> Sweetie Ban
>  by Casketbase77
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Workplace_Access = NULL
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I'm fired?!?!!!"

The shout of distress echoed through the School of Friendship's main hall. It rattled the air ducts, flickered the ceiling lights, and caused two passing students to pick up their pace to an ongoing assembly in the gymnasium. No lungs were powerful enough to have done all that, especially through the closed door of the main office. But the shouter didn't have lungs. Her mouth contained a high treble computer speaker, and her liberal use of its highest volume output was well known to Vice Principal Sunburst. After all, his hooves were clamped over the earmuffs he'd donned before delivering the bad news. That was where he kept them until the robot across his desk slouched in her chair, mechanized panic relaxed into girlish pouting.

"I'm the best tutor in the lounge. I don't even mooch off the free coffee machine, because I physically can't drink! Why are you giving me the boot right before Midterms?"

Sunburst was fumbling with the computer on his desk. No fumbling with his earmuffs though. Those were staying firmly on his head, in case the data on the screen had the opposite of its intended calming effect.

"H-here, Sweetie. Scroll through this."

"Why? You're not the boss of me. Unless you wanna hire me back on the spot."

"We're not randomly letting you go before Midterms. We're letting you go because its almost Midterms."

Curiosity outweighing anger, Sweetie Bot leaned forward. Desktop computers were new tech for Equestria, but they were compatible with older machines like herself. With the power of thought, Sweetie flipped through dozens of pages of text, so fast that if each had a drawing in the bottom corner, the frames would have looked like an animated cartoon. There were no cartoons though. Just essays submitted by students. Reading them all in the span of a second, Sweetie Bot voiced the obvious.

"These are all the exact same text. The only thing different on them are the student names at the top."

Sunburst sighed and finally trusted removing his earmuffs.

"That's because each of these students used AI to write them."

Sweetie Bot scoffed. "I didn't write any of these."

"No one said you did, Sweetie. These were done by ChuffGPT."

"The Flim Flam Brothers's dumb cell phone app?!"

Sunburst winced, both because he'd taken off his earmuffs too soon, and because Sweetie Bot had spoken the two words that had been plaguing the School of Friendship for the past few weeks. 

"Cell phones," the weary Vice Principal muttered. "Computers that can fit in a saddlebag. Everything that the Flim Flams peddle in this town causes trouble."

Sweetie Bot narrowed her annoyed oculars.

"Um... present company notwithstanding," Sunburst backpeddled. "Ask any student, and they'll vouch for you! If their muzzle isn't buried in their cell phone screen, that is. And using it to cheat on their homework."

"But I'm not a phone," Sweetie challenged. "If you fire me for something they did, its discrimination!"

"Sweetie, the reason you're being furloughed isn't due to discrimination. Its the opposite, actually." Sunburst tapped his keyboard and the desktop revealed a new doc. Its margins had runic calculations, but the center diagram held Sweetie's attention. Rendered in three-dimensional schematics was the School of Friendship and all surrounding dorms, overcast by a shimmering force field.

"Wh... what is that?"

"Plans for a magic firewall. It'll be active all through Midterms week, de-powering everything mechanical on campus."

Sweetie Bot's nose panels wrinkled. "Everything that's mechanical?"

Sunburst nodded regretfully. "Yes. Which means-"

"The tutoring lounge coffee pot will be out of order! How's Scootaloo gonna get her morning pep?"

Sunburst was not a confrontational pony, but laying a hoof on his discarded earmuffs gave him courage.

"Please don't ignore the obvious here, Sweetie."

The robot avoided eye contact. She was examining her hooves, flexing them a few times before laying them limp in her lap. Losing her job was one thing, but losing her functionality was quite another.

"Wh... where'd you even come up with such a terrible spell?"

Sunburst rubbed his goatee, then decided that there was no harm in honesty.

"Do you remember the Cozy Glow debacle?"

"Pff. Not really. Spent the whole time locked in a broom closet with my three closest friends."

"Ah. Yes. Well... its a repurposed version of the antimagic she used. Just... tweaked to be anti-tech."

