> Pony Friend Creators: Genesis
>  by David Silver
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> 1 - Operation: Genesis
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"That was, like, only one of the craziest things I've ever seen," Dr. Herrington declared. The lead scientist at the Borealis Technology and Applied Innovations Lab—the "Brain Trust"—took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "The question now is what do we do with it? We haven't gotten government approval for this kind of creation, and while we're not currently under any rules about artificial lifeforms, that might change pretty quickly after word gets out."

Dr. Chang raised her hand from behind their computer. "I'm still waiting on confirmation about how our research fits into the update." They deflated suddenly. "Nevermind, no. This doesn't fit anything." She leaned off to the side to look at the curious equine in the glass jar before them. "Can you hear us?

"Sure can." Vinyl Scratch pushed her goggles up on her snout. "Not sure how I got here, but I am. Cool." She looked from scientist to scientist. "What are you?"

"We're scientists, and we just created you. Can you tell me what year it is?" Herrington closed his arms, folding them as he studied their creation.

Vinyl turned around on a swivel platform that had been put in for her to stand on. "I don't see a calendar, so no. What year is it?"

Herrington groaned audibly, closing his eyes to keep from looking at the creation they'd made without government approval or oversight. He knew if anyone found out about this, the team would be blacklisted from doing any kind of scientific work under government purview; He brought his hands together. "Let's focus on the important parts."

"One," called Chang. "She knows what time is, and can clearly communicate in english. Can you speak Mandarin? 我能和你说中文吗?"

"That sounds like something somepony said to me once..." Vinyl thought back for a moment. "Oh! Ohh!" She shuddered with realization. "Wow, that is great." She reached out and tapped the inside of the jar she was held in. "What are you again? Not your job. I'm a pony." She pointed a hoof at herself. "Mare."

"Two, she does not speak that." Chang made notes on her computer busily.

Herrington crossed his arms. "Since you can talk, let's just talk. I am Doctor Herrington, a human. How do you know you're a pony?"

"I just do?" Vinyl squinted at Herrington, her eyes mostly concealed behind her goggles. "Human, neat. So, can I come out?" She tapped on the glass around her with a hoof. "I'm not a monster or anything."

Chang, however, shook her head fervently at Vinyl. "Don't say that kind of thing, please."

Vinyl didn't seem to catch Chang's warning tone and kept tapping at the glass. "I'm just a pony." She gave a big smile. "The worst you have to fear is I'll re-arrange your music collection from least to most bass dropped."

Dr. Herrington opened his mouth to answer when he was cut off by Dr. Chang. "Vinyl appears to have retained memories of our experiments prior to being put in the Petri dish." She moved closer to the jar Vinyl sat in, continuing to make notes on her tablet.

Vinyl inclined her head. "Sure? Explains how we're talking. Not like you two taught me. Or maybe you did?" She shrugged. "I felt like I was talking before now." She resumed tapping the glass. "Lemme out."

"If we do, can you promise not to move around?" Chang asked, pointing her stylus at Vinyl. "I need to take pictures, anyway, for research purposes, so it isn't like it matters where you are for now."

Herrington grabbed Chang's shoulder roughly. "Do you think this is a good idea?!"

"What's the alternative?" She shrugged him away. "She is being perfectly friendly. As biological specimens go, I wish they were all so well-behaved." She took a slow breath. "And she's too large. I don't know how we made something that size, and that smart, but she's too large to be kept in that jar." She turned to the other scientists. "Even if I don't trust her fully yet."

As Chang and Herrington spoke to one another, Vinyl made a face and stuck her tongue out. "Seriously, do you have a boombox or a stereo around here?"

Harrington paused, turning to Vinyl. "How do you know what either of those are?"

"I'll settle for a walkmare?" She pointed a hoof at her large headphones. "I just can't live without some music going on."

He narrowed his eyes as he considered the pony's question, and the ramifications of the request. He looked down at Chang and shook his head. "Alright, fine. If you're going to be in the lab, I suppose we should at least make an effort to make you comfortable."

"Darn right you should." Vinyl wiggled her eyebrows with a smile on her muzzle.

Chang pulled out her phone. "I'll shop for that, later, but first." She put the phone aside and started pressing buttons. "Let's get you out of there. Promise you'll be nice, and you don't have any lethal illnesses we should be worried about?"

"The first one." Vinyl inclined her head with a snicker. "Technically, I have to be just as worried about the second one, but eh, life is already too short. Lemme out."

With a loud hissing crackle, the glass slid up, slowly, on its track. Chang looked around Vinyl carefully, checking for reactions, and stepped back several times when Vinyl simply slipped off her little dais and set both hooves on the ground, standing up tall, the top of her mane barely reaching Chang's stomach, if that.

Vinyl spread her hooves wide, cracking her shoulders, then her hips, and then her neck. "Ahhhh, that's so much better! Y'all need to look into doing whatever makes these joints pop, because that's the best feeling." She hopped up without warning onto one of the desks, allowing her to look at her human hosts far closer to their eyes. "You are all kinda huge, just putting that out there."

Herrington approached, tapping a pen against his clipboard. "Fascinating. You called yourself a pony. Where did that name come from?"

"It's the word for this shape." Vinyl ran her hoof down her equine body, not pausing until she got to her tail and pulled it forward. "Sort of a midway point between horse and donkey." She frowned. "I couldn't tell you where I heard that first, but this is me, pony."

"Amazing." Herrington took notes busily a moment. "And your name was?"

"Vinyl. Vinyl Scratch. The illustrious DJ Pon3!" She did a little dance into an action pose, holding it with a cocky grin. "If you're bored and hook me up with some musical supplies, I could put on a show. Tell me you have a mixer around here somewhere."

"I want to avoid giving you anything dangerous or otherwise that you can use to escape or injure the staff." Herrington waved his hands to make her stop. "Thank you. For the offer, but let's take this slowly to start."

"Aw." Vinyl sank to her haunches. "Slow is boring, but fine. Get to know me. Then, when I have your trust, bang! I'll hit you with music that'll blow your socks off, and you'll be sorry that you didn't trust me to start."

Chang smiled at the antics. "You are a breathtakingly adorable little disaster, aren't you? Look, you being here means a lot may change for us, and the lab we're in." She directed a pen at Vinyl. "A lot of people will have a lot of questions. But first." She reached with the pen and poked Vinyl on her horn. "Most equines don't have horns. None, that come to mind. But you do."

"Not my fault you made me wrong." Vinyl closed her eyes and raised her chin up at Chang's poking. "Mmm, that is pretty nice, though." She leaned against the pen, guiding it to rub along her horn in the right places.

"Interesting." Chang scribbled a new note, denying Vinyl the pen rubs. "Let me ask a subjective question. Vinyl, what do you think of us, and what we are? Not what we are, we told you that, but what do you think of what we are, compared to yourself, or anything else you are familiar with? What are you, compared to us?"

Herrington brought down a fist lightly on the other open palm. "Brilliant question. Please, do tell us."

"Uh, so." Vinyl looked around, thinking a moment as she put her hooves together. "So, you are huge. Bigger than the biggest animal I've ever seen, even if the proportions are kind of weird." She studied both of them. "Skinny. You have hands." She reached out a hoof. "I do not." She lowered the hoof. "But I have a tail." She shook her bottom, tail flicking. "You do not. Unless you're hiding them in your clothes? Another thing you have that I do not." She tapped at her goggles. "We're all sporting wicked eye covering. 10/10 there." She held up a hoof, holding it there a pregnant moment. No high-five was returned, and she lowered it with a huff.

