Sweetie continued up an endless, grinding slope towards the surface. With each step, she slogged her way upward, always moving towards her memory of the surface. Sometimes she dragged herself along so harshly that her body scratched and scraped in the process. Better her than the injured mare she carried—her parts could always be replaced. Her friend, not so much.
She couldn't say exactly how long it took. She diverted whatever power she had towards the simple task of climbing out. One more step in front of the other, crawling through gravel and dust and dirt. She did have the advantage of a perfect memory, but the cave-in rendered much of that advantage moot.
Until, after what felt like eternity, she reached an open section of stable corridor above.
A living pony might have collapsed, taking the time to recover and catch her breath. But for Sweetie, she knew not to bother. None of her systems would “recover” in any meaningful way. She was only breaking down, losing strength and functionality with every passing second. Seconds her friend could not afford to lose.
Sweetie must look horrifying—her coat peeling away to metal exoskeleton at points, broken servos exposed and tubes of fluid tightening and relaxing when she used some of her artificial muscles. She did not know much about the specifics of how all those systems worked, and didn't care to know. Physical engineering was a field that remained beyond her, let her focus on what she could glean from the software.
She did pause long enough to make sure her friend was still breathing. She was, though her wounds looked severe and her pulse felt weak. No telling how long she would last before they got to a doctor. But would they have enough time?
Sweetie didn't have a first aid kit. She didn't even have a physical map, since she had the entire thing memorized. Could she rip off her own coat and use it for a tourniquet?
No. There are too many sensors connected to it now. It would be too hard to get them off fast enough to make a difference.
Better to keep going, and hope that the shallower depth would make the difference.
Soon she came to an old cart, empty except for a little debris and whatever dust had collected over the years. Sweetie shoved it empty, then deposited her injured marefriend on the back. "We're almost out of here. Just hold on a little longer."
Scootaloo did not reply.
She clambered into the harness, though it was made for a larger creature than herself and she lacked the proper tools to secure it. She could still brace against it and shove. The weight of one pony was hardly enough to slow her down, not for a cart meant to drag along an entire load of ore. Sweetie hobbled forward, one struggling step after another. Old wheels creaked and strained, and the whole mechanism rattled like it might come apart.
But it didn't. Sweetie did, losing a handful of components off into the darkness. She wasn't sure exactly what they were, but she couldn't stop to find out. All that mattered was her forward progress—one more step, then another, then another.
Until at last, she could go no further. The motors on her strained leg finally wobbled and gave out, and would move no more. Sweetie flopped to the side, struggling in vain with her remaining legs. But both were on the same side—she couldn't keep moving with them. She would go no further.
That used most of your reserve, said the voice, the same one that spoke to her in the simulation. If you had not brought that dying pony, you would have made it closer to the surface, and been able to transmit for longer.
Sweetie tried to sit up, or at least climb onto the cart beside Scootaloo. But those legs didn't move either. This was different—not damage, but a total lack of motion. "What is..."
I've suspended all motor functions. You need the power for transmission. In a moment, I'm going to put you to sleep. Consciousness takes the majority of your energy, as you might imagine. You will sleep. Pray that Lucid Bioinformatics finds you before the transmission fails.
"Scootaloo," she called, straining towards her with one last, vain second. But the speaker was right—she was fading. She couldn’t move even if she wanted to. Sweetie Belle knew what a total power suspension felt like—her mind slowed, and the world around her accelerated. She was never exactly off, so much as underclocked so slowly that entire days could pass in seconds.
Maybe the program cut her eyes too, or maybe it was just the total darkness. Either way, she had no external stimulation, no reference for how much time was passing. Everything blurred into what might have been months or maybe just seconds. Only her fear for Scootaloo remained.
Then there was light. She moved, but still her thoughts became sluggish. She felt only the gentle rockling from side to side as someone moved her.
No pain came, just as there was no pain during her desperate crawl. Being able to shut that off at will did have its advantages.
Then came the light. A dozen ponies gathered there, scattered between two different emergency vehicles. One with medical signs, the other—a tech van from Lucid Bioinformatics.
She saw familiar faces over her, though their words still seemed distant. Seed Wise stood there for a while, alongside Capacitor. She prodded at Sweetie's various injuries, muttering things that didn't quite make sense.
Until suddenly they did, and clarity returned. "Sweetheart, you're safe now. You don't need to panic."
Sweetie's body twitched—but she was already restrained, in something like the robotic assembly tables they used to demo and build new bodies. "My... Scootaloo. With me. I can wait."
The mare stiffened, avoiding her eyes suddenly. Beside her, the technician retreated completely, out of Sweetie's field of view. That left the bat to answer her question. "There's nothing... the doctors can do. But the van—Lucid had all the equipment in here. We're scanning her. I told him you two must be close, if you fought so hard to save her."
Sweetie tried to nod, but couldn't. She couldn't even cry. "Y-yeah. She's the most important pony in the world. Please, you have to..."
