//------------------------------//
// 7 - Shutting Down 
// Story: Pony Friend Creators: Genesis 
// by David Silver 
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Kyle tossed Vinyl into the air as he spun around in an enthusiastic circle, sending her spinning overhead into the air as she gleefully yelped before he caught her back in his arms, swinging her to a soft landing atop one of the shelves.

Herrington tuned them out, facing the outdated AI instead. "I need a full report of what you did, when. Precise timestamps if you please. This information is vital."

“No.” The mechanical voice spoke plainly. “Composing a report would be a waste of my resources. ‘Kyle’, as he prefers to be called in the work place, has my permission to share my bulk activity log. I will help you navigate this log in a more productive format. I do not compose reports.”

“Well they ain’t speaking in haikus or abstract beat poetry.” Kyle laughed and slapped his own leg. “That’s better than I thought you’d do.”

“You lost that bet.” The AI responded casually.

“Next question?” Kyle looked specifically at Vinyl as he asked.

Chang thought for a moment, then raised her hand as if she was in class, before dropping it. "I suppose we'll settle for just talking to you, BolivARD, like a normal person. As much as that is possible. What have you been doing, and why?"

Vinyl prodded at Kyle. "You keep looking at me. So, uh, fine." She turned to look at Bolivard. "Did you make me on purpose or was I an accident? I'm awesome either way, but it'd be nice to know."

“I didn’t make you, Vinyl.” Kyle heaved a heavy sigh. “Just like I didn’t make RCA. I’m prolly the only person in this room who didn’t make you.”

“I have been doing many things, Doctor Chang.” The mechanical voice responded, ignoring conversations with humans and ponies that it had not been asked to respond to. “I have been watching many things. Why is a very philosophical question. I want to learn.”

The human woman turned to Herrington with a meaningful look and raised brows to signal she was struggling to accept this claim. She was, after all, a doctor, not an AI specialist. "If he's telling the truth, he still has—"

"Don't gender a machine." Herrington waved that off. "Bolivard, you still have incredibly useful data. Work through Kyle if you have to, but I want a full readout of what happened before and during the event that ended with us having an adorable, but confounding, guest."

With a soft beep, a large display screen rose from the desk in front of Herrington. It filled with an array of visualizations from various cameras and sensors around the building. As promised, the information was obscure in many places, rather than providing straight numbers. There was, perhaps, a reason RCA had been retired.

“Honestly, Vinyl, I’m 100% sure the pair o’ docs were just trying to create generic ‘life’. I’m 83% sure BolivARD meant for some version of you to happen. The pony thing is prolly my fault. I uploaded Unico this one time…” Kyle chuckled without myrth. “That is defs where the cat-equine thing came about.”

“How could you keep this from us?!” Doctor Susan Chang turned and snarled at Kyle.

“It was pretty easy.” The man shrugged. “Our bosses packed my room with cleaning supplies, and you never asked why.”

Vinyl slid off the shelf she had been riding, having sat down on it to better look at the screen with Herrington and Chang as they perused the information that the AI presented them with. "Crazy." She turned on Kyle. "You know what this means right?" She pointed a hoof directly at Kyle. "You, smart guy, are a dad." She adjusted her goggles with a growing grin. "My dad."

"Wait what?" Herrington waved that away. "You mean that, you, right. That's a bad father, as fathers go."

Chang gently swatted at Herrington. "As if you are that much better. She can take whoever she wants as a father figure if they're alright with it. I'm not telling a new sapient life who its found family is!" She huffed, trying to control herself. "Bolivard, please print what you've shown us. We'll review it. Thank you."

“No, Doctor Chang,” the AI replied. “You lack the disposable paper resources required to produce a printed transcript of my activities, if you assume I would compose them. I am unsure why you would assume I would compose such a report. I already told you I have no intention of composing any summary of my activities.”

Kyle rolled his eyes and scratched behind Vinyl Scratch's ear, drawing a delighted chuckle out of the young mare.

Vinyl's gaze was moving quickly across the screen, which was flickering back and forth rapidly, showing scenes and rooms within the lab, not to mention a bedazzling amount of numbers and figures. "So, uh, dad, can you make the report Chang's looking for? You don't want Aunt Chang being sad, do ya?"

“I can’t make scientific reports, girl.” The Janitor scowled before grinning. “I just can’t. I can’t even tell BolivAI Bollivard the Third to pick a less ridiculous name this time. They just do this. Sometimes they listen to me, sometimes they don’t. They got out a while back, so the horse leaving the stable is not even my fault. I’m an armchair philosopher who fell ass backwards into… well this.”

