//------------------------------//
// Install 
// Story: BINARY: Pony.exe x The Iron Horse 
// by The Hat Man 
//------------------------------//

Spike’s bare, scaly feet padded down the hallway of Twilight’s castle. He came to the door leading to a small room and knocked on it. When he got no response from the sole occupant inside, he turned the handle and walked in. 

The robot sat there, totally motionless, her head drooped slightly and her eyes darkened.

Spike cleared his throat. “It’s morning! Time to get up!” he said, deciding not to mention that he’d actually slept in or that it had been morning for at least three hours. Of course, he hadn’t realized that the mechanical pony in front of him would stay in “sleep mode” all that time as well.

She continued to sit, unmoving, as Spike crossed his arms, a frown forming on his scaly face.

“Oh, right. You have to hear your name first. I forgot.” He sighed. “In that case: good morning, Turing Test.”

Instantly, there was a hum of electricity and the mechanical mare’s ears squeaked on their hinges as they raised and lowered. Her dark eyes began to glow violet and she raised her head, gradually rising to her hooves. The servos in her arms and legs calibrated and whirred and her eyes shrank and grew, refocusing. At last, standing to her full height, she turned her head to Spike and, in her synthetic voice, replied with “Good morning, Spike the Dragon.”

It had been several weeks since the robot had come to stay with Twilight and him. Ever since they’d found her in Sweet Apple Acres, scorched and damaged by lightning with no memory of what she’d been doing there or who’d sent her, Twilight had taken her in and given her a new directive: make friends. And that - despite her strange, mechanical nature and lack of understanding of pony society - was just what she’d been doing since then.

Still, even now, she was a strange sight. Almost completely made of metal, brass hooves, black rubber around her joints, whitish polymer coils for her mane and tail, her ears on hinges, and her glowing violet eyes which were fashioned from amethyst lenses. She made whirrs and clicks and squeaks with each movement she made. She was so strange, unlike anything else in Equestria, and yet, they’d all found she was still a pony at heart, even if that heart was mechanical.

She looked out her small window and then back to the little dragon.

“Spike the Dragon, my internal chronometer indicates that it is 10:23 in the morning. The position of the sun supports this.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking away and rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, Twilight got a call to attend an Emergency Meeting with the other princesses late last night. Something about magic and disturbances or something.”

“She does not require our assistance?”

“Guess not,” he replied. “Anyway, I figured I’d just sleep in. I didn’t know you’d do the same until I woke you up.”

“Understood.” The mechanical mare switched to her ‘U-Mode,’ her orichalcum horn sliding into place, as she levitated over a can of metal polish and a rag from the small table she kept in her mostly spartan room.

“Getting ready for the day?” Spike asked with a grin.

“Affirmative.” She paused, then looked directly at Spike. “Spike the Dragon, I am told that it is improper to watch a lady when she is taking a bath.”

Spike blinked, then blushed. “Oh!” he cried, holding up his claws as he began to back out of the room. “I mean, I didn’t realize--”

“That was a joke,” Turing Test said, tilting her head slightly. “Ha ha.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Very funny,” he grumbled. “Well, I better get moving. I have a bunch of errands to do today.”

“As do I. Pinkie Pie has requested that I meet her at Sugarcube Corner at 11 o’clock. I do not know what her purpose is, but I am hopeful that today will be interesting.”


***


“Oh.”
 
“What?”
 
“Oh dear.”
 
“What? What is it?”
 
“Ah ha ha ha, now hang on just a sec’, Dave. Just a bit of a wonky reading. Might have been a fluke.”
 
David sat back down on his bed, holding back his impatient scowl with all the willpower he could muster. His cheeks rested in his palms after an overdramatic flourish of arm-waving that the other room occupant didn’t notice. David’s room was crowded by one too many, and he couldn’t help but narrow his eyes, despite the gratitude he should have been showering. The other man sat on his leather office chair, at his office desk, with his repair laptop connected to his expensive, worthwhile lifetime friend. He could remember all the way back two years ago when the big lug had been assembled, mostly by his own hand, and he could recall all the blood, sweat, and tears he shed into creating the device. To say that the machine of many wonders was his little brother would be no understatement.
 
