Robotic Stallion: Love Machines

by Hooves Like Jagger

III: Shell

Canterlot Municipal Library was far from the most modest place to house literature. The three story building didn’t have a single stair inside, but if a pony put their back into it, he or she could climb to the ceiling on one of the loaded bookshelves. That practice, however, was not generally advised and it would just be easier to fly or use one of the tall ladders provided by tax payer money. With Canterlot’s bustling Academia, those ladders got a lot of use.

In the dim twilight of morning, each ladder was unoccupied. Since the library had closed last night, not one living thing had entered into this sanctuary for literature. No living creature occupied the reading nooks. No living creature stacked high the contents of countless shelves into skyscrapers of pages upon pages. No living creature bore through book after book in said towers, adding the finished books to an ever growing pile on the floor.

Since no living creature was around, the librarian unlocked and opened up the library’s front doors under the impression that she was completely alone, and she hated being alone. She was probably the prettiest and the loneliest single mare in Canterlot right now. With her golden mane and white coat, she could easily pass for a member of the royal family. Unfortunately, her lack of a horn made it painfully obvious that she didn’t have a single drop of royalty in her blood.

The librarian heaved her daily sigh of eternal lament for her dead-end job in Equestria’s most prestigious city and turned the library’s sign from “Closed” to “Open”. Students and professors bound for higher purposes would come flooding in soon enough, so she set about preparing the library quickly. The sooner she sat behind the reception desk, the sooner she could pretend to care while secretly being dead to the world.

She heard a soft thump: the unmistakable sound of a book closing. Since she was the only living creature in the library, even the softest of noises could stretch from a lonely corner to the front door. She knew this well because there were a hoofful of times she’d come in to find mice knocking books off shelves.

The mare really didn’t want to deal with mice, but she had no choice. She went to the reception desk first in order to get a weapon to do battle with. In the lowest drawer of her desk, she kept three books: an encyclopedia published ten years ago, an address book for the entirety of Equestria, and a hardcover novel she enjoyed once when she was in her teens. She picked the hardcover today, since it was light and easy to use against mice. She’d done a good job of cleaning off the evidence of this particular book’s effectiveness.

Another thump directed her to where her rodent problem was located. She grumbled, her book in mouth, about how it was the janitors’ jobs to take care of this, not her’s. A mouse on her watch would be on her head, though, so there wasn’t much else she could do. She turned the corner around a tall shelf and an area occupied by study nooks.

She quickly jumped back behind the shelf.

That wasn’t a mouse. There was a fully grown pegasus stallion already here in the library. She craned her neck to get another look at the intruder. He was large, muscular, stone faced, and wearing a little blue bow tie. He didn’t look up from where he was reading at what looked like a breakneck pace as he flipped through pages without a single stop. The intruder slammed the book before him shut, set it down, and then proceeded to take another book from a large pile by his side. By the looks of his discard pile, this stallion had been reading away for a while now.

The librarian ducked back behind the shelf and reevaluated the situation. She looked down at the book in her teeth, deciding she wasn’t going to do any damage with it. Besides, this stallion wasn’t bothering anypony. Sure, he came in when the library was closed, but was certifiably open now. There wasn’t any need to cause a scene… however, she can’t just overlook an odd pegasus in the library. It was her job to make sure he wasn’t going to steal anything or dog-ear the pages in any books he read.

“Ahem, excuse me? Sir?” The librarian stepped out and greeted Null, right after stowing her novel on the shelf she’d previously been hiding behind. “Can I help you?” Null looked up from his reading and spun his head around to look at the mare who had just appeared. He found her query very open-ended, but he processed the answer anyway.

“Affirmative. This unit seeks to understand a number of things,” Null explained. He’d been pouring through volumes and volumes of poetry and he’d assimilated quite a large collection of it in his memory banks, but he was not entirely sure how to proceed. On top of that, he’d failed to gather any sort of information on the other topics that were bothering him.

“Oh… well… what kind of information are you looking for?” the librarian asked.

