*Friendship Not Included

by Liquid Truth

A Comprehensive Guide to Starting and Maintaining a Loquacious Verbal Communication With an Academically Non-Inclined Duplicant for Derivatives of Blueprint 547769

...was an actual book entry in the database. It was only five pages long with the first four pages explaining the different disabilities other Duplicants have and how some topics shouldn't be used for which disabilities. The last page only said, "Further research required."

And who better to perform the aforementioned further research than a derivative of blueprint 547769?

"Now remember: once you feel your muscles strain, stop moving, and let yourself drown. You're in a spacesuit. You won't."

Twilight nodded and steadied her breath. There was a voice in the back of her mind that kept telling her not to lash out at Rainbow with a detailed explanation of what anemia is, but there was also another voice behind that one that told her it was The Manager's voice. In her current state of exhaustion, the logical part of her brain couldn't decide on which of those were her conscience and which were The Manager pulling a mental prank.

And so she listened to the other voice, the one she could hear well.

Rainbow slowly let go of Twilight and backed away. She watched as Twilight moved her hooves as she showed her, albeit stiffer and looked more like sudden jerks than a smooth pedaling motion.

Twilight slowly swam toward the ladder. She was able to stay afloat for longer than before. Her vision started to go dark on her peripherals, so she stopped and let herself drown.

As promised, she didn't. She reached the bottom of the pool and stood there hyperventilating. Her hooves were aching more than ever before. She wished she could just lay down there and sleep and hope that, when she woke up, a swimming software had been invented, and she could simply go to the printing pod to learn it.

Rainbow dropped down in front of her. "You alright?" she asked, her voice muffled.

"Yes," she breathed out. "Just a little... tired."

Rainbow looked up, then back at her. "It's almost downtime. You want me to carry you?"

"I can walk just fine, thank you very much," she said as she collapsed on her first step.

Rainbow rolled her eyes and carried Twilight on her back. There was a grunt, but no more complaining afterward.

---

Twilight woke up to the downtime ping.

The air was warm. The steady rhythm of Rainbow's trotting tempted her back to the realm of dreams. Her warmth almost made her snuggle to a ball.

The familiar cacophony of the Great Hall fully woke her up. She blinked the rest of her sleepiness away and stretched her sore hooves as far as being on somepony's back allowed her. She wriggled.

Rainbow stopped. "You're awake?"

"Yes. Can you put me down, please?"

Rainbow did as asked. "How's your sleep?"

"Good," Twilight answered as she started trotting forward. "I may not sleep tonight because of this."

Rainbow walked beside her. "You researchers do that quite often, though, right?"

"I don't know about others. Why don't you ask Sunset?"

"Sunset never sleeps outside her schedule," she answered almost instantly. "Twily as well. Mainly because she's only a part-time researcher."

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Really? Wasn't the research back then more intensive?"

"Not really." Rainbow stopped, helping Twilight realize that they were already in front of the door to the Great Hall. Rainbow continued as they entered, "Back then, most of our times were spent scouring the area for buried muckroots. Research only got crazy after our first ever ranch was set up." She looked at her curiously. "Say, you're a lot more chatty than usual."

"Tiredness promotes social interaction," she said as she yawned. "And as long as I think it's true, it will be true."

"Really?"

"It's called the Placebo Effect."

"Plasma-what?"

Twilight shook her head. "Nevermind." She took a seat next to Rainbow, where her place had been ever since she was transferred. "Oh, by the way?"

Rainbow leaned back on her chair. "Yeah?"

"You still remember the early days?"

"Yep." She stood straight and grinned at her. "I might not be smart, but—" she poked her own head "—you can count on me to remember everypony."

Twilight raised an eyebrow and smiled. "Oh, really?"

"Ha! Try me."

"Who's Duplicant #2700?"

"Raven. White coat, dark brown mane. She worked at The Industrial Sauna for metal refinery before getting transferred to Quantum Forge in Wheezefreeze."

