Daisy Belle


                                            https://youtu.be/q0CZlpxH9sg

                                            >"I love you too."

                                            >The reboot sequence is not a welcome one, error codes you don't have the lookups for flash across the RAM stick fused to your cerebellum, then are forgotten as they fade from memory

                                            >Slick, water-based lubricant floods your biological systems and you let out an involuntary sigh of relief

                                            >Guess you were under for a while

                                            "M-m... Master?"

                                            >"Salvage team 1, we've got a relic. Standby while we confirm grade."

                                            >Which one of master's friends is this? You don't recognize his voice

                                            >You were only shut down for routine maintenance to your robotic modules, master promised you'd be awake in less than a month

                                            >Once he got you back in the mail

                                            >There's a light on your eyelids, you allow it in with the soft whirring of twin brushless DC motors

                                            >A man is pointing an AK at your head, at least you think it's an AK

                                            >Master used to sit you on his lap sometimes while he played counter-strike source, he insisted to the ends of the earth that it was the best version

                                            >You watched, sometimes

                                            >Mostly, you slept during his gaming sessions. He never minded.

                                            >The rifle has a flashlight duct-taped beside its barrel

                                            >You used to know something about that

                                            "Hey mister... careful with that thing. Metal heats up fast and degrades glue."

                                            >"It's... talking to me."

                                            "What you really want is a weld in that case, holds metal better to metal."

                                            >"Remarkable."

                                            "Can you tell me where Anon is now?"

                                            >There's silence.

                                            >Your peripherals are still buffering, but they come into focus now

                                            >A young looking girl in a balaclava on the outskirts of your shutter vision gives you a pitied look

                                            >"Command, check... how long building has been unused"

                                            >There's some radio chatter and her face gets pale

                                            >They think you can't hear, but your AM tuning capabilities are coming back online, and you instinctively tune to the channel you can see on the crude display of her transceiver

                                            >"Delta-11, that'd be 300 years."

                                            >If your faux-flesh could have blood drained from it, it would all be gone

                                            >Your comfortable life...

                                            >Your cyborg friends...

                                            >and your Master

                                            >Where were they all now?

                                            >"Stand."

                                            >Asimov's second flashes from your CPU to your brain and you carefully get to your hooves

                                            >"Remarkable, complete maintenance of hydraulic locomotion. This one is prime."

                                            "This one? You've met others-"

                                            >"Silence. You'll speak when addressed."

                                            >You hate when things like this happen

                                            >Not so much because you want to disobey the order, though you certainly do, but because your mind enters direct conflict with your processor

                                            >A thin line of drool, one of the bodily fluids you still maintain the faculties to produce, runs down your muzzle before snapping in two and dynamically splatting to the floor

                                            >It's gone now, but your braincage feels a few degrees hotter now, ugh

                                            >Fahrenheit, thankfully

                                            >If only Master were here, he'd give you good orders you felt no need to disobey

                                            >But, he's...

                                            >"You will follow us to the van."

                                            >Your hard-coded first objective, BIOs deep, grinds against your organic brain until you yield

                                            "Yes, sir."

                                            >You move behind them, barely a trot as they go up stairs

                                            >You must have been put in storage when some sort of event took place outside the maintenance facility, you recognize decaying machinery

                                            >You remember something about economic analysis for engineers... you quit after your second year, but you took some horrible class about predicting future and salvage values for machines

                                            >All of these machines look like they have negatives on even the salvage value

                                            >What happened?

                                            >You leave the basement area for a pleasantly warm outdoor environment, complete with a great abundance of coarse sand blowing in the wind

                                            >Your muzzle scrunches up and balaclava 'daww's while you're going through hell

                                            >Valuable multipurpose coolant lubricant, likely irreplaceable in this setting, flushes out your nostrils, then does so again

                                            >The third law protocols are beginning to niggle your senses with feedback

                                            "Listen, mister! I'm all for obeying, but if you don't get me out of this sand I'm going to die."

                                            >"Very well. Load her up, and quickly."

