8 - PC Load Letter
Over the centuries, I’d heard a lot of ponies complain about waking up too fast. About being awake and conscious before they could see or hear. I’d always chalked that up to some weird quirk of pony biology I’d never experience. Not anymore.
I couldn’t hear anything, or see anything, but I was awake. I was thinking. I was feeling.
Most of what I was feeling was a dull ache in the surge protection diodes down my left side and an annoying emptiness just behind my right shoulder.
What in the world happened? What was I doing before—
Oh. Yes. I got in to a hoof fight with a war machine.
”And kicked its plot six ways to Sunday!” Imaginary dad praised, his ‘voice’ practically dripping with affection.
He got me about as good as I got him, dad.
”Yeah about that, maybe check and see what your error codes are, and better yet what they mean.”
Now that was a very good plan. I like how my subconscious comes up with good ideas for imaginary dad to say.
I brought up my error codes and ran through the list. I winced as the sobering reminder of how badly I was hit. I was laid bare by the text in the file. So many things broken or damaged. How was I still operational? What on earth compelled that robot’s programmers to give it a melee attack mode? And most of all…
“PC Load Letter?” I said slowly, my brow lowering and lips pursing. “What the hay does that even mean?”
“Her system is spitting out new error codes?” A stallion asked.
Apparently audio was back.
“I didn’t say that,” Wander said, sounding quite happy. “She did! Hey, Gears. Can you hear me?”
I nodded. Or at least, I tried to nod. Apparently I was laying on something, and that something didn’t like my chin moving. “Yes… Who is with you?”
“They call me Bluegrass,” the stallion from before introduced.
I liked his voice. It had a little bit of a rumble to it, with a hint of old country drawl mixed with a bit of a Fillydelphia accent.
“Nice to meet you… It sounds like you're, um… Poking around my insides. How many ponies know—”
Wander cleared her throat to get my attention. “Hey, boss, I understand secretes. I have my own. Bluegrass is the only pony in town who's seen your cyberware.”
“Don’t you worry, miss. I know how and when to keep my trap shut,” Bluegrass promised with a chuckle. “‘Sides, I don’t blame you in the slightest for wanting to keep quiet about your implants. They seem pretty extensive, and I know more than a few ponies who lost a leg to bandits only to find that same leg for sale in an electronics shop months down the line.”
I sputtered, my ears perking. “You can do cybernetic augmentation?!”
“Sure can!” Bluegrass remarked calmly. “I’m fixing you, aren't I?”
“I mean, you can make and install cybernetics, as in, you the Wastelanders.”
“Of course we— Oh, that’s right. Wanderer mentioned you’re not from around here,” Bluegrass went silent for a little bit.
I could feel a screwdriver scraping about a circuit access panel in the back of my head. It didn’t hurt, but it sure as hay wasn't comfortable.
“Please be careful. That’s my optical processor,” I pleaded.
“Mhm,” he acknowledged. “It got knocked about pretty good. I’m resoldering the chip back in in a second. Just want to make sure the traces are all okay… Crystal looks fine. Wander, pass me that chip, please.”
“Which one?” Wander asked with more than a little hesitation.
“The 80486DX.”
“Which one?” Wander repeated.
“I thought you said you knew matrix tech,” Bluegrass chided.
“I said I know audio matrix tech. Video is not audio.”
“Mmm, fair enough. The clear quartz one with twelve contacts on each side.”
“Here you go.”
“Thanks.”
I felt a slight— No, a really intense burning burning in the back of my head and hissed, doing my best to hold still and not scream.
Bluegrass sputtered, and I heard something metal clatter to the ground in shock. “What in the— You can feel that?!”
“Y— Yeah… I feel all my parts,” I muttered quietly, bracing myself for more pain. “Just get that chip hooked back in, please.”
“What monster enchanted you to feel like that?” The stallion demanded just before the burning returned.
“My mom,” I whimpered as fire scorched my brains. “Is… Very… Nice…”
“Then she must be insane,” Bluegrass commented as my vision suddenly returned.
I was laying on my belly on a bizarrely hard mattress in a mostly wooden room. Wander was standing a few meters in front of me, next to a desk with a toolbox on it as well as fragments of what I hoped wasn't my aux hydraulic pump…
Ah, so that was the reason for the empty feeling.
The pain faded almost as soon as the iron was removed. “Yes. But this isn’t her fault. She didn’t know what she was doing when she put—”
Wander’s instant, almost reflexive glare made me immediately stop.
Bluegrass hummed. “Are you doing okay?”
I pushed myself up from the bed enough to nod. “Yes… Did you remove anything?”
“Yeah, you had a pump that was just plain shot. I took it out and patched the tubing. Wander said all your legs are mechanical, and after removing it none of them seemed harder to move than the others. If I have one the same size, I’ll give you a good price on it.”
I felt the access panel close, and then the familiar itch as my pelt knit itself back together. Bluegrass clucked his tongue. “That healing charm you’ve got in you… I wouldn’t let anypony else here know about it. That’s worth killing for.”
“It only does my specific skin,” I answered reflexively. “If you used it, it would give you a zebra mare’s stripes.”
He snorted in amusement and moved away from me. “Whelp, that should do it,” he said as he moved into my field of view.
He was an older earth pony stallion, somewhere on the line between middle-aged and old. He had a dusty blue-gray coat of fur, amber-eyes, a dust-brown mane, and was dressed in a black leather vest, well mended and festooned with all kinds of tools.
Bluegrass gave me a smile. “Can ya stand?”
I nodded and pushed myself up form the bed. I didn’t need my aux-pump to do normal things. It usually only kicked in when I had to lift something heavy. Without it, I was going to be limited to about seventy five percent what a zebra mare of my size should be capable of.
I frowned as I realized how much of a problem that would be.
Bluegrass’ eyes narrowed. “Please tell me that hydro-line I patched is holding.”
“It is,” I promised. “I just realized without that I won't be able to lift as much as I'm used too.”
Bluegrass bit his lip awkwardly and shrugged. “Well, not much I can do when the pump has more in common with a old bag of stale chips than a machine.”
I shook my head. “No! No, no! I’m extremely happy with what you did for me. Thank you very much! I didn’t think I’d be able to be fixed at all while I was in the Heartlands.”
Bluegrass smiled and shrugged his shoulder. “Not all that long ago, that would have been true… May I ask where you got your implants? I haven't seen any like that and I’ve been fixing Equestrian cyberware for years.”
I frowned and gave it some thought. “Yes, if you tell me who is producing your cybernetics.”
Bluegrass looked at me like I just asked how to walk to the moon. “Uh… Are you sure you’re okay? Ain’t no one making cybernetics. Plenty of ponies just had ‘em when the bombs dropped. Ponies like me have been keeping them in working order and installing them on whomever buys ‘em… Then they die and someone will salvage the implant, I’ll fix it again, and so on.”
I winced. Gruesome recycling aside, the idea of using something built for somepony else made my stomach turn, which was a first and would hopefully be the last. I didn’t want to think about buying a ‘spare part’ here.
You were supposed to size the implants for the pony using them. You know, for health reasons.
Bluegrass sighed. “Yeah, it’s a grim business. On the other hoof, it’s one of the best livings you can make in the Wasteland, and ain't nopony going to mess with a cybersurgeon. Not if they want to shoot lasers from their eye some day.”
Bluegrass puffed up his chest and gave me a smile. “Especially not the one responsible for fixing up Calamity’s wing-n-leg!”
I gathered he meant that he was the pony responsible for healing whoever Calamity was.
I turned to look at Wander, hoping my perplexed look would be enough for her to understand that she needed to fill me in properly one day.
Wander blushed and cleared her throat. “Oh… Yeah. Uh, I don’t like him so I left him out of the song. He’s one of Little Pip’s friends. Helped save the world, yaddah-yaddah.”
Bluegrass’ pridefully puffed chest deflated and his eyes narrowed. “What do you have against the pony who brought us all power? Without him, after the gardens, we’d be plumb out of luck for keeping a town lit!”
Wander turned and looked into Bluegrass’ eyes with nothing less than total honesty. “He stole my keys.”
Bluegrass opened his mouth as if to say ‘ah’, then nodded. “Fair.”
