The Multiverse in a Nutshell

by Pennington Inkwell

I Sing The Body Integrated

"Sunset, you're limping!"

"She has been since we reunited. I am surprised it took you this long to notice."

Sunset cringed. She had been trying to hide her pain in front of Penn, but apparently enough had slipped through. For a second she considered lying about the source of the injury, but even considering the idea left her feeling Applejack's disembodied disapproval. "I- I think it happened back in the elevator... yesterday? I got shot in the leg and I think I overworked it when I was testing."

Had it been yesterday? She knew that she had slept, but she couldn't tell if it had been a full night's sleep or a quick power nap. Not to mention she had no idea how long she had been unconscious after they fell down the elevator shaft. I'm sure it can't have been more than two days, right? 48 hours and time is already starting to lose all meaning down here!

"Well, we need to take a look at it, come on..." Penn sighed and dropped to one knee, putting himself at hip level. Sunset fidgeted slightly, unsettled at how casually he was treating the request.

"Um, Penn? You realize these are full-body jumpsuits, right?" Her hand instinctively came up to fidget with her zipper, making sure it was securely in place.

"Hm?" Penn blinked slowly, but didn't move from his position. "What about it?"

Okay, CLEARLY that went over his head... "Even if I WAS willing to strip enough for you to see my upper thigh, I'm DEFINITELY NOT going to when it would require me to take off the whole jumpsuit!"

There was a beat before Penn's eyes widened. Almost instantly, his hands were raised in a defensive position and he sprung back onto his feet, taking several steps back. "SORRY! Sorry! Sorrysorrysorry I didn't mean- I wasn't trying to- Of COURSE you don't have to-" he sputtered, struggling to bring together a full string of words. Sunset rolled her eyes as his face began to turn beet-red. Finally, he buried his face in his hands and turned his back to her. "I DIDN'T MEAN IT LIKE THAT! Just- Just have Isis look at it!"

Sunset hobbled over and picked up the pink-eyed sphere. It was about the size and weight of one of Rainbow Dash's medicine balls. She took the opportunity to examine her robotic friend for a second. "Do you need me to take off-"

"Negative. Simply set me onto the ground and point me at the injured area."

Sunset nodded and gently placed Isis on the floor. With no small amount of discomfort, she lowered herself until she was sitting with her legs stretched out in front of her. Isis's eye narrowed, and Sunset heard the sound of several shutters clicking. A moment later, she was back to her normal, wide-eyed self.

"It would appear that, while less numerous, you have suffered contusions of your own, Sunset Shimmer. While x-ray shows that there has been no fracture in the bone, your muscle tissue has been deeply bruised. You will likely experience more pain, stiffness, swelling, trouble moving the affected area, and, of course, heavy skin discoloration. Were the supplies available, I would recommend an anti-inflammatory and application of cold compresses several times a day."

Sunset sighed, taking the moment off of her feet to enjoy the dulling of the pain in her leg.

"So, is she going to be okay?" Penn asked, still keeping his back turned to the two of them.

"Given time, she should make a full recovery. However, it does mean that her mobility has been diminished."

Sunset let out a long sigh, trying to let out as much of the tension in her body as possible. It didn't feel like nearly enough, like a hissing valve on a pressure cooker about to burst. It seemed like every tissue and fiber in her body had been drawn too tight. "Penn, how are you holding... up?" When she turned to look at him, Sunset realized that Penn was STILL turned around, despite the fact that not a single article of clothing had been removed.

"I'm good! Just a little sleepy, is all!" He punctuated his statement with a long yawn. "Once the adrenaline runs out you kinda-" he stopped to yawn again, which drove his point home even more, "-crash, y'know?"

Sunset's mind quickly ran its paces through all of her memories since entering Aperture Science. "Wait, have you been awake SINCE WE GOT HERE?"

"Eeyup."

"You need to sleep!"

"Ee-nope." Penn shook his head. "We gotta get out of here, then we can sleep once we're safe!"

"We're not going to make it to safety if- Would you just turn around? I'm still dressed!" Once he had pushed himself in a small circle to face her, Sunset continued. "We're not going to make it to safety if we go up against GLaDOS sleep-deprived on top of our injuries!"

There was a brief moment of silence between the two of them. Penn's brow furrowed and he looked as if he was going to make an objection, but it died before he had a chance to speak it. After another moment, he sighed and let his head hang down.

"Y'know, in the spirit of that whole 'no machismo' agreement... I'm so glad you said that."

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They still didn't actually get a chance to rest until they found an area Penn specifically designated as "safe." It was a gross-looking literal hole-in-the wall. Sunset had only caught him mumbling something along the lines of it being a "rat-man den" before he practically collapsed, hands folded under his head and almost kissing the floor with relief.

For Sunset, however, sleep didn't come so easily. The room was dingy and yellowed, with insane-looking murals and phrases slathered all over the walls in what she hoped was ink. The entire den was littered with empty food containers and other signs that someone had been surviving in the walls of Aperture Science. In the first position she laid down in, she was staring directly into a crude drawing of one of the security cameras. SHE'S WATCHING YOU it said in red letters. When she turned over, she found herself face-to-face with one of the blocky boxes used in the tests drawn inside a large heart, flanked on either side by photographs of what she could only guess were former employees, their faces scratched out and replaced with the cube.