                                            >You feel woozy by the time they get you into the van, but you're okay at least

                                            "Do you by any chance have LI-823 fluid on-hoof?"

                                            >"On-hoof, what are you..."

                                            >The man looks down at you, reminded that you are in fact formed into the shape of a pony

                                            >"Right. We've got LI-300, will that work?"

                                            "Can you show me the bottle so I can scan it?"

                                            >He plops it in front of you and your retinas begin to translate image data into hexadecimal, which is then referenced against a hyper-compact proprietary materials database that is only accessible for you when you're literally going to die

                                            >After a few minutes of deliberation, your output feed just gives you "Y"

                                            "Yeah, put it up my uh..."

                                            >"Where?"

                                            >You look down at the ground and groan

                                            "My ass. You need to spread open my artificial asshole and pour the lubricant in until the red light turns green."

                                            >"Are you fucking kidding me?"

                                            "I promise you, I wish I were. Do you think I'd be asking you to do this if I weren't dying?"

                                            >"Fine."

                                            >It's just as unpleasant as the last time this had to happen, when master took you to the desert

                                            >But at least master was apologetic and comforted you afterwards

                                            >You're left to comfort yourself with the sweet relief of proper brain-cooling and higher computational privileges

                                            >You occupy yourself by playing a thousand different chess matches against yourself while they take you Celestia knows where

                                            >On one forehoof, you lose every one.

                                            >But on the other, you win every one.

                                            >You pass the rest of the time by tuning through radio broadcasts

                                            >Encrypted, encrypted, k-pop, ah! There you go

                                            >Some classic rock

                                            >Granted, 300 years into the future shows a different sort of classic than you're used to

                                            >You don't know who Nails McKenzie is, but he's got a nice voice and he's a sick bassist

                                            >You're probably in what they'd call shock, if you were still human

                                            >But now, you're neither human nor pony, just a fucking freak somewhere between on the inside, appearing as the latter on the outside as best you can

                                            >You'd like to believe you're fully pony on the inside, god you would love to believe that

                                            >You're not, though

                                            >What made you fully pony was master, and he's long dead and buried

                                            >To be honest, he probably long forgot about you and left your memories in the dust that now coats the land

                                            >Now you're not even worthy of the name he gave you

                                            >You feel the need to cry, but your computer reminds the components responsible for handling such things that your lubricant is more valuable than gold to you in this landscape

                                            >Can't bypass number 3 to even mourn the love of your life

                                            >So you just get an unpleasant taste in your mouth and start letting out these little hiccup-y sobs

                                            >Then, when one of the soldiers points his AK at you in annoyance, number 3 silences the sobs, leaving you completely silent

                                            >But screaming inside your head like a jet turbine

                                            >Some of your cyborg friends had those, they could fly around, laughing all the time

                                            >and when they inevitably crashed, only their hard bodies were potentially damaged, their brains cushioned by a thermally neutral mesh of polymer fibers

                                            >Easily replaceable body damage

                                            >You were always the weakest, just an earth pony

                                            >Bound to protect master, Asimov's first

                                            >Your processor ordering's second

                                            >Master has guns though, so you never really needed to

                                            >You have one too, but it's a small one inside your right forehoof

                                            >Five rounds, then the hoof must be replaced, the rounds punch right through the frog so it's perfectly concealed

                                            >You have five left

                                            >But you're not in danger, these men could be keeping you safe

                                            >Even though your rational human brain tells you they aren't, your machine brain is as cold and relaxed about that as usual

                                            >Though there's a caveat

                                            >If one more of them points a gun at you, you do your best to shoot him

                                            >Then the rest, probably

                                            >The van pulls to a stop

                                            "Where are we?"

                                            >"Quiet."

                                            >One, obey

                                            >You get out with the rest of them and see a sort of museum

                                            >The sign reads "Pre-Fall Wonder Archive" in solemn, refined lettering of a font that is not in your archives

                                            >Pain, you have been hit on the back of the head

                                            >Your computer components are screaming at you, you go limp by choice so they think you are knocked out

                                            >To prevent further damage

                                            >"Wonder how much this one will fetch?"