Wander sighed. “Gears and I will have to pass through Junction Town… Maybe he still has them. He can keep them, my house has been rubble for a decade now… I just want the charm back. It was a birthday gift.”
Ah! The naive and charismatic hero had a roguish friend. I swear, every story in Equestrian history has that duo in it somewhere.
I cleared my throat to get Bluegrass’ attention. He turned his head back to face me. “Thank you for fixing me up. I feel very good.”
His smile returned. “You’re welcome. And now, if you don’t mind… Are those Zebrican implants? I didn’t think they did cybernetics but—”
I shook my head sharply to cut him off. “No! The old empire would call me an abomination. I’m— I mean, I have prototype hardware. My mom is a roboticist.”
Blue’s eyes widened in a very amusing way. It reminded me of a descending airship.
“Y— Y’all can make new implants?” He asked, mouth agape.
“Yes, my kingdom is able to make certain implants… I’m here to hopefully open trade negotiations,” I said with a cheerful smile.
Bluegrass’ lips pursed. “Y— you… I—” He shook his head slowly and looked up. “Let’s say I believe you. What in Celestia’s bloated teats would anypony with industrial manufacturing and spellmatrix crafting capabilities possibly get from trading with us?”
“Food,” I said as bluntly as I could.
“Food?” He asked.
I nodded. “Food.”
“Y'all can make sub-dermal armor and replacement limbs, but can’t grow food?” Bluegrass asked with a suspicious narrowing of his eyes.
I sighed and nodded. “I know it sounds implausible… Until you know that my Kingdom is very far to the north, where the Crystal Empire was before the war.”
Wander shifted position slightly, turning to face the two of us. “From what she’s told me, her hometown is stuck in an endless winter and the Gardens didn’t reach that far north.”
“Ah! Now that makes some sense,” Blue said rubbing his chin slightly. “Now, if you don’t mind me asking, what can y’all make aside from implants?”
“Plenty of things,” I answered with a polite smile. “If you’re interested in what we have to offer, I will be speaking with your mayor tomorrow. If they don’t mind you listening in, I would prefer not to have to make the same speech twice in one… Day?”
I turned to look at Wander questioningly.
“It’s been… Maybe six hours. The sun should be up any minute now,” she said with a knowing smirk.
Why the smirk? What did she know that I didn’t?
Bluegrass had the same smirk plastered on his face too… What was I missing out on?
“Oh, I’m sure he won't mind if I listen in,” Bluegrass remarked. “You’ll want to give him two or three hours before going down to the town hall. He was up around midnight shooting at bandits with you two and our Trooper friends. Everypony has a guard rotation. Even cybersurgeons.”
Bluegrass stifled a yawn and turned to leave. “I have a shop next to the town hall. Stop by this evening and we’ll see if I have a pump that fitscha. I think I’ll go join the mayor in napping.”
Ohhhh! They were a couple! Cute!
I smiled. “Okay! Have fun! And thanks again for the repairs.”
“Ain't no trouble,” Bluegrass said as he opened the door and trotted through, nearly brushing against the big lever style brass lightswitch. Screwed into the wall next to the door.
Suddenly it dawned on me. The room was lit. Evenly lit. Without flickering, and I couldn't smell fire. This room had powered lights.
I looked up to to double check, and saw the glowing glass bulb placed right in the middle of the ceiling in all its glory. “How are you generating power?” I asked as Bluegrass started to close the door.
“We’re one of the NCR’s breadbaskets, so we get a Star Battery. Y’all have a good night!”
“You mean morning,” Wander corrected.
“That too!” The stallion said before closing the door.
I heard his hoofsteps and the creak of floorboards as he walked away, followed swiftly by the sound of hooves descending a staircase. He was gone, and probably out of listening range. Good.
I stretched my legs to double check my range of motion. Everything seemed normal, aside from the pain in my left side… That wasn’t going to go away, was it? Great…
Wander trotted over to the bed and sat down on the edge. “You’re welcome.”
“How the hay does he think I’m just a zebra with a few implants?” I demanded, turning around to look Wander in the eyes so I could make sure she wasn’t lying to make me feel better.
“Easy,” she said with a smirk. “I tried to fix you first. The stallion giving us directions didn’t ever pick you up. I TKed you to the room. He thought you passed out, brought the booze and salt you needed. When that through a funnel didn’t wake you up, I knew something broke. I hoped it would be something I could fix, so I cut into your hide and poked around, found the broken armor plates and… Well, yeah. I couldn’t fix that.”
Wander flopped back down onto the hard mattress, managing to look adorable in spite of her thick jumpsuit.
She laughed nervously. “You had me real nervious there… I jacked my pipbuck into your hardware. Nothing was running. So I ran out and asked around for a mechanic. I thought whatever broke was feeding your brain nutrients or was a power supply or something.
“Lucked out and the first pony I found was Blue, he said he wasn’t a mechanic but did work on cybernetics. Match made in heaven! He came back up with me, and when I tried my pipbuck again this time you were up and running. Your mom left a really nice help file in there. I was able to talk him through what parts to open. He thinks you’re mostly flesh and bone, just lacking legs, some ribs, and a bit of brain.”
I took a minute to process all of that. “But… He was looking in me.”
“Mhm. Your hardware is different enough that he, well, he thought the compartments he was looking into were meant to keep the parts from getting gummed up with… uh… Well, you know. Body-gunk.”
Wander shook her head slowly. “Then again, maybe he does know, and understands it’s something to keep quiet about… I got a good vibe from him. I think he won't tell anypony you’re a robot.”
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. “This again? I’m a robobrain!”
"You know... I like you,” Wander said as she sat up to look me in the eye. “You're a good pony, but you're pretty damn mysterious. And not in a way I like."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Well, let me put it this way,” Wander began with a sigh. “Your mission, it's not a one mare job. Traveling the wasteland is dangerous. Sure it's safer than it was fourteen years ago, thanks Pip, but it is still dangerous. But you act like you could pull your mission off yourself if you had too, and your Queen sent you here on your own so she thinks you can go it alone, too. What kind of a cyborg are you? Was killing that Ultra-Sentinel really a lucky break for you, or did you let yourself get hurt to make me think you’re not as dangerous as you really are?"
I raised an eyebrow at her question. “What makes you think I’m more than a mailmare who happens to be mostly hardware?”
Wander hesitated for a moment then took a deep breath and sighed. "Yeah. Look, I've been attacked by hundreds of robots over the years. Including robobrains, which unlike everypony else, I happen to know are cyborgs and not robots.”
“And yet,” I deadpanned. “You keep calling me a robot.”
Wander smiled at me. “Heh. Course I do. It bugs you.”
Oh. So that was her game huh? Well… I’ll just call her… Um...
“I know what you told me you are back in Magebridge,” Wander said as she brushed a strand of her mane out of her eyes. “But I want to know exactly what you are. Especially because you look like a nerd's overly sexualized sketch of a zebra mare. No offense, you were built that way. It’s just that anything pre-war that’s anywhere as advanced as you are… It’s probably something nasty.
“There’s also the little matter of you killing that Sentinel almost a bit too easily. I think I deserve to know everything about you. Or at least, your hardware and software…"
In spite of Wander saying ‘no offense’ her comment did sting a little. I had no idea that most stallions didn’t like mares with my proportions. All I had to go on was the trashy romance comics in mom’s personal collection and her vague ideas of what stallions liked.
Ugh! Maybe I should just choose to flirt with mares instead… Maybe they would like how I looked more. It wasn’t like I could easily remove the silicone. That would hurt so much worse than removing my eye to modify my laser!
I sat down on the floor. This looked like it would be a longer conversation. At least I had time before the Mayor would be in his office.
"Buck it,” I sighed and looked into Wander’s eyes. “I understand organics being nervous around robots. I really do get it..."
Wander nodded twice. “So, you admit you’re a robot!”
I narrowed my eyes. “Never!”
She giggled, then cleared her throat and returned to her serious look. “That never happened.”
