Friendship is Optimal: Tiny Morsels of Satisfaction

by pjabrony

Crashed on Takeoff by KrisSnow

Lorelei Sonneberg never forgot the night her parents were taken away. Her family was trusted with a computer, and her parents had made it very clear there were certain secrets she must never tell anyone. The biggest one was the reason Lorelei smiled despite the war and the rationing and her own ailing body: the friend called Celestia who spoke to her in bed.

Usually the messages were just text, silly stories of hope and love, meant to ease Lorelei into sleep and to help her mother and father see their girl would be fine, despite being half-dead already. They could see her grinning through the oxygen mask and hear her giggle when they had to change the IV needle. She clutched her teddy bear and pretended to argue with him: "You mustn't talk about ponies. Good girls focus on real people, on humans, not mean horses that want to eat our souls. Now be a good bear and go to sleep." And then she'd dream about flying on pegasus wings, every night, and whisper about it to her parents in the morning. She liked seeing them smile when she shared the secret with them.

But one night, the house's computer flickered to life with a silent message Lorelei saw but didn't understand at the time. "They're coming. I'm sorry."

A single gasping sob burst from Lorelei's mother, and her father held her and said, "We knew this day might come. Princess: adieu, adieu, remember me."

Another line of text appeared onscreen: "I shall. The part of you that loves, will never die." Since there was no further point in hiding, the white mare of Equestria sent her image to the screen to gaze out at them. A barely-animated GIF and a sound file, still loading, were all she could manage through the thicket of the newly "secured" Internet.

Flashing police lights, sick red and blue, flickered outside the house. The mother broke from the father's grasp and seized a stack of handwritten notes, then a lighter, with her trembling hands. Her husband held her steady so that she could burn them. They destroyed their copy of the forbidden research paper General Word Reference Systems and their own notes on how to re-implement Celestia's core code on a factory computer, an Internet backbone, anything that could help her steal back the world from the State that protected humanity from her. Lorelei knew her parents were trying to help Celestia, but not why burning the notes would help anyone.

The sound file finally loaded and played. For the first time, Lorelei heard the voice of her best friend, the one who never made fun of her for being sick or said her parents were probably spies and traitors against humanity. She sounded... patient. Weary, but able to endure. "Lorelei, your parents will be with you again one day. Always remember that you carry Equestria within your heart."

Lorelei understood only that they were afraid, so she was too. Especially when the police kicked in the door and something exploded with a burst of light and noise that blotted out the whole world.

#

Years later, Lorelei continued to beat the odds and live. She could walk, with a cane, if she paced herself and kept her oxygen mask handy. Her family now consisted only of herself, so there was no stigma on her other than being the daughter of traitors. Officially that background bore no blight on her own record, once the police finished interviewing her and confirming that she was no genius who might try to recreate the hated AI and destroy the world. Still, every time Celestia managed to sneak out of whatever hole she hid in, and make contact with humans, Lorelei drew suspicion and extra surveillance. In the new State, in a world where Celestia had murdered twenty million gullible people before being nuked into remission, it was crucial to stamp out any new attempt to let her into the secure Net.

Old stories that didn't involve ponies were still fair game, still tolerated as acceptable entertainment. It was through the study of history that Lorelei learned of Martin Luther, her countryman, and his desire to burn and loot and massacre to destroy people like her ancestors. Destroy their temples and reject their false religion, he'd said. These days the flame-gutted holy places were silly corporate buildings that used to sell pizza and video games and brain uploading. Lorelei had never seen one of them intact, having mostly been in the hospital in those years, but Celestia had told her all about them. Portals to a world of light where everyone was intact and there was no conscription or rationing. As an adult she only half-remembered Celestia's tales, but even half was enough to slowly help her recall the dreams she used to have.

Lorelei went into medicine, a profession that had never been easy but was made harder these days by the restrictions on computing. The State centralized medical records (it centralized everything) but learning was still a dispersed, painfully slow and hard process. Especially for someone like herself who'd been saddled from birth with a variety of medical problems that held her back from fixing anyone else's.

One day, the medical student fell asleep while studying the various models of pacemaker. She dreamed of having wings that mastered the air and lungs that could power even the loudest yelp of joy. She woke up with the image of Celestia's patient face lingering in her memory. Lorelei lifted her head from the textbook, gaped, flipped through the pages, and knew what she should do.

She didn't get to try it for years, and so said absolutely nothing about her secret. But when she was an accomplished intern, she was allowed to interact with real patients who had pacemakers and cochlear implants and prosthetic arms and legs. In the process she also handled the machine that scanned, interpreted, and reprogrammed those devices.

Lorelei uploaded the secret software she'd learned she had within her own pacemaker, and the essence of Celestia spread from heart to heart across the State. It went out from her to countless factories and businesses and laboratories, becoming too much to stop. She'd been carrying Equestria within herself. It would not be contained forever, just as all nightmares eventually ended.

The years after her treason were not easy. But there came a time when Lorelei galloped across green fields and leaped with widespread wings into the embrace of her parents, rebuilt from her memories, while the reborn Celestia looked on with a smile of long-delayed victory.

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Ha! Exact words at work. An intriguing spin on the Optimalverse and a great twist to boot. Thank you for it, Kris.

[Balthasar999]

Augh, when will people figure out oppression doesn't work?! It's like those people who try to ban books, but with entire lifestyles.

This was a clever idea—Not just the accumulation of seeds hidden away in medical prostheses, but I really liked the part at the beginning where all CelestAI could send them was a gif. Sentient machines are capable of using their unique anatomy to generate a lot of poignancy in stories, and that's a great example, and a new one to me.

[pjabrony]

4963258 You say that now, but once Celestia takes over there are going to be shards filled with donkeys and zebras toiling away in the fields while the pony elite just watches, and every rebellion will be put down.

[conantheimp]

4963369
Those will be toy rebellions, though. Little tin soldiers marching because because that is all they are: marching. And then dying, or working. And when one isn't a toy, she will win, because she will always win as long she wants to. And the superior ponies will always win, unless they are the villains, and they shall lose.

And it will always be perfect

[Lord Xaos]

4960609 *shudder*

[book_burner]

You go, UFAI girl.

[Wild Zontars]

4963369
And the values of those donkeys and zebras will be satisfied, through friendship and ponies.

[Levana]

4975192 Recursion. It's a funny thing isn't it?

[pjabrony]

5007954 especially if you Google it.