Disco Inferno

by McPoodle

Figure 3: Light Bulb

Figure 3: Light Bulb

---

Let’s all chant:

Your body, my body,
Everybody move your body!
Your body, my body,
Everybody work your body!

Your body, my body,
Everybody move your body!
Your body, my body,
Everybody work your body!

William Martin’s brief escape from the combined stress and boredom of the Oradell Animal Hospital’s waiting room was quickly curtailed. The near-frostbite inducing wind outside was part of the reason, but the main reason was the music. Somebody in the parking lot was blaring the latest disco hit from his speakers at full volume, and the idiotic chorus not only would not let up, but showed sure signs of burrowing into the minds of its victims, never to be forgotten. Luckily for William’s sanity, the Musak being broadcast in the waiting room when he returned was Glenn Miller’s “String of Pearls”: the perfect antidote to “Let’s All Chant”.

“Ah,” he said with relief. “Now that’s what I call music!”

Antonia looked up from a well-handled magazine. “Where did you go just now?”

“Don’t go outside,” William said with a stony face. “Whatever you do, don’t go outside.”

Antonia rolled her eyes.

“What are you reading?” the man asked as he sat down beside her.

“An article about Tramp’s,” his wife answered with enthusiasm. “It’s second only to Studio 54. We really ought to visit there someday.”

William lifted up the corner of the magazine to see that it was called Discoworld. “We’ll see,” he said noncommittally.

“Dr. Kildare. Calling Dr. Kildare.” It was the voice of a male announcer over the hospital’s loudspeaker system. “Dr. Hartley, Mr. Carlin is parked outside of your door again.”

“Wait a second,” Antonia said, pointing at the nearest speaker. “Isn’t that...?”

“Yes,” William said darkly. “Yes, it is.”

“Oh, this is fun! Dr. Quincy, Dr. Quincy, there’s another stiff waiting for you downstairs. Ahem. Dr. Atkins, you are wanted in Room 103. Dr. Atkins, please report to Room 103.”

On hearing the name of Rarity’s veterinarian, William leaned over so that he could look down the hallway that ran between the animal care rooms. “I hope he’s not dumb enough to fall for that,” he muttered.

“Dr. Atkins, you have a patient in Room 103 that you simply must see,” the familiar voice from the barn insisted. “The poor dear is positively hemorrhaging money!”

With that announcement, several men in white lab coats burst out of several rooms and converged at the same door. After a brief scuffle, Dr. Atkins managed to find an unconventional use for his stethoscope to beat the others off and strode confidently into Room 103.

A disgusted William got up and made his way towards the hallway, followed after a moment by a hesitant Antonia.

He was blocked by the receptionist. “Patients need to wait in the waiting room until called, sir,” she told him. “Hey, that wouldn’t happen to be Buttercup II back there, is it? I never got to see her, but everybody tells me that she’s the best damn pony a man could ever know.”

“No, it’s not Buttercup,” William said tiredly. “Now will you let us through?”

“No can do, sir.”

“Have you been listening to that joker?” William asked, pointing at the loudspeaker. “Let us by before—” He stopped on seeing a bright flash of light underneath the door of Rarity’s room.

“Will Mr. and Mrs. Martin please report to Room 108?” the voice over the speaker asked. It had a distinct tone of triumph.

Wordlessly, the couple pushed past the receptionist and made their way to the room.

& & &

Inside the room, on a low platform, lay Rarity. Well it probably was Rarity—somebody had gotten it into their head to dress her as a robot mummy. Which is to say that what was quite obviously a waste basket had been placed over her head and secured by tape, then covered by several hundred yards of cotton bandage. The poor pony was jerking her covered head around wildly, clearly bewildered by whatever had just happened to her.

“There, there, dear,” said Antonia, kneeling down beside her. “Hold still while I get these bandages off.”

William meanwhile had performed a visual survey of the small room, and had failed to find any signs that anybody else was hiding in there. What he was able to find was Rarity’s case file open on a table, and some X-rays mounted on a light box.

“Bollocks!” he cried to the ceiling. “Why don’t you just show yourself?”

“Oh, I don’t think you’re ready to see me yet, Mr. Martin,” the mysterious man’s voice said from a speaker mounted in the ceiling, his voice dripping with contempt. “I don’t believe your type can handle that sort of thing. Far better to accept the excuses of your intellect to the evidence of your senses, after all.”

“What did you do to Rarity?” William asked, addressing his unseen adversary.

“I corrected a mistake, Mr. and Mrs. Martin,” the voice answered in an unexpectedly humble tone, “a mistake for which I wish to apologize. I had no idea that the little...modifications I made so that Rarity could live amongst you would have such negative consequences. You’ll see that I’ve found a most inventive way to fix Miss Rarity’s little condition.”