“This unit requires information on the ‘emotional heart’.” Null stared down the librarian while she tried to process what the heck he was talking about. “This unit also requires information on ‘sweeping a mare off her hooves’.”

“You mean, like… romance?” the librarian asked, giving it her best guess.

“Affirmative. This unit seeks ‘romance’.”

The librarian cocked an eyebrow at the stranger. From the way he worded that, it sounded more like he was interested in finding a marefriend rather than learning about romance. On the other hoof, it didn’t make any sense for a fully grown stallion to show up at a library to research what romance was. She wondered if he might be hitting on her.

“So… you’re looking for a romance novel?” The librarian waited for Null to say something, but he just kept perfectly still and stared at her. She decided, right there and then, that this stallion was some kind of crazy.

“Affirmative. This unit will sample a ‘romance novel’ and acquire the information therein.”

“Uh-uh, oh! You do want a romance novel… then?” the librarian half said and asked, surprised that the stallion actually said “yes” to a novel. He sure had an odd way of speaking, but maybe he wasn’t from around here. He might be having trouble finding what he was looking for because he didn’t speak or read Equestrian very well. It would also explain why he wandered into a library before was even open.

“Affirmative,” Null said, reiterating his previous statement. Thinking fast, the librarian went behind the self and retrieved the book she originally intended to beat her intruder with. She brought it over to him and dropped it onto the desk in which he sat.

“Here, try this.” She put a hoof on the cover and read it aloud to him, just in case he was going to struggle with it. “Plantains of Passion 4: Love is a Dish that is Much More Palatable When There is No Rind, But it Must Be Eaten With the Rind Anyway. It’s a bit old, but you might enjoy it.”

“Affirmative. Processing.” Null flipped open the book and began reading it, a task that didn’t take much effort on his part. The librarian watched as he scanned the two-hundred page novel in twelve-and-three-quarters seconds. She thought that surely this stallion couldn’t possibly read that fast; he didn’t even have time to process what he’d just read. The latter part was true, seeing as Null first needed the entire text of the novel in his data storage to interpret it.

He poured through the information. A lot of it didn’t seem relevant or true at all, but he did pull substantial knowledge from it. Using what he found, he created a new program for romance. He checked and double checked it, making sure it would run properly once executed. It appeared to work flawlessly. There was only one last thing to do: a field test.

“This unit will now perform its newly developed ‘romance’ function upon you,” Null said, turning to the librarian as he got up from his seat. The librarian’s eyes got real wide while her pupils got real small.

“Y-you’re gonna… what? Are, are you hitting on me?”

“Error. Unknown terminology ‘hitting on me’,” Null said. The librarian wondered if he really was from out of town, seeing as he didn’t know a phrase like “hitting on me”. She was torn between running away and explaining it. For some odd reason, she chose the latter. She hadn’t had a special somepony since… a while, so part of her wanted to see what this stranger’s intentions were.

“I’m asking if… if you’re, you know… attracted to me?” the librarian asked. Null analyzed her statement. He determined this mare was in possession of knowledge that may be pertinent to the success of his romance function. “You know… on a scale of, say… one to ten… how attractive to you find me?”

“Query: what traits determine attraction?” Null asked. The librarian wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but she pressed on. There was something thrilling about this mysterious stranger.

“Well… anything really…” The librarian planned to elaborate, but Null had heard all he needed to hear. He could determine if the mare before him was attractive. He approached the librarian, getting closer than she felt comfortable with.

“Query: Is a well-kept, golden mane an attractive trait?”

The librarian just gawked up at him. He certainly didn’t mince words, and he actually appeared to be awaiting her response.

“Y-yes, I guess it is.”

“Query: Are bright, alert, green eyes an attractive trait?” Null asked, getting right down into the librarian’s face. She felt a blush start to creep across her cheeks. The odd stallion’s compliments were of the typical sort, but she hadn’t heard them for a while.

“I-I hear they are,” she said after a beat.

“Query: Are long, full, curled eyelashes an attractive trait?”

“Y-yes,” the librarian confirmed once more. She was shocked he’d even say that, seeing as she hadn’t even put on make-up today.

