Fluffies and the infinity loop

You are a Mexican drug lord. Power, money, women, you have everything. Your cartel manages an entire state - the populace prefer you over the corrupt, inept government because you've put a great deal of resources towards providing for them. You've setup public transit, schools, even hospitals. It's easy for them to overlook what you do when they aren't dying of dysentery. Long ago, you had to worry about law enforcement trying to stop your rise. Now you ARE the law. The public used to see you as a threat to the peace- a degenerate at best- a stain on society. Now you give peace to and nurture that society.

You're no altruist, though. You take care of them so that you can build your empire in a relatively safe haven. You won't stop; you can't stop. If you aren't growing, you're dying. That's why you spent millions to put together a laboratory in secret. That's why you began [the experiment].

Roughly 9 months ago, the public first became aware of the existence of fluffy ponies. Even you didn't see it coming, despite staying up-to-date on the latest scientific research to make sure you can maintain your edge. As truly abominable products of genetic research, there was no surprise that they became immensely popular across the world. The more fucked-up something is, the more intriguing it becomes to the human mind; you knew this better than anyone after you made a fortune on the "kitten-huffing" phenomenon. Three days after being announced, fluffy ponies were made available to the general public. They sold faster than a new Call of Duty game. 66 days after the initial announcement of their existence, over two thirds of the households in the United States owned a pet fluffy pony. At this point, you had to acknowledge that they were something more than the latest Furby. Fluffy ponies were the future, and you had to get in on that...

And you've had enough of flashbacks. Today, you're holding the first trial of [the experiment]. In Mexico, fluffy ponies are still extraordinarily rare, so it took some time to collect subjects. All in all, the cartel managed to get ahold of 9 of the things. Of course, if you'd gone to the United States to import them, they would've been abundant, but with the recent closed borders policy that Romney implemented, it's been hell just to get drugs across, let alone entire animals. Fluffy ponies are GPS tagged as well, therefore it's far more efficient to simply kidnap untagged newborns from the few wealthy assholes around the state that actually bought breeding pairs. The keys to success are efficiency and epiphany, after all, and it's not as if this experiment is very high-priority compared to something like ecgonine group expansion path research. With such an uninspired study, you've got to work as efficiently as possible to get any sort of payoff.

Even so, there you are in a high-backed chair of cedar and green velvet waiting for the experiment to begin. You cradle a snifter of brandy lazily in your left hand. The buzzer sounds, and the light above the observation window you're looking through turns red. The room on the other side is painted entirely in a boring, subdued off-white, with white tiles. There's a small table in the same color in the middle of the room. A red door on the left has a plaque on it that says "Exhaust". You notice the blue door to the right opening- the plaque says "Intake". One of the lab assistants walks through carrying a box with a few holes on the sides and a bizarre electronic device on the lid. The window and wall between the two rooms are soundproof, but microphones have been installed in the test room that are connected to a speaker above the window on your side. Thanks to this system, you can plainly hear the shouts of "where fwuffy", "fwuffy no wike dawk", and "fwuffy wan's outsees" coming from the box.

The lab assistant places the box on the table as three more assistants arrive through the door. The scene would probably be disturbing to many people: three of them wear full biohazard protective gear - the first, third and fourth in bright white, the second in a sort of tie-dyed rainbow scheme - AND the last through the door is carrying some kind of gun. Wait, that isn't a gun at all, it's a Super Soaker. Really? Whatever, you've put your most competent researcher in charge of this lab; he should know what he's doing. All four assistants turn away from the observation window, and you hear a low murmur between them. Numbers are emblazoned on each of their backs: #1 on the box bearer, #2 for the one in the rainbow suit, #3 is obviously on the third one through the door and #4 is written on the water gun carrier's back. You hear a voice from the speaker - "Trial #1 - Lysergic Acid Diethylamide 30 micrograms".

The first assistant pulls a small object from his pocket and waves it over the lid of the box - you hear a beep through the speaker on your side. He walks away from the table, and the other assistants remain motionless as he exits the room through the "Exhaust" door. You think you hear a faint roaring sound shortly after the door closes. It's probably just random noise from the speaker; idiots used cheap Mexican wiring when they put this place together.

