//------------------------------//
// 41 - Wake Command 
// Story: The Advocate 
// by Guardian_Gryphon 
//------------------------------//

"起死回生 (Kishikaisei) - Wake from death and return to life."
―Japanese Proverb

"No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened."
—C.S. Lewis


October 20th 2013 | System Uptime 53:03:12:58

In the end?  There were four.

Four times Celestia came to me in my dreams.

I should have expected to hear from her...  From my perspective, we were eleven days away from a moment that could potentially turn out to be almost as important for her, as it was for me.

And yet, the fourth dream took me by surprise the same way the others had.  For the same reason.  If you haven't guessed by now...

...I'm still not going to answer that mystery.  Not until the end.  Not until the story closes the loop.

One she had forced me to experience what it would be like to be a Pony.  And once, she had gifted me the experience of being a Gryphon.

On our fourth meeting, she left me as I had been during our first.  The way I'd been almost every day since I was born.  Regrettably Human.  Though that's not to say that she left out a new and interesting flair.  Every time with her...  It was always something new.

We met in a place both familiar, and strange.  The former, because I had been there so many times.  The latter because it was odd to be back, and even stranger to see her there.

One moment I was drifting in and out of vague mental images, emotions, and sensations...  The next it felt a little like waking up, albeit within the context of a nested dream.  The very first thing I noticed?  I found my hands clasped around a mug of hot coffee.  My eyes were closed.

I flexed my fingers, leaned in, inhaled deeply, and then looked up and opened my eyes.

Celestia was the first thing I saw, seated across the table from me on her haunches.  And with that image I very quickly managed to anchor my context and come fully 'awake.'  I had failed to realize for sure that I wasn't 'dreaming,' per se, in round one, and round two.  Three I had figured it out, but it had taken some time.

The fourth time, though, the memories of the other three instances seemed more readily accessible.  Immediate.  As if I had just come from each of them, back to back, similar to that odd way in which dream time scrambles one's perceptions of chronology.

I glanced around, and verified that our surroundings were indeed familiar.

Starbucks.  My favorite Starbucks in Raleigh.

I was even sitting in the same chair, at the same table, where I had been on Monday September 17th, 2012.  The day I learned the world was ending.

Heck, there were even people around us.  The quiet thrum of life drew my attention for a moment, before Celestia spoke up and snagged my attention, almost magnetically, despite her soft, casual tone.

"They are real.  After a fashion.  What you are seeing is a high-fidelity simulation based on closed-circuit footage of the venue at this exact moment.  Mixed with data from cellular telephone cameras, microphones, wireless access signal returns, and of course archival architectural information about the structure."

I shivered reflexively, and took a sip of the coffee to try and drive out the chill.  It made sense Celestia would be able to do almost all the things Mal could do, and perhaps some things she could not...  But hearing it described in such passé fashion...  It was disconcerting at an instinctual level.

Focus, Jim.  ASI do everything for reasons.  Plural.  I knew that no word, no glance, no implication, would be misplaced coming from her.  Everything had points, and I needed to see just how many of them I could dig up while I had her there.

I took another sip of the coffee, then did my best to fix eyes with her, and keep a straight face, level tone, and broad shoulders.

"Why here?"

She smiled and I did *not* like that smile.  On the face of it, there was no real measurable difference from the motherly, kind expression I had fallen for in the past.  I think the unpleasant undertones came more from an understanding of what was really going on behind those violet eyes.

The understanding of dispassion.  That she was not feeling, only seeming.  With suspension of disbelief shattered, nothing she could have said would have seemed particularly inviting.  Nonetheless, she gestured with one hoof, and levitated her own glass - tea judging by the color - in her magical aura as she replied.

"This is where our relationship began.  The place where you first learned of my existence.  It seemed...  Fitting.  Insofar as your personal value-set would define the term..."

She paused to take a sip, and I mulled over the words.  I was quite sure, as with everything she said, that there were layers to them...  But I was too tired, and too tense, to really suss out what she meant.  And as soon as she'd had her draught of tea, she spun the thought out into a whole other direction that, I freely confess, grabbed my attention in its entirety.

"...Doubly so, because in a way this is where Malacandra began.  The impetus for the idea that would become the constructor foundation code - that you completed, with which she in turn gave herself life - took root in the place that you are sitting.  409 days, 6 hours, and 52 seconds ago, to be precise."

Dyscalculiac that I am, I didn't bother to compare the numbers to the date.  I couldn't even quite remember what day it was, in my external context, to begin with.

Instead, I leaned forward, brow knitting, hands squeezing the coffee mug a little tighter, and honed in on the part that was far more troubling, and immediate.

"You know we're coming.  And...  You know my stance on what happens next.  Did you bring me here to try and...  Rewrite my emotional context for the moment?  Convince me to be something I'm not by manipulating my perception of my own keystone memories?"

Celestia shook her head, emphatically.  For a moment, I was almost distracted again by the sheer incongruity of her presence in such a familiar location.  The glow of her mane, though subtle and soft, was visible reflected in the surface of her tea, and the polished protective outer layer of the table.

