With Good Intentions

by Hustlin Tom

Chapter 5

“So it’s because of Principled Acumen that Equestria has magic powered machines?” Trixie asked as they descended once again into the basement.

“Indeed it is,” Bunsen Burner replied as he reached the landing below, “Her creation of Arcanium made many modern magical feats possible, including my teleporter.” He gestured to the large brass device as he passed it, “It’s very good about making things or beings disappear when you want them elsewhere.”

The meaning behind what he had said dawned on Trixie after a few seconds, “So that’s where the third dog went. Where did you send him?”

“Well, in physical terms it’s a bit complicated,” he said as he opened up a wooden box mounted on the north wall and opened up the two valves controlling the manor’s water, “He’s not here, but he’s not anywhere else either. I didn't bother to set coordinates or open up any receivers on the transport network before he dematerialized.”

Trixie’s eyes widened in shock, “You killed him!”

Finished with his work, he turned and shook his head, “No, no. He’s not dead; he’s just not here. Did you ever learn about Midmorning’s Theory of Teleportation?”

“I never studied magic academically,” she answered with a shrug, “I only learned what I needed to.”

“When a unicorn phases out of existence temporarily, they are for the briefest instant dumped into a pocket dimension. They then rebound back into the physical plane at the location they desired.” He then lightly knocked on the top of his head, “Your horn acts as an anchor for you: it always helps you come back here. However, when someone is artificially dematerialized from that platform they are stuck within the pocket dimension until it is reactivated.”

“Oh,” Trixie’s eyes glazed over a little.

“To be fair he won’t even know he’s been gone. That dog will be exactly as he was the moment he left: while he’s away he won’t be conscious or affected by the passage of time in the least.”

“Aaaand you know this all how?” she asked as he walked past back towards the stairs.

“Because,” he started, and then gave a heavy sigh in embarrassment, “Because I did it to myself once.”

---

“Lab 003, are you ready to receive?” a much younger Bunsen Burner spoke into his laboratory’s intercom.

After a silence of about three seconds, a tinny reply came back, “We are ready for transmission, Lab 011. Begin teleportation sequence.”

The young stallion briskly trotted over to his invention with a smile. He couldn’t believe it, but after seven weeks of redesign and revisions he was now seeing his true dream come to life. This was a milestone test: no more rocks, vegetables, or inanimate objects. He excitedly picked up a small cage, inside of which was a small rabbit, nose erratically sniffing the air and eyes looking all around. He quietly hushed the little rodent as he gently set it down on the teleporter’s platform, “Everything’s going to be okay, little one.”

He then quickly walked towards the control box coming out of the machine’s right side and picked it up from the small stool it rested on. He cranked the dial to receiver one and placed his hoof over the large red activation button. He stopped himself for a moment as he realized something wonderful: this was the tipping point. If everything went as he had calculated, the test rabbit would be beamed a whopping one hundred yards, straight through rock, steel, glass, and wood paneling. It would be a record breaker! Full of hope, and all trepidation left behind, Bunsen Burner gently pressed the red button and turned to gaze into his future.

The newly installed Arcanium coils warmed up through the machine with an electric whine. The stored magic traveled up its spine until it reached the projector dish at its top. Light beamed down onto the cage below and the rabbit within, and in a monumental flash everything became white. When Bunsen Burner’s eyes cleared he saw that the test animal was gone: no trace materials or ash left behind meant no disintegration.

He ran over to the intercom and hit the speech button, “Lab 003, first transmission attempt complete. No residue: anything on your end?”

“Haven’t yet received, Lab 011,” the voice replied back. Bunsen’s heart skipped a few beats. “We’re still waiting for- Hold on.”

The silence was agony as the earth pony waited impatiently.

Finally, the voice returned, “Transmission successful! Test subject made it through; Herbie’s a happy hare today!”

Bunsen Burner laughed in joy before he responded, “I bet he is, and so am I!”

When the intercom sounded next it was Principled Acumen speaking, and he could hear her smile through the intercom, “Congratulations on a successful test, Mr. Burner.”

“My sincerest thanks, Madam Director!”

“With our overall budgetary meeting coming up it looks like we all certainly have something worth showing to the Princess! Get all your data catalogued and summarized. I’ll set up a time with her Majesty and the Unicorn Guild, and you can show them both what we’re all made of down here.”

