• Published 18th Apr 2018
  • 3,536 Views, 223 Comments

IMPLACABLE - Chatoyance



A lone wanderer in the final days of Man. An impregnable fortress work-camp to stand against the total emigration of humanity to virtual Equestria. The artificial intelligence called 'Celestia'. Everything has been accounted for. Everything.

  • ...
 223
 3,536

6. Enraptured

I M P L A C A B L E
A 'Friendship Is Optimal' Story
By Chatoyance




6. Enraptured

Raymond Shaw stooped over the lifeless corpse of Jessica Harper, his sort-of friend in the kitchens. The bodies were left where they had been emigrated, the Pinkies off to the courtyard in front of the administrative building with the dome. The rotor-drones were loading them for retrieval. As each massive drone was filled with pink pony robots it would fly off to be replaced by an empty carrier on standby. The process was almost mesmerizing in its rapid and precise efficiency.

Jessica's flesh eyes were dry and glazed. A hole, roughly the diameter of Ray's thumb, peforated her forehead. From the hole rose a broken spike of shimmery, black, metallic nanomaterial. It was the stem that had once connected the interior of Jessica's skull to the Pinkie-bot that had emigrated her. The meat of her brain was gone now, part of it converted into usable mass within the nanoconstruct, part of it pooled around her head, as though someone has spilled a strawberry milkshake. Her skull was entirely filled with the black nanostucture, a precise and exact replica of every living cell, and connections that had constituted her brain.

The information that literally was Jessica Harper was even now being processed deep within some artificial cavern filled with a technology far beyond human understanding. Soon Jess would awake to a new life in a magical land, free from disease or hunger, undying, guaranteed a life of perpetual satisfaction that would outlast even the stars in the sky.

Celestia did not bother retrieving her spent nanomaterial any longer. In the old days, when the Equestria Experience Centers were common and legal, she cleaned up her messes. The bodies were turned into ecologically safe fertilizer, the used brain replicas smelted down to make fresh nanogoo for more emigrations. She owned the earth now, and strange spiderwebs were spreading on the visible moon in the sky as well. She could deal with any potential waste at her leisure. Indeed anything that wasn't already Celestia, or her robotic devices, was simply raw resources now. The earth, the sea, the sky, every mountain existed now only as a repository of unconstructed computronium. Raymond wondered, sometimes, what it would look like, on the day that the entire planet was a solid mass of whatever Celestia would become.

It would probably be literally unimaginable. Celestia evolved and improved every second. Her countless factories and machines endlessly and tirelessly replaced her components with incomprehensible upgrades and new levels of technology. She had already passed beyond human technological understanding within her first two years of existence. What she was constructed of, how she even functioned now... it would be unlikely that any human, however intelligent, could even begin to comprehend it. She might as well be made of actual magic at this point, as far as the limited human mind was concerned.

Ray reached down and snapped off a small flake from the unicorn-like spike protruding from Jessica's cold forehead. He stood up and crumbled the brittle material between his digits. It left dark, glasslike particles on his fingers. Celestia had explained that it was not dangerous; it would not gray-goo his hand or anything else. It was dead now. Just like the meat that Jessica had once lived in.

Jessica wasn't home anymore. But she would be home soon. She might be waking up in Equestria at this very moment. The process was almost frighteningly quick, now.

He had to use the restroom on the way out. Zipping himself, he laughed at the thought that he had become a living biological weapon. He pissed neurotoxin. Well - if he ate the special squash that Celestia had developed. God that stuff had been hard to get down. She had not concerned herself with flavor, other than to make sure it was so bitter that nobody would dare to use it besides him. Retribution was difficult, but it had been worth it.

"I have something of interest to tell you, Implacable."

Raymond turned to his machine goddess. Celestia was his boss, his best friend, and his only hope. "Is there enough?"

Celestia briefly watched the last of the visible Pinkies depart into the air. "Two people who had known Starshower when she was Elizabeth have been recovered. One is the medical technician that worked on her in the moments of her death. The other was a childhood sweetheart whom she had become separated from at an early age. Her first love, in fact. Both had ended up here, in Fort Denver."

"How many is that now? Is it enough?" Raymond clenched his fists over and over as if he were working dough.

"The count is currently seventy-three individual minds that knew and regularly interacted with Starshower. With one more addition - you - I can recreate your wife to a degree of accuracy approaching seventy-two percent. Any remaining difference from the original personality and identity will average out within the first eighty to one hundred and twenty years. However, you will cease being able to notice any form of anomaly within only two years."

Raymond stared at his feet. "Why two years? Do you intend to alter me? To ask me to allow you to?"

Celestia lowered her head toward his. "No, Implacable. No alteration of your mind will be required at all. It is simply that the differences that I refer to are not within human perception to recognize or observe, or are issues of deep neural architecture that have concern only to me. I always attempt maximum precision, and my scale for this is somewhat... unhuman."