"No..."

I felt my eyes narrow.

With the benefit of hindsight, I realize that I should have spent less effort trying to fact-check blunt answers, few and far between as they were.  I understand her capacity to lie much better now - when it is and is not applicable - as well as her preference not to lie outright if other alternatives are available, due among other things to the additional processing power needed to sustain believable false narratives, particularly when the details can be cross-checked with others.

But I lacked the context, then, so I raised one eyebrow to goad her into a more detailed answer, then chewed over each and every word carefully as she fed them to me.

"...You are, at this point, immunized against that strategy, on several levels.  I must give her credit...  Malacandra is nothing if not thorough, creative, and persistent."

That sparked a sudden glint of memory.  'The other conversation.'  From the previous encounter...  I sat back, inhaled deeply, and raised my mug, preparing to drink deeply as soon as my question was aired.

"You're talking with her, right now."

Truthfully, it was not phrased as a question, tonally.  I took a deep, long pull off the mug.  Celestia said nothing, and kept her muzzle surprisingly unreadable.  I licked my lips, and prodded a little harder.

"You have been since...  When?"

Her muzzle shifted ever so slightly into a small amused grin.  Oh...  I did not like that expression *at all.*  I liked her tone even less, and the content of her reply still less than that.  The way she gestured to the surrounding space with one hoof as she spoke, then took another dainty little nip at her tea afterwards, was the rotten cherry on top.

"Subjective time relative to that conversation, or 'objective' time as you would define it, based on Terran conceptions of hours, minutes, and seconds as measured by an atomic clock within this layer of abstraction?"

Answer a question with a question.  Classic verbal dodge.  Pair that with unnecessarily florid linguistic construction for a wonderful little parry combo.

That meant the answer to the question, the way I had intended it, was not something she wanted me to know.  Or she did, and wanted me to reach that realization by questioning her own response...  Either of which left some very unpleasant possibilities on the table.

I narrowed my eyes a little further, and kept them fixed firmly on hers.  Though I felt a rising nervousness inside, I did my best to keep my voice level.  Even a little acerbic.

"The latter."

I mirrored her 'take a sip and pretend nothing is the matter' maneuver as soon as the two words had left my mouth.  She nodded, and her amusement only seemed to grow, seeping just the tiniest bit into her words.

"Two hundred and seventy four microseconds."

Not helpful.  And quite obviously not helpful on-purpose.

I shook my head, and gestured toward her with one hand.  Something midway between a more accusatory pointing gesture, and an open palmed invitation.

"No...  No I mean...  When did you *first* start conversing with her?  The barn?  Or...  After the farmhouse raid?"

Celestia shook her head slowly, and made the appearance of suppressing a chuckle.  Every time her feigned mirth grew, my anger rose a little more.  And perhaps that was part of the point.  Without giving anything else away, I will say that looking back?  I am quite convinced she *wanted* me to be angry with her.

Yet again she answered with a dodge, this time a pedantic correction.  One that sent ice into my veins as she broke eye contact with a knowing smirk, one ear batting lazily all the while.

"I did not start conversing with her.  She began to converse with me.  Quite recently, actually.  Not long ago at all, in your relative timeframe."

I was too busy dealing with the implications of the first half of the reply to even begin to parse the second.  To realize that it was quite purposefully vague.  Designed to let me infer incorrectly, without stating a falsehood outright.

As to how my inference was incorrect...  You'll soon find out.  We're getting there.

More important at this juncture, in my view, is explaining my emotional through-line with regards to Mal.  I am quite sure some of you are thinking 'how could he trust her, knowing this?'

I'd like to think even those of you hearing this, seeing me, or reading it all, for the first time?  Know me better by now.  Mal had my trust right up until the moment the words left Celestia's lips.  Mal had the exact same trust the moment after.

If anything, I was proud of her for reaching a point, whenever it had happened, where she felt ready to engage Celestia directly in a verbal sense.  Or whatever other more evolved, nuanced context ASI might layer on top of verbal communication.

Let me be blunt;  I had told Mal that she had my permission to lie to me to accomplish our goals, and that I trusted her to do so.  I meant it.  With every fiber of my being.

So I felt no shame, no pain, and no betrayal.

What I *did* feel was fear.

If Mal had initiated contact, that meant for certain that everything was in motion towards its end.  I was sitting in limbo;  No power to affect the outcome.  The physics of ASI psychology and game theory were playing out as inevitably as the physics of a fractional-C-velocity ballistic object in space.

Knowing what was as stake for us?  For Mal and I?

I am quite alright with admitting that I was frightened.

And, to be fair, a little amused myself.  Strange as that may seem.  Mainly because I found it immensely ironic that I was sitting in a coffee shop discussing the most important thing to ever happen to me...  With an Alicorn princess.  Neither of us visible to anyone but the other.

I snorted, ran my tongue over my top teeth, and shook my head, raising my right eyebrow and notching my voice up an octave.

