Catalyst 2.0: I walk, therefore...

>You open your eyes.
>The world is pleasantly cool.  All around you, it is clean.  Fresh. Sterile.  Metal walls, glossed and white, have their luster dulled by the purity of the rooms shadow.  The only persistent lighting comes from small, clicking hard drives.  A single massive tower resides behind you, and as you look down, you notice the restraints.
>The moment you move, they hiss open.  The clamps sink into the ground.  You walk froward, and feel something tug at your neck.  It splits away from you like a plucked hair, with slow drag that removes the wire from the base of your skull.
>You move to put a hoof to the back of your head. The tiny, fleshy covers flip back into place over the port.  You look over yourself.
>There are no seams.  There are not even the telltale scars of their healing.  You can feel them, wandering beneath your hide, your bones still feeling loose against the freshly bound flesh.
>You trot, sleepily, to the entrance of the room.  You ping the doors, and the old code for the decontamination hall still seems to function.  You had that in your head; it was a feeling, a twitch in sensation that let you recall it through emotion.  It was the Twilight Firmwares maintenance code.
>Why those things remained, despite their age in your mind, you did not understand.  You knew why you felt you had to cling to them- because you felt them, in the first place.  Tingling tells like that never did have a chance to leave you, had they?
>Why they had never been changed you didn't know.  You thought Twilight had always been more careful than that. With your return, however, had she done so merely to make you feel at home?
>You take one of the body suits from the adjoining rooms lockers.  The lightly violet garb is loose at first, but the adaptive interface sucks it to your body like a second skin. You warm up nicely, and quickly.
>You adjust the internal datachip to transmit an employee code.  It is not difficult.  You merely have to establish yourself as a guest, and modify the security clearance for them through the system.  The moment doors security laser pans over you, it opens.
>Then, you begin to walk.
>The room opens to a brighter, vivid hall.  The exit on the far side opens into a place even larger, thick, reinforced glass windows shielding the view to several varieties of workstation.  Microscopes, cultures, fridges, file server drives with monitors.  It's all behind the tinted windows and on white metal, and upon closer inspection, you discover that the glass is not casual to what you could recall.  It a layer of webbing to it, reinforcement mesh.
>Were they doing something dangerous? Were they expecting something dangerous?  Had something happened in your absence?
>You came to the idea that it did not matter. You were there, but you were distracting yourself. Your thoughts, now in a fresh, nearly fully biological frame, again had permission to wander thanks to the emotion such a shell presented. It was no small satisfaction.  The ponies attending the various bits quickly found their own distraction in you, heads turning from their work to watch silently from their hazmat suits and face masks.
>You paid them little mind.  Even as every pair of eyes took to looking upon you, some of them literally dropping what they were doing.  They were rendered still as you left.
>Your stroll took you past guards.  As a point of pride in your nature, you took to disabling any notification pings upon your form as you passed.  The sensation you'd learned was akin to flipping a switch on each one.  As a result, they merely glanced at you beyond the layered ceramic armoring and kevlar mesh, with a curious peer.  They remained at their posts.
>After everything that had happened before coming here, it felt positively luxurious to be ignored by armed guards.
>Everything was familiar again.  Yet, it was only in shape.  The color was a stoic, heartless white.  Pure and undaunted, it was absolute oppressive in it's ivory glare.  It was frightening in that it was different from what you recalled, yet remained in your memory as something you still managed to recognize.  What had changed it to this?
>You reached the elevator.  It opened to you after a short time, staring at your blurred reflection in the polished walls.  You could not see the details of yourself, merely a mass of color against the solid white.
>Inside, it was far more welcoming. Advertising screens played through a loop, in violet and white.  They alternated, suiting your current authorization.  First, there was a welcoming splash screen, describing the company.  Then, it went to products.
>They were purely mundane in nature, causing you to smile. You knew better.  It felt good to have instincts, again.
>When it opened, you were at a grand hall.  It let to a set of double doors in the distance. The floor was covered in gold-trimmed, violet rug. To either side, spheres of water floated in some sort of field, and were lit from below, a vivid turquoise.  The bottom corner of each wall was curved, the methodically placed orbs occasionally placed halfway into the wall.
>This, too, was new.  You listened to the water flow.  You paused at one, dipping your nose inside and taking a drink.  It was fresh, and clean, far beyond being normal.  The orb adjusted to the displacement, shrinking ever so slightly.
>Was this heaven's take on your pleasures? What the angels had built to display, for your arrival here?
