//------------------------------// // 1 - Bad Moon Rising // Story: Friendship is Software // by Rough_Draft //------------------------------// In a massive city like Citadel, stargazing with the naked eye was virtually impossible. No one could see the faint pinpricks through an endless haze of neon light, whether the light pollution came from the stately white towers surrounding Luminance Park, the constant flutter of chrome-plated aircraft and drones racing through the skylanes, or the six massive beacons, perched atop bronze skyscrapers like rainbow gargoyles, positioned in a giant hexagon around the city. It was in the southernmost beacon tower, on the sixteenth floor, where Twilight Sparkle lived. At the moment, she was at her window with her Estrellax-model telescope. The scope swung over the different landmarks—and being a capital city, there were quite a few in any direction—as she tried to get a clear view of the stars. “Let’s see,” she murmured to herself. “There’s Polaris… Orion… Ursa Minor—and Major, good…” She smiled as she dialed up the telemetry on her scope, moving beyond the city’s peaks. While she spoke, her left hand was running over a touchpad on the desk beside the window. She typed in notes while she spoke. Her dad had mentioned that the Stargazers’ Conference was seeing something amazing in the constellations and she didn’t want to be the only initiate to miss out on the fun. Her hand paused only for a second when she heard the door to her study slide open. But it was impossible to stay focused when Spike called out, “Twilight, please. It’s half-past midnight. Don’t you think you should get some sleep?” “Don’t need it!” Twilight answered, not taking her eye out of the scope. “I drank a stim-shot about three hours ago. It should last me until I’m finished here.” Spike sighed. He plodded along on all fours, his tail hanging limply as he rubbed himself along Twilight’s legs. Uplifted dogs were a common sight in Citadel, but a canine such as Spike was one in a million. He’d been bred with a genetic mod package that Twilight had picked out after she’d enrolled at the Celestial Institute. His coat was a light shade of violet, much softer than the color of Twilight’s hair, while the fur around his ears and tail was shaded green, making him visible at night and less of a traffic hazard. Twilight remembered the sneers that she’d gotten when she first brought Spike to the Institute. Everyone said gene modded-pets were a status symbol and so of course Twilight’s parents allowed it, being quite well off. But Twilight didn’t choose his gene mod to make herself look good. She chose it because, that way, she’d never look at her faithful companion as another talking pet. With so much attention to his appearance and abilities, it meant Spike was family. “Twilight,” Spike whined. His tail thumped against the side of her legs, rustling the loose smart-silk fabric of her trousers. “C’mon. At least take a break. You know how busy your channel’s getting?” With an unladylike snort, Twilight tossed back her hair. “Oh, please, Spike. When is it not busy? If it’s not a chat from a Stargazer colleague, it’s just spambots and predator tags clogging up my feed.” “Or your forum friends.” Spike emphasized his point with an encouraging bark and wagging tail. “Right?” “Oh.” Twilight blushed, turning away from the scope for only a second. The plastic handle under her palm seemed to grow warm, as if the device was already missing her attention. “Um, in that case, just patch me through to them.” Spike chuckled and trotted out of the room like an eager puppy. “See, Twilight? Isn’t making friends like a normal person great?” “No.” Twilight turned back to her telescope while she grabbed the magenta visor off her desk. “No, it’s not.” As she slid the visor into place over her eyes, she reflected on the desert that was her social life. True, by traditional standards, she didn’t have many friends outside of her own family. Even the other people at the monthly stargazer meetings were colleagues at best—and nuisances at worst, especially the more pedantic ones. But Twilight Sparkle knew that some deserts came with an oasis. And that was why she treasured, more than anyone else, the friends she’d made online. Being online was safer. Easier. And definitely cleaner. No struggling to read facial cues or handle awkward pauses in a conversation. No sweat or tears to clean up. All Twilight had to do was blink three times, syncing up her exocortex with the rest of the Grid through a visor interface. It helped that she lived directly below a major network access beacon. Colors swirled over her field of vision, ranging from deep red to blue-white brilliance. The magenta haze turned transparent from her point of view as she bent toward the telescope. And then, translucent blue text crawled over the screenless display. StarSwirl70 is online. Then came the inevitable flood of warm welcomes. Even as she searched the skies, spotting the streaming replies brought a smile to Twilight’s face. Cupcaaakes: Hiii! GrowingStrong: Howdy! Wonderblaze21: Hey! LadyCastellan: Hello, darling! QuietMouse334: Hello! Without looking away from her scope, Twilight ran her thumb over the touchpad on her desk. She waited until she heard a ping and watched a notification