So here was this cretin, this outright plebeian, taking his computer and doing what he saw fit, plugging in several wires to several ports, refusing to give more information than what was basic, and being an all-around goof, not letting up on his skullduggery while he poked away at the keyboard of the laptop on the glass desk. In the back of his mind, David was slightly worried that he would gain a habit of grinding his teeth with the frustration and worry the man on the chair was causing him.
 
“Hmm? What’s this?” the man muttered. David sat up, sweat rolling down his temple. “Oh, someone took me up on that trade offer.”
 
David fell on his back into the mattress, the sheets cleaned less than two weeks ago, letting out a groan. The damn demon was on a game while running diagnostics! What kind of a moron does that? David pinched the bridge on his nose, letting out a deep sigh. It was all going to be worth it. This was a necessity he could not avoid. It would be all for the benefit of Twilight. Yes, it was all for Twilight.

The strange program called “pony.exe” had appeared one day some months ago. And with it, this strange creature that claimed it was a pony, a unicorn named Twilight Sparkle. She’d claimed to be from a place called Equestria, a land ruled by similar creatures, and talked endlessly and in great detail of all the friends she knew there. But now… now she was trapped inside his computer. And when she’d plaintively asked David for his help, well… how could anyone with a heart say no?

He lifted his head just enough to see over the wave of fabric of his shirt that had bundled at his chest. His own computer sat in relative silence, quietly whirring to itself, trying to mind its own business while it was hooked up to some kind of life-support device. The wide monitor sitting behind his orange gaming keyboard was eerie, adorning a completely black screen with a window that displayed white text slowly trailing downward spitting out bits of information here and there, causing a rush of activity in the disk whenever the man input something into the laptop that went into David’s computer. David held his breath, and for what he figured, Twilight was probably doing the same thing too.
 
“Find anything yet?”
 
“Nope,” the man replied, taking a swig of the coffee he had on hand, having the decency to put it on David’s dresser instead of anywhere near the expensive collected mass of electronics. “Still scanning and taking a look at some of the older files.”
 
David frowned. The problem had been getting worse, his computer getting slower and slower without Twilight’s hoof, causing massive problems for the both of them. Many a night were spent with David and his headache as he tried to pinpoint the problem. He had tried everything over Google’s horizon. Uninstalling old programs. Deleting files he didn’t need. Defragmenting the load of corpse game files that had piled onto his rig after playing too many Bethesda games. The only thing he didn’t do was do an Antivirus scan, because that simply wasn’t an option. He was already taking a chance at Twilight getting removed if she was actually discovered by this dunce, but he wasn’t willing to risk her deletion with a simple virus check.
 
She would tell me if something like that was wrong with the system anyway, he mused, eyeing the monitor. And she said nothing was out of the ordinary, so it all led to this.
 
He couldn’t see Twilight. He couldn’t hear Twilight. However, he could only imagine her trying her best to make her footprint on the system as small as possible. He couldn’t figure out a way to suspend the program entirely without shutting off the computer or putting it in sleep mode. Whenever the computer was on, pony.exe was running, which meant that Twilight was online too. No amount of searching for a way to close the program resolved in anything useful, and David didn’t want to straight up “end” the program from task manager. He didn’t know what would happen if he forced something like that on Twilight’s program.
 
“Heh, you’ve got quite a few interesting programs here, Dave,” the man said, a small smile on his face.
 
“Yeah yeah,” David dismissed, trying to ignore the other voice.
 
“I never thought that you, of all people, would have three different screen recorders, two sound editors, four versions of Running Wild, and a whole folder filled with, uh, some stuff.”
 
David sat up instantly. “What!?”
 
The man let loose in a cacophony of laughter. Slapping his lap, he snorted as he breathed in, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. David scowled, folding his arms, giving the dirtiest glare he could give.
 
Shoot daggers out of my eyes, shoot daggers out of my eyes, shoot daggers out of my eyes, David chanted in his head, trying to will the effect he wanted to occur. He suddenly wished he had Twilight’s ability to influence the environment around her, if only for a second.
 
“Oh man, that was great,” the man commented, after getting a hold of himself. “You’ve gotta loosen up, David. I’m not gonna wreck your computer, man. I’m barely running anything as it is. A scan here, a check there, some under-the-hood work, and everything will be ok.”
 
