*Tic*

*Toc*

*Tic*

*Toc*

Dr. Selena Connors sat impatiently in the spacious waiting room outside the boardroom. She had been here forty-five minutes already and her mood was beginning to darken. The noise of the clock, being the only ambient sound, was not helping. When her assistant, Dr. Price, had rushed into her office out of breath, she assumed the worst. Luckily it was only the second worst, that being the board of directors had called an urgent meeting and had requested her presence.

Since it was so sudden, she didn't have time to change and was still in her white lab coat, with blue jeans and a black blood-drive T-shirt as her now formal attire. Her brown hair was still tied up in a messy ponytail and she wore no makeup to hide the bags under her hazel eyes. Despite assuming she would be let in upon arrival, the secretary out front had asked her to wait here until called.

For an urgent meeting, they seemed to like keeping her waiting.

Just as she was mulling over leaving and going back to her work, the door opened and the secretary stepped out.

“They are ready to see you now.”

Selena stood and tried to make herself as presentable as possible, then walked through the open door. Inside was a spacious room with a large mahogany table that stretched almost the entire length of the room. At the far end sat the six head doctors who oversaw all the projects, and on the sides sat what she had come to recognize as the wealthy funders of all the research, with a single chair isolated on the near end of the table. All eighteen occupants turned to look at her when she walked in.

The head of the project, Dr. Sturns, rose as she neared the side closest to the door, “Dr. Connors, thank you for coming.”

“I received your invite. I was told this was urgent, correct?”

“It is. Please, have a seat,” he gestured to the remaining chair.

Selena pulled the chair out and sat, “Thank you. May I ask what the urgent matter is? I have a lot of work waiting for me and prefer meetings like this to be scheduled before hand.”

“I understand Dr. Connors, and it wasn't without warrant that we had to call this so suddenly. I think my colleague, Dr. Graceson, can explain further.” Dr. Sturns took his seat just as the man to his right rose.

“As you are all aware, our project is focused on helping and curing those with the militarized strain of the West Nile Virus. While many adults have been immunized since the outbreak, it is now infecting one in a hundred and seven at birth, and those rates are increasing.”

Everyone knew about the outbreak. How a terrorist organization bombed and bio research lab. How, unknown to the public at that time, that lab in particular had been mutating strains of West Nile in order to weaponize it. The government had commissioned it to do so in order to preempt its use against us, and to develop counter agents. It was never supposed to leave the lab. Had the bombing occurred months, even weeks earlier, there would not have been such devastation, but it occurred just after a strain that was airborne was created. Within twenty-four hours a city with a population of eight hundred and sixty thousand had a 78% infection rate. Within two weeks those infected died or were in comatose states.

Ignoring all quarantine efforts, the virus spread quickly and was impossible to contain. Luckily, a counter agent had already been developed before the lab was destroyed, but even with the best efforts of all agencies involved could not be administered quick enough. After five years of every world government working in unity, the spread of the virus was halted. The Earth’s population was now, just fifteen years later, less the two billion.

It was the closest humanity has come to facing extinction since the black plague.

“The treatment,” Dr. Graceson continued, “that works against the virus is very effective in adults, but childrens’ weak constitution and having been born with an inert form of the virus passed to them from their parents, render our treatments unusable. While very rarely fatal, as of now ninety-five percent of children who are infected go into a comatose state before the age of ten.”

“We understand all this doctor, all of us here have donated vast amounts of money because we understand. Can we hurry this along,” said someone to Selenas right.

Dr. Graceson gave a polite nod, “I understand, but as this information pertains to the matter at hand, I feel it necessary to insure we are all aware of what is at stake. Since the virus becomes less effective as the bodies’ immune system matures, most of those in these states wake up after fifteen to eighteen years. However, this results in unstimulated brain development and mental retardation. In order to combat this, we created the Mental Learning Project. Using headgear to pull the afflicted into a shared dream world, they can grow in an Earth like environment, ensuring that when they do wake up they are not at an infantile mental state.