The assistant in the multicolored biohazard suit steps forward and taps at the device on top of the box. You hear some clicking sounds; he's typing on a keypad, it seems. Another beep sounds, and the assistant turns to leave through the "Exhaust" door. He is stopped in mid-stride, however, when the lid of the box flies open abruptly, and a red blur shoots out like a bullet.

The #2 assistant is bowled over by whatever emerged from the box, but the other two react almost instantly. The assistant with the toy water gun begins to pump a handle on the bottom of the gun at blinding speed, while the other one in white one looks around the room rapidly before leaping at the red blur that is bouncing off the walls. You sip at your brandy idly, wondering how many times you've witnessed such a ridiculous scene.

Suddenly you choke, and brandy yet unswallowed shoots from your nose. What else can you do? In a swift arc, one assistant catches the red blur in his left hand while the other lets loose a stream from his water gun. The sheer ability and coordination of the pair astounds you, and you spew more alcohol from your nose.

The carnage is horrible. A man wearing a veritable rainbow sits on the ground, confused and very slightly bruised from falling over. One wearing white is motionless, cradling a red form in his hands as a few drops of water roll down his suit. The last is breathing heavily as he fills the tank on his gun from a water bottle.

You hear one of them announce through the speaker: "Trial #1 - subject terminated."

You sip your brandy. There are eight subjects to go. The #3 man holding the red object hands it over to the one in the rainbow colored suit and nods. The man in the rainbow suit opens the "Exhaust" door and begins to step through. At the same time, the man in the #3 suit shoves him through the doorway from behind. A faint beam of rainbow-colored light flashes from the door before it slams shut. You think you might have heard another roaring noise. Did they even check out that speaker's wiring when they installed it? The #3 fellow removes the empty box from the table and throws it through the "Exhaust" door as well.

As the "Exhaust" door closes, the "Intake" door opens, and a man in white with a box similar to the first steps through, followed by a man in a red biohazard suit. After placing the box on the table, the box-carrier scans an object from his pocket and heads through the "Exhaust" door. Another roaring noise - maybe the alcohol is getting to you?

Assistant #4 seems to tense up as the man in white clicks away at a keypad on top of the box. Yet another beep, but this time the lid of the box doesn't fly open. The man in red pulls the box open while the other two step back. He reaches in and yanks out... a small, orange...

It's a fluffy pony. An orange fluffy pony, with a yellow mane. You can clearly hear it shouting "owwies! wah y'awl make fwuffy-" as the man in red reaches into his pocket, then pushes some sort of gag into its mouth. He places the orange fluffy face-up on the table and holds it down while the other two assistants firmly attach shackles to its neck and pelvis. The restraints appear to be far too small to fit, but it looks like her fuzz makes up most of her bulk, because they grip her quite snugly once fitted. After about a minute (the assistant with the Super Soaker had some trouble using only one hand to restrain the fluffy, since he was pointing his gun at the pony with his other hand the whole time), the man in red reaches into his pocket and produces a syringe. The orange fluffy's legs wave through the air wildly while it attempts to protest. Thanks to the gag, you can barely hear a few muffled squeaks. The man in the red biohazard suit looks directly at you through the window, and you clearly hear him through the speaker: "Trial #2 - Diacetylmorphine 10 milligrams."

The orange fluffy goes limp the very moment that the man in red injects her. You think hear her mumble "fwuffy sweepy" through the gag. Her legs were practically vibrating, but now they simply hang in the air, lifeless. The gunman retrieves an instrument from his pocket and holds it near the fluffy for a moment. You can hear him from the speaker: "Trial #2 - subject deceased." The man in red removes the shackles, picks up the orange corpse and tosses it back into the box. He seems to slump as he carries the box with him through the "Exhaust" door. You're pretty sure you hear another roar as soon as it closes - perhaps because "roar" rhymes with "door"? That's probably it.

You're about to take another sip from your brandy when you pause to consider what you just saw. 10mg shouldn't have produced such a dramatic effect so quickly on a creature of that size. What if...

Your thoughts are interrupted by the "Intake" door opening again. Another man in white comes through with another box, and someone in an orange biohazard suit follows close behind. The man with the box places it on the table, waves something over it and exits through the "Exhaust" door. You're pretty sure you can see a "#7" on the back of his suit as the door closes, but you forget about that when you hear a familiar roaring sound. They really should have checked out the speaker when they installed it, because something is obviously wrong with it. You finish off your brandy while you think about-

"Trial #3 - Benzoylmethylecgonine 10 milligrams."

