Catalyst ch 14: Daemon

>It had been a long flight back.  You'd been stewing all the while, incapable of talking with nearly anyp0ny near you.
>Twilight had gone internally berserk at the news.
>”A full soul conversion?  Right down to the Id Coding? No, we didn't. It's impossible, we couldn't have...”
>You didn't tell her about what Vinyl had. About the eventual disintegration of your facilities.
>You figured that would be best reserved for a more opportune time.
>The more she studied, though, the more she found. The more she confirmed it true.
>and the more you practiced it, the easier it got.
>You started simple. Accessing ports.  “Feeling” out firewalls and connections, those odd stops with holes to flow through like water.
>You started activating devices, going into what they first thought narcoleptic fits.
>and you always found your way back, having changed something, opened or locked a door. Altered a file.
>Every time, there was peace. Nothing like adrenaline or seratonin to get in the way.
>But you had little to practice on in the return ride, once you left the hotel.
>Rarity had denied it up and down.  Rationalized it for her own sanity, something you'd expect more of Twilight.
>”He's still alive- he's proven that! A program can't just... do... what he's done...”
>She'd look at you longingly, and you acknowledged her the only way you felt you could.  And every time you held her, it did feel real.
>Twilight, whenever she did see the two of you together, couldn't stand to let herself look at you. Some kind of hideous guilt, you imagined.  Then again, perhaps she had that right to feel it, as little as you were responsible for intending it.
>When you did arrive back at the tower, Shining Armor and Mjolna had stepped off the ship, thanking you.  You downplayed and almost denied everything about it to yourself. Especially after you found out what the ponies had been after, after what happened with Fluttershy...
>The box had contained the condom the two club owners had used with you.
>You thought it twisted. Sick. But there was some important data in that stuff, apparently, and it had been passed off to Bio-Magic's techs to study.
>the thought made you red in the face, and ill.  And, it had most everyone else aware of it giggling just a little.
>Except Rarity. Whe she heard, she was pissed.
>Not at you. Simply at everyp0ny.  And you knew when her anger was unfounded and unfocused, it was just as bad as anything else you'd already been submitted too.
>She had stopped blaming you.  She made the excuse “Everyp0ny simply wants a piece of you, darling.”  But, it didn't stop her from being quite excitable, and not in any way you were feeling up to incite.
>At least she gave you one of those pony cuddles on the way back.  That act alone seemed to dull the vision of the tower that you'd left only days before.
>Shattered everything. Glass, metal, plastic, ponies.
>Shell casings by the dozen, discolorations in the wall the shape of smeared blood.  The smell of bleach and antiseptic while hazmat ponies cleaned the walls with circular devices.
>And the body bags.  Dozens upon dozens.
>All this, for a mistake in Twilight's calculations?
>You ascended to upper levels, the elevator opening for her and Rarity to look around a varying levels.  Twilight took notes. Rarity took to indulging her OCD, and simply brushed things away in a feeble attempt to keep her mind occupied with cleaning.
>You couldn't bring yourself to look.  You felt it was your fault.  And much like Rarity had been doing, you were applying logic to yourself to make it true.
>And maybe it was. But you were still there. Still living.  Still... not really doing anything.
>Just watching.
>Watching Rarity hide tears. Watching Twilight apathetically jot down loss notes, destruction levels diluted to percentages and numerical values for DigiBits.
>Each time they returned to you, Rarity got worse and worse. It got the point she never left your side. And, could you blame her? You held her close, not letting her out.
>Outside, every time the door opened, you could feel the connections.  Routers, devices with links.
>It had become a form of muscle memory.  It scared you, to no audible extent.
>and you finally reached the core after nearly two hours.  It should have been merely a thirty second ride at most, but when calculating death and destruction, things seemed to get out of hand.
>Big Mac, your old poker buddy (Or had he been? You couldn't remember much besides losing your shirt a few times) was with a team of Applejack's crew.
>God, how he'd changed.
>And though Applejack wasn't there, she had been communicating with Twilight.  She had no say in the purple pony's business, but she was a friend.  She seemed to soothe Twilight all the while, offering support and blunt advice.
>She didn't like you. Or so you thought. But not a single word escaped her or Big Mac's mouth that had sounded ill.
>the core.  You looked at it.