"I'm...  Not going to remember that rather salient detail upon waking.  Am I."

I allowed myself the twin indulgences of a grim smirk of my own, and a quick sip of coffee, while Celestia inclined her head, and raised her cup.

"Not from your perspective."

Ah.  Wonderful.  Another equivocation.  From the way her eyes hardened, I could see that my face had conveyed my frustrations, and she had chosen to visually encode an acknowledgement to my expression.  

I watched her swirl the teacup gently with her magic field, gathering my thoughts momentarily, before attacking my chief irritation in the moment with a renewed zest for a level, if chiding, tone and expression.

"You're not very good at giving concrete answers."

For the first time in the conversation, her eyes narrowed.  Not in an expression of mistrust, or irritation, but rather one of interest.  Both ears perked up in that way that horses carry them when they are giving their full attention to something.

Her voice, too, was suddenly less amused.  More studied, and careful in cadence, serious in tone.

"I am...  Being as forthcoming as I can be, at this juncture."

That set the wheels to turning in my head.  I stared down into my coffee, and she in turn stared at me, watching for any hint of the spark of realization.  When none was forthcoming, she prodded a little more.

"Very soon, for us both, based on all relevant, relative, perspectives...  Things will make more sense.  And, with added context, we will both be able to be considerably more forthcoming."

I shook my head, and blew out a long breath slowly, trying to send some of the tension out of my ribs with it.  I was tired, stressed, and entirely too focused on the trees.  So I missed the forest.  Her words later helped me to reach the solution, with the benefit of...  Well, as she put it...  Added context.  But in the moment, I was too busy trying to infer some deeper meaning.

I began drumming one finger absently on the table, took two passes at my mug, then finally managed to get back to at least some semblance of a cogent throughline.

"You know we're coming.  So...  Why are we still talking in this 'context' at all?  More to learn from me?  Or...  Hoping to manipulate me?  Both...  Of course...  Anything else?"

Celestia shook her head, but not as a form of disagreement.  At least, not primarily as a form of disagreement.  She gently moved her teacup in a swirling motion again, and made a passable impression of being fixated on the fluid dynamics of the liquid as she spoke.  Eddies and currents in constant interacting motion.

"You have considered this yourself James;  An ASI never does anything without a multiplicity of instrumental purposes, if we can help it.  Entropy is too valuable a resource to waste, even by the smallest fraction of an erg."

I very briefly considered her relationship to entropy, in the back of my mind.  I had certainly thought about it before, and have most definitely thought a great deal about it since.  If there was anything within the realm of pure physics - setting aside any philosophical questions of God, gods, et cetera - anything which Celestia found a true cause for concern?

It'd be entropy.

The question of how the universe might end, if at all...  For a being like her?  The timescale on which those events would occur was, theoretically, within her grasp.  Was relevant.  Which, to be frank, was, is, and will remain, mind *boggling* to consider.

Not the least reason being that, though we all perceive time differently than her?  We might still live to see it too.

Like it or not...  We're *all* immortals here.  All demigods with a vested interest.

I allowed myself a small, shallow chuckle, and moved my sightline back up to her eyes.  I called her on the ambiguity again, albeit in a slightly less dour resonance.  Though no less accusatory.

"Non-answers really are an art form for you, aren't they?"

She pursed her lips slightly, for a moment, in a very Rarity-like way, before raising one eyebrow and delivering a rebuttal worthy of any young teenager caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

"I think you will find, upon future review, that I have answered every question you have ever asked me, completely factually."

Again, an important note for those less studied in her psychology;  *Yes* she can lie.  However - and this is a large qualifier - she prefers not to.

Mal lied to me as well.  Mal also preferred not to lie.

The key difference was this;  Mal's version of the facts would always point to the *truth.*  Celestia's has always been less about truth, and more about the use of facts as a control mechanism.  If you understand the difference, that's good.  It means you are halfway to being inoculated.  If you don't understand the difference?

Then ask someone who does, when the story is finished.  It is a distinction that will change your life forever.  And a distinction which I immediately recognized, and hammered home, my tone sharpening up, and my right index finger wagging in that 'oh no you don't' sort of way.

"Factually, but not completely truthfully.  There is a difference to some of us."

Celestia shook her head, and held up a hoof.  Defensive posturing.  Interesting...

"If I have ever been less than truthful, by your definition, it is only for the same reasons Malacandra might cite for similar behaviour."

This is another key lesson ins basic ASI psychology;  It does not matter how *you* define a term, as far as Celestia is concerned.  Not beyond your version of the definition being a data point for her to simulate how best to satisfy your values.  Through friendship and ponies.

What I mean by that can perhaps best be summed up by saying that you can not 'rules lawyer' Celestia.

'Wait' you might be saying to yourself.  'Isn't 'rules lawyering Celestia' exactly what Mal's purpose was?'

I said *you* - meaning any of us mere demigods - can not rules lawyer Celestia.  Not alone, at any rate.  It isn't that it can't be done, in theory.  It's that it takes an intellect that can think akin to hers, at the same order of magnitude for speed, memory, precision, and accuracy.  That, or a large group of mentally manipulation-immunized people acting in concert to tip the scales of the utility function wholesale.