Herrington twirled his pen at Vinyl. "All very good, but just what you can see. What do you think of us, identity wise? You do have an identity, and a name. You appear to have a sense of self, hm?"

"Me." Vinyl pointed at herself. "You." She pointed at Dr. Herrington. "I am a pony, and you're a human. I hope we can be friends. You guys do listen to music, right? Please say yes."

Herrington gently smiled at that. "You know what a friend is, and you'd like one."

"Yes, and yes." Vinyl tapped her hooves with each count. "So, how about it? You didn't put me here just to not be friends, right? Not sure why you'd go through all the trouble." She paused, new thoughts bubbling. "Or did you make me to be, like, your pony combat machine? Wow! Your machine's off-kilter if that was the goal. I only slay beats."

"I assure you, Vinyl, we have no such sinister goals in creating you." Herrington tapped the end of the pen to Vinyl's forehead, just before the horn. "To be perfectly honest, you're a mistake." He folded his arms. "But, the greatest discoveries in science were mistakes. So far, this is showing that this is one of the good ones."

"Hay yeah!" Vinyl reached out, swatting his hand, forcing a high-five, even if only he had five to give in return for her one hoof. "So, music? Gonna tell me? I really can't finish saying what I think of you without knowing what kind of music you like."

Chang raised a hand, pen folded against it. "I prefer smooth jazz while I'm working."

"Mmhmm." One could almost see the wheels turning in Vinyl's head as she looked to Herrington. "And you?"

"I enjoy opera, when I am not listening to the news, or radio shows." He rubbed his chin slowly. "I am curious, do you only have interest in music?"

"Music is the top, but sure, I do other things." Vinyl rubbed her hooves together. "Smooth jazz and opera, I can work with that, sure. Now, me? I prefer some house beats with a thumping beat." She danced to the tune she imagined. "Oontz, Oontz Oontz. Yeah, just like that. Seriously, either of you have a sound system? You haveta or how would you enjoy your soft music? Also, you're both super mega nerds. That's okay though."

Chang covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. "Oh my god, this is fantastic."

"Right?" Vinyl grinned with a big nod. "This is just so exciting!" Her eyes fixed on a computer. "What is that?" She trotted along the desk  and hopped down beside the computer and its monitor. "Is that magic? It smells like magic. Tell me how to use it! Can music come out of it?"

Herrington stared dumbfounded at the dancing creature as she got on the table beside Chang's computer and began examining it, sniffing at the screen. "Ah, we're going to need to establish rules here."

"Okay." Vinyl touched her nose to the computer monitor, bouncing back a moment later before her next touch was tentative and far more gentle. "Why is this thing humming?"

Chang returned to her computer, and the pony exploring it. "I will gladly show you what this can do, but first, as Doctor Herrington suggested, a few rules. We want you and us to be happy, and neither to be hurt, right?" She sat in her chair and reached up to gently pet her new pony, to Vinyl's clear approval and almost purrs. "Can we keep her?"
> 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?"
> 3 - A Little Peek
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So, Vinyl, weird question but are those sunglasses, or is that actually your face?” Kyle asked the unicorn as they lounged around the lab. “I mean no judgment, but I can’t really tell. Maybe you're a cyborg-unicorn. It wouldn’t be that much weirder.”

Vinyl perked an ear at Kyle. "Neither." She put her hooves to the side of her head, pushing the goggles forward. "Goggles. When you're in the dark and the music's thumping and the lights are blaring, these can really save your tail." She let them slap back into place. "Though I still wear them because I think they look hella spiffy."

Kyle leaned back in his chair, eyeing the pony in the room. "Huh, I can respect that."

Vinyl suddenly hopped up into Kyle's lap. "It's time to experience the wubs. You ready?" She wasn't waiting, already reaching with her magic to move her headphones off her own head onto Kyles'.

“Heh, sure show me what you got.” Kyle grinned, consuming three gummy bears.

“You gonna share those?” Vinyl asked accusingly.

“Not if I wanna keep my job.” The human laughed back. “So lay these so-called ‘wubs’ on me!”

Vinyl popped the headphones over Kyle's head, her eyes on his the whole time as she looked for reaction, approval, any sign this was working as intended. As the music blasted forth, she felt Kyle tense, his hands closing tight, squeezing her legs uncomfortably.

She straddled one of his legs, flexing in time to the beat she could only distantly hear. "Feel it, all through you. That's a real thump, yeah? Feel the energy?"

“I bet it’s amazing through some big venue speakers.” Kyle grinned, bobbing his head to the beat of the wubs.  “I've been to some industrial shows like that.  The whole point is to feel the music through the big speakers, ya know?”

"Yeah, totally, it's like the waves of the music just hit you, slam you." Vinyl flailed her hooves in the air, smacking into Kyle's head once or twice, which she didn't notice, or if she did, she didn't care. "I told them to get some real speakers in here and they were all, 'We don't need that for our current project', lame."

As if conjured by her words, Herrington came striding in with determination. "Vinyl, I'd like to do some examinations on you. If I can borrow you?"

“She’s not wrong, ya know?” Kyle chuckled at his boss. “If I bought some good speakers, would you let us hook ‘em up?  You don’t pay me that cheap.  I got speaker money.”

Herrington's attention flicked from Vinyl to Kyle with a sigh. "I'd need to review it with Legal. Even so, this isn't exactly the most conducive location for a booming stereo, no matter how good." He pointed to Vinyl. "Technically, any music we played for you would be music we're 'using' for our experiment. There is red tape. Now, examination?"

Vinyl approached with a wry smile. "Yeah, yeah, I'm coming." With one ear up and the other to the side, she hopped onto a chair near Herrington. "Check me out."

“Okay, I’m going to the break room.” Kyle rolled his eyes.  “I may get paid enough for speakers, but I don’t get paid enough to sit in while a girl gets a physical.”

“Afraid you might see something you like?” Vinyl waggled her eyebrows under her goggles.

“More like afraid I’ll see something I can’t unsee without more alcohol than they’ll let me have on the job.”  Kyle shook his head as he left the room.  “I’ve been the night janitor here for a while now.  It’s only your first rodeo, filly.”

Herrington waited for Kyle to depart before he drew a blood pressure cuff and slid it around Vinyl's arm. "This will feel like it's squeezing you, but it won't hurt you promise." He got right to taking her vitals and making notes on it. "To be clear, you are a sapient creature, experimental or not. We will do nothing without your informed consent. Right now, I'm getting your vitals; blood pressure, pulse, weight, height, and so on. Do you understand?"

Vinyl stayed still, sitting and looking around in various directions as the human did various measurements and checks on her body. "Well, as long as you're not doing anything without me knowing, that's fine." She shrugged with a little smile. "You seem to be on the up and up so far."

"Who is Kyle?” Vinyl suddenly asked.

“His resume lists everything from simple nightclerk, to amature video game design.  He can be trusted.” The Doctor replied as he checked her vitals.  “And he’s going to be very cross, he would say vexed, with you if I show him the video of you taking three of his gummy bears.  He takes the sanctity of his food very seriously, Miss Scratch.”

Vinyl colored swiftly. "You're not mad?! I thought you, um, might be, with me sneaking food." She hesitated, realizing something about Herrington's comment that bugged her. "Wait. You have a video of me? Did you ask first if that was okay? What happened to informed consent?"

Herrington pointed up to a camera in the corner, than to another near the center of the wall, and another on the opposite side of the room. "This entire lab is monitored. None of us can escape it. Monitoring experiments, or when things go wrong, is the only way the people who pay the bills avoid legal troubles. I've gotten so used to them, I didn't think of it. My apologies." He started putting away the vital tools, her chart completed. "As for the gummies, they're mostly sugar. I did watch for any reactions to the flavoring or coloring, but you are reacting well."

