Parker looked around, one moment he had been talking to Red Wood, and the next he was alone. The room was just as blank and uninteresting as it had been before. Contemplating what this meant, Parker walked around the space, looking now for clues about it’s nature.
“This is definitely not a dream, the Doctor must have made it, and it was a rush job by the look of it.” Parker mused to himself. He bent closer to one of the few pieces of furniture in the room, a white on white table. He realized that white on white would better be called ‘un textured’ the furniture was made of geometric primitives, a very low rez mesh and the only reason he could even see it at all was the lighting model of this simulation was just smart enough to highlight and contrast edges. At least the image of his own body was at full resolution, but that was probably because the Doctor had to make a full map when rewiring his brain into this body.
He glanced down at his body, then up at the mirror again, this time it was just a reflection and not Red Wood in the mirror. It really was the first chance he had to look himself over since the transport.
“Hmm looks sort of like the show ponies, at least in outline, details are all, well more organic. At bit closer to the uncanny valley than I expected. Eyes are much smaller, larger than human, but not the pie plates from the show.” He looked down at his underbody, “Definitely a male body, didn’t think about that before, but I guess I lucked out. Though don’t really know what the odds were until I learn more, can’t be sure if that gender imbalance seen in the early seasons, apply here as well.”
He looked a bit closer, “OK, that answers one question. Public nudity is definitely a cultural thing, the theories about internal sheaths and the tails providing adequate modesty can’t be right. There is no way I can swish that tail to completely cover that.”
He then looked at his legs and hoofs. He’d been using them, walking and running, by grace of the borrowed instincts. “The legs and hoofs are not really equine like at all. Much too thick compared to earth ponies, fat and extra muscles make the legs thicker, more tube like, with earth equines you see the bone and joints right through the leg hide. These legs are more like the show’s, each joint seems to be ridiculously flexible, no way to lock them either, so I doubt these ponies can sleep standing up. Also they are probably not as fast runners are earth equines. Though I bet they probably could still outrun humans.”
“Hmm, the joints really don’t line up the way earth mammals do. Very different joints, the lower part of the leg is not just an extended finger, that last joint really is more of wrist, I can bend it every which way. Hmm the hoof itself is much more complex than an earth horse, I think I feel tendons going back to the mid leg from there.”
He picked up and looked at the hoof closely. “Ahh, so the frog is much softer and more flexible I have some muscle control and can pull it in and out and bend it. The Doctor mapped it to how I imagine my thumb moves. The hard layer is much thinner, and broken in segments, it is horseshoe shaped but I can squeeze the tips together. I can see why Rarity pricked herself in one of the shows with a needle, most of base is skin, thick and calloused but only the edge is hard keratin.”
Parker experimented a bit and realized the extra muscles and changes to the hoof design allowed him to grip things, the grip itself wasn’t very dexterous, all fine motion had to come from the wrist but it was clear he could hold onto things that could fit between the hoof’s opening. It was a bit strange and limited compared to fingers, but obviously it was sufficient to explain how the ponies had become builders and tool users.
“I’m not sure if earth like evolution is even active here, but on earth, equines are all about speed and running to escape predators, here I guess they learned to throw stones and use club to defend themselves but unlike humans stayed herbivores.”
Again Parker wished again that the Doctor had remained, it was supposed to make all the scientific observations and let Parker manage the goal planning. He turned away from the mirror and spotted another table on the far side of the room, on it was something he had observed when he first arrived in the room but had forgotten about when Red Wood’s reflection had caught his attention. There was a data pad on that table.
Parker walked over to the device and looked it over. Like the furniture, it looked like a rush job, shaped like the antiquated apple Ipads but lacked any branding. Parker let it lay on the table and taped it carefully with his hoof.
Instantly it lit up and showed two question mark icons. There was no sign of any of the other tools or setting controls one would expect on a real data pad. Under the icons were two simple text labels, one read ‘notes’ the other was ‘medical report’.
Parker tapped the one labeled ‘notes’ first. It opened up into a notepad application, it only had save and exit options on its one tiny menu, voice input, but with no options for spell check or formatting, as primitive an app as he had ever seen. But Parker barely noticed this as there was a note for him at the top of the file.
To: Sir
From: Medical Unit.
Subject: Apologies.
Sir Parker,
As I’m sure you are aware by now, our mission has become compromised. I found myself unable to complete my original instructions according to the mission guidelines, do to conflicts with my ‘do no harm’ directive.
Looking back at my log, I can see where I made a fatal mistake, I saw the presence of a convenient dead body, just a few meters from our entry portal, as a lucky coincidence and started the repair and transfer process before assuring that there was no one with legal claim to the body in the area. In addition my range sensors failed to detect a young cult who appears to be a direct relative to the deceased in the area, why this failed will need to be investigated for future missions, but for now we must deal with the current situation.
