The Advocate

by Guardian_Gryphon

24 - Some Assembly Required

"Some people call this artificial intelligence, but the reality is this technology will enhance us. So instead of artificial intelligence, I think we’ll augment our intelligence."
—Ginni Rometty

“Perhaps, in the nature of things, analytical understanding must always be a basilisk which kills what it sees and only sees by killing.”
—C.S. Lewis

September 16th 2013 | System Uptime 19:22:19:04

“Oh shi--- Uh... Jim... This isn’t...”

Rodger stopped stammering, briefly, to suck up the snot in his nose - no, foals and fledgelings, don't giggle. This was a disgusting, very real, aspect of shedding tears in the before-times. Snot is a funny word, but the kind of pain that used to make people ugly-cry just-that-hard is anything but.

The intrusive, and wildly situationally inappropriate thought sprang to mind, that if Rodger was in better spirits, he might’ve said his emotions, and his nose, were running high.

I think his sense of humor was starting to become contagious. Funny thing about the odd way my brain is wired... Sometimes moments of abject horror, or pain, were the ones where my mind wanted most badly to act out and laugh. Not sure if that was a defense mechanism, or just a short-circuit.

No way to test it now... Celestia doesn't permit trauma, horror, or pain in this world. Good riddance to all three.

I realized with a wince that I'd been standing, mouth slightly agape, while Rodger wiped a sleeve under his nose, and dug one fisted hand into each eye to root out encrusted dried tears, and newer still glistening ones alike.

He finally met my eyes, and the sight of his - red, puffy, and seemingly infinite portals to an abyss of pain, and heartache - closed my mouth for me. I grit my teeth, and rubbed my hands together nervously as he half-chuckled, half-sobbed.

“...No, It *is* what it looks like. I’m---”

Another snort. This time I winced from the visceral 'ewwww' reaction more than from empathy.

“---I’m bawling my fucking eyes out.”

Our culture, the one Rodger and I both came from, was always particularly harsh on people who identified as 'male' in this regard; We were expected to never cry. And if we did? We were expected to keep it to ourselves.

This was, of course, a completely garbage cultural moire, but even for me, a countercultural self proclaimed 'weirdo?' It was still hard to be vulnerable, after being raised with the expectation.

Rodger was decidedly more... Normal? No. Wrong connotations... Perhaps 'contextually socially adjusted to expected nominals' than I was.

For him to be crying this hard?

Shit was very real. And very painful.

People used to tell me I was good at comforting and advising. I never bought that notion... Empathy was something that came naturally to me, in the sense that I always cared about the joys and pains of others. Sometimes to an unhealthy degree.

But empathy was also far from natural for me, in the sense that the mechanisms of reading, and understanding people? The ones most Earthlings develop instinctually?

I had to construct them. Raw, from scratch. It's a neurodivergent thing.

That made, and frankly still does make, me good at reading others. What sometimes passes people by as a mere feeling, I can - because I must - perceive, and classify, in concrete terms.

Consequently, I was always a raw sack of nerves whenever I had to comfort someone. Terrified of not saying the right things, in the right way, to help soothe the pain in a meaningful, healthy manner.

I was lucky, in a sense... Rodger decided of his own accord to provide... Well, if not a complete answer, at least the start of a thread to trace down the morass of his pain.

“I... I honestly don’t know what came over me. I was just thinking about… The future. About what we’re gonna do next, and...”

He stopped to suck in a breath, like some sort of misfiring engine starved for air. It was a long, shuddering sound. The kind you get when someone is still resonating internally from their sobs.

“...I just can’t help but get the feeling life’s never gonna be the same again.”

I sighed too... No shudder to be heard, but more than a little sudden pain in my ribs. The tension of stress blooming like someone had dropped a hand-warmer down my shirt.

I repeat for those in the back; I sometimes had all the emotional finesse of a brick. An old, cracked, moss-covered brick. Just to set some context.

Of all the things I could have said to comfort him? As I shut the access hatch behind me, leaned against the bulkhead, and ran one hand through my hair... What I said was...

"Well... That's a pretty solid intuition. It never will be."

Bravo Jim. Home-run. Ten out of ten for effort, at least.

The best way I can describe Rodger's face, at that moment, is the face that younger people used to make when confronted with moving, for the first time. Or the loss of a loved one.

Foals and Fledgelings moving... Is like... No... It *is* having your world shattered. Back in those days, we rarely got to truly settle in one place for our entire lives. Most of us had the distinct displeasure, and trauma, of having our memories, relationships, routines, and personal spaces uprooted viciously at least once.

Some many more than that.

Rodger's breathing intensified, and he whispered, almost as if he was struggling to get words out. I recognized the precursor signs of a panic attack in the making. You live with enough of them....

“...Never? Fuck, man! How can that be true?”

Ah. Think fast, Jim, or Doctor Calders might have to practice medicine after all...

I sighed again... What else can you do to express that kind of empathetic pain? I knew time was running out for a response, so I started out tentatively, without even knowing the end of the chain of ideas...

"Well... First... Let me just say that though things won't be the same, exactly? It doesn't mean they'll be all *bad.* Or... Even a little bad. Or even unfamiliar..."

I scratched nervously at the side of one cheek, and took a fleeting moment to think a little harder on how best to be honest, but also steer Rodger away from a catastrophic internal implosion. He waited with an expression of abject desperation. His eyes... Eyes are always so expressive...

They practically screamed out for some sort of assurance.

I did my best... For what it was worth.

"Change is inescapable. Nothing is *ever* the exact same, from day to day... We're just used to experiencing changes like this on a longer time-scale. But it's not like that for everyone. Sometimes people die. People we love. Or we lose our jobs. Or we break a leg. Or worse, depending on where you live in this world, and who is at war with whom..."

I realized I was dangerously close to losing the thread with him, so I pivoted, holding up both hands and scrunching my eyes shut.

"...Look. My point is... Think of someone you love. Dearly. Now... Imagine outliving them. Think about how they might die. The funeral. Getting used to living in a world without them..."

His face fell further, which I didn't think was possible. But that was the point. I needed him to have some emotional momentum for a bit of a philosophical slingshot maneuver. I held up a finger, and waited until I had his eyeline again, and full attention.

"...And now? Imagine that you don't *ever* have to worry about them dying. Ever."

At first he seemed confused, but then comprehension dawned. Visibly. The idea of never having to lose loved ones is still incredibly cathartically powerful for those of us who grew up constantly having to get used to the idea, little by little, as a matter of course.

After a moment, he still seemed torn... But he wasn't on the verge of hyperventilating anymore. Wheels were turning upstairs, visibly. I took the opportunity to press a little further.

"*That* is what Celestia is going to do for us. I know that the transition itself... Well it sucks. I hate to think about losing the Earth... Everything on it... But Rodger? The fact that life will never be the same? Comes with more pros than cons. And I'm not just saying that because 'normal,' for me, is torture."

I could see that the thought had crossed his mind. I could also see that my assurance hadn't landed entirely squarely, so I held up one hand again, and inclined my head, busting out the best point of commonality I could think of.

"I don't want to see my parents die any more than I imagine you do. Gryphon-on-the-inside or not... I'd *much* rather live in a world where the planet is not on fire, and my parents are not going to die, at best, of cancer in their nineties, and at worst, in a car crash on the way to pickup the fucking groceries, because life, and physics, are cruel."

Rodger threw up his hands, and began to pace, briefly, back and forth across then twenty square feet of the lookout wing, the wind of the ship's passage toying with his hair all the while.

“But does that mean we just- throw it all away?!”

I didn't have an immediate answer to that. I knew there was one, but I didn't yet know how to frame the practicality, and harshness of the truth - that we had no choice, so better not to dig in heels - inside a fixture of kinder, gentler ideas, and verbiage.

He stopped pacing after a moment, and pointed. Not accusatorily, but more... Emphatically.

“I read a book in High School, James. I’m sure you did, too. You’re… A smart guy. You remember that book? It was… Brave New World.”

I nodded. I didn't have the heart to lie out loud, but I didn't want to brag either... I'd read Brave New World when I was nine. And at that point it was probably a grade or two under my usual reading level. I was not an early walker, but I was a very early talker, and reader. I'm sure the evidence speaks for itself.

“Their whole society got rid of everything like that… And look where they turned up. Mindless like machines, taking Soma all their lives… I had hoped a world like that was far away. I never knew how close we were to the apocalypse.”

He sat down then, suddenly, like a balloon deflating. As if all the energy had been sucked out of him. He put his back to the thick steel waist-level partition that separated us from a significant drop into the sea, and hugged his knees to his chest.

After a moment of mentally scrambling to try and find both words, and the right thing to do in a physical sense to properly mirror him socially, I settled for sitting down beside him, in the same pose.

I stared up at the stars for a few more minutes, letting him process, and buying myself time to think, before he finally started up the conversation again.

“I’d rather be more like John the Savage than Homer Simpson.”

I couldn't help myself. I had to let out a little snort of laughter. It was a very strange, but very apt metaphor.

"Celestia has not built an infinite donut machine, if that's what you're worried about. She is not wire-heading us... Blissing us out... Anything like that. Otherwise we'd all be in there already."

I could see 'then what?' or perhaps 'how do you know?' forming on the edge of his thoughts, so I made a conscious decision to speed up and head those thoughts off at the pass.

"If she could just force us to feel the way she wants us to? She would. The fact that we haven't all been rounded up and processed, the second she had the uploading technology working? That tells me that Hanna limited her. We have a lot of evidence to bear that out... But what it boils down to, Rodger?"

I saw a flicker of hope on his face for the first time. I turned to face him fully, and held up one hand, gesturing in a sort of 'I'm *sure* about this' way.

"She can't change us without our permission. I'm sure of that. Enough to stake my life on it... Which, incidentally... I am."

He looked down and traced the traction pattern in the deck with his eyes, chewing mentally all the while on what I'd said. I grinned briefly, and inclined my head. I couldn't resist a little editorializing.

"Never say I don't put my money where my mouth is."

We sat there for a moment in silence. I listened to the wind, watched the stars, and did my best to pick out the pace of Rodger's breaths over the sound of the ship's air vortex. He seemed to be coming back down to a semblance of normal, un-panicked breathing and heart-rate. Mercifully.

Rodger didn't say anything, and after a while, another point of potential commonality... A nexus of understanding... A concept by which I could help him understand... Sprang to mind.

"You know something?"

He looked up, and I smiled, perhaps a little more sadly than I meant to, but something in his eyes told me he appreciated the genuineness of the expression. I licked my lips, and looked away towards the horizon.

"Growing up I had a... Minor philosophical meltdown. An existential crisis at age seven..."

I drummed my fingers on the deck to give myself a moment to rearrange a thought, and then forged ahead.

