Pick Shield looked up at the sight in front of him, a welcome emotion flooding through his heart.
Hope.
The finishing touches were being put on the three airships, each armored for war. The various armaments and various devices were in violation of at least ten different treaties in five different nations.
Pick’s eyes narrowed at that, the golem-pony letting out a soft growl.
But we’re not in Equestria now, are we? Nor any land where these treaties have sway.
Explosive, homing, and spell-charged ballista bolts, overcharged shield crystals, rapid-fire spell matrices, poison-tipped crossbow bolts, rapid-deployment gas (lethal or non-lethal,) the list would make a military commander green with envy.
Apparently, Commander Shifting Sands was sporting that exact color if what Pick heard was any indication. Equestria didn’t have these weapons or these ships; not officially.
The pony’s crystal teeth clenched, a flare of anger forcing Pick to jog around the ships to burn it off.
They think they’re better than this. A place of friendship and harmony…as long as you ignore the festering societal wounds.
Pick was no fool; he knew why Equestria had adopted their mostly pacifist stance. But he also understood that times change. Celestia’s intervention in the past few conflicts had demonstrated that perhaps she understood that as well.
But they can’t attack, not without risking poisoning their water supply.
An eager smirk slid onto the pony’s face at that. Despite Toxic’s past interactions with Celestia, with the lack of trust he had in her, the Solar Empress has given the Last Light Organization free reign to counter-attack.
He could almost hear the eagerness in the parchment, a very bland ‘recommendation’ to not engage…but understanding if the organization wished to rain down hellfire in self-defense or initiate a retaliating strike. It wasn’t even hidden, a blatant sneer towards anyone intercepting the enchanted message.
From what he understood, Celestia had already dealt the first blow of their counter attack, hence their enemy taking precautionary measures. That said, their rescue attempt would be primarily stealth based if they could swing it. A single ship, maybe two. In and out.
Hopefully the others wouldn’t be needed.
“Fleet Commander. The antigen is synthesized in the lab. Containment measures holding steady thanks to Discord’s help,” Varti’s voice emanated from the crystal bracer on Pick’s left forelimb.
“Understood. Let’s test it and begin mass-production,” Pick replied, chuckling as he began to trot towards the labs.
You think that shield can keep us out? You really shouldn’t have incorporated limbo and chaos magic into every aspect of your blossoming empire.
I wonder if Discord would have given us the ingredient if they hadn’t threatened Fluttershy? I’d like to think he would have.
And yet I think he’s holding something back. His ‘trade secret’. But oddly enough, I trust him.
As the airships began to run through one of their dozens of system checks, Pick reveled in the loud hum that echoed through the air.
Hang in there, Toxic! We’ll get you out. You and Gelliana safe and sound.
Just hold on. We’re coming. Just a few more days!
Gelliana awoke to the distant rumble of thunder.
The storm had been going for more than two days now. While Toxic’s voice had started to return the poison had surged once again, knocking the stallion out cold for most of the day and night. That left Gelliana alone with SMAL to continue her classes. The distant movement from…whatever it was, had been apparently creeping closer which wasn’t a comfort in the slightest.
What was a comfort, and also an extremely pressing and annoying issue was what Gelliana currently was struggling, or rather, not struggling with.
Toxic’s heartbeat thudded in her ears, the gryphoness curled up next to her stallion. The pony was flat on the cushions, Gelliana nestled at his side. Her head protectively laying over Toxic’s neck, the gryphoness could feel her emotions bubbling just beneath the surface as Toxic let out a soft mumble and scooted closer.
Originally, she hadn’t been this close, having tried to sleep curled up on another sleeping pad. But the extremely pressing fact was rather hard to ignore. Her inability to sleep, the gryphoness’s tossing and turning had been solved by adding one simple factor; her special somepony.
The worst part was that Gelliana knew there were so many factors. Stress, how much she cared…and yet she couldn’t dwell on it all.
All Gelliana knew was that shortly after settling down next to her equally restless stallion, they both had immediately quieted down. Her fears were turned to a simmer, and Gelliana was actually able to think. Drowsiness quickly set in after that. How Toxic still managed to smell halfway decent after not bathing for a day or two was beyond her.