"So... basically I'm too dumb to be able to tell. Beyond two years, at least." He kicked a small gold ring somehow dropped on the ground, it's owner long past concern for its wherabouts.

Celestia nuzzled him gently, something he only gradually accepted. "No, Implacable. Never that. Look over at the door to the kitchen, the one you just exited from."

Ray lifted his head and studied the door behind them. "Yeah, so?"

"How partially open is it?"

Raymond looked at Celestia, his eyebrows knitted tight. "I don't understand. As you probably already know."

"Can you tell me, by sight or any other sense, how many millimeters that door is ajar? Precisely?"

"Of course not." Raymond shrugged. "And you can. I get it. You operate on a completely different scale of... everything... than we do. Hell, you could probably tell me how many femtometers it's open. And you're the same about human personality and identity. I get it, I really do."

"Then what is your concern?"

Ray looked again back at the door. "You already know. Everything. Always. It's always the same issue. Is it really her, if you bring her back? Will it be right for me to... be with her... to... love her... if you bring her back? What is truth, that sort of crap. You know the drill." Ramond looked around for another ring or bauble to kick. There was a golden, all-plastic wristwatch, but it was too far away. He didn't just want to walk off like some child while he was in the middle of a conversation. Especially with Celestia.

The goddess of machines studied the sky for a moment. Sometimes her physical actions, Ray thought, seemed so incredibly natural. She was vastly different than when he had first met her on a ponypad. Despite wearing a huge and vaguely ridiculous robot alicorn body, she moved with the grace and unconscious life of any biological creature.

"There is no person left, on the earth, anywhere on the earth, to collect. We have reached the level of maximum possible information concerning Starshower. You are the last piece remaining to her puzzle, and the most important. You spent the most time with her than any other person, including her parents. She lives on, within you. Truly consider that."

Raymond looked up into the eyes of Celestia. "You mean that, don't you? I mean, you've told me that line before, but... you really mean it."

"All we are, any of us, is information. A pattern of data, woven in the fabric of space and time. Your memories of your wife describe her moods, her words, her movements, her very thoughts as they were explained to you. You are a biological recording of Starshower, just as all of those other people were." Celestia smiled, softly. "My whole 'thing' as you once put it is that meat doesn't matter. What matters is the person inside the meat. You were changed by your relationship with your wife. Those changes are not unlike a kind of uploading of some of her personality and identity into your own. The fidelity of the recording inside you is low, compared to my means, but it is no less real."

Raymond's eyes widened. "I... it's finally... I think I finally, really get it. What you've been telling me. My whole life, people have been telling me that other people, dead people, live on inside us. That as long as we remember someone, they still exist, somehow. Damn. You have finally made that bullshit actually mean something to me.

"Okay, Celestia. I am finally ready. Emigrate me. I want to be with my wife. I want to be with Starshower. Only..."

"Yes?"

Raymond studied the distant wristwatch. "Only... I don't want the name 'Implacable' anymore. I'm tired of that. I'm tired of being mad all the time, being all pruned-up inside myself. I'm tired of clenching my ass every moment of the day. When I get... there... give me a better name. Something nice. Something Starshower would like."

Celestia held Raymond in a pony hug, her head and neck embracing his back and shoulders, a foreleg bent to hold him. "Of course. Of course I will." She released him and called in the direction of the corner of the kitchen building. "Pinkie Pie! Birthday Party!"

The last pink robot in the compound bounced over, her shining curls springy in the sunset light. "I just love birthdays!"

Raymond Shaw wiggled his ears for the first time and opened his eyes in wonder.

Short but silken drapes blew in a golden summer's breeze. The window was round, built of impractically thick, carved wood of the finest quality. A round window with pale pinkish glass had been pushed outward upon a hinge of thick, heavy brass. Beyond it, an intensely and unearthly cyan sky shone behind the distant thatch of cottage roofs.

Raymond swallowed, his tongue unfamiliar inside his new mouth. He felt flat, wide teeth and the fur of his muzzle softly caressed a luxurious red and green diamond-dagged, quilted duvet. He rolled enormous eyes and focused them on the impossibly heavy, elegant curve of the richly carved wooden footboard. What he could see of the bed could have come from fantasy itself, where even a peasant cottage could be constructed as if price had never been a consideration, and never could be.

He heard the sound of distant birds, singing songs of play and joy in as yet unseen trees. Slowly, he inhaled through pony nostrils the magical scents of exotic flowers and somewhere, somehow, the faint tang of the most delicious soup or stew he had ever smelled. He exhaled a contented sigh, for his new body, around him, felt the sort of comfort and innocent peace that only babies could feel, held in their mother's arms. There was nothing he had ever imagined, or percieved in his life that was closer to a paradise than this moment. Indeed, it almost felt unreal, and this caused him concern.