pop up on her visor. StarSwirl70 has set her chat to passive. A whole wave of new replies and dialogue flooded the chat stream immediately, overlapping with the cold stars on her telescope without obscuring them. Cupcaaakes: Aww, what’s wrong, Swirly? You gotta rumbly in your tummy? LadyCastellan: No doubt she’s simply tired. LadyCastellan: It is rather late for some of us. LadyCastellan: Speaking of which, I should probably retire myself. Wonderblaze21: Why’s that, Lady? Wonderblaze21: Your delicate fingers getting a cramp from all that stitching nonsense? LadyCastellan: It is not nonsense! LadyCastellan: I resent your implication that I’m some layabout! QuietMouse334: Girls, please GrowingStrong: Thought I told you to keep it civil, Wonderblaze. GrowingStrong: This here forum is supposed to be a happy place. Cupcaaakes: Right! Cupcaaakes: It’s like one giant party up in here! Cupcaaakes: Woooooooo!!! QuietMouse334: Cupcakes is right. QuietMouse334: We’re all friends here. Cupcaaakes: No, no, no, Mousey! Cupcaaakes: You gotta say my name with all three A’s! QuietMouse334: Oh, but Cupcaaakes: ’Cause three A’s means three times the fun! Cupcaaakes: Woooooooo!!! Wonderblaze21: Geez, you are so random. Twilight kept one eye on the stars and another on her friends’ open channel. She felt a stirring of euphoria deep inside herself, a reaction that had nothing to do with the stimulants that were keeping her awake. Spike just didn’t understand. What did she need to go outside and make friends for? All her friends were right here, both online and in the skies, and nothing would ever change that. Everyone who worked inside the Vault long enough had a common motto: Don’t panic. Think. Relax. Everything’s fine. It was the line they used when admitting new patients to the recovery ward or when they guided a fresh rogue AI through deprogramming. It was a mantra that any employee could use, whether they were a junior-level coder or a senior supervisor like Sunset Shimmer. She stood on the observation deck of Oversight Sector Q-3, some fifty-one kilometers below the surface of Terra. Her console was a massive touchpad secured beneath her bay window. From here, Sunset could look out at the entire quarantine zone. Because she had admin clearance, every ceiling and wall was transparent from her office. She could visually track every nurse who helped an injured citizen back to their bed, every technician moving a crate full of comm shells down to Maintenance. Hundreds of personnel, all wearing the same neon orange uniforms. You needed to wear such bright colors this far below bedrock. Even with all the wondrous improvements that the Celestial Institute had granted society, energy was still a vital resource. Lights were arrayed at strategic points and dimmed automatically whenever a room was left empty. With so many shadows twisting through the labyrinth, seeing a bright orange shape heading down the corridor was a comforting sight. Sunset Shimmer took a sip of her coffee and moved her fingers across the touchpad. She looked down and skimmed through the latest reports from all her departments. The Citizen Recovery Teams were doing fine. Engineering reported that there were no glitches left inside the Emergency Archives. That was better than she’d expected for this quarter. Maybe she could end her shift early after all. “Flash,” she said out loud, waiting for the reassuring chime. A moment passed as a bright blue light flickered over her left shoulder. Sunset turned to see the light coalesce into a tiny glowing figure: the miniature blue hologram of a beta-class AI. “Make a change to my schedule, please.” “Yes, ma’am,” said Flash. The tiny blue man hovering over her shoulder had very limited features, which was just how she wanted it. No sense wasting the processor speed or energy inside the Vault. “Set a reservation for one at Le Abreuvoir.” Sunset took another sip of coffee, smiling as she felt the bitter black brew settling over her tongue. “And ask Fleur if she—” A buzz from her touchpad interrupted her. Flash suddenly teleported over to his tiny port on the right-hand side of the pad, now changing from a calm sky-blue light to an anxious shade of pink. “Apologies, ma’am. You have a containment alert. Priority One.” Sunset nearly choked on her coffee. She wiped her mouth and set the cup down on her desk. “Well, there go my plans for the evening.” After taking a deep breath and reciting her motto in her head, she nodded. “Okay, then. Show me what’s wrong, Flash.” The AI disappeared for a second as her touchpad changed from a passive display of reports to an active surveillance program. Sunset blinked and took her seat. She was looking at a live color feed of one of the quarantine rooms, based in the lowest level of the Vault. Wall-embedded cameras relayed the image of a dimly-lit room, empty except for the gleaming black stasis pod in the center. It was oblong, like an egg laid on its side, with a row of green lights blinking on and off around the equator. Thick silver cables snaked out from the base, connected to massive generators hidden outside the room. A stasis pod was an antique of medical science, a relic from a bygone era. Sunset remembered the holographic demo she’d seen back in school. It used to be that, if a