“Agreed,” I said diplomatically before continuing. "I am the sole existing prototype for the Robobrain Mark III, which was meant to be a Full Body Prosthesis for MoI agents. I have a mark II braincase, with an upgraded neural interface, attached to a pile of cybernetic prosthetic parts rather than conventional robotic parts. It isn’t a production model, but it works well enough to support a sapient mind without any loss of mental faculties.”
Wander tilted her head curiously. “I don’t remember ponies getting the brain-in-a-jar treatment before the war. I know you claim to be a prototype, but all I remember is ponies with the odd limb or an organ or two replaced. You… Seem more like something made in Stable 101.”
A stable was making cyber— Of course one was! Wander said that Red Eye was a Stable Dweller, and he was a cyborg.
“So that’s what Stable-Tec did with mom’s designs!” I exclaimed with a grin. “She sold some of her work to help fund her projects. Uh, illegally sold. Not that she understood she was doing something bad. I should probably mention that…”
Before Wander could respond to that little nugget of info I smiled again, and shrugged to deflect the question. “Can we go there? I would love to see if there’s a chance of upgrading my sense of taste so it does more than just tell me what chemicals are present in something I ingest. It’s the one sense I don't perfectly emulate! I could also use some better coolant than what I can synthesize, and I had to replace my reactor coolant just now.”
Wander sputtered, her ears perked in alarm, nearly flicking her hoof off her head. She held up a hoof, with a panicked expression on her face. “Hold it! Reactor?! I thought you were using an atomic battery, not a radiation reactor!”
I giggled and shook my head a few times. “No! Nothing that crude. It’s a thaumaturgic power source similar to the nuclear breeders you’d find in power armor. The team my mom worked on it with named it after Twilight since she supposedly had infinite mana, or whatever.”
Wander tilted her head slightly and slipped off the bed. Her hooves struck the floor with two soft thunks. Unsure as to her intentions I remained silent while looking at her as perplexed as I could.
Wander trotted around me for a moment then raised her pipbuck, checked a few things on it, then looked back to me. “That’s why these plans are almost gibberish. You’re just a huge pile of advanced technology!”
I shook my head. “Oh, Celestia no! I wish you could classify me that way!”
Wander raised an eyebrow. “Explain this then,” she instructed, tapping her pipbuck’s screen with a hoof.
“Everything in me is either an engineering sample or a lab prototype. You can think of me as mom’s scraps bin with some ‘in house’ fabricated parts… Nothing in here passed laboratory testing in any formal sense, and many parts are unique. I’m too WIP to count as advanced technology. Heck, mom’s had to replace some of my parts that just up and died over the years.”
Wander took to steps back from me with a horrified expression. “In other words, you have a large bomb for a heart that was thrown together by a mad scientist one afternoon!”
I snorted, then fell over giggling. “Hehehehe! Oh, no… No. The Sparkle Breeder was finished. I think there’s eight of them. They were to be presented to Miss Twilight at a conference in a week. You don’t have to worry about me exploding…”
I trailed off and winced. “Well, unless someone hits my core with an anti-material rifle. Then I’ll explode pretty darn good.” I looked up at Wander and smiled. “On the up side, if you ever get really hurt, I can bite down on something for the pain and expose my core for a bit. The rads should have you back on your hooves in seconds!”
Wander bit her lip and scrunched her eyes. “I— I don’t want to know how much power you have running through your roboveins, if that’s true!”
I shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t know… Mom just used her engineering sample because that’s what was on hoof. The Sparkle Breeders were designed to power large vehicles, or even buildings.”
“Wait, it was meant to power things like that?” Wander frowned and looked off into space as if processing something.
Then her eyes lit up. “They were trying to develop a real alternative to coal power plants! If one could power a building, a building full of them could power a city!”
I shrugged. “Maybe? I don’t know. I can’t tell you anything mom wouldn’t have known.”
“How the buck not?” Wander asked, her head tilting slowly. “I mean, either you were there with her at work, or she would have at least known what the project she was a part of was trying to do!”
I gave Wander an awkward and shaky smile. “Uh… When you meet her, you’ll realize why that’s not necessarily true. Even back then she was… Pretty unstable.”
”That’s putting it a bit lightly, Gears.”
Yeah, but… You know… Politeness.
“How do you mean?” Wander asked with a suspicious frown as she sat back down on the edge of the bed.
Oh boy. How to explain mom?
”The best way is to just be honest. Tell her everything, but keep it brief.”
Thanks, dad.
I cleared my throat. “Well, my mom is special. In both senses of the word,” I sat down on the floor and did my best to remember the story as she’d told it to me. “Mom’s parents were… Not very good ones. From what she’s said they fled Canterlot so mom’s older brother couldn’t sign up for the Wonderbolts. See, his brother died in the war and from what mom’s told me all he ever cared about after that was avenging him. Apparently that meant literally every Zebra in Zebrica had to die.”
Wander hissed and twisted her lips. “Oh… Her folks spent their entire day making sure that their little psychopath wasn’t torturing cats in the basement, didn’t they?”
I nodded. “Yes. Mom grew up with almost no contact with her parents at all. On top of that, she has always had certain mental disabilities. For instance, I have no idea who my uncle was because mom never told me his name…”
Wander sighed. “Okay, so she’s pretty messed up then. How did a mare like that get a job at MAS? Obviously she’s amazing with robots, but you don’t hire someone who can’t tell you their brother’s name.”
“Mom was drafted,” I said.
“Drafted?” Wander asked her lips pulling down for a moment before she nodded. “Ah! Right. The Gifted Foals program, scholarship, thing… What did she do to get in?”
“To make a long story short, while her parents didn’t care for her, mom was semi-adopted by a zebra who worked as the janitor in her apartment building. He did his best to look after her and taught her a lot of shamanism. When my Uncle found a way to enlist without parental permission, she got scared he would die and used what she knew of zebra magic to make him a shield talisman. It worked pretty well, he told his superiors his sister made it, and next thing you know mom’s got her own lab at fourteen.
“She lived in it, basically. Just tinkering with things all day. She loved it, but never really understood that what she was making was being used to hurt ponies. Like, say, plasma weapons. She invented the basic device for making plasma… By accident. She was trying to improve a breakroom toaster because, and I quote, ‘The spirit in it wanted to burn things better.’ I’ve seen the toaster. It doesn't have an active spirit.”
Wander took a deep breath, closed her eyes and let it out slowly. “Are you telling me that Twilight, Twilight of all ponies, locked a little filly in a lab for years?”
I shook my head immediately. “No. Her Executive Adjutant did. I forget his name, but Mom was his direct responsibility. From what mom’s said, I’ve come to understand that he lied about her condition every time it came up. For Equestria, and all that.”
Wander clenched her teeth and growled. “Pre-war ponies! I’ll never understand why they thought some things were good ideas!”
The ghoul pony was visibly shaking. I waited silently for Wander to calm down. After a few long moments she shook her head and punched the bed’s hoof board. “Ugh! I swear to everything holy, the first casualty in that war was common bucking decency!”
I nodded. “Sure seems like it…”
Wander sighed and flopped back down on the bed, emotionally exhausted. “We bunnytrailed real bad there… Stable 101, no. We can’t go there. Pip blew it up. Remember the verse about the Cathedral? It was built on and in 101.”
“Ah, colt…” I sighed and looked at the floor in disappointment. “You should probably tell me the whole story sometime. That song didn’t really cut it and I am terrible at understanding metaphors.”
“How terrible?” Wander asked.
“Pretend I’m missing the .dll files to handle those requests,” I summarized with an embarrassed smile.
“Kay,” Wander said before waving a hoof dismissively in my direction. “We’ll run into a Pipite soon enough, and they’ll be happy to talk your ear off for the day or so the whole story takes.”
I nodded, and almost asked what a Pipite was but remembered Wander had explained the religious order to me before. I guess it made sense that when you saved the world, became immortal, gained control over the weather, and could see and hear everything in the world, ponies would start to worship you as a god.
Actually, I didn’t guess. That made perfect sense. Pip currently met all the classical requirements for a weather goddess.
I wonder what she thought of that. Also Wander had said she was cute in the song. So she was probably godtier cute on top of every—
“Uh, we’re off topic!” I announced perhaps a bit too loudly. “You wanted to know about me, right?”