“Will do Ma’am!” he replied.

The young stallion couldn’t stop himself from jumping in the air and exclaiming an ecstatic cry. His celebration lasted a good ten minutes as he wandered around his lab, with each attempt to calm himself down reminding him of why he was so excited, and then he’d start all over again. Finally he did collect himself, at which point he noticed that someone was watching him from outside. The powder blue unicorn stallion he had seen on the day of his admittance to the RSD was looking at him with a knowing smile. Slightly mortified, all Bunsen Burner could think to do was to weakly wave back to his fellow scientist with a slightly pained expression. The unicorn laughed a little in response, then nodded and waved back to him before he turned and trotted back down the hallway.

Bunsen Burner lingered at the spot he had been standing in when discovered until his self-consciousness wore away. Eventually he did remember what it was he was supposed to be doing: packing up his notes and finalizing his data.

He groaned to himself a little, “This is probably going to take all night.” As the enormity of the task before him continued to grow in his mind, he shrugged to himself and sighed, “Well, it doesn’t matter how big the mountain is so long as you mine it one swing at a time I suppose.”

Taking the philosophy to heart, he turned to the small open office area in the lab, set himself down in the awaiting chair, and began to chip away at his paper mountain. Hours indeed did creep by. His senses became clouded by fatigue as midnight passed. The boredom didn’t help much either. Sweet thoughts of taking a few minutes to nap and then return to his work called to him like sirens, but he shook his head free of those temptations and pressed on.

It was around two in the morning that a spontaneous thought penetrated his cloudy mind: his teleporter could boast in being able to transport common animals now, but what about equines? Surely that had to be tested as well now that they’d proved it was safe, and it would of course be the first challenge the Guild would hope to beat the RSD in. He knew the technology backwards and forwards, so why couldn’t he be the first test subject?

Groggily he craned his neck back and lazily leaned his head over in the direction of his teleporter.

“This is probably a dumb idea,” he murmured to himself. He zoned out for a few seconds before nodding to himself and blinking very hard, “Yes, a very dumb idea.”

He then wearily scribbled a note down in big letters and folded it up in thirds. He then slowly walked over to the laboratory door and slipped it halfway through the crack underneath. After stepping into the array, he brought his hoof down on the control box’s big red button, and then shoved it away.

It was only as the coils had finished warming up that Bunsen Burner become conscious of the crucial point of stupidity in his dumb idea: there was no crew at the other tele-pad to receive him. They had all probably gone home for the night hours ago.

“Oh horse-“ he managed to exclaim before he was consumed by the light from above. The lab was still after the teleporter powered down. The lights were on, but nopony was home.

---

Light burned into his retinas, he felt off-balance. “-apples!” he blurted rather loudly, and then shielded his eyes from the hostile luminescence. Bunsen Burner recognized the sound of the teleporter’s coils bleeding out. He’d been brought back he realized.

“Huh” he heard a voice declare, “I certainly wouldn’t have put bits on that being the first word out of your mouth.”

The earth pony blinked rapidly to dispel the pink and blue afterimages in his vision. Once they finally cleared he recognized his savior: the pale blue unicorn from earlier. He deftly threw back a sandy blonde strand of mane from out of his face. “Are you alright?” he asked worriedly, “We’ve got several ponies nearby with medical training.”

“I’m fine,” Bunsen Burner replied as he shook himself awake, “but I could use a quick power nap.”

“I just discovered your note a few minutes ago as I was walking in-“ the unicorn began to explain.

The earth pony’s eyes grew wide as he turned to look him in the face, “Walking in? How long was I gone? What time is it?”

He whirled around to the clock on the wall and stared at the hands for himself, answering his own question: 7:43.

“Almost six hours,” he murmured to himself, and his half addled mind tried to work, “I’m still tired though. How can I have passed through six hours and still be tired?”

“Here’s a more pertinent question,” the unicorn declared with a frown, “What in Celestia’s good name possessed you to think that testing that apparatus on yourself was a good idea?”

Bunsen Burner looked back to his fellow scientist, and sighed to himself, accepting the admonishment, “It definitely was not a good idea, I can agree with you there. Sorry, but what is your name?”

