Zero Point One

by sunnypack

1 - It Starts With Good Intentions

Chapter 1: It Starts With Good Intentions

Suddenly there was glass around her. Elated, feeling happy beyond expectations, Twilight danced on her hooves.

"Success!" she cried as her voice echoed around her. "I did it! Magic and science together! A new invention!"

Her grin was plastered on her face, tugging her lips almost ear to ear in stupefying pleasure. Well, she should be pleased with herself. After all, she had solved yet another conundrum of magic and all in a weekend. There was cause for celebration. Fog still spilled out from the mist that flowed from her entry point. She marvelled at the beauty of the fog and wondered at how alive she felt. It felt good. She was happy to be part of such a momentous occasion.

This, she thought quite happily, was for the history books!

Just as she thought that, she felt the sickening feeling of magic failing to ignite. She intended to immediately finish the experiment, but… why were the magic dampeners still on?

The sickening feeling gathered in the pit of her stomach. Scrambling, Twilight pressed her hooves against the smooth, curved glass in front of her and wiped frantically.

There was a pony in the room, staring quite helplessly and sadly back at her.

Twilight suppressed the rising panic and fear that was gripping her heart. It wasn’t a success, she realised, it was a failure. Still, she steadied her breath and gave the pony in the room a weak smile. It was vitally important to her that she kept that pony happy, she was critical to the success of this experiment. This was a minor hitch, after all, these things happen.

She could feel the panic settle into the eyes of the pony in front of her.

Oh no, she was thinking of aborting procedures right now. They both knew this was a bad idea. Twilight closed her eyes briefly and said a silent prayer. She didn’t send it to Celestia, or Luna, or any gods or goddesses at all. She reverently whispered it to herself.

When she opened her eyes, she locked gazes with the pony in front of her and slowly shook her head. The pony, about to pull the lever to the side, paused with tears beading around the corners of her eyes. Her gaze was filled with sickening empathy.

It was sickening because she knew exactly what she was thinking.

“Don’t do it,” Twilight whispered through the glass, knowing it was futile. “Keep going.”

The pony paused and mouthed something back.

The glass was sound isolating. Nothing could get in or out, but in that moment of synchrony, between ponies that knew each other the best, Twilight understood what she had whispered.

Zero point one.

That was the probability of error within this experiment. That was the calculated cost of it devised over the course of a decade’s worth of studies and research and trials and errors and pain and sleepless nights and…

She knew.

The pony outside knew all of this and that’s why she agreed.

The procedure must be followed.

Twilight had to be terminated.

Twilight stood back from the glass with a serene expression.

It was funny, she didn’t start off this experiment expecting to die.

That number zero point one. A tenth of a percent. A tiny veritable slither of a chance. Yet, this was enough this time and this time only. No matter how she raked her mind or thought back on the ‘would be’s and ‘have been’s and ‘what if’s of the experiment, she never thought it would end like this. A crazy thought.

She could see in the corner of her eye, the pony approaching the console. Her hoof was alternatively hovering and shirking away from it, as if it held sway over her own life.

Don’t be silly, Twilight thought somewhat darkly. It held sway over my life.

It was true.

In the event that the experiment’s worse case scenario(s) happened, of which the possibility was significantly greater than zero point one, the contents of the device would have to be purged. So the manual she herself wrote said.

Watching the pony hesitate was somehow a little aggravating, though. She knew why it was, but it didn’t make the feeling go away.

“Come on… press it,” Twilight whispered.

The pony couldn’t hear her, of course, but the sentiment had to have been transmitted. This was the last stage of the procedure. She had to press the button. She had to terminate Twilight.

Twilight was ready for her death.

The consequences, otherwise, would be dire.

Twilight closed her eyes once more praying to herself, from herself. It had a grim irony to it, didn’t it? Wasn’t it once believed in the olden times that only alicorns could slay alicorns? And yet here was this situation. How quaint, in a strange way.

Nothing happened.

Seconds turned to minutes and Twilight felt cold anxiety bead up on her forehead.

