Pony Friend Creators: Genesis

by David Silver

2 - Backup

Vinyl was beyond pleased with her current situation, snuggled up in a lab coat and under the desk with Chang while Herrington paced and lectured, holding forth on how this was all going to work, as the two women agreed to call their creation 'hers'.

Without belaboring the details, they had swiftly decided, Vinyl would be safer around another lady, even of another species. Besides, smooth jazz was a step up from opera, and Chang was more willing to try out some stuff with some beats to it, so Vinyl was mollified and ready to accept them.

As for the scientists, Herrington was overjoyed at their discovery, and while he was a bit apprehensive about being in charge of the project, he was far too enthralled with the idea of how Vinyl worked and the implications of her existence to worry too hard about it ultimately. "You are never to leave the lab if you are not in our company." He paused. "And we have to know you're in our company."

Vinyl blew a thick raspberry at that. "Way to ruin maybe fun."

“What if we gave you a roommate?” Doctor Herrington countered. “Someone you could interact with as an equal?”

"Another pony?" Vinyl sat up, ears pricked. "That'd be cool, um, if they're cool. If you bring in a boring pony, that won't help, and we'll get on each other's nerves, probably." She looked up at Chang. "You get what I mean, right?"

“We couldn’t make another pony even if we wanted to.” Herrington admitted. “I’m not at all certain how we made you to begin with. But you need to interact with someone who’s not your creator. No, I’m suggesting a human… companion? Friend? Someone who is willing and able to co-occupy the lab space.”

“Maybe the night janitor, Kyle?” Dr. Chang suggested. “He’s volunteered before participate in test groups for extra money, so we could easily justify it in our budget.”

“An excellent idea Doctor Chang!” Herrington replied brightly. “He’s actually quite the music fan himself, Vinyl.”

“Ugh, if you consider electro-swing ‘music’.” Chang scrunched her face in disgust.

Vinyl lifted an ear as she hopped up into Chang's lap. "You just said Electro. That's closer than either of you, no insult or nothing. I bet I could get along with this 'Kyle' human. But what does money have to do with it?" She recoiled. "Wait, are you going to pay for company? I'm not that desperate!"

Chang pet along Vinyl's back gently, enjoying the feel, but also inspecting since the opportunity was there. "In this world, money is how we say thank you, please, and most other related things. Kyle wants money. Kyle needs money. We all do, without it, we can't live. It's also illegal to make someone work without giving them some. It's all complicated, depressing, human stuff."

Herrington sighed at that. "True words. We may be scientists, but nobody is really waiting to pay us to figure out a better way than that one, so, yes, we will pay Kyle, because that is how humans expect it. It doesn't mean we're paying him to be your friend. We're paying him to be here instead of home. You two can become friends, or not, on your own."

"Still sounds lame." Vinyl rested her chin on Chang's leg with a sigh, watching the two humans talk, their body language, their faces. "Just say thank you."

Herrington nodded with a chuckle. "We'll be sure to do that." He dropped the topic of money, making a note not to depress his new pony friend with talk of commercialism.

-=-=-=-=-

“So you made a Unico, and you need me to babysit?” A bored looking man with dirty-blonde hair watched the monitor with disinterest.

“You mean unicorn.” Chang corrected the man tersely.

“No, I mean Unico, you know that iconic 80’s cartoon about a unicorn on a quest for friendship? The unicorn moved almost more cat-like than horse-like?” The man pressed on unperturbed. “Okay, you are not going to convince me that you made an obvious living Unico reference, and you’ve never seen Unico?”

“I can assure you, we were actually trying for an oddly specific butterfly.” Dr. Herrington rolled his eyes. “I would have been happy with protoplasm, if we’re being honest. But yes, we created a uni-corn-. And we need someone to keep it company and call us if it starts breaking things, while we sort out the legal and ethical problems creating fully self aware life out of no where are obviously going to cause. While also taking notes on said new self aware life form. Trust me Kyle, we’re giving you the easy job.”