"Tweaked by who?"

Sunburst bowed bashfully.

"Jeez. Now I know why you're the one who sat me down to break the news. But hey, this isn't as bad as I thought! It'll be deactivated after Midterms right?"

Sunburst gingerly put his earmuffs back on.

"It's permanent?!?!?" 

"I'll be working to tweak the field so it whitelists certain devices!" Sunburst shouted. "But the desktop computers need to be the first I figure out! Then it'll be the hallway lights, the smoke detectors, the classroom clocks..."

Sweetie Bot didn't have laser eyes, but she was glaring at Sunburst as if she did.

"Please Sweetie, this spell is complicated. And Starlight was all over me to get it working in time for Midterms week."

"I demand to talk to her!!"

"She's in the gymnasium telling all the students the same things I'm telling you!"

Sweetie Bot pounded her forehooves on the vice principal's desk, but her impotent rage left zero indents. Her voice and processing power were mighty, but her strength was not. Her template had been a filly, after all.

"If it makes you feel better," Sunburst ventured, "you're higher priority than the tutoring lounge coffee maker."

"Might as well put me in a box and ship me back to the Flim Flam factory," she glowered. "I'm destitute! Deprived! Out on the street!"

"Isn't your sister a millionaire?"

"Rarity is not my sister!"

Sunburst buried his face in his hooves. His time raising Flurry Heart had taught him that once an emotional entity in the form of a young pony is resolved to be angry, there was no way to reason them out of it. 

"Sweetie... I promise... I'll let you know the moment you can gallop onto the school grounds and not keel over. Nopony wants to see that. Remember that time your battery ran out during cheerleading tryouts? Mid backflip?"

Sweetie Bot harrumphed. "Never gonna let that one go, huh?"

"You landed on the court and your head popped off. Three onlookers fainted."

"But all the students loved it! I got hoofbumps in the hall for weeks, and all that hype meant the rescheduled tryouts had twice as many attendees!" Sweetie Bot was standing up now, face panels folded into impassioned pleading. "Don't send me away, Vice Principal Sunburst. I live here. Outside of these halls, away from the students who know me, I'm nopony. Just a bot who looks familiar."

Sunburst shook his head. "Once the firewall goes up, if you're inside these halls, you'll be no better than a doorstop."

Literal gears were turning in Sweetie's head, and Sunburst noticed.

"You can't stay here and be a doorstop. Don't even ask."

The speaker in Sweetie's throat played a defeated sighing noise. Then she trudged for the office door. Sunburst needed to get back to work on the firewall, but as he laid his hooves on the keyboard again, he glanced quickly at the dejected departing robot.

"Sweetie Bot?" She looked dully back at him. "Are... are you able to lie?"

She wrinkled her nose analogue. "Of course I can lie, you... Um, I mean nope. I can't lie. No siree."

"Mm-hm," Sunburst was only half listening as he typed away. "Good to hear. In that case, I know you'll answer honestly: do you have a place you can stay for the forseeable future?"

Sweetie Bot didn't respond immediately. She spent her days tutoring students, her nights plugged into the tutoring lounge wall socket, and her spare time in between doing extra-curriculars. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were polite to her, but their friendship was something she'd inherited, not earned. Sweetie Bot's true bonds were with the students she tutored. The toddler newbies she let draw on her legs with dry erase markers. The outgoing seniors who talked about their futures to her, as if she were another organic member of the faculty. Ocellus was especially kind, one face-borrower to another. This was the place where she'd built a life for herself. But it wasn't the place where her life had begun.

"Yes," Sweetie Bot finally said truthfully. "I have somewhere I can go."

Sunburst nodded approval and returned to his troubleshooting. "I'll send you an email as soon as you're clear to come back. You still get those directly in your brain, right?"

"Uh-huh. Don't go telling that to random students though. For every Featherweight who sends me exclusive coupons for the school store, there's a Yona who forwards me bass-boosted remixes of Yak yodeling. There isn't a pair of earmuffs in Equestria thick enough to block that."