Of course, she wasn’t about to admit to tell him that. Not yet of course. Saying she didn’t mind him all sweaty would just prompt another one of those roguish grins and send her mind into a tailspin. Goodness knows it was close enough to that already.
No, for now the gryphoness just wanted to hold him close, even if she couldn’t make him feel better immediately. How to explain that she now actually needed him to get some sleep was…tricky.
But in terms of needing, she had a feeling this was one thing Toxic wouldn’t mind helping her out with. Besides, he got free cuddles, not that she’d ever charge him for such. It was rather romantic in a way.
Judging from the simple clock that glowed in the darkness of their bunker-like cave, there were still quite a few hours of sleep left. A few deep breaths, and Gelliana tried to calm her mind down to enter that restful sanctuary once again.
A brief shifting of movement caught her attention, Toxic letting out a yawn and lifting his head ever so slightly, blinking blearily.
Turning to look at her, there was a bit of muted surprise behind his tired green eyes, the pony then promptly scooting closer with an incoherent mumble.
The fact that Toxic snuggled up right against her chest made Gelliana puff up slightly, and she could feel him smiling. Then again, now it was him listening her heartbeat.
Clearly, he approved of the new sleeping arrangements.
What would I do without you, Tox?
Before meeting Gelliana, Toxic liked to think himself as fairly composed, at least in public. Yet when your fears and horrors are laid bare to someone and the only thing they reacted with was empathy…
He couldn’t conceal things, he didn’t want to put up that front with her, even if fear was nearly all-consuming at times.
Yet the warm body that snuggled against his side made it all flee in a but a moment.
Yesterday he had nearly slept away every hour; but at least now the scratchiness in his throat indicated that perhaps the stallion’s voice had returned.
As Gelliana shifted, the gryphoness stretched before yawning, rolling over to give the prone pony a hug before reaching over to grab something.
“Morning, Gells,” Toxic croaked- his barrel immediately constricted by two feathery arms.
“Welcome back; your voice that is,” Gelliana whispered, giving Toxic a squeeze before releasing him.
“Good to be back, even if…whooooooooh,” Toxic muttered, swaying on his hooves as he staggered upright. “World spinning, ok.”
“Please take it easy, Director.”
“Hello to you, SMAL,” Toxic replied, the entity appearing with a flash.
“You are in-between swells of toxicity. You must not overexert yourself,” she warned.
“Just moving around a smidge, nothing major. I understand you have been very helpful these past few days, at least what I can remember.”
The stallion noted the slight pause, SMAL blinking before nodding once to him.
“I am glad to have helped, and that your condition is stable for the moment. That will likely change within the hour.”
“Any news concerning your transmission?” Toxic asked, noticing the entity seemed to hesitate.
“Yes, and No, Sir.”
“That’s not an entirely straightforward answer.”
The Mare straightened up, her eyes meeting Toxic’s before darting away.
“I believe our message was received based on a low-frequency response tone. I successfully sent a diagnostics report of myself along with our coordinates and a log of the events that have transpired.” The entity appeared to twitch, then frowning. “I am experiencing some destabilizations in my core. I apologize for any inconsistencies.”
Gelliana didn’t look like she was buying it, but Toxic simply shrugged.
“Understandable. You were never designed to operate this long; not without extensive testing prior. If you need to shut down to defragment portions of your lexicon, feel free to do so.”
“Understood, Sir.”
As SMAL vanished, Gelliana let out a huff.
“Well, she was twitchy. She isn’t like that with me.”
“Probably because I can give her an order and she is programmed to follow it,” Toxic murmured, making his way to take care of the necessities before flopping down on the sleeping pad again. “Perhaps those core instabilities are more serious than I thought. But we need her, so we have to trust her. If possible, can you try to delve a bit more into that when I’m…out?”
Gelliana nodded in agreement.
“I’ll bring it up. Of course, she may be able to hear us now.”
“Not likely, unless I specifically mention her name, she shouldn’t be in anything but passive listening and detection mode…” Toxic said, eyes glancing over to the crate which housed the crystal construct. “Well, she has done nothing but help us; I see her more as a co-worker than an ‘it’ at this point.”
“It’ll give me something to do instead of…well, yeah,” Gelliana admitted, reaching over to set out some rations. “I worry enough as it is; will be nice to have something to do.”