The janitor scoffed. He picked up a donut, dipped it in his coffee, and ate it with a slurp. Chang and Herrington winced together at the sight. "Well, they look interesting." He could see Vinyl exploring her space, stalking and suddenly grabbing a pail with a glow, drawing it closer. "The heck?"

Chang rubbed at the bridge of her nose. "That was useful. She has shown telekinetic abilities. We will be studying that particular trick for at least a decade. Thankfully, she's only used it with good intentions."

The intentions at that moment became clear as Vinyl began to bang her hooves on the top of the pail, starting a beat as she sang out the wordless tune of some song she liked, dancing around behind the pail with a smile.

"Did we mention, she is a music fan. She loves anything with 'a beat', as she puts it. She likes your choice of music, by the way." Chang waved to the monitor and the dancing unicorn on it. "She does speak English, to be clear."

“Okay, so I get a cot in the lab, meals delivered. 24/7 on the clock pay with full overtime. It’s cool if I relay DoorDash™️ through security, right?” Kyle reasoned as much to himself as to his superiors, bobbing his head to the on-screen beat. “Cause that’s a deal breaker. The cafeteria is not that bad, but I pay my own money for better food for a reason, it’s better.”

Herrington crossed his arms. "It's not 24/7. She has to sleep as much as any other living creature as complicated as she is. We're extending your shifts to twelve hours. You can take lunch like you normally do, in the cafeteria. What food you bring, or order, is your choice. In fact, testing how she reacts to various cuisines might be worth attempting, but that's our choice. Do not feed our unique living organism anything we don't personally approve of beforehand."

Chang added. "We will let you know ahead of time. Other than that, feel free to order what you want."

"Good. Because I do not like eating from the same place two days in a row." Kyle considered the impossible unicorn displayed, the one he'd be hanging out with. "I get hazard pay if it hurts me, right?"

“The subject has not shown any hostility.” Doctor Chang noted. “If we expected risk we wouldn’t be talking to you.”

“Fair enough.” Kyle smiled and nodded. “I’ll hang out with your obvious Unico project. All the usual non-disclosures, of course.”

Herrington sighed softly. "We plan on this becoming quite public in a few weeks. The only part you need to specifically be quiet about is that you're—" He paused at that. "Actually, never mind. Our names will be on it. Where we work isn't secret. Anyone that wants to know where the pony is can know if they bother to look. Just the usuals. Revealing specifics of ongoing research is against the rules. It was before, it remains so now."

Chang smirked at that. "Not that I feel very scared that someone else is going to suddenly make a pony behind our backs. How did that happen? I reviewed the logs, they weren't helpful."

Herrington raised a hand to forestall more talk about their creation. "The only thing to worry about now is that we are entering something of a scandal. For a few weeks, anyway. Expect everyone concerned about animal rights to spring out of the woodworks with a ripe opinion to share with us."

“That is a concern.” Kyle steepled his fingers. “Ya’ll come out of this with nobel prizes. I come out with overtime pay. I assume you're recording everything, right? On camera I want to be anonymous. Blur my face, whatever, I want to be able to walk away. Tell me you didn’t already release my name?”

Chang threw up her hands. "Before what? You're a janitor. The cameras are recording you, and everyone else. That's for the police, or for reviewing accidents. In which case do you see your identity needing hiding? Should we be worried?"

Herrington shrugged at that. "Meaningless anyway. When do you want your face blurred? It won't happen live. So, when? When we hand it over to the police? I think that's illegal. Not a lawyer, but—I can ask legal?"

“Dude, how about when all the animal rights people are at my apartment five months from now?” Kyle snarled. “Like you said, I’m just a janitor, I’ve swept up your messes before. You admit this is a risk. On camera I want my participation to be deniable. It’s a reasonable request.”

Chang narrowed her eyes behind her glasses. "We won't send videos with you in it to the media. We'll have plenty of footage with you not in it, but if we, for some reason, have some with you in it, your face will be blurred."