“As you all know, we have ‘hedged our bets’ as the saying goes, and had multiple different methods researched at the same time. This allows for the most effective method to be determined in the fastest possible time. The mental development of a large portion of our future generations is dependent upon our efforts, so the we chose the route with more risk.”

Dr. Graceson gave a cursory glance around the room, “Which brings me to why we have called this meeting.”

“Finally, we didn’t need a history lesson, just tell us. We are all very busy people here,” grumbled an old gentlemen on the left.

Dr. Graceson cleared his throat, “We have called this meeting in order to discuss the cutting of the Freedom of Intellect and Maturity project.”

“What?” Selena was in shock.

“Due to some promising new projects being proposed, and a limited supply of funds and equipment,” he glanced around the room,” we find ourselves having to cut some old projects to make funds available for new ones.”

Those around the table began quite murmuring but Selena ignored them as she stood abruptly and slammed her fists against the table, “You can’t do that! We are so close to a breakthrough!”

Dr. Sturns gave her a hard look, “Calm yourself Selena. This is a discussion first and foremost. We will determine in a vote at the end if we decide to move forward.”

Selena glared back, but took a deep breath and tried to calm down as she retook her seat. Dr. Sturns had always been a friend and was trying to warn her. She wouldn’t want to jeopardize the situation because she couldn’t control her emotions. “What’s to discuss? My research has had more results than any other project,”

“That remains to be seen Dr. Connors,” a doctor on the far right, who Selena recognized as Dr. Rich, spoke up. “Other projects are starting to show some results, though still small.”

“What about the spike? Our group is the only one to have a direct change initiated by the participants rather than outside factors.”

The “spike” happened a mere six months after they had booted the world and the unconscious minds of the patients finished creating a world to inhabit. It was named after the huge spike in mental activity that was registered, the only time that had happened due to the patients and not the caretakers. Those on the project with her began referring to it as the “rainboom event” after the event inside the dream world that occurred at the same time. After that event, many of the patients found hobbies and activities to do. Creating more of the world around them and having increased activity. No other project came close to that type of result.

“That is true,” responded Dr. Graceson, “but that event happened ten years ago, and despite a brief period of growth, the participants settled into patterns. As I recall group D, the section most affected by the event, has one who continuously farms. Another, who despite early improvement, simply cares for animals in a repeated simulation of the same animals having the same illnesses week after week. While your group did have the most advancement in that short window, it still has the same hurdle that all the groups share. The patients simply find a comfortable pattern and repeat, never growing or learning despite outside attempts at intervention.”

“Then why is mine the one on the chopping block? If all the groups have the same issue, why stop this one?” Selena asked.

This time a lady to the right, one of the funders, spoke, “ It pertains to the...shape, that the dream world your patients occupy.”

“I let the children help create it. I think letting them help shape the world around them lets them feel more comfortable and more likely to express creativity.”

“We know this Dr. Connors,” said a man closest to her on the left, “but we feel that, despite your intentions of fostering that creativity, it has failed to bloom and the patients are no better off. So they receive no advantage over the other groups, but may have disadvantages due to being an entirely different species from their actual forms.”

Selena could feel the group turning against her and was near panicking at the thought of losing funding, she was about to speak when one of the funders to her right jumped in.

“It has already shown that it had no adverse effects. Cassie Stilles awoke with only slight disorientation and mechanical issues, but had full use of all appendages within a week, and scored higher than awoken patients from other groups in mental capacity.”

Dr. Green cut in from the far end of the table, “She did, however, think her name was Sunset Shimmer for months afterwards, and her early advantage in the scores quickly evened out with the rest of those woken up. Despite Dr. Connors best efforts, we feel the route she is trying has peaked, and need to focus resources on more promising projects.”

A older gentleman to her left added his consensus, “Well I for one think we should count it as a lesson to learn from and move on. We've seen the same evidence time and time again, but nothing new for years,”

“Well if we are in agreement that discussion can not introduce any new evidence, all for holding a vote on the continuance of the MLP:FIM project say aye. ”

Eighteen voices rang out.