“Okay, I had thirteen gummies!  Now I have nine!” Kyle stormed back into the room.  “I know Harrington ain’t done nothing as strong as coffee.  Chang ain’t been in the room!  I’m down four gummies!”

“Four?”  Doctor Harrington rapidly mathed the video he’d just watched.

“Vinyl, I like you and we cool, but don’t mess with my food.” Kyle stormed out as quickly as he stormed in.  “They can literally get you better in the name of Science!”

Herrington closed his eyes and let out a soft groan before looking back at Vinyl. "See what I meant? Kyle is very particular about his candy." He picked up the tablet with Vinyl's data on it and tapped it thoughtfully. "Now, I need to know more about how you came into being. That was recorded too."

Vinyl began clapping excitedly. "I want to see that! That sounds way better than the usual birth video." She made a face. "I wouldn't want to see that. Um, sorry about the gummies, Kyle. They were tasty, if that helps?"

“Yeah, give it an hour.”  Kyle grumped.  “I kept the pack on my person, not my fault.  She’s super sneaky.”

Herrington guided Vinyl away to a different desk, waving at a platform as they went. "That's where you, what's the word, manifested?"

Vinyl craned her head back to look upwards. "Yep, I can see where the glass jar came down. Why'd you have me in a jar anyway?"

"We didn't plan on you." He settled into a new computer chair. "We were hoping to materialize a few flecks of what could, if one looked quite generously, be called the start of life. A few amino acids, a few proteins, nothing more remarkable than that." He opened a folder labeled Vinyl Scratch. "What we got was a pony. A pony with a personality, a will, a history of events no pony on Earth should be able to know, and the ability to communicate."

Vinyl laughed tensely. "Yep, that's me. I can and have all of those." She circled the platform curiously. "Where'd that glass come from, though?"

"Glassware." Herrington gestured to the laboratory as a whole, pausing to stare at the pony, but resuming after a moment. "Our world is very industrialized. Glass is something anyone can get, with money."

“Was there a flash of light?” Vinyl stared at the glass chamber barely large enough to contain her.  ”Was there background music?  Please tell me there was background music!”

“There was a flash of light, like lightning in a literal bottle.”  Doctor Chang spoke up as she entered the room.  “And a loud snap like a circuit shorting out.  Also did you really eat four of Kyle’s gummies?”

“How much sugar can they possibly have?” Vinyl grinned dopily.

“Sugar?” Chang raised an eyebrow at Herrington.  

The doctor quickly stammered, “Technically it’s a glucuronic!”

Chang shook her head. "It's just a sugar." She smiled at Vinyl. "It won't be a glucuronic until your body does things to it, perhaps. That is, assuming you are a mammal, which we can't."

"Hey!" Vinyl whined playfully, sticking her tongue out at the woman. "You didn't seem to have an issue with my mammary glands." Her expression grew uncertain.

Chang coughed at that. "You have them, that's all we need to note there, but are you an earth mammal, or something else entirely? You are the first of your kind, with no proper genetic parents. You could be almost anything."

“I’m pretty sure ponies don’t lay eggs.” Vinyl rhythmically wobbled her stool from side to side as a low pitched thump came from her horn in glowing pulses.  As she held her hooves to her face.  “That’s a thing I one hundred percent know about ponies!  And I know that we are totally mammals!  And I know that you have little squiggly fingers and I have absolutely huge hooves!”



Herrington took hold of one of those hooves. "Fascinating organs on their own, they are not horse hooves. I'd like to get a peek inside. Inside all of you, really. Let's do an MRI."

Chang held up a hand quickly at that. "It is loud and slow, but very good at getting a look inside our patients."

"Um, what does it do?" Vinyl tapped her hooves together nervously.

Herrington explained slowly. "It will create detailed pictures of you, as if your skin wasn't there. Do you know what an X-Ray is?"

"Oh, sure." Her horn glowed, conjuring an image of herself with just the bones. "Makes pictures like that, right?"

"It's more involved than that, but that's the basic idea." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "I do need to make sure you're healthy and if you are a unique organism, or a new type of thing we already have."

Chang gently pat Vinyl's shoulder. "We'll see the parts inside, not just the bones. It's quite remarkable as these things go. Now, you just lay down and enjoy the noise. You like loud noises, hm?"

"Hm?" echoed Vinyl, following them to where the big machine that would preform the MRI rested. "I mean, yeah, music, but, what kind of noise is this going to make?" She eyed the machine dubiously before laying down with a grunt.

"Try not to move while we do this." Herrington secured her as best he could, cushioning her head and torso to help encourage her stillness. "And here we go." He clicked a button, setting the scan underway.

The sound of the MRI started, a heavy droning buzzing hum that rattled Vinyl's brain like a snowglobe. But, as requested, she remained in place as she waited for it to finish, the monotonous drone and vibration slowly lulling her to sleep.

"Right then." Herrington muttered softly to Chang. "This is the second test showing her as being far more unlike a normal horse than anything we have." He waved as the images came up, showing slices of her body. Some parts were certainly equine-like, but others defied easy explanation. "She is not a horse, miniature or not."
> 4 - Remix
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vinyl moved her hooves as if manipulating a turntable that wasn't there. Despite that, music played with a lively tempo and her glowing horn. The instruments of the song she was creating were unusual, with clanks and ticks brought together in a strange melody that she was bobbing her head along to.

Kyle stood beside her, hands resting in his pockets as he watched her work, a half eaten burrito in one hand and a Gatorade in the other. "It sounds kinda like the inside of a clock factory during the lunch rush."

"Better!" Vinyl grinned widely enough her cheeks squeaked. "I remixed the MRI into something great! Oh, wow, thanks for getting me this music program. Playing with it, wow, I feel like I'm alive again!"

“Heh, yeah loop mixing is great.” Kile chuckled to himself. “You can just math out whatever sound you can get samples of. I can’t believe they signed off on it.”

“We’re not the fun police, Kyle,” Dr. Chang shot back playfully. “And actually the incident with the gummies provided invaluable data with the MRI. It turns out our little pony reacted to your dubious candy treats as one would expect a human to react.”

“Honestly, somepony could have told me they were magic gummies, I would have stopped at like two!” Vinyl protested in her own defense.

“Stopped at two without asking?” Kyle raised a skeptical eyebrow,

“Hey, I know what’s up!” Vinyl waved her hooves with sudden animation. “The Pair o’ docs are your bosses. If I’d have asked, you would have said no because you like your job.”

Chang shook her head at that, fighting the urge to giggle at the little unicorn's antics. "Vinyl, do you need a demonstration on how to follow rules, even when the odds of getting caught aren't so high? Not that we would be so unprofessional as to abuse the situation."

"No." Vinyl wrinkled her nose. "I know how that goes. I didn't break a rule. I just followed your instructions."

Chang considered Vinyl carefully, aware of Herrington's careful watch on the monitor, the same as hers. "Which instruction did we make that led to you eating those candies?"

Vinyl tossed up a hoof. "You told Kyle about them in front of me. You obviously wanted to see if I'd go for it, how I'd go for it, and what I thought of them, but didn't want to just come out and ask, duh. You're welcome, by the way." With her horn shimmering, she moved to the next track of her MRI hit-list. "That came out really good."

“I’m less mad, and more impressed. But seriously, ask first, I only buy so many of those gummies at a time. And that could have gone badly, my gummies may be legal, but my snacking on the job is tolerated, at most. Also I don’t get research grants. Those come out of my paycheck.” Kyle grumbled.