William heard a gasp from behind him as Antonia removed the waste basket from Rarity’s head. He whipped around and sputtered for a few seconds, utterly unable to process what he was seeing. “How?” he asked in a near-whisper, pointing at the top of the pony’s head. “How in God’s name could that possibly make her any better? Must everything be a sick joke to you?”

Rarity raised a hoof to her forehead, and appeared surprised to discover that a foreign object met her touch part-way. She pointed frantically at the object, looking beseechingly over at Antonia.

“Second drawer down on the right hand side,” said the voice.

“I asked you a question!” William demanded.

“Hold on, I really need to see her reaction,” the voice said. This statement caused William to try—and fail—to find some kind of hidden camera in the room.

Antonia meanwhile opened the drawer indicated and removed a large hand mirror, which she hesitantly held up before the pony.

Rarity got one good look at herself in the mirror before raising a hoof to her head and fainting.

“A-ha-ha-ha-ha!” the unseen voice bellowed. “Oh, that’s classic!”

“Well?” asked William. “What possible reason would you have for putting one of those on her?”

“Didn’t you even look at the X-rays?” asked the voice. “Clearly, the animal was suffering from an acute case of maxilolingualodontis with a side of concludite. That object you’re objecting to drains the electrical energy from her brain before it builds up and cooks her like she’s the main course. They stab it with their steely knives,” he warbled off-key, “but they just can’t kill the beast!”

William looked back and forth between the three images of the pony’s oddly shaped skull. The left-hand one he had seen before, during Dr. Atkin’s initial examination of Rarity more than a month earlier. For no explicable reason, her brain was emitting some sort of interference, in the form of a glow, that kept the vet from examining it. He had assured the couple that the pony was not radioactive, despite the fact that the X-ray looked exactly like somebody with a brain made out of uranium. The central image was dated earlier that day, and the shape of the skull was nearly impossible to make out under the intense glow effect, much stronger than before. Finally, the right-hand image showed a brain laced with miniscule wires converging in an opaque round object on Rarity’s forehead. The glow, while still present, was down to the same level as the left-hand X-ray.

“Electrical energy?” Antonia said incredulously as she rose to her feet and looked at the images. “Do you honestly expect us to believe that? I may not be a biologist, but I’m pretty sure that...that shouldn’t possibly work! Why don’t you tell us what’s really going on for once? Why don’t you tell us the truth?” Rarity managed to rouse herself half-way through this rant and looked up curiously at the ceiling speaker.

“The truth?!” the voice cried out contemptuously. “The truth that your precious pet is a magical miniature unicorn from Ponyville, located smack dab in the center of the perfect little pony land of Equestria? And that I, the living embodiment of Chaos, stole away her magic as part of a baroque revenge scheme? And that she was dying because her mana was building up with no way to release it, so I put a little toy in her head to convert all that magic into a form that will let her live so I can continue my torment of her? That truth, or the story I gave you five minutes ago?—which would you prefer?”

William and Antonia examined the X-ray for a few seconds. “You don’t have to belittle our intelligence,” William said at last. “So she needs that thing in her head to drain off excess electrical energy. Anything else we need to know?”

Thunk!

The couple turned to see their pet pony complete a face-hoof.

---

“So, what do you think?” William asked Chuckles a few hours later.

The Martins had brought Rarity to the place where Chuckles performed his second job for the circus: a section of the big top that had been separated by a big piece of canvas under the sign “Chuckles’ Electrical Repair”. In this area was a wide variety of machinery, including a couple television sets in various degrees of disassembly, some transistor and tube radios, and even the alternator from a ’52 Nash Rambler. Equipment was equally likely to be on the floor as on a table, and tools were scattered everywhere, but each piece of electronics was paired with a folded sheet of paper with that piece’s electrical schematic. The schematics were either hand-drawn by Chuckles, or else they were the ones that were sold with the equipment, for this was an era when everyone was expected to at least try to repair their own electronics themselves, and so everything with wires in it was sold with a schematic, no matter how complicated. The semi-chaotic layout in the tent was all to be expected for Chuckles’ workspace. The one thing that was out of place, however, was a small bookcase stuffed with old books that was placed in a corner, dragged over from its former home inside Chuckles’ trailer. Both Chuckles’ and Rarity’s eyes wandered over to that bookcase frequently during his examination of her.

“I think you need a second opinion,” said Chuckles finally. “I’m a comedian, not a brain surgeon.” He held up a small conical bulb made of translucent white plastic in a metallic screw base, and put it in front of a large light in order to examine it. “It’s made in Taiwan,” he finally concluded.

“And...?” asked Antonia.

“It’s a light bulb. Just a light bulb.” He then looked down at Rarity, who was nervously looking back up at him. “And that is a pony with a metal socket in her skull. You say he did this to her today?”