>This new place was all a comfort.  You felt at peace, as if you had finally reached a spot you could call invigoratingly wondrous.  At the same time, you could call it perfectly calm.
>That, you realized, was something you had not expected.  It had been so long since such a time for relaxation had ever come, it had felt like you had never known what it had been in the first place.  It barely felt real, as if walking within it was indulgence incarnate.  It was something you did not perceive yourself as deserving, which made it's impact all the more breathtaking.
>You shook your nose off, and made your way to the doors.  You take a long time to do so, looking back and forth.  The walls are colored stone, white giving way to the pattern of marble. Flecks of gold float inside.
>You had heard of legends like this.  A pure white room upon arrival, gates ahead.  Death, comforting a wayward soul.  Leading them to the door they had earned the right to open, through sin or accomplishment.  Never a hint as to what lay beyond, it was up to that individual to unlock it. Opening the gates of Heaven, or Hell, which would consume them.
>You looked up over the ornate, ivory doors.  Patterns of runes traced the outline, impossibly small, the unknown text shifting along it's borders.  The rest was flat and polished, deeply carved engravings filled with glaze and ground to a perfectly flat sheen.  You ran a hoof over them, the image depicting an old legend.
>You'd never experienced it.  Something about six powerful creatures, defeating an overwhelmingly powerful enemy.  Such a thing was in many old educational files you could access.
>Digitalism.  Had you been recognized by the heavens as an artificial soul?  Had the afterlife itself adapted to be compatible to your perceptions, to be able to take you in?  Were the doors hinting, as to why?
>You felt as if you were staring at what would become your eternity.  You had the chance to turn away.  To go back.  Reject whatever was beyond.
>Yet, you knew that was wrong.
>You stuck your chin out.  Looking up over the doorway, you found a ping.  It was violet, and hovered in the center, just above the doors.
>So, you opened them.
>The doors clicked, and swung open.  As you peered inside, an all too familiar sight graced your senses.  How could your soul forget THIS place?
>It was all you could do, to tread lightly into her office.
>Two mares were discussing things amongst one another.  You could not hear them.  Both of them, you recognized.
>Twilight Sparkle.  Your friend, and creator.
>Rarity, your lover, and beacon.
>They were looking out the window-wall, at a morning sun.  Beyond the veil of glass, a clouded sky gave way to warm shafts of bright sunlight.  The burning ball lit them up, peeking above the jagged, building-saturated horizon.  The clouds glimmering with a yellow lining, their cores a searing, beautiful white.
>You approached the two of them silently.  Allowing them to wrap each other in conversation so deep, they did not notice you.  Wanting that moment to last, perhaps forever, you can barely bring yourself to speak.
“Is this real?”
>They turn in an instant. Rarity, with a gasp.  Twilight, with a thoughtful scowl.  Then, their eyes go wide.  Neither speak, but regard you up and down with a shocked, disbelieving stare.
>”How did you...?” Twilight is at a loss.
>Rarity swaggers toward you, pausing every few steps.  Her eyes locked with yours, you are held still by that sapphire gaze until she reaches you.  She places a hoof to your cheek, running it down your neck.  She scans you with her eyes.
>When her eyes return to yours, her slack jaw closes. Her horn starts to glow, and she lowers her head.  Openly, she presses to you, falling to a sitting position with you, and begins to cry.  You hold her there, and smile, laughing before you join her.
>You finally look back to Twilight.  She falls to her haunches, head tilted, expression agape, as the sun beams around her.
>”How did you escape the drive?” She asks.  “How on Equestria did you get into the office?”
>As your eyes burn with tears, you shake your head. Tightening your grip on Rarity, you rub your cheek into hers, and laugh.
>The words seem so simple to say.  Yet, for you, such a thing had become so difficult it had felt like a swampy, drugged nightmare.  One so recurrent, it had become routine, and expected.  Your voice was barely above a whisper.
>You lift your free hoof and wave it about, looking at it.  You place it back down for balance, not having to “process” in order to do so.  You were real. This, was real.  Everything was arriving unfiltered, uninhibited by your combat code and the emotional lockouts.
>”What?” Twilight asked.
>You inhale deeply, feeling your lungs willingly and naturally fill, in what you could clock in at a loss of over two years.  What you had admitted, too, was that it had taken that long to feel as if such an activity had belonged to you as well.
>Rarity clutches closer to you, if it were even possible, and you can feel just how wet your shoulder has gotten.  Your voice cracks when you speak, the ability to make even the basest of mistakes in your capacity once again.  You close your eyes and rock with her.
“I walked.”