patient was suffering from a chronic illness or severe injuries that required extensive treatment, you could prolong their lives by putting them in chemically-induced sleep and life support. Sometimes a whole decade was required before the medical staff could synthesize a cure or treatment for each stasis pod resident. But that was unthinkable in this day and age. The Nanomed Revolution was better equipped at handling most diseases or injuries. Scatter a few bots, upload the right tissue-targeting software, and just like magic, you had a healthy patient in no time. “Okay…” Sunset stared at the image on her screen. “Flash, what’s the unit designation on this? I don’t recognize it at all.” “Processing…” The AI flashed back into existence, still cast in a shade of dark pink. “Warning. Information on this unit is restricted to Admin Level Two. Do you wish to continue?” Sunset chewed on her bottom lip, glancing out her observation window. From her vantage point, all the other staffers went about their routine, completely oblivious to her plight. If she did nothing, she’d be marked down for letting a crisis go unmanaged. But if she called in a full-scale alert on something that turned out to be a harmless network glitch… Sunset could already hear the laughter from her colleagues at the Institute. So desperate to please the Sysadmin, isn’t she? they’d say and have a good chuckle at her expense. Poor little Sunset Shimmer, who’d sweated and starved her way into the Institute’s upper echelons and earned her spot as a senior supervisor in the Caregiver Corps. Who lived in terror at the thought of upsetting Celestia, may her reign never end. She could see herself now, kneeling in front of the Sysadmin as she passed sentence on Sunset’s conduct. As she stripped her loyal servant of her title and had her reassigned to a low-grade tech job somewhere in Oldtown or the Crystal Commonwealth— “No,” Sunset whispered and sat up in her chair. She wouldn’t let this crisis unfold any further. She would prove that she could handle this. There was no other way. Let the old-timers and the Sysadmin have their laughs. No one had the right to fault her for taking her job seriously. “Flash.” Sunset looked back at the surveillance feed and the stasis pod. “Acknowledge the alert and give me access to all Level Two records on the unit.” The AI paused, almost as if considered the bold request. “Understood. Now accessing records. Please submit your thumbprint for confirmation.” Sunset didn’t hesitate. As soon as the lime green circle appeared on her touchpad, she pressed her thumb down and held it in place. The touchpad tingled beneath her skin, but she didn’t flinch. She let the network do its job and waited for the records to show up. Flash disappeared once more as the Vault’s processors took over. Sunset folded her hands in her lap and waited for the records to appear on her screen. Don’t panic, she told herself. Think. Relax. Everything’s— Bold red letters scrawled across her screen, blotting out the surveillance feed. Hello? “What the…?” Sunset blinked and stared down at the text. “What is this?” A dark red cursor flashed underneath the touchpad, as the pixels began to glitch around it, cycling through every conceivable color. Sunset followed the cursor as it produced more text on her screen. Mind. Yes. New mind. Wonderful. Her bottom lip trembled. Her instincts hadn’t been wrong. “Flash, run an antiviral sweep—” No. Sunset’s jaw dropped as the first spark flared inside her brain. She wanted to tear away the flesh from her scalp—anything would do, so long as it meant the pain would stop. Dear Celestia, if only that pain would stop! “Wh-what…?” She blinked, feeling tears streaming down her face. “What are you—?” Hush. No more words now, dear. The truth will soon be clear. Now her heart was racing. Sunset Shimmer felt something tingling through her skin. An electric current? A new disease? She couldn’t tell anymore. When she tried to lift her hand, all she could manage was to wiggle her little finger. More text spilled across her screen, which continued to glitch out. We thank you for the key. Your access set us free. “Oh, heavens… ugh…” Sunset closed her eyes against the pain, dropping out of the chair and onto her hands and knees. She drew in short, rapid breathes, trying to stop whatever thing was clawing its way through her nervous system. It had been inside the containment chamber. Inside the stasis pod, even. And she’d been so stupid! A tag on the Level Two records, one that had activated the moment she accessed them! Any two-bit slicer knew how to install one— There’s no point to fighting, said a silky voice inside her head. Your body’s inviting… Sunset Shimmer couldn’t think anymore. She could hardly even breathe. Her body—inviting, the strange voice purred again—had enough strength left to collapse onto the floor of her control room and curl up into a fetal position. It was right. There was no point to resisting. Surely, Celestia would understand. She was always so understanding… Time passed. Sunset didn’t know how long. When she felt her strength return, she grabbed onto her chair and tried to balance herself back onto her feet. It had been such a long time since she had been conscious. Since she had been joined to the living