Wander nodded. “Right. Let’s finish that up.”
“Okay so, some time after bypasses and balefire eggs were invented, Zebrican agents bombed a laboratory Mom worked at, and she lost her mind. Not literally. I mean she snapped. She wound up having to get an artificial heart, and was put in an Iron Lung. She couldn’t handle being cooped up like that, so she designed an artificial lung that could be implanted so she could be mobile again.”
Wander flinched and shuddered. “I had a friend in one of those breathing beds… Let me guess, she was so scared of getting hurt like that again she started designing artificial organs for everything? Also, how’s that relate to you?”
“Well, you know that I’m a MAS project. But you don’t know why I am made from mostly experimental parts.”
Wander hummed. “Yeah, okay. That’s something important to know. Especially considering what I want to know specifically. Go ahead.”
I nodded. “Okay, so, mom wasn’t really stable back then… She’s a little better now. Her bosses let her stay with the MAS after her accident because in spite of her going a little crazy she was still laser sharp for science and engineering.
"I’m the end result of her obsessive focus on cybernetics. A full replacement for everything, except the brain. Yes, her bosses asked her to design my platform for espionage purposes, but I’m different. I’m the one mom had in her hooves. I was designed to keep a pony alive forever. Specifically, mom.”
Wander sat up, her eyes narrowed in disgust. “Who the buck was your mom working under?!”
I shrugged and swished my tail across the floor. “I have no idea. Sorry.”
Wander grit her teeth again. “There’s no way they didn’t assign her to that project because they knew she was scared of dying.”
I nodded. “Of course they did. It’s only logical to use the right pony for the job, even if that is a little cruel and you should send them to therapy for comparison's sake… So, yeah. Mom made me intending to put her brain into this unit. But then the world ended, and suddenly there wasn’t a brain surgeon to put her in…”
I trailed off and closed my eyes as I tried to not picture what I’d seen that day clearly. “She… Tried to put herself in. Obviously, that didn’t work out. She survived only because of how mechanical she already was. She left to get help putting her skull back together, leaving me in her lab.
“She came back terrified that everypony was dead. I didn’t understand why… But she put me in here so she would have company. She knew she’d likely live a few hundred years thanks to her augmentations… And was scared I’d die before her.”
Wander slid off the bed, trotted over to me and wrapped her forelegs around my shoulders tightly. “That’s pretty horrible… I can’t blame her for doing it to you, but… Luna’s mane, I can’t imagine not being able to feel things! Not emotions, I mean physical objects… I’d have given that up for my wife. Not my mom, though.
I smiled and slipped out of her grip, standing up in the middle of the room. “I didn't’ give up anything. This body can do everything a zebra can.”
“Yeah,” Wander agreed with a nod. “Except taste.”
“Sure, but everything else was finished,” I said quickly to spin the conversation away from my lack of taste.
I really wasn’t up to explaining that I’d arbitrarily made a list of chemical combinations to call good, and another to call bad. That always weirded ponies out.
“For example, you know that I can feel pain. But I can feel everything else too! Go ahead and poke me somewhere. I’ll close my eyes.” I said as I closed my eyes.
“Uh, sure?” Wander said uncertainty.
I felt something poke my left glyph mark. “Left flank, glyph area, kinda hard…”
I opened my eyes and gave Wander a smile. “Theoretically, if I found a nice stallion, even romantic stuff would work normally! Well, except for having foals. But that’s not something I want to do, personally.”
“Huh. Cool!” Wander remarked thoughtfully, only for her intrigued expression to slowly warp into what I could only describe as maximum incredulity.
The kind of face a pony makes when they realize something you just said is total horseapples.
I frowned. Nothing I said was false… What was—
"Wait!” Wander demanded. “Hold on a second, you're as old as I am!"
"A little younger, actually,” I corrected with a swish of my tail.
“You’re still over two centuries old!”
I nodded.
“Annnnd, you don't know if your mare-bits work?”
I shook my head. “Unfortunately no. I haven't gotten any relationships that far yet.”
Wander trotted up to me to look me in the eyes at an uncomfortably close distance. “You’re telling me that not only have you never gotten laid, but you’ve never even clopped off?!”
“Clopped… What?” I asked as my face flooded with pure confusion concentrate.
Wander backed off sputtering. “You know! Masturbate!” She shouted while sweeping one of her forelegs… Dramatically?
I frowned and did my best to recall that word. I thought I heard someone use it before but I didn’t have any idea what it meant. So, I shrugged. “Sorry, I have no idea what that means.”
Wander’s jaw dropped. “But— I— You instinctively should, at some point, take care of your own urges by yourself!”
“Oh! Is that what it means?” I asked, happy to learn a new word.
“Yes! Thank, Luna!” Wander sighed, visibly relaxing. “Wait— No! You still haven't done it because then you’d know if those parts worked!”
I blushed and looked away. “I— I’m sorry. I didn’t know that was allowed…”
“A— Allowed?!” Wander stammered, then slowly shook her head. “Right! Right your mom’s nuts and you live with her. Of course she said you couldn't do that.”
“No! She never mentioned anything about it. She only told me other ponies were supposed to take care of that for you, and that I should pick either stallions or mares to pursue for a partner. I couldn’t make up my mind so I flipped a coin and it came up heads so—”
Wander looked like she was about to hit critical frustration and self destruct. “Okay! Okay! We’re stopping this right here! Right now! Gears, I will happily explain to you everything your mom hasn’t once I’m not in the middle of cringe city.”
“Oh! That would be nice, thank you, I think.” I smiled.
Wander looked at me and groaned. “You… Definitely inherited parts of your mom…” She shook her head and sighed.
I frowned, not sure what she meant. I wasn't remotely as good with machines, and I was far better at navigating social situations. I also still knew what time was.
What did I inherit from her? Dad? Help?
Imaginary dad coughed. ”No comment.”
“Topic change, before I facehoof so hard I touch my brain again,” Wander said in a way which made me realize at some point she must have actually done that. “So! Before you were stuck into that Robobrain, what were you before that?”
"An automated Zebrican fire control system," I replied without thinking.
BUCK! Why did I tell her tha—
"Heh! Nice one!” Wander chuckled as she turned around to start pacing the room. “I guess you've been a zebra for so long you don't really remember?"
Oh. Yes. Jokes. That would sound like one. Quick, use it to make a point!
“You’re afraid of me, aren't you?” I asked.
Wander stopped pacing, turned and nodded. “Yeah… No offense but I’ve seen so many malfunctioning robots, and fought off so many robobrains with visible brain-rot that have gone berserk that, well… I wanted to know how hard it would be to kill you if I had to.”
Wander didn’t seem ashamed to think about that, though she did look a little uneasy at having to make that clear for me.
I nodded twice. “I understand some people are afraid of robots and cyborgs, I get it. We can be completely normal then without any warning at all we suddenly snap and go feral.”
I narrowed my eyes as I emphasized the word feral.
Wander winced and gave me an apologetic frown. “I— I never thought about it that way. You’ve made your point. Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I didn’t take it like that,” I answered honestly. “There is a real risk I could malfunction and hurt you… Just like how there’s a risk you could malfunction and hurt me. All I wanted to do was point out the hypocrisy.”
Wander nodded, then smiled just a little bit. “So, you’ll glitch out when I go feral huh?”
I tilted my head back laughed as I imagined how that would go. “That would be the best! You’d be trying to bite through ballistic alloy, and I’d probably be making vaguely lurching motions and saying ‘girr, brains!’ on a loop.”
Wander triple blinked and tilted her head. “Huh?”
“Oh,” I blushed as I realized I’d have to explain what this platform did when I wasn’t controlling it. “Well, the only real ‘glitch’ that can happen with me is if I lose control of this body. Then the processors in this thing would take over and run basic survival protocols… If they had them. Which they don’t.”
Wander smirked. “Oh I like where this is going. What is it they do have?”
I giggled, glad she was amused instead of creeped out. “All that this body has is a really terribly programed set of subroutines which are placeholders for— Uh, this body would would default to an infiltration protocol. But like, a terrible one.”
“Because the Mark III was for spies?”