“All opposed say nay.”

None.

“The ‘ayes’ have it, we are agreed for a vote. All for cutting.”

Fifteen made that awful sound again

“All opposed.”

Three voices that might as well have been none.

“Once again the ‘ayes’ have it. the FIM project will institute shutdown procedure and prepare for the transfer of patients within twenty-four hours.”

Selena stood abruptly at that, “Transfer? But almost none of the patients that transfer are able to cope. They all end up even worse off, can’t we just leave the servers up till the final group wakes up?” Selena was almost hyperventilating at this point.

Dr. Graceson looked legitimately saddened, “I’m truly sorry Dr. Connors, but we need those servers for an incoming large group. If there was any other way I would, but the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few. I've never been more sorry than I am now to have to say that to you.”

As the other occupants began to rise and leave, Dr. Sturns stopped near where Selena had fallen back into her seat and she turned to him hopefully, “Charles, you don’t agree with that do you? You supported me the most when I proposed this project.”

Dr. Sturns gave a defeated sigh, “I’m sorry Selena, but it may be time to move on to a different approach.” Selena just stared in shock as he continued. “You gave it your best shot, and the projects merits were worth exploring, but unless you have some new data to show a change in the behavior of the patients, it’s out of my hands.” He put a comforting hand on her shoulder, then turned and left her in the now vacant room.

---

Dr. Samantha Price liked going into the dream world. She enjoyed watching the occupants, both patients and figments created by their collective desires, interact and live. Despite everyday being almost the same, it was still a joy seeing them so happy and free. Today she had decided to use one of the figments named Mayor Mare and took a stroll through town.

“Good morning Mayor,” called out a passerby.

“Good morning Roseluck,” Samantha replied cheerfully, falling seamlessly into character. “Any plans for today?”

“Just gonna sell my flowers, I hope to get a lot of sales today,” came the now fading reply.

Samantha gave a hearty wave and called out as Roseluck continued on her way, “I'm sure you will dear. Good luck.”

Patient #121, Roseluck, was one of the older children in group D, or more colloquially known as Ponyville. Samantha had watched as, for the last ten years, she went to the market daily to sell her home grown flowers. She was up at the crack of dawn to tend to them and cut her wares. She went to the market at the same time everyday and went to the same three places for “lunch” throughout the week. A few times Samantha would invite her to eat somewhere else or to go bowling just to try and mix it up and get her to try new things, but the next day Roseluck would be back to doing her same old routine.

In the beginning it was referred to it as non-traumatic repetition compulsion disorder, but the project leaders started referring to it as “the rut”. When a normal person gets into a “rut” there are plenty of outside factors to help push them out. For a patient in dream space though, since there minds are creating the worlds, the lack of constant outside stimulation leaves them stuck. Caretakers. like herself, try and push them out, but they would need thousands of people in order to provide the same type of random stimuli that a person normally receives.

It begins to wear on many caretakers as their best efforts usually ends with no results, but Samantha refused to let this get her down. She had been only an intern when she started on the project, and had felt so helpless when attempt after attempt, directed by Dr. Connors, met with failure. As time went on though, she could picture the minute changes in each of the patients reactions and routines. She decided to stay on the project, refusing other offers after receiving her doctorate, because she felt that deep down they were making a difference. They just needed that one little push to open the gates and let it flood out.

The problem was that all their pushes were in the wrong places and got no lasting results. One of their more desperate attempts, trying to use destiny to push Sunset Shimmer to strive for growth, failed horrifically when it made her feel isolated and caused her to lash out. It eventually disrupted her brain patterns and resulted in her waking early. Since Carrie was the first of the project to awaken, they conducted multiple test to see if changing from equine to homo sapien cause any lasting effects. The testers counted it as a proof of concept since she had no trouble adjusting, and even scored higher on her first three mental aptitude tests, but Dr. Connors still felt guilty. Samantha could see it her eyes every time someone brought up Carrie that Selena considered it a huge failure, one that rested solely on her shoulders. Try as she might to convince her otherwise, that they couldn't have predicted that outcome and Carries’ results had done more for her than other projects, Samantha could never completely ease Dr. Connors guilt.