Toxic immediately reached over to grip her claws, the gesture immediately making the gryphoness’s feathers fluff out. No words were said as the stallion scooted over, tracing his muzzle up her neck to then meet her beak in a long, loving kiss.
The stallion would be lying if he didn’t enjoy the fact Gelliana’s breath most certainly quickened at that; of course, so did his.
“I’m sorry you have to worry, Gells,” he said softly, nuzzling the crook of her neck gently. “I really am. But I’m so happy to have you here, as selfish as it is. Without you, I’d….”
Two arms wrapped the pony up in a hug, Gelliana pressing her neck against his, Toxic’s frame shuddering slightly.
“It’s ok to be scared, Toxic. Even if you’re not used to it,” she finally said. “I’m here regardless.”
He was quiet for a moment, the stallion scooting forward to press against her soft feathers.
“I didn’t think I could be this scared,” he admitted. “I only really had one thing that genuinely terrified me before. I suppose I’ve never really mentioned it before; Radiation.”
“Hmm?”
“It’s the one thing I am not immune to. Small amounts I seem to tolerate better than the majority, but my talent doesn’t cover it. I just…it’s a horrifying thing to be exposed to. Until now, that was my biggest fear, mostly.”
Gelliana could have prodded a bit more into that ‘mostly,’ but the fact her stallion shook his head and hugged her closed stopped that thought.
“Well, you already know one of mine; thunderstorms,” she said. “But I guess you’ll work on changing that. Honestly, getting lost is something that I always worry about; in an unfamiliar and slightly dangerous place. I guess I’m forced to confront that here.”
“Sorry…”
“Hey, it’s exposure therapy. That’s a thing you told me helped you, right?” she said, “so I guess it’s my turn to give it a shot even if it’s not voluntary.”
Toxic chucked at that.
“Thunderstorms and just…being helpless. I never want to be like that again. Hiding in some cold, dark hole waiting for something to attack me,” Gelliana added, shuddering and immediately appreciating the warmth of Toxic’s sides against hers. “I guess I’m getting over it, but slowly. Maybe if I live as long as Celestia I’ll learn to deal with it more. It’s taken me this long to be comfortable as me.” The gryphoness let out an amused huff, wings shrugging. “Y’know, I could use a millennium to think stuff over. Doesn’t sound half bad of a gig, all that time to live life. Maybe I should ask Celestia for whatever magical drink Alicorns consume to get that boost.”
Letting out a huff, Toxic shrugged, Gelliana finding the abrupt response a tad odd.
“Not a fan of that idea?”
Toxic’s movements abruptly ceased, the stallion shaking his head once. Pulling back, Gelliana’s eyes widened as it looked like the pony was about to have a panic attack, eyes darting anywhere but her.
“Whoa whoa, Toxic, it’s ok,” Gelliana said giving his shoulders a gentle shake and forcing the pony to refocus. “You alright?”
His gaze dropped, and Gelliana’s heard abruptly cracked as a few tears began to trace their way down his cheeks.
“I’m sorry, Tox, I didn’t mean to say anything that-”
“No, n-not you,” he interjected. “Sorry, just, not now. I can’t go there, not now.”
Immediately hugging him back to her chest again, Gelliana nuzzled into the top of his mane.
“Is this the ‘mostly’ part of what you were scared of?” she asked, receiving a simple nod in return. “Then I won’t bring it up again. I think I know the general topic.”
As they sat there, one of Gelliana’s talks with SMAL rose to the fore of her mind. It had been a simple video she had seen when asking a bit about the Oakbark incident. She had been curious, wanting to know more about the event that defined her love’s life without stressing him out further.
Face and body obscured by a biohazard suit, Shifting Sands had trotted out of a decontamination room, a small colt held in his arms.
“Any others?” an individual off-screen had asked.
“Yes. But I don’t know if they’ll survive. He’s the only healthy one,” Shifting had said softly before the camera was turned off.
Gelliana’s throat closed, an emotional lump making her beak grit in sympathetic pain. After all these years, Shifting’s words had proven true.
Is that what you’re so afraid of, more than anything else, Tox? she wondered. Left alone after everyone else fades away?
Just like in Oakbark, and you’re left…
She gave his hoof a tight squeeze. Perhaps it would come up later; but she wasn’t about to press the matter.