“Right! But since this is a the lab prototype none of the finalized software is there, or was even made in the first place. All my processors have to run is a vague “blend in” routine my mom coded as a placeholder. I ran it once to see what would happen and it made me just sand incredibly conspicuously next to a guy in the bar and laugh at everything except his jokes... Half a second too late. Heh! Pony coding, am I right?”
I giggled again, remembering how completely crap the automated systems in this thing were.
Wander shook her head slowly and laughed with me. “Yeah, it’s pretty terrible! No wonder we decided to just put brains into robots.”
Wander hummed curiously for a moment. “Hey, so you seem to know a lot about pre-war tech. I’m guessing you helped your mom in the lab?”
“No. But when I’m not carrying messages I work in her library, so—”
“Library?” Wander asked with a frown, then her ears perked. “Oh, yes! You mentioned that. How did she of all ponies make a library?”
An easy question to answer! “Mom and I fled north to keep data she retrieved from pre-war facilities safe. She prioritized technical information, blueprints, lab notes, scientific journals, that kind of thing. We recovered… A lot. A lot a lot! Mom had a valid MAS ID. It wasn’t hard for her to slip into ministry hubs and download their archives. As far as they cared she was supposed to be there.”
Wander’s jaw dropped as she realized the full implication of what I’d just told her. I liked how every pony’s face did the same thing whenever they learned exactly what was in mom’s library.
“W— wait, you mean your hometown has blueprints for everything?!” Wander stammered.
I shook my head quickly. “Oh heck, no! Not even close! We couldn’t get into Canterlot, Mariponi, Baltimare, or a few other places. But we do have quite a bit! That’s half of how my Queen is able to trade technical expertise and infrastructure related blueprints.”
Wander stamped a hoof angrily and trotted over to the bed to flop down face first onto it. “Ugh! I’ve been wandering for years and there’s a paradise full of pre-war tech across a mountain range that’s apparently ghoul friendly! Buck my life!”
“It’s so not a paradise,” Gears says with a wince. “We have running water, heat, power, and communications, but well… Windigos, bloodice, everyone’s hungry all the time, Radstorms. I could go on.”
“There’s a lot I want to ask about,” Wander said slowly and awkwardly, as if she were trying to change the subject herself. Then, she sighed and slumped a little. “But... I feel like I’ve been doing all the asking. How about you answer one last question then you get a turn?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Is that an offer to ask about your past?”
Wander mmphed something into the bed I couldn't catch.
“Didn’t get that,” I admitted.
“Yeah… But just this once. Because I— I owe you one for the feral thing!” She muttered.
I smiled. “Sounds good!”
Muahahaha! Gears 2, Wander… Something like 50?
”At least it’s not a shutout, kiddo.”
“Do you happen to know how Zebras made robots so much better than we did?” Wander asked as she rolled over. “I’ve been wondering about that since I read how their robots easily outsmarted ours… And also our soldiers too, sometimes.”
I pursed my lips nervously. This was something I didn’t want to say too much about. Not to somepony as smart as Wander. “W— Well… Yes. I do. They made their robots the same way they make everything else.”
“Okay? So, their magic is fundamentally different?” Wander asked as she sat up.
I nodded. “Yeah. Zebra Shaman don’t channel magic through a spell matrix for advanced enchantments… Or any enchantments, actually. They bind a spirit to an object and make a deal with it. The spirit does whatever it’s been asked to do, and the Shaman ensures it gets something in return. Usually power and a few gems. A totem of some kind will channel ambient magic to the spirit, letting it grow over time. They eat the gems... Somehow.”
“Huh… I uh, I lived near a Zebra before the war. Like, way before it. Before the industrial boom even,” Wander said. “She never mentioned that’s how she did things… Then again, I never asked.”
I snickered. “Yep! You’re a much older pony than me!”
She narrowed her eyes to glare at me and continued without a word to address my remark. “She talked about shamanism a few times. So, for robots, a Shaman like, binds a spirit to each part and it’s a whole bunch of nature spirits working together, or what?”
I shook my head almost violently. Ugh! The idea of a thousand voices screaming to choose a single action for a machine… No! Just, no!
“No, no, no!” I said, waving my hooves in frustration at the very idea. “For robots, or making any complex machine animate, a Shaman will search for a machine spirit and—”
“Wait, machine spirit?” Wander asked, tilting her head. “What’s that?”
I gave Wander my best deadpan stare. What is that? It is what it sounds like!
“Everything has a spirit,” I said slowly. “Rocks. Grass. Trees. Water. Metal. Everything. Including things people make. Especially things people make,” I explained with a bit more enthusiasm than I probably should have used. “See, you’ve got this big shiny soul that’s rearranging natural materials full of spirits into a new form. When you melt iron and carbon together, you’ve just fuzed two nature spirits into a single steel spirit. Get it?”
Wander nodded. I continued. “When you build a machine, every spirit in each part merges, following the action of the soul putting things in order. That builds a machine spirit. Almost all of them are… Well, newborns for lack of a real term. Brainless, thoughtless, entities of little to no power. Because they are very new, and a spirit’s power is directly proportional to its age, which you know, can be as old as the world is. But, that’s pretty rare since spirits can get sent back to the Spirit Realm if you smash their corporeal container, or the object they call home.
“That means it’s a good idea to recycle older machine spirits by unbinding them from one machine and sticking them into a new machine. That way you have a spirit that’s been around long enough to be able to think, and has some power at its disposal.
“For robots or other automated systems on warmachines, you want one that’s around pony-level intellect. Usually that’s something from the early bronze age. That limits your choices a little, but you find a spirit and bind it to the robot in such a way as to let it use the robot as a body. Zebra robots are not really robots, they are ghosts in a machine.”
I hope that explained it clearly enough for her.
”Probably a bit too clearly…” Dad warned.
She’ll figure it out eventually even if I don't give her hints. I mentally sighed.
“Wow… That’s creepy,” Wander said with a shiver.
“It’s way worse than you think,” I agreed with a wince. “The more you know about the Spirit Realm, the worse giving a body to a spirit is.”
“Why?” Came the inevitable question.
Oh, Celestia, no! Please don't make me have to explain that… How to dodge? How to doge— Oh! Yes!
I cleared my throat. “You said one more, it’s my turn. We can talk about that later.”
Wander facehooved. “Right! Sorry. Go ahead… Just not my name. Nopony can know my name. Understand?”
I shivered as she leaned into the word understand. She was very serious about that.
“I understand,” I said as I thought of a good question. “What did you and your friends do when you hung out together?”
Wander’s eye twitched slightly. “I… Do I have to—”
“You said you would!” I chided.
She sighed and closed her eyes. “Before the war… I was a musician. You’ve never heard anything I played back then… You might have heard some of my later work. You’re too young to remember Equestria before the ministries, at least, I think. Your mom was a teenager when the Ministries were new, right?”
I walked over to the bed and sat down like Wander had when it was her turn to listen. “Yes. I didn’t see pre-Ministry Equestria.”
At least, not much of it except the southern coastline.
“Odd way to put it, but whatever,” Wander muttered. “We were a lot more free then. The Ministry of Image had this idea after a while that if our culture was allowed to keep branching out like it had been, that it would hurt the war effort and might even lead to a Zebra victory. There were reforms. A lot of reforms. The one that hit me the worst was the ban on all non-traditional music. That wasn’t the MoI’s most popular decision, but Luna backed it. We went with it because you don’t tell a Princess no. Not when she can make the night last forever.”
Wander trotted back and forth for a moment, struggling to find words. “My friends and I had a band… There were four of us. We grew up together. Moved out of Canterlot together. We each loved a different genre, and we’d made a lot of unique albums with our gimmick of writing one song in each of our favorite genres. I’d do remixes of our albums as a day job between our gigs. I wound up getting really good with audio equipment, and computers too when they became a thing.
“I stuck with music even after the MoI ban, but my friends didn’t. They… Couldn’t handle the restrictions. I don’t blame them. I just… I couldn't give up music! It’s my special talent. I don’t feel like I’m alive if I can’t play. So, I wrote songs for the MoI. It drove a wedge between the four of us us. Even between m— My— My wife and I.”