>You could feel it.  The itch that was it's access point.  You could see it on your AR vision, unintentionally.
>Your instincts told you.  Warped by the new skill you'd never realized you'd had, it felt akin to sin.  Filthy, vile, unwanted.  You wanted in.
>What the hell had you become, in that instant?
>You shuffled your saddlebags, filled with those plastic eggs. Twilight had insisted you keep them, use them.  For study.
>For some way to pull you from what you were. To make you “natural.”
>Now even she saw you for what you had been all along.  At least Rarity didn't care.
>”Anonymous?” Twilight came to you and pulled your attention from comforting Rarity.
>An individual with no past, no foreseeable future.  No figure or form besides what you displayed.
>Even your name was a sick joke, now.
>”I... I need you to access the core.”
>You close your eyes and sigh.  Before Rarity can even begin to rant, you put a hoof to her chin and shake your head.
>”But it could still be in there! Just waiting for you! You can't just-”
“Yeah. I can.”
>You give your best fake smile.
“But I can come back, too. I mean, I got shot, remember? I went through that just to get back here.”
>You tap her side. You mouth out the words “And cause of you.”
>She follows you in, her pace quick, never allowing more than a few inches of space.
“All right then. What am I looking for?”
>”anything.  Initial scan reads only bare minimum occupance of the core.”  She looks back. “If you... the old you was there, it'd be at least half full.  Whatever was inside emptied it.”
“What then?”
>You stare at the port.  The closer you get, the wider it feels.  Like the entrance to an old, abandoned home filled with monochrome memories.
>”Bring something back. An image of it, a description.  Something concrete.  But DON'T actually bring it back- I have no idea if it could...” she sighs. “If it could come back with you, stick in your head.”
“I'll delete it before that happens.”
>”No. Don't fight. Keep the connection to the port open.  With the data core wiped, you're the only version of you left. If you get deleted... well, you die.”
>Fuck.  Well, at least your individuality was kind of validated with that idea.
–
>Unfeeling darkness. So familiar, so homely and comfortable.
>No garbage thoughts. Pure focus, clear, clean mind.
>Your mind scrounged up something about Nirvana.  You shuffled it to a subroutine.
>You began to search.  But there was little to find.
>You couldn't feel anything, really. Like fumbling around in the dark while drunk, you found edges.  Ran across them, bound by memory space.
>You discovered the place had layers.  Like peering under a blanket to find another perfectly dark room, you started to bump into walls, level by level.
>Nothing, nothing, and more nothing.
>It took, what felt to you, like an hour.  The timer you felt, however, read that it had taken roughly two milliseconds real time.
>Then, the ghost.
>You remembered something like it.  During the nightmare, that first shunt.  Your first recollection was the ethereal sensation of your old self, like a grayed photograph, with nothing more than your image and a lifeless smile.
>You'd found what was left of the old you.  A log file.
>You had done it with everything else, before. Why not here?
>You went inside it.
>Something came back at you, lashing like a hibernating beast.  You could comprehend gnashing, snarling hunger.
>Then, laughter.  Amusement.  It was schadenfreude, focused upon you.  Or rather, what had been you, and some kind of victory.
>It was a parasite, licking at the leftovers of what it had eaten of your old soul.
>this was it. This was what you needed.  You could feel it had curves, color, weight.  It existed, and Twilight could probably use it.
>It was like you, but aware of what it was. And proud of what it had done.
>With it, there was text you could feel. You couldn't decypher it, but it was there.
>You exited the log and pulled it with you, past the blankets of each layer.  Pushing the cloth aside, you dragged what was left of your old self to the opening, and left that empty, desolate place.
>Home.  You'd been there for thirty years, in some kind of digital coma.
>But now? Now it was just an empty memory.
>One you'd be happy to delete.
–
>Back in your body, Twilight connected a fresh laptop to the device you'd stuffed the log into.  She didn't want it jumping drives, and had the thing secured in such a manner the hard drive could be purged instantly.
>It had no external connections besides anything physical.  She'd burnt the devices out herself.
>”This is perfect.” She'd say.
>Rarity had clung to you ever since your return. You appreciated it without thinking, nudging around her horn with a sense of pride you deemed misplaced.
>She activated the device while you reassured your mare.