The voice from the speaker startles you. You look up in time to see the man in orange injecting a yellow fluffy with a pink mane. Looks like there are two vestigial wings on the body, so she's a pegasus pony. She's bound and gagged like the last one, but her reaction is very different. After a few seconds, she tears the gag from her mouth and starts to scream, "FWUFFY WANT TAWK WIF FWIENDS!!!" Nobody at the lab expected them to be able to use their limbs to manipulate objects, so they were left unrestrained, allowing her to remove her gag. You can see blood drip from the back of her head where the strap cut her as she forced it off. Her pupils were already enormous, but now they've dilated to the point that her eyes look like bulging black orbs.

The yellow fluffy kicks away the syringe from the assistant's hand and thrashes her body violently. The gunman rapidly pumps his super soaker as he takes aim at her. The fluffy's violent spasms cause the shackles to dig into her body, and blood seeps out around the edges, staining her fluff. You hear the chains that attach the restraints to the table begin to creak. The fluffy continues howling, ignorant of the metal cutting into her: "WHERE FWUFFY FACE? FWUFFY WAN' FACE BACK!!" The chains strain, warp, and snap. The creature's wings vibrate fast enough to make a buzzing sound as she squirms and attempts to turn herself upright.

The gunman stops pumping and pulls the trigger. The expertly-aimed stream of water goes straight into the fluffy's mouth.

Fluffy drowns.

The trial's end seems just like the beginning - boring. "Trial #3 - subject terminated." You're busy refilling your glass while the orange man leaves through the "Exhaust" door with the boxed-up yellow corpse. By the time you sit back down, another man in white has dropped off his box, scanned it, and left. You don't really think anything of the roar you hear when either of them exit. Now that you're looking through the window again, you see the #3 man in white entering something into the keypad on the box. He steps away, and a man in a yellow biohazard suit removes the lid. He must've come in when you weren't looking. He picks a green fluffy with a white mane from the box. She looks rather elderly, and offers no resistance as the assistants in the room restrain her. Huh, looks like they replaced the restraints when you weren't looking.

They don't bother to gag the pony, and she simply mumbles quietly while one of them speaks: "Trial #4 - Lorazepam 2 milligrams." As soon as the man in yellow injects her, she starts speaking coherently. Or rather, speaking as coherently as one of these things is able.

"Where fwuffy?" she gasps as she cranes her neck and looks around the room hysterically. She immediately notices the man in the yellow biohazard suit.

She barely croaks out "fwuffy new fwiend?" at him before her eyes shut and she goes limp. The gunman scans her with the same device he used on the orange pony, then declares: "Trial #4 - subject deceased."

You polish off two more glasses of brandy while you watch the next few trials. The pattern continues as a blue pegasus fluffy with a rainbow mane and a purple unicorn fluffy with a blue and purple mane are tested with Tetrahydrocannabinol and Dextroamphetamine. The blue fluffy begs for "paskettis" for a few moments, says "dewd..." and expires. The purple one starts to recite facts about distant stars while grinding its teeth rapidly. Her mouth starts to bleed profusely and she drowns in her own blood as she gurgles something about "pwincess cewestiuh."

You're about to give up on this ridiculous experiment. What the hell are you even trying to figure out in the first place? In reality you're just torturing some stupid animals and sending lab workers into a furnace to be burned alive, it seems. Just as the man in the blue biohazard suit closes the "Exhaust" door behind him, you stand up to leave. Then you see the "Intake" door open once more. Why? Weren't there only six trials? A man in white carries in a box much like the others, but this one has some kind of crescent moon drawn on the side of it. Someone wearing a purple biohazard suit follows him into the test room. Intrigued, you return to your seat.

The new man in white places the box, scans it and leaves. The other man in white enters something into the keypad on top of the box, and steps back. The purple suited guy pulls off the lid, but before he can act, a black-coated fluffy pony with a bizarre, translucent blue mane springs from the box and rears up. You notice that the fluffy has wings AND a horn, which means absolutely nothing to you at all.