Samantha made her way to a local building called Sugar Cube Corner for a scheduled check up on patient #321. She had named herself Pinkie Pie and was one of the more interesting patients. Her rut consisted of mostly throwing parties and generally going around being enjoyably happy. She was a unique patient in that her unconscious confidence in how things should be ended up overpowering other local patients’ thoughts. This caused odd effects like appearing to know when everyones birthday was and predicting the immediate future. It wasn't because she had memorized them or really could predict it, it was that she effectively rewrote the world. When she thought it was someones birthday, she had such confidence that it was that she effectively made it true. Her predictions worked the same way, if she said a plant was going to fall, then her confidence in it happening made it occur. She was a walking self-fulfilling prophecy. The door to the store drew Samantha out of her thoughts and she focused on going inside and finding Pinkie.

“Hello, Mayor Mare.”

Samantha jumped in surprise, before turning towards the newly materialized mare behind her. She was sure no one had been a second ago. One more side effect was ignoring the general natural rules too. This one was harder to explain because they were not created by the user but instituted purposefully by the engineers. So breaking them should not be possible, but when it came to predicting what Pinkie's mind could change, it was best to ignore it.

“Hoo, hello Pinkie. You gave me a start,” she raised a hoof to her chest and tried to calm her racing heart.

Pinkie giggled, “I’m sorry Mayor, I meant to surprise you, not start you.”

“Yes, yes thats all well and good Pinkie, just coming to see how you are. Doing well today?”

“Yepperoni. I made three cakes for the birthday party later today, and then I set up a bounce house just because. Though I don't know why they call it a bounce house since you can bounce in it but no one lives there? Ooh, I wonder what it would be like to live in a bounce house? I bet it would be hard to cook, but you could sleep anywhere.” She began to bounce in place as if imagine herself in one.

“That’s nice Pinkie. Glad to know you’re doing ok. Well, I'm off to visit some more ponies, hope you have a lovely day.” Samantha gave her a smile and turned to leave. Pinkie was doing what she does every Thursday, even down to wondering about bounce houses. Despite this happening every week, it still had a tinge of disappointment. As she was just about to step into the street she felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning to look, there was Pinkie holding out a purple balloon and a smile that seemed to say “Here, cheer up.”

Samantha was a little confused, as Pinkie had never done this before. She had definitely received balloons from Pinkie, but usually for invitations or the monthly get well soon event, never on a Thursday.

“Thank you Pinkie. Umm...what’s it for?”

“I don’t know,” she gave a shrug, “I just felt something big was happening today and you would need a balloon.” She then returned to her normal jolly self and went back inside.

Samantha stared at the balloon for several seconds, trying to process what this could mean. It was not unusual for a rut to have some variance, but in all her time in the dreamscape this had never happened. She hoped this was a good sign that things were about to change for the better.

---

Selena took her time going back to the lab. She felt dead inside, like every single child under her care was calling for her to help them, but she was unable to. Dr. Price was taking off her headgear when Selena entered the room.

“So, how did the meetin...Selena? Are you ok?”

Selena still felt like she was in a daze, “Huh? I’m sorry what did you say?”

“Just asking if you were ok, you look out of it. Want me to get you some coffee or something? Maybe some tea?”

“No...no, I'm fine. I just need to sit down.” She moved towards her desk chair and sat down.

“Alright, as long as you're feeling alright,” Samantha gave her employer a friendly smile turned to the coffee maker in their office and started making herself a cup. “Oh, I almost forgot. Pinkie was acting a bit strange today. I know she has always had a weird rut, but today she seemed unusual even for her. I wonder if we are about to make that breakthrough.” She put on a big grin and turned hoping Selena was just as excited about it as she was.

Instead she saw her facing her monitor and shaking. Soon the shakes became audible cries as Selena couldn't hold it in any longer. Samantha rushed to her and pulled her into a hug.