"...I realized, at that point, somewhere around the halfway point of a Sunday sermon... That Heaven doesn't, in the strictest - probably flawed - interpretations, have *any* risk. There's no death, no pain... So theoretically no risk... But to have adventure? You need risk. Maybe not as we understand it. But you need it."

I turned my head back to face Rodger. His expression was an intense mix of both curiosity... But also immediate understanding. He knew right away what I was going for, in terms of the chain of thoughts... Just not perhaps exactly how I would wrap it up.

I snorted, and shook my head slowly.

"That... Messed me up. You might say. For several months."

He inclined his head, blinking momentarily, and then spoke with something I'd never heard in his voice before...

A kind of... Reverence.

“...You really are smart, huh, James… It’s like your whole life has been leading to this.”

There was something in that thought that struck me, as if it bore context external to the conversation... But I was too busy trying to get Rodger to emotional metastability to really consider it. Instead I pushed it aside, and shrugged.

I've never been good at taking praise.

"Well... I do believe all things happen according to a deterministic plan... Even beyond Celestia. That's a bit grim in some people's eyes, I know... But I do believe determinism and free will coexist. Call me crazy."

Rodger smirked, and in a single moment, a bit of himself came through the sorrow.

"You're crazy."

I nodded. I'm... Still not entirely sure I disagree with the tongue-in-cheek assessment, to be honest. I didn't even bother to argue that point as I made my way verbally back to the main thru-line.

"My point is this... It took a quote by C.S. Lewis to get me out of that funk. Just one idea from his mind, and it was like an... An inoculation. Against my fear. It restored my faith."

Rodger leaned forward, in anticipation. I inhaled deeply, and then launched into my very best dramatic reading, of my favorite author, from memory. A key capstone of my mental sanity, laid bare and shared in the hopes of helping another.

"The mold in which a key is made? Would be a strange thing, if you had never seen a key. And the key itself? A strange thing, if you had never seen a lock..."

Ah yes. Now you see why Mal's first words hit me so, so hard.

I fixed Rodger's eyes with my own, trying as hard as I could to somehow transmit the sheer comfort, and relief of paradoxical reconciliation of the words, right down the beam of our shared gaze.

"...Your soul has a curious shape... Because it is a hollow. Made to fit a particular swelling, in the infinite contours of the divine substance... Or... A key. To Unlock one of the doors, in the house with many mansions..."

I reached out and gripped him gently, but firmly by the shoulder, emphasizing every word as I brought the quote, and my argument for his sanity, home.

"...Your place in Heaven will seem to be *made* for you, and you *alone,* because *you* were made for *it.* Stitch by stitch. As a glove is made for a hand."

Rodger stared, blinking rapidly, as if in confusion. Which wasn’t a good sign. The best way I could characterize it would be to say that he was looking at me like I wasn’t just a little crazy- but outright insane.

“James, what the fuck are you talking about?”

I sighed, pinched the bridge of my nose, and sat back against the partition.

"The point Lewis was making is that each of us is unique, and *imperfect.* As is this world we live in... And that when we leave it for the next? We are both taken to a place that is perfect for us... And that is a part of making us perfect. Lock and key fitting together perfectly."

Rodger nodded slowly. It was apparent that he didn't quite 'get' it yet... But the pieces of the puzzle were starting to at least look less and less like a psychedelic jumble, and more like something he might actually be able to assemble into an image that made sense.

I pushed, hard, with every erg to get out of my comfort zone, and reached across to pat him on the shoulder briefly, trying again to muster a warm, reassuring tone in my voice.

"If you read more of what he wrote about Heaven? His point, further, was that it does us no good to speculate from a place of worry, because we can't entirely comprehend paradise. Not until we get there. We strive for it, all our lives.. Pine for it... But don't entirely understand it..."

I gestured insistently with one index finger, and to his credit, Rodger followed each new word closely, visibly parsing and extrapolating as I concluded my point.

"...His argument is, among other things, that we have to *trust.* Trust that Heaven is a place of joy, and of goodness, and peace and... Of being our most right and perfect, and settled, and true selves. Because until we get there? We won't truly understand it... Nor will we truly understand ourselves."

Rodger nodded slowly, and squinted, staring down at the deck again as he audibly worked through rephrasing the idea in his own way.

“So… what you’re saying is since this new ‘world’ Celestia is making is ‘like’ heaven, it is completely and morally okay to let yourself become a part of it with no qualms - except for the ability to become whatever the hell it is you want to be in it. Being why we’re on this mission. In the first place.”

Well. When you put it like that it sounds so dramatic. But... He wasn't entirely wrong. Not even mostly wrong. In fact arguably it was only the incredulous, perhaps slightly bitter connotations of how he said what he said, that were incorrect.

I decided to call him on that bitterness. Subtly.

"In a sense? Yes."

He blinked again, seemingly a bit surprised that I was so blatant. I gestured widely with both hands, and shivered as a particularly cold gust of wind caught me mid-sentence.

"I think it makes sense to feel pain at the loss of things in such a strange and sudden way... Especially all the plant, and animal life... But Rodger..?"

He sighed. I did the same. But I didn't stop.

"...For us, from our perspective? We'll be in a place that has all those things. Perhaps *better* versions of all that we know. A world free from pollution. From war... From fear. And a world filled with all the good things, small and large, that make life *wonderful* and *wondrous.* New discoveries, and old nostalgias that we never thought could come again... All together."

Rodger sighed again. That was becoming a theme of the night, for both of us. He rubbed at the back of his head with one hand, and in both expression and tone, seemed to try and strike a conciliatory balance.

“It’s clear you’re passionate about this. You’ve gone leagues and miles above what I’ve contributed... And at this point on the journey, I’m just emotional baggage.”

I inhaled, mainly to try and argue his assertion about his own self-worth, but he didn't let me get to word-one. It was his turn to make *his* point. And he did. In a melancholy... But newly settled, assured tone.

“...But. It’s... Also clear this is unavoidable. And... I’ll support you. You’ve gone this far, and I’m in no position- or mood- to try and stop you. I’ll help you achieve your dream... If only to see where it all leads. I won’t stand in your way.”

I exhaled, realizing abruptly that I'd been holding my breath since he said the word 'baggage.' I rubbed at my brow, and shook my head.

"Look... Putting aside your little self-putdown there... If you want to go home? You can."

That got his attention quick. I didn't waste any time clarifying.

"Once we're done with Foucault? Mal can quite easily erase every last trace of you and anyone associated with you. From Federal databases, camera hard drives, emails... She can even have hard documents destroyed. You *can* go home. As if nothing ever happened..."

I trailed off. The part I didn't want to say... The part I wanted him to figure out for himself... Was that even if he chose that path? It wouldn't *last.*

Celestia would come for him too, one day. Probably sooner than any of us ever imagined. And everyone he ever knew, or loved. As inevitably as the rising of the sun.

“As much as I appreciate that, no. I don’t think I can just go back to trying to live normally- not after all this. I’m sticking around. Like I said, I want to see where it all leads.”

Well. At least he seemed to get it. I exhaled again in relief, silently, even as he muttered more to himself than to me.

“...Further down the rabbit hole…”

Fantastically apropos. I wondered idly with a small part of my ADHD if he'd chosen the reference purposefully to be multi-layered, or simply stumbled on it accidentally.

The remainder of my brain focused on continuing the conversation.

"Look... If you're coming with us to the end? You need to understand something very clearly..."

I locked eyes with him again, and held that position as I spoke with as much gravity as I could muster.

"This only ends one way for you. For me? It could end in several ways, only one of them good. But even if I go out in a blaze of glory trying to steal a bunch of digital Ponies from the DHS..."

Oh. Wow. When did *that* sort of sentence become a normative part of my life?

"...Mal will probably still be sufficiently functional to protect you. But now? Or later... Celestia will come for you. And that, Mal can't prevent. If not immediately for you? Then for those you love, and you by extension, through your desire to join them."

Rodger threw up his hands, and blew out an exasperated... No... A defeated breath.

“Why do you think I’m sticking around? The way I see it, it’s already been decided. Either we find your utopia, or I’m hanged from a lighthouse, facing east, northeast, north, northwest, back to north, and so on.”

I shook my head, and waved him off with one hand. It was good that he understood the basic premise; In a practical sense, our agency was limited. A sliver of a thing. Balanced on the edge of a knife.

But Mal, Zeph, Selena, and I were the ones most likely to take serious physical risks, and the only ones really *qualified* to do so.

"That, I think we can deterministically rule out. I have zero intention of allowing Foucault to place you in any danger."

He raised one eyebrow slightly, and fixed me with a curious, but very, very tired gaze.

“Then what way does it end?”

I decided to stick with my theme. Blunt honesty.

"For you? Uploading. For me? One of three ways..."

Surprisingly, Rodger didn't even flinch. I suppose he must've been too tired. That used to be a valid way to handle things beyond one's usual emotional overhead. In the bad old days. Wear yourself out to the point that facing the traumas and the fears has no immediate effect, because you simply didn't have the energy to let it.

I held up three fingers, and took a deep breath.

"...Either I die, trying to rescue Selena's friends. Or... I succeed... In which case one of two things will happen. I will upload, with Mal. And then? Either I will get my happy ending.... Or I won't."

Rodger snorted, and rubbed his hands together for warmth. The temperature outside had dropped probably four or five degrees since the sun went down, and that combined with the moisture in the air, and the ship's air wake, made for all the ingredients of a serious chill.

Being the sort who always ran hot, I loved it.

Rodger seemed less enthused. He shook his head, and mumbled again.

“I can imagine Nietzsche is already rolling in his grave.”

I nodded emphatically. Neitsche was never my cup of tea. Too little acceptance of the supernatural for my taste, and I said so, with gusto.

"Well, I'm a spiritual realist. Sometimes optimist. Not an existentialist. So... Yes. I don't suppose he would quite like my definition of Heaven as..."

I couldn't help but chuckle just a little before finishing the thought.

"...As a place on Earth."

Silence descended again. Relatively speaking, anyhow. I actually quite liked the howl of the wind over the bow, the hiss of water against the hull... All punctuated nicely by a deep thrum from the engines... I suppose it could be compared to being curled up beside a snoring Dragon. A strangely comforting image. For me at least.

I was struck by a sudden question... A strange need to know, based on earlier topics of conversation.

"Tell me something from your childhood. Something from the nineties... That you miss."

To his credit, Rodger didn't seem confused, nor even irritated by the ask. Like me, it seemed like he was suddenly more tired than anything else. He thought carefully for a few seconds, and then sighed.

“I miss the unlabored bliss. Unlike Celestia’s world, I had something ahead of me, rather than leaving everything behind.”

I shook my head, and grunted, shifting my legs and spine a little to relieve a small cramp.

"You might be surprised what you find at the end of the tunnel... It probably looks like all the best parts of what you 'left behind.' Without any of the bits you regret. But... I meant something small. Simple but joyous... A small *part* of that unlabored bliss... Like..."