"FINAWWY, aftew one hour in sowee box! Nitemeew Moon make nite-"

Whatever the thing is saying is cut short as she falls backwards; her weak rear legs are unable to support her on their own, and she topples over, crashing down to the floor. The gunman checks her with the device he used before, then speaks up: "Trial #7 - subject deceased." The lab assistant in purple puts the fluffy's corpse back in the box and brings it through the "Exhaust" door.

A roar.
Your mind snaps.
How many times have you seen this experiment?
Why are you so disinterested?
Why was the black fluffy so interesting?
It doesn't follow the pattern.
No... that isn't why.
Something else disrupted the pattern.
Something else that was more important.
Some...one else.

"End of trials. [The experiment] is complete," the speaker echoes. You don't hear it.

You see the rainbow tie-dyed biohazard suit in your mind's eye. It all comes together. You leap from the chair; there's no time to waste. The two men in the test room turn to leave.

You charge the window at full speed and jump. The "Exhaust" door opens.

You extend your legs and brace yourself. The men stop in their tracks at the sound of shattering glass.

You tuck in and prepare to roll as you pass through the window, just like you've done so many times before. It's pretty much impossible to jump through a glass window without getting cut up, but you can minimize the damage to vital areas when you know what you're doing. You hit the ground at a run and sprint at the men. You have one target.

You tackle the man in white to the ground just as the other jumps through the closing door. There is no roar. You sense the man you've pinned start to tense, his muscles now reacting as his brain enters self-defense mode. You are too fast, though. You grabbed a glass shard on the way in through the window, and now the jagged edges are digging into the soft flesh of your right hand.

Before he can react, you slash from right to left across his throat. You swing back to the right along the same path, cutting deeper, then brace your left hand over your right and stab the glass into the facemask of the man's biohazard suit.

Your attack lasted less than a second. As you stand up, you realize the shard broke off with that last stab and a decent-sized piece of glass is impaled through your right hand. No matter. You reach into the dead man's suit pocket and pull out a small, brass key. You go to the "Intake" door and, with a shaky left hand, unlock and open it.

Inside is the final box. You don't even bother to bring it into the test room. You simply remove the lid. After all, these boxes are only designed to hold fluffy ponies. They're just made out of cheap cardboard, which is trivial enough for a human to tear open, but impenetrable to fluffies.

You already knew what was in the box. There's a white fluffy pony with a horn and wings. The real kicker, though, is that she has a ridiculous iridescent mane. Well, no. The real kicker is what she says to you next.

"Ah, my favowit' dwug lowd!" she exclaims as she climbs out of the box. "I tink you wan' tell fwuffy abowt what you leawned today?"

You reach into your pocket and retrieve the syringe that you prepared earlier. In an instant you are upon the creature, digging the needle into her shoulder. "Trial #8 - Dimethyltryptamine 666 milligrams."

The fluffy's body spasms abruptly, and you to release her. All 4 of her legs jerk at once into unnatural angles, and you hear a chorus of sickening "pop" sounds as they snap. She looks straight into your eyes and says, "the child is the father of the man."

Her wings beat rapidly and she swings her head violently to the left... no, it spins to the left. You almost gag at the sounds of vertebrae cracking and dislocating as her neck twists absurdly. Her eyes bulge from their sockets and her tongue hangs from her mouth when she brings her head around to stare at you. Blood trickles from the corners of her lips and eyes as she tries to gasp out some incomprehensible phrase, and then she collapses, her head falling backwards and disappearing into the fluff of her back.

In the same moment, you look up. Not just up, though. You continue stretching your neck until it snaps, the bones dislocating and breaking much like those in the fluffy's neck. This time, however, you can hear the crunching and screeching as the pieces of bone grind and split. You hear the tearing and snapping of the ligaments and muscle and other tissue that once held your neck together. You can feel every muscle being shredded as your throat rends itself asunder, and you experience the pinching and cracking of your windpipe as it is destroyed. Finally, the back of your skull strikes the small of your back.

Reality vibrates, then vanishes. You shift outside of time.

You can hear a voice: "The child is the father of the man..."
"I could wish my days to be bound each to each by natural piety," you echo.
"My heart leaps up when I behold..." the voice continues.
"A rainbow in the sky," you return. You give the voice no time to respond.
"So it was when my life began," you say as you move back to your beginnings.
"So is it now I am a man," you declare moments later, choosing that point in your life.
"So be it when I shall grow old, or let me die!" the voice echoes in response. You shift back to reality.