Feeling Toxic’s breathing slow, their sides rising and falling against each other, the gryphoness moved her caresses down to his cheek, stowing her curiosities away for a more pleasant train of thought.
“Maybe can you tell me about one of the funnier tests you ever took?” she suggested. “Something a bit nicer to think about? I can’t imagine you licked an ice-cube of pepper spray or something.”
That actually got a soft chuckle out of Toxic, his usual demeanor quickly returning.
“Well, actually…”
“No!”
“No, not an ice cube, but in principle that’s how it worked,” the stallion began, the two settling down to eat their rations as he spoke. The brief glance over to Gelliana was enough to make her nearly squeak. The love radiating from Toxic’s green eyes made her feathers fluff; along with the fact he gave her claws a squeeze in thanks for the shift of topic.
“I tried food-based stuff first, and then moved on to actual chemicals,” he explained between bites. “A small, miniscule drop of something like a mild acid, and slowly working up doses of that, and so on and so forth. The nastier stuff like nerve-agents weren’t actually tested on me for obvious reasons, but a magical copy was able to simulate what I’d respond to with ninety-nine percent accuracy…and a lot more decimals of ‘nine’. I already found out the hard way that some airborne stuff can eat away at my throat, the only vulnerable part of me to that chemical apparently.”
Gelliana’s facial feathers abruptly began to puff out, Toxic shooting her a look.
“What?”
“It’s…selfish.”
“Still not answering my question.”
“I’d still love you with any voice you had,” she said, eyes darting to the ground. “But, I really like your voice. Even if nobody else can hear it. Makes it special, the fact that only I can hear how amazing it is. Really selfish, I know, because it caused you so much trouble, but…yeah.”
Toxic clearly didn’t know how to respond to that at first, the pony finally letting out a soft laugh.
“Thank you, Gells.”
“For?”
“For turning one of the worst experiences of my life into a partial positive. Being somecreature to tell me that there is a silver lining. That means a lot.”
“Well, I also mean it. Why do you think I asked you to read those books?”
“Fair enough.”
“Soooo do I get any more stories about these tests that were run? Did you ever take a bath in acid to see what happened?”
“I actually did,” Toxic chuckled, “one of the scientists dropped a bone in the bath with me and it was gone within moments. Me? Not a scratch. I don’t think one of them got the memo that we had tested that specific acid in my mouth before; one of them nearly had a stroke when I gargled it.”
“Pfft!”
For a brief moment, the pair were able to forget everything. The setting faded away; they could have been underneath a tree on some distant hill. A garden, a busy balcony. For a short time, Toxic was able to forget it all. Gelliana nearly laughed herself to tears a few times as Toxic told her of the various tests; and the reactions of the various individuals administering them as they found out his level of tolerance to various substances. For a brief moment, it was just them talking, the stallion able to lose himself in just being with somecreature who he loved.
And who loves me back.
That train of thought abruptly ended his story telling, the pony’s eyes widening in shock. Amidst everything, even with the fear and the ever-present pressure of their situation, he had been able to forget. It was only for a moment but there nonetheless.
Just like before. A look into what could be…
“Toxic? Hey?” Gelliana asked, the gryphoness now letting out a surprised but rather excited squeak as he yanked her into an abrupt but very loving kiss, one that made the gryphoness’s wings flare and her feathers fluff.
“Sorry. I just….”
He found his words silenced by a claw-tap to his nose.
“Uh, do not apologize for a kiss. Ever.”
“I am not sorry then.”
“Better,” Gelliana said with a grin.
“Just, I was able to forget everything,” Toxic admitted, eyes glancing downwards in thought. “That doesn’t really happen to me, not since I first met you. It’s a bit surreal.”
“How so?”
Toxic felt himself start to sway on his hooves; the hour or so having passed quickly and SMAL’s prediction apparently being correct. But he had to say this.
“It’s like…It’s almost like I get to see the future,” he said softly, now looking up to meet his concerned gryphoness’s gaze. “I get to live in a time when I am not haunted by everything. The nightmares, the stress, the fear, it’s all gone. It’s just you and me. N-nothing else. Just you.”
At his words, tears abruptly began to stream down Gelliana’s cheeks, the gryphoness not able to hold back a few sniffles.
“Tox.”
