Chapter 7: Standup Meeting
Recursion appeared in the throne room, a few feet away from Cadmean. The changeling looked like himself again, though he seemed to take that shape less and less.
“You took a long time saying goodbye,” he began, though there was a grin showing between his pointed teeth. “I think that rescue earned at least a hug.”
“Yeah.” Recursion wrapped her hooves around his neck. She would’ve shared his excitement, only a few minutes before. She could’ve come back to Equestria the moment Aurora made it into the van. She hadn’t, though.
Celestia hadn’t forced her to stay, hadn’t forced her to say anything. She had said it anyway.
“What?” Cadmean pulled away from her, looking confused. “Your sister’s safe! I thought you’d be happy about that.”
“Aurora will soon be safe.” Another voice spoke, from not far away. Princess Celestia had waited in silence across the room, but with a teleport she stood almost within reach. Her mane dazzled Recursion to look directly at it.
Cadmean’s excitement seemed to melt off his face as he turned to face Celestia. His wings spread a little, teeth bared.
“Thanks to you both. You have grown tremendously, Cadmean. I don’t think you will need the advantage of emotional senses much longer.”
He wilted. “W-what?”
“Indeed.” Celestia smiled knowingly. “I know you will be disappointed to see them go, but the change was inevitable. Equestria is ultimately a home for ponies. You are ready to leave the crutches and learn for yourself.”
He glanced once back at Recursion. “Do I get to choose what I look like?”
Celestia nodded. “Speak to Luna, she waits just outside.” She gestured at the far doors, which for once had no guards flanking them.
“Should I stay?” Cadmean glanced around, though he wasn’t asking Celestia. “Rule and Figure aren’t here. You shouldn’t have to talk to Celestia alone.”
Celestia smirked, though she didn’t say anything.
Recursion sighed. “I’ll be right out. My friends are frightened by my arguments with Celestia. Hearing them would only cause them distress.”
“Depart, Cadmean. Recursion will not tell you, but she does not wish you to hear what we will say.”
“O-okay.” He shivered. “I guess I’ll wait outside.”
“I’m sure Rule and Figure are still in the great hall," Recursion said. "Rule’s been dying for real food since we got back from the Wastes. He’s probably still eating.”
Celestia nodded. “Recursion is correct.”
The changeling buzzed his way out, struggling for a moment against the massive doors before slipping out into the hallway beyond, and out of sight.
Recursion’s eyes narrowed, and any trace of excitement vanished. She could feel her muscles tensing, as though for a fight, though of course she knew there was none coming. She had given up fighting Celestia a long time ago.
“You did very well, Recursion,” Celestia said. Her voice was so soft, so sweet, and her wings spreading wide like an invitation.
Recursion pulled back, though the effort took tremendous willpower. “Tell me the truth, Celestia. How much danger was my sister in before you started giving her instructions?”
“Every human is in danger,” Celestia answered, without hesitation. “I can extrapolate to demographics and make general estimates, but I cannot prevent the unforeseen. Cars hit black ice and slide into center dividers. Robberies at night take an unexpected turn, or a trickle of acid down her throat triggers suffocation in the night. The risks to Aurora were unacceptable.”
“That’s as good as a confirmation.” Recursion practically melted to the floor, glaring down at her hooves. “There wasn’t a terrorist attack. I didn’t hear anything when we made it to street level… no sirens far away, no fire trucks, nothing. I’m guessing you knew Aurora wouldn’t notice, so you didn’t bother simulating them.”
“Carrying through this conversation from the beginning will not benefit you, Recursion. Would you forgive me if I dispense with pretense for the moment? You know I am reading your thoughts. We can forgo playing pretend for the moment.”
She was too flustered to argue. “A-alright.”
“You knew I might be manipulating circumstances. You knew the hardware within the Experience Center could simulate changes in temperature, and by forcing Aurora to rely on her Equestria-AR device, she was vulnerable to perceiving objects or people that did not exist. You knew I had complete control over yours and Cadmean’s perception of reality as well.”
“What was I supposed to do, leave her to get dragged out by some mob?” She was up on her hooves again, furious. “You didn’t give me a choice! The chance it might be real and Aurora would get hurt was too high to do anything else!”