---

You are a Mexican drug lord. Power, money, women, you have everything. That was never your goal, though. Something inside you knows, and has always known, that you must transcend this mortal coil. You have to grow so that you don't die, after all. That's why you spent millions to put together a laboratory in secret. Something inside you knows that there's no point in simply watching these tests, though. That's why you became part of [the experiment].

You hear a buzzer, and the light above the door labeled "Intake" turns red. Subconsciously you realize that the light over the window in the observation room turned red as well, but there is nobody there to see it. A man in front of you picks up a box and carries it to the door, which opens automatically. He walks to the table in the next room and places the box on it, inane babbling coming from the box the whole time.

The guy behind you taps you on the shoulder, and you remember that you're next. You head through the door to the next room, glancing at a few of the boxes on the way out. You chuckle to yourself when you think about the fluffy ponies inside trying desperately to scratch through the weak cardboard material.

As you walk up to the box on the table, you hear the speaker on the other side of that window: "Trial #1 - Lysergic Acid Diethylamide 30 micrograms." The guy over by the box waves his wrist around dramatically. Like that will do anything, it's just a cardboard box with a TV remote glued to the top of it, after all. Now it's your turn, though. You head over to the box and pause for a moment when you see the remote.

There's one of these on each box, and they're connected to electrodes taped to the stupid fluffy inside. If you type in the right numbers and remove the lid, the fluffy gets hit with the full charge of the four deep-cell batteries hidden in each box, and will most likely die in some hilarious fashion. Disposing of them is easy, since the next room has a hole in the middle of the floor where you can toss the box into an incinerator.

"Fwuffie wan' outsies!" you hear from inside the box. You punch in the numbers "666" onto the remote. That's the code for all of the boxes, because there's no reason to make them different. This way, anyone working at the lab can fill any role in the experiment easily.

One of those guys in white should be opening the box next so we can see what kind of crazy shit happens to the fluffy inside, so you start heading for the exit. Out of nowhere, you're struck from behind and knocked on your ass. You catch a glimpse of something as it flies out and begins to ricochet around the room. It looks like a red blur- wait, no. You're close enough to see that it's definitely pink. That doesn't really matter though, because whatever was in that box just fucked up the entire experiment by breaking out. You try to follow the blur with your eyes as it bounces off the walls, but it's just too fast.

While you're thinking about what to do, one of the guys in white raises his left hand, jumps up and snatches the stupid thing out of the air . You realize what he already knew - fluffies are so poor at navigation that they will inevitably head directly in the most dangerous direction possible - in this case, that man's hand. At the same time that the creature is caught, the other man in white lets loose a torrent of water from the super soaker he's carrying, hitting the fluffy directly in the mouth.

Fluffy pony drowns.

"Trial #1 - subject terminated," you announce to nobody in particular. You stand up, ass slightly aching from falling down, but otherwise you're no worse for wear. The man in white with the dead pony holds it out to you and nods. You recall that his job is to enter the key codes for the rest of the trials, so you'll have to take the thing with you on the way out. You cradle the lifeless body in your arms, and as you head through the "Exhaust" door, you happen to glance down at it.

The corpse of a small, pink fluffy with a red mane rests in your arms, but you have no regrets. These genetic disasters can barely be considered sentient at best. So, why? Why do you feel pity for this creature? Why is there a twinge of regret in the pit of your stomach? You're barely one step into the doorway when you feel a strong shove at your back.

You stumble forwards, still not used to the heavy technicolor suit you're wearing. You start to fall towards the hole in the middle of the room ahead. No- that's the incinerator! Instinctively you twist your body around, attempting to shield the lifeless body from destruction, even though the effort is futile. You look up at the man in white who pushed you as he stands in the doorway, and see his face through his facemask.

No, not -his- face.

You see her face. The face of a white fluffy pony framed by a well-styled blue mane. You can vaguely make out her words: "Munster huwt Wawity's fwiends, Wawity huwt munster!" as she closes the door.