“Query: Are well-moisturized, soft lips attractive?” The librarian involuntarily scrunched up her lips while she nodded her assent. Null turned his attention away from the mare’s head and examined her body. “Query: is a thin, curved frame attractive?”

The librarian turned and looked at herself. She labored long and hard to keep her trim figure, but no stallion had ever directly complimented her on it. She knew her blush was getting worse as she felt her heart rate pick up.

“Yes… yes, it’s attractive.” The librarian said, just barely loud enough for Null to hear. Upon getting confirmation, Null suddenly dipped his head low to the floor and scrutinized her front hooves.

“Query: are well maintained, light-refracting hooves attractive?”

“T-they aren’t that shiny…”

“Negative,” Null replied. “These hooves do indeed have the property of ‘shine’.”

“T-thanks,” the librarian said, blushing even more while consciously crossing one hoof in front of the other, as if that prevented Null from seeing them at all.

“This unit awaits your response,” Null reminded her.

“Oh, right! Yes! The-the answer is yes!” she replied. Null went right on with his inspection.

“Query: is smooth, well-groomed hair attractive?” Null asked. All the librarian could do was nod in confirmation. “Query: are long, thin legs attractive?”

“Uh… uh-huh.” The librarian’s mind had been reduced to goop. She didn’t know what was going on anymore, but all she knew was her face was hot, her heart was pounding, and she was hanging on this stallion’s every word.

“Query: is a smaller stature attractive?”

“Yeah…”

Null paused as he searched for another trait to evaluate. He scanned her up and down, searching for something he hadn’t evaluated yet. When he found that something, he locked onto it and scrutinized its properties. It was a hard nut to crack, but after a few seconds he had his final query.

“Query: are well proportioned, round buttocks attractive?”

The last question set the librarian over the edge. He just said she had a nice flank. Nopony had ever even hinted at the fact that she might have a nice flank. She should be calling the police on a stranger who was telling her she had a nice flank, but this smooth talking pegasus was a different story altogether.

She felt like she was a silly school filly again, blushing and smiling like a complete idiot. None of the ponies she’d been with ever made her feel so beautiful. None of the ponies she’d been with were ever so generous with compliments. None of the ponies she’d been with looked so good in just a bow tie. She decided she must know more about this romantic stranger as she gave him one, final nod.

“Assessment completed. This unit has determined your score to be ten out of ten, perfectly attractive,” Null announced. The librarian smiled coyly, drawing tiny hearts on the ground with her hoof.

“You’re exaggerating,” she said, praying to Celestia that acting modest would earn her further praise.

“Negative. The evidence supports only a perfect result. No exaggeration is possible.” Null couldn’t fathom why this mare would doubt the evidence of the test she told him would work. She did look awfully flushed, though. It was possible she was running a fever and was incapable of streamline thought processes.

“You… you really think I’m that attractive?” the librarian asked. Any more praise was going to kill her, but she wanted it. She wanted it even if it meant a painful death. She bit her lip and braced herself for whatever her flattering stranger might say.

“All evidence points to that specific conclusion; it is irrefutable fact.”

“Where have you been all my life?” the librarian asked as her heart sublimated into hot steam, rising up into her brain and fogging up her eyes until all she could see were fuzzy little hearts around the stallion before her.

“The outskirts of Stalliongrad,” Null replied. The librarian couldn’t believe she had been right about him; he was foreign. He was foreign, sweet, handsome, and crazy about her! She couldn’t believe it. It was exactly like when Duchess Distress met Mofongo, the plantain farmer from the southern islands, in “Plantains of Passion: Love is an Odd Fruit You’ve Never Seen Before, But I Promise if You Just Try it You Will Find it Delicious.” The only difference was the stranger before her didn’t have a bushy moustache and she wasn’t dangling by a burning piece of twine over a pit of ravenous, monocle wearing badgers. She considered both of those facts a plus.

“This unit will now run its romance function,” Null said after the mare in front of him didn’t say a word or make a sound aside from giggling for a full minute.

