An Old Stallion's Story

by Icer

Chapter One - It's Time for Science!

Chapter One: It’s time for Science!

There was a collective gasp of astonishment from all of the foals as the revelation hit them, their grandfather hadn’t been a pony their entire lives? Inconceivable!

Cloud Chaser was the first pony to speak up, “But, grandpa, how can that be? You’re a pony, we’re your grandfoals! It doesn’t make any sense!”

The grandfather just smiled and got up, he walked over to a cabinet and levitated a key out of its hiding place and opened the door, pulling out a slightly faded picture in an old frame and levitated it over to Cloud Chaser, before settling back into his seat.

There was another gasp from the group as they saw what was in the photo, it was a human! His brown hair neatly done and a big smile on his face, his arms wrapped around a purple unicorn with a purple mane and a pink stripe going through the middle, and his other around a cyan pegasus with a rainbow main. Huddled around them were a white unicorn with a styled purple mane, a pink earth pony with a crazy pink mane, who seemed to be vibrating despite it only being a photograph, a yellow pegasus with a pink mane, her eyes hiding behind her mane, and an orange earth pony with a tied up blonde mane and a Stetson perched on her head. Their smiles all matched the one radiating from the man in the middle, though none quite approaching that of the pink pony’s smile.

“Grandpa, you never said that you were friends with the Elements of Harmony!” Cloud Chaser says with surprisingly more wonder than before, looking at her grandfather as though she hadn’t seen him before.

“I could swear that I had mentioned it before, oh well, now you all know who I was. And to be honest, I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for those six ponies, they taught me a lot about friendship, I never would have stayed if they hadn’t helped me, nor would I have met your grandmother!” The stallion says, with a big smile on his face from the memories, and the reactions from his grandfoals.

“Grandpa! Can you tell us that story instead then? Pretty please? Please? With sugar on top!” Cloud said, jumping up and down in excitement.

The stallion rubbed his chin he said, “Well, I don’t know, I mean, I guess I could if you really want it. Sure, I’ll tell it to you.” He relented with a smile, “I guess that if you really want to hear it I’ll tell you. You all remember how I told you about humanity’s biggest passion being science, right?” After a flurry of nods he continued, “Well, I used to be a scientist, it was close to 50 years ago when…”

---

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

A hand jetted out from under the covers and smacked off the alarm before the tenth sounding of the alarm, and the owner rolled over into a sitting position to take a look around the room. It was a bit cluttered, but nothing too messy, the desk near the window was covered in several books on quantum mechanics, with notes jutting out of the side, and strewn with papers covered with even more notes, a computer monitor hiding behind the books, turned off. The floor was a stark contrast to the desk, devoid of any mess it was completely clear, allowing for full mobility through the room. The walls were blank, save for a calendar and some sticky notes with different meetings and appointments scrawled on them in a legible script. A disgruntled black cat jumped off of his bed, and looked at him indignantly, before walking away into the kitchen to get food.

As the man stood up out of bed to his full height of just under 6 feet, he stretched out his arms and legs to get the blood flowing through them as he walked out of his room and into his bathroom, grabbing a clean shirt from his dresser and tossing it on as he left. Not expecting anything to exciting at the lab for the day, he did his morning routine without too much speed, brushing his teeth, tossing on his workout clothes, the whole nine yards. As he was about to leave for his run, he glanced at his phone and noted a voice message from the lead researcher on the project, and decided to give it a listen before leaving.

“Hey John, it’s Joe,” The message began, a soft female voice on the line, “Listen, I know it’s a Wednesday, but we got approval to run the test! They want us to do it today, I need to you to be in here by 11 so we can start prepping the experiment, I’ve got the generators running already, but I’ll need you in by 11, like I said. We’ll get it this time, I just know it!”

John glanced up at the clock; it was only 8:30. “Well, looks like I’ve still got a little bit of time on my hands then.” And then it was out the door, his run was only a short one, he only ran long enough to get into his pace, and then he had to turn around and go back, due to the limited amount of time he had to get ready and get to work.

Upon arrival back at his home, John took a quick shower, made a cup of tea, poured a bowl of cereal, and sat down to flick through the television to see if there was anything worth melting his brain over.

“Today on Jersey Shore!”

~click~

“In this episode of Mythbusters, we blow everything up!”

~click~

“Duh duh duh duh duh Dora!”

~click~

“Following yesterday’s election, President Elect – “

~click~

“You’re going to LOVE ME!”

~click~

“Well, no surprise there, nothing to watch as usual, might as well start making my way to the university to get things set up then.” John said with a shake of his head as he put his dishes in the dishwasher, checking the food and water for his cat before he grabbed his bag and leather jacket and went out the door.

John jumped on his bike and started riding to the university, thinking about all that had happened to get them to this point. Their theory was something that was a little controversial, and needed a lot of clout and arguing to get them to just the point of testing the equipment that they were now at had been a maze of bureaucratic red tape, begging, and political maneuvering. It wasn’t even that the project was politically objectionable either, no political objectives or ties with any of the researchers, it was simply that it wasn’t something that was going to jump out in the headlines. If the project was successful, no news agencies were going to jump on it quickly, and it would be several more years after that before any truly useable technology came out of their discoveries.