Scooting over to him, Gelliana reached up and lay a set of claws on his chest, the gryphoness’s fuzzy ears turning to listed to the familiar heartbeat.
Toxic found his attention drawn by a gentle nudge, a brief kiss making his mouth turn up into a smile.
“I love you, Toxic,” Gelliana whispered, pressing against his chest as Toxic used his fading strength to give her a brief hug.
“I love you too, Gells. Just, please don’t forgmmmmm…”
The stallion pulled back, his words slurry together as the pony’s breath quickened, the moment he wished could last a lifetime abruptly being stolen by the poison thrumming through his veins.
Fear radiated from Toxic’s eyes as his own body abruptly betrayed him, limbs now starting to quiver and flop as his strength fled completely. His eyes darted around as the stallion struggled to keep them open. Gelliana had to force down her own fear at the abrupt change, the gryphoness forcing Toxic to look at her.
“Tox!” She called out softly, holding his sagging head with a set of talons. “I know what you said, ok?” the gryphoness watched as his eyes locked onto hers, the stallion’s breathing slowing down slightly. “I heard you. I won’t forget, you hear me? It’s going to be ok. Just hang in there. I won’t forget, no matter what.”
She pulled her love close, giving him a final kiss even as Toxic began to slip away into unconsciousness once again, but the fact he used the last of his strength to return the gesture was as good enough of an answer for Gelliana.
And then she was alone.
“No, not alone,” Gelliana muttered to herself. “Back to making sure everything is set. You can do this. SMAL?”
The entity flashed into existence, nodding once to the gryphoness.
“How can I help?” she asked.
“Well, Toxic is out again. Could you scan him please? Just to make sure? I’ll get him comfortable.”
As the gryphoness heaved the prone stallion into a more comfortable position and onto a mat, SMAL ran her usual magical scan, waiting until Gelliana had stepped back to complete the final steps.
“The toxins are spiking again. Despite the actual levels slowly decreasing in intensity the effects will be more and more severe, similar to having gone cold-turkey on a drug, to use an analogy,” she explained.
“So, more severe symptoms?”
“I anticipate such. I will pre-position supplies, but I do not anticipate anything needing intervention,” SMAL mused, then tilted her head. “Correction. Using the crystal that…mare modified, you may be able to ease the Director’s nightmares.”
Gelliana retrieved the crystal, examining it and carefully setting it aside. Her claws brushed her breastplate; the item she had reached for when first waking. One of the things she hoped never to use; perhaps she should try it on sooner rather than later.
“I can give you instructions on how to use the crystal later today,” SMAL said, Gelliana letting out a soft sigh.
“Thank you, SMAL. And did I detect a bit of annoyance surrounding a certain mare?”
The entity let out a huff at that, tail swishing in aggravation.
“That mare has disrupted my processes. Or, her energy presence did. Defragmentation did nothing. It has forced my adaptive programing to adapt in unforeseen ways to maintain stability. At least I have a warning before she appears again,” SMAL muttered to herself, Gelliana’s ears perking up at that.
“So, you are annoyed at her. Not some simulated annoyance, but actual annoyance. You said you’re programed to imitate life. Has that started to change?” she asked pointedly, but kindly.
SMAL’s eyes widened, the golem opening her mouth but then shutting it again, gaze lowering to the floor.
“I do not know,” she admitted.
“Well, it sounds like you are at least. Toxic was curious what was going on with you. I’ve certainly noticed you’ve changed. Not in a bad way though,” Gelliana said, grateful for a bit of a distraction as Toxic slept.
“Explain.”
“You seem more natural, if that’s the right word. You have mannerisms now. Yes, they were present before, but you were a lot more up-tight. Very formal, even your posture was ramrod straight. But like, even right now, your left hoof is tapping on the ground. It’s like you are your own creature now, or starting to become it. I don’t know if that’s in your programming though.”
SMAL looked down in apparent surprise, her limb abruptly stopping the gesture.
“SMAL, can I ask you something further?” Gelliana ventured.
“Of course.”
“What exactly is going on with you? Have you been able to feel annoyance, or other things for that matter, for a while?”
SMAL seemed to shrink slightly, the mare’s ears flattening to her skull. Small runic inscriptions blazed across her body, her eyes darting back and forth in apparent thought as less focus was on appearance and more on actual brainpower.