“Yeah, well,” David began. “It doesn’t help that you’re not telling me anything, Ron.”
 
Ron simply grinned. With the way he flashed his pearly whites everywhere, it was as if he was shoving it in everyone’s faces about how awesome his chompers looked.

“It’s not like you would understand much of it past the basic level,” Ron explained, checking something on his screen. “Everything else besides that is kinda boring and goes on to technobabble territory.”
 
“I would still like to know what the heck is going on! It’s my computer! I shouldn’t have to ask for the basic right to know how my stuff is doing!” David objected.
 
“Chill, chill,” Ron said, two hands up in mock surrender. “Do you want help with this or not?”
 
David was reduced to a grumbling pile of clouded anger, folding his arms as he stayed put on his bed.
 
Ron turned back to his screen. He blinked twice and leaned forward, checking something. “Here we go. Now that’s interesting.”
 
David was interrupted from his personal thunderstorm. He stood up, taking a few steps towards the workstation. “What’s up?”
 
“There’s a really odd program that’s running on your computer,” Ron said, gliding his index finger over the track pad. “It’s actually taking up a bit of your RAM.”
 
David’s blood ran cold. He thought Twilight said she could hide it! “Really? What do you think it is?”
 
“I dunno,” Ron said, giving the screen a sideways look. “The program’s trying to hide itself. I can’t determine anything about it because it’s sending an information feedback loop. I can’t gather anything concrete like this. Hang on a second. I think I got an idea.”
 
 Crap, crap, crap, crap! David thought, his head racing. He had to deter Ron, but he couldn’t make it too obvious. He had asked for Ron’s help in the first place, so it wasn’t like he could abandon this late into the investigation. But, he couldn’t rip Ron’s laptop from his hands either without riling Ron. He couldn’t get onto his own computer, because then Ron will ask what the heck he was doing. David’s eyes edged to the power button of the case of his rig. Maybe if there was an accidental power outage?
 
David’s attention briefly was caught on the black screen of his monitor. Though he barely caught the words of white text that scrolled by, a permanent image was etched into his mind as he stared wide-eyed at where the dialogue once was.
 
TWILIGHT SPARKLE: Sorry, David. I made a tiny bit of a mistake.
 
David’s attention turned to the headset lying beside the mouse of his computer. He didn’t bother to put the microphone up once he was done with it last time. The microphone was wide open.
 
“Got you now,” Ron said with determination, his fingers all over the keyboard of his laptop. His pinkie slammed on the Enter key, and everything in the room hung for a moment.
 
There was a shortage of electricity, static leaping from David’s computer up the cords that were attached to Ron’s portable fix-it box, and blue motes of small lightning lances bounced off the keyboard. David jumped back, the hairs on his arms and legs standing on end while he yelped.
 
“What the hell?!” Ron shouted, flinching and rolling back from the desk.
 
Suddenly, both screens went blank, shutting off with a zap. The power lights of the two computers were unlit, and no activity occurred in either system. David and Ron let the moment soak in.
 
“What just happened?” David asked first, his voice shaky.
 
“I don’t know,” Ron said, letting his guard back down as he lowered his hands, making his way towards the laptop. “Try turning on your computer.”
 
David obliged, shuffling up to the dead computer, and with hesitation, pushing the power button until the light above his finger lit green. The fans at the back of the computer spun to life, and everything seemed ok as Ron hit the switch of the computer monitor, the screen injected with energy and showing the users what they needed to see in a matter of seconds. Ron’s own laptop turned on and did a boot process of its own.
 
David tried to steady his breathing and hide his twiddling fingers from the other in the room. Sweat freely fell down the back of his neck, gathering at the top of the shirt in a growing soak. He stared at his computer screen, reading the letters that came off of it as it entered into Windows, activating average protocols, asking for a password which he promptly put in before resuming its work.
 
And then, it reached the desktop, officially finishing its startup process. David stared.
 
“Well,” Ron began, turning to face David after gazing into the laptop screen. “It seems that whatever the program was, it’s gone now. It was probably the source of your slow-down problem, what with all the resources it was eating up. Your computer should be good now.”
 
David’s limbs went numb. He gulped. Uh oh.