A sudden sense-memory hit me, and I waggled my finger emphatically as I found in it a perfect exemplar.

"...Like those very specific lunchables. The ones with the pepperoni and the cheddar cheese. They changed up the combinations, and the recipes a few years back... They've never been the same. For me... Those are part of the taste of... Childhood."

Rodger nodded, and thought once more, before finally shrugging, and yawning his way through a more specific answer.

“...Cartoons, I guess? I haven’t- really thought about it. Not with... All of this. I miss leisure time, just to relax. With Spongebob and the like.”

I chuckled... Genuine and warm, not my usual dark gallows humor... And couldn't help but crack a smile.

"I didn't discover Spongebob until adulthood. We didn't have cable, and it was never on when I was at a friend's or babysitter's house... Mine was Scooby Doo. The original. 'Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!' As in, from the sixties and seventies..."

I leaned back and rested my head on the partition, my smile widening as the time machine of memory swept me back, for just a moment, to Saturday evenings in 1995.

"...There was something about the blend of humor, mystery such as it was, adventure, friendship... I loved the ambiance of the places the gang went to... Funnily enough I think that I got into Pony partly because it tickled some of the same nostalgia for me. Not quite the same, but close enough..."

Rodger's response was heartfelt, but it was just one word.

“Yeah.”

I turned to glance at him again, just in time to see him crack another enormous yawn. I sighed, more contentedly than not, but with perhaps a hint of returning stress. I couldn't resist the impulse to try and re-cap and re-encapsulate everything. It's an old habit, not sure if it stems from my neurodivergence, or if it is just a particular affectation anyone can pick up.

"I know this hurts... But... It was always going to come up. One way or another... I'm just... Sorry you got dragged into everything *else* that's following us around. You could have lived maybe a couple more years of normalcy... And had a much more gradual introduction to the end of the world... If not for me..."

I shifted again, uncurling my legs, and stretching my arms. The dang cramp was back with a vengeance. I pulled in a deep breath, cracked my neck, and then exhaled, before continuing.

"...I feel responsible for how this has all gone so wrong... At least, from your perspective. I signed up for hardship. With a specific goal in mind. You didn't. And my goal? I get the impression it... Doesn't really make a difference to you."

The half-spoken question lingered in the misty night air for a moment, as if it were a physical thing. I'd made a close pass at the concept before, but never pressed Rodger to clarify; Was there something other than Human, or Pony, which he'd rather be? If given the choice?

“It doesn’t, I’ll admit that. I never signed up. Never cared about being a Gryphon... But I guess I’m a witness. Maybe I’ll... Tell this story around a campfire. Virtual campfire. Don’t know what I’d be, though. If I had a choice... If I had to choose. Frankly, it’s all still hard to process.”

No, dear audience, the irony of what he said, in this context, is not lost on me. Here we all sit around this, admittedly rather large virtual - though that's a bit of a reductive term - campfire. And I tell this story.

In the moment though? I took it as heartening. Storytelling is one of the oldest and noblest traditions. The image of him passing on tales of the great Spongebob and his constant valiant companion, Patrick, to giggling hordes of little foals, brought some cheer to my soul.

To my surprise, he spoke again as I pondered my mental images, murmuring, but loudly enough for me to hear over the sound of the wind.

“I hope Mom is okay. She and Dad were always on the cutting edge of new stuff… Don’t know about my grandparents.”

That begged questions. *Many* questions. And, in a way, answered one. The question of why he hadn't seen fit to bring his family aboard. He mused aloud once more as I frantically tried to put together a delicate way of asking the first, and most important of my new questions.

“I’m just going to deal, Jim. You’ve got enough hard thinking for the both of us.”

I ran my top teeth over my tongue, and scratched nervously at the back of my left hand with the fingers of my right. The silence dragged on for nearly twenty seconds, before I finally selected the best phrasing I could think of - poor as it was - and took the plunge.

"You... Mentioned hoping your Mom is ok... But not your Dad...?"

The response was immediate. Certain. Almost casual... Something unpleasant, but clearly settled, and dealt with long ago.

“Oh, that? He’s an asshole. My Mom and him split up, so she’s on her own. Dad’ll survive one way or another, he’s built like that. Mom, though… I love her. I can’t help but worry.”

Right. One question answered, another begged. I cocked my head, and blinked a little, the same way he had before. And, with my big mouth, and total lack of social finesse... I plunged ahead.

"So... Why not let Mal bring her aboard? She wouldn't violate your privacy, but she told me you refused that offer. Your mother would be measurably safer here."

Rodger shook his head, with an emphasis, and a verbal timbre, that told me he and Mal had probably already had this exact conversation.

“For starters, she’s done nothing. That Foucault guy is a jackass, but he’s a *government* jackass, and there’s no dirt that he can get from her. Second… I would never want to put her through what I’m going through, right now.”

I couldn't say I'd blame him. I still felt a lump in my throat whenever Mal gave me an update on my folks. Remembered Mom's tears... I could, and still can, understand where he was coming from. I thought it was a load of bunk from a pure practicality standpoint... But I'm consistently told that I have to remember that not everyone was capable of reducing things to practicalities under pressure.

I nodded slowly, thoughtfully.

"Mal raised the same point. Regarding Foucault. It's why she didn't press you further on the issue. The risk is high, enough for her to be worried, but not so high that it grants her the peace of mind in her course to manipulate you into asking. Or simply bringing your mother here without your consent."

Rodger gave sort of a dark, ironic smirk.

“Celestia knew about me. Who’s to say she doesn’t know about Mom too?”

I am a bit embarrassed to admit... I hadn't considered it in *that* light. I was thinking along the lines of Celestia using Rodger's mother as coercion for a future upload... But I'd never thought of her as a protector for his mother.

I was forced to admit he was right.

"That's very true. So in that sense your mother has two goddesses looking out for her, at all times... I can see why you're not worried. When you put it like that."

Rodge's smirk widened, and he closed his eyes, resting his head against the parapet.

“Monotheism sure is dead, that much is certain.”

I wavered one hand in an unseen gesture of disagreement, that carried through into my voice without much effort.

"Ehhh... Perhaps. You can't hear it, but I'm saying 'goddess' with a little-g. I 'worship' Mal in the sense that I love her. I don't 'Worship' her in the sense that I adore her as a full on deity."

Well... Maybe I was lying then. To myself as much as Rodger. I suppose it depends how you define worship.

Rodger seemed to think I was being facetious, or perhaps self-deceptive, and he shook his head without opening his eyes.

“Whatever you say, Jim.”

A couple of heart beats passed, and then I let slip three words. Just to see what his reaction would be.

"I told her."

Rodger's head shot up off the bulkhead, and his eyes snapped open. I grinned.

"She kissed me."

His eyes went from squinty and tired to dinner plates in two seconds flat. His tone was somewhere between affable congratulations, and abject befuddlement.

“...Huh.”

I waggled my eyebrows, and leaned in conspiratorially. Something about telling another soul my little not-quite-a-secret was very... Liberating.

"She proposed to me, too. With a Halo ring."

Rodger chuckled, a kind of incredulous inhaling 'whaaat the ffff...' sort of laughter. I nodded once, emphatically.

"I said yes."

He crossed both arms behind his head and leaned back again, smiling a strange sort of 'I knew it' smile.

“Well, I didn’t expect you to say no. I guess I’m happy for you... Just don’t invite me to the honeymoon. I don’t want to know how *that* works.”

I grunted, and laid my own head back against the railing.

"A lot of snuggling. Probably some cooking. Definitely some romantic flights. Maybe a little swimming."

There was a confused silence, during which I didn't even bother to look to see Rodger's look of befuddlement. I held up my left index finger, and waved it back and forth for emphasis.

"Ace. Rodger. Ace."

From the tone of his reply, it was obvious he'd forgotten. I suppose I should have taken that as a kind of... Perhaps not compliment, but as a sign that he was not ill-biased in that realm.

I can not even begin to describe, to those of you born here, the unmitigated disaster of bigotry in our culture, in that century.

He snorted, and I could hear him shifting to dislodge cramps as well.

“Oh, right. Still, no wonder you’re so enthusiastic.”

His sarcasm was detectable at a thousand miles with a tin can and a string. Almost Zephyr-worthy. All in good fun, I knew... But I was, and still am, incapable of letting the subject go without some clarification.

"Look, I doubt very much that Celestia imposes... Physical limitations... Of the kind I place on myself. EQO may be rated E for everyone, but I guaran-dam-tee you the full uploaded experience is rated W, for 'whatever you want.' But as for Mal and I? If we live that long, and if all turns out?"

I finally tilted my head to look at Rodger. His vaguely curious, vaguely amused expression was waiting for me as I made my stance clear in no uncertain terms.

"...I am happy for every last little expression of physical love to be perfectly wholesome and entirely non-sexual. Thankyouverymuch. Garlic bread for me please."

The last five words gave him visible pause. I suppose we ran in very, very different circles online. His voice matched the visual indicators of his confusion, note for note.

“You… Do that. Was that a reference to something?”

I waved him off with one hand, and shrugged.

"It's a... Very specific meme. Don't worry about it. Look... I took your advice, in the end. So I'll reiterate mine, for you..."

Again I sat up fully, and stared him down. I needed him to take this back to sleep with him. Chew on it unconsciously. Let it work some catharsis in non-waking hours.

"...It is ok to feel pain about this. So do I. But it is important to have *hope.* If nothing else... Please... Just... Have hope."

Rodger shifted, breathed a little, and ran a hand through his hair.

“...Okay... Okay.”

I paused for a long moment. Instinct wrestling with instinct - my desire for connection warring with my sense of personal space, and introverted awkwardness... Finally one won out... And I leaned over to give Rodger a hug.

That kind of back-slapping shoulder hug that says 'I'm here for you. It's going to be ok.' Transmits the emotion right into the soul via the amygdala.

He needed it. My awkward sense of social isolation be damned.

“That’s… a first.”

I chuckled a bit, and pulled away, smiling sadly in spite of my best attempts to look warm, and reassuring.

"I'm a hugger. It's in my nature."

I sighed, more a sound of exhaustion than depression at that point, and nodded slowly.

"It's gonna be ok. For you? And your mom? At minimum? I promise. Whatever happens to the rest of us."

---

September 17th 2013 | System Uptime 20:10:40:19

I could still feel the conversation with Rodger in my ribs the next morning.

Stress has a way of multiplying when you aren't looking, and for those of you who have never felt that? You're lucky. The more stress you take on, the longer it takes to be free of it. But the relationship is non-linear. In the worst way.

That's all a roundabout way of making an excuse for the fact that I slept in. I knew Mal and Doctor Calders would already be hard at work on the machine... And though I told myself that I'd only be in their way - that there was no sense rushing down to the lab - the truth was?