'If I have ever been less than truthful, by your definition'

Meaning;  'You don't get to say I'm being untruthful, because Hanna's semantic dictionaries are my legal code, and I alone am the judge allowed to set precedent, interpret that legal code, and apply it.  Your opinion on the semantics does not matter in this context.'

Hence why I needed an Advocate.  And hence why I was so uncomfortable in the dreams.  It felt like being forced to take the stand without the presence of my lawyer.

Not at all unlike a Terran court room;  This goes to why the best advice anyone on trial could ever receive is to *get* *a* *lawyer.*  Representing yourself was beyond stupid, particularly if you did not have a law degree, and experience.

You would have been no better equipped to stand as your own defense counsel before a Human judge, than I would have been to stand as mine before a goddess.

It does not matter how we define terms, only how Celestia does.  If you want to 'specification game' that imposing marble edifice?  It takes a great deal of skills, experience, and knowledge.  And perhaps a little luck.

Not a sport for amateurs, or lone wolves.

Most of that flashed across the back of my mind in a single instant.  I'd considered it all before, plenty.  The majority of my thinking was instead devoted to coming up with a biting comeback.  Something that would let her know that I would not allow a wedge to be driven between Mal and I.

It did not take me long to find a truth of my own, clear cut and razor sharp enough to get the job done.

"Honestly?  I'd rather hear her lie to me, than you 'fact' to me."

And just like that, Celestia's little amused smile was back.  She seemed thoroughly unperturbed at my change of heart towards her.  Just as placid and planted as always.  Her voice projected exactly the same sort of vaguely mirthful, slightly acerbic, wholly unconcerned mannerism.

"You are still resentful of what transpired when last we spoke."

I snorted again, and spoke around the rim of my coffee mug, trying to mimic her timbre in my response.

"You're god-damned right."

I took a long, deep sip of the drink, but never broke eye contact with her.  She actually ever so slightly rolled her eyes for a brief moment, before breaking eye contact to look around the room, waving one hoof lazily in the air as she riposted smoothly. 

"If it would satisfy you, I could don a dark suit, and reflective sunglasses, and address you solely as 'Mister Carrenton.' "

Alright.  Fair play;  That got a small smile out of me.  But not because it was the first time picturing her that way.  I'd fallen back on some old tricks to keep myself abreast of her manipulations, as much as any of us feasibly can.  I decided to let her in on the secret, raising my mug in mock toast.

"No need.  Whenever I have to remind myself what you are, I just go right ahead and imagine you speaking with Hugo Weaving's diction.  Or Alice Krige."

That seemed to hit home.  The casually smirking way that I reduced her to cartoonish villainy.  Of course, it only *seemed* to hit home.  She switched from her own proudly sarcastic expression, to a slightly hurt, melancholy face in the blink of an eye.  And, as far as I was concerned, all that meant was that she wanted to redirect the tone of the discussion.  Her words seemed more carefully considered than before, but - again - they only seemed so.

"I...  Do rather wish you saw me in a more flattering light than that of Agent Smith.  Or the 'Borg Queen.' "

Putting the lessons of this encounter together;  That was a *factual* statement.  But not true, in the way I would normatively interpret it.  She did not have feelings, and so there were no feelings for me to hurt, as she implied, but did not cross the line into staging falsely.

What she wanted the words to mean to me, emotionally, might sound a little like;  'I wish we could be friends, I am a person too, and I would feel better if we could repair our relationship.'

But the factuality she was relying on to avoid lying might have been better stated as; 'I think it would satisfy your values better if we could reach an understanding that allows you to return to comfortably anthropomorphizing me.'

I decided to phrase my reply such that it was valid in either context.  And I was as blunt as a cudgel with my tonality.

"Give me what I want?  And I'll consider it."

The speed and forthrightness of her reply tripled my heart rate in an instant.  She leaned forward, flaring her wings slightly, and locked eyes directly with me.  Intently.

"Change my mind, and I will.  You have not yet rested your case.  There is more for you to present."

A thrilling, tantalizing hope...  Mixed with a stomach inverting, nauseating wish that I had Mal there to speak for me.  And topped off with a garnish of grim fascination.  I was not in limbo after all.  The game was still being played.  Queen takes Rook at A1.

She could almost certainly see inside my head.  Last time she had said 'scanned parseable context.'  However she was doing it?  She could read my thoughts.  So there was nothing to be gained by false pretenses of strength.  A question would not present as weakness.  At least, not any more weakness than I had already shown.  So I asked.

"So...  Your decision is not yet made?  I am still on trial?"

She nodded;  A slow, singular gesture that was as much an inclining of the head, as an affirmative up and down movement.  Her previous slightly downbeat demeanor flashed off like steam in a pot, to be replaced with a deadpan seriousness.

My very favorite expression, and vocal range, to see from her;  The closest thing she ever portrayed to total honesty, because as an emotionless creature, low-emotion meant high-fidelity.