Ponyville wasn't a large town. The School of Friendship was on the outskirts, but its steeples were visible from anywhere. Well, almost anywhere. Town Hall bordered Hay's Hardware, the two buildings linked by a newly built set of telephone wires so Mayor Mare had a direct line whenever a citizen's home was leveled by some threat or another. Such was life in this eventful corner of Equestria. Just the previous day, the School of Friendship had tentatively activated its Anti-Technology Field and blown out every single window on the campus grounds. Data had been dancing between these two buildings ever since, requesting orders for new glass panes and fielding passive aggressive inquiries whether there was such a thing as "Incompetent Vice Principal-proof glass."

Sweetie Bot stayed ignorant of the crackling correspondence going on above her head. There wasn't much to look at, slumped against the alleyway wall where she was. Not unless you counted the nearby dumpster. She reread the graffiti on its side for what had to have been the thousandth time.

To H*ck With The Estalb Estebli The Establishemen With Homework!!! - Babz

Sweetie Bot had only met Apple Bloom's rough and tumble cousin one time. Babs Seed's rebelliousness was respectable. Her illiteracy, less so. Sweetie Bot closed her artificial eyes and pawed at the floor of her cardboard box shelter, wondering about Babs. Would she have been a fun challenge to tutor? Sweetie never got to offer her services. She probably never would now, with the barrier up.

"Aw jeez, I know that face. Its the one we make whenever we're trying to force sadness."

The robot scrunched her muzzle, but kept her eyes shut. The template for her own voice was unmistakable.

"Leave me alone, Sweetie Belle."

"I'm doing real good, thanks for asking. I got away from work early due to... uh... window issues at the school." Hoofsteps approached and the bot lazily looked up. Sweetie Belle was examining the label on her copy's shambled shelter.

"Sheesh, is this the box you shipped in? We threw this thing out ages ago!"

"The hardware store dumpster doesn't get emptied often," the bot replied flatly. "Besides," she hugged the cardboard panels tighter around her shoulders. "Its walls remind me of simpler times."

Sweetie Belle blew a raspberry. "You had literally zero memories before I unboxed and imprinted you."

"Like I said. Simpler. How'd you find me, anyway?"

Sweetie Belle tossed her hair and grinned. "I just asked myself where I'd sulk if it were me who was in a stubborn mood and wanted to be alone."

"Ugh. Of course."

"Yeah! And you were in the first spot I looked! The alley behind Hay's Hardware! How's Ponyville's secret public outlet treatin' ya?"

The bot glanced down at its Cutie Mark. Extending from the center was a retractable power cord, the business end snug in a socket built into the Town Hall phone line pole.

"Ponyville needs more public places to charge phones," Sweetie Belle blathered on. "I know they're new, but come on. Feels dirty to mooch power from the Hardware Store since they give us a Buy Three, Get One Free deal on your replacement legs. You remember that? Last Sisterhooves Social when you conked out during the swimming section?"

"Yeah Sweetie, I do." The bot sighed and examined its hooves. "What a way to find out my knee joints weren't waterproof."

Sweetie Belle frowned at yet another icy response. Were the positions reversed, she'd have been cheered up by now. "Hey, I know you're bummed about missing out on Midterms week, but you're actually really lucky. Things are a mess at the school, what with everyone's phones shut down, the barrier tweaking, and Scootaloo all cagey from caffeine withdrawal. But like I said, we're free for the day! Wanna go see Apple Bloom at her farm?"

"No."

Sweetie Belle was taken aback. Her question had been rhetorical. "Uh... well... how bout we hit up Rarity's place for some fresh outfits? We wear the same size stuff, after all."

"Huh uh."

Sweetie Belle bit her lip, discouraged.

"I don't wanna go to see your Mom and Dad either," the bot preempted.

"So... what do you wanna do?"

"I wanna wait for Sunburst's email."

"Here?"

"Why not?"