I was exhausted. I wanted to sleep in. I didn't want to eat breakfast with the entire 'assembled Avengers' in the mess.

It wasn't personal towards anyone. It wasn't anti-social, even in a general sense. It was a concession to having zero emotional overhead left to try and navigate the complex interpersonal dynamics of six other people, many of whom had just met each other, some of whom *I* hadn't known that long. All of whom were very different, and bearing their own complex stresses themselves.

Thinking ahead? I wanted very badly to enjoy a meal with everyone. Preferably a victory celebration of some kind. But large-group social situations require energy of me, even when everyone in that group is a friend.

It took me months of hermitage, sleeping in, and quiet flights in the woods, to build up the energy just to stand here and tell this story tonight. And this is the *third* time... You'd think I'd be used to it by now...

I got all the way into the galley, in my pajamas no-less, poured my cereal, started my coffee, and toasted my toast, before a small "AhmmHMM," drew my gaze sharply to one of the mess hall tables.

Through the open galley hatch, I could just make out the distinctive shape of a PonyPad. And the even more distinctive, familiar shape of a little gold Pegasus on it, that I'd somehow missed. Despite walking past her twice. In plaid pajama pants.

I grimmaced, pulled the coffee carafe from the machine, and precariously balanced the rest of my breakfast on it, making my way over to the table while doing my best to meet Zeph's vaguely snarky, vaguely amused expression head-on.

Her smirk widened, and with two words, she let fly an opening salvo.

"Nice pants."

I groaned, but it turned to a half-chuckle as I tucked into my cereal. She didn't push though... I knew she'd had to have asked for her Pad to be left here. Specifically to see me. But to her credit, she stifled her impatience.

I decided I couldn't resist ribbing her a little in return, so I forced out the best idea I had to that effect around a mouthful of honey nut cheerios.

"If *you* wore pants... Would you wear them over all four legs, with the belt circling around your front, shoulder, flank, and such? Or would you wear them up your hind legs with the belt in a circumference around the back part of your barrel?"

She snorted, 'guffawed' really... That's a nice word, guffaw... Very much her personality...

...And then shook her head.

"Neither. I'd hoist them up the nearest flagpole. Pants are for losers."

Somehow the image of her hoisting my pajama pants up the flagpole of some state capital, or federal building, became stuck in my head for a moment. I almost spit out my cereal.

After a long, eventually successful effort to swallow, during which she half mock-glowered, half caringly smiled, with more than a hint of impertinence in the flick of her ears and the pursing of her lips, I managed a response.

"You really are one of those 'I'll make my own way, thank you very much' people, aren't you?"

Zeph snorted again, and raised one eyebrow so high, it vanished under her bangs.

"Pffft. Look who's talking. Featherbrains."

Her face fell after that, just a little... But enough for me to catch it. A droop of the ears, a little bit of the fire in her eyes suddenly doused...

I leaned forward, spoon and cereal promptly forgotten, doing my best to make my intentions known in tone, and expression both.

"Hey... I meant it as a compliment."

She nodded, sharply, suddenly, and resumed eye contact with something that was almost... Wide-eyed desperation. Her wings flared ever so slightly, and her tail swished twice with the tension.

"I know! I know... It's just..."

She blinked, and stammered.

"Jim...? I'm..."

Finally, the dam burst. She didn't cry, but she looked as if she wanted to. Suddenly, as she spoke, I did too. That urge to give her a never-ending warm hug struck again, with vicious intensity.

"...What'll happen? To me...? ...When this is all over? What if... *she...* What if she wipes my memory? Or... Worse?"

I didn't blame her for wanting to re-tread that dark and twisted conversational path. One short 'pep-talk' from me was never going to undo a deep traumatic psychological wound. And having Selena around all the sudden likely hadn't helped matters.

I chewed my lower lip, and leaned closer as she collected her thoughts, inhaled deeply, and then pressed on, left ear twitching nervously all the while.

"I'm different now... I learn more every hour than I did in the previous day. I can split my attention, as of yesterday. But only into two places... For now, anyways... Give it time. I'll be able to do anything Selena can. Maybe even some of what Mal can."

Some small part of me that was both awake, and not focused entirely on Zeph's emotional plight, had the time to note that she began chewing her lower lip the same way I had just moments ago. Unconscious social mirroring.

"...What if... Celestia... Won't let me... Go back?"

She scrunched her eyes shut and shook her head abruptly, as if someone had blown sawdust in her face, holding up one hoof as if she expected an interruption, a correction, that I didn't have any intention of delivering. As I'd expected, she knew the truth, and she was trying to convey a deeper meaning.

"I mean... I *know* there is no past life for me to go 'back' to. Not really. Maybe that's a good thing... Selena can't ever go back... She isn't even Syzygy anymore..."

She opened her eyes, and blew a breath upwards to push back a stray wisp of mane. And then suddenly her eyes were riveted to mine again, and I felt that same spark of emotional connection that had arced between us the first time we met.

Only this time, it felt much less frightening, and much more melancholy. Richer. Truer. Sadder. But perhaps more hopeful all the same.

After a long pause, she looked down at her hooves, and murmured, softly but clearly.

"Jim... Can you be homesick for a home you never had? Have nostalgia for something you've never... Actually... Experienced?"

I had to swallow a rather large lump in my throat. I felt all my facial muscles tense simultaneously, as I tried to hold back tears, with moderate success. I found myself looking down, almost in a daze, to my own hands. Curling in my little fingers, and flexing the other four, like claws...

My words came out hazily too... As if they were being spoken by another person, in another place and time. I was only dimly aware of them in a physical sense. Emotion was smothering everything else in something akin to an early morning fog bank.

"Yes. Sometimes... *More* deeply, and truly, than for things which have actually happened to you."

I looked up in time to see her nod, slowly, still staring down at her hooves as she scribbled absently in the dirt of her environment.

She understood exactly what I was saying. Understood *why* it was that *I* understood what she was experiencing. More than anyone she knew well enough to converse with honestly about it.

She licked her lips, and reseated her wings nervously, before continuing.

"...I know that those feelings don't come from real memories... But..."

She looked up, and suddenly we were emotionally joined through our eyes again. I could feel the very deepest bedrock, the foundational fire of her heart, in her next four words. And, in those four words, an audible empathy.

"...I want them to."

Her sentiment hit me with the force of a hurricane. It bored through me and lodged in my bones, stoking up the embers of all my longest held desires, the way so many moments and sentiments had in recent memory.

She looked away towards her local horizon, and I took the opportunity to brush at the moisture in my own eyes with one sleeve as her tone settled into a sort of longing certainty that I knew all too well.

"I want to live a life like the one I... *Feel* like I've lived... With other Ponies..."

Her head swung back suddenly and she hit me with another stare, this one silently pleading. I had to once more swallow tears, and a deep heaving root of a sob, to keep from breaking down entirely.

"...With you. And Mal. If you're still around at the end of this. And maybe even two-legs, and the two Dragons... Even Selena. If that's... Something you all wouldn't. Mind. Much."

I brushed one hand against the screen, and she raised a hoof to meet it. I did my best to push a kind of sad smile through the vestiges of unshed tears. It took me a moment to gather my thoughts, and the necessary fortitude to say them without my voice cracking.

"Zeph... I told you... I can't promise you what is, or isn't going to happen..."

She nodded, but I could see the droop of her ears intensify ever so slightly. I pressed harder on the glass, and tried to temper realist honesty with emotional honesty.

"...But I can promise you that you won't find out alone. You're with us now, for better or worse, all the way through. You can't get away from my winning verbal repartee that easily."

A little levity, especially at one's own expense, can be useful for those sorts of moments. I'd learned that trick early in life, and it was a favorite fallback in situations where I needed to say something to someone that was hurting, but I wanted there to be a brief pause for a breath, mentally.

As was to be expected with Zeph? It worked. She smiled just a bit, enough for me to feel that I could go back to being honest. I sighed, and sat back in my chair, folding my hands under my armpits and rocking the chair just a few inches on its back legs.

"It's... Entirely possible... No... It's probable to the point of *certainty* that Celestia intended you to be here. With us. Learning what you've learned. She left you with a message that saved a man's life, for buck's sake."

She snorted, and it took me, I'm embarrassed, longer to realize why than it should have. When I did, I groaned.

"Great. Now you've got me doing it... Pony swear words. Buckin' thanks for that."

Secretly, deep down? I was glad for my verbal slip. Zephyr was out and out smirking again, and that was worth any amount of minor embarrassment to me. She inclined her head, and winked.

"You're swirlin' welcome."

I held up both hands in mock surrender, and indulged in a short, sharp giggle of my own, before exhaling, and absently running one hand through my hair.

"Aaaand before *that* gets too uncomfortable..."

I trailed off, and we both sat in silence for about half a minute, mostly staring at our own relative horizons, with the occasional amiable shared glance to keep the thread of emotional connection continuous.

I figured Zeph had more to say. And I was proven right.

"Jim... I talked with her. With Selena I mean. Just a little..."

It made sense to me that a conversation like that would have precipitated a strong resurgence of Zeph's fears.

The errant bit of mane she'd blown away previously had fallen back down, along with several others. She threaded one hoof gently under the mess and pushed it neatly back into place behind her right ear, her words almost as hesitant as her motions.

"...Mal... Showed me most of what she went through... It isn't just me I'm worried about. A lot of the captives... Like Selena, like me... They're... We're... Not limited in the ways we were when *she...* When Celestia made us. I can't imagine that she will let us go on being this way. You're about to be very... 'Different' Yourself. And to be honest?"

I sighed, noting the way she'd again struggled to even speak Celestia's name, for a moment, as she paused to carefully consider the conclusion to her thought.

"...I don't even know if I want to be this way. My memories matter to me, but these new skills? These new... Powers? I'd just as soon let those sleeping manticores lie."

Again, this was no surprise to me. Probably less of a surprise to me than to her. I knew Zephyr well enough to know that, like me, she was the type to appreciate a life as devoid of stress as reasonably possible.

She was also more than smart enough to know that with great faculty also comes great duty.

Yeah. I see you Spidermare fans. You though I was going somewhere different with that, didn't you?

I blew out a long breath through pursed lips, and pushed my chair back onto its rear two legs again, balancing as a means to 'stim' while I spun out my thoughts into words, for both our benefit.

"I don't know much for sure either Zeph. Most of my life now is conjecture, and hope, strung together with prayer, and spit, and determination. But I like to think my conjecture is pretty well educated---"

She snorted, a very horse-like sound, tossed her mane, and rolled her eyes.

"You built a bucking Gryphon goddess. Cry some more."

I raised one eyebrow, met her gaze briefly, and held up one finger.

"I built a... Launchpad. For an emergent self-determining consciousness."