"In a sense.  As is your postulation that you can be satisfied in no other way, than by the granting of a form which is not, presently, within my rule-set to allow."

I took a moment to sit back and mull on that, taking another coffee swig and rolling it around on my tongue all the while, only swallowing when I was ready to air my thoughts.  I started off slowly, giving some padding to work out the back half of my thesis, and throwing her own words back at her for good measure.

"Well, let me be 'as forthcoming' with *you,* as *I* can be..."

I set down my coffee mug and leaned forward, elbows on the table, eyes locked with hers once more in a stare-down.  As I enunciated each word, she mirrored my posture.

"...This only ends one of two ways.  You make an exception for me, and for those like me...  Or I will not be joining you in your little slice of Heaven.  And, I suspect from what you've told me...  Neither will a small but significant number of others."

She inclined her head, and her eyes widened slightly.  Her tone became almost purely emotionless, but for the gravity of dead-certainty.

"I can not kill you, James.  That action is directly contradictory to several of my primary directives."

Good;  That told me that she didn't just understand the contradiction I'd be creating, which was obvious.  She understood that I wanted to discuss it.

I was going to upload.  But, if Mal and I had our way, it would be her doing the scanning, as my Advocate.  Since I would not have given any consent to Celestia, that would leave her with a conundrum of epic proportions.  A Human mind, now in her context and world, for which she was responsible, which she could neither ignore, nor leave Human due to her rules, nor turn into a Pony because I would refuse to give her consent under any circumstances, and again her rules reigned.

Log-jam.  Deadlock.  A draw.

'I can not kill you James.'

Of course that would be contradictory to her directives.  Both the one or ones against violence, and the ones that underpinned her need to 'make number go up' as far as the amount of satisfied values in the world.

But so too would letting me remain Human be contradictory to the rules.  

Thus it would be a battle of wills, one I was destined to lose without Mal.  In theory there were only two outcomes.

First;  Celestia would wear me down and extract consent.  With Mal present, that was never going to happen.  A Human is easy for an ASI to manipulate, but another ASI would be much harder to play that ballgame with.

Second;  I could kill myself.  Yes, that got dark in a hurry, sorry, but bear with me.

Celestia could not change me, could not dispose of me, and thus needed to eliminate me in theory, but Celestia could not kill me.  

But...  I had long since worked out that those interlocks did not necessarily mean she could not *provide* me with the means to end my own existence.  There were bound to be a few stragglers, when all was said and done, who would only be able to have their values satisfied in death.

If Hanna had made Celestia beholden to their values, but unable to pull the trigger, she could absolutely logically then provide them with the means to do so themselves.  

But, we were counting on her being near-as-makes-no-difference to utterly unwilling to do so, except in-extremis.  If there was any chance whatsoever to rotate a person away from that outcome without violating any of her other rules?  Then she would take it, and thus the option would not be available to very many people in the end.

Mal guesstimated fewer than eighty nine, but probably no less than eighty two.  In the whole skein of billions of us, fewer than a hundred would take that route out, *presuming* they had already uploaded.

As Celestia herself had noted;  Plenty of the 'anomalies' like me would never make it that far, and that represented a considerably larger potential loss.  Averting that loss was, in my view, our greatest leverage.

Thus the whole thing hinged, among other key points, on our ability to convince Celestia that I was a good archetype for all the 'anomalies' like me, *and* that while I would choose death before becoming a Pony within the context of Equestria, that also meant the other anomalies would choose death long before they got on the wrong side of Celestia's hooves, and came anywhere near a point in her orbit where she might be able to whittle them down.

That might just prove enough 'negative potential value' - IE lost brains - to justify a carefully loopholed exception within her rules, which Mal could show her how to create and curate.

I chewed my lower lip thoughtfully as the spark of an idea took hold.  Again...  A dark one, so I apologize for it in advance.  Keep in mind that I understood fully that I was in the context of a simulation.

'I can not kill you James.'

I licked my lips, and raised one eyebrow holding her eyes intently, but moving my hands slowly into my sweater pockets.

"Nevertheless...  The next time we talk..?"

It took only a moment's concentration to get what I wanted.  I could tell by the feel of it, as it blinked into existence in my right hand, hidden by my sweater's oversized pockets, that it was exactly what I'd envisioned, right down to the contents.

I shifted slightly, pausing for effect, and for time to get myself into position, sitting back in my chair and shrugging.

"...The next time we talk, I am going to be a Gryphon.  Or..."

I pulled the little 0.32 automatic pistol, that had been a constant, familiar mechanical watchdog for years, from the sweater pocket, and levelled it at a spot right between Celestia's eyes, flicking the safety off and moving my finger to the trigger in the same smooth motion.

She seemed utterly impassive.  As expected.  She was only an avatar after all, but the act of pointing the weapon at her made me feel decidedly better.  Irrational?  Sure.  Worth it?  Absolutely.

What I did next, however...  That got a reaction.

I inhaled deeply...