"To the media," emphasized Herrington. "About anyone else is getting it unfiltered."

“Fair enough.” Kyle nodded with a compliant smile. “I’ll do it.”

That just left Vinyl peering at her new companion. "So, hey." She stepped wardly one hoof before the other. "Kyle, huh? If you're going to be hanging around, a warning! I found the sound." She pointed at Chang's computer. "And I'm not afraid to use it." With a glowing horn, she moved the mouse, soon filling the lab with thumping electric beats as she swayed her head to the thrumming rhythm. "Aw yeah."

Kyle rubbed his hands together and smiled pleasantly as he approached the pony in the room. "I brought an extra pair of headphones." He reached into his backpack, retrieving a set of Sony MDR headphones, which he proffered to her, casually placing his hand over the cord before pulling a small iPod from his pocket, letting the headphone wire dangle down out of his reach, keeping them for himself.

“So, you're the guy they’re paying to be my friend?” Vinyl cocked her head at the human.

“No, I’m the guy they normally pay to sweep the floors.” The human laughed easily. “You're the unicorn that’s getting me out of sweeping the floors.”

"I'm the mare that's thanking you." She grabbed the headphones in her magic. "A spare set of headphones? You know how to treat a lady properly." She tucked the headphones aside. "So, like it or not? You didn't run away, so point there."

"Oh, I like." He bobbed his head in time with the music as the volume remained on an ever present low-to-moderate hum. "What's your name?"

"Vinyl. Vinyl Scratch." She pointed to herself with a hoof. "And you're Kyle. Why do humans not have words for names? What does a Kyle mean? Seriously, I don't get it, but hey anyway."

“Uh, it means ‘me’ I guess? It’s a ‘K’ name, and those have an interesting start sound, I guess?” Kyle bobbed his head to the music, one headphone pushed back to interact with the outside world. “I dunno, why are you asking me? I’m sure it means something.”

"Not your name." Vinyl took her hooves and placed them on her ears. "A name means something. I'm Vinyl Scratch, for example. That means I'm a sound! That means I'm a surprise. That means you know things are going to take a sudden new track when I hit the scene." She clapped her hooves together in a firm strike. "Vinyl Scratch, that's me, and proud of every bit of it."

“That’s pretty cool. My parents just sort of called me Kyle, and it caught on.” Kyle nodded and paused as a new song started. “Have you ever heard Electric Swing Circus?”

Vinyl sat up tall, ears perked at Kyle. "Let me tell you, I've heard about every kind of music with 'electric' in the name." She paused at that. "When? Where?" She shook those thoughts free. "Sorry. Lay it on me! I bet it'll make my hooves tap." She shrugged off her own headphones, magic glowing as she turned off the computer. "Hit me!"

Kyle flipped his headphones around and pressed a button allowing them to act as speakers. “They say rock came from jazz, metal came from the blues, and punk came from swing. Each revolutionized by the modern wonder of electric instruments, Then instruments kept getting more electric, you know? But the music is still music.”

A steady, somewhat old timey dance rhythm echoed through the lab.

Vinyl bobbed her head in approval. "This is very true, but I think you're missing a key connection. There is one kind of music that came from electricity." She winked at Kyle. "Still, this has a good flow to it, so I'll give it a hooves up." She thrust a hoof up to be sure of that. "I could probably make some sweet mixes with this. Speaking of that." She turned in place. "What would it take to get a quality mixer up in here?"

Author's Note:

Vinyl gets a new bud for when her science pals are too busy sciencing to hang out with her. That's nice of them, yeah?

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Comments

[No one is home]

The song Vinyl and Kyle are listening to...

[Dravkwn]

“That is a concern.” Kyle steepled his fingers. “Ya’ll come out of this with nobel prizes. I come out with overtime pay. I assume you're recording everything, right? On camera I want to be anonymous. Blur my face, whatever, I want to be able to walk away. Tell me you didn’t already it my name?”

Do y'all see what's missing there?