"This is shaping up to be quite the efficient group, don't you think?" said an earth-pony mare as she observed two dozen ponies going about their work from her warehouse office. "I'd say we're almost ready to begin."
A pegasus stallion grunted. "Maybe. We still need Specs. Nopony else has his level of expertise," he said in a voice deeper than the lowest levels of Tartarus.
"We can get by without him can't we? Surely we can find somepony that can replace him."
The stallion huffed. "After all these years? I doubt it. We could get lucky, but as I said: nopony can do what he can."
"Maybe we're just not looking hard enough."
"Or maybe we're just too afraid to return to Equestria."
The mare stomped her hoof. This had been too long of a wait for her to go out of her way for a single stallion, one who they didn't even need. "We don't need him! Not for what we're doing. Besides, he would never agree to work with us when he figured out our goals."
"Leave that to me. Besides, you've forgotten that he was working on the project when we were broken apart."
The mare rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "It's been a while since I thought of that. I doubt he still has it in his possession, but knowing him, he would have records of everything that went into it."
"Does this mean I have persuaded you?"
"Maybe. I doubt we'll be able to just waltz into Canterlot and drag him out. After all, we all left quite the sour impression on the Princess."
"He's always kept a low profile. I doubt anypony would miss him if he was gone. Besides, I doubt anypony remembers our names, let alone our faces. We should be fine."
The mare sighed. "Alright, I suppose it would be easier if we did this ourselves. I'll leave Pressure Gauge in charge. I trust that you have a plan in mind."
BEEP BEEP BEEP WHACK
...
BEEP BEEP BEEP WHACK BEEBEEBEEBEEBEE
"Oh for the love of... What the hay is wrong with you now?" came a sleep depraved voice from under a bundle of bed sheets. As if in response, the malfunctioning alarm clock continued its obnoxious beeping. The head of an orange unicorn stallion with a long salt-and-pepper mane stuck its head out from under the covers to investigate the problem. Apparently, the clock's snooze button had finally failed from years of the bad habit of hammering the top to silence it.
"Ugh... How do I shut you off?" The stallion looked around his nightstand, still not thinking entirely clearly. Finally he settled for removing the battery... and hurling it across the room. The problem gone, the stallion pulled his head back under the covers, if only momentarily.
"Darn... Now I'm wide awake," he groaned. "Alright, up and at-'em," the stallion lamented as he hauled himself out of bed and onto his hooves. He was far larger than the average pony, easily standing a full head and then some over most. If only he had the physique to match. His years spent in the lab had left him wiry, and the amount of time spent staring at computer screens hadn't done his eyes any favors if his ludicrously thick glasses (from which he had earned several not-so-gratifying nicknames from his compatriots) were anything to judge by.
He wasted no time in heading straight to his lab. Today was a big day: today was the day his latest and greatest project would finally come to fruition. It had begun over twenty years ago with his four friends, all of whom were some of the greatest minds in science, and he had continued the project in their absence. His part was the last, and had only just started when the group had been broken apart, both by themselves and the law, leaving the project in his hooves to complete.
As soon as he entered his lab, which, over the years, had slowly been consuming more and more of his apartment, he donned a traditional white lab coat with his name, Dr. Transistor, and his cutie mark, a vacuum tube, stitched on the front. And, as went his morning ritual, he then started a pot of coffee brewing. As he waited for his coffee, the stallion reread the news articles that he had posted all over the walls of the living-room-turned-lab. His eyes lingered on a newspaper cutout: "Science Group Faces Charges Against the State."
The article was referring the the Scientist Association of Equestria, an organization funded by Princess Celestia herself, accusing Transistor and his friends, his fellow researchers, of squandering resources. In truth, they had not been, at least in Transistor's opinion. It was just that their experiments and research required an extraordinary amount of wealth and expensive material to carry out. However, with charges like these, they had almost no defense. Inevitably, they lost the trial, with severe sentences.
Transistor's friends could not cope with the loss of the trial. Two left the country without a trace. One went insane, and was (and is) institutionalized, but, fortunately, she was almost fully recovered and likely soon to be discharged. The last was sentenced to twenty years in the Canterlot dungeons for attempting to "sabotage" the SAE, a sentence which was quickly approaching its end date. Apparently that was what the law considered stealing a high level organization's registry information and replacing it with pornography. Though he had to admit, it was pretty funny when their lawyers presented their "evidence" in court.
Hm, after all this time, I might finally be able to see them again, Transistor realized. First thing we're doing together is getting a drink.
Transistor had been left disgraced, bankrupt, and out of Princess Celestia's favor. He had staved off poverty by working as a technician for various electronic lab equipment and other privately owned computer systems, of which there were precious few in Equestria. That being said, fixing broken arcade games was a great gig. He had played the "performing an ops check" card multiple times as an excuse to play on them for free.
