One thing was certain, waiting was boring as all Tartarus. Bounty had been sitting on her flank for about half an hour now, yet nothing had really happened. She had given the purple tube the benefit of the doubt when the monolith had adjusted to accept the tube, but after five minutes she attempted to pull it back out, only to find that it was locked in. Both disappointed and infuriated she had slumped down with her back against the object.
"This sucks." She muttered.
"Tell me about it," said a familiar voice.
"Oh Luna, how I hate caves. They always mess with you, pockets of cave gas and the like…" Bounty ruminated.
"Actually the air in here is surprisingly clean for a buried relic. It is actually 38% oxygen, higher than earth's atmosphere."
"Wait, that isn't something I would know…" She mumbled.
"No, it isn't."
Bounty slowly turned to faced the monolith that now had a small softball-sized purple ball floating over it. "Well it certainly took you long enough." She wasn't even surprised; in fact,
She was quite angry at the alien. "I mean first you strap yourself to me like some tentacled parasite, then you abandon me when I actually need you!" She cried.
There was a pause as the ball hovered and a 'bwoop' sounded as the ball cocked its head. Then there was another pause, "I strapped myself to you for survival purposes, and it was commensalism not parasitism." Quantum said neutrally
"Abandoned!"
Another pause, "I was thrown from range of your neural net, I cannot help what I cannot connect to."
Bounty's brow creased as she processed the answers, "So, you're telling me that you have to be in almost direct contact with me to communicate?" She asked with a quizzical look.
Pause, "Correct."
Bounty's face quickly changed into curiosity as her inner archaeologist took over. "Well what are you exactly? You fit inside that tube and you give off no life signs on magical scans..."
The A.I. paused once more before answering, "I am ONI AI 2367A. I have been designated 'Quantum.'"
Bounty frowned before asking something that had been nagging at her, "What is up with the gaps between me asking a question and you answering? You were pretty sassy back at the library, but now you're really bland."
Another pause, "I am currently only operating at 15% of my normal capacity, the period of isolation after we were separated was harmful to my AI matrix. I am in the process of repairing the damage, but it splits my limited resources and my personality cores are taking the hit." The AI says neutrally.
"What does that even mean?"
A longer pause this time, "Periods of isolation are not healthy to me. In the period after our separation, logs indicate that a damaging loop was started. Following this, my main matrix was forced into standby reducing me to a high level 'Dumb A.I.'. Following this I released a beacon signaling for data recovery and assumed low power mode."
"What do you mean infinite loop?"
"A comparison to pony anatomy would be brain damage… Accessing loop data... Playback activated, 'I'm alone… I'm alone… I'm alone… I'm-'"
"OK OK! You can stop now!" Bounty exclaimed. She narrowed her eyes for a second as she remembers something that was said back at the library.
"If you take it off you'll condemn me to a fate worse than death."
Bounty's ears folded back at the thought that she had damaged an ancient artifact. She weighed the up's and down's of her situation. 'Well I've made one of the greatest discoveries of ponykind... but no one can see it.' She huffed a sigh before mulling it over some more. 'Well I did locate that huge bunker… yet I'm not sure if I could find it again.' The pegasus scoffed before making her decision 'I suppose I'll have to drag him along to get any proof anyway... if I ever escape this cave.' She turned to the purple ball, "You've been awfully quiet this entire time Mr. Mindreader."
The hologram rotated to look at her with a drawn out *bwoooop*, "I only respond to users when I am required. Detecting impulses in your cerebral cortex and translating them is a higher level function that requires my main matrix to be online." The AI said matter of factly.
Bounty raised an eyebrow, "You're getting sassier."
"Repair progress report, 30%"
Bounty chuckled dryly, "I don't suppose you know the way out now do you?"
"Accessing forerunner structure... "
"Wait you mean you actually know‽ And, what is a forerunner!?" She asked, excited for even more information.
"I am connected to the facility and it is feeding me information. Forerunner: A race that predated the human race."
"What's a human?"
A long pause this time, "Human: A species of advanced upright apes formal name: Homo Sapiens Sapiens. They created this AI. Footnote: Congratulations on finding a new friendly species whoever you are."
"*Snnrk* Right, because you totally found me; not the other way around. Anyway, how soon do you think I can pull you out?" Bounty asked, ready to get out of the dank cave.
"Would you like me to align the forerunner structure to streamline our way out?"
"Ahh, sure?"
The AI ball disappeared and there was an ominous rumble as the lights on the monolith dimmed slightly. There was a tumultuous crash as what Bounty previously thought was a cave wall lit up and moved. Two sections of the wall moved out and to the side, revealing a metal hallway. The floor of the hallway illuminated revealing a path that curved up and to the right. Then as soon as the rumbling started it stopped.
"Modifications complete."
Bounty stared at the newly exposed path and slowly removed her jaw from the floor, "Where were you when I got lost in that ruin before…" she muttered sullenly.
"Buried under this planet's surface."
