn measuring contest, but sometimes we would have talent shows or charge each other and try to give each other the POKE. But otherwise we would practice magic, or steal things, or run away from foxes, and when the day was done we'd all sleep in a big Trixie-heap. It was very warm if you don't mind getting kicked a lot.” Trixie paused. “I was in that heap. So...I may not be a pony, but I am a Trixie. And I always will be.” Celestia smiled. That seemed oddly adorable. “Then how did you end up here?” Trixie shrugged. “Trixie trap.” “A...what?” Trixie made a gesture. It was totally nonsensical. “It’s like a big metal box, with a door on one end, and when you step in the middle the door closes behind you and you can’t get out. They bait it with peanut butter. I’m actually a lot larger than a normal Trixie in real life, so it was a bear getting in there...but you do what you have to when peanut butter is involved.” “That must have been so scary!” And also obvious, but Celestia did not want to say that out loud. Thinking about it, it was probably the most effective way to trap a Trixie. “Not really. There was peanut butter. I hardly noticed I couldn’t get out until I ate the whole jar. But then I was sleepy, and they left some cotton in the bottom so I made a nest and took a rest, as you do. When I woke up, they were pouring me out.” Celestia frowned. “Who poured you out?” “The Government, I guess. I don’t know. They gave me some neurosurgery, a few firmware updates, fixed my bones, removed the brainworms, and slapped an injector on me. Then they surplussed me. The Major and Yelizaveta bought me and put me on this project. They’re fine, except that Yeliza has this weird thing for the Major that she’s terrible at hiding it. Trixie is not complaining, except she is. It’s weird.” “It’s not weird, it’s love!" Trixie shrugged. “Trixie was genetically engineered to be immune to love, so not my problem. Also empathy. Pity. Kindness. Compassion. But those are pony things anyway.” She paused. “But...I understand you anyway, I guess. Probably better than they do.” “Understand what?” Trixie gave a rolling stool a shove, sending it slowly wheeling its way across the floor. She jumped onto it as it came to a stop in front of Celestia. “Well...when I woke up, I had memories. They give that to you in the tank. We’re born adult. I knew how to fight. How to operate every kind of weapon and vehicle. I knew every piece of computer science they could fit, and every piece of medical information necessary to be a great doctor. I knew the whole state of the whole world, and everything about it. I knew almost everything. But...” “But what?” Trixie shook he head. “It was...weird. I had all these thoughts and memories, but no ME. Like I wasn’t there yet. I wasn’t Trixie yet. Just a mass of programming. So...” She looked up. “I think I know how you feel.” Celestia smiled. "I think you do, don't you?" Trixie nodded. “It’s...confusing? But it gets better. It did for me. I figured out who I was. And you will too. Eventually. Don’t...give up hope?” Trixie shuddered. “Ugh, Trixie hates being supportive. She was made for being perfect, not for being caring. Forget I said anything.” Celestia smiled, and chuckled slightly. “Of course. I already have. But...thank you.” “For what? Trixie did nothing. Lean forward please.” Celestia leaned forward, and Trixie tapped her nose. “Boop! Exam is done! See, wasn’t that fun?” Trixie trotted off toward one of the shelves, picking up an apple. Celestia’s magic flashed, and the apple collapsed into thin wedge-shaped slices. Trixie gasped. “They’re a different color...on the inside?!” “Now you won’t choke.” Trixie looked at Celestia, her eyes wide. “I won’t?” She picked up a piece and ate it. A smile crossed her face. “Good, isn’t it?” “Trixie can BREATHE!" She laughed. "I can’t eat solid food in the real world. My digestive system never grew in. This is...thank you. Now we’re even.” Celestia slid off the table. “If the exam is over, I think it is time for lunch. I think I saw some peanut butter in the kitchen, actually.” Trixie’s eyes widened so wide they seemed as though they were about to fall out, and she started salivating. “Peanut...butter?” “It’s on me.” Trixie grimaced. “I’m not going to lick it off.” Then she scrunched. "Probably..." “Stop making it weird, Trixie.” “Sorry, princess.” Celestia laughed, and led the way. Trixie followed. Celestia supposed that she had made a new friend.