“What is it? What happened?”

“It’s over,” she cried into Samanthas’ shoulder, “I failed them. I failed all of them.”

“I don't understand, what do you mean?”

“They are cutting our funding *hic*. We are to start the shutdown and prepare to transfer them.”

Samantha gasped, “But transferred patients always end up behind. Sometimes they don’t recover at all. Why couldn't they just leave the servers up till these wake up?”

Selena couldn't answer her as she fell into a fit. It took several minutes to calm down enough to speak.

“They need to server space for an incoming group,” Selena began to regain herself, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “ They gave us twenty-four hours to use the shutdown protocol. We have to load up ‘Nightmare Moon’ and then start the shutdown procedures.”

Selena gave a pause then looked at her assistant, “Can you do it for me, I’d like to be with her for a bit longer.”

Samantha nodded and gave her another hug, she then left to go to the main server room.

---

Selena watched her assistant leave then turned towards her console. Logging in and booting up the master user, she put on her head gear and prepared to enter the dream world. Entering the dream world was not an uncomfortable experience, it was like falling asleep and then immediatly waking up. First time users usually felt some disorientation and discomfort, but Selena had been doing this for more than a decade and was instantly acclimated to her new form.

Princess Celestia rose from her throne. Having apparently joined while her figment version had been holding court, she spoke to the assembled group.

“I’m sorry my little ponies, but something has come up and I will have to cut court short today.”

Several groans came from those in line. “I’m sorry, but it is unavoidable and needs my immediate attention. May you have wonderful days.”

With that Celestia stepped down off her throne and headed to the exit. Her guards began following her down the elaborate corridor and towards the front of the castle.

“Princess, what is the emergency?” the captain at the time asked in stride.

Celestia just increased her pace, “I need to spend time with my student.”

The guards soon stopped as their rulers much faster speed left them far behind. “Wonder what could have brought that about?” asked one of the guards who had followed along. The captain turned and gave a quick shrug before headed back inside to help with escorting the petitioners out.

---

Samantha was in shock. She had never expected them to lose funding, especially since she felt they were so close to finally pulling them out of that rut and making true progress. She felt like bursting into tears the whole way to the main server room, but knew that Selena needed someone to be strong, as this was even more difficult for her. Samantha couldn’t even begin to imagine how much she was hurting right now.

As Samantha rounded the corner and neared the entrance, the methodical hum of the numerous computers told her she was in the right place. She opened the door to the tall black tower computers that held thousands of terabytes of information. Weaving between them, she made her way to the lone console sitting in the center on the far side of the room. When a project is shut down, in order to facilitate the cases where patients have to be transferred, they programed an event that happens in the projects server. It’s basically a doomsday event that tries to force the occupants to prepare for the inevitable lack of a world. Each project has it’s own event to fit the world, and FIMs was dubbed the “Night Mare Moon” event. It was originally designed as an attempt to bond some patients together through fighting a common cause, but was scrapped despite being completed after the Sunset Shimmer awakening.

Usually the shutdown protocol was a meteor or a natural disaster, but since FIM was so unique, they decided that using this established event would be a better approach. The main villain would give ample warning, then after a predetermined period of time to give the patients a chance to cope, the servers would go offline as the “world” ended. It was a brutal process that several hampered the poor children inside, but the shutdown protocols did tend to decrease the number of those who are incapable of recovering significantly. After the event, they would wake up in a new project. A small percentage would accept it as if they had been in a dream, but many would find the change difficult to manage and it would put them even further behind once they finally wake up into the real world. A not so insignificant portion would suicide after waking in an attempt to reach the next “project”. It hurts reading the news when that happens.

In order to prevent an accidental activation, the protocols were kept on a separate system and had to be downloaded to a driver and copied over. Samantha logged into the terminal and pulled up the shutdown protocol drive. There were only seventeen despite there being over thirty-six projects since several projects used the same basic template and could share protocols, each one sharing an innocent abbreviation that hid the more depressing reality.


Samantha stared at NNM.zip for what felt like ages.