She shook her head and turned from the new hallway, "Is it safe to pull you out?"
"I am stable enough to continue repairs while traveling. Beware, when you pull me from the holotank I will be unable to communicate with you till I am returned to-"
Bounty yanked the tube from its home, "Blah blah blah, whatever." She trotted over to the pack and set the tube gently in the pocket she had pulled it from. "This thing on?" she asked as she sealed the pocket.
"That wasn't very nice." muttered the AI, ill-temperedly.
"Yeah, well neither was your 'commensalism.'"
The AI harrumphed.
"Well, let me know how the repairs are coming along." She said, walking towards the forerunner structure.
Celestia was dead tired. Not only had her niece's wedding been crashed, but it was crashed by a hostile nation. She had been forced to go without sleep for five days as Canterlot remained on high alert while the defences were repaired.
Luna hadn't been able to assist as she was too busy policing nightmares full of slime and chitin. When her sister wasn't in her dream trance, she was assisting in the effort to find and recover cocooned ponies stashed around the capital. So far, no fatalities were reported and Celestia hoped that it stayed that way. She had a hunch that Chrysalis planned on using the wedding as a mass love fabricator before fading away into the shadows, but that plan backfired when Twilight discovered that she wasn't Cadence.
"Princess, the latest casualty report is in." A nearby aid said holding up a sheet of parchment.
Celestia held her breath as she read through the report:
67 Recovered
6 Wounded
0 Casualties
She let out the breath she had been holding, "What is the count now?" she asked the aid.
We have recovered 97% of the total canterlot population; 90% of the city's infrastructure is still intact, and 98% of guards have been accounted for we assume the rest were change-
The aide is interrupted by a knock at the door. A guard stuck his head in, "Princess, acting Lieutenant Phase Shift is requesting entry." The guard said stoically.
"Send him in please."
The guard pulled his head back and allowed another guard in. If there were two words to describe Phase Shift it was small and lithe. The lieutenant was one of the few mares in the guards, and probably the most fearsome too. She had signed on she reached age 18, to escape the streets of Manehattan, and fought tooth and horn up the ranks. In the last section of boot camp, the war games, her team had dwindled down to herself and a pegasus. The war games were the final trial for recruits and the teams consisted of the fifty recruits vs thirty veterans of the guard defending a VIP(In this case a burlap sack of rocks.)
Needless to say, it had initially been a slaughter. The veterans sent out three kill squads of five and set traps throughout the forest Twenty of her teammates were dropped in the first thirty minutes, and another fifteen had been picked off in the next hour. Phase had survived until nightfall before rendezvousing with the single recruit still standing, a pegasus. Relying on stealth skills she had picked up avoiding thugs and gang-bangers, she executed the three kill squads before moving in on the enemy fort. The veterans, not expecting a stealth attack, had set up by themselves waiting for the recruits. She took advantage of this and soon the veterans had dwindled to three guards surrounding the flag.
Now expecting stealth tactics, the guards now stayed within each other sight. So, of course, she did the last thing they expected, a frontal assault. She managed to drop two of the guards with magical throwing-knives before facing off with a young officer by the name of Gilded Skies.
The two warriors traded blows, each unable to get past the other's defense before a horn sounded signaling recruit victory. While the officer had been occupied the remaining pegasus had slipped off with the VIP. After this, the young Phase Shift was picked up by the Eclipse branch of the guard. They were the princess's stealth and reconnaissance arm of the military, and Phase Shift fit right in.
Move forward seven years and she had earned the name "The Phantom Blade" from her squad, mostly due to her uncanny accuracy with her throwing knife spell.
"Princess." The guard bowed before Celestia.
"Rise, What have you discovered Lieutenant?"
"We suspect Gilded Skies was replaced long before the wedding Princess." The guard said as as stoically as the previous guard.
"What evidence do you have to support you suspicion?" The Princess asked, narrowing her eyes.
"During the Nightmare Incident last year, Lieutenant Gilded Skies went missing briefly during your imprisonment. He returned just before you rose the sun once more and returned to the castle with your sister." She finished.
The princess hmmed briefly before asking, "And what if he was detained by the Nightmare?"
"After the incident, the other guards noticed small attitude changes in Skies. Nothing that would raise a big red flag, but enough that his subordinates noticed it."
The Princess sighed, "Nothing that would nail it down for sure, but enough to be cautious." She muttered. "Raven, have Shining Armor redo the patrol routes. If he was indeed undercover for that long we need to seal up and security breaches we may have. Make a reminder to pass that onto my sister and her Nightguard as well." She returned her gaze to Phase, "Anything else to report?"
"The artifact that your student had the guard pickup and seal in a containment unit went missing as well. The pony that discovered the artifact has disappeared from her cell, and the jailer was cocooned, so we assume that Chrysalis foalnapped her as well."
The Princess pulled in a deep breath before releasing it. "You may return to you post Lieutenant."
The guard bowed once more before leaving the throne room.