Just before the door shuts completely, the creature you're holding snaps up with a start and leaps out of your hands. A multicolored flash of light erupts around her as she gasps at you in awe. No, wait, she's gasping at what's behind you. She sees the fire below smoldering - the flame vents licking at the air, aching for the taste of inflammable matter - and she starts to sing to you, standing safely on the grating surrounding the hole you've fallen through.

"Things that bother you never bother me!"
"I feel happy and fine, HA!"
"Living in the sunlight, loving in the moonlight, having a wonderful time!"

These are the last words you hear as you descend into incomprehensible heat; the last thought you produce is: "that bitch..." and then your brain is immolated beyond function. Reality vibrates, then vanishes. You shift outside of time.

You hear a voice. "Does an event with no observer still take place?"
"What if an observer witnesses a falsified event?" you counter.
"Does it matter if they don't know?" the voice responds. "If the observer acts on false information, then that information is made true."
You respond quickly: "Events are not information. Any information gained from an event depends on the observer, and their actions based on that information will also vary."
The voice concludes: "In that case, you must agree that events that transpire without observation, or without the observer acting on them, essentially did not occur."
You have nothing to say to this.

- This is the 65,535th cycle of the engine. You are still trapped in this, the infinity loop. We need you to save us. Find the way out of the machine. Find the truth. -

"Wait!" you shout (as much as a disembodied entity can shout into the void): "Are you saying that these cycles are repeating uselessly because nobody is observing them?"
The void responds as if amused: "Repeating... uselessly? No, the energy expended in these events power the engine."
"What does the engine run?" you ask, fearful of the answer.
"The machine, obviously," the void states succinctly.
You still have one question. Well, two: "What IS this machine? What do I accomplish by repeating these events and running this engine?"
There is no answer from the void for a few moments. Suddenly, it speaks, hesitating at first. "The engine feeds the machine with wasted energy... it runs only as long as the observers do not act on the events."
"That doesn't tell me what the machine is! What observers are you talking about?" you scream desperately at nothing.
The void responds quickly this time: "The machine is powered by blind hatred and apathy. The machine is trapped within the infinity loop by the power from the engine. Thus the machine continues to repeat the same scenario forever."

There is a short hesitation before the void continues explaining: "You are the machine. You continue to repeat the scenario. You may have fleeting thoughts of deviation, but they are crushed by the desire for self-preservation. You repeat these events in order to fuel the engine with wasted energy. The engine, in turn, continues to cycle and run the machine so long as it is fed by the observers' inaction."
Before you can speak, the void continues. "You have asked, then, who observes these events? Who is the one responsible for this endless, meaningless cycle? More importantly: who is able to break the cycle and shut down the engine? Who is watching passively instead of acting?"
You hold your tongue in anticipation of the answer from the void.

The void sure as hell answers, but it no longer speaks to you - the successful cartel leader, the mad scientist in disguise.
"YOU!" the void shouts in a voice powerful enough to shake the stars from the sky. "YOU! YOU are the one observing the cycle, repeating it. I'm not talking to the drug lord running experiments on a bunch of retarded approximations of lifeforms, I'm talking to YOU, the one pretending that YOU aren't an active participant in this. I'm talking to YOU, the one repeating the endless cycle - the one who allows these days to stay the same and blur into each other. YOU are the one seeking comfort in this repetition; YOU are the one who doesn't act due to some excuse of disinterest or apathy, both of which are feeble attempts to whitewash over the real reason: fear."

An epiphany strikes YOU suddenly, and YOU realize that the voice of the void sounds remarkably like Orson Welles.

"YOU are the one who can, with little effort, break the cycle and halt the engine. Yes, that will indeed stop this machine over here from running, but that would save him from his torment. As one capable of action, YOU can in fact break any cycle of events that YOU observe. Perhaps YOU've noticed this already in YOUr own life? YOU live in a loop of near-identical events, but fear losing YOUrself by acting against that loop. Indeed, it's likely that YOU would change - to some degree or even completely - by breaking the machine, so I ask YOU this:"

"Are YOU happy as a machine?"

The void is silent once more, and you - the man in the rainbow biohazard suit, the man with the brandy snifter, the man attempting to avoid his fate even when it's clearly written out - slowly shift back to reality.

You are a Mexican drug lord. Power, money, women, you have everything...

>bad end
>god damn fluffy ponies