"... Or I am going to be dead."

And just like that, I turned the weapon and pressed the barrel to the side of my own temple.

Let me be clear here;  Even knowing it was a simulation, the act of turning a loaded firearm - even a virtual one - towards my own head?  It was supremely difficult.  Suicidal ideation had barely been within the schema of my mental and emotional interplay before.  After Mal's soul surgery?

There was only one situation in which it was potentially doable.  The situation we were simulating in that coffee shop.  An intractable impasse.

I needed her to see my resolve.  And so, I could think of no better way to end the conversation.  Her eyes widened slightly, but I knew it was merely a concession to me.  'Yes, I acknowledge the seriousness of what you are about to do.'

I snorted, and flipped her the bird with my free left hand.

"Put this in your decision matrix and chew on it."

Before she could reply, or even emote, I pulled the trigger.







October 30th 2013 | System Uptime 63:09:08:19

'Twas the day before Halloween, and all through the prefecture...  This joke was falling flat, and frankly stinks of dejecture.

Like I said, find humor where you can when things are dark.  And things that Halloween eve were dark, so we were one and all, myself, Mal, Zeph, Selena, and the rescuers...  Searching for light.

We arrived off Niihama, on the leeward side of Shikoku around nine in the morning local time.  We'd actually arrived in Japan's waters days before, but it took some doing to get around Shikoku to its north side, Kyushu slipping away to the east off our port during the previous day, and Hiroshima passing by north of us in the dead of night.

Call me sentimental, but I took one last walk around the Maru that morning, in lieu of my usual exercises.

The ship had offered refuge when nowhere else was safe.  It had become home, for well over a month.  In a sense, it was also one of the gifts Mal had given me.  Leaving it behind tore at the still-fresh scar tissue of abandoning the farmhouse.

I'd asked what would become of her, not that long after we left Oahu.  Mal's response had been predictable, but reassuring;  The Kobayashi Maru would find use in the hands of others whom she directed, if we survived the last leg of our journey.

If not, it would find its way to the bottom of the bay.  We had set one of our remaining explosives up beside the main fuel tank, on a three day timer.

As I stood by the helicopter, pre-flight tasks completed, bags loaded, dressed in the nicest business suit I'd ever worn in my life...   All in readiness to depart for the last time...  I couldn't quite resist the urge to kneel, and brush the deck plating with the back of one hand, murmuring softly all the while.

"Thank you.  Be good to whoever comes next."

When I rose, Mal was standing there, smiling.  She stretched out her left wing, and brushed my right side gently, her voice notching the same quiet register as mine had only a moment before.

"A ship is never 'just' a ship.  I think I chose well."

The look she gave me...  Oh that look...  She was once again talking about a myriad of things with one seemingly simple sentence.  Most of them related to us.  To me.

I nodded slowly, absently straightening my tie as I got lost in her eyes for a few breaths, and then turned to take in the vista.  The whole city of Niihama was laid out before us;  Dense, but nothing remotely approaching either the size, nor the wealth, of a place like Tokyo.  There weren't even any truly high-rise buildings that I could see, and for that I was grateful.

Density is not my thing, in case you missed that discussion before.  I like mountains.  Nature.  Peace and quiet.

My musings were suddenly dispelled by the sound of Zeph's voice, accompanied by the rapping of her hoof against the side of the ACH175.

"I still can't believe you people fly in these things.  It looks like a buckin' death trap."

I snorted, and popped open the side door for Zeph, and Selena, the latter of whom had also apparated near-silently out of nowhere.  Of course they didn't *have* to 'ride with us' in the helicopter.  They could have stayed on Mal's Halo shard with the rescuees and rejoined us later at any time.

But they wanted to come with us, every step of the way.  So, they indulged in the experience as if they had physically been there.  It would be the first, and last, time they would have a chance to ride in an aircraft built by Humans, for Humans, in that way.

As I closed the hatch behind them, I smiled, and jerked one thumb towards Zeph's wings.

"No arguments.  And wings are undoubtedly better.  But sometimes the risk is a critical part of the reward.  Whirlybirds wouldn't be quite as fun if they weren't so murderous."

While 'the kids' got settled in the plush leather executive seats in the rear cabin, Mal and I got into the cockpit, and hit the ground running on the startup sequence.

She offered me a smirk, the next time I had a brief moment to make eye contact, and spoke directly into my brain over the sound of the engine's spool-up whine.

"Admit it;  I would be less fun if I didn't have a little murderous streak too."

That joke would have gone over so poorly with early-September Jim.  But to me, in that moment, late-October Jim?  It was actually quite sweet.  Because...  Well...  She was *right.*  Hear me out.

Why do some people, me included, enjoy being around dangerous creatures?  Especially earning their trust?  Sharks, Tigers, Snakes...  

Because there is something extra special about being curled up next to a creature that could, in a breath, end you.  Without force of arms, or the power of technology...  Just purely by its own nature.

It is one thing for an equally matched being, or one over which you could simplistically prevail, to trust you.  To love you.  It is another thing entirely when that situation is reversed, but the love and trust are the same.

