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// 19 - Roof Over Your Head 
// Story: Closing the Barn Door 
// by David Silver 
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They moved into one of the many available buildings. It was just as clean on the inside, as if someone had been living carefully inside it just that morning. "This ain't right." Stan was poking at a sofa in the living room. "You just don't see this..." It was soft and untarnished, as if the great war just never happened, or it had been manufactured just recently. Either way, it didn't fit in with the wasted surroundings very well. "What made this?"

Skyline hopped up onto it. "Not spiked." He had proven swiftly its lack of trapped status as he sank down onto it with a little smile. "Comfy though."

Applejack adjusted her hat as she moved for a window that was itself strange, being so clean and new. "Entire town gives me the heebies, if you can even call it a town with nothing livin' in it."

Rattling could be heard in the kitchen, with Aunt's voice following. "Something lived here very recently." A fridge closed. "Hard to confuse food that could expire."

Twilight joined the others in the living room. "Are you sure it hasn't already expired?"

"Good question." Things became quiet for a moment. The sound of the fridge opening came, something opening and shuffling about. "Oh. No, these are expired." She closed the fridge. "False alarm."

Twilight waved at the kitchen. "Come in here. You should relax and be ready for upgrading." She looked around with a smile. "This building is full of usable metals and supplies. How lucky!"

"Too lucky." Stan leaned against a wall with his gun propped beside him, ready to be drawn into readiness. "I vote we don't make much light or noise besides what we gotta."

"Gonna agree with you." Applejack leaned her hat forward on her head. "This don't sit too right, but I'll be just as happy bein' wrong on this. Twi, how long do you figure it'll be?"

Twilight was already tearing apart the television that was practically begging her, in her mind, to be used for parts. "About eight hours to get the parts I need, and another twelve to outfit Miss Aunt. I'd leave a few hours in there for Aunt to adapt to her new physiology."

"Is that the right word?" Aunt hovered closer. "I'm not organic. Do I have a physiology?"

"Not in the..." Twilight yanked off the back of the television in her magic with a muted crunch of surrendering metal joints. "Ah ha! Lovely." She reached inside with her magic and began plucking out parts. "By definition, no. But you have something that works about the same way, it just isn't organic. It will require some time to get used to, since I'm not ready to program that into you. You'll have to program yourself."

"I've had experience with that." She turned one of her eyes onto Stan. "It was a learning experience when I left the vault. The world outside was quite unfamiliar compared to the one inside. It was worth the effort in the end. I will adjust to this as well, and I think it will be worth it as well, to actually be of some help in dangerous situations."

Giddyup trotted up to her with his played sounds. "We enjoy your presence despite any combat ability you have, or do not. You are helpful in the caretaking of my child and his friends, and a companion to us all. Your additional functionality will not alter this."

"You're the sweetest thing." She patted him on his bristly mane with a grasper. "But you'd be loved by your child without your combat ability. It didn't stop you from learning some."

Giddyup considered that, a stiff statue for a moment. "This is a dangerous world. My children have been hurt, or worse, because I could not defend them. Though not initially programmed, a Giddyup Buttercup unit that wishes to perform their functions needs to have defensive routines in place to ensure the continued safety of their chilren."

"And I feel the same way." Aunt nodded at the robotic horse. "I want my family to be happy and around for as long as I can, so I need to protect them. It'd be nice if neither of us had to do that, if we could just be ourselves peacefully. I imagine you'd be even nicer in a nicer world, but this is the one we live in. So we adapt."

Aunt retrieved some things from Giddyup, who stood still obediently to let her get them. "I'll make some supper for you all." She hovered off with the food that did not require any cooking, but they had a full kitchen for the effort and she got right to it without being asked.

"Say." Stan rapped the side of his robotic horse friend. "I thought, when I found you, you were basically turned off, waiting for a kid. You already had one?"

"I had several." Giddyup inclined his head slowly. "After the loss of the last one, I determined returning to a proper place of purchase would be the best course of action."

Stan frowned a little, one hand clawed at the wall beside him. "Where I found you, in that old office, lookin' mighty sad for a robot."

"I was without a child. Thank you for adopting me." Giddyup pranced in place. "It has been a delight to be your giddyup unit."

Stan gently felt over the chest of his friend, feeling the smooth cool metal. "Yer welcome. Just didn't know you had such a history."

Giddyup wriggled, his entire body shaking in place. "I was manufactured before the war. I was activated during it. My first child turned me on 5 days and 14 hours before the first bombs struck. The violence reached us in 0 days and 6 hours from that point. I failed to defend my child." Giddyup wasn't the best at emoting, but that he regretted his failure was easy enough to hear. "I did not have the skills or physical ability. All I could do is be present. I did not leave them until all life signs had ceased. They seemed happy to have company. I wish I could have done more."