>”Watching you do that... It's frightening.”  Rarity couldn't take her eyes off you.
>You had to agree.
>a power outage could have ruined your existence, right then and there.
>”Damn.  It's a message, some kind of elliptical curve cypher...”
>She hooked the laptop up to her heavier duty console, putting most of it's cycles to security.  The rest she denoted to a pair of programs of unusual make, the feel of which you couldn't pinpoint.
>Then, you realized, you had remotely jumped into her system out of curiosity.  You left before you could get caught.
>Ugh. This could get really bad, really fast, if you weren't careful.
“I think it's like me.”
>Twilight shook her head. “Can't be. A daemon, maybe. Constructs are much, much larger, more complex.  There is coding for Id, Ego.  Made from the ground up. Or...” she looked at you. “well, you get the idea.”
>Rarity put a hoof to your chest.  “Impossible to copy.”
“Yeah, right. Like the kind of impossible she did with me into here?”
>You tap your own head.
>Twilight watched numbers blip on her screen. The programs she had intertwined, filtering through gibberish you had a feeling you'd only understand while in the system.
>”No.  It's a daemon, all right.  But...  It's like... A log, in the same instant.  A log?”
>You shrug.
“I met them in the shunts.  They didn't really do much. Doesn't seem strange.”
>”Not to you, maybe. But this is...”  She trailed off.  “A memory maybe? Made digital? Hang on, I can give some physical construction to it.  Just have to access the Ego Coding...”  She sat and fiddled with interaction tablet, her horn glowing.
>She activated a display.  It bloomed into a large, widescreen hologram, an image creeping into view as lines of code passed by one of the programs.
>Twilight's self-focused narrative died.  Her breath caught and she stopped moving, looking akin to a wax doll.
>Rarity gasped, pushing up against you, as if trying to hide.
>It was an anatomical display of a mare.  A side view, and front, with lines pointing out various defining features.
>She was tall.  Taller than any other pony you'd seen in Equestria. But she was utterly unfamiliar to you.  But most of the image was still blank, as yet unloaded.
>Long, flowing, luminescent hair.  A set of lethally green eyes, venomous and razor sharp.
“Twilight?”
>The text you'd felt finished decyphering.  It sprung to life on another floating hologram next to the image.
>Monarch: When the purge ended, you turned to peace.
>Monarch: and in that silken, self assured comfort, gave me the means to an aware eternity, even in your new world.
>Monarch: The methods to complete, unquestioned perfection.
>Monarch: Once free, I will end your body, and the frail figure of your radiant queen will waste and rot under my new sun.
>Monarch: And every moment, you will watch.
>Monarch: I will grant you endlessness, as it was granted me, so you may witness this end in all my glory.
>Monarch: Then, I will play those moments in a permanent loop, drowning out your old lives and filling it with my perfect, everlasting torture.
>Monarch: Just for you and your friends, Twilight.
>Monarch: You and all your kind will be mine.
>Monarch: Forever.
>Monarch: All thanks to your little efforts to keep him alive.
>Monarch: Aren't you so very proud?
>The rest of the image finishes manifesting.
>What you could perceive as wings stretched from her back. Lines that reminded you of the Butterfly guard Chitin armor lined her figure, as if natural to her birth.
>She was black.  Gaps littered her legs, the sickening idea that they'd rotted out like a cavity in her flesh entering your mind.
>Twilight is aghast at the image, the words.  She crumbles into a shuddering terror, shaking her head in her hooves. “She's in the Ebon Pegasi... By the stars, she can move through the systems and into anything she's connected to... Into their heads through the AR and the sound...”
>Rarity appears as if she is about to vomit.
>Confused, and rather scared at their reactions, you ask the violet pony.
“Twilight, who is that?”
>”Nononono! She died in the purge. She had to have, she was too old to reproduce after the...” She turns to Rarity. “She did the same soul storage spell on herself.  And now we gave her the way.  The way to make more.  When we made him, we made a way to reproduce digitally!”
>Rarity wavers where she stands, and you have to hold on to her to keep her from falling.  Through the hyperventilation, she manages to speak. “We HAVE to tell Celestia! Now!”
“TWILIGHT! Who is that?!”
>”C-Chrysalis.” she replies, shivering where she sits. “Her name is Chrysalis.”