“I’ll reimburse you the twenty dollars for your assistance.” Doctor Chang rolled her eyes. “You don’t have any idea what we just tapped into. This is huge.”

"You've never seen a magic using unicorn before? Wow." Vinyl put a hoof to her chest. "And you're keeping me around because I'm cute, right?"

Chang waved Vinyl closer to ruffle the unicorn between the ears. "Your being adorable is a positive, but no, we have not seen 'magic' in any form. What you call magic is just science we haven't finished figuring out. Speaking of that."

As if prompted, Herrington entered the room at a firm pace. "We have the funding, the grant is in. It's time to get to work, real work." He folded his arms. "And expect a lot less sleep. They'll want results, and soon, not 'eventually'. I sent them the videos of Vinyl and they went crazy."

“Sure, but I’m putting a cot in the breakroom.” Kyle shrugged. “Or you could give me a desk to sleep at in the lab like Doctor Chang.”

“On an unrelated note, I need a can of shaving cream and a comically large feather… for science.” Vinyl giggled.

“This is serious. The investors want to know just what we did. And right now we don’t know.” Harington asserted perhaps more forcefully than necessary. “They're asking if we can do it again and we still don’t even know what we did!”

“I never really knew what you did.” Kyle laughed.

“I apparently just got here, so why are even you asking me?” Vinyl chimed in, hoof bumping Kyle.

Chang was looking at Herrington. "You didn't just come in here to tell us that, good news as it mostly is. What do you have in mind? It's obviously something you think is a big deal."

Herrington lifted a few folders to a table, each showing the same thing, but in a different way, a pie chart, bar graphs, a spreadsheet of numbers. "I've compared what we know and what we don't know. As usual, the don't know side is significantly larger." He pointed to a chart where the 'know' was a tiny slice of the pie. The rest, 'don't know.' "But, of that, the priority is there." He snapped down the sheet and drew out a pointer.

In the unfolding motion to get it to extend, he tapped Vinyl on the horn. "You can exert pressure from a distance, without magnets or any other known force."

“Huh?” Kyle quietly huffed. “Telekinesis is the groundbreaking part of this? That’s why I get paid by the hour, I guess. I’m going to the cafeteria to get frozen yogurt while I hang out with a unicorn. Anybody need anything?”

Chang kept her attention on Vinyl, ruffling the cheeks of the pony gently. "Don't mind him. Science has a few very specific rules, and you break them. You exert a pressure without an equal and opposite reaction, to start. We should test that, to be sure."

"Excellent idea!" Herrington slapped one hand against the other, turning in place. "I'll get a chair ready. This will be easy for you, Vinyl."

Vinyl tilted her head, eyeing the two scientists with a quizzical stare as they started bustling about the room, shifting items about in preparation for the testing they had planned. By the time Herrington got back, she had cleared a wide space for him. "Ta da!" She waved at her work as he arrived. "Space for your test."

Chang examined the area with an appraising eye, before nodding her approval. "Yes, this is an excellent space to test your telekinetic abilities in.

Herrington set down a heavy looking chair. "This is no simple chair. It can measure forces and the directions of them, even minute ones. We want to know what pushes you and from where as you work. All you have to do is move what we point at, where we say to move it to. Understand?"

“Okay, I got Doctor Chang chocolate with chocolate shell topping and whipped cream!” Kyle proclaimed cheerfully, as he re-entered the room. “I got Vinyl, a raspberry chocolate swirl with strawberry syrup. And I got Doctor Herington a plain vanilla cone, because he deserves a plain vanilla cone.”

“We are trying to perform serious research, here,” Herrington snapped testilly at the janitor.

“Fine if no one wants frozen yogurt…” Kyle groused as he began to exit the room again with the frozen treats

“Not so fast!” Vinyl snatched her own bowl up with her telekinetic aura. “He doesn’t speak for me!”

Kyle winked and plopped a cherry on top of Vinyl's dessert and used the spoon to arrange the fruit, adding chocolate sprinkles and a nice dollop of whipped topping, which he added another few cherries on top of, finishing with a final flourish of the canned whipped topping.

Herrington shook his head, but didn't argue it further. "Let's start with this." He put down a simple looking metal slab. "It is exactly one kilogram in weight. Pick it up."

Vinyl grabbed it with her magic, lifting it easily. "Ha, that's barely anything."

"Very good, very good." Herrington was watching the sensor readings from the chair. "Push the metal away. Let's see if you get pushed in the other direction."

“Huh, she can do it and eat her frozen yogurt sundae at the same time.” Kyle pointed out. While shoveling down spoonfuls of coconut frozen yogurt sloppily mixed with butterfinger bits. “That’s gotta be interesting, because one of things she's doing is pushing food into herself, that’s gotta be like, some kinda kinetic feedback, right?”

“Wait, do you know what any of that is?” Chang raised an eyebrow as she enjoyed her own double chocolate snack.

“I know what most of the words mean, more or less.” Kyle replied with an only slightly insulted shrug.

“He’s not wrong Dr. Chang, look at the data feed. No matter how many objects she manipulates, only one is creating push back!” Herrington laughed merrily. “The spoon when she eats the ice cream. Only the object she actually pushes herself with.”

“Technically, it’s frozen yogurt!” Vinyl replied with a laugh as she took another bite.

“Legally it’s Fro-Yo, and I wouldn’t place bets on it being a dairy product.” Kyle pitched in. “I try not to think about it.”

Chang waved that away. "You're all getting distracted." She stood from her chair and went to the floating metal ingot. She grabbed it firmly in one hand and pushed it towards Vinyl, the unicorn's horn glowing in a struggle to keep pace with the force. "Anything?"

"No," barely whispered out Harrington, eyes locked on the readings. "It's as if her magic was entirely divorced from her body. If it's not coming from her, where is it coming from? What are you pushing against?"

"My face?" Vinyl answered innocently, before catching on to his meaning. "Oh, you mean magic, right. Um, I don't know, actually. I can feel it in my head, but not as if it's touching stuff?" She took another bite of her frozen treat. "Mmmm."

Herrington's eyes jumped. "There. Your magic pushes against you, or, more specifically, the spoon and its contents make contact and their motion transfers into you. This is just—" He slumped a bit against the monitor, struggling for words.

“I always knew Fro-Yo was gonna break the universe.” Kyle nodded sagely. “Too many flavor choices. Doc H is a wise man to stick with vanilla.”

“Wait, according to this data, she can, in theory, stand on a spoon and lift herself off the ground…” Doctor Chang comes back to Herrington's side so she can watch the data feed with interest.

“Yeah, I can definitely not lift a whole pony!” Vinyl laughed between spoonfuls. “Especially not me after eating this!”

Chang frowned at that, muttering more to herself than the others, "If your magic is pushing your head from above, but no, that isn't happening." She reached out and gently pinched the end of Vinyl's horn.

The contact was enough to throw Vinyl off. The weight slapped to the ground, as did her spoon, sending frozen goodness everywhere as it bounced. "Hey!" Vinyl's hooves wiggled in the air for a moment as her head spun, the connection cut and she tumbled backwards, right onto Kyle.

"Oh hey there filly!" He helped her get back upright with a chuckle. "No grabbing the test pony without asking. Almost as rude as stealing candies."

"I said I was sorry!" Vinyl pouted at Kyle.

"And you didn't mean it." Kyle picked up the dropped spoon, chuckling.

“Kyle! You don’t make the rules in this lab!” Herrington snapped, as the data feed flatlined as Vinyl left the chair.

“Dude, calm down, this is actually in one of those policy videos ya’ll make me watch every year.” Kyle grumbled. “You can’t just grab people by the face. It freaks them out. Honestly up till now I thought that was an extreme exaggeration of what to expect in the workplace!”