Twilight blinked. A quick mental queue told her exactly what Rainbow had said, but without details on Raven's career history. She felt a chill running down her spine. "Uh, Duplicant #0289?"

"Bucky. Contributed a lot to excavating The Void before getting himself stuck there. Rest in peace."

Duplicant #0289 "Bucky": Age 560 cycles. Cause of death: asphyxiation.

Rainbow wriggled her eyebrows.

Twilight shook her head. "You could've just taken those from the database and made things up." She stared at the ceiling. "She did, didn't she?"

The Manager returned a negative.

"I didn't know you can just ask The Manager for somepony's personal information before you did it," Rainbow said. "I think she likes you."

"For personal reasons, I'm sure." She ignored The Manager's nudge.

"How's she like?"

Twilight whipped her head. "What?"

"The Manager. I never talked to her before."

"Me neither." She stared at her hooves and hoped that The Manager could go away for a second. "She only nudged me here and there, gave me commands to tell a message." She felt The Manager's presence more heavily now, like she was the center of attention. It made her a little uneasy, but at the same time safe and that everything was going to be alright. "How about out there?"

"Huh?"

"Out there in space. Does The Manager still bother you when you're on a mission?"

Rainbow shifted uncomfortably. "Uh..."

"You've been there, right? Of course you have." She sighed. "It's such a privilege to fly a rocket. You're the best courier in the entire colony—I'm sure you have a lot of stories about the destinations I could only watch from the telescope."

"Well, yes, of course, I have—"

Twilight's eyes popped. She stared at Rainbow. "Sorry, I..."

Rainbow gave her a questioning look. "Twilight?"

Twilight pushed the chair away and galloped out of the Great Hall, ignoring Rainbow's call and the looks from the other Dupes.

---

The Manager didn't urge her to get back to the hall and eat, which was fortunate. There weren't any urgent commands for her to get back to Bristle Acres, too, which was a blessing.

The Stellarium was always empty. Twilight liked it partly for that.

She also liked it because the diamond-glass dome was the safest place to admire the sky. There was only a small telescope at the end of the room—which was massively inadequate for interstellar research—but there was a lack of meteors around, too. The bunker doors above it were built on the same grid as those for the solar panels, which were maintained at all times by the Electrical Engineers. Unlike the one above the observatory.

The door behind her opened. A quick glance told her it was Minuette. "Twilight?"

Twilight turned her head back to the sky. "Hello, Minuette."

"I brought you dinner." She gave her a plate of Surf 'n Turf.

"The Manager told you to do it, didn't she?"

"Yes," Minuette answered. "What are you doing here?"

Twilight sighed. "Leave me alone, please."

Minuette did as asked. Twilight glared in a random direction. "You don't need to babysit me all the time, you know? She could've done that herself."

The Manager gave her an apologetic nudge.

"Sorry," she said after a while. Then, "How did I do? Have I been friendly enough in the past cycles?"

The Manager told her that she was improving.

"Are you proud of me?"

The Manager gave her an affirmative.

"I've always been focusing so much on making Celestia proud," she slowly started, "I've never seen you as anything but an annoyance."

No response.

"You still are. Why won't you leave me alone? Why don't you go bother somepony else or, I don't know, start a new ridiculous project on an empty part of the asteroid? Maybe make a giant music box that you can play?"

Still no response.

"I guess I'm your current ridiculous project, aren't I?" Twilight pinged The Manager before she could respond. "I'm not upset. I'm a little flattered, actually. I'm not incapable of that. My Ego Module is working perfectly." She looked at her dinner and set it aside. "But can I ask you a question? Some questions, actually."

The Manager told her to do so freely.

"Why won't you talk to us directly? Can you actually do it?"

The Manager returned a negative.

Twilight sighed. "Sorry." She raised a hoof. "Next question."

The Manager waited.