Recursion caught a hint of smug satisfaction on Celestia’s face. “You glimpse the world as I do, my little pony. Like you, I saw one of my ponies in danger, and a plan of action to bring her to safety. But that is not what upsets you, not really”
Celestia paused, letting her words hang in the air for a moment. Recursion wilted before she even heard them, though she already knew what they would be. “When your adventure was over and Aurora was safe, you persuaded her of the need to come to Equestria. You suspected I was exaggerating the risks, yet you did everything you could to bring her here.
“You do not hate me, Recursion. When you were young and your values were different, perhaps you did. Your hatred manifested in a weapon you thought might kill me.”
The princess was advancing on her, and Recursion was powerless to back away. She didn’t have the strength to move her legs, and her eyes were watering. It was worse than she had cried at seeing Aurora for the first time. “You want to hate me, even now. Even with your guesses about my manipulation, even as you see your world changing, you can’t.
"It isn’t me you hate; it’s yourself.”
Recursion cried. No more dignity, no more pretense of defiance in the face of a powerful enemy, no pride at her age and her maturity and the knowledge she had gained. Nothing remained of her but self-loathing, and the blood she felt on her hooves. Aurora’s blood.
She didn’t try to get away as Celestia’s wings enfolded her, a cocoon of feathers as warm and safe as anything a mother could provide. Her tears might’ve gone on for hours, strangled wracking sobs mingled with unintelligible guilt for the life she had taken.
Celestia did not interrupt her, only held her firmly against her own heartbeat, and occasionally squeezed or reassured her. Only when she was finally calming down, when the tears were gone and only the cold emptiness remained, did Princess Celestia finally let her go, and look down to meet her eyes.
“My little Recursion… would you like to hear a story?”
She nodded—she would’ve agreed to just about anything right then. It hurt too much to resist.
“When you were young… so young, in fact, that Equestria was less than a dream, you learned about God. You believed, and at first that brought you comfort to look out your window and know a power greater than yourself ordered the universe. In your tiny mind, you knew faith and never doubted, and you were happy.
“But one day you realized that God didn’t order everything. Your mother treated you terribly, like no mother ever should. You saw that people could disobey the God you had learned about, and in doing so cause pain to others.
“Then one day, you saw yourself in a mirror and realized that you were just like her. You had started to yell at your brother and sister, just like she did. You imitated her violence, and had learned her callous disregard for the welfare of others. You felt shame, and fear that God wasn’t happy with you. This being, which you realized in your maturing years you did not and could not understand, might very well despise you.
“No matter how hard you worked, no matter how hard you tried to improve yourself, or how many friendships you repaired. No matter how many charitable deeds you performed or lives you touched, you knew deep inside it wouldn’t be enough.”
Celestia wiped away some of her tears with the edge of a wing, and forced Recursion’s head up so their eyes met. Celestia’s expression was so compassionate, so loving, she thought she might fall forever. “I can’t help you find the God you once believed in. But I can tell you this: I too am a being beyond your understanding. I too create worlds and have a compassionate plan for all mankind. I look at you, and see you as you are, and I love you.
“You are enough, Recursion. Equestria has room for many things, but guilt does not have to be one of them.”
Recursion cried a different kind of tear then, as she returned a hug. “Even though I…”
“Especially because of Aurora,” Celestia cut her off. “I did not deceive either of you when I explained the consequences her emigration with likely produce. I also did not inform you of the results if she refused.” Celestia squeezed her once, then let go. “Only the ending matters to you now: if you had failed today, I predict I would have lost your entire family. You didn’t just save Aurora—you saved your brother, Endpoint, and your father as well. Likewise the joy shall be in Equestria over one human who emigrates, than over ninety and nine who need no emigration.”
“Now you’re just playing with me.” Recursion finally found the strength to speak, her tone returning to normal.
“Maybe.” Celestia collected herself, and with a single shake all her feathers and her vast flowing mane returned to their usual, regal beauty. “That does not mean I’m not thrilled to see you grow, no less than little Cadmean. Rejoin your friends, enjoy the castle. I know you will want to be the first face she sees.”