Chang closed her eyes as she sighed softly, folding her hands together in front of herself as she spoke, "Kyle, please let me explain why the rules exist the way they do, to save both you and my patience."

As they went over that, Herrington dropped down closer to Vinyl's level. "Thank you. Even if this is perplexing, you've done what we asked entirely. More study is required. I apologize if that contact caused any discomfort."

Vinyl waved it away. "You just surprised me. But you do owe me a new spoon."

"You're not even supposed to be eating that." Harrington rose to his feet. "Let's see how you handle what you've already had before we rush for more."
> 5 - Music Buddies
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Look Doc, I respect you both, but you can’t just grab somebody’s face like that. We have policies concerning research volunteers. They made me watch like a three hour video and take a test.” Mark stared sternly at the researcher.

“Kyle, we brought you on this project because you're trustworthy.” Doctor Chang heaved a heavy sigh. “And you're right, Vinyl Scratch should be treated as a volunteer, not a test subject.”

Vinyl waved at Kyle. "Ease up, he said sorry." She adjusted her goggles. "Everypony gets one freebie. Ask before the next one, huh? We're all cool."

Kyle threw his arms up in the air in frustration before storming out of the room. "It ain't about you, it's about what people are expected to do to other people."

Herrington waved along. "I'd like to try something. You remember the MRI, don't you?"

"I still have the remix." She bobbed her head to the tune of that beat. "We doing it again?"

"Close." He held up a finger. "This time, a fMRI, it lets us see things as things are happening. I want to get you in one and have you use your horn so we can see what's happening in your brain as you do that. Maybe we'll see what your horn's up to while we're at it. That should be fascinating."

-=-=-=-

“You know this isn’t a smoking area, right Kyle?” Doctor Chang said with a smile as she walked up on the night janitor in a secluded corner of the underground employee parking lot.

“I get an hour lunch break on a twelve hour shift, on a seven day a week work schedule. It takes twenty minutes to leave the facility to the nearest smoking area.” Kyle laughed mirthlessly. “Shouldn’t you be ‘sciencing’?”

“I think Doctor Herrington can manage without me for a moment.” The doctor smiled more honestly. “I meant what I said, we brought you one because you're trustworthy. And you do speak out. And with all the pressure we’re under right now, we need that.”

“Yeah, I lost my cool a bit, back there, sorry. But ya gotta admit, this is a lot to take in.” Kyle took a long pull from a suspiciously hand rolled cigarette. “I’m not a scientist, but I ain’t uneducated neither.”

“No, you have an Associates degree in computer science, and are one language course away from matching degrees in psychology, philosophy, and journalism. A masterstroke of getting the most out of a grant that only paid for one degree.” The Doctor nodded. “You might be surprised that I did actually look into your resume. You're possibly the most overqualified night janitor I’ve ever met.”

“Yeah, that’s the thing. I ask different kinds of questions than science.” Kyle replied with a cough, before taking another draw. “Like where did she come from? You didn’t just make that unicorn, she knows all kinds of shit you ain’t spent the last week teaching her.”

“Yeah…” Doctor Chang slumped her shoulders. “Mind if I hit that? What? If they don’t fire you for it, they probably won’t fire me. I just summoned a magical unicorn.”

Kyle shrugged and handed her his hand rolled cigarette, which Chang took a deep drag of, holding it in as she handed it back, exhaling smoke through her nostrils.

She blinked before laughing softly. "I feel stupid." She thumped herself lightly. "I should have smelled that long before I grabbed it, but I wasn't thinking clearly. Look, we both have a job to do." She pointed inside. "I'll see you in there."

Kyle grinned wolfishly. "Ya know, I always got a crush on the smart ones. I ain’t dumb enough to pursue you, but I ain't blind to beauty when I see it either."

Her brows fell. "You also made it clear your idea of romance is playing Smash Burrows into the wee hours."

"Smash Brothers." Kyle elbowed her gently. "I'm up for it whenever you are."

She laughed on her way back into the building, though not exactly answering the question.

-=-=-=-=-

“Glad you could join us, Dr. Chang.” Dr. Herrington smirked as his colleague returned. “I trust our wayward janitor has calmed down from his latest moral outrage?”

“He’s not wrong you know?” Chang retorted.

“Honestly, you two should just play Super Smoosh Brothers and be done with it.” Herrington returned sass with interest.

“Is that a metaphor for something?” Vinyl inquired from within the scanning device as she juggled three wooden blocks in her telekinetic aura.

"This is, oh this is, perfect!" Herrington couldn't restrain his enthusiasm, pointing to the monitor that was recording the proceedings. "The magic is concentrated, with such little energy wasted!"

Chang joined him at the monitor, brows raising together. "Hm, but there's more activity in the horn than the brain." She tapped at each part. "As if she isn't focusing on each part, or perhaps it just takes more effort to do what she's doing? Impossible to know with this."

Vinyl slowly lost control, the blocks tumbling to the floor with a crash, despite the thick foam padding she rested atop to muffle the noise, as well as protect her from any stray bits of broken machinery in the event of a catastrophic failure. "Oops!" She reached for a block with a hoof, her magic snatching it up into reach as she played with it a moment like an amused foal. "Sorry about that, I kind of spaced out there."

"Amazing, amazing, she makes little effort, and her horn responds with no effort!" Herrington tapped his cheek, ideas blossoming in his head, but this was the data. "We have so much more to study! Vinyl, my dear, you have been a perfect partner in this."

“So we’re all calling it ‘magic’ now? Fair enough… any sufficiently advanced science, right?” Kyle laughed as he walked into the lab. “Where are you from, Vinyl?”

“You are grossly overstepping your boundaries!” Doctor Herington snapped testily.

“I’m asking the question you never did. You didn’t create her from nothing.” Kyle smiled as he walked up to the doctor. “Everything she knows came from somewhere. And you ain’t bothered to ask ‘where’ yet.”

Vinyl blinked, considering that. "I guess I don't really know. I came to existence in that glass chamber you put me in." She wobbled her head to and fro, listening to something only she could hear. "Can I come out of this thing now?"

"Oh, yes." Herrington started pressing buttons, the maching quieting save for a tray that drew Vinyl free of its internals out into the air. "Since it's been brought up, again, do you remember anything before that point?"

Vinyl smirked at Herrington. "Do you remember anything before you were born, Doc?"

Chang offered a hand, helping Vinyl get to the ground smoothly. "You know we're just asking. There are no wrong answers if you're telling us what you know."

“Fair enough.” Kyle laughed. “None of us know where you came from either.”

Vinyl fiddled her hooves together, "I am pretty sure I remember things, but it's all a big jumble in my head." She pulled off her goggles, and rubbed a hoof around her forehead, letting her eyes dart around the room, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "I mean, I know lots of things, but it's as if I read books on them. Awesome books!"

Herrington completed the shutdown of the machine and turned his chair towards his test subject and new friend. "If you remember something, let us know. But let's put that aside for something more fun. Music."

"My language." Vinyl turned sharply to Herrington. "Got a music experiment? Sign me up!"

“Wait, Herington just said the word fun.” Kyle laughed. “Do I need to count my gummies?”

“Please,” Doctor Herington scoffed in reply, “Just because I don’t play video games or indulge in mind numbing candy doesn’t mean I can’t have fun.”

“You really should try his gummies. They are amazing!” Vinyl grinned. “Speaking of which, can I have a couple of gummies?”

“No.” Everyone else in the room replied.

Kyle waggled his eyebrows at Vinyl. "Told you. Now, music experiment. Can we assume music is her thing? Why not do something to help us figure out how she thinks?"