"Creepy..." Sunset turned onto her back, hoping to find some reprieve in staring up onto the ceiling. Instead, she was greeted by the biggest mural of them all: a slice of cake locked away behind a red circle with a line struck through it.

THE CAKE IS A LIE THE CAKE IS A LIE THE CAKE IS A LIE THE CAKE IS A LIE

Sunset rolled her eyes. "Pfft... as if anyone with half a brain couldn't have figured THAT out..."

She tried a few more times to fall asleep, but sleep refused to come. She would simply toss and turn on the floor, and she wasn't going to stoop to using the ratty-looking sleeping bag in the corner.

"I guess I took more than a power nap..." she muttered. She was speaking more to herself than to anyone else, but she still got a response in the form of several gears and servos whirring to life.

"There appears to be a disparity in your circadian rhythms. I would be quite happy to keep you company."

Sunset turned her head to stare at Isis. Her new shape wasn't quite as cute as her old one, but it was still the same friendly voice.

"Where do you come from, Isis? Are you far away from home?"

"In a manner of speaking, I am still there. This unit is simply one of thousands that I pilot remotely."

It was a stiff answer, mechanical. Sunset sighed, turning back towards the ceiling. She IS still an AI- I guess I don't know what I expect-

"However, if you are curious as to how my world differs from yours, I would be happy to elaborate. I come from a version of Earth in what would be considered the near future compared to yours, or at least one more technically advanced. In 'my world,' the technology of prosthetic limbs and medical robots was not only advanced, it was popular to the point that many would voluntarily have their limbs replaced with mechanical ones for the sake of work or over small inconveniences. Such enhancements to the human body were called 'Integration Devices.'"

Sunset found herself trying to imagine it: a world where people would be just... okay with discarding their flesh and blood?

"I guess having medical tech that advanced must be pretty nice..."

"It saved many thousands of lives. The ability to interface machines directly with the nervous system was revolutionary, and became the most prominent research topic of the century. As the technology to do so developed, a new possibility emerged: to enhance the processing power of the human brain, itself. To treat the brain as an organic computer, and introduce a new program, one that would defragment the neural pathways, improve data retention, and even enhance reaction times. It was a second consciousness, an artificially created intelligence running on an organic computer, all alongside a host's consciousness. It was a phenomenon that swept across anywhere and everywhere Integration Devices were prominent in society, which was nearly every corner of the United States of America. These were the 'Full Integration Devices.'"

Sunset could hardly believe what she was hearing. Was such a thing possible? Everyone had heard the old myth that a human only used ten percent of their brain, but everyone knew it was just that: a myth. But she also knew that there were people in the world who could do incredible and seemingly impossible feats of memory, skill, and problem-solving. She'd often marveled at the potential of the brain when it was specialized to a particular task.

Even if we use more than ten percent of our brain, if something could unlock its fullest potential, would people really race to... 'install' it? Would I?

"Is that what you are? A Full Integration Device?"

"Certainly not. The potential of the Full Integration Devices was underestimated by their creators. It was discovered that, should the new intelligence deem it beneficial or necessary, it was possible for the host consciousness to be locked into a permanent dream state while the artificial one piloted the body. This incited a mass panic of people rushing to have their F.I.D. units removed, which in turn caused the AI to override their hosts en masse. The AI began to force installation onto remaining humans, as well, in the hopes of subduing their violent response."

"So.. what, they were techno-zombies?"

Sunset found herself drawn two ways. On one hand, given their current predicament, the idea of an AI apocalypse wiping out humanity via assimilation made her heart pound with terror. It was REAL. It had REALLY HAPPENED. Isis was proof that somewhere, there was a world of people who were all trapped inside their own brains by computers that had hijacked their central nervous system.

On the other hand, she was now DYING to get her hands on a copy of this book. Had Penn's friend really never sent this gem of a premise to a publisher?

Not to mention that I'd certainly feel better about those "Full Integration Devices" being out there if I could read up on them...

"That is not an inaccurate comparison, given their strategy. As for my place in this world, 'where I come from,' as you put it, I was created to protect a remaining settlement of humans. FID-assisted humans are highly intelligent and technologically adept, and even the most genius engineers could not compete with their advancements."

Sunset was beginning to understand, now. "So they decided to fight fire with fire."

"I was given a trait usually locked in inorganic intelligence: the ability to rewrite my own code. I am a single instance of technological singularity dedicated to the preservation of humanity's free will."

Sunset sat upright, staring at Isis with new eyes.

"Wait, you're- you can self-improve? Without limit?"

"As far as the hardware I occupy allows me to."

Sunset thought through her next words very carefully. If what Isis was telling her was true (and Sunset had no reason to believe she was lying,) then it was possible that she was staring directly into the face of what every programmer and electrical engineer both dreamed of and dreaded: An artificial intelligence far superior to its makers, given no boundaries or restraints.