She couldn’t bring herself to copy it into the driver. All she could think about was those smiling equine faces, and the smiling children that used them. How could she bring herself to hurt them so? ‘It had to be done though’, she told herself. If she didn’t do it now, then the engineers would be tasked to, and they would be rushed, decreasing the time the patients had to cope. The mouse icon hovered over the file, just a drag-and-drop away from it starting.


Samantha suddenly gasped, her face lighting up from her epiphany. She opened the file in the coder program and scrolled passed code after code until she found what she was looking for. A quick change and rewrite later, she saved the folder and after exiting the program she dragged the folder over, starting the program. After logging out, Samantha gave a satisfied sigh. They had ordered her to start the shutdown, they never said that she couldn’t give them a fighting chance.

---

Celestia arrived at her students living quarters, which just happened to double as a library and lab. At the top of the stairs she took a moment to catch her breath and then gave the door a few quick knocks. A few seconds later she heard Twilights hoofsteps approach the door.

“Yes, who is it?” Twilight opened the door with a smile, which then turned into a gasp of shock. “Princess, I didn’t know you were coming today.”

Celestia leaned forward and accepted the nuzzle that Twilight offered, “I’m sorry to drop in on you like this, but it was urgent. May I come in?”

“Oh, yes please do,” Twilight moved aside to let her mentor in.

Celestia looked around the familiar room. It was filled with five hundred and thirty-two books, she had counted. Twilight had the rut of reading the same books and repeating the same experiments. It left her learning the information that the coding engineers had put into the dream worlds’ books, but she was still just as stuck as all the other patients. Several times Selena had tried to break her of it, using figments to invite her out and even giving her an assistant to try and push her out of it, but all to no avail.

Twilight had been her focus ever since she was brought into the dream world ten years ago, one week before the rainboom event. Twilight had been adamant about learning from the start, and Selena took it upon herself to be that teacher, though the figment version of Celestia had been pulled to be the teacher of Sunset Shimmer.

Twilight pulled out pillows for them to sit on brought some tea over to drink. Celestia took a seat and waited for Twilight to take hers.

“So, what was urgent?” Twilight asked after pouring them some tea. Celestia took a moment to sip the tea, savoring the coded flavor.

“I felt I wasn’t spending enough time with you, and thought we could just take some time to be around each other.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful princess. I love it when you come by,” Twilight bounced with excitement but caught herself a moment later, “I mean, not that you have to spend time with me, or don’t spend enough time with me already. I know you're busy with being the princess and all, so I don’t mind if you can’t visit that often.”

Celestia gave a light chuckle, “Stop worrying my faithful student, I always have time for you.”

She then leaned across the table and gave Twilight another nuzzle. She then spent the next half hour listening to Twilight talk about what she had (re)learned and how her experiments turned out. Mostly she just listened to her voice and watched her excitement as she discussed the things that interested her. She wanted to commit the way she laughed and the joy that was in her eyes to memory.

“I’m sorry, am I boring you?”

Celestia shook her self from her daze and straightened herself, “Hmm, what?”

Twilight rubbed her hooves together nervously and looked away, “Well, its just that you're crying and I thought maybe I was actually boring you to tears.”

Celestia raised a hoof to her face and wiped under her eyes. She hadn’t realized she had been crying.

“No Twilight, you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just going to miss our talks like this.”

She noticed that Twilight got a fearful look in her eyes.

“Not because I am dismissing you, I meant after I leave today I will miss this talk. We will have more like it in the future, I promise.”

The lie hurt more than she could bear but was worth seeing Twilight let out a sigh of relief. They sat for a moment in pure silence, just happy to be in each others company, when a user update appeared on her ‘HUD’. The world would have a two millisecond skip as the Nightmare Moon protocol was implemented. She braced herself and saw the slight skip, before everything returned to normal. That reminder of what was coming was almost enough to start her crying her eyes out. She wanted to hug Twilight and never let go. To make her laugh and smile and be the happiest child in the world, but she knew it was coming to an end.