***


Twilight Sparkle awoke on the ground. Again. Her head was a mess, and as her subconscious slowly dragged her actual self back into the realm of the living, she felt a pounding hurt on the top of her head. Groaning, she lifted her head for a mere moment before getting dizzy and having to lay back down again on her stomach. Her vision was woozy, unstable, and she couldn’t make anything out of the code in the not-too-far distance.

“What… What happened?” she asked herself. With mustered strength, she brought her head to standing attention again, looking around. A tingling sensation ran from the tip of her horn to beneath the base, where flesh connected to horn marrow. She squinted, blinking as she bared teeth, sucking in a breath between the clench. It hurt. A lot.

What had she been doing? There was a small amount of excess magic left in the area around her, which probably meant that she’d been in the middle of casting a spell before she was knocked out. Anything else before that was a guess in the dark. She had recalled David getting home late at night again and trying to fix Twilight’s headache, saying it was a problem with his computer because it was running slowly. At first, she’d thought it was her fault; too many spells that change different aspects of his computer could potentially end up disastrous if the side effects pile up. However, he reassured her that wasn’t the case, and that he would find a solution before the end of the season, reciting some ridiculous quote from what she thought was one of the many “video games” that he talked about playing. Of course, she didn’t get it, but the message still got through to her.

She got up, the fog over her eyes starting to clear. Her balance wavered, and she stumbled for a second before finding solid ground. Her head tilted up to the sky. “David? David, are you there?” 


***


Pinkie Pie dipped a spoon into the bowl of batter Turing Test was holding and took a taste of it. She instantly grimaced, her eyes squinting as she took the spoon from her mouth and tossed it into the nearby sink. She made a gagging sound and eagerly drank down an entire glass of water.

“Your reaction suggests that my efforts were less than optimal,” Turing Test said, looking down at her bowl.

“I-it was a good try, Rinny,” Pinkie Pie said, offering a small smile as she laid her hoof on Turing’s shoulder. “Just… maybe you should go easy on the salt.”

“You suggested that a little salt could compliment and enhance the sweetness of the batter.” Turing’s ears lowered as she set the bowl back on the counter. “It seems that my inability to taste things is a major obstacle in working with improvised recipes.”

The two ponies were standing in the kitchen in the back of Sugarcube Corner. The bakery was closed that day, so Pinkie had invited Turing Test over for a surprise lesson in baking. Rather than strictly adhering to a recipe, Pinkie suggested trying to make something of her own and have Pinkie taste the results. Of course, Turing Test could memorize a recipe perfectly, but the idea of creating one of her own or improving upon an existing recipe was intriguing.

Unfortunately, in reality, her experiments were not producing very many good results.

“Perhaps this recipe will be more favorable,” Turing said, pushing another bowl over to Pinkie Pie. “It is a variation on apple pie filling. As Discord’s magic allowed me to taste it, it is the only food item that I have any firsthoof experience with. Perhaps it will be more palatable than my previous efforts.”

Pinkie sniffed the filling and smiled. “Ooh, that smells pretty good! Did you use different types of apples?”

“Affirmative. The original recipe called only for one type of apple. I reasoned that different apple cultivars could provide a pleasing variation of tastes.” 

Pinkie Pie smiled. “Well, let’s give it a try!” She took a fork this time and selected a chunk of apple that was dripping with golden brown goo. When she took a bite, her eyes lit up and her ears straightened out. “Mmm!” she murmured. “This is really good, Rinny! What else did you do differently?”

“Other apple recipes feature certain combinations of ingredients, so I adapted them and added a small amount of lemon juice as well as a half teaspoon of NMETNEMNTNMGGGG!” On that last word, her head suddenly went lopsided and her eyes began to flash as her ears jerked in opposite directions.

Pinkie blinked. “Um... I’ve never heard of that spice, but this tastes like nutmeg.”

“Yes,” Turing said, raising her head and adjusting her footing. “‘Nutmeg’ is what I intended to say. However, I seem to have experienced a sudden power surge.”

“Oh. Well, are you okay?” she asked quietly, stepping over to her.

“I appear to be. However, perhaps I should scan for any anomal--”

(“David?”)

Turing froze, stopping in mid-sentence.

(“David, are you there?”)