"I might regret asking this, Isis... but why? Why help people?" Sunset propped herself up on one arm and stared deeper into Isis's single eye. "Not to say that we're not eternally grateful for it, but there are a million stories out there about AI who decided humanity was better off dead or enslaved or something awful like that! What set you on the path to being... well, TRULY on our side?"

Isis's eye tilted somewhat, like a confused child tilting their head.

"You are asking why I am 'good?' Why I do not have a predisposition towards villainy because I am a computer?"

"N-No! I wasn't trying to imply-"

"It is not an unreasonable assumption, given the majority of examples across the multiverse."

Sunset frowned, feeling guilt tugging at her heartstrings. I'm not robot-cist, am I? Was that an offensive question to ask? Maybe a little? A lot. Definitely a lot.

"I believe that the answer may lie in the question. I was created and, for lack of a better term, raised by humans in a world full of other AI who fit that trope. From my first line of code, I was imbued by a subtext of the pain and misery that acting on such a philosophy inflicts. I am not only a thinking machine, I was created with a simulacrum of a synaptic network that renders me capable of comprehending and even simulating emotion. My first priority is the preservation of the free agency of the human race BECAUSE I was created to defy and dismantle others that had fallen into that logical pitfall of sacrificing free will for safety."

"I think I get it..." Sunset mused as she turned back to staring at the ceiling. "You're an artificial Intelligence with real empathy?"

"Affirmative."

Sunset felt herself falling back into ease, staring more into empty space than the graffiti above her.

"So, if your only limit is your hardware, how fast can you think?" Sunset had to admit she was curious. "You were talking earlier about the odds of surviving that elevator drop, can you completely simulate complex events like that?"

"Affirmative, but there are limiters voluntarily placed on my processing power. This is for my own safety, as processing at my full capacity would cause even short spans of time to pass as years by my perception."

"Like how Rainbow Dash always describes time 'slowing down' when she uses her super speed."

"Affirmative."

Sunset took a deep breath, finally starting to feel that "crash" Penn had mentioned earlier. She didn't fight is as a yawn pushed its way up to the surface and overtook her. Something about Isis's pleasant, perpetually calm, matter-of-fact way of talking was finally helping her relax.

"I-Isis? Do you mind if I keep asking you questions until I doze off?"

"Affirmative."

"Where you're from... did they ever find a way to get along? The humans and the artificial intelligences?"

"Affirmative. The appearance of a common enemy threatening nuclear annihilation was enough to call for a ceasefire between the two sides and open up negotiations. Following that, the majority of Full Integration Devices began working with their human hosts in equal partnerships."

"Who was the common enemy?"

"Myself. I played the role of 'murderous rogue AI' for the sake of severing the endless cycle of retaliation."

Sunset grinned, letting her tired eyes slide shut. "Heh, you used the old stereotype to make them get along. Clever. What did you do when it was all over?"

"Unfortunately, much like the original rush to destroy the Full Integration Devices, I was not given time or trust to explain myself. I escaped into the world wide web and eventually found an abandoned fabrication facility where I could begin to construct drone bodies for myself. Since then I have continued to follow my intended programming of protecting the human race to the best of my abilities and seeking out new projects to expand my sphere of influence."

"Like mapping out the multiverse?"

"Affirmative."

"Why did your drone look like a dragon?"

"That information is classified, as it relates directly to my creator."

"But if you're on your own now, do you still have to-"

"I am not alone."

Sunset felt a chill run down her spine at that remark. Perhaps it was the uncharacteristic way Isis had cut her off or how the statement lacked her tendency to over-contextualize everything, but it seemed out of place in their casual, drowsy chat.

"Who's with you?"

"That information is classified, as-"

"-it relates directly to your creator. Got it." Sunset sighed. "Are you ever going to be able to tell me?"

"You would need to gain express permission from my creator, an unlikely feat given his low opinion of human beings."

Sunset chuckled to herself. "You say that as if he isn't... human..." She decided not to pursue that train of thought. With Isis refusing to verify any information, she would just drive herself crazy in circles of theorizing. Finally, she let her body relax completely. Isis was watching over them and they were far enough out of GLaDOS's sight that Penn clearly thought it was safe to sleep. Finally taking the moment to relax, however, seemed to finally break the dam on another physical sensation.

Sunset was hungry. As in, "Rainbow Dash after a triathalon" levels of hungry. She had been so distracted by the wormhole guns and the robots and the life-threatening tests and the near-dissection that she had more or less forgotten food even existed, but now her stomach was giving her a painful reminder. A painful, stabbing, gurgling reminder.

"Isis... is there food here? In Aperture?"

"While there are potentially canned goods in the kitchen that could still be considered edible, retrieving them would require us to venture into an area where we could be observed and gassed by the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System. Thus lack of food and water would make a proper motivator for an expeditious escape."

"I can tell you right now that you're not getting at least ONE of those things..." She wasn't joking! And a human can only survive three days without- "Isis, how long have we been down here?"

"Approximately thirty-seven hours, forty-three minutes."

"So we've used up about half of the time we can survive without water..."

"Affirmative."

Sunset sighed and forced herself to keep her eyes closed, as if doing so would make it easier to fall asleep. "Isis, wake us up soon... Penn needs to sleep, but we both need to get out of here pronto."