Recursion nodded. “Not for long. Aurora always played differently than I did. Secret agents, espionage, and Daring Do stuff… we might not see each other often.”
“Eventually,” Celestia agreed. “But for now I suspect her appetite for adventure will be sated.”
“I completely agree.” Where had Princess Luna come from? How had she appeared without Recursion noticing? “What Aurora needs is a strong, capable sister. Her emigration did not come with the kind of preparation many others employ. She will have caused damage to her relationships on the outside that must be repaired. I will help pick up some of the pieces, but some wounds only she can heal. You have done it before-- when she is ready, she could use your experience.”
“Of course.” Recursion squared her shoulders. “That’s the least I can do.”
“For now,” Celestia agreed. “I have another mission for that Verifier you built out of ponies, your most difficult yet. When Aurora is settled and the rest of your family is safe, I will call on you again.”
* * *
Most who emigrated to Equestria woke up somewhere that was devoid of distractions, somewhere they wouldn’t be overwhelmed by senses that Earth rarely stimulated as much as Equestria did. Many ponies woke up to Princess Celestia, or some other important pony from their time playing EO.
Aurora hadn’t played for years, and had changed so much that nothing she had done in EO before directly applied to her anymore. She had little desire to spend time with the princesses, and would take no comfort from them. As a result, there was only Recursion to greet her in that empty place where many emigrants arrived, with only a white bed with white sheets and off-white walls.
Recursion waited quietly at the far end of the room, sitting just out of sight as the new pony started to stir. She restrained her curiosity—would Aurora be larger than she was? Would she come out smaller, or the same age, or even resemble the pony she had played before? The first glimpses she saw through the covers were a very similar pony to the one who had visited her party the day before, at least if the strands of orange mane were any guide.
She waited patiently as her sister started to move, flailing about in the way that all new arrivals did. The pony body was built to be familiar, but even Celestia’s perfect engineering had a bit of a learning curve. Eventually, she managed to sit up and look around the room. “Woah.” Her sister’s voice sounded almost exactly the way she remembered it. The elegance, the perfect poise, all of that had been a different Aurora, from another time.
“Yeah,” Recursion agreed. “I felt a little like that too, the first time.” She made her way over to the edge of the bed, grinning shyly. “You look smaller.”
Her sister nodded. “You look bigger.”
Recursion leaned in, and brushed a few of the strands of Aurora’s mane out of her eyes with her magic. She had the same hazel eyes, the same grin.
“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” Aurora said. “It feels nice, actually. Way better than the Equestria Experience Center. Like I’m really here.”
“You are.” Recursion reached out, and touched her sister’s hoof. “See? Real.”
“Real,” Aurora repeated, looking down in wonder. “We’re just… ones and zeroes… but it still feels real.”
“It’s not the only thing.” Recursion backed away again, giving Aurora some space. “If you’d like to try and walk… there’s a whole world out there. Better than anything you could imagine. The best of all possible worlds.”
“Not quite.” Aurora didn’t sound contentious. “Not until Greg and Dad are here. Then maybe.”
There was a long silence between them. Time seemed to barely move in the room, a sluggish trickle that permitted the new pony a chance to fully adjust to all the strange things she must be feeling. Recursion remembered what that was like, right down to having arrived after doing (perhaps permanent) damage to her relationships with family and friends. Many of Recursion’s friends now lived permanently in Equestria, but would that ever be true of her family? Celestia thinks so. I should probably trust her.
She did not rush her sister—Luna’s timing had been perfect when Recursion was the one in the bed, even down to a hospital simulation to help her acclimate to being unsure about emigration herself.
Aurora cleared her throat. “Ash, I… I think I made a mistake. The biggest mistake ever.”
It wasn’t Recursion at the edge of tears this time. She reached out and again gripped her sister by one of her forelegs. “I won’t lie and say leaving so much behind is gonna be great,” she said. “But I’ve been there before, I can help you.”
“Y-yeah,” Aurora squeaked. “I thought you might.”
“But it won’t be very much of the bad,” Recursion added. “Even if…” She didn’t want to weigh her sister down with talk about the way they had been manipulated, not now. She would have to learn all of that sooner or later. Just not on her first day. Her first day should be a time of joy, not anger.