But this had all happened almost twenty years ago, back when Transistor was still a young stallion having only been accepted to the SAE five years earlier. It had taken him years to recover from the debacle, and even now he was still feeling the effects.
Now, though, Transistor was more concerned with feeling the effects of caffeine, as he grabbed the now full pot of black coffee and proceeded to chug a quarter of it in one go. "Alrighty then, time to get this show on the road," he said with a frightening grin on his face.
Before Transistor sat a desk with three computer monitors arranged in an arc around his favorite spinny chair. A massive computer tower the size of a filing cabinet sat next to the desk. At least three miles of wires and cables were running around the room to all different types of devices strewn haphazardly across the floor, but they all congregated at a large, pony-shaped machine that was lying on a large workbench in the middle of the room.
Needless to say, Transistor's monolithic electric bill was a partial reason for his scrawniness. Having massive bills to pay cuts into one's food budget.
The machine itself was an extraordinary piece of work. It was what he and his friends had been working on when the team was broken up, and he had spent almost twenty years working on the code to make it function as it was intended.
Hmm... that's not entirely true... Transistor mused. If I programmed it to do what it was intended to do it would have taken only a few years, tops. Ah, well. At least it paid off.
If one were to skin a large stallion, then one would have a good idea of what the machine would look like. It had thick artificial muscles, which were a glossy charcoal color and if you looked at it in just the right light you could see a faint rainbow sheen on them. As for the joints, hooves and other solid pieces that could be seen on its surface, they resembled stainless steel armored plates. It's head was an exception to this rule, as it was given the same charcoal color as most of the rest of its body. The machine's vertebrae were designed similarly, looking akin to large dragon scales overlapping each other as they ran from the base of its "skull" to its dock. It had no tail, as it was deemed unnecessary. Even though it was already a large frame, the hooves were significantly larger in proportion to a pony.
The head bore the general shape of a stallion's, though it was constructed as a single, solid component with no jaw. It had what could pass for nostrils, as they served the sole purpose of identifying airborne chemicals, thus allowing it to "smell." Whether or not the mind of the machine would be able to identify a "bad" smell from a "good" smell would be up to itself. Rather than actual ears, there were instead a pair of holes where they should have gone. The machine's eyes were essentially two extremely high quality cameras. They were designed to function much like the eyes of a pony, that is, with both looking at the same point, but seeing slightly different views to provide depth perception.
In short, the machine was a pony android. A very large pony android. Standing up, it was slightly taller than Transistor, and weighed over twice as much.
Transistor pressed a few keys on his computer and began the upload of twenty years worth of programming. He narrowed his eyes in irritation at the loading bar that was creeping across the screen at a snail's pace and the damn spinning beach ball next to the pointer that he had come to hate with a fiery passion.
After several long minutes, the upload finally ended. Transistor took a long gulp from his coffee before moving on to the next step. He opened an interface that was specifically designed bring the android into operation, the most complex task being activation of the android's power plant. It's power plant was a true marvel of science and engineering: a miniature fusion reactor that took several year's worth of sleepless nights perfect. If all went well, it could power the android for centuries. After pressing a few buttons and punching in a few numbers, a loud hum began emanating from the android as its reactor activated. As it settled into its fully operational state, the hum slowly faded away into silence.
Now satisfied that the android was functioning under its own power, Transistor pulled all the wires and cables connecting to the android with the exception of the one that linked to his computer. Everything the android needed to function was in place. The only step that had yet to be accomplished was to press the big green "go" button on the interface.
"Moment of truth..." the stallion muttered as he pressed the button, whispering "please work please work please work" under his breath over and over again.
For a long moment, nothing happened.
"Hardware diagnostic complied with," said a masculine, metallic voice coming from the android. "No faults detected. Software diagnostic complied with. No faults detected. Sensor diagnostic complied with. No faults detected. Reactor diagnostic complied with. No faults detected. Structural diagnostic..." It trailed off as it rose to its full height.
The android slowly rolled its neck through its full range of motion before doing the same with its legs, one at a time. As it was inspecting its front legs, four digits that were constructed the same way as the rest of its body extended from within its large hooves. They naturally pointed straight ahead, though the ones closer to the centerline of the android were offset backwards a few centimeters. These were conceived by the stallion who engineered the android's structure, thinking that it should be able to manipulate small objects, especially since it did not have a mouth to utilize. The android wiggled the digits around a bit before retracting them and moving on to the next. It finished with walking a tight figure-eight.
"... complied with." The android finally finished its sentence. "No faults detected. Operational checkout complete. All systems operating at full functionality."
Throughout this procedure, Transistor was watching with a grin that stretched from ear to ear.
"Good morning, Circuit," he said, doing his best to withhold his excitement. "How are you feeling?"
"Circuit" turned to face him, the lenses of its eyes adjusting their angle to get a good view of Transistor.
"Good," it said, "but this cable in my chest is a little itchy."