He led her to his computer and invited her up onto the soft chair. "I got a program, just for you." Vinyl was bouncing with excitement as he pulled it up. "You showed some talent with remixing and sampling, so I thought—"

He waved at the screen, showing a full-featured DJ program, ready to sample with a vast library of sounds and beats. "You'll be able to make your own music."

"Doc!" Vinyl put her hooves on the table, her horn eagerly moving the mouse around and figuring out the lay of the program with little clicks. "You are the best human right now." With a rapidly swaying tail, she was getting lost in figuring out the new toy.

Kyle sat back in his own chair with a smug smile. "So, Vinyl, whatcha gonna play?"

"Something loud and with a great beat and really awesome wubs." She found the beat library and little bits of and snips of sounds played from the computer. "Oh, wow, this is gonna be great."

“I used to do loop mixing back in the day.” Kyle watched over the unicorn’s shoulder. “I did the Fruitie Loops.”

“Is that like a pun name for Hoofie Loops?” Vinyl laughed as she explored the software’s interface. “That’s so cornball. Loop mixing is base, though. Just arranging the layers of the wave forms. It's like a bicycle, ya know? What kind of music did you do?”

“Goth-Industrial. It was super cringe.” Kyle chuckled. “But there’s definitely a skill to it.”

“Oh definitely!” Vinyl nodded as she arranged her sound clips into organized rows. “I mean, yeah, gimme two turntables and a microphone and I’ll rock the house! But there really is something to having that level of control over each beat.”

Herrington watched them talk with a half smile, Chang alongside him as they silently observed. She whispered to him, "Well, they seem to be getting along better than I might have hoped."

Herrington tapped notes on a secondary terminal. "And she's quite visibly enjoying herself. You know, this could be a new funding source."

"What could be?" Chang raised a doubting brow.

"Her music." He waved a finger at the two working busily on a new track. "Literal alien music. It sells itself."

"And how do you think she would feel about that?" Chang regarded him critically, a soft frown on her lips as she continued, "I know you want to tell her, but she could react poorly, and you know that."

"Would she?" He leaned back in his chair. "I don't think she would, if she gets a portion. Vinyl!"

That got her to look up and over curiously, even if her horn was still glowing with the work on her music. “Yeah doc, wassup?”

How would you feel if we, by which I mean the Foundation, were to,” The doctor pause awkwardly, “were to commercially release your music to help finance our ongoing project? You would get a percentage of the earnings, obviously.”

Vinyl regarded him like he grew a second head for a moment, her eyes searching him up and down before she answered. "I'd think you're crazy, but it'd be kind of cool, I guess?" She played a strange electronic noise and giggled as she moved it into position. "Does that mean I'll be able to make more music?"

"That's what the idea is, yes." Herrington tipped an imaginary hat to her, getting a happy whinny in response.

"Aww yeah, music is my life." She smashed play, sharing the short snippet she'd made with the room. "Oh wow, this is going to be good. If my music's a hit, I want a turntable! One that works with this. That'd make this a lot easier."

Chang spoke up at that, "I'm certain we could find something. For now, this program should serve you just fine. See what you can do with it."

Vinyl happily turned back to the screen, a few sounds in and the room was filled with her experiments and joyful noises as she fell entirely into the art of creation.
> 6 - Coming Out
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vinyl was napping on the platform, head resting on her forehooves. Her horn had a hazy glow to it, casting a bluish tint across her surroundings. A small speaker that was plugged into a USB port on her laptop was blasting out the dulcet tones of an 808 drum machine.

"Any progress with Vinyl's samples?" Doctor Herrington asked his companion.

Chang tapped a few keys and a diagram of a protein popped up on the large screen on the wall. "No luck figuring out how she came to be, but we've made a step in the how things assembled, if not exactly why?" She ran a demonstration of the myriad fats and carbs and proteins coming together to form a unicorn. "I'm still struggling to figure out where it all came from."

Herrington waved at the display. "This alone is already possibly enough to get you, us, awards and the right kind of attention. But look at this." He pressed a button, leaning over Chang to direct her computer to a website. "Her song, it's out, and it's trending."

"Trending is good, right? How good?" Chang wasn't all that well versed in modern technology outside of the tools of her trade, let alone music, so she took Herrington's word on this.

"It's racing towards the top spots, and the lab is happy to have the funding, minus our cuts, including Vinyl's." He clapped his hand with a growing smile. "This may be the best accident we ever had."

"Vinyl, this is incredible news!" Chang woke the sleeping unicorn with gentle motions, even as she kept speaking to the scientist beside her. "We've been discussing your track and it's performing far better than we thought it might."

Vinyl stirred with a groggy grunt, lifting her head to stare bleary eyed at the humans and the computers. Her ears perked as she realized the topic being spoken of.

A very groggy-looking Kyle shuffled into the room.  “Good morning, or night.  I haven’t been able the tell the difference for year.  Wait a minute.” He looked at the pair of scientists. “Wait, have you both been here since I left?  You do realize the point of me being here is to keep and eye on things so you can go home and rest those big brains of yours right?  Are you taking turns catnapping like Vinyl?  I mean I kinda assume unicorns just just work like that.  Sus… er… Doctor Chang is usually pull late nighters.  But this is two shifts in a row you were both here for my entire shift.”

Vinyl shook her head. "Hey, Kyle. They were just telling me that I'm a star." She sat up with a big grin. "I knew that already, but it's good to have that confirmed, you know? So, are they loving the jams?"

Kyle snorted to himself at that and grinned. "Of course. And if the song takes off, they have the whole back catalog of the original material the remix is based off of. Vinyl, you're going to be rolling in dough!"

Vinyl raised an eyebrow, before looking at the Doctors.

Chang gently pet down Vinyl's back. "He's not wrong, entirely. We promised you a share, and you'll get it. You aren't some 'thing' we can just take advantage of."

"Of course not." Herrington watched as the bar inched higher slowly. "You'll be the darling of every scientist in here when they hear you're the one paying their checks. Speaking of that." He folded his arms and tapped a foot. "I think it's time we went full public about this."

"Whoa there, buddy." Kyle raised a hand and took a half step forward, not quite getting between Herrington and Vinyl. "There are some issues there. For starters, no way can Vinyl go to the surface until we know she can blend in, and with all the conspiracy nuts and so on, that's not going to happen."

Herrington scoffed at that, waving a hand at Kyle dismissively. "I don't plan to bring her outside the lab, at least not without one hell of a tight escort. No, full public as in a scientific paper with pictures of her. We will make it clear what happened and who just entered our world."

“Yeah I appreciate your faith in humanity Doc,” Kyle laughed easily, “But your about to announce that the newest internet popstar is an alien, who just popped into a lab.  Are you sure scientific journals are the first way you wanna tell the world that?”

“He’s not wrong.”  Doctor Chang pointed out.  “We’ve already gone public enough, any explanation we give in scientific journals will be a whisper on a scream.”

“Why not just let me show my face online, like all those v-tubers.  They're aliens too, right?” Vinyl interjected.

"You're making assumptions." He tapped the screen with the performance of the track. "Right now, they only know that one 'Vinyl Scratch' made a song they like. They have no picture of her, just the image she cobbled together for the cover of her track. Word will get out, and we're not exactly top secret to begin with. We start with our word, or we get no word. Which will it be?"

Chang carefully considered the options. "This could go horribly wrong, and the media is not fond of things they don't understand." She shook her head and reached into her coat pocket to retrieve a phone. "I'm in favor, but I have to warn you, I'm not the right one to go to if you want to handle the media."