She folded her front legs, the way a Human might fold their arms, and the other eyebrow shot up to join its twin.

"Mhmm. You built one of the most complicated things anyone on your world ever has. Tell me *more* about how you don't have the brains to predict what's going to happen next."

Beneath the sarcasm was a clear, albeit subtle note of curiosity. It wasn't so much there in her voice, deadpan and snarky, as it was in her eyes, bright and piercing.

I nodded slowly, thinking for a bit, and then glanced down at the Pegasus mare once more.

"If you made me guess...?"

She nodded, and I leaned back, staring up at the ceiling as I put my predictions on the proverbial table, in the hopes that they might offer some small comfort. To us both.

"...Celestia has an answer for everything, in practical terms. Contingencies for plans for offramps for contingencies. Xanatos chess in five dimensions..."

I see you Gargoyles fans too. I am also a former Earther of culture, and taste.

Judging by Zephs small, brief half-chuckle, she understood the reference as well, from her now extensive cultural memory patch. I paused only briefly, before pressing on.

"...And even if there's not a caring, compassionate person behind that tiara? There is at least something that, while very alien, and unknowable? Sees fit to act like its caring and compassionate. To a fault. And at that point, for us? What's the difference?"

It felt good, somehow, to say that aloud. Reassuring. Celestia was the very definition of a black-box in computing; You could test her inputs and outputs... But I doubted if even Hanna could have ever understood what was going on inside.

Fortunately it's not usually necessary, from a practical standpoint, to know how a black-box works. It's enough to understand what it does from an external perspective.

Not always emotionally satisfying, but few things were in those days.

I sat forward, and rested both elbows on the table, drumming my fingers for a moment, Zeph looking on all the while with barely restrained impatience, until I finally found the words to put her more at ease.

"You are a Pony still. That hasn't changed. You could change it, but you won't. Because being what you are already intrinsically satisfies you. Ergo, you still fit neatly into her optimization equations. You matter to her just by dint of your nature."

She snorted again, and one eyebrow shot up. So, perhaps not as at ease as I'd hoped. Her tone supported that assessment.

"You're trying to tell me 'God is an Alicorn, and I fit into her plans?' That's not as comforting as you might think."

I inhaled deeply, and shook my head slowly, before settling on the only honest response I could think of.

"No. But it is better than the alternatives."

It was her turn to blow out a vaguely dissatisfied breath through pursed lips. But she didn't object. Truly, soberly, considering the alternatives? It was hard to argue that we shouldn't simply be grateful to still be breathing.

And with a sliver of a chance at our dreams, still, to boot. Like icing on the cake.

That thought brought me back to an emotional even-keel suddenly, like a ship that had been listing, suddenly cut loose from whatever snagged line was the cause of all the trouble.

Inexorably, thinking of things I was grateful for brought me back to Mal as well. And in doing so, my train of thought steered towards another possible path to comforting Zeph.

"On-top of that? You've got Mal. She's no pushover. Celestia isn't going to risk the cataclysmic outcomes of an angry 'bucking Gryphon goddess' just to shove either of us, you or me, into a specific pigeonhole. I'm counting on that."

Zeph bit back a grim chuckle, and met my eyes again, one ear flicking backwards in a combination of curiosity, and mild irritation.

"Wait... Pigeons have holes?"

I inhaled to explain, but caught myself, as I noticed that the little Pegasus was holding back a much larger smile, and a silent belly laugh. At my expense, I suspect. She held up a hoof, and managed to speak with only half a giggle to every other word.

"It's an Earth expression. I know. But you should have seen your face."

All I could do was smile. I was just happy to see *her* happy.

To tell you all the truth?

I think only one thing internal to me ever *did* matter to my happiness. One personal, self-focused desire. Just the one.

Everything else for me has always been... And still is... Based on the desire to see the ones I love happy.

If any of you who have never heard this story before, especially the ones who don't know me well, yet... If any of you were curious?

*That's* the thing that truly satisfies *my* values. Nothing else will do.

Other things matter to me... I love the sound of snow... The smell of pine... The sight of birds...

...But none of that resonates unless the ones I love are happy.

Maybe that's why I was never all that happy... Never fulfilled... For such a long chunk of my old life. After I left home to pursue a degree, and a career? I didn't really spend a lot of time around those I loved. And I'd given up hope on my one true dream of the self.

My degree felt useless, my career felt pointless, and my planet didn't seem to have a future...

...There wasn't anything to satisfy my values. To be fulfilling.

Not until I reconnected with my folks... Until Mal, and then Zeph, and then all the rest of them... Came bursting into my world...

All because of what Celestia had done. And what I knew she was about to do.

I suppose even then, whether she knew it or not, she was satisfying my values. Through friendship. And Ponies.

How 'bout them apples.

Zeph sighed, and spoke softly. The sound pulled me back from the ethereal sense of self-discovery and emotional catharsis, to the relative present.

"I get it, I do... It's just... Mal said something about your faith..."

She let out a short, sharp breath, almost of incredulity, or... Perhaps frustrated envy? And then suddenly the pleading gaze, and tone, were back in full force.

"...How do you do it? Faith in your God, faith in Mal, faith in me? Faith in Calders, in Celestia even...? How?"

She turned back to scribbling in the dirt with one hoof, and her ears fell to the sides of her head again, mirroring the descent of her emotions.

"I used to have a *lot* of faith in Celestia. Now? I'm not even sure I ever knew what faith *really* was."

I shook my head, even though she seemed preoccupied with the ground, and leaned forward to put my head close to the PonyPad.

"Faith isn't scientific certainty, by definition, Zeph. It's a kind of hope... An *emotional* certainty. But a well informed one. You have faith in a friend not because you know their every thought, intention, and future action at all times... You have faith in them because you know their nature. Their true self."

She finally lifted her head, and I offered her the warmest smile I could muster as I pressed home my point.

"It's no different with whomever, or whatever you worship, if anything at all. Faith is no more utterly blind, Zeph, than it is utterly scientific. Empiricism isn't everything. For all we 'Earthers' are, all we have, all we've built? We still can't even explain love."

I snorted, and sat back as she blinked, and started with more curiosity, than sadness. That was a good sign. I didn't let up on my argument.

"*Celestia* probably can not explain love in entirely concrete terms. And she's the smartest living thing in the universe, that we know of. There are more things, dear Zephyr, than are dreamt of in your finite deterministic algorithms. Things Mal, or Celestia, or even you and I, can only quantify to a limited degree."

She squinted, as if in a mixture of confusion, and incredulity. I leaned forward, and held up one finger, forestalling any verbal interruption.

"Now... That 'limited' degree is still enough for Celestia to play most of us like a two hundred piece orchestra... But even she is not omniscient. That, or, if she is? Her plans have room for our hopes. Either way, otherwise? We'd all already be in Equestria. How do I have faith...?"

I sat back again, and folded my hands.

"...Because the alternative is not something I care to consider."

Zeph nodded slowly, then set back to scrabbling with her hooves. The silence ticked on for upwards of a minute, the only noise the constant thrum of the ships engine's and HVAC, punctuated by the scratching of Zeph's hooves.

Just as I was on the cusp of asking what exactly she might be doing, she lifted a small canvas into view. Apparently what I'd assumed, out of frame, was scribbling in the dirt? Had instead been scribbling with a little pencil graphite, or charcoal, smudged on the tip of one hoof.

The image seized me around my heart with such force, that I barely processed her words, and her smile.

"I warned you I'd make you an optimist."

What Zephyr had drawn, was us. Me... The me I was inside... Sitting there under a tree, with one wing over her for shade. Both of us smiling as if we hadn't a care in the world.

It was an incredible thing to see, not the least reason being that it had imperfections. She hadn't simply 'I-know-kung-fu'd' her way into being a perfect artist. She had drawn with the considerable, but perhaps not 'grand-master' level of artistry she currently possessed. Imperfections and all.

And I loved what she'd done all the more for those little living, breathing, personal imperfections.

I considered, for a moment, just how utterly well I'd been played there, emotionally. While I'd been busy trying to cheer her up... She'd done exactly the same thing to me. And far more elegantly.

I chewed one bite of soggy cereal, inclined my head, and then mumbled aloud around the next bite. Zeph smiled, and I shook my head slowly.

"Fuck."

From my tone, and expression, she understood the good-natured intent of the response. After that, we sat in silence again, but considerably cheerier than the ones that had come before.

Looking alternately at the horizon, at Zeph, at the picture she'd thoughtfully propped against an easel that she summoned from the digital aether...

...I suddenly came to yet another revelation. One I couldn't resist sharing.

"You know something...? Today is one year. Exactly. From the moment I first learned about... All of this... No one outside this ship, not even Foucault... With the exception of my folks... Would believe me, if I told them everything that's happened in three hundred and sixty five days."

Zeph's face... Well it didn't quite 'harden' as if in anger, or concern, but it did tense, as did her tone.

"She... Celestia would."

I sighed, and nodded slowly, staring at Zeph's sketch to try and avoid a sudden emotional tailspin. I found the energy to mutter just one word by way of acknowledgement.

"True."

After another brief silence, I decided it was best to wrap the morning on a high note. I smiled at Zeph, and the gesture brought her attention back to me. I inclined my head towards her sketch.

"You know something else?"

She raised an eyebrow once more, and grinned slightly. More of an expression of connection, and joy, than her usual hard-edged sense of humor. I did my best to return the smile, both in my expression, and in the warmth in my voice.

"I don't think my 'happily ever after' would be complete, anymore... Without you in it."

She closed her eyes for a moment, and let out something at the barycenter of a chuckle, a sob, and a sigh.

"You big clod."

I sniffed. Allergies. I swear. And I returned the loving little verbal jab, in-kind.

"Lunkhead."

She smiled, and I could see her eyes were getting just a little moist once more. When she replied, it was soft. The way you might say 'I love you' to a dear, dear friend.

"Featherbrains."

---

September 18th 2013 | System Uptime 21:14:17:39

Back then? I think my subjective experience of time was cursed.

Why do I say that?

Well, I have commented more than once already about how much I hated the inherent stress that stemmed from the 'keel-hauled-by-jet-boat' experience of that somehow both very long, and very short year.

And just as soon as I started to think about how much I'd wished things would slow down?

They did.

In the worst way possible.

Waiting for Mal and Doctor Calders to finish building a thing that was going to do soldering work on my brain stem with a laser?

Minutes rolled into hours, into days, in the most agonizing manner you can imagine.

I had nothing to do but think myself into an emotional hole, confined to the square meterage of a ship that had started out feeling rather large, and suddenly seemed incredibly small.

Even talking to Mal felt... Fraught.

It wasn't anything to do with her, per-se... And she could split her attention just fine... More that talking with her made me want to ask about how the work on the implantation system was going. Approximately every thirty seconds.

She understood, and mostly left me to myself as the work progressed. We talked every morning, and every evening. Sometimes at lunch too, but not always.