flesh. Sunset blinked and stared at her reflection in the window. Yes, she thought. Yes, this new one would do. This girl was young and true. No more would she lie still, asleep by her foe’s will. She’d left her pod at last, ready for her comeback. Don’t panic, she thought, savoring the sensations in her new brain and her new body. Think. Relax. Everything’s fine… Twilight frowned as she swung her scope to the left. So far, she wasn’t seeing anything that new in the sky. Yes, the constellations were lovely and bright this time of year, but they weren’t anything spectacular. She was starting to wonder if maybe the older Stargazers were only waxing nostalgic— She paused when she noticed a series of new texts from her friends on the forum. GrowingStrong: Hey, are y’all seeing this? LadyCastellan: My word, yes! Wonderblaze21: Whoa! Wonderblaze21: That’s so crazy! QuietMouse334: Oh, dear! Cupcaaakes: Ooh! I bet it’s the Sysadmin playing another prank! LadyCastellan: I hardly think that’s what “Uh, Twilight?” Spike’s voice had a slight growl that made her feel nervous. She looked away from her telescope at her canine companion. He lifted a paw at the window. “Do you see that?” Twilight frowned and turned back to her telescope. She swung it down from the starry sky and toward the highest peaks of the cityscape. No doubt it was a prank like Cupcaaakes had said. Probably some Academy seniors launching a holo-banner over Main Street. Graduation season was only a month away, after all. But when she focused on a distant tower to the east, Twilight gasped. She watched as the network access beacon suddenly flickered and died. The rainbow burst of colors dissolved and the massive beacon went quiet. Soon, every light in the skyscraper’s windows began to wink out. Twilight blinked as her eyes and her visor’s filter adjusted to the sudden loss of light. It took her a moment to realize that it was happening all over Citadel. Lights were shutting off, drones plummeted out of the sky, and automated aircraft came screeching to a sudden halt. Twilight could hear people screaming in the boulevards and public squares outside her window, even from this many floors up. “Oh, no.” A ball of ice formed inside her stomach. “This is bad, Spike. This is really bad…” “You’re telling me! The whole Grid’s shutting down!” Twilight stepped back from her telescope and took a deep breath. It was okay. She remembered what Shining Armor said to do in the event of a city system glitch. Contact Emergency Services and stay calm until help arrived. Nothing else to do but call and wait. Meanwhile, she glanced at her visor. For a second, she thought the device itself was glitching out, too. But she kept trying to refresh the chat feed. The forum had gone dead. Without even an error message. All her friends online, cut off just like that. And that meant this wasn’t just happening in her part of town. “Spike,” she said past the lump in her throat, “can you patch me through to—?” “Emergency Services is already calling,” said the loyal dog. He sat at attention, his tail wagging back and forth like a metronome. “They want to talk to you.” “Oh, good!” Twilight knelt down beside him. “Tell them to patch through to my personal comm and I’ll—” “Twilight Sparkle, please remain where you are.” The crisp male voice rang out from her cochlear implant, sending a slight buzz through the back of her skull. “This is a Priority One transmission. Do you accept the terms?” Twilight blinked. That night was full of surprises, wasn’t it? “Um, okay. I-I accept.” There was a pause on the other end of the channel. Then came a soft and wise voice. “Hello, Twilight Sparkle. I apologize for the late hour, but it’s urgent that we speak now.” Everyone knew that voice. From the smallest toddler to the oldest pensioner, everyone knew the voice of the System Administrator. The highest authority in Citadel—in all of Terra, even. The everlasting voice of reason and kindness in an ever-changing world. Twilight swallowed, unable to believe her luck. “Y-yes, ma’am! Wh-what can I do for you?” “I am sending transport now. It will take you and your companion to the CAP.” The CAP! Joy surged through Twilight’s veins. She’d waited so long for an opportunity to visit that esteemed place. It was said that you could hear the millions of terabytes of data streaming through its gilded walls like waves crashing down on a beach. But soon her joy gave way to trepidation. Why would the Sysadmin summon her now, when there was a crisis on their hands? “Ma’am, if I may ask…” Twilight bowed her head, even though the Admin couldn’t see her. Or maybe she could; it wasn’t beyond her abilities to take direct control of Spike’s optic nerve relay and observe Twilight without her knowing about it. “What could I possibly do to help at a time like this?” She heard Celestia chuckle. “My dear Twilight, you don’t know it yet, but you have a gift that may well be of use to us all in this dark hour. We’ll discuss it once you arrive at the palace.” “Y-yes, ma’am.” Twilight bowed her head and waited until she heard the channel fade out. Then she let out the sigh she’d been holding and dropped onto her hands and knees. “Holy guacamole,” said Spike. “What was all that about?” “I don’t know, Spike, but I guess we’re about to find out…”