“Okay,” the librarian said, batting her eyelashes up at him while giving him a sultry smile.

“Query: what is your name?”

“Novella, what’s yours?” the librarian asked right back.

“This unit is called Null,” he said. “Preparations to run romance function are completed. Commencing operation.”

“Sounds good to me…”

There was a knock on the door to Twilight Sparkle’s chambers. The noise didn’t even cause her to stir in her ornate canopy bed as she continued to sleep like a foal given a double dose of bear tranquilizer. Yesterday’s happenings had worn her out, both mentally and physically. It would take more than a little knocking to get her up this morning.

Unfortunately, her door bursting open and Rainbow Dash shouting her name as she trotted into the chamber was enough to wake her up with a start. Twilight sat up in her bed, her mane all over the place and her head swimming in post-sleep grogginess. Her friend continued trying to communicate, but Twilight was far too busy trying to make the three Rainbow Dashes in front of her stop moving around.

“Rainbow Dash… what’re you doing here so early?” she finally managed to ask after a long, satisfying yawn. She stretched her back out and, forgetting herself, scratched her pits.

“I just told you! I couldn’t find you last night, but I wanted to know if you found Nil,” Rainbow Dash inquired for a second time. Twilight rubbed some sleep out of her eyes, biding some time for her brain to remember what a Nil was. Like a bad dream, the pieces began falling back into place as last night’s events came stumbling back.

“I did find Nil last night; did you find Null?” Twilight asked. She had returned straight to the castle after she escaped from Nil. The unicorn needed sleep before she could rectify her runaway robot problems.

“Yeah, I found him,” Rainbow Dash replied. “He was acting really weird, though.”

“Did he tell you his primary function was to love you?” Twilight asked.

“That’s exactly what he said!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, rolling her eyes at the mere thought of having a robot confess to her. It was only a little odd at the time, but when she woke up this morning it was monumentally embarrassing. When a stallion reveals his feelings to a mare, it’s supposed to be all mushy and romantic. If the stallion in question was a heartless robot, any question of romance went right out the window. “Is Nil the same way?”

Twilight nodded and heaved a sigh. Two points made a line, meaning Cadence had somehow reprogrammed Nil and Null to actually attempt loving. The instructions obviously weren’t terribly clear, if Nil’s line of questioning was any indicator.

“Well, what do we do about them?” Rainbow Dash asked. “We can’t just let them wander around on their own. They belong in the museum!”

“I know, I know,” Twilight said, having already gone through this in her own head last night before bed. The problem seemed huge, but at its core the solution was simple. “We just have to get Nil to zap Null, move them back to the museum, and everypony can go home happy.”

“Yeah, but how are we going to get Nil to do that now that he won’t listen to you?”

“Oh, he’ll listen,” Twilight assured her. “Those two want to know what ‘love’ is, right? I’ll just tell Nil that in order to love me, he has to zap Null. He’ll do it without question.”

Rainbow Dash mulled the plan over. It was just crazy enough to work, and considering how much crazy it took to even get in this sticky situation in the first place, that was saying something. Of course, getting Nil and Null turned off was only part of the battle. There was another elephant in the room that needed addressing.

“Won’t we get in trouble for… you know, stealing them?” Rainbow Dash asked. This thought haunted Twilight Sparkle. Twilight did not get in trouble with the law: that was a given. She could not and would not allow this little mishap to tarnish her perfect record. Besides, she didn’t steal Nil and Null; she just borrowed them. It was Rainbow Dash’s idea anyway.

“We won’t get in trouble as long as we put them back before anypony notices,” Twilight said, assuring her friend. Rainbow Dash had plenty of reason to keep her nose clean as well. The Wonderbolts did not take kindly to criminal offenses. Stealing two artifacts could mean suspension or even expulsion for her. Though, in reality, she didn’t actually physically steal Nil and Null. Twilight Sparkle was the one who turned them on.

“You’re sure we’ll be okay?” Rainbow Dash asked, seeking conclusive comfort from her cohort.