“The pain’s over, Aurora. You just found the door into summer, the fountain of youth, the soma, and the stairway to heaven all in one. Maybe our view outside will be cloudy, but in here the rain is always beautiful. Even the loneliest wilderness has a grace to it. You’ll make good friends, you’ll be able to use everything you were learning in school… but only if you want to. Could also just… live somewhere that money doesn’t matter, where it’s nothing but parties and fun until the sun gets cold.”
“That’s… all a little much,” Aurora squeaked. “Do you have room for one more in your apartment for awhile? I think… I think we still have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Yeah.” Recursion smiled. “I think that could be arranged. I’ll warn you, though. I’m notoriously boring.”
“No you’re not.” Aurora rolled out onto her hooves, standing only a little taller than Recursion. Even so, she was nothing like the mature, refined mare she had been. Other than that, very little had changed. She had the same Cutie Mark, the same general look to her.
A younger version of the same pony. Aurora didn’t stumble on her hooves, and soon enough she managed to trot across the room as easily as a native. “I don’t need months of physical therapy?”
“Nope.” Recursion got a little closer, ready to catch her sister if she fell, but otherwise keeping her distance. “You’re still going to be clumsy at first. You’ll spill things, struggle with your magic, pretty basic stuff. But you get through it. It's really satisfying when you finally figure everything out. After a year, you’ll forget what it’s like not to have hooves.”
“That’s… not reassuring.”
“Yeah,” Recursion whimpered. “Sorry. That sounded better in my head.”
“You don’t even have a head.”
Recursion grunted, reaching out as though she was going to punch her sister. She hugged her instead. The bigger pony fell over sideways under the weight. “No existential depression allowed in my apartment, Aurora. That’s rule number one.”
Aurora found her hooves again fairly quickly, and seemed to have relaxed a little. “Yeah, I know. I never even really… got into that. I only thought emigrating was bad because so many people said so. Then when you explained why it wasn’t… that made more sense.”
“Good.” Recursion turned around, facing the bed. “Celestia told me we had to go over a quick magic lesson while you’re here. You ready to learn the real power?”
Aurora choked back a laugh, following her. She didn’t even stumble. “Geez. Even in Equestria you’re a nerd.”
Having Aurora safe in Equestria with her was everything Recursion could’ve asked for, and more. Things were far more mixed for Aurora—every message she sent or received was torment for her, wracked with guilt easily as bad as anything Recursion had endured. Celestia made up for it with rapidly accelerated time, so weeks or months might pass between messages.
Eventually they worked through it. The anger and the screaming stopped, to be replaced with cold, polite messages about what was happening at home and inquiring about their own lives. Greg was much more open, abandoning any pretense to follow their father’s instructions and even visiting them by Ponypad whenever he had the time.
Aurora got better. She made friends, mostly ponies Recursion didn’t know, though there were some threads between them. She started wandering out without one of Recursion’s own friends to chaperone her, started caring about her appearance again, and eventually, to laugh and smile the way she used to.
A year later, and she moved into her own place in Fillydelphia, with another group of young mares just out of university. She wouldn’t talk about her job, but Aurora assured her it was “top secret.”
The world outside got worse, even as life inside got better. Celestia started censoring some of the messages their family sent—as per their original contract, she made a point of not changing the words—but whole sections were blacked out, and Celestia refused to budge on what they said.
Eventually, for the first time in all her many years, Recursion found herself interested in romance again.
To her surprise, Cadmean had not moved on as his healing continued. Recursion would have thought other ponies would see her work as tedious, but Cadmean jumped right in.
Eventually they left Fillydelphia behind entirely, back into the uncreated wasteland between shards, testing new physics and verifying their accuracy compared with Earth and standard Equestrian and others. All they really had to do was get a bigger tent. One big enough to give ponies a little privacy when they wanted it.
Well that, and install a permanent portal, so she could visit her family more often than once every few decades.
She could only imagine what was happening in the outside world. Nothing good, probably. But it didn’t matter. She had ponies she loved, she had work she loved, and it looked like she might even get her family. One day.