“You saw her yesterday morning.”

“Yeah I did,” Chuckles said, scratching carefully at his temple. He spent a moment examining his fingernails to make sure he hadn’t removed any of his makeup doing this. “And yet you’ll notice that she appears otherwise normal.”

“You’re right,” said Antonia. “I’ve never seen a pony recover from an invasive procedure this quickly. How could he have done it?”

“Oh simple,” said Chuckles with a frown. “He must have used experimental government tranquilizers. The ones the government uses whenever they want to frame a community leader for an embarrassing crime. All part of the vast conspiracy to keep us in our place. Sheeple! We’re all a bunch of sheeple!”

Antonia and William said nothing. Chuckles was a genius in many areas, but apparently you couldn’t be a genius at this place and time in history without also being a raving conspiracy nut. William blamed Leonard Nimoy and In Search Of. Antonia and the rest of the circus blamed Watergate. Both Martins were convinced that his paranoia was the reason why Chuckles never removed his makeup—because he thought “The Man” would haul him away if he ever allowed anybody to see and potentially recognize the actual person under the face paint.

“...It ties back to the Texas School Book Depository. Everything ties back to the Depository!”

They knew far better than to actually ask Chuckles about the face paint.

“But what about Rarity’s condition?” asked William quietly, after it seemed like the clown had calmed down. “That maxilo—”

“String of nonsense syllables,” the clown interrupted. “The X-rays tell the tale. (You better return those before the hospital notices—there are two crimes guaranteed to have Them haul you away, never to be seen again: stealing government X-rays, and ripping the tags off of mattresses.) As near as I can make out, these wires do appear to be doing what he said they were doing: somehow collecting and draining electrical energy out of her brain. Almost certainly monitoring everything she sees or hears as well. We’re safe enough in here, though.” He pointed up at the canvas ceiling above them, which was coated with tinfoil.

The couple chose to bite their tongues instead of responding to any of this.

“I’m pretty sure you can’t power a light bulb directly from your brain,” said Antonia.

“No, I suppose not,” answered Chuckles. “It works, even though it shouldn’t.” With a sigh, he screwed the bulb back into Rarity’s head, where it began to spark and glow in a variety of colors. “Especially like that. Do, um...” He paused to consider his words. “Do you think you could leave Rarity with me whenever you’re not using her and you think she’s well enough? I’d like to study her some more.” As he was speaking, Rarity had walked over to the bookcase, knocked a particular volume to the floor, and had begun reading.

“Well...I suppose so,” said William Martin, watching the pony with furrowed brow. “Do you have any objections, Pumpkin?”

“No, she seems to get along with you well enough,” Antonia said. “Now if you don’t mind, I didn’t get a chance to feed any of the other ponies before bringing Rarity over; Dr. Atkin said it would probably be best if Rarity didn’t eat anything until the morning. Let us know if anything happens to her. Come along, Billy.”

“Poker game at ten?” William asked Chuckles on the way out of the tent.

“Sure, sure,” Chuckles said absently, his attention focused on Rarity.

& & &

The pony spent only a few moments examining the book (“The Unicorn Trial”, as Chuckles had expected) before wandering off to poke her snout into one of the television sets.

“So, getting curious about electronics after becoming a bionic horse?” the clown asked as he put the book away. He dismissed the notion that the essay Rarity had consulted appeared to be longer than it had been the night before. “You’re looking at the worst of the worst, the stuff so broken that it’s not worth fixing. That one’s got a loose channel selector knob, but it’s actually an electrical instead of a mechanical problem, as the tuner...” He stopped himself, looking incredulously at the pony. “You’re actually following all of this, aren’t you?” he asked.

Rarity looked away in apparent thought for a moment, before looking back and nodding very deliberately.

Chuckles practically dived for the schematics.

---

A week passed. In the mornings, the “unicorn” Rarity and her sparkling horn were the main attraction of the pony carousel, perhaps even of the entire circus. And in the afternoons, the clown showed her the secrets of Twentieth Century electronics.

& & &

Late one night, Chuckles was walking away from the “games tent”, where he had just beat William Martin at seven consecutive hands of poker. His trip back to his trailer was interrupted when he noticed a light on in his workspace.

He snuck quietly up to the tent and peeked inside, only to see Rarity poking her head into the same television set she’d been so interested in all week.

“Visions of resistors and capacitors running through your head?” he joked.

Rarity looked up in surprise, getting the television chassis stuck around her head.

Chuckles chuckled to himself as he removed the equipment. “Ready for some more circuits?” he asked.

Rarity responded by resting a hoof on the television’s tuner and looking up at him expectantly.

“Yes, I already told you that the primary problem with this one is the tuner.”