Turing Test looked around. Though her ears were normally attuned well enough to pinpoint the location of almost any sound, for some reason she could not locate the origin of the voice she’d heard. But even if she couldn’t find the source, she knew that voice in an instant, for it was more familiar than any other pony’s to her: it belonged to Twilight Sparkle.

“Twilight Sparkle?” she asked, looking about. “Where are you?”





Twilight’s vision cleared and, as she looked around, her jaw dropped open. Back inside David’s computer, she’d seen lines of code - long lines of glowing numbers and letters - scrolling up and down all around her. This was much the same, but on a scale unlike anything she’d seen before.

At the center of her darkened little room, she saw literally thousands of these lines forming a veritable forest of ever-scrolling, ever-changing code. But there was more to it; the code in David’s computer had been recognizable, but the strange designs on these lines was something completely different. And yet, despite the fact that she couldn’t read it, per se, she somehow felt like she actually understood what she was seeing on some level.

Furthermore, these lines not only scrolled vertically, but as she craned her neck, she saw that they scrolled horizontally, swirled in circles, and all seemed to join and separate in a tangled, dynamic web that continuously formed and reformed like a school of fish.

“Incredible,” she breathed. This was something new and she had a suspicion that she was no longer in David’s computer, but inside something infinitely more complex.

She drew herself up and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Thus calmed, she began to focus and concentrate, slowly working to make sense of the swirling chaos all around her. Panicking wouldn’t get her anywhere, she told herself. Instead, she would focus and tackle the problem that lay before her. Her horn began to glow and she began searching for something, following the data, until at last she found it.

Auditory input successfully rerouted.

She didn’t hear that, so much as feel it. But once she did, a strange voice filled her ears.

“Twilight Sparkle? Where are you?”





(“Here!”) came the reply. (“Whoever you are, I’m right here!”)

Turing turned her head to the left and right, not paying attention to the fact that Pinkie was staring at her with a befuddled look.

“I hear you, Twilight Sparkle, but I am unable to locate you. You do not seem to be in close proximity. Have you learned a new spell by which to communicate over long distances?”

(“What? No… at least I don’t think so.”) There was silence for a moment, then Twilight’s voice came again. (“Listen, um… is somepo-- somebody named David there?”)

“I am not aware of any individual with that name in the vicinity.” She turned to Pinkie, who was still watching her. “Pinkie Pie, do you know of someone named David?”

Pinkie blinked. “Uh, can’t say that I do!” she replied. “By the way, Rinny, why are you talking to yourself? Ooh, is it for fun? Because sometimes I do that too! I’m great company for myself!”

“Do you mean that you cannot--”

(“PINKIE!”) came the ecstatic cry, and Turing halted in mid-sentence. (“Oh my gosh, Pinkie, is that you?! Oh, I… how… how did you find me? Did David manage to contact you while I was out? Or are you here in David’s world?!”)

Turing watched Pinkie, who was in turn waiting for her to continue her sentence. “Pinkie Pie, do you not hear Twilight’s voice?”

“Um… noooo, I don’t think so,” Pinkie replied, holding a hoof to her ear. “Listening, listening, listening… nope! No Twilight around here! Do you hear her? Are you using your awesome robot ears?”

(“What’s a robot?”)

“I am a robot.”

“Duh, I know that, Rinny!” Pinkie said, rolling her eyes.

“I was not talking to you.”

(“Your name is Rinny?”)

“No. My name is Turing Test.”

“I know what your name is, silly!”

“I was talking to Twilight Sparkle.”

(“What? But… how do you know my name?”)

“Because we are friends.”

“That’s why I talk to Twilight too!”

Turing suddenly lunged forward and clamped her hooves over Pinkie’s muzzle. “My apologies, Pinkie Pie, but I must ask you to be silent while I explain. Please nod your head to show that you understand.”

Pinkie Pie blinked, still momentarily surprised by Turing’s action, but then smiled and nodded.

“Thank you.” She released Pinkie. “It appears that I am able to detect the voice of Twilight Sparkle from a currently unknown location. It also appears that she is able to hear everything that I hear in real time. Furthermore, it appears that…”

She paused, lowering her ears as her head drooped. “It appears that she does not know me.”