She turned her head to the side to keep twilight from seeing her wet eyes again, but noticed something new. On the stand, where nothing sat before, was a book. In a library this would be normal, but this was no regular book as instead of a title on the cover, it simply had a picture of a golden armored unicorn with blue eyes. Celestia’s mouth hung open in shock as she recognized it. A sliver of hope was born in her, and she felt like there was a chance for the first time in hours.

She turned back towards Twilight, “I’m sorry Twilight but I must go. There is something very important that I must do.”

“Are you sure princess? Can you stay a little longer?” she put on her unintentional but extremely effective pout.

“I’m afraid so my faithful student, but we will have a chance to talk more at a later date. I’m sure you have many more books you would like to be reading and I don’t want to take up anymore time than I already have.” Celestia rose from her seat and began heading towards the door.

Twilight followed her, “Well, ok. Good bye princess.” She leaned in for a parting nuzzle.

“I will see you later Twilight,” she whispered into Twilights ear and pulled her into a full on hug. With that Celestia hurried back down the stairs and away from the tower home.

Twilight slowly closed the door and moved back towards the center of the room. “I wonder which book I should read next,” she asked aloud, glancing over the piles. Then she noticed one she had never seen before sitting on her living room stand. “Oh, this looks interesting.” Twilight picked up the book and began to read.

---

Selena logged out and took off the head gear. She quickly turned around, found where Samantha was sitting at her desk, and proceeded to tackle her into a hug.

“I can’t thank you enough for that.”

Samantha returned her crying bosses hug, “I felt that sometimes its better to do something rather than just waiting for it all to end.”

Selena just hugged her harder. After she composed herself she let her assistant go and pulled her back to her feet.

“How did you do it? I thought they removed it when they converted it into the shutdown protocol?” Selena asked wiping away stray tears.

“They didn’t delete it, they just deactivated it. It might not work, but its better than nothing.”

“It will work. It has to work. I have faith that she will know what to do and stop it.”

Selena moved towards the door but stopped before opening it and turned back towards Samantha. “I’m going to be with her. After she reads the book she will want to do something about it but that won’t be enough, she has to pull more than herself out or it will be just a user program pulling one of a rut. The original is supposed to land in Ponyville, can you send her there for me when she finally asks?”

Samantha nodded, “Of course. Go, she needs you now.”

Selena gave her a grateful smile and left the room.

Samantha let out a sigh. Just one more task to do and it was out of their hands. We’ll, maybe she could point her in the right direction with a few others she should meet. Samantha smiled as she put on her headgear and logged into master user.

---

Selena walked calmly into the sparsely lit room. Like a large hallway it extended before her for over a hundred yards. Machines whirred around her as she walked past the rows and rows of beds. All-in-all there were four hundred and sixty-two beds with four hundred and sixty-two occupants.

Each one hooked to multiple machines that provided nourishment and life sustaining assistance through a myriad of tubes, pumps and bags.

Each one had the head gear that plugged them into the same dream world they had all help create.

Each one stuck in their own individual routines and patterns, refusing to leave the comfort of the familiar and grow.

She walked past these children, their names popping into her head as she passed them. She had come to know them over these ten years, and took pains to interact with them as often as she could. She viewed them all as her children, and did everything she could to help them, to push them back towards the waking world. However, there was only so much she could do. The rest rested in their young minds and in their little hearts.

She stopped when she reached a quarter of the way down the room and moved to the bed on her left. A clip board with medical information hung off the foot board.

Patient #216: Connors, Dawn

Slowly, she sat down on side of the bed and watched the sleeping occupant. She gently caressed the girls pale cheek, brushing away a stray hair and gave a sad smile.

“It’s all up to you now,” she spoke softly, “I know you can do it, my most faithful student.”

She kissed the girls head and grasped her hand. With that Selena pushed all her feelings of love and hope into that frail body, praying that some of the magic carried over with her and could, just this once, make the difference. Staying like that for the remaining time, she did what comes hardest to a teacher...to a friend...to a mother.

She watched.

She waited.