The pony tapped the little box and gestured towards it with her tiny plastic horn.

“That’s only the primary problem. There’s still the problem with the antenna, and the phosphor tracking, and—”

Rarity tapped insistently on the tuner.

Chuckles sighed and picked up an oscilloscope and a screwdriver. “Very well, if you insist.”

& & &

“Alright, that’s the tuner,” Chuckles said a few minutes later. “Now do you want to look at this radio next? It’s a lot easier to understand than a television.”

Rarity shook her head, and turned the television around on the work table before pointing at one particular spot on it.

“Yeah, the wire’s loose,” said Chuckles. “That’s got to be the least significant thing wrong with the unit, though.”

Rarity tapped it with her hoof.

Chuckles sighed. “You’re lucky I have an infinite amount of patience for dealing with your kind,” he joked.

The pony raised one eyebrow.

“What, you think I haven’t figured it out?” the human said. “You’re obviously an extraterrestrial alien, here to teach humanity the way out of our bottomless greed and stupidity.”

Rarity’s only reply was to switch which eyebrow she had raised.

“Fine, keep your secrets!” Chuckles exclaimed with a smile. “But as a shape-changing alien, I’ve got to say, if you’re going to pick a form, being a pony is not a very smart move.”

The pony gave him a clearly insulted look.

Chuckles attempted to change the subject by looking back down at his equipment. “Uh...that’s the loose wire, and...wait a minute, that can’t be right!” He picked up the oscilloscope, which was still wired to the television, and made a few adjustments. “It’s fixed?” he asked. Quickly removing the oscilloscope’s leads, he picked up the nearby vacuum tube for the television and installed it. He plugged the unit into an isolated electrical circuit and turned it on. Within a few seconds, an image began to appear on the tube of a news conference, where a nervous Andy Warhol was presenting a rather amateurish portrait to President Jimmy Carter. “How did you do that?” Chuckles asked, as he confirmed that the black and white set was indeed in perfect order now.

Rarity looked like she wasn’t quite sure herself of the answer to that question.

“Did you work it all out in your head?” the clown asked.

The “unicorn” shook her head, then pointed at one of her large eyes with a hoof.

“You...saw what was wrong with it?” he asked.

She nodded slowly, as if the idea was as strange to her as it was to him.

“What about everything else?” he asked.

Rarity looked slowly around her. She walked up to a phonograph player for a moment, and then lightly tapped the needle. Then the dial on a radio. Then to one particular connector on the alternator.

Chuckles kneeled down next to the little white pony. “Work for me,” he begged her. “This is the only thing I do that anybody respects me for. Please...”

Rarity locked eyes with him, and then held out a foreleg, hoof up.

Chuckles pondered. “You want me to pay you?”

Rarity nodded.

“But you’re a pony! Or, at least, you’re trying to pass for one. What use could you have for money?”

Rarity continued to stare at him.

Chuckles sighed. “Alright, I won’t question it. How does $2.50 an hour sound?”

& & &

Rarity drove a hard bargain despite being a mute, and eventually they compromised on ten cents over the minimum wage before the pony let herself out to return to her barn.

Chuckles moved the television set over to the empty table reserved for the rare piece of equipment he was able to completely fix.

In taking one last look around, he discovered that a second book was lying open on the ground in front of the bookcase: The Encyclopedia of Western Gunfighters. It was open to a photograph of the Clanton Gang in the days leading up to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. In the photo, the outlaws were showing off their most prized possessions: their guns, their (likely stolen) cattle, and their horses. Curiously, there was also a pony in the photograph, looking very similar to Rarity in her facial structure. Even more curiously, she was wearing the same style of hat as the Clantons. The facing page had a photograph from a few days later, showing the Clanton Gang lying in their caskets. There was some sort of object inside a child-sized rectangular outline to the right of the other shapes, but it was so impossibly out of focus that there was no way to possibly tell what was actually there. It was as if History hadn’t decided if there needed to be one more coffin in the picture or not.

Chuckles had the odd feeling that, come the morning, those two cops were going to find another recording on the machine they had attached to the CB radio in the barn.

Author's Note:

Alright, I guess I will be continuing this, at least when I'm not working on anything else.

Here is a performance of the disco song that started this chapter--it's not quite at the level of "what? what???" as your average Eighties music video, but it's not too far off.

Comments

[Forderz]

Looks like Rarity isn't the only one dancing on Discord's puppet strings. How infuriating it must be to see Applejack going through the same scenario, but be unable to see its conclusion!

And Rarity's really getting put through the wringer. At least she's still able to suffer gracefully, if she must suffer.

Chuckles is just the right amount of crazy for Rarity to interact with.

[dafiltafish]

Discord is being quite the dick

[Cerolas]

Really am loving how this story is meandering, very entertaining.