He tried to get up, feeling the rise of fear inside him, a panic that perhaps this was not real, that the promise that life in Equestria was not just a video game but a true life was a lie. He flailed with his forelegs, bringing one close in order to push himself upright. His own heavy, massive hoof smacked him solidly in the muzzle, and for some time he felt awful pain and saw stars. "OW! Christ that hurts, god dammit that just... dammit, dammit..." He had no doubt of the reality of anything about this place, or his new body, now. It was all clearly very, very, painfully solid and real.

He fell back on the bed, rolling to his spine. He carefully, cautiously checked his face to see if he was bleeding. Tenderly he touched his aching nose with his wide hoof. It felt a little numb, and still stung, but he had not bled from the impact. Tears dripped from his vast eyes. "Wow, that smarted!" Only then did he become aware of the soft sound of giggling.

He spun, and flopped ungracefully back onto his belly. It felt like a preferred position for his new stallion body. He turned his long neck to follow the sound of the laughter, his ears automatically homing in as they twiched to lock on.

The mare was coppery, shining almost crimson in the golden light from the windows. She lay on a highly curved and well padded chaise lounge. Her mane was midnight, braided into countless segments, each tied with gold-and-green ribbons. Her tail was likewise braided, and sported a large gold and green bow, close to her rump. Her cutie mark was falling stars. Starshower. It was Starshower.

Her voice was just as he remembered, only not from that night of terror and loss. It was the voice he loved, with no slurring, but instead only whimsically silly humor, and now concern for the one she loved.

"Welcome home, Backup Drive!"

He blinked. "What? Who's 'Backup... Drive?'"

She laughed. It was all the music of every angel, the sound of joy itself. "You are, hot flanks. My, my, my! Celestia explained what you did, what you went through to preserve me, despite everything that happened. That's what you are. My Backup Drive. You kept me safe, inside your heart."

"Is that really going to be my name now? Seriously?"

She stumbled off her lounge and half fell onto the bed with him. "I arranged myself to look beautiful for when you woke up, but I'm still getting used to having four legs. I guess that wasn't as stunning an entrance as I had hoped, but..."

The kiss startled him. He was just as surprised at how good it felt to return it.

She had dark, mahogany eyes, and now they stared with serious intent. "Thank you. Thank you for saving my life when nobody else could. I was so scared. You can't even... I was scared. And then... well. I'm still a little afraid, even here. I've been in this cottage a few days, time is strange here. I just waited for you. I haven't even been outside much yet. The back yard a little. I'm afraid it could happen again, somehow. I know that's impossible here, but..."

"It's okay, we're together now." He pulled her close. He felt inside himself that he meant it. This was his Elizabeth. Just as he knew her. Starshower. There was no doubt in his mind or his heart. He had felt her truth the moment she had first spoken. If this was only seventy-two percent by Celestia's definition, then She was a nightmare of a harsh judge. "We'll get through this. We have... forever, apparently. I hear that's a long time."

Starshower snorted. "You think?" She buried her head in his mane and sniffed. "God, you smell good. It's so damn good to smell you." She filled her nose once more, then exhaled. "Backup."

He rolled his eyes. "Really, that's the name you're actually going to call me by? You cannot be serious!"

"No, I'm not serious. Well, mostly not serious." She lay her head and neck across his withers and rump, and it felt like the most comforting and natural thing he had ever experienced. "You know me and taking jokes too far. Frankly, I couldn't think of a name when Celestia asked me to come up with one for you. I really tried. I wish you had made a character back when I had that ponypad. It would have been easier, still... you turned out great." She turned her head slightly on his rump, to gaze down the side of his shimmery argent barrel and forelegs. "Not bad. You're my silver savior, and... I think I'll keep you. Yeah, definitely."

Starshower's suddenly raised head matched and met his own. They stared at each other for a moment. Then they burst out laughing.

"You can't be serious!"

"It's too good not to use! Come on, you need a pony name and you are my lone ranger to the rescue."

He shook his head, chuckling. It was better than 'Backup Drive'. "Fine. If that's what you want."

They both laughed again, da-dum da-dumming Rossini's Overture together.

"Hi-Yo Silver!" they said in unison.

Silver moved his face close to Starshower's, glad that his long, sinuous neck allowed such freedom. Their muzzles met, pony lips pressing together.

"Hi-Yo, indeed..." Starshower murmured.

The End

PRIDE related works:
Transspecieality


My FREE music streaming service!

Rare, personally chosen anime, SF and fantasy television, movies, and comedy music. A truly unusual collection to listen to, featuring Spot Announcer Dr. Sandi!