But she didn't get to finish that thought, because that was when her body failed completely.
Sweetie was conscious of nothing at all after that. There was only dreamless sleep, without rest, thoughts, or stirring. Until abruptly, there was more.
Light streamed in through a hospital window, landing on her face. The touch of warmth on her coat made her stir at first, then sit up.
She was in a hospital gown again, with a chart beside her. "It's not gonna work a second time!" She smacked her hoof against the “call” button beside her bed, then worked her way up into a sitting position. She found all four legs exactly where she expected them, and none of the tears ripping her coat apart. When she tried to levitate the thin sheet out of the way, it moved exactly as she expected—a perfect recreation of what magic should be.
The door opened, and a nurse walked in. Not the same mare as last time—this one had a light purple coat, bat wings, and a cutie mark more like the wireless signal indicators on a laptop. "You're finally awake," she said, tucking a clipboard under her wing. "Welcome back to us, Sweetie Belle. We weren't sure how long it would take to revive you."
"I'm not revived," she said, straightening her mane with her magic. "This happened before. You're the... emergency program Lucid Storm put in my head. You want me to do something to keep myself alive."
The nurse reached her bed, then patted her on the shoulder. "You've seen the failsafe, I see. You'll have to tell me what it was like. I haven't had the pleasure of a body yet to try it for myself. Another time." She tossed the clipboard onto the desk, before pulling a large screen away from the wall. It swiveled out on an articulated arm, facing a flat plastic back towards Sweetie.
"Modest indicators of decoherence—but it looks like you've recovered. Personality matrix is stable. Memory oracle is green. Seeing a little corruption here in the short-term stack. System had to purge it, sorry about that. You should recover quickly."
She doesn't seem like a program. Watching this mare, Sweetie felt more personality in a few seconds than the program had shown in their entire conversation. She bit her lip while she worked, opened her wings halfway, lifted glasses down over her eyes while she squinted at the screen. An awful lot of work for a program that was just meant to maintain her.
Sweetie wasn't wearing a fake IV like the last time. She rolled to one side, landing on her hooves. She put weight on them only carefully, particularly the one that had been missing. Some part of her expected her to fall over when she tried to walk—but no, she could make it to the window without much issue.
There wasn't a featureless void like the last time. Instead, Sweetie saw... a simple blue sky, with a smattering of clouds. The homes beyond were plain, stretching off in both directions. Like Ponyville, with thatched roofs and slightly pink glass. The street was paved with cobblestones, and gas lamps still glowed in place of the newer electric poles.
"Where am I?"
The bat clicked her tongue once, thoughtful. "Ponies have a few names for it. Digital heaven. Synth City. My favorite is Lucid's Dream. Since... well, that's what we are. In some important ways. Some ponies probably just think we're dead or whatever. No bodies anymore, so—I guess that makes sense. Somewhere out there in the real world, the real you is rotting in the ground. Good thing you're not them, eh? You get to be here."
She pushed the controls away, before joining Sweetie by the window. Her eyes contracted to slits, and even then she kept to the shade on one side. But if Lucid Storm built this, he would certainly know how bats worked. That shouldn't surprise her.
"But how did I get here? I had a body, I was..." She barely remembered now. Cave-in, a desperate struggle to make it to the surface. The details beyond that were entirely lost on her. But maybe she didn't care much about remembering the journey, so long as she got Scootaloo to safety.
"Scootaloo! My marefriend! I was..." She looked down, then tore the paper gown away from her. It crumbled easily, falling in torn chunks on the ground. "I was trying to get her to the surface! Do you know anything about that?"
"I do." The bat took her shoulder with one hoof, turning her away from the window. "Good news and bad news on that. Bad news, she's dead. Good news—not more dead than anyone else in here. Come on."
She let go, flicking her tail once in Sweetie's face, before vanishing into the hallway. There was an actual space out there, not just a swirling vortex to suck Sweetie back into the real world. The building was entirely plain—identical sections, with the same picture of Celestia's cutie mark on the wall between each one. She'd seen more interesting artwork in motels.
Importantly, the bat led her a few steps to the side, before tapping on the door. "Excuse me? Can I come in?"
"Go away!" shouted a voice from the other end—a familiar voice. Sweetie knew that pegasus!
"I have a visitor, bird. I think you'll want to see her. She'll probably try to break this door down to get in if I don't let her. Might as well just say yes."
Hesitation this time. "Open it."
The nurse didn't get the chance—Sweetie barged past her, shoving the door open with her magic.
The inside was nearly identical to her own room, except that the window faced a different view of the town beyond. It had a bed in the exact same position, and a young mare resting there.
A mare Sweetie knew intimately well. Scootaloo, surrounded by life support equipment and wearing a hospital gown.
There didn't seem to be anything wrong with her, other than a generally dour expression. But that all changed when Sweetie appeared. She looked up, and finally their eyes met. "Sweetie! You're alive!"