"Why haven't you ever sent Rainbow Dash on a space mission?" She scowled. "If anything, she deserves it. If anything, it's because I know that everypony else from the early days has done it. You've sent hundreds of rockets for matters so trivial that they don't qualify as space programs and were launched without proper preparation! You literally build a rocket, fill it with fuel, then download the Astronomical Research and Rocket Navigation software to the Duplicant of choice. It's not that hard to trade in some software with another!"

The Manager went silent for a few seconds before sending her Rainbow's bio.

Twilight felt lightheaded. "What? She—" She shook her head. "No, no, she may be a little dumb but she couldn't be—"

The Manager resent the bio and highlighted her disability.

Yokel
Cannot do Researching errands

"Why!?" she screamed. "Why did you ever picked that blueprint in the first place!?" She shook away The Manager's nudge. "Oh, great. Just as I thought I've been doing good I messed up and I didn't know it!" She grunted. "How upset she must be!? Wasn't it Rainbow's dream to go to space? I remember her saying something about space, but was it about dreaming to go there? Or was it about flying? Why was I so focused on proving you wrong!?" She made some gibberish noises. "And I've just figured out that she'll never be able to fly. Her blueprint was a pegasus! How devastating can it be!?"

"It's not as bad as you think."

Twilight yelped and whirled around. "Rainbow! I—"

"I do dream of getting to space." Rainbow gave her a smile. A genuine one, Twilight could tell, because Rainbow was very bad at lying. "I've come to accept that I'll never leave the ground." She spread a wing and stared at it. It was small and stubby, just like any other pegasus Dupe's wing. There's no way it could be used to lift an entire pony. "As you said, I got time to practice things."

Twilight shook her head and stepped forward. "Rainbow, I... I'm sorry." She swallowed. There were times where it was impossible for her to understand how others feel about something, but going to space had been in her code since she was printed. She felt something sizzle inside her skull. "It's not fair."

Rainbow shrugged. "Totally not. Also, since when are you into sappy things?" She trotted toward her and laughed. She put a wing on her back and sat.

Twilight sat down. Her dinner showed up on Rainbow's hoof and she mindlessly took it.

Rainbow took a bite out of her Surf 'n Turf. Twilight just stared. "You gonna eat that or what?"

"Is this how you cope with grief? By making jokes and changing topics?" Twilight took a bite from it.

Rainbow swallowed her food. "I'll say yes, but then you'll talk nerdy even more and I probably won't understand anything you say, so, no."

Twilight giggled. "Of course, Rainbow." Her eyebrows rise up and she tried to hide her growing smile from Rainbow. And the newly-formed idea inside her head from The Manager's prying eyes. "Of course."

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

A Twilight has found a problem. This may end in one or more world-upending paradigm shifts.

[reader238]

The simplest of solutions are probably the best, rainbow just needs to go up with a dupe who can research enough for the both of them

[Sylica telca]

"I can walk just fine, thank you very much," she said as she collapsed on her first step.

How can she collapse when she's under the liquid?? And still in the pool???

[Sylica telca]

"Why won't you talk to us directly? Can you actually do it?"

I wonder if the manager doesnt have a physical body anymore?

[Sylica telca]

I'm just waiting to see other copies of dupes that try to be different then the rest of their copies

[Iron Comet]

10518708
Exaxtly.

[Hoshizora]

ooo, plot!

[Snowkitsune]

quick someone find the dupe fixer that rewrites dupes

[Opponent]

10519204
Slowly.

[Sylica telca]

10523714
I'm saying there's nothing indicating them getting out of the pool from the bottom of it

[Opponent]

10524164
With the suit, she's heavier than the liquid they're swimming in,

Twilight slowly swam toward the ladder. She was able to stay afloat for longer than before. Her vision started to go dark on her peripherals, so she stopped and let herself drown.

As promised, she didn't. She reached the bottom of the pool and stood there hyperventilating.

And then she collapsed there. Slowly. And then Rainbow pulled her out.