“I’m positive,” Twilight replied. “Look, I’ll even write another letter to Big Lugnut and ask him what the best way to track down Nil and Null is.” Twilight got up from her bed and trotted over to her desk. She levitated the piles of books, scrolls and ledgers off the mahogany writing station and onto the floor with the rest of her discarded paperwork. She brought out the materials to write a letter and set to penning their friend back in Ponyville.

“Alright, I just hope this works,” Rainbow Dash said. Twilight rolled her eyes. Normally, it was she who was getting worked up about situations like this, but she had to admit that being on the other end of all the fretting and complaining wasn’t very pleasant.

“For the last time, it’ll be just fine. Relax, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said, being careful not to write those words onto her letter to Lugnut. Rainbow Dash took a few deep breaths, calming herself down. She was worrying too much. Twilight’s plan would work and everything would go back to normal.

“You’re right Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said with a satisfied sigh. “This is no big deal and there is no way we’re gonna get in trouble.”

“This is a big deal and there is no way somepony isn’t gonna get in trouble!” the young, hardboiled, ace detective I. Spy declared. “Whoever stole these priceless artifacts, Nile and Nool-”

“Nil and Null, sir,” the slightly younger, soft boiled, rookie detective assistant Paddy said in a barely audible whisper, looking up at her boss from behind her notepad only briefly. She turned the page with her magic, taking note of what was missing from the crime scene.

“-Nil and Null, is gonna learn about Equestrian justice the hard way!” Spy concluded. “Paddy! I want hoofprints! I want hair samples! I want the names of everypony who knows these artifacts were here and then I want all their grandmothers in a line-up!” Spy ran a hoof through his brown moustache as he waited for his assistant to scrawl everything down.

“W-well, sir, it seems there are no hoofprints or hair samples aside from the janitor’s from when he cleaned up last night. According to him, he didn’t know Nil and Null were supposed to be in the exhibit already,” Paddy explained. The pink unicorn flipped through her notes a few more times, but she didn’t find any good news. Detective I. Spy didn’t like it when there was no good news, so she shut her eyes and braced herself for an outburst.

“So… nopony knows that Kneel and Bull were here, eh?” Spy asked very calmy. Paddy popped an eye open and examined her notes once more.

“Y-yes, sir. Only the museum owners knew, but they all have alibis for the time of the theft,” Paddy explained.

“CURSES!” Spy shouted, surprising Paddy so much she jumped off her hooves and landed on her back. “All the suspects have perfect alibis. We’re gonna have to do this from the ground up, without even a single suspect.”

“T-there is the janitor, sir,” Paddy reminded him.

“LOCK THE SICK SON OF A MANTICORE UP AND THROW AWAY THE KEY!” Spy demanded, startling Paddy once again and causing her to flip off her back onto her hooves. She stuttered off a few incomprehensible words of confirmation before skidding off in a panic to have the police take the janitor in for further questioning. More than a few strands of her caramel-colored mane freed themselves from the bun they were tied in as she stumbled whimpering down the hallway.

I. Spy stayed in the empty display room, silently examining the vacant stage with caution tape around it. He knew there was a clue in there somewhere: his detective’s intuition told him so and it never led him astray. If he looked long and hard enough, he would make the clue reveal itself to him. He called upon the great detective powers of his granddaddy to bless him with the ability to see the truth.

He saw it. The clue was staring him in the face this whole time. He reached into his trench coat and pulled a out hoof file. He didn’t give himself a hooficure, instead approaching the empty stand with the file between his teeth. He leaned down next to the pedestal and examined the part that had caught his eye: a place where the stand had a black discoloration. He thought it was just the aesthetics of the pedestal at first, but a few gentle scrapes with his file revealed that was not the case. When he examined the black residue he’d collected, he knew what he was dealing with.

“Scorch marks. No doubt from magic!” he observed. “So the perp is a unicorn, eh? A perp unicorn…”

“S-sir!” Paddy whisper shouted as she reentered the crime scene. “They’re taking the janitor down to the station right now.”

“Is the janitor a unicorn?” I. Spy asked. Paddy shook her head. “YOU FOOL!”