The experiment wasn’t even inherently dangerous, though there were the dangers that came from being around high-voltage equipment, and accidents can happen anywhere and anytime, Murphy had a habit of being like that. The basic plan of the experiment was to use their equipment, and an exorbitantly large amount of energy, to create a small enough portal, theoretically, in order to prove the existence of parallel universes, and potentially open a method of extra-solar transportation, at least that was one of the wishes for John, who read a little too much science fiction for Joe’s liking. Over the past several months, using grants, begging, and just good old fashioned hard work and ingenuity, they had managed to build up their equipment to the stage where it would be possible for the first phase of the experiment to take place, that is the opening of a stable enough portal, no more than a few nanometers wide at the most, to prove their theory correct. After that was accomplished, they would be able to get more than a few grants and investors in order to really test out their additional theories and plans, but they first had to take that first crucial step.

If they approved this first test, on the conditions that we complete it today, they’re probably hoping that we don’t have the equipment ready for any sort of test, John mused as he came upon the final mile to the university, that would certainly explain why Joe wanted me out here as soon as I could, even though she said 11.

He parked his bike outside of his research building, double checking the lock to ensure that no one would take it if they were running late, and then walked in through the side doors. Several floors and two security locks later (high voltage equipment and wandering undergrads do not mix), John arrived at the lab. Entering, he shrugged off his jacket and put it on one of the conveniently located coat hooks, exchanging it for his lab coat and grabbing some notes out of his bag, he went over and started double checking many of the connections in the system, not expecting to find anything out of place.

“John! Good, you made it on time, and you’re already checking the connections on the accelerator, perfect.” Dr. Josephine Schueller said, poking her head up from behind one of the computer interfaces. Just one look at her would reveal a woman who is lost in her work, skinny, with little fat on her bones, and the type of muscles that one gets just from moving machinery; she looks like a person who only eats when her body reminds her to. Her brown hair is tied back in a bun, but with strands sticking out here and there showing her disregard to looking perfect and her obsession with her work. Joe’s green eyes held an intelligence that belied her disheveled looks however, as did her PhD and track record of published theories in physics.

“Of course I made it on time Doc, I’m 30 minutes early! I know how important this opportunity is, and if they want it today then by God we’ll do it today.” John said as he finished the last check on the complicated piece of equipment, before checking all the power cables and the several of the instruments to ensure that they are properly calibrated and sealed, before finishing up the checks with the final and most important piece of the puzzle, the portal generator.

“Just make sure that you don’t mess up any of those connections John, we only get one chance at this one. Don’t mess it up.” Joe said, looking at him again with a very serious look in her eyes. “Anyways, you remember where you’re supposed to be during the experiment, right? You’re in charge of monitoring the energy input, get settled in and we’ll get started .“ Joe concluded as she walked over to a different part of the lab, and sat behind her own terminal.

John just shook his head as he walked over, She’s really worried about this going perfectly. He mused as he got situated and pulled up the various programs that they had written for the experiment, The issues behind why we’re doing it today must be a lot larger than I had originally thought. John started typing into the terminal and a countdown clock started in the top right-hand corner of the screen, “Okay Doc, I’m ready over here for when you are. Timer shows 30 seconds, I’ll start it when you’re ready.”

Typing on her keyboard to do some last minute checks, and to get her station ready to receive the data, Joe nodded and then replied to John, “Alright, go ahead and start the clock. Generators are showing that we’ll have the power we need, and all lights are green.”

“Okay, clock is starting…. Now.” John typed out a command, and the clock started to tick inexorably to zero. “All input is looking good, the power increase is moving at the optimal rate. We might just have this perfect Joe.”

“Good, everything’s still green on my end. Starting the process itself in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The primary accelerator is activated, and we’re starting to get good readings on the particles needed to create the portal.” Joe said, her tone shifting from one of annoyance and apprehension, to one of pure business.

“Clock says 10 seconds, input is still perfect.” John said, watching the numbers climb to the necessary height, “Okay, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. If it works the portal should be opening about no-“

There was a bright flash of light, and then nothing, only the sound of falling plaster from the walls where the plaster had not been stripped clean. The door was gone, as was several sections of the walls, in a perfectly spherical shape from where the portal was to have been created. The only sign that something had been there were the severed power cables leading to where the machinery had been.

“John? John! John!” Joe said as she jumped up after her eyes had cleared from the flash, and she looked up to see nothing there, before blacking out from the shock of what she had just seen.

---

“We have an urgent report from the University that a major accident has occurred, we have a very small amount of information to go on, but from what we have learned there was a high-energy physics experiment in one of the labs. Ambulances arrived and quickly took away one Dr. Joe Schueller, though some sources say that there was another person in the lab, all saying that he, and much of the equipment in the lab vanished without a trace. The questions that everyone seems to be asking is, what was going on in that lab, what happened, and what happened to John Q. Blake? This is Sandra Simpson, on location with Channel 10 news, signing out.”

---

Author's Note:
A day later than I thought it was going to be, but oh well. I still got it out, and that's what counts right? For those of you wondering, yes, I'm a big science fiction nerd, that's partially why I decided to toss that in here, another thing is that I didn't want magic involved in getting our, now named, character John into Equestria. It's a silly trope and happens far too often. Now, for those of you who are actually familiar with such things, ignore it, I'd rather not have to deal with people shouting at me for being completely wrong on scientific matters, because it's for the purposes of the story, and I feel that I was vague enough for it to work.

Now, the second part of this, It may be a week or two until the next installment is out, and for that I apologize, but only a little, for my time will be really taken up this week by various things.

And, once again, feel free to note anything you find that looks strange or silly, and leave them in the comments! I'd rather have criticism than have people not like my story for no reason at all.
- Icer

Comments

[RagingCacti]

It looks good, and the concept is one that is a little better than "a brony ended up in Equestria, lets see what happens." The only warning I would give is to be wary of where you go with the story, because a bad slip-up could destroy such a good concept. But until then...... Keep it classy.