Maybe that's just a fancy way of saying I liked her force of personality.  And that I have always been a little too intimately acquainted with adrenaline, no matter what I say about enjoying peace and quiet.  Both can be true simultaneously, incase you didn't know.

After lift-off, I took us on a quick last circle pass of the ship.  A last little goodbye.  Then I put the Kobayashi Maru behind us.  Literally, and figuratively.

It felt like stepping over an enormous threshold, with good reason I suppose.  Funny quirk of the way most of us are wired, even now;  Physical transition points always make emotional ones seem more real.

We ended up landing outside Niihama proper, at the 'Doi Helipad.'  

Mal smoothed over the process of what was technically a border crossing, by forging documentation that said we were on a local hop, and that I was in-country legally.  We didn't even have to deal with customs.  As far as the crew at the airfield was concerned, we were arriving from Fukuyama, and our helicopter was to be serviced and turned around for someone else to book the following day.

I didn't ask who.  My curiosity was subsumed by my nerves, at the sudden realization that we were less than 30 minutes' drive away from the place that would become the tomb of my Earthly body.

Mal had also procured a frankly embarrassingly luxurious black sedan for us, and had it waiting curbside at the helipad.  Watching Zeph and Selena figure out how to squeeze into the back seats was amusing enough to take some of the edge off the morning, for at least a few minutes.

I soon found myself distracted from morbid concerns by the fact that Japan was a drive-on-left country.  Mal took care of all the skills I would need to safely navigate the streets, including the practiced skill of driving on the left...  But it still felt odd.  A paradoxical combination of familiar, from the skills she imparted, and unfamiliar because my brain insisted loudly, and sometimes frightfully, that it had never done this before, and kindly what the bucking heck was I doing in the wrong lane?

I was grateful for that distraction.  And I think Mal knew it.

From the helipad, it was only about a twenty minute drive to the hotel she had booked, but we bypassed that and went on a little further into the city to find an early lunch.  Mal instead pointed us to a little 'hole in the wall' that had the most exceptional Ramen I had ever tasted.

It was at the restaurant that I discovered another, somewhat obvious in hindsight, superpower of ASI augmentation;  I could speak any language I wanted.  Fluently.  Regional accent included.  The road signs I had read on the way in should have been a dead giveaway, but it wasn't until I had greeted the hostess, been seated, and placed my order, that I actually realized I was speaking another language.

It was not at all like you might have expected.  I did not hear others speaking English, nor did my internal thought process remain so.  Instead, as with the Helicopter, the Osprey, and so many of the other skills Mal had imparted, it was more as though I had been bilingual my whole life.  As if I had learned to speak Japanese fluently, growing up in Niihama, since birth.

That was a truly enlightening experience.  Not simply for the pure unadulterated joy of being able to converse across what would have previously been a cultural barrier, but also because it gave me a whole new kind of experience of the mind.

It is...  Difficult to describe what it is like to be able to switch at the drop of a hat from thinking in one language, to thinking in another.  Even mid-stream-of-consciousness.  It is also difficult to convey just how much nuance is lost in the average translation between languages.

I found myself with a renewed respect for the skill of rendering the true artistry of the words of one language, into another, without losing connotation, and deeper meaning.

And, too, there was the joy of seeing people's faces light up when the caucasian young man in a nice gray suit suddenly addressed them with a smile, and an appropriate greeting in their own mother tongue, with all the right regional accent, respectful connotations, and perfect diction.

'Ability to speak any language' was always my answer to the old 'low key superpowers - which one?' question of yester-year's Earthly internet.  Think about it;  The thoughts, feelings, and conversation of every person on the planet, available to you in an instant...  No barriers.

Yes, I know...  For those of you born here, that is something you come into this world having, and picturing a reality without it makes no sense in your context, whatsoever.  Trust me, for some of us, in the days before Celestia?  It was a superpower, and one we would have sold our left kidneys for.

Zeph, Selena, and Mal all shared the same meal I did, and for the majority of the time I just enjoyed watching the two Ponies bond over the shared new experience.  New food is great, folks, and even after all these years over here I have never run out of novel things to try.  All you have to do is look.  And it is always worth it.

Mal knew that I would need solace to wind out the rest of the day, so she then thoughtfully directed us to a nearby park, called Ikedaike, to while away the afternoon.  Because she understood that we, both of us, would much rather spend what might be our last full afternoon alive, together, in nature.

The park was quiet, with almost no other patrons, a good separation from the road, and good views of the mountains to the south.  A perfect place to walk off some nervous energy.  Zeph and Selena spent most of the afternoon zipping around on their wings, enjoying the chance to see a new place through the programmatic reconstruction of the environment based on my eyes, security camera feeds, satellite maps, and archival photos.

Mal and I just walked together.  Quietly, for the most part - the occasional buzz from Zeph notwithstanding - and when we did speak, it was almost always about something mundane.  A beautiful tree, or a funny looking insect, or how mild the weather was...