“Ah! I’m sorry, sir!” Paddy screamed, apologizing as she cowered under her little notepad.

“Paddy! I want to know everything there is to know about Bill and Bowl-”

“Nil and Null…”

“And I want this whole thing kept hush-hush! I don’t want any potential suspects getting spooked with talk of an investigation about this theft. You and I will investigate on our own, alright? Get that to the chief straight away!” Spy ordered. Paddy finished scribbling all those instructions down and gave her boss a hasty bow. She turned about and, once more, scrambled out of the display room.

I. Spy turned back to the empty pedestal. Finding the crooked crook that committed the crime wouldn’t be easy, but at the same time there was no doubt in his mind that the criminal would be brought to justice. He or she would stand before the judge and receive their due punishment when all was said and done. There was no hiding the truth-not from I. Spy.

“Oh, go on, please!” Novella pleaded, staring up at the vision of pure masculinity before her as she propped her chin up on her hooves. He sat next to her at the front desk, staring that sexy stare off into some unknown part of the universe. He was so stoic and so composed, and she found that irresistible.

“Very well, this unit shall continue,” Null responded. He delved into his archives and pulled out poems he’d read at random. The ones that were decidedly “unromantic” were discarded. When he encountered one that appeared to conform to the romantic template, he stopped and proceeded to recite it.

“I want to place my hooves upon your hips
To pull you close and feel your warmth on me.
And here my lover I shall steal your lips
So we might feel envy from all who see.
I once was free to love but change has come
Denounced freedom so I could love just you.
Replenished the cup my courage springs from
Now full of you my life can start anew.
May winter drive you into my embrace
And then come spring these budding hearts arise.
Then with summer sun I will kiss your face
The waning of the fall our love denies.
My life is now not mine to let them take
For I must live if only for your sake.”

A robot reciting poetry was just as bad as it sounds. When a mare, or anypony for that matter, is under the illusion that the pony reciting the poetry is a hunky, romantic, foreign stallion, it is immeasurably better. Novella couldn’t have anticipated this when she woke up today, but she was already getting used to the idea of having Null around for the rest of her life. She’d already picked out names for their future children-all three of them.

It was hard for her not to feel giddy and full of mushy stupid. It wasn’t just Null paying attention to her either, but every mare and stallion who walked by the library’s front desk. Novella swore she saw jealously on each and every face. The mares only wished they had such a handsome, sensitive special somepony and the stallions gnashed their teeth trying to figure out how such a dour looking gentlecolt could nab such a pretty mare.

Null couldn’t care less about what the other stallions and mares were thinking about. He was far too busy compiling information from Novella’s reactions and mannerisms, building up and reinforcing his romance function. The program was already very robust and it just kept producing better and better results. With his newfound capabilities, getting the love function to run properly wouldn’t pose the slightest problem.

“Oh Null, how do you know so much poetry?” Novella asked, fawning over the stallion at a level that would have creeped out anypony else had they been on the receiving end. Null just noted the exaggerated body language, the constantly fluttering eyelids, the hoof running along his chest, and the elevated tone of voice. He assumed these were signs his function was working properly.

“I acquired this data by scanning a large collection of anthologies,” Null explained.

“But how ever do you remember them all?” Novella asked, pouting her lips a bit at Null. The robot had to process the answer to that question for a while. He could go into depth about the complexities of how his machine brain sorted and stored data for easy retrieval, but part of his romance function instructed him to keep statements not about the mare before him concise. Working with the function, Null came up with the appropriate, romantic answer.

“I excel at memory storage merely because it pleases you,” he said. Novella giggled to herself before leaning deep into one of her hooves while twirling circles in what she perceived to be Null’s copious chest hair.

“Why are you so perfect?” Novella felt very sane all of a sudden. She looked up at him. He was looking straight down at her. Blood rushed to her face as her heart pounded furiously. Everything was happening so quickly. She never believed that love could come on so fast. “… Love? Is it really?”