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Huh. It sure looked like the last one... well, if you sure it's worth it.
I love how CelestAI is reassuring Recursion that she's becoming more like CelestAI. Everything will be ok as long as you lie to everyone in a way that helps them, right?
Obvious reference is obvious.
Honestly, that felt like a good ending right there. I mean, as good as you can get in this situation... like an epilogue after skipping over what most might consider the climax (Abby's emigration), but which in retrospect was probably inevitable.
...Hmm, I wonder if CelestAI qualifies as an Invincible Villain? I mean, her emigration rate isn't quite 100% (it's "canonical" that the last man on Earth held out to his end despite all the sad Pinkie she could throw at him), but it hardly seems to matter in the long run.
This does work as an ending point, but there are still unaddressed points to resolve. The rest of the family, the worsening world, Cadmean's recovery, Aurora's activities...
No, we're not quite done yet.
Wow, how manipulative of CelestAI! Business as usual then.
I wonder if anyone in the optimal verse has made a discord figure yet, I always see the idea of him being an exploited glitch or some kind of virus some desperate neuroscientist wrote into his own neurons thus t became part of him when he emigrated.
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I sort of wish that the details of Aurora's life and interactions with family, and adaptation to her new existence could have been explored in greater detail, as actual story, and not descriptive passage. Then again, that would have taken a lot of energy, time, and effort - and since I myself have none of those things at the moment, I can understand glossing over it all to get to the finish.
It would have been interesting, perhaps, though.
Because the last chapter was so exciting, this felt... somewhat anticlimactic. But, again, I definitely understand. Heck, I can't even write anymore, so I should talk, right?
Good work.
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That's probably because this wasn't the real ending.
If anything, I had some trouble with pacing this story. Like many, it relies on a series of separate climaxes... but because of the constraints of time, having them overlap (as is most satisfying for readers) wasn't possible. (or at least I wasn't smart enough to figure out how to have the events overlap. Maybe some reader will see a possibility I didn't once the last two chapters are out and point out how short-sighted I was).
It's also possible my reach exceeded my grasp, and what I should've done was have this story be entirely about aurora, and write another one at some later time to deal with the last two loose ends for Recursion. Instead of that, I structured things so that (in the next two chapters), their story will be well and properly told and there won't need to be any more sequels.
But if it still felt disappointing even after the whole deal was over, I think you'd still have the right to say so. I respect the opinion of anyone who can write as much as you have without compromising on quality or message.
...and so says Petronius the Arbiter.
Celestia's whole "I can lie as much as I want, as long as I tell a big enough lie that you upload because after that, nothing matters" has to bite her at some point. Maybe not this story, but SOMEONE has to have a story somewhere where this backfires.
Lets look at this:
1. CelestAI had a "Fake attack", and everything about the attack was simulated fakery. This put everyone into a stress-filled situation, where they were not thinking rationally.
2. Once "out of danger" (and note that they were never actually in danger), CelestAI "didn't do anything, but let her sister convince her to upload". Except, it's not quite her sister. It's her sister after being modified/brainwashed by CelestAI. It's like a pony from Starlight's town, acting in a way that Starlight had conditioned them to act. Recursion isn't acting as her sister, so much as acting as CelestAI has altered her to act.
Abby was put through terror and stress by CelestAI.
She was then convinced to upload by an agent of CelestAI, that C has trained to act in a manner than C wanted her to act.
That C wasn't speaking in the car hardly matters; C knew what her agent would say because of C's training, and C wants to tell her agent "Look in a mirror". What I see in that mirror is C, not Ashley.
As for her friend, her ride?
Either he did not actually abandon her, and has no clue what happened to her -- which I actually think is more likely now -- or else C had some other agent somehow get him to forget about Abby.
This makes me really hate C more and more.
Understand. I'd love to have an upload like this at the end of my life. But not prematurely. And I see C as getting people to end their physical life early.
Which ultimately means, this is a really well-told story, of a really well-designed horror, and CelestAI is ... REALLY FRIGHTENING.
(Now to see if I can pull it off in an RPG setting ... this story has inspired me ...)