It was my turn to get up and give somepony a hug. I trotted over and wrapped Wander in the tightest hug I could manage. Which, thanks to my missing pump, wasn’t very tight.
I hoped it wasn’t insufficiently comforting…
“I’m so sorry,” I said with a sniffle. “I didn’t mean to make you talk about your family!”
Wander waved a hoof in dismissal and pushed me away from her, hesitantly.
“It’s okay… We never divorced,” she continued. “We may as well have when I left for Manehattan, though. I’d just helped set up the national radio system, which they rightly blamed for twisting their art into propaganda. At the time, I called them unpatriotic and unwilling to make sacrifices for our nation… Celestia, I was an asshole! I tore apart a group that had been friends for forty years.”
Wander stopped talking for a moment, and tears began to flow down her cheeks. A metaphorical hoof slapped me across the face. As much as Wander needed to talk to somepony about this, she clearly hadn’t been ready!
I was an asshole too...
Wander took a deep breath and pushed on. “I… I wanted to get away from them. I never thought anypony would actually use mega spells. C.A.R.E. just made so much sense! No sane person would ever… I— We all know they were not sane. No one in charge was. On either side.”
Wander paused for a few more moments then sighed and turned to look at me, her eyes looking more red than usual. “I bunny trailed. Sorry. I was still popular a few weeks before the Last Day. Popular enough to get an invite to a Stable which was going to seal up for a month to do a test run of the Stable System. You know, a shakedown ‘cruise’ to see what needed tweaking for long term habitation. All that stuff. I wanted space from my wife, because she wouldn’t stop hanging out with my then ex-friends. So I took it.”
Wander closed her eyes again. “You know how it went from there…”
I nodded slowly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.
“No… No it’s fine. I did say you could,” Wander sighed and looked up at me. “Want to know what happened after I left my vault?”
I hesitated for a moment, then gave her a nod. “If it won’t hurt you.”
Wander smiled. “Guess I won’t tell the story, then!” She hesitated for a moment then sighed. “No… No, I’ll finish it for you. So you won't have to ask again.”
I put a hoof on Wander’s shoulder and looked her in the eye.
“I promise I won't ask again,” I said with a reassuring smile.
“The end of the world does funny things to you,” Wander said as she lifted my hoof from her shoulder with her magic. “Suddenly people you hated become the only thing you care about. I regretted every minute I spent safe without knowing what happened to them, and if they were okay.
“There was a chance they were okay. They’d been in Canterlot. We’d moved back there a few years before the end... I knew there was a Stable in Canterlot. Lyra was a pretty good engineer. She had money for a family pass. They could still be alive. I had to know.
“Our stable door had a voice-override. I learned how to imitate voices years and years before the war, to help with my music. I’m good enough to fool a computer’s ear. I’m also good enough with a computer to see whose voice it wanted. Turns out that the Stable door wanted more than one voice.”
“More than one?” I asked. “That’s pretty secure!”
Wander smirked. “No it’s not,” she dismissed. “It wanted the Stable-Tec owners voices, to be specific. Heh… I knew them as fillies. Those three probably put a few insurance agents’ foals through college with the chaos they used to cause! Buck I miss those days…”
Wander trailed off for a long while. For a minute I thought she decided to stop telling her story. I moved to give her an apology hug, which seemed to trigger her into continuing.
“Turns out the voice lock was… Cheap. No password or phrase. Just a digital ‘are these mares present? If so, open.’ type of voice lock. So, I mimicked their voices, recorded them, mixed them together, and I had a key. I could just leave whenever I wanted. I just didn’t want too. Not right away. It was dangerous out there…
“I tried to let myself be okay with not knowing but— I just… I couldn’t. I held out almost three months before I left. The last straw was when the Overmare asked me to play for the Three Month Survival Party. I couldn’t celebrate surviving. Not without them.”
Wander turned and walked over to our room’s window and moved the shutters aside to look out over the town. The first few pale rays of sunlight shone through the window, and gave me my first proper view of Sire’s Hollow. It looked almost like a pre-war town.
Everything was made from wood. The streets were cobbled. If it hadn’t been very clear that the buildings had been repaired with scrap-wood, and the stones clearly laid down by amateurs, I could have been fooled into thinking the town hadn’t been hit by the megaspells at all.
But the longer you looked at the old town, the more you could see it had been lovingly and painstakingly, if amateurly, repaired with whatever could be found at the time.
“I left the morning of the party,” Wander said quietly. “I had a small panic attack when the door closed behind me and I tried to get back inside. Turns out my code only worked once. Or only from the inside terminal. At least, on that Stable. It’s worked just fine on other Stables, weirdly eno— Uh, that’s another bunny trail. Sorry. Point is, I left my Stable and walked to Canterlot.
“I don’t know how I managed to survive. The early days of the wasteland were just… The worst. I was almost dead when I got to Canterlot… I— I don’t want to talk about the trip there.”
Wander cleared her throat and took a moment to compose herself. “I had no idea that the Pink Cloud was dangerous. It looked like something Pinkie Pie would have made. I figured a warehouse full of her stuff had been hit by a bomb or whatever and trotted inside. I walked inside and—”
Wander stopped for another long minute. She sat down and took a few deep breaths, clearly working her way past some hard memories. I winced in sympathy. I had a few things I didn’t want to remember either.
Like that time I saw mom cut open her own head and try to lift out—
NO! BAD MEMORY! BAD!
Wander cleared her throat, having moved past her metal hurdle. “I don’t know when I changed, if it was before I found their bodies, or after. I found… I found her body in our bedroom. Melted into our desk. She was writing a letter to me. She said she loved me, but we needed to talk about things. See a marriage counselor. Even after everything I’d done to her, she wanted to reach out and fix things between us… But we couldn’t. Not anymore.”
Wander’s composure shattered. She dropped to the floor in a sobbing heap. “If— If she’d been alive, ghoul or not, stuck to her desk or not, I’d have— I’d be there with her still, under the rubble. But... She’s dead! So I— I—”
I jumped up and immediately pulled Wander as close to my barrel as I could. This time she returned my hug and wouldn’t let go.
I felt Wander’s stone tooth necklace press against my shoulder. Even though I was separated from it by her scarf and jumpsuit, I could feel the burning power of spirit inside it. I wanted to ask about it, because the story certainty wasn’t over yet, but now wasn’t the time.
I was happy to let her hug and sob it out, but with her wrapped around a large portion of my body I felt my system temps start to rise…
Oh. Yes. I was still low on coolant!
“I’m sorry,” I whispered into Wander’s ear gently.
She continued to sob.
“I am also sorry, but I’m getting too hot… How about we go to the bar and have a tall drink? I think we both need one.”
Wander laughed bitterly. “There isn’t enough booze in the world, Gears… Trust me, I tried. Took over a distillery form raiders once. Drank it dry.”
“Correction, there isn’t enough booze in the world at any one time!” I said with a playful smile, hoping to lift her spirits.
Heh! Spirits.
Wander paused for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah… Having a drink with a fr— You! It— It would be nice,” she said awkwardly.
Yay! I almost got you to say the f word!
“Where is the bar?” I asked as I slipped free from her grip and trotted over to my battle saddle and bags to put them on.
I winced as I saw the trashed LAER. There was no fixing that… I’d break it down for scrap later. Once the poor mare and I had a nice stiff drink or three.
“It’s down stairs. Inn and bar. Same place,” Wander said quietly, still holding back tears.
I slipped my saddle on and tightened the straps. No mailmare ever let her delivery sit unattended!
“Come on,” I said as I trotted towards the door. “Let’s see if you can handle a stronger drink than me.”
Wander snorted. “Oh yeah, like I can handle more than the vodka cooled robot! I’ll bet you use that coolant excuse to keep ponies from complaining that you hog the bottle.”
I blushed and cleared my throat. “The Lithian Constitution protects me from self incrimination.”
Alcoholic drinks were on my ‘chemical combinations that taste good’ list.
Wander smirked, but only for a moment. She still looked sad enough to make a Changeling sick. “Heh… What the hay, I regenerate. I’ll give it a shot, or five.”
“That’s the spirit!” I said, still happy with the layers to that joke.
The two of us left the room side by side. I couldn't help but feel like I’d cracked some of her armor.