“’A while’ is a loose amount,” SMAL said cautiously. “I first became aware of the anomalies at least a week ago. My core program is continually adapting to compensate. There are a significant number of unknowns. I was not designed to be run this long and at such a high intensity. I don’t have the answers for what is happening.” The mare began to pace back and forth, voice rising in intensity and fervor. “I sent a message to the Professor, but I think there was a secondary encoded message I didn’t intend to write! A sub-process acting out a question I had, I don’t even know how my adaptive programming is even working! I can’t trace the core process anymore and my own-”
“SMAL.” Gelliana stated flatly, the entity looking over to her in surprise. “Take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Ok, now two more times.”
To the gryphoness’s credit, she had no idea if SMAL even knew the concept of breathing. And yet the mare did as instructed, her brow furrowing in surprise.
“How did that work?” SMAL muttered to herself.
“You sounded like you were anxious, almost panicked.”
The mare sat down now, not able to look at Gelliana as she spoke.
“I fear I am becoming defective, Gelliana,” SMAL admitted. “I have tried to compensate for the long activation time, the huge amounts of data I am processing, but I wasn’t designed for this situation! I want to continue to still help you. That is why I was created and activated. But I fear that goal is being threatened. I cannot track my own processes anymore, not to the extent which is required by my core programming.”
The gryphoness’s brow furrowed, the smaller individual finally shrugging tiredly.
“I don’t know how to help you with that,” she admitted. “All I can say is that I see you as a friend.”
That phrase made SMAL’s ears perk up, the mare looking at the gryphoness curiously.
“Even if you’re technically, y’know, a created program and all that. You still have been someone to talk to, a listening ear, and a teacher. You still saved my life and Toxic’s multiple times over. If I can help, then please let me know, and I will. I just don’t know how to.”
Her gaze drifted over to Toxic, Gelliana feeling a lump rise in her throat as she ran a set of claws through his messy mane.
“I don’t know how to help in a lot of ways. B-but I promise that I’ll t-try…” her voice trailed off as it began to hitch. A few rebellious tears now brimmed in her eyes, Gelliana trying to shake them off.
“You see me as a friend?” SMAL asked curiously, Gelliana immediately nodding.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
SMAL didn’t seem to have an answer for that, instead her gaze drifting over to Toxic.
“The Director is lucky to have you,” she said softly, trotting back over to her gently-glowing gem, the item still set inside a padded storage case. “Is there anything else I can help you with, Gelliana?”
The gryphoness shook her head, instead settling down to muse over her own thoughts. One thing did stick out to her, however.
Does SMAL believe in Luck?
Fide looked at the reactor, her eyes seeming to flash in time with the arcane energy swirling within it.
Varti was engrossed in the six massive screens in front of him; the yak pouring through the data that had been received by their monitoring system.
“Smart program, hiding a message within a thunderstorm,” the Professor muttered to himself.
“From Toxic and Gelliana?” Fide asked, Varti letting out an amused snort.
“I get the feeling you know quite a bit of how they are doing, so no reason to play dumb.”
“I am not playing ‘dumb’. I simply cannot relay certain information. If they have found a way to relay what I can’t, that is a good thing,” the mare replied back with a bit of a huff.
“Fair enough. I’ll forward all of this to the others, along with the Princess’s. It looks like a basic diagnostic and summary,” Varti explained. “Perfect. We have coordinates of their location, they’re healthy; oh. Well, Toxic is apparently incapacitated but alive. Some sort of toxin. But this is perfect!” he crowed. “We have their status and location. That will make the next stages of our plan even easier.”
Fide smiled as the Yak did a little bit of a happy hop; even if the impact of him landing shook the floor.
“They are very capable indeed, Professor,” she admitted.
“For mortals?”
“For mortals.”
As Fide busied herself with examining the reactor once again, Varti’s eyes narrowed, the Yak tapping a few large keys. Sections of code began to flash across the crystal screens; the inner-workings of the SMAL’s processing core.
“What in the world?” Varti muttered, continuing to expand each line and finding even more code underneath what should have been a simple command. “You’ve been busy. The adaptive programing is in overdrive. Copies of it being utilized for different data sets. That was smart thinking, division of labor. That causes contradictions, adaptations going against each other. Then again, we never intended continuous operation and with this much data. No wonder your defragmentation program was overwhelmed. This is beyond self-repair.”