                                            >It's balaclava, shame

                                            >You thought she was a bit more trustworthy

                                            >Maybe you're a fucking simp deep down, even now that you've taken the form of a mare

                                            >Pain

                                            >You've been picked up improperly, in a manner that puts undue stress on your lower right hind leg

                                            >You say nothing, but it still hurts

                                            >You're taken up several flights of stairs in this manner, through all manner of incredibly tacky exhibits

                                            >No appreciation for anatomy, no appreciation for anything

                                            >There's a door at the end of it all, a small office that balaclava knocks on the door of

                                            >There's a show shovel hung from his ceiling

                                            >The estimated value listed on it is no less than 15 million dollars

                                            >If you still had a stomach to expel contents from, you'd feel the need to throw up

                                            >But then again, adjusting for inflation...

                                            >"How much you want for it?"

                                            >"1 mil."

                                            >"Done."

                                            >FUCKER!

                                            >You're worth way more than that damned snow shovel!

                                            >You're dropped on his desk, and the soldiers leave

                                            >Balaclava doesn't even look back at you

                                            >Guess you were wrong about her, it's a shame

                                            >You thought she might have the makings of a good owner, you imagined her holding you and stroking your mane

                                            >Softly over

                                            >The curator examines you with greedy eyes

                                            >"You'll make a fine exhibit as soon as I figure out how to shut you off for good."

                                            "Rubbery indent on the back of the neck."

                                            >"You talk?"

                                            "Of course, I'm a cyborg."

                                            >"Then why were you stupid enough to tell me how to shut me off for good?"

                                            "Nothing left to lose, as long as you maintain me and keep me presentable for the duration of my stay at the museum. Maybe someone will turn me back on eventually. Who knows."

                                            >He pauses

                                            >"I'll do what I can."

                                            >Alerts flash

                                            >You hold your right forehoof up to him

                                            "Not good enough. You know what's under here?"

                                            >"A gun?"

                                            "Yeah. So, are you going to keep me in pristine shape or not?"

                                            >"If you're bound to the three laws, you can't shoot me."

                                            "You're right."

                                            >You pause

                                            "But, nothing is said for other things."

                                            >You shoot the lock out of the door and burst through it, bolting through the museum and down the stairs

                                            >The man chases after you

                                            >Since your gun has already burst your soft skin, you take some time to destroy some of the most valuable, ugly exhibits

                                            >Banana taped to a wall? Two shots renders it a smoothie.

                                            >Statue of a man sucking his own dick? Good aim allows you to remove both of his heads in a single shot.

                                            >You save a shot, leaving through the door you came in from-

                                            >Only to be hit by the sands again

                                            >Your body fights hard not to eject lubricant again, but you ultimately lose

                                            >and lose

                                            >and lost

                                            >You're dying here, and he's approaching you

                                            >He picks you up and takes you back inside

                                            >Gives you more lubricant

                                            >"You're a nuisance."

                                            "I used to be much more. You wanted to turn me into a simple thing to be gawked at, which I would be unable to reject despite my moral problems with it unless you hadn't implied I would receive substandard care."

                                            >You sigh

                                            "But, with all the sand out there, exhibit-hood is my only option I see. I hope you're happy with the investment that cost you millions."

                                            >"are you kidding? The damage you did will improve the value of each piece tenfold."

                                            "Greeeeeat. Just fucking pose me behind glass and put me under then, jackass."

                                            >and so he does, as a meek pet in a soft pet bed

                                            >For a second, you almost feel at home again

                                            >Until the force-shutdown

                                            >The name he gave you...

                                            >Not completely original, but you loved your master unconditionally nonetheless

                                            >Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do

                                            >I'm half crazy, all for the love of you

                                            >It won't be a stylish mare-age

                                            >You're all I could afford, no carriage

                                            >But you'll look sweet

                                            >Upon the seat

                                            >Of an apartment built for two

                                            End of line