Null couldn’t pick up what she was mumbling under her breath, but it seemed to be directed at him. He kept his gaze locked on her, awaiting the next input. Novella stopped leaning on her hoof, but put more pressure into the one on Null’s chest. She got up on just her hind hooves, balancing herself by placing both of her hooves on Null’s shoulders. He didn’t budge an inch. She leaned up towards his face, bringing her lips closer and closer to where his supposedly were.

She got closer, and closer to the unmoving Null. She closed her eyes, but kept moving forward. If just talking with him made her so hot, she needed to know how kissing him felt. She was starved for that sensation. Without feeling it once, she already felt addicted. The moment came closer and closer. She braced herself for the most intense kiss of her life.

Unfortunately, she ended up kissing the floor.

Millimeters away from touchdown, something right outside the library windows caught Null’s eyes. Satisfied with his data mining exercise, he shut off his romance function, and started towards the library exit. Novella managed to pry her lips off the floor just in time to see Null headed out the door with the novel she’d given him tucked under his wing.

“W-wait! Where are you going?” she asked. He wasn’t quite gone yet, but the mere thought of him going out those doors for any reason made her feel cold. She didn’t want him to leave, not when things were starting to heat up like that. Null halted in the doorway and spun his head around to address her, piercing her heart with that stoic gaze of his.

“Ultimate destination unknown. This unit must regroup at this time,” Null explained.

“When will I see you again?” Novella asked, praying he’d say tomorrow. Tomorrow wasn’t soon enough. She hoped for just a few hours, or just one hour. A minute seemed too short to ask, but her heart cried out for him to return to her side that moment. She’d only known him for two hours, but the thought of returning to life without him frightened her.

“Returning to this location is inevitable; however, the time of such a return cannot be determined,” Null said. With that, he walked out the door into the high noon sun. Novella just watched him go, but she believed deep in her heart of hearts that he would return.

“I love you,” she whispered to the closed door.

“For the last time, if you want to buy flowers you have to go to a flower shop, citizen,” the guard warned Nil for what felt like the millionth time. Nil stared at the floors out in front of the library, having come so close to his goal only to be thwarted by the same guard once more. His programming called for flowers, so he needed to find the flowers he’d be allowed to procure.

“Where is this ‘flower shop’ located?” Nil asked the guard, who was beyond peeved with this strange pony’s behavior.

“There’s a shop on the corner of Starswirl Lane and Royal Road. Go there and stay out of trouble, you hear?”

“Affirmative.”

The guard just shook his head, absolutely certain Nil was a lost cause. He took to his wings and flew back to his original post. If that strange unicorn insisted on getting in trouble, some other guard could throw him in jail. “Crazy tourists…”

Nil watched the guard fly off while he calculated the coordinates of his destination. Before he could begin his route, Null appeared before him.

“Greetings. This unit brings news concerning the love function,” he announced.

“Has Null procured flowers for his target?” Nil asked, scanning Null for possessions. The only thing the stallion had was a small book. Since having flowers was essential to carry out their primary directive, Nil calculated that the probability of his companion knowing the location of flowers was high.

“Negative. Null has successfully researched ‘romance’ and acquired ‘poetry’ for his target. This document will provide important information.” Null held the book out for Nil, who grabbed it with his telekinesis. The mechanical unicorn didn’t know what “romance” and “poetry” had to do with flowers, but he scanned the book Null gave him anyway. After analyzing the data, he found it… sparse.

“This unit does not see the importance of ‘romance’ or ‘poetry’ Null has stated. Instead, based off this information, the probability is higher that ‘flowers’ and ‘moustache’ are imperative to the love function.” Nil levitated the book back to Null, who tucked it back under his wing. “It is highly likely this is not the first iteration of this document. This unit suggests Nil search for and examine those before proceeding with his primary function.”

“Negative,” Null responded. He had all the data he needed. His function worked and produced real results now. “This unit will use the romance function to gather data to return to Nil. Await my instruction before editing your function.” Null took his leave of Nil, trotting away from the library and down the street that led towards the castle. Nil took his suggestion into consideration, but discarded it.

“This unit will proceed to the ‘flower shop’.”