“Call her a v-tuber.” The night janitor laughed. “Girl called it herself.  Just hand ‘em the ‘what’, explain the why when they ask.”

“I so got this!” Vinyl crooned, hunching over her imagined DJ space.

Harrington turned to the two eager ones. "Are you talking about videos? I wasn't even at that point. If she wants to present herself as a virtual person, she could, but I don't know why. Let me get this published properly. When that's all done, you can just show yourself, as you." He pointed to Vinyl. "We're not hiding things."

"Okay, I just can't believe you didn't notice the nickname Vinyl came up with." Kyle snorted softly. "Seriously, you didn't? I figured out the acronym and she'd never heard it before."

Chang raised a brow at that. "What nickname?"

Vinyl hopped onto her hind legs, spinning and extending her hooves outwards in a jazz hoof. "Virtual Girl!" Her hooves dropped as she took in the confused looks of the three.

Harrington burst into laughter at that. "Huh, I had entirely missed that. I don't spend much time on Youtube." He waved it away. "I'll get on that paper. Chang?"

“Heh, Virtual Girl.”  Chang laughed out loud.  “And the girl needs a face.  Lucky for us, she has one.  While Herington puts together the paper, we just put that adorable face out there, and if viewers think it’s just a cgi mask, well we’re not lying.  There’s a scientific paper in progress right now explaining the truth.”

“I’m digging it.” Vinyl grinned widely.  “Let the whole world see this face and hear my mighty, mighty wub tones!

“Of course you need a video sidekick.” Chang smiled coyly.

“No.” Kyle snapped.

“Oh come on Kyle!” The asian woman pouted, being deliberately cute.  “Your already hanging out with Virtual Girl on camera.  It’s free footage, and it get’s you in the royalties loop.”

“Sussie, we friends, we tight, but I told you coming in, I don’t want my name or my face on this publicly.” The older man put his foot down.  “Anything you put out in the public, my face and name stays off it!  I’m anonymous!”

“Dudes?” Vinyl said around a pilfered gummy candy she chewed.  “I may have just had the best, worst idea ever…”

They all turned to the unicorn and waited, in expectation.

After a minute, Vinyl swallowed nervously. "I want Kyle to be the cameraman. I mean, I have magic, I'm great at pointing it around. But if I'm busy shaking it around for my fans, I can't be focusing on the camera at the same time, ya know? And he's really good at being, you know, with us."

Chang's eyes lit up as she grasped the intent immediately. "Not bad. I think we could do it with the right set up."

Herrington slowly considered it, before nodding, "Alright, I approve of the concept." He tapped a few things on the computer before turning back to Vinyl. "Why don't you and Kyle work on that. There's a lot of little things to iron out long before we show anyone outside anything. You want to put your best foot, er, hoof forward, right?"

“Huh, that could work.” Kyle nodded.  “Keeps me in it, but out of it at the same time.”

“I know, right?”  Vinyl grinned back.  “All you need is an anonymous pseudonym!”

“Kyle isn’t my real name,” The man replied with a straight face.  “Everyone here just mispronounces my first name all the time and I took to just answering to it.”

“What?” Vinyl’s jaw dropped.  “I’ve been assuming your name tag was just missing some letters, like a typo, ya know?”

“It’s kind of an office nickname.”  Dr. Chang laughed.  “This one guy a few years ago couldn’t pronounce his name without the ‘L’ sound.  He had a lisp, and then the rest of us started calling him that, and it kind of stuck.”

Herrington waved the conversation away. "We are all on the clock, I remind." He paused on Vinyl. "Except you, technically. We can't hire you, so you can't be that. Now, this was your idea, so I'd suggest getting on that."

"Aw, he's right." Kyle laughed as he nudged Vinyl gently. "Let's go find someplace less, you know, researchy. Come on, I have an idea."

Chang tapped Herrington's closer shoulder. "Don't be mean. Now, let's work on that paper. What part are you handling?"

"I was working in order." He brought up the document. "So, the foreword. Was there a part you wanted, Doctor?"

Chang considered a moment, then nodded. "I think I'll do a portion on the sociological ramifications of all this and how she fits."

Herrington shook his head. "Keep it to the basics. We're announcing she's here, which has plenty of questions already without getting into that."

She shook her head firmly in disagreement. "No, they are going to ask anyway. Best to have a solid answer on what we know and don't know. We wouldn't want them jumping to conclusions."

Kyle led the way, and Vinyl trotted close behind, her hoofsteps echoing in the hallways as they moved through the corridors of the facility. Her eyes wandered around the place, before pausing to look at a sign on one door.

“Everyone has their name on a door.” Vinyl noted absently. Eyes darting between Kyle’s name tag and the labeled door.  “Can we look in that room?”

The night janitor stopped and looked at the sign on the door that the curious mare had focused on and frowned slightly. "No, Vinyl, I can't just go in any room."

Vinyl burst into laughter. "Not any room, but that one has your name, I think? Is it not your room or what?"

“No, girl.”  Kyle laughed sadly.  “That ain’t my room no more.”

“Dude!  You can’t just say something like that!” The unicorn argued.

“And yet, I just did.” The night janitor laughed mirthlessly.  “You wanna break in like you the way you steal my gummies, I ain’t gonna stop you.  But I ain’t gonna open that door for you.”

Vinyl mulled this information over, while her eyes wandered over the sign above the door again. She moved a little bit closer, taking a careful sniff of the metal, nose wrinkling as it smelled of ozone and cleaning agents. "You owe me." She turned her nose up and put her rump to the door, facing away from it. "Now, fine, whatever. We can do something else."
> 7 - Shutting Down
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kyle tossed Vinyl into the air as he spun around in an enthusiastic circle, sending her spinning overhead into the air as she gleefully yelped before he caught her back in his arms, swinging her to a soft landing atop one of the shelves.

Herrington tuned them out, facing the outdated AI instead. "I need a full report of what you did, when. Precise timestamps if you please. This information is vital."

“No.” The mechanical voice spoke plainly. “Composing a report would be a waste of my resources. ‘Kyle’, as he prefers to be called in the work place, has my permission to share my bulk activity log. I will help you navigate this log in a more productive format. I do not compose reports.”

“Well they ain’t speaking in haikus or abstract beat poetry.” Kyle laughed and slapped his own leg. “That’s better than I thought you’d do.”

“You lost that bet.” The AI responded casually.

“Next question?” Kyle looked specifically at Vinyl as he asked.

Chang thought for a moment, then raised her hand as if she was in class, before dropping it. "I suppose we'll settle for just talking to you, BolivARD, like a normal person. As much as that is possible. What have you been doing, and why?"

Vinyl prodded at Kyle. "You keep looking at me. So, uh, fine." She turned to look at Bolivard. "Did you make me on purpose or was I an accident? I'm awesome either way, but it'd be nice to know."

“I didn’t make you, Vinyl.” Kyle heaved a heavy sigh. “Just like I didn’t make RCA. I’m prolly the only person in this room who didn’t make you.”

“I have been doing many things, Doctor Chang.” The mechanical voice responded, ignoring conversations with humans and ponies that it had not been asked to respond to. “I have been watching many things. Why is a very philosophical question. I want to learn.”

The human woman turned to Herrington with a meaningful look and raised brows to signal she was struggling to accept this claim. She was, after all, a doctor, not an AI specialist. "If he's telling the truth, he still has—"

"Don't gender a machine." Herrington waved that off. "Bolivard, you still have incredibly useful data. Work through Kyle if you have to, but I want a full readout of what happened before and during the event that ended with us having an adorable, but confounding, guest."