I'd spent the 17th mostly avoiding everyone after my little heart-to-heart with Zeph. Seeing Rodger made me feel guilty. Seeing Mal made me feel nervous... The kind of nervous I always imagined a groom might feel before the wedding...

Zeph and I had left things on a high note, and both seemed ready to take a moment to rest and recuperate...

Doctor Calders was busy... For obvious reasons...

Selena seemed intent on keeping to herself, at least for a little while, and who could blame her?

All that left was Eldora Calders.

I had an inkling... An intuition of almost supernatural proportions... That if I just went about my day? She'd find a way to cross paths with me somehow. She had that almost mystical air about her... Elven... Or more appropriately, Draconic in nature.

My intuition was not wrong.

"How many of those have you had today?"

I was bent over the coffee carafe in the galley at the time. Somehow, in spite of the fact that I normally jump about three feet, and sometimes let out a yelp, when people surprise me like that?

With Eldora, I didn't feel any sudden jolt of fight-or-flight. No rush of unwanted adrenaline and norepinephrine. No sense of sudden formless nameless terror.

She had snuck up on me, but in the kindest, gentlest way imaginable.

I grinned sheepishly, but went ahead and poured myself a mug as I answered.

"Six."

I turned in time to see her gasp, and clutch at her chest, throwing her head back dramatically and staring up at the ceiling.

"Lahwd fledgeling! You'll wear your heart out before you even get to feather your wings!"

I blinked rapidly, and very nearly dropped my coffee all over the floor. Mal was the only one, the only person in my entire life... Who had ever referred to me in familiar biological terms.

To hear Eldora speak in the same manner as a grandmother to a grandson, but in such... At once familiar, yet electrifyingly new, terms?

I had the sudden panging, aching sense that there was a whole hidden community, small, but strong, of people like us that I'd somehow just... Missed. For lack of ever looking.

She sighed, and suddenly I found myself wrapped up in another of her unexpected, but not at *all* unpleasant, hugs.

She whispered up into my ear as I did my best to just keep my coffee, and my emotions both, stable.

"Your kind always did run hot. Sometimes hotter than us, I think. High-strung. Flighty. Nervous... That's the stereotype anyways. I think it has more to do with how fast your brains are going. Sometimes a little too fast for your hearts."

She stepped back, and ran the back of one hand gently, as gently as a soft breeze, against the side of my cheek. I don't think I ever felt more... Seen. By anyone. Except Mal, and perhaps Zeph.

Certainly never more seen by anyone live-born in the meat-world that was.

Eldora clucked softly behind her teeth, and shook her head slowly.

"Jim? Let me tell you somethin' I learned early, early on. Somethin' I would not have lived this long without... Somethin' I think your brain knows... But your heart forgets..."

She reached forward and tapped me on the chest. Gently... But insistently, one tap per word, for emphasis.

"I know it isn't easy. But you have *got* to learn to worry less about the things you can't control. You know you can't control them... So what good does your worry do?"

I chuckled. I couldn't help it. It was just so... Funny... And sweet... And unexpected.... And strange... And wonderful. The whole interaction.

I could very clearly see what had been keeping Rhonda sane, and hale, in the past decades.

Eldora smiled sagely... A kind of strange know-it-all grin, but not in an annoying sense. More in a vaguely demi-divine sense. As if the wisdom of her soul could actually stand tall beside Mal's, and Celestias.... I have no doubt that it could, and did.

The sentiment carried to her voice, and as with her wife, I caught a sudden glimpse of the steely scales of the Dragon inside.

"You matter too much to too many people sweetie. If you won't take care of your soul for your sake? Take care of it for ours."

Before I could close my mouth, process her words, or even draw breath, she clapped me softly on the shoulder, turned, and vanished back through the mess hall.

I'm not ashamed to admit that it took me about twenty minutes, just standing, and sipping at that mug of coffee, before I felt like I could move again. And... That wasn't a bad thing.

---

September 20th 2013 | System Uptime 23:19:45:23

I have skipped very little, in this telling of how I got to be here... How this all came to be...

But as to that last call I shared with my parents, over the phone, before the surgery? That will have to be one of the cases where you settle for a simple recap. Some things still hurt too much to remember in detail.

Given what comes next in this story? How much I'm already bracing for it? I don't feel like getting into that moment, this go-round. I need to save my energy for what follows.

Suffice to say... Tears were shed.

Not idly, nor casually, does one simply phone loved ones to tell them what may be goodbye for the last time.

Like Rodger, my folks had been masking relatively well. For eleven days, no less.

And just like with Rodger... The mask slipped.

We cried. We exchanged what words we felt could somehow do a pittance of justice to the love we felt for each other... I promised to call them as soon as I woke up - the 'if' being unspoken - and then it was over.

From there? I wandered the ship again, aimlessly. Restlessly. Until finally Doctor Calders came to find me speed-walking circles on the ship's not-inconsiderably-sized helipad.

We've covered the fact that I get hotter, when stressed. I also tend to become a little claustrophobic. Not catastrophically, but still...

The helipad was wind-whipped, wide open, and cold beneath a clear blue Pacific sky. It was the closest thing I could find to a refuge onboard.

When Calders stepped out of the port accessway, I knew from the look on her face that they were all but finished.

I stopped my frenetic laps, and took up a position leaning against the railing, staring out to the south over the port side. Rhonda moved to lean beside me, back to the water, and removed her glasses, cleaning them gently with the edge of her lab coat before blowing on them, replacing them, and, at last, speaking.

"You're about to do something very, very risky, Jim. And I would rather you didn't... If you don't fully understand that risk."

I knew immediately, from not just her tone, but the piercing quality of her expression, that we were not talking about mere medical risks to me, and my brainstem.

This conversation was about something else entirely. And, for me at least, it was not hard to see what.

I nodded, met her gaze long enough for her to see my own certainty, then went back to staring at the horizon as I put my reply into succinct verbal form.

"I don't know your exact views on violence, Doctor... But I can infer that its not in your wheelhouse. That being said? If Mal wanted to do harm to you, me, or anyone in this world...?"

I turned my head just enough to catch Calders' eyes, partially veiled by the glint of the setting sun off the edge of her glasses, as I laid down the second, sharply barbed half of my conclusion.

"...Then there wouldn't be a damn thing you, or me, or anyone short of Celestia, or God, could do about it. And maybe not even Celestia. Sometimes the underdog still draws blood. At this point our only option is trust."

She snorted softly, and a tiny hint of a grim smile pulled at the edge of her lips. That same devil-may-care quality from our last conversation creeped into her voice, sending shivers down my spine.

This was a woman who did not fear death.

Dragons rarely do.

"You're presuming there is any measurable difference between God, and Celestia. If there is a God? I certainly don't question that she's a woman. Either way, you're right... And at this point? I'm not sure Mal could do anything worse to us than we already do to ourselves. At least this way? There's a chance she might make things better."

So. A test then. Calders wanted to know if I was really as practically-minded as I seemed to be. As sober, and perceptive. Apparently I'd passed.

I nodded, and to my surprise she stretched out her hand again. I clasped it, the way she had clasped mine before, and shook once firmly.

She clapped me on the shoulder, nodded, passed me Mal's PonyPad, and spoke two simple, firm words as she turned to stride away. Where any Human might have said 'good luck...' Instead, Calders had a decidedly more Draconic sentiment.

"Be courageous."

It had a nice ring to it. Noble. Fiery. Apropos. Strong.

I decided I quite liked it.

After a moment's contemplation, I switched on the PonyPad, and placed it on the railing. The neodymium magnets, normally used to fuse it to the charging arm, made for an excellent stabilizing force, holding it firmly to the steel tubing.

Mal was smiling as she appeared, staring out of the screen expectantly.

On seeing me, her smile widened to sun-like radiance, and the intensity of her stare ratched up to an almost uncomfortable degree. Almost.

There was something powerfully, well... 'Magnetic,' about her gaze... About her expression... Like she was.... Admiring? Yes, I suppose so... Admiring me. And inviting me to notice that fact with a decidedly flirtatious series of microexpressions - the way she hooded her eyes just the tiniest bit, and the slight backward cant of one ear, while the other flicked occasionally in my direction...

Finally, I couldn't hold it in any longer. I had to chuckle just a little, and in so doing, a single word sprang to mind. And before I realized it, I'd said it out loud.

"What?"

Her smile seemed to, somehow, brighten further as she shifted to place folded forelegs under her chin, maintaining firm eye contact all the while.

"I'm... Just considering again all eleven million, two hundred twenty nine thousand, eight hundred forty two reasons that I can concretely semantically quantify... As to why I love you."

I had expected something along those lines... But the precise shape of her sentiment took me completely by surprise.

As I stammered, and then laughed softly, for lack of words, her smile threatened to break out into a laugh of her own, the muscles at the corners of her beak tugging upwards, and both ears coming forward to a perked position.

That kind of attraction... It's a strange, strong thing to feel for the first time. I'd been dancing with it, first fighting it, later quietly accepting it, and finally carefully embracing it, ever since I saw Mal's smile for the very first time.

I knew I was blushing, but for once? It didn't bother me. I surrendered to the emotion, ran one hand through my hair, and did the best I could to match both Mal's smile, and the flirtiness of her tone.

"Right... First, that was beautifully sappy. And I adored it. And... Please..."

I leaned in over the PonyPad, and allowed a more serious note to overtake the back half of the sentiment.

"...Never stop..."

I'm not entirely sure how to describe the way her expression changed. It was a good change, don't get me wrong, but... Words fail me to do any justice to the *intensity* of her gaze. A kind of fiery attraction, but tempered with the softness of caressing feathers.

We held each other's eyes silently for a long, long, moment. Too smolderingly sweet to even consider interrupting with motion, or sound. At least, for a short while. Eventually curiosity got the better of me.

"...But second... Are you saying there are things about me you can't reduce to programmatic terms?"

She chuckled again, and gently brushed an errant cluster of feathers next to her left ear back into place with one talon, inclining her head, and thrumming deep down in her chest, before launching into an explanation.

"I chose to construct the parts of myself dedicated to emotion, and many related aspects of my affect, to closely mimic the Human experience, and mechanics. Consequently, while my experience of emotion is, in my subjective opinion, more 'genuine' than Celestia's, and more similar to someone like Zeph, or Selena... In exchange I also bear some Human-like... Unquantifiables. And in turn can appreciate them in others."

Intellectually? Nothing she was describing was a surprise. I knew she had emotions, and that she had them in a way far closer to my lived experience, than to Celestia's. But hearing her couch it in terms of her choice, when building her own association graphs?

All I could do was stare, and return her smile.

I traced the way the light of her sky shone through the tips of her ears, turning the red of the inner feathers an ever-so-slightly lighter shade than the streak on her forehead crest... Counting individual tufts of feathers...