The Pony identified as ‘Banyan’ was the only responding authorized party, and gave me instructions to ‘save his father’, the data link back through the portal has proven unusable and I was unable to get an overriding instruction, so I compromised.
I have tried to follow my conflicting orders as best as I can. Unfortunately my resources were limited and I had to consume all available nano devices in order to complete this task. As of now, your brain image and the subject known as ‘Red Wood’ are sharing the same bio hardware. I have put in some protection layers so your two minds will not become mixed. Due to the nature of biological neural nets this separation is not perfect and you will experience some memory leakage. As well, only one of you will be able to operate the physical body at a time. I have rigged up this simulation room for the detached mind to be able to rest in and communicate with the other mind. There should be a functional display device in the middle of the room, with some practice it should allow you to observe and hear the external world. With additional practice you should also be able to send simple emotions and short messages to the other mind though this interface. Longer and more informative communication will only be possible when you are both in early rapid eye movement stages of sleep. You should also be able to switch out which of your two minds have control of the body after each sleep cycle.
I wish I had more time to explain all the details or communicate directly with you, but I already have dangerously exhausted all my spare resources.
Unfortunately along with the medical resources I contained, I also have had to consume all the spare parts that was earmarked for reopening the portal for our return trip to Earth. I do not know how these can be replaced. Unless you can find a way to recharge the energy store in my pool of nanites, I do not see how we will be able to communicate in the future.
Good luck sir, if you find a way to reopen the portal, please send a copy of my medical notes back to Earth, as I do not think I’ll be able to submit the report myself.
Medical Unit, Pony World Penetration Mission.
End of Text
Parker reread the letter twice, then sat on the floor quietly, not letting himself think. He had assumed if things failed, he’d be, well just dead, not alive and trapped. He also wasn’t sure how he felt about the Doctor, it clearly had given it ‘all’ for his sake, and if the Doctor had been human it would have been a praise worthy self sacrifice, but on the other hand the whole problem was due to the Doctor’s limited ability to deal with conflicting instructions. If it was a medical or neurological question, the Doctor was a super genius, but everything else and he was just a tad more capable than a toddler.
This was a disaster of the worst type, total failure had of course been considered, but that just assumed that the nanites wouldn’t work in the alternative physics of this world, the idea that the nanites would work and his mind uploaded successfully but unable to return home, was just skimmed over as too unlikely. Now Parker considered, was there a chance of rescue? Not really, at least not soon. It wasn’t as if they would be worried about him, they had a copy of his memories in storage, and could clone a new brain for his human body at anytime. Once the mission is declared a failure, that’s exactly what they’ll do. Back on earth he’ll wake up, with no memories of what happened here and no idea that he was awake and aware on this side. Though they’ll hold that off as long as the budget lets them. They wouldn’t expect the Doctor to find a suitable morgue or subject for a month or more. But then they were expecting him to create a beacon to signal and aid them. With out nanties to build one they will have to do all the very expensive work of re-opening the portal from earth side. That meant a full budget cycle, the energy cost and money was tight, there’s a real chance that a rescue would never be attempted.
After a few minutes of self pity, Parker glanced at the Doctor’s medical log, most of it was written in a sort of code that other medical AI’s would understand, but there was periodic summary headers that were more human readable. No that helped him much, he really didn’t care about differences in blood chemistry and oddities in the ponies gallbladders. A few things did stand out as curious but only in the most general sense of the word.
Seems the Doctor was convinced the Ponies DNA showed signs of it being engineered, some repeating patterns in the ‘junk DNA’ seemed suspect. Also being that the Doctor’s specialty was neurologica it had long notes and comments about how the brain seemed to fuse with the base of the unicorn horn, speculating on how the horn was acting as an antenna mostly for transiting electrical waves. The Doctor had no explanation how these waves would turn into the magical effects associated with Unicorns. It would take many times the resources than the Doctor possesed to even propose experiments on that subject. Parker wondered briefly about that, he of course, now had a horn, but no idea how to use it.
In the very last few chapters of the Doctor’s notes, there was some comments about the mapping of two minds inside the same brain, and how he created the ‘waiting room’ he was currently in. Mixed in with the technical jumbo was a handful of keywords and commands available to the control the ‘mirror’ and to send short messages through to Red Wood.
Looking back at the mirror Parker considered, “What am I going to tell him? Congratulations you were supposed to be dead, but now that you're alive, you got a permanent live in roommate? Right, he’ll go running off for an exorcism and being that magic works here, it might succeed. Worse part is, I’m not sure he’d be in the wrong for that.”
Parker kept staring at the mirror, uncertain what to do next.