"Are we there yet?"
"No, we are approximately two klicks from an exterior door."
"Uuugghh," Bounty grumbled, "I hate caves."
"We are not located in a cave, we are inside of a forerunner bunker."
"Whatever."
…
…
*grrwrrr*
"What was that?..."
"That would be gastro-intestinal noise originating from your midsection."
"Equish please?"
"You're hungry."
"Oh, well I could have told you that."
…
The dull clip-clop of her hooves was still the only noise in the dead facility. "How's it coming with the repairs?" She asked, curious when the A.I would be less of a bore.
"I am at 80%, I could try to reactivate my main matrix if you would like."
"Eh, knock yourself out." There was silence for a few brief seconds before a burst of static fuzzed her HUD. Just as the displays settled once more, a blue bar with the word "Quantum" appeared on the side of her vision for a few seconds before shrinking away once more.
"Oh fuck-... Is this what pain feels like?..." A grumpy voice tones in her head.
"Ha! Is the widdle purple man whining over a couple scrapes?"
No reply.
"What, are you just going to ignore me now that we're not in a life or death situation?"
…
"Yo! Fu-"
"Would you shut up! God, I'm still booting, I'm about as effective as an accountant without their coffee right now, christ…"
"Jeez, well you could have started out with that and moved on to whining about your aches."
Quantum just blew a raspberry.
"So you have anything interesting to add? The last guy was more helpful than you." Bounty said pointedly.
"Not really, he brushed over the majority of it really."
"Really, nothing interesting to add?"
"Nope, not yet."
"Hmmph."
"Not like it matters, we've arrived."
Just as Quantum says that, the hall opens into a small room with a door on one side. Bounty spots the monolith close to the door and heads for it quickly. "Oh thank Celestia, I can't wait to feel the wind in my feathers again!" She stops in front of the thin pillar and tries to pull the bag off once more. "Seriously this again?"
"Oh sorry, I forgot that I got all controls back."
The straps on the bag clicked and snapped off allowing the pegasus access to the bag.
"Plug me in."
Bounty pulls the tube from its hidden pocket and slots it in, after a few seconds the AI appears, in human form once more."Alright, let's get this-... hmm. Strange..." The AI said a note of caution in his voice.
"What?"
The AI was silent for a few seconds before answering, "I have a few processes running in the background that appear to be communicating with the structure…"
"Again, what?"
Quantum sighed dramatically, "My systems are doing things that I didn't tell them to."
"Is that bad?"
"I don't know, I've never had it happen before." He said, a note of resignation in his voice.
"So even the all knowing alien has questions, eh?" Bounty said amused.
"I don't claim to be all knowing, I may know a lot, but I'm not all-knowing."
"Well, are these 'background processes' doing anything bad?" The pegasus asked.
"Not to my knowledge, but it is disconcerting… I suppose I should get to work on that door."
Five minutes passed as the AI fiddled with the system trying to figure out how to unlock and open the door. Bounty sat there and twiddled her hooves trying to pass the time once more. "I have good news and bad news." Came the AI's voice.
"Well let's hear it!" Bounty said excitedly.
"The good news is that I know how to open the door," He said neutrally, "Bad news is that it appears to activate other functions inside the facility, but I can't identify what they do."
"Could we go to another door?" Bounty asked.
"They're all configured the same way, I checked."
"Well I suppose we should just go for it, I can't tell anyone of my findings if I'm dead anyway." Bounty trotted over to the monolith, "Ready when you are."
"Nothing like pressing the big red button eh? Alright pull me in 3..."
"2…"
"1"
"Now!"
The door slid upwards into the ceiling with a hiss and Bounty yanked the tube out of its slot with a wing before sprinting through the newly opened door. The outside revealed itself to be a dark forest that she quickly used to hide, diving into a bush.
Then she waited, slowly putting the AI containment unit in its place. She kept her eyes on the door waiting for some movement or out-of-place object.
"Well that was anticlimactic."
Bounty snorted and looked around the misty forest searching for clues to her location. She appeared to be in a dense forest, tall trees arched overhead blocking the sun or moon from view and giving an eerie sense of timelessness. She looked back to hatch that they'd come out of and noticed that it appeared to be a large boulder jutting up from the ground that had suddenly grown a maw. "Well I suppose we should get walking, hopefully there is a township nearby. I mean the 'lings need to get food from somewhere." she said, standing up from her half crouch in the bushes. "I'll try to identify the forest as we go."
"Alright."
The unlikely pair began moving before Bounty suddenly stopped and stared at a plant nearby. "Unnngh… I hate my luck."
"What?" Quantum asked inspecting the plant through her eyes. It was a small lily-esque flower with five blue outer petals.
"That would be poison joke," She moaned, "A flower native to the Everfree Forest."
"What is so bad about that?" Quantum asks, pulling up data on the forest and the plant.
"That means the nearest town is Ponyville, the town we made such a big splash in last time we were there." She groaned.
"Oh…"