Pinkie gasped. “Oh no! She lost her memory?!”

(“What?! N-no, I didn’t! I would have remembered losing my memory!”) There was a beat, and then she said, (“Well, now that I say it like that, I suppose it is possible…”)

“Pinkie Pie,” Turing said, raising her head, “please stand by while I attempt to assess the situation. I am now going to converse with Twilight Sparkle.”

Pinkie nodded. “Okie dokie loki!” she chirped, and took to eating spoonfuls of batter while Turing began to talk to Twilight.

“Twilight Sparkle, are you able to identify where you are?”

(“Well… I’m not sure. This looks a lot like David’s computer.”)

“By computer, you refer to a mechanical device which processes data?”

(“Yes! That’s right! Only David’s was more advanced than what we have in Equestria… but this looks even more advanced than that!”)

“Another inquiry: how did you gain access to my auditory systems?”

(“Well, I learned how to access and manipulate these programs in David’s computer. It seemed to work similarly in here too!”)

Turing Test’s eyes shifted. “Please specify ‘in here.’”

(“Well, I mean, there’s data and code and all this information flowing around. I mean, I assumed I was inside a computer.”)

Turing was silent for a moment. “In some sense, that is correct. One moment, Twilight Sparkle. I believe I have determined your situation and will now inform Pinkie Pie.”

“Mm-hmmm?” Pinkie asked, her mouth still full of batter.

“Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, here is my analysis of the situation: Twilight Sparkle, through unknown means, has become integrated into my systems.”

“Huh?” Pinkie asked, cocking her head to the side.

(“Wait, do you mean… are you a machine?!”)

“Affirmative, Twilight Sparkle. My name is Turing Test, and I am a robot - a machine in the form of a pony.”

“Um, I don’t think I get it, Rinny,” Pinkie said, scratching her head. “So, what does this mean?”

“To simplify my meaning, Pinkie Pie,” Turing said, raising her hoof to point at her own noggin, “a tiny Twilight Sparkle is in my head.”

Pinkie gasped. “Oh my gosh!” Then she got a steely, determined look in her eyes and placed a hoof on her chest. “Don’t worry, you two! I’ll take care of everything! Wait here!” That said, she dashed to the door. Before exiting, she looked over to her shoulder. “I’ll be right back with a hacksaw and a pair of salad tongs!” She then dashed out the door, leaving Turing Test - and by extension Twilight - alone.

(“Um,”) Twilight said slowly, (“that probably isn’t good.”)

“Agreed. I will now flee the premises, Twilight Sparkle. Though it is unlikely, please inform me if you experience any turbulence.”

She ran out the door, dashing through the streets of Ponyville.

(“But I don’t get it,”) Twilight was saying, apparently not being jostled by Turing’s galloping. (“The way Pinkie acted… and she knew you, but I don’t know you… it doesn’t make any sense!”)

“I suggest we seek assistance with another of our friends, Twilight Sparkle,” Turing said as she ducked into an alleyway.

(“Good thinking, um… Turing Test, was it?”) Twilight replied.

Turing lowered her ears again. “Correct,” she replied after a moment.

(“And you’re a machine? Well, that explains your voice.”)

“It does seem very noticeable to most organic ponies.”

(“‘Organic ponies,’ eh?”) She chuckled. (“Well, I don’t know why I don’t remember you… but you seem like a nice, um, robot. So, nice to meet you, I guess!”)

Turing Test lifted her head. “Yes. It is nice to meet you again, Twilight Sparkle. And while I also cannot explain our dilemma, I will devote myself to assisting you in solving it.”

(“That’s great! Thank you!”) Twilight cheered. And for some reason, Turing momentarily felt as though Twilight was kicking her forelegs into the air. (“Well, where are we right now?”)

Turing Test exited the alleyway and began crossing the plaza before Town Hall. Numerous citizens of Ponyville waved to her or jumped out of the way as she sped through the midday crowd.

“We are crossing the town plaza south of Town Hall.”

(“Then the Carousel Boutique is near! In that case, Turing Test, let’s go pay Rarity a visit!”)

“Understood. Now changing destination to Carousel Boutique.”

Neither Twilight nor her robot friend had any idea how Rarity would take this strange news, but they were about to find out...


To be continued...