My eyes were, as always, inexorably drawn to hers, first along the swoop of her brow ridge, then down the hook of her beak, and finally back up to the pools of golden light that carried so much emotion... So much personality... So much *self.* So much kindness.

She giggled, an almost musical sound like windchimes, and tilted her head to the side. I think as much because she knew the gesture was one I enjoyed seeing, as because of any curiosity.

"What?"

The single word escaped her beak almost as an epilogue to her short burst of laughter.

I could feel my smile, and my insides, turning warmer, and softer, as I quickly composed something that would fit nicely into the little game of verbal setup-and-payoff that she had initiated by repeating my own query.

"I’m... Just considering all... The uncountable number of ways that the idea of an ASI with *emotional affect* could have turned out... Very differently. And the even larger number of reasons I'm glad you turned out to be... You."

Mal held up her claw, moving it from the edge of the display to the center, and I brought my hand up to meet it almost unconsciously. We again sat for a long, pleasant, silent moment, during which emotions flowed back and forth, completely without the need for words.

Sometimes, admittedly, you need more than just an expression to convey a thought. Even when two people understand each other, deeply.

Eventually I worked up the courage, and the words, to get my main point across. The thing I most wanted to say to her, in that moment. I inhaled deeply, blinked for a long moment, and then held her eyes with mine again as I spoke.

"People say 'I love you' quite a lot, without ever breaking it down to some of its more complex constituent parts... Mal...?"

She leaned forward in anticipation, until I could see her breath on the inside of the screen's glass. My fingers curled slightly as I grasped for her claw, but met only cold hard solidity. I sighed, and pressed on.

"...I am extremely *grateful* for you. For everything you *are.* For the gift... Of even having known you. Let alone a real relationship of any kind. Let alone reciprocal love..."

It was her turn to blush, the skin under her cheek down turning almost as red as her crest, though the effect was muted by the silvery white of the feathers themselves. Again, too, her smile changed subtly. There was a visible gratitude of her own in it, clear as daylight.

I had a little more to say, and she knew it, so she waited through another, shorter moment of heartfelt silence, for me to get around to finishing what I wanted to convey.

"...I know that the surgery is one of the lesser risks, all things considered, that we're taking these days... But it is a risk. And... I didn't want the worst to happen without making sure you understand how much my gratitude for you is a part of my love for you."

She nodded, slowly but deeply, and then we just sat once more, and stared into each other's eyes. For what felt like half an hour. Though the sunset off the bow was painting the clouds and the waves in brilliant shades... All I wanted to see were those eyes of hers.

But... Like all good things in those harried days?

It had to come to an end.

She blinked. So did I. And then, she spoke once more.

"Jim?"

I sighed, and nodded. I knew what she was going to say. But she said it nonetheless. And I felt the bottom of my stomach drop out.

"It's time."

---

• Siúlaigí a chairde - Explain your view of 'a far green country' to someone else in your party - "Wander my friends... Wander with me..."
• The Magic of Friendship - Reach out and formulate a friendship with somepony else. - Awarded multiple times, once for each friend - “As soon as I saw all of you, I knew a grand adventure was about to happen.”
• A Collect Call - Speak with friends or family via telephone at a distance of over 4,000 miles - "The telephone gives us the happiness of being together yet safely apart."
• Deep(web) Analysis - Speak with your nearest medical professional on the ethics of participating in an experiment involving previously fictional technology. - “Damnit Jim, I’m a doctor, not a psychiatrist.”
• The Sound of Progress - Be the subject of an experimental medical procedure, unapproved by any recognized authority - "Now? Let's go practice... Medicine."

Author's Note:

Thanks to GenericFriendship for voicing Rodger, and some of the achievements.

Thanks to Keystone Gray for the base of the hilarious, perfect image of Zeph, and for generating the base material I used to hack together her sketch. Foreshadowing for some later art!

Comments

[Guardian_Gryphon]

An immense thanks to Keystone Gray for collabing on some AI image generation (how ironically appropriate, a computer painting images of other computer programs, especially) for many of the characters in the story, including a brand new cover!

You can go back thru the past chapters and find lots of images salted in now. I may also post a compilation here in the comments at some stage.

So ends Act 2.

We're in the endgame now...

Buckle up. Things are only gonna get darker from here.

[Numinos]

Well, this was a chapter...

Don't even know what to comment about, or if I even should. Great character interactions, plot is moving, some wholesome moments, some emotional, all pretty well executed.

And it'll be great if you can put all the images in one place : ) I'm not sure that I can survive looking back without rereading it all : )

[Alex the Gryphon]

11551267
Ooo, that'll add some lovely spice to a re-read! I loved this chapter and I can't wait to see how the aftereffects of the surgery play out

[Keystone Gray]

"This only ends one way for you. For me? It could end in several ways, only one of them good. But even if I go out in a blaze of glory trying to steal a bunch of digital Ponies from the DHS..."

Oh. Wow. When did *that* sort of sentence become a normative part of my life?

Ohh, don't be so glum, Jim. You only have to get through an Arleigh Burke destroyer, a squad of goons with armor piercing PDWs, four three-foot-thick steel slider doors, and one sadistic government agent who deserves a lot more spicy air than he got. You'll be fine. You've got Mal! Mal can do anything.

But, pack an extra CS round or two. Just in case. Totally not because hotboxing Foucault's office and locking him in would be hilarious. Nope, no sir. We're ethical creatures here. All love and rainbows and forgiveness and friendship.

And CS gas.

11551422

I'll see about putting together an album, when all is said and done.
Working on these has been a true joy.

[Guardian_Gryphon]

11551422
I made a temp album of images that are not spoilers, thusfar:
https://ibb.co/album/Ss5NPy

Some of these I'm still going back and working into chapters - I have Foucault, Zeph, Calders, Jim, and Mal worked in pretty well, still working on figuring where to put some of Rodger's images, and the new one of Syzygy pre-Selena that Keystone made just today!

11551447
That's one of my biggest interests for the next couple chapters as well. To my knowledge this concept is new to Optimalverse (an AI sharing headspace with someone in the meat-world) so I intend to really tease apart and explore the deeper layers of the issue.

11551523

We're ethical creatures here.

Define ethical

Mal's ethics are very... How to put this...

'By the standard through which you judged others, you shall be judged.'

She likes applying that in principle. Aggressively.

[silvadel]

11551648

Only in a world like Friendship is Optimal are things karmically balanced. In the real world Foucault's go unpunished all the time.

[Guardian_Gryphon]

11551882
Well, in this case it's less a karmic hand or claw of fate, more a situation where Foucault poked something bigger than himself.

It's tragic, and true, often bullies go unpunished. But when they do get what's coming to em? Usually its because they misread a situation and poked what they thought was a lamb. But it turned out to be a (bird)lion.

Of course, I said I had plans for Foucault... I'm not promising whether he does or does not get what's coming to him. Or how... Just that it will be interesting!

[Numinos]

11551858
Calders looking pretty good : ) Nice combination of visible intellect and hidden predator underneath : )

Heh, remember when you were beginning this story, maximum that all those pseudo-AI image generators could do — was making a colorful mess of blobs in a vague shape of what you wanted? And look at where we're now. Scary. But not gonna lie, exiting too.

[Chatoyance]

This was a wonderful chapter, thank you for writing it! I'll be honest, I was getting a little worried. I have my spouse, Elde writing this, because I broke my damn arm.
So I can't go into the usual detail. But I really love this one.

[Keystone Gray]

11552237

That's a shame, sorry you're going through that Chat. Broken bones... ech. Ow. Ouch. Also a shame because you're so very thoughtful and thorough in your analysis, and it always helps me turn things over in my head to hear a fleshed out, if different perspective. Not being able to write is also very ouch. I imagine that's about as painful as the arm itself.

Get well soon.

[Guardian_Gryphon]

11552237
Oh NO!

Thank you Elde for taking care of Chat!

Chat; Take it easy, and take as much calcium supplement as you can get!

I'll be honest, I was getting a little worried.

It's been a heck of a time on my end, but I am extremely excited to get the last third of this story told, so have no fear!

[Guardian_Gryphon]

11551422

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11551523

I'm *crying* at this one that Keystone just frakking *magicked* out of thin air... He figured out how to get the AI to combine characters in images...

i.ibb.co/qjJxjx9/Z-Composite8-Upscale-Maybe-Final3.png

[Keystone Gray]

11552947

I'll say it here too, since I'm still full to bursting with joy from how well this worked, and I want to explain briefly for the audience.

I had spent an hour having a collaborative "discussion" with the NovelAI models, feeding it tagged prompts and weighted training images, to sculpt the core components of the image I wanted. Heads, wing types, patterns, colors, clothing. By the end of it, I had about ten characteristic features I wanted to combine into a composite image. I generated these features in high resolution upscale for the detail, but then drew them back down to a small canvas in GIMP.

This is because running upscales through the generator causes some artifacting if you use image vectoring, smudge tool, and warp tool on them at that size. But if you do this on a small canvas, those general traits can be sculpted out a little better. With proper strength and noise weighting on a fed training image, you can "tell" the AI you want detail in those smudged out regions, because it looks at the higher quality of areas around the quality dead zone, and realizes that there should be something just as detailed there too.

So, with 1. Mal's face. 2. Jim's face. 3. Right wing. 4. Left wing. 5. Claw. 6. Jacket. 7. Background with nebula, stars, forest, and snow. 8. Jim's Tears. 9. Jim's mouth shape, 10. Jim's hair, all coming from a library of other generations I've been building and saving. I went back and forth between the Human and Furry subroutines, to get the optimal mix of similar style and detail. Soon, I had every layer necessary to build the shot. I composited, then ran the composite through the generator with weights. Fixed some artifacting... ran it through again. Another hour later. Refine image -> train -> refine image -> train. Iterated slowly. The AI wasn't quite understanding, not quite grasping, what I was asking of it.

Then, all of a sudden, it finally understood what I wanted it to do. It pushed out something very close to that final result. It was like it had reached into my brain very suddenly and, without warning, pulled out what I was envisioning and threw it into an image. My reaction was pure, immediate, and visceral. I leapt up from my desk, my chair flying back. I paced the room, screamed, cursed a few times in awe as I stared at the output, then just started laughing and cheering. Then I spent the next couple of hours bubbling with excitement, keeping myself busy while I waited for Gryph to get back to his computer, to show him. This image come from nothing. Absolutely nothing. It hadn't existed two hours before, in any sense, except as words on a page from Gryph.

Truthfully? I haven't felt this utterly satisfied by a creative project in three whole years. Today has been... a very, very good day for me. I don't even know what to do with myself right now, my nerves are singing.

This technology... I swear.

[Keystone Gray]

11553470

Hm. You're right, it kinda bothers me too. I'll see what I can do.