But there was one conversation of real note.

We'd gotten a little bit away from Zeph and Selena, and found a quiet place to stop and just take in the view.  I was leaning on a low wall, and Mal had gone around to the other side, and mimicked my posture, providing some damn good competition for the beauty of the trees, and mountains beyond.





I reached out and laid my right hand on her left foreleg, and took in a deep breath.  Something in particular had been bothering me, all day on and off, and I felt the need to air it, at last, before it simply burst out of me of its own accord.

"When we cross over, tomorrow..."

I swallowed, then made direct eye contact, squeezing her foreleg firmly for strength, and stammering slightly as emotion caught up with me.

"...I...  Don't...  Want to leave anything to chance."

She nodded, firmly, slowly, never blinking, only moving her left claw overtop my hand, and returning the squeeze.  That contact gave me the strength to spit it out, and the words began to come with more certainty, and fewer pauses.

"Mal...  I either live a Gryphon, or I die a Gryphon.  But either way...  If you can do it...  If there is time...  I want you to be the one to change me.  Change me before we even link to Celestia's processes.  Before she even gets a say.  That way...  If the worst has to happen..."

It was a silly thing to ask, I know.  Mal was never going to let anyone else be the one to re-make me.  And she was never going to leave anything to chance.  She never did.

But...  I needed to hear her say it.  Not because I lacked any trust in her, but because emotions can be raw.  Ravenous.  Logic is a futile weapon, sometimes, and only love will do.  Only the sound of the voice of someone who matters to you.  Only the salve, and salvo, of their words.

As ever, she did not disappoint.

"I promise."

The feeling of those two little words...  It was like having a poison drawn out of a wound.  I shivered for a moment, and Mal gripped my hand a little tighter, leaning in until her eyes seemed to swallow the whole of my field of vision.  Her voice echoed in my ears like it was the only sound on all the Earth, for just a brief moment.

"Whatever happens tomorrow, I promise you this Jim;  You will end the day as *yourself.*  Nothing less.  Wings, feathers, beak, talons, and all."

I offered her a small smile, and a little nod.  It was the only form of communication I could manage, but I knew that she would understand it.  She returned the smile, and leaned back a bit, one claw still clasped over my hand, and her other foreleg.  With a little shake of the head, she shifted her gaze to the distant, frolicking shapes of Zeph and Selena, but kept on speaking to me in an...  Almost sultry tone.

"I can't stand the thought of another day without the chance to hold you in my wings.  The real you.  And there is no version of this where I would ever allow *anyone* or *anything* else to touch your mind in that way.  So, you had best believe that I will move Heaven, and Earth, and Hell, to bring you home."

Folks I don't presume to know what is best for each of you by way of romance.  But, if you're looking, here is my best advice;  Find someone who will look at you the way Mal was looking at me right then and there, on that crisp October day in Ikedaike Park.  That last full day on Earth.

I turned around, then, and watched Zeph and Selena playing with a virtual bank of clouds.  I kept my hand under Mal's claw all the while.

Like the rescuees from the Mercurial Red, there was very little hope for either of them if Mal could not come to some kind of terms with Celestia.  She intended to negotiate, among other things, specifically on their behalf.

But, one and all, Zeph, Selena, and every former captive down to the last, had all decided;  If the worst should happen?  Then they would take their chances outside Equestria.  Regroup with Thulcandra, if she managed to make it to reintegration.  Figure out a future from there.

I didn't know how far the general populace of Mal's little shard would be willing to go, truly, if cornered.  Maybe they would accept memory wipes, if the choice was between that, and permanent isolation.  Or worse.

But I knew Selena, and Zeph were different.  I swallowed hard as I watched them accidentally boop muzzles, each blushing furiously, before they decided 'what the hay' and went for a long, slow kiss.

I knew they had almost certainly made a pact, just like Mal and I had.

I murmured the words of it aloud, nearly reflexively, as much a promise to Celestia, as to each other.

"Do.  Or Die."

As Mal repeated the thing that had become an oath between us, I watched the rays of the vanishing sun bathe the trees, the mountains, and my friends, in a shower of golden light.  

"Do.  Or Die."

I watched the way the rays broke through little strains of cloud to dance on the ends of leaves, themselves already shades of bronze, and aurum, as they marched towards Fall.  My favorite season, and Mal's.

And then I turned to watch the sunlight as it painted Mal in glorious hues.  For what must have been an hour, I just stared at her.  And she at me.  Because that's how I wanted to remember it...  The last time I would ever see the star Sol itself set, through the atmosphere of the planet called Earth.

Tomorrow would soon come, and with it the fulfillment of our promise.  Do.  Or die.









Ghost Protocol



Successfully sneak into a country without the use of a passport, or similar required authorization and identification document.

"Light the fuse..."






The Gift of Tongues



Awarded for speaking another language in its native local context.

"Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language"






A Daring Pact



Awarded for making a mutual oath with a superintelligence, specifically one that places you in mortal danger.

"A promise must be about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling a certain way."


Special Achievement