"Hey." Stan rapped his knuckles on the metal of Giddyup in a loud clang. "You did all you could. Shoot..." He drew a rapsy breath. "Ain't good at this... You got a week, with the first... Were they nice?"

"They were very nice." Giddyup stepped closer, only able to take a single clop before risking stomping on Stan. "They had a desire to become a doctor when they finished maturation. Perhaps that is why I did that." Giddyup raised a hoof to point at his mouth, his jaw falling loose in a squeaky pivot. "I am the doctor they did not have a chance to become."

Applejack took off her hat and held it at her chest. "Shoot... Yer makin' me tear up. That's right nice... Doin' their memory proud, Giddyup. Look, ah get what Stan's sayin'. Only you can do what you can do. You were a newborn, robot or not. You didn't even know what was goin' on! Ain't no way we can blame you for what happened..."

Daffodil reared up onto a windowsill, peering out of the large livingroom pane. "You're feeling sentimental for a robot. Well programmed, sure, but still a robot. He was there because he was programmed to be, and stayed because he was programmed to be. There wasn't a 'choice' there."

Twilight huffed softly. "It isn't like that." She moved between Giddyup and Daffodil. "When it comes to intelligences, artificial or not, we can only define starting points. Even our brightest scientists can't hope for more than that. Now, I'll grant, at that point, as a child himself, Giddyup was very likely acting in accordance to his programming. We all do if we don't know better. But he has had a lot of time to learn and grow and he still cares about his children."

Giddyup looked at Twilight odder than Daffodil. "I do not require protection."

Skyline snorted at that response. "Accept it, big guy. She likes robots, which you are."

"Don't say it like that!" Twilight went red quickly. "You make it sound like I go ga ga over any robot I see. Just the ones I know well." She pointed a hoof each at Giddyup and Miss Aunt. "Who are lovely creatures that had time to consider their programming and decide, on their own, that being nice was a better option than not being."

Applejack popped her hat back on her head. "Can't rightly fight that. There are robots out there that didn't make that choice, right ornery critters. Glad these two are far nicer about it."

Miss Aunt rested a metal grasper on Giddyup's back. "I can't imagine a giddyup unit turning unpleasant. I'm sure they exist somewhere... But what would make that happen?" The idea was clearly an alien one for her. "Miss Nannies, like myself, are also inclined to be friendly towards others. I won't argue that our programming makes that more likely than not."

Stan wagged a finger at Aunt. "But not assured. Done fought a few Mister Handies before and they start just as friendly, right?"

"Almost." She sounded almost smugly superior in that. "They are next to their owners just like we are, surely, but they gave us the most advanced psychological programming to deal with growing minds. Like Giddyup, in a sense, but we're expected to do more of the actual upbringing. Just being a fun friend isn't sufficient for a nanny bot."

Giddyup sagged in place. "I apologize for being insufficient."

"Oh! No!" Aunt stroked her equally metal friend. "I didn't mean to insult you. That was entirely my fault. You are perfect at being exactly what you are. I'd make a terrible horse, I'm sure. Don't feel bad for not being good at something completely different. Besides, you've been getting better. Don't think I didn't notice."

Twilight trotted in from the kitchen with a new set of parts the set in the pile with the things taken from the television. "We should say thank you if we ever run into whoever owns this building." She sorted through them by size and shape patiently. "This will make this job a lot easier. You cannot watch any television, but there are no broadcasts currently, so not much is missed there."

Daffodil snorted at Twilight. "We could have guessed that. Even the vault only has radio broadcasts. A television one would be more unbelievable than this town is, and that's already a stretch."

Stan patted Giddyup gently. "I'll be countin' on you."

Giddyup perked. "What will you be relying on me to perform?"

"Watchin' out fer us." He waved in a slow circle. "Most of us are going to get some sleep. Twilight will be busy with Aunt. Someone has to stay alert and ready in case anything decides to come at us while we're doin' that. Up for it?"

"I am prepared." Giddyup began to turn in place slowly as if searching for that troublemaking presence. "I will loudly report if I locate anything that seems problematic."

"Knew I could count on you." Stan moved past Giddyup to crash in a single person airmchair. "I'll be right here. Wait. Aunt, didn't you say you were makin' something?"

"Your timing is impeccable." She jetted off, just to return a moment later with a tray that steamed with heat and moisture. "They had a working oven that I made use of. You're all in for a real treat today." She set the tray down on the livingroom table. "It may all be food, in the end, but how it's prepared can make a real difference. Human or pony, they all like a lovingly crafted meal."

Applejack trotted the short distance to the table and sat down, sniffing at it. "Mmm, ain't tasted it yet, but it looks fantastic and smells even better! Thanks fer the work, Aunt!"