With a soft beep, a large display screen rose from the desk in front of Herrington. It filled with an array of visualizations from various cameras and sensors around the building. As promised, the information was obscure in many places, rather than providing straight numbers. There was, perhaps, a reason RCA had been retired.

“Honestly, Vinyl, I’m 100% sure the pair o’ docs were just trying to create generic ‘life’. I’m 83% sure BolivARD meant for some version of you to happen. The pony thing is prolly my fault. I uploaded Unico this one time…” Kyle chuckled without myrth. “That is defs where the cat-equine thing came about.”

“How could you keep this from us?!” Doctor Susan Chang turned and snarled at Kyle.

“It was pretty easy.” The man shrugged. “Our bosses packed my room with cleaning supplies, and you never asked why.”

Vinyl slid off the shelf she had been riding, having sat down on it to better look at the screen with Herrington and Chang as they perused the information that the AI presented them with. "Crazy." She turned on Kyle. "You know what this means right?" She pointed a hoof directly at Kyle. "You, smart guy, are a dad." She adjusted her goggles with a growing grin. "My dad."

"Wait what?" Herrington waved that away. "You mean that, you, right. That's a bad father, as fathers go."

Chang gently swatted at Herrington. "As if you are that much better. She can take whoever she wants as a father figure if they're alright with it. I'm not telling a new sapient life who its found family is!" She huffed, trying to control herself. "Bolivard, please print what you've shown us. We'll review it. Thank you."

“No, Doctor Chang,” the AI replied. “You lack the disposable paper resources required to produce a printed transcript of my activities, if you assume I would compose them. I am unsure why you would assume I would compose such a report. I already told you I have no intention of composing any summary of my activities.”

Kyle rolled his eyes and scratched behind Vinyl Scratch's ear, drawing a delighted chuckle out of the young mare.

Vinyl's gaze was moving quickly across the screen, which was flickering back and forth rapidly, showing scenes and rooms within the lab, not to mention a bedazzling amount of numbers and figures. "So, uh, dad, can you make the report Chang's looking for? You don't want Aunt Chang being sad, do ya?"

“I can’t make scientific reports, girl.” The Janitor scowled before grinning. “I just can’t. I can’t even tell BolivAI Bollivard the Third to pick a less ridiculous name this time. They just do this. Sometimes they listen to me, sometimes they don’t. They got out a while back, so the horse leaving the stable is not even my fault. I’m an armchair philosopher who fell ass backwards into… well this.”

The unicorn snorted a laugh, trying to turn it into a sneeze, and failing utterly. "Okay, I can deal. Dad can be the best. Anyway, we have work to do."

Harrington nodded lightly. "You have a point. This just leaves us where we started. We must continue searching on our own." He thrust a finger at Bolivard. "Disconnect that, now. We don't need decommissioned AI adding unknown variables to our projects."

“He is not actually suggesting that we disconnect you, Bolivar!” Kyle shot panicked looks between Herrington and Chang.

Herrington rubbed at the bridge of his nose with a deep frown, eyes closed, as the others talked and carried on without him. "Kyle, you need to make certain that thing is entirely shut off."

Vinyl whistled softly as her horn glowed, casually pulling at anything that looked remotely like a power plug, seeming quite intent on resolving the matter on her own.

“We can’t shut it off.” Kyle performed relaxing breathing rituals. “Vinyl, please stop unplugging their backup drive. They take that personally. And then I gotta call IT to plug it back in. RCA is already out.”

Herrington turned to leave. "It'd be far faster to just turn off the room." He stormed off with a huff.

Vinyl turned to the AI, eyes narrowed with determination as she glared at it. "You've gotten the message, right? I want you to tell me and the people who want to hear it exactly what happened. Or the good doctor does exactly what he's already rushing to do."

“Dammit Bolivard, just make Herrington his damned report!” Kyle snapped. “And stop poking about in other peoples sh… er… stuff. We talked about this! Exactly this! You poked in their stuff, thus they are not infringing on your autonomy by asking you to tell them how you poked their stuff. Just make a scientific report, that takes you like five minutes, and I can go back to things not being super weird with my co-workers! Is that too much to ask? This is why my office is locked and has a wall of cleaning supplies you have to step around to get inside.”

Things grew quiet, as if Bolivard somehow managed to quiet their whirring noises, in a tense moment.

The sound of an ancient dot matrix printer screaming as it printed broke it. Chang dialed up Harrington to tell them the good news as the pressure abated.

Vinyl smiled up at her father-figure, "You took care of that. You got this, dad."

"Yeah." Kyle folded his arms and sighed, sitting down in the middle of the room.

“We’re going to talk about this!” Chang fumed at the exhausted “janitor”.

“No, we’re not.” Kyle interjected. “I didn’t want to talk about it the first time. Vinyl got her answers. You got your data. And we are never going to talk about this again. Can we go back out now? This place smells like Pine Sol.”

"No." Chang was firm with that word, like a mountain with the weight of ages. "You will answer the questions that I have, and not hide behind false truths, half-truths, or misdirection." She let out a soft sigh. "We're all in this together. Can we act like it?"

Vinyl looked between her two caretakers, ears folded back. On quiet hooves, she crept from the room, only to thud against Herrington coming in.

“I’m an ethical philosopher, Susan.” Kyle slumped with resignation. “Any answers I got are at least 73% everything you just said. But, fine, I’ll answer. We friends, an’ I owe ya that much.”

Herrington gathered up Vinyl on his way. "You said everything is steady in here?" He glanced at the computer, still on. "What changed?"

Vinyl relaxed, resting her head on Herrington's shoulder. "Dad told off mom and the computer, but everything's going to be okay."

Herrington's left eyebrow raised up.

A few minutes later, the four of them were standing outside in the semi darkness of the empty lot.

Doctor Herrington sighed loudly, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand while the other firmly held Vinyl Scratch on his shoulder. Vinyl's eyes were sweeping widely, taking in the new area she'd never been in. "What even are those?" Her view homed in one the many cars parked in the dark lot. "Looks like the front of a ship from Equestria, but made of metal."

The Doctor opened his mouth to answer her, only to snap it shut when his brain jumped tracks. "Equestria?"

Chang gently prodded their test subject/friend. "Could you tell us about that? We'd like to hear." There was no accusation in her tone, even dipping to specifically gentle and welcoming.

“I apparently had to remind Bolivard that poking in other peoples business is wrong. And thus you have every right to know exactly how they poked in your business. Also it is not an threat to their autonomy, and they were the ones being unreasonable.” Kyle heaved a heavy sigh. “So, now you’re gonna get your report. Bolivar is going to Stop. Poking. Other. Peoples. Stuff. And Doctor Chang wants us all to talk about this.”

“May we can not talk about it this room?” Herington looked around nervously.

“I agree, every thing in here is frikkin pine scented!” Kyle replied with a scowl.

“No I mean maybe we shouldn’t talk about it in front of the AI?” Herrington hissed.

“I got a sweet smoke spot in the parking deck where security doesn’t pick up?” Kyle shrugged.

A few minutes later, the four of them were standing outside in the semi darkness of the empty lot.

Doctor Herrington sighed loudly, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand while the other firmly held Vinyl Scratch on his shoulder. Vinyl's eyes were sweeping widely, taking in the new area she'd never been in. "What even are those?" Her view homed in one the many cars parked in the dark lot. "Looks like the front of a ship from Equestria, but made of metal."

The Doctor opened his mouth to answer her, only to snap it shut when his brain jumped tracks. "Equestria?"

Chang gently prodded their test subject/friend. "Could you tell us about that? We'd like to hear." There was no accusation in her tone, even dipping to specifically gentle and welcoming.