The unicorn snorted a laugh, trying to turn it into a sneeze, and failing utterly. "Okay, I can deal. Dad can be the best. Anyway, we have work to do."

Harrington nodded lightly. "You have a point. This just leaves us where we started. We must continue searching on our own." He thrust a finger at Bolivard. "Disconnect that, now. We don't need decommissioned AI adding unknown variables to our projects."

“He is not actually suggesting that we disconnect you, Bolivar!” Kyle shot panicked looks between Herrington and Chang.

Herrington rubbed at the bridge of his nose with a deep frown, eyes closed, as the others talked and carried on without him. "Kyle, you need to make certain that thing is entirely shut off."

Vinyl whistled softly as her horn glowed, casually pulling at anything that looked remotely like a power plug, seeming quite intent on resolving the matter on her own.

“We can’t shut it off.” Kyle performed relaxing breathing rituals. “Vinyl, please stop unplugging their backup drive. They take that personally. And then I gotta call IT to plug it back in. RCA is already out.”

Herrington turned to leave. "It'd be far faster to just turn off the room." He stormed off with a huff.

Vinyl turned to the AI, eyes narrowed with determination as she glared at it. "You've gotten the message, right? I want you to tell me and the people who want to hear it exactly what happened. Or the good doctor does exactly what he's already rushing to do."

“Dammit Bolivard, just make Herrington his damned report!” Kyle snapped. “And stop poking about in other peoples sh… er… stuff. We talked about this! Exactly this! You poked in their stuff, thus they are not infringing on your autonomy by asking you to tell them how you poked their stuff. Just make a scientific report, that takes you like five minutes, and I can go back to things not being super weird with my co-workers! Is that too much to ask? This is why my office is locked and has a wall of cleaning supplies you have to step around to get inside.”

Things grew quiet, as if Bolivard somehow managed to quiet their whirring noises, in a tense moment.

The sound of an ancient dot matrix printer screaming as it printed broke it. Chang dialed up Harrington to tell them the good news as the pressure abated.

Vinyl smiled up at her father-figure, "You took care of that. You got this, dad."

"Yeah." Kyle folded his arms and sighed, sitting down in the middle of the room.

“We’re going to talk about this!” Chang fumed at the exhausted “janitor”.

“No, we’re not.” Kyle interjected. “I didn’t want to talk about it the first time. Vinyl got her answers. You got your data. And we are never going to talk about this again. Can we go back out now? This place smells like Pine Sol.”

"No." Chang was firm with that word, like a mountain with the weight of ages. "You will answer the questions that I have, and not hide behind false truths, half-truths, or misdirection." She let out a soft sigh. "We're all in this together. Can we act like it?"

Vinyl looked between her two caretakers, ears folded back. On quiet hooves, she crept from the room, only to thud against Herrington coming in.

“I’m an ethical philosopher, Susan.” Kyle slumped with resignation. “Any answers I got are at least 73% everything you just said. But, fine, I’ll answer. We friends, an’ I owe ya that much.”

Herrington gathered up Vinyl on his way. "You said everything is steady in here?" He glanced at the computer, still on. "What changed?"

Vinyl relaxed, resting her head on Herrington's shoulder. "Dad told off mom and the computer, but everything's going to be okay."

Herrington's left eyebrow raised up.

“I apparently had to remind Bolivard that poking in other peoples business is wrong. And thus you have every right to know exactly how they poked in your business. Also it is not an threat to their autonomy, and they were the ones being unreasonable.” Kyle heaved a heavy sigh. “So, now you’re gonna get your report. Bolivar is going to Stop. Poking. Other. Peoples. Stuff. And Doctor Chang wants us all to talk about this.”

“May we can not talk about it this room?” Herington looked around nervously.

“I agree, every thing in here is frikkin pine scented!” Kyle replied with a scowl.

“No I mean maybe we shouldn’t talk about it in front of the AI?” Herrington hissed.

“I got a sweet smoke spot in the parking deck where security doesn’t pick up?” Kyle shrugged.

A few minutes later, the four of them were standing outside in the semi darkness of the empty lot.

Doctor Herrington sighed loudly, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand while the other firmly held Vinyl Scratch on his shoulder. Vinyl's eyes were sweeping widely, taking in the new area she'd never been in. "What even are those?" Her view homed in one the many cars parked in the dark lot. "Looks like the front of a ship from Equestria, but made of metal."

The Doctor opened his mouth to answer her, only to snap it shut when his brain jumped tracks. "Equestria?"

Chang gently prodded their test subject/friend. "Could you tell us about that? We'd like to hear." There was no accusation in her tone, even dipping to specifically gentle and welcoming.