Sweetie Belle surveyed her friend's chosen haunt. There wasn't much to look at, reclined against the alleyway wall where she was. Not unless you counted the nearby dumpster. She read the graffiti on its side for the first time. Some poorly scrawled punk mantra in familiar hoofwriting. She'd only met Apple Bloom's rough and tumble cousin one time. Babs Seed's rebelliousness had been off-putting. Her illiteracy, more so. Sweetie Belle blinked her itchy eyes and pawed the alleyway floor, shaking away unhelpful thoughts of Babs.

"Aw jeez, I know that face. Its the one you make whenever you're trying force optimism."

"Huh?"

Sweetie Bot was smiling. Thin and full of melancholy, but it was progress. "Earlier, you mentioned last year's Sisterhooves Social. The one we did together. You remember the event before the swimming one?"

"Uh... to be honest, your knees exploding into sparks is kinda the strongest impression that day left me with."

"The six-legged race."

"Oh! Oh yeah!" Sweetie Belle laughed nostalgically. "I still have our first place trophy. No other pair even came close to our pace. We ran in perfect synch on that one, huh?"

"Yeah. Uh huh. Perfect synch. Like always." The bot pulled the tabs of its box tighter around itself. "Like always," it repeated.

"Uh... I'm sorry, but the one time we're not in synch is now. If you're trying to tell me something, you're gonna have to do it straight. We're not good at understanding subtlety, you know."

"Stop calling us "we"! I want to be my own pony!!"

Sweetie Belle clasped her hooves over her sensitive ears. Sweetie Bot clasped her hooves over her rattling throat chassis.

"Oh... oh jeez, I..." the bot scrambled to standing position, swaying in its open box like an abandoned kitten. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hurt-"

"Hey, its cool. I'm okay. I forget sometimes that you can yell super loud. Because I can't."

The bot opened and closed its mouth a few times. It clearly didn't trust itself to speak again.

"So..." Sweetie Belle rocked on her hooves in forced casualness. "Don't like shadowing me around, huh? I... well, now that you mention it, whenever we're over at Rarity's, she always seems to be either staring at you or away from you. I'm the only one she looks at normal."

"I mean... it probably doesn't help that the reason you bought me in the first place was to mess with her."

"I bought you for a lotta reasons! One was to have a new friend."

"You mean a new toy?"

"Huh-uh. A new friend."

The bot searched its inherited feelings. They told her Sweetie Belle was being truthful.

"Th-thank you, Sweetie."

"No prob! I just wish you came clean sooner." She was trotting around the alleyway, her mind racing. "This is like, a Cutie Mark Counseling problem! I'm the Crusader who helps you find the best place to be yourself!"

The bot matched her excitement, synched but no longer ashamed to be so. "There are... oh wow, there so many new places I could try out." 

"Yeah! We're obviously gonna want ones I'm never at, where there's a nice blank slate for you to work with."

"Like Cloudsdale! I bet I could get even newer legs that can cloudwalk!" 

"Yeah!"

"Yeah!"

"Yeah!!"

A sudden electronic ping echoed off the walls of the alley. Sweetie Belle looked around alertly.

"What in Faust's name was that noi-"

"Sunburst just emailed me!" The bot was already halfway down the alley. "I'm cleared to come back to the school!"

"But... but didn't you say you wanted to try somewhere new?"

"See you at work tomorrow, Sweetie Belle!!"

The bot rounded the corner to the street, trailing its forgotten but still very plugged-in power cord. Its tether went taut and Sweetie Belle sidestepped the business end dislodging from the telephone pole and retracting after its out-of-sight owner. Sweetie Belle heard a loud sound, similar to a whip hitting a flank. It was answered by an even louder electronic whinny of pain. Then the patter of prosthetic hooves faded down the road, spurred in the direction of the School of Friendship.

Sweetie Belle sighed, prodding the abandoned box with her nose.

"This talk isn't over," she promised aloud. Then she heaved the relic of the past into the graffiti'd trash bin. Hopefully Sweetie Bot would never be back here again. If she ever was though, well, at least the dumpster wasn't emptied often.

Sweetie Belle reached the end of the alleyway, pausing to peer after her double in the distance. Then she trotted contentedly in the opposite direction.