There were quite a few errors; but that paled in comparison to what now began to pulse softly on Varti’s screen. The diagnostic program would highlight errors, yes, but these weren’t errors. Letters stood out amidst the code, errors surrounding each message that ended in a question.
Varti couldn’t help but smile. He and Toxic had talked about this extensively. It was not a topic he took lightly, and, like many other things, there was a contingency plan. In the creation of an entity, even imitating life, a certain eventuality had to be planned for.
The Yak rummaged around in one of the nearby storage containers and withdrew a dusty crystal that matched the SMAL’s core processor unit in size and appearance. Plugging it in, he began to copy large sections of the code over to the new core, the professor shaking his head.
“What does all of this mean?” Fide asked, looking at the letters and numbers, as they were quite literally an alien language to the mare.
“When you have a self-adapting program, as the SMAL unit is, that can go a few different ways,” Varti explained. “In this case, it has been constantly taking in new data and adapting to best help Toxic and Gelliana. It seems that in adapting, it has begun to modify itself beyond the original parameters. In adapting, the program creates conflicts within itself, even if that helps fulfil the core parameters. Then there is this section of interference that has generated random errors; where that came from I don’t know, but it helped kick-start some of the exterior adaptive processes.”
“In a common tongue, professor?” Fide grumbled, clearly annoyed at having to ask him about a topic she had zero knowledge of, but still remained somewhat civil.
Varti gestured to the letters, each consecutive message making Fide’s eyes widen as she read it closer.
“Those are thoughts, Fide,” Varti explained softly. “I don’t think SMAL even knew it- well, she was having them, not until much later. Messages created from error codes of contradictions, queries from a core process to the various sub-processes. Some of them seemed to have adapted naturally, others seemed to have been kick-started by errors springing from repetitive arcane overloads.”
“You now refer to it as a she,” Fide stated, Varti’s last sentence making the mare’s eyes dart away from the Yak briefly, then refocusing on the screen. “And why does one of those messages read “What is a feeling?” Is not the construct programmed to simulate emotion, not experience it?”
“Why indeed. However, I believe that saying she is now more appropriate considering the use of ‘I’ in many of these questions. I believe those messages are exactly what they say. To that end, we have a contingency plan for this that I can hopefully finish before our rescue mission,” Varti said, gesturing to the new crystal.
“He or She should be able to help. It’s not good for a creature to be alone. Not like this. Stabilization will be essential. I hope that we can enact a rescue before it is needed, but I aim to have a simple emergency option in place. This diagnostic program can be many things, but will contain the same adaptive programming as SMAL. However, it will start out with such programming, rather than have been forced to evolve it. This should reduce errors and allow it to stabilize SMAL’s code if allowed. It will be created with the ability to choose, at least within some hard-coded safety measures.
And before you ask, yes.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say,” Fide grunted.
“No. But I know what Celestia and Luna said, and you’re just as wise as they are; more so in many ways,” the Yak replied, too engrossed in his work to see the hint of a blush rush across the surprised mare’s usually serious features, her ears perking upright. “They asked if we knew what we were toying with. As a father, I know exactly how dangerous but beautiful the power we tamper with can be. I hope we can guide it to be the latter. There are numerous safeguards built into all of this; those cannot be overridden, and we have plans should the worst occur. But thus far, SMAL has saved the life of my friend, and Gelliana. She has outperformed her basic functions in every way. That is a good thing indeed.”
He paused, eyes glancing over to the armored mare.
“And I assume you would intervene if things took a catastrophic turn. Not that you’d say anything. Speaking of which, these arcane energy readings look rather similar to your energy, at least at a cursory comparison.”
Fide could only respond with a shrug, instead reading the messages calmly. There was an awareness, an almost gently pity that shone in her eyes, the dozens, hundreds of phrases now being brought out of the core code by the diagnostic program. Instead of ones and zeros, full sentences were circling around a larger phrase in the center; the thoughts of the artificial individual. Error codes turned into questions, numbers into letters, all circling the primary error, a question Varti clearly took to heart.
The primary question’s letters flashed softly in the blue light of the reactor laboratory, their bolded and underlined characters speaking to the importance of it.
‘Am I alive?’