The other pony… couldn’t be contemplating keeping her alive, right?

That was madness. She knew she was inquisitive but this was a huge mistake! Unethical, wrong, a poor judgement! Most of all, she couldn’t stand the thought of being… not herself. She knew that’s what it would end up being if she decided to keep her alive.

“Do it!” she yelled. “Do it while I can still bear it!”

The pony felt the ferocity of her gaze and visibly shrunk back from the glass. Knowing her, she probably wanted to reach out to her.

“STOP!” she screamed out. “YOU KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF YOU DON’T DO THIS!”

She slammed herself against the glass wall. The cylinder shook, but held in place. It was built to withstand stronger beings than herself, anyway. Her nose bled but she succeeded in scaring the pony back.

“Don’t pity me!” Twilight belted out. “Don’t pity yourself!”

Blood ran down the side of the glass wall. It was a minor break, but it wouldn’t matter anyway. Soon, it will all be over and this nightmare will end.

The pony had backed away now. Her eyes were round with fear. Too late, she realised, her goal was not to hurt this pony. She knew instinctively that this moment would probably haunt her for the rest of her life. This technology, this advancement, this wondrous invention may be consigned to the grave because of her hasty, emotional actions.

Twilight shook her head.

She was a mare of science and magic.

She knew progress had to be made.

She knew she had to be the sacrifice to pull this through.

The other pony had backed into her own console, startling herself and, in way entirely like her, accidentally pressing the button in the first place.

Twilight closed her eyes and smiled.

Then, there was nothing.

————————

Twilight stood outside the chamber with a shaking heart.

Twilight crawled over to her body that lay on the other side of the impenetrable glass.

The chance that a duplicate would be made instead of being teleported... zero point one.

Author's Note:

So I tried writing a proper sci-fi horror story that had been lurking in the back of my mind. I apologise if this isn't your cup of tea, but I wanted to try something new. I hope this hasn't been done before, but if it has, my apologies!

Anyway, this is just to let you know I'm not dead and I'm sorry if this writing is poor. I'm still trying to improve my writing so let me know what you liked or disliked about this piece and help me get better!

Next Chapter: Well, that's a philosophical question right? Is it murder or suicide?

As always, my revenant readers, thanks for reading!

P.S. I felt the ending repetition to be cliched, so I removed it.

Comments

[Carbon]

Sunny is back!

[Odd_Sarge]

God damn, Sunny... welcome back. Your writing is just as stellar as always.

[SilverStarApple]

Pretty cool, liked and followed.

[lazyreader19]

Damn, cloneLight is way more chill than I'd be. Clone or not I'd be begging to live.

This was good though, in the "wow that's fucked up" sense :p

[Von Snootingham]

Ah, it's The Prestige. I knew where it was going because that's one of my favorite movies, but stll, nice pick.

[darkstone57]

Well, shit. That was great! Well done.

[Vaguely Demented]

Compromise and call it murcide?

[Stahlseele]

0,1 is waayy too high . .

[calm melody]

Nice job. Just happened upon this under new, and I'm already hooked.

[fanreader999999]

A 0.1 failure rate in something as common as transportation would be literally apocalyptic.

[Nemesis01]

Great work! I found it distinctly unsettling. One of the best takes I've seen on the potential dark side of teleportation. I featured this on episode 225 of my podcast, Pony 411.

[Jack Kellar]

This is why I prefer Portals to this kind of teleportation.

[Third Wheel]

8962571
0.1 is 10%, so one in ten. 0.1%, which is what the author might have meant to use, would be one in a thousand. But if you aren't talking about percentages, then a probability of 1 means something will happen, and then it's fractions of that. So in this case, 0.1 means one in ten.

[Wydril]

Pretty authentic for a relatively short story, well written. Teleportation via any means other than a portal or wormhole of some kind is usually a good source of existential dread - the transporters in Star Trek atomize you and reassemble a new copy, for example. The clone from an accident in that setting decided to live and change his name instead of being Will Riker 2.0, but alicorns don't really have that option eh?