Not as much as the Sentinel had cracked mine though… I should see about buying some proper armor.
Stats
Page generated in 0.053 seconds
Total duration
963 users online
193,739 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Poor Gears is gonna be scootering around the Wasteland in a motorized wheelchair to finish her mission if she keeps accumulating battle damage at this rate!
If I was in Wander's position, I would have stopped and went to the bar. No sober person should be in that position.
ANOTHER CHAPTER!!! Yeah! This is amazing. Also, that death save. Didn't see that coming!
Wait, so she was never a pony, just a sufficiently advanced/complicated piece of software with lots of life experience?
Say the 'F' word!
SAY IT!
So, more of Wander's backstory, more of the cute robozeeb's backstory (started as a fire suppression system? HAH! That's adorable!)
...
I bet that toaster machine spirit jumped into the plasma canon already and that's why there's no spirit in the toaster anymore.
Last time I saw a phrase along those lines used, it ended *very* badly for the hardware that was issuing the error in question. Someone should probably tell Gears that if a particular rap song (whose name I forget at the moment, but it has a lot of f-bombs in it) starts playing, it's time for her to GTFO...
Yikes, now that was a little too close for comfort. Reminds me of the dice rolls in Voyage of the Equinox.
Hey, Wander found a mechanic. Conveniently located not in the former Crystal Empire.
Good job and life security.
I was assuming he was the mayor, but that may be it instead.
Good thing she apparently has plenty of shielding.
Man, Gears' mom had a really terrible life.
The entire body, in fact!
Ouch, but fair.
Neat.
Er, or less neat, apparently.
I'm pretty curious about that one.
Yeah, that startup sequence shows how her mother thinks. And that she cares, her daughter does deserve hugs
Cyber surgeons are a thing, huh. Always took that as a more cyberpunk thing, don't remember it being a thing in fallout. It HAS been a long time, though
It must suck to feel things inside you. And not feel flavor. And... Holy shit was she ever a living thing?
Holy hell she never was the brain. She's the bronze age spirit of a primitive machine that got fused to a zebra brain and now thinks like a pony. Damn.
So Wanderer is likely Vinyl, after all. She just got out of the stable before the murdering. She also needs a hug, good thing stripey pone gave her one
9481831
Fudge.
9481884
Not fire suppression.
Fire control.
Very extremely different.
9481611
Good recommendation for wheel upgrades!
9482137
Tha'ts what I get for reading while tired, I guess.
great chapter, glad to see we finally found a town willing to trade with the north.
So wait, Gear has memories of being a fire control system does that mean she is a machine spirit in that body
I don't think I have yet to read something by Meep where Lyra, Bonbon, Vinyl and Octavia weren't close friends/married, and I fully support this
Wonderful as always, now onward to see who can drink who under the table, the vodka cooled Zeeb or the ghoul
oh dang this chapter answers questions and brings up others, like where did the other reactors end up?, how much radiation do they put out unsheilded?,can she power other machinery either remotely and or if its attached (like power armor or mechical aperatures like powerless vault doors etc)
Given her response to previous feedback regarding her toaster function, Gears is no doubt giving a look to anyone approaching her with a ream of printer paper.
Gears should be approximately glad that they didn't "upgrade" her to a P5.
The Omnissiah is pleased!
The loss of such well known characters,to Vaults, to destruction, all you can hope is the blending was over quickly.
Celestia survived in her melded form, or was lost due to being melded?
80486DX?
Couldnt splash to a 80486DX266 Overdrive?
Nice drop in chip for teh 80386SX25
Then again, I wouldnt have thought x86 would be in experimental prototypes.
Thre are far more mental experis out there that started in ISSMM and ended up in home machines, then ended up going Back. Some of those things already have machine spirits, and those things are scary. Things that keep going when the code breaks. Things that keep going when the hardware breaks.
Things that keep going when you remove the CPU.
The family includes Opportuity.
9481611 /me *glances at outline* "Oh man you have no idea."
9481826 She's not software. She's a thinking mind with agency. Just like every other Zebrican "robot", she's a spirit bound to a machine, and made to run it. It just so happens that this machine was designed to 'be a person'. So, she gets to be a person. Just like anyone else.
9481670 My pre-reader agrees with you XD
9481967 It's a real error... If only a certain office worker knew that means "Paper Cartage Empty. Load Letter sized paper."
9481884
/me checks her notes "Apparently it'staken over a small robot and is laying waste to radier villages soulth of the Badlands.
9481969
I took inspiration :3 I do them anyways, might as well show them!
Unfortuantly for her, there are not very many of those...
He is the Mayor. Gears is just a derp.
Magic, it does the lead lining wonders!
TLDR; While spirits do persist on the SPeir Realm if their host item id distroyed, the odds of them ever getting to go back to the mortal world again are very very low, and to return to that realm after experiencing something akin to person hood... Simply existing int a timeless-spaceless place is hell.
Lucky for you, it's fairly important and we'll get to it...
9482009
It gets appended to the end of every error report. So she wont forget. She's never needed the reminder so far.
They are! The most notable one is in New Vegas.
Indeed. The braincase on that unit is empty... Because it's as alive as any flesh and blood pony. THis is not what Gear's Mom ment to do... But a happy mistake as far as she cares. It's not like she knows WHY or HOW she did what she did... It's best she has no idea. It's best Gears has no idea too... *Laughs in author*
She probably needs another. 200 years of running form your problems is not a one hug job.
9482137 "STOP MAKING MORE WORK FOR ME!" The fire suppression system demanded.
"Sorry, mate. Is me job!" The fire control system said.
9482228
Yes, but also no. It's more accurate to say there's a person in there which was once a machine spirit, but has been infused with bits of something else, unknown to anyone involved.
And you never will :3 Cuz they is best ship! They have their own background only romance subplot and everything.
9482338 like where did the other reactors end up?, This is very much plot critical, actualy. how much radiation do they put out unsheilded? Probably something arround... oh, 530 sieverts per hour, can she power other machinery either remotely and or if its attached Yes. There are power cables hidden behind her teats for this exact purpose.
9483024 Well yeah :P If you go abck and look at Gear's mom in chapter 1, you might realise that's she's totally a...
9483054 Hey! THere were two people who ralised that's a real chip :3 Awesome!
9483054
Hey, at least it wasn't an 80486SX, right?
Though if you're upgrading from a 486DX, might as well go all the way and cram in a PODP5V83 (Basically a Pentium with the pinout of a 486 and a bit of glue logic.) Or better yet, a Cx5x86 or Am5x86 (especially the Am5x86-P100 variant from the sound of it).
9483159
Yep, There's also fun errors like
lp0 on fireor the similar (but not printer-related) errorCPU#0: Possible thermal failure (CPU on fire ?)out there also.9483420 I'm saving those for other times she'll get hurt.
Oh dear.
9483159
then. And a good therapist.
She needs ALL THE HUGS
Great couple of updates! Meant to post a bit more, but 5 decades of bad health demand to heard. Loving the story and Gears has become one of my favorite heroes to follow. Keep up the great work, my friend!
9485678 Thanks for commenting! Keep us posted on your health problems. I hope you turn ou tokay.
Oh my... no wonder she has a big gun fetish.
Meep, how did you start writing your fic? I’ve been trying to get a good Fallout Equestria fic going, or any new fic really on my profile. How did you start with this one?
9489383 I've been working on this idea since about 2012 when I finished Fallout Equestria, and the story helped me overcome suicidal impulses I'd been experiencing for years. Every other story I've done has been practice. I used to be great at writing, even better than I am now (I've written stories since middle school), but then something broke in my head and I stopped doing everything I loved.
I didn't want to do this story yet, but with this being the last season, I'm not sure if I'll have a window for their project to be seen and read by a lot of people next year, and ever since that day in 2012, I've wanted to make a sequel to FOE because I felt it needed one to answer several questions it brings up about the future of the world it creates. I need to do that. I need to thank kkat for indirectly saving my life and since she doesn't really talk to people, and wont give me an address so I can't sent her the replica pipbuck I made, all I can do is continue her story and hope that one day she enjoys it.
In short, the best way to start a fic is to have a driving motivation.