“Punnett Square,” he replied.

“Thank you, Punnett Square, for saving my hide,” Bunsen Burner declared with a deep bowing of his head, “I don’t want to inconvenience you any further, so I’m going over to that nice chair over there and I’ll relax my eyes for a few minutes.”

“Sorry,” he replied as he came over to the earth pony’s side and lifted his left hoof over his own shoulder and walked them towards the lab door, “but that’s not going to happen; not until we’ve gotten you checked out.”

“My teleporter is perfectly safe,” he groggily replied, “Herbie didn’t get turned to dust going through it, and neither did I.”

“Oh yes, the machine that can warp localized reality is perfectly safe!” Punnett Square shook his head as he walked them outside, “Featherbrained gearhead. Everything is fine with you so long as the machine works ‘virtually perfect’, then you get trapped in it like you did, you miserable twit, and somepony has to come and save your flank.”

Bunsen Burner didn’t reply; he was nodding off to sleep.

Punnett Square lightly elbowed him in the rib, and yelled, “Stay awake!”

“Wasgoingon?” the earth pony replied in a rush.

“I just called you a miserable twit. What are you going to do about it?”

“That was uncalled for,” Bunsen Burner replied groggily.

Punnett Square hadn’t expected the stallion to take the insult without feeling angry. In the end he shrugged a little and continued hauling the dead weight pony, “Well you might be right there. Still, I stand by my calling you a featherbrained gearhead. Now stay awake! You need to be responsive if you want a clean bill of health and if you want me to get off your case.”

---

After about a half hour’s observation by an onsite medic, Bunsen Burner was finally released with instructions to take sick leave for the day. After he stepped out of the small office and into the hall, he noticed that Punnett Square was leaning against the opposite wall, waiting for him.

“Listen,” the unicorn began as he approached, lowering his voice so that nobody passing by would hear, “What you did was reckless and frankly downright foolish, and I’d be well within my rights to report you for disciplinary action.”

Bunsen Burner’s tired eyes momentarily burst open as he looked to his compatriot, and an icy feeling crept into his stomach. He felt his entire career flash before his eyes.

“What’s stopping you?” he asked hesitantly.

Punnett Square shrugged and shook his head to the side, “Well, I’m guessing you’re fine for one thing, and nopony else was harmed, so really there’s nothing to report.” He then smirked, “Besides, you don’t really belong in the RSD until you’ve had your first workplace incident. It’s practically a rite of passage for gearheads like you!”

“I am more than just a ‘gearhead’ you know,” Bunsen Burner replied pointedly.

“That a fact?”

He nodded, “I know your work involves organic chemistry. You’re looking for something involving complex chains of phosphates and sugars, and whatever it is I think you’re close to cracking it.”

A twinkle came into Punnett Square’s eye and he smiled deeply, “Oho! Looks like there is more to you than I initially guessed. Tell you what, you go and take your day off, and maybe tomorrow you can stop by during lunch; we can talk shop then. Sound good?”

“Sounds good,” the earth pony replied wearily, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going home to fall into a temporary coma; about eighteen hours should do I think.”

“I certainly hope so!” the unicorn chuckled, then patted him on the back before turning and walking down the hall, “Rest well, Bunsen Burner.”

“Many thanks, Punnett Square,” he replied before he began his long shamble to the elevator and to the surface. As he made his way down the street to his home, he didn’t notice that the flower filly was looking his way with a concerned expression. If he had noticed, in his condition he might not have cared all that much. He fumbled with the lock to his front door, and just barely managed to close it shut behind as he made his way up to his bedroom. Collapsing onto his neatly made bed, he didn’t even have the energy to pull the covers of his body before he fell into an unconscious dream. He was tired beyond belief, but with everything good that had happened the day previous, he’d later call it a fair way to balance out his luck.

Comments

[Alan Smithee]

He didn't know it, but Bunsen Burner was sterile after the teleporter incident.

Also: I like your "paper mountain" metaphor. Itz gud riting.

[Hustlin Tom]

6018077
That reminds me of the X-ray flashlight device from that one episode of Futurama. "Ow! My sperm!"

The paper mountain was definitely inspired by real events at my summer job. Data entry is a tedious task; not for the faint of heart.