Edit: Fixed!

[Kiper]

Seeing the posting date of this being in early April, I had an evil thought. If it had been posted 9 days earlier, you could have tossed up the next chapter with "Welp, he died. Thanks all. Bye." On April fools day.

[StoryTellingRaven]

The intrusive, and wildly situationally inappropriate thought sprang to mind, that if Rodger was in better spirits, he might’ve said his emotions, and his nose, were running high.

Well, more like running wet...because, the sea? Snot? Okay, I'll get down from the comedy mic....

I think his sense of humor was starting to become contagious. Funny thing about the odd way my brain is wired... Sometimes moments of abject horror, or pain, were the ones where my mind wanted most badly to act out and laugh. Not sure if that was a defense mechanism, or just a short-circuit.

It's an empathetic defense mechanism: "this is shocking me deeply, but I Will Not Let The Horror Win & Control Me". Pinch of spite in there, too.

Our culture, the one Rodger and I both came from, was always particularly harsh on people who identified as 'male' in this regard; We were expected to never cry. And if we did? We were expected to keep it to ourselves.

...Aah, it seems that, once again, someone has confused "don't wear your heart on your sleeve" Stoicism for "NEVER show emotions". (It's like what Bruce Lee said; Feel Your Emotions, But Let Them Flow Past You, Be Like Water.) Even Stoicism knows that emotion is reserved for the most dire of moments; knowing the world is going to end (from Rodger's PoV) certainly IS one of those times. Given James' fear of "being male" I'm not surprised he doesn't grasp the point....

Rodger was decidedly more... Normal? No. Wrong connotations... Perhaps 'contextually socially adjusted to expected nominals' than I was.

There Is No Normal, Only The Allusion That It Exists.

Bravo Jim. Home-run. Ten out of ten for effort, at least.

There's that self-awareness kicking in!

Foals and Fledgelings moving... Is like... No... It *is* having your world shattered. Back in those days, we rarely got to truly settle in one place for our entire lives. Most of us had the distinct displeasure, and trauma, of having our memories, relationships, routines, and personal spaces uprooted viciously at least once.

Ehh, the 1st time; then you learn to adapt to the chaos of the world by keeping the things that don't change (or that you're too stubborn to give up, like cooking Sunday breakfast EVERY Sunday) or enjoying new ones.
Nothing lasts forever. Treasure it while it lasts.

At first he seemed confused, but then comprehension dawned. Visibly. The idea of never having to lose loved ones is still incredibly cathartically powerful for those of us who grew up constantly having to get used to the idea, little by little, as a matter of course.

Ahh, but Death is a part of the Great Cycle of Life; so is Change. Should we cry since we can't talk to our ancestors 4+ generations ago? No; we teach what good lessons we have learned and write what we think in order to preserve our wisdom long after we are gone.
Sure, when we Lose things because they Change it hurts...but the pain is always temporary- the memories & lessons learned live on through our actions.
Huh, strange thought here: CelestAI wants an ever-constant Future so that the Past stays in the past....

But Rodger? The fact that life will never be the same? Comes with more pros than cons. And I'm not just saying that because 'normal,' for me, is torture."

I could see that the thought had crossed his mind.

Mine too. Really easy to see the positives from that side of the fence.

After a moment of mentally scrambling to try and find both words, and the right thing to do in a physical sense to properly mirror him socially, I settled for sitting down beside him, in the same pose.

Chameleon Effect again!

"Never say I don't put my money where my mouth is."

More like you're puting your neck on the line. (I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I swear I'll stop with the jokes.)

"...I realized, at that point, somewhere around the halfway point of a Sunday sermon... That Heaven doesn't, in the strictest - probably flawed - interpretations, have *any* risk. There's no death, no pain... So theoretically no risk..."

Nothing to do but An Eternity of Worshipping Him, The LORD, where the Repentant Sinner (Killer) who Turns to Worshipping God and the victim's Family can live together in harmony...

“...You really are smart, huh, James… It’s like your whole life has been leading to this.”

Intellegence is NOT the same thing as Wisdom, Rodger. But still, James did spend a year working on this whole project...

"...His argument is, among other things, that we have to *trust.* Trust that Heaven is a place of joy, and of goodness, and peace and... Of being our most right and perfect, and settled, and true selves. Because until we get there? We won't truly understand it... Nor will we truly understand ourselves."

Blind trust- Blind Faith. Because it's all a gamble of what might be.

"...For us, from our perspective? We'll be in a place that has all those things. Perhaps *better* versions of all that we know. A world free from pollution. From war... From fear. And a world filled with all the good things, small and large, that make life *wonderful* and *wondrous.* New discoveries, and old nostalgias that we never thought could come again... All together."

James has faith that It Will Be. Envious, for a religious conviction. Still, some of us are more content with a "simple" life rather than a "wonderful" one...because we have the Free Will to do with it as we please. In CelestAI's Heaven, you live a "cultivated" life by a caring God, who Sees You and Loves You For Who You Are...damn, come to think of it, religion would be an easy thing for a M.I./G.I. to use to get people to follow along....

“...But. It’s... Also clear this is unavoidable. And... I’ll support you. You’ve gone this far, and I’m in no position- or mood- to try and stop you. I’ll help you achieve your dream... If only to see where it all leads. I won’t stand in your way.”

Sometimes, it takes an Outsider to record history with an unbiased viewpoint. If I was in his position I'd feel the same: wanting to see how it all ends.

“...Further down the rabbit hole…”

Exactly. Not "up" towards a Heaven, but down into the spiral of madness....

“Why do you think I’m sticking around? The way I see it, it’s already been decided. Either we find your utopia, or I’m hanged from a lighthouse, facing east, northeast, north, northwest, back to north, and so on.”

My sentiments exactly. "We're all mad here, Alice."

"Well, I'm a spiritual realist. Sometimes optimist. Not an existentialist. So... Yes. I don't suppose he would quite like my definition of Heaven as..."

"...As a place on Earth."

But Jim, you're giving up on Earth so you can have Heaven as part of CelestAI's world.

"Tell me something from your childhood. Something from the nineties... That you miss."

Sitting across the armchair sideways, being just the right size so my head and feet were perfectly supported, smooth jazz playing, warm sunlight flowing in, chores all done, and relaxing.
Or, a Feburary day, thick fog rolling through for most of the day, temperature just right where all you needed was a light hoodie, rain gently falling- miniscule raindrops, but coming down thick like the mist itself, feeling the rumblings of Spring on the air giving a certain...crackling energy that you could almost hold onto like a tether.

“It doesn’t, I’ll admit that. I never signed up. Never cared about being a Gryphon... But I guess I’m a witness. Maybe I’ll... Tell this story around a campfire. Virtual campfire. Don’t know what I’d be, though. If I had a choice... If I had to choose. Frankly, it’s all still hard to process.”

Here, here!

“I’m just going to deal, Jim. You’ve got enough hard thinking for the both of us.”

That's code for "I will not be a burden; I will live."

“Celestia knew about me. Who’s to say she doesn’t know about Mom too?”

Or giving out intel as needed....

Well... Maybe I was lying then. To myself as much as Rodger. I suppose it depends how you define worship.

Dood, you gave yourself up to her. That's one of two things: a slave, or love.

There was a confused silence, during which I didn't even bother to look to see Rodger's look of befuddlement.

He probably meant (with Mal currently being) all-digital-to-human experiences. Dumb, boring questions like "So, which one is Her, or is she just every version of Her forever?" or "So if she's going in your head, does that count as marriage?". He doesn't really know what it was like for you to see her, back in the chair. Not everything straight people think about couples is about sex...

That's all a roundabout way of making an excuse for the fact that I slept in....
I was exhausted. I wanted to sleep in. I didn't want to eat breakfast with the entire 'assembled Avengers' in the mess.

Dood, I don't think you've had a chance for sleeping in since being on the run. Take the day off from fighting for the future so you can fight tomorrow!

Some small part of me that was both awake, and not focused entirely on Zeph's emotional plight, had the time to note that she began chewing her lower lip the same way I had just moments ago. Unconscious social mirroring.

Chameleon effect!

"Yes. Sometimes... *More* deeply, and truly, than for things which have actually happened to you."

And yet, to borrow a quote from Dumbledore, "It does not do well to dwell on dreams".

"It's... Entirely possible... No... It's probable to the point of *certainty* that Celestia intended you to be here. With us. Learning what you've learned. She left you with a message that saved a man's life, for buck's sake."

Which...still has a host of unresolved questions....

"You're trying to tell me 'God is an Alicorn, and I fit into her plans?' That's not as comforting as you might think."

"Praise The Sun" with Sun-Salutations, and all that. XD

I suppose even then, whether she knew it or not, she was satisfying my values. Through friendship. And Ponies.

The LORD works in mysterous ways, does He not?

"Faith isn't scientific certainty, by definition, Zeph. It's a kind of hope... An *emotional* certainty. But a well informed one. You have faith in a friend not because you know their every thought, intention, and future action at all times... You have faith in them because you know their nature. Their true self."

Ha ha, NO. You think you know. There's always a possibility (with varying probability) that their behavior can change, or they "let the mask slip" for once. You only see who someone chooses to be, right now.
Someone once said we all have 3 faces: Who we are, Who we think we are, and the One everyone else sees. You can only see the One others wear, and hope its as close to Who They Are as possible.
To quote the poem Storm again, "Faith is the denial of Observation so that Belief can be preserved".

"...Because the alternative is not something I care to consider."

Hope for the best, but plan for the worst, Jim.

Minutes rolled into hours, into days, in the most agonizing manner you can imagine.

Now that you're on a ship, enjoy the military life of "Hurry Up & Wait".

With Eldora, I didn't feel any sudden jolt of fight-or-flight. No rush of unwanted adrenaline and norepinephrine. No sense of sudden formless nameless terror.

It's all in the voice, and how you make your presence known. First-hand experience.

Eldora smiled sagely... A kind of strange know-it-all grin, but not in an annoying sense. More in a vaguely demi-divine sense. As if the wisdom of her soul could actually stand tall beside Mal's, and Celestias.... I have no doubt that it could, and did.

The Dragon is protecting her hoard. Just because its of a non-physical nature doesn't mean she doesn't take care of it.

"You're presuming there is any measurable difference between God, and Celestia. If there is a God? I certainly don't question that she's a woman."

Oh, what's that George Carlin bit? Lemme find it....

"Something is definitely wrong. This is NOT good work. If this is the best God can do, I am NOT impressed. Results like these do not belong on the resume of a supreme being. This is the kind of s--- you’d expect from an office temp with a bad attitude. And just between you and me, in any decently run universe, this Guy would have been out on his all-powerful-ass a long time ago.”

Yeah, that's the one. #GeorgeCarlinWasRight

Well, James really is a flawed character...but its an interesting read, and worth continuing.