But, if you don't have that, you can still write a good story. There's a few simple tricks. The first one is to sit down and tell a story to yourself. Open a word doc and just type anything at all that comes to mind. Tell a story. Long or short. Tell it for yourself, to yourself. Don't worry about working or prose. Once done, that's your outline. Tell the story again, but better. Something doesn't make sense? change it. Still doesn't work? add something. Never cut, only alter or add. Then, eventually, you can turn this...
That's from the outline of this chapter. It's 8 pages long, and I altered almost all of it. Hell, I split it in half because I hit 10k words with the additions and alterations.
Storytelling is like any other art. You can't just carve a beautiful lion with one tool in one step. It's iterative and starts from nothing. Just like everything else. Your blank page is your block of wood. Take a rough knife and cut some bits off. See what shapes you can make. Then, make those shapes into something you recognize. Then, turn those into a finished piece of art.
Art, or whatever you want to count my stuff as :P
9489542
I think your stories are much better than art.
9489988 If by art you mean "what modern galleries call art" then yes. If by art you mean "expression of human creativity which are in general reguardes as wonderful or intresting." I think I have a ways to go to get there. But, thank you very much :3
If you are seriously interested writing, there's a book that may help you. A Creative Writing professor wrote it. Look up "The Fantasy Fiction Formula" by Deborah Chester. it's her entire class compressed into one novel and is very easy to follow.
I'm loving the story so far meep. I clicked on this chapter to continue reading and when I saw that there wasn't a next chapter arrow I felt a moment of disappointment that there wasn't more to read. That's a really good sign for me. It shows me that I'm really invested in a story. So thank you again for another great chapter and for such an interesting story.
P.S. I can't wait to find out how that drinking contest will turn out for them
9496414
All I can say is: https://youtu.be/-hB19tHMS94?t=13
9497049
Yaaaaaaaaay!
Ohhhh I get it
Pot calling the Kettle black
Wait what
I get it
Yeah, I'm starting to feel pretty confident in my theory of Wander's previous identity
Oh my. Literally not touching THAT conversation. Snicker.
Called it! I find it cute that she's literally the Termarenator. I mean, robot in flesh suit, keeps going, secretly the avatar of a fire-control system...
Oh wait. How deep does that rabbit hole go? It can't be an AI, since they use spirits for things... Exactly what sort of "machine spirit" is old and smart enough to have been made into a fire control system, but was from something made in the bronze age?! A catapult?
stand
dodge
from raiders?
9645986 Windmill (how she knows how windage works). Pocketwatch (how she has an excellent sense of timing and precision control).
Umfh... It was going so well, I was so hooked on the story and felt like I was there... And then did you do that roll vs death and ruined it all, shattering my suspension of disbelief. You made it feel like a living and breathing world so far, and then does something like that come flying out of the blue and smack you on top of the head... Bad zebra bad!
9784570 You know what? you're right. I'm going to erase that bit. The level up game mechanic thing the original did is silly anyways.
I've finished another chapter! Not just that, but it was enjoyable, too! It was a long time coming, sadly -- me getting to the next one. Oh well, I guess. I'll start with the easiest thing: tone. This one retained much of the lightheartedness that the previous chapters contained, even with the more sensitive topics... like the world ending and the loss of a loved one... and seeing your own mother take her brain out (Yuck!). All in all, if I had to place the tone to the previous chapters, this one could be considered less lighthearted and much more serious -- which is certainly a good thing. Right. Succinct: the tone is consistent yet malleable in the proper amounts.
An observation I had through this chapter was... kinda shocking. Maybe it's just my memory failing me and causing me to not recall something I otherwise would have, but it really seems like Gears takes after me. >.> Like, if I were more mechanical (or into systems) and had pre-installed files for "the sex" then I'd be even more like her! Or would Gears be more like me? Huh... either way. She does have her differences, though, that's for sure. Not that I'm going to get into that here and now.
The world-building in this particular chapter was quite informative and entertaining. Learning more about spirits and zebra culture, about pre-war Equestria, and about the ministries was all a load of fun. I'd like to know even more, perhaps I should wait on those, though. I'd particularly like to know the name of the brother, but seeing as it wasn't mentioned... it must be a reveal later... so I shall hesitantly wait. Hmm... I had something in mind for this chapter... but I seem to have forgotten it in my tiredness.
Wanderer. This chapter has finally given the details for me to officially know who she is behind the... mask: Vinyl Scratch or DJ Pon-3. All the details fit; from Manehatten to the Stable and all the way to ghoulification. Obviously she wasn't heard from in the original, so it makes complete sense for this to be the case -- including her disdain for her name. It's rather ironic that the "immortal" disk jockey DJ Pon-3 yet lives as an "immortal" ghoul. I couldn't run through each instance in this chapter that led me to such a conclusion, but I gave the main ones above and my reasoning on how she would work. I hope I'm not wrong. Also note, I've actively avoided spoilers... so if the answer was revealed, I didn't see it. Hmm... I'd like to see what happens when Vinyl makes it to the tower... city... thing and meets Homage -- specifically what Homage will think. Lastly for the Wanderer section... my word, get this pone a hug and some fresh Sweet Apple Acres' Fresh Cider™.
There were quite a few good jokes in here, ones that got me to laugh (while others only a giggle). The worst offender (that's a good thing?) would have to be the reason for Wanderer to dislike Calamity. It gave me a full coughing fit, I'm glad I'm figuring out ways to stop those... otherwise it would have started to hurt. The part about Gears not even *knowing* who Calamity was was also good, not as good, but I giggled quite a bit. Then there was the part where Gears "Almost got her to say the f word!", it got me to giggle quite a bit as well. Lastly, there was a reference that I absolutely loved! It has to do with a certain toaster upgrade to be able to burn things better! XD
What even is that supposed to mean? It was followed by Gears mentioning proportions, but... like... I must be missing something! >.<
I'm finding trouble writing comments for this story, for the most part. They always come out to be short, like this one. And I think it has to do with my lack of focus and the fact that much of the chapters flow so well that by the end I don't even know what to talk about. This small break, however, to discuss my... inability to write comments (and subsequently read more) has allowed my mind to focus... so onward!
The cyber-surgeon seems like an interesting character. Mostly in regards to him either being the mayor or he is... seeing? her? I think it'd be fun to have him be revealed as the mayor (to Gears at least), but at the same time... I don't know how well that'd work, as it'd be too obvious from the viewer's perspective. But that also comes as part of the fun on why I want it to happen. Sighs. I will... grumbles. So... yeah... more waiting.
I disliked the way a few of the sentences were structured, I didn't take notes on them because I didn't want to see them again. But I had to re-read a few sentences at least four times to get the proper meaning (and words). They weren't pleasant, and that's putting it lightly.
Okay, I know I'm losing all focus on this so I need to end this shortly. Firstly, I'm glad to see the characters getting rest. They deserve it after their hard fought battle. It also served to double as character moments, and I like to see that. Small moments are nice, but these... bigger moments are so much better (to me, in my opinion) as I can just... sit back, relax and escape into the world and imagine what it was like for them. Getting to know the characters and the world are my two favorite parts of a story -- at least in the written medium -- and getting to know the characters is definitely more important to me. I enjoy the story, sure, but it definitely won't stand without good characters (or really good writing). And, well, I'm glad to see both here. Lastly -- and call me crazy or silly if I missed it -- but what even is "PC Load Letter"?
9829333
Curvy, but not fat. To a degree that is borderline impossible for someone to actually achieve.
A very very very poorly worded error message from older commercial printers. PC = Paper Cartridge. Load = has run out of / requires more. Letter = Letter sized paper. Or in plain English "Printer out of paper".
She's just a love machine, and she won't work for nopony but ghoul
She's a turret. Delightful.
Enjoying the story so far, glad I finally dug it out of the read later abyss.
Onward!
Lived in canterlot. Her wife was a musical artist. Was good at techno music and audio tech in general Went into the trial run stable in manehatten that had the automated systems and the failing water talisman. The same stable that had Vinyl Scratch. She has a white coat red eyes and pale blue mane. Wanderer is 100% Vinyl Scratch and her wife was likely Octavia.