Five years ago, Dr. Natalie Sydney was contacted by a mysterious extraterrestrial. Now, it's happening again.
Five years ago, Dr. Natalie Sydney was contacted by an enigmatic extraterrestrial. Now, it's happening again.
This story was written for Equestria Daily's More Most Dangerous Game writing contest. It fulfills the My Little Dashie-inspired prompt. It was 11th-hour-proofread and edited by Nicknack.
underbrush of memory—things I could have saved had I only sat down at the time of these events and carved an anchor with which to bring me back to the moment?
As I have not imparted the story of Preponderance to anyone beyond my closest friends and colleagues, I suppose it is pertinent that I explain the events to which I refer. In the summer of 2011, I was contacted by an extraterrestrial. It came not in any grand display of holographic technology as typically assumed by science fiction, but in the form of a comically unassuming email. The sender introduced themselves as a traveler from another world, explained that they found my email address in a listing of biology faculty, and asked if there was way we could communicate verbally. Wanting to call the prankster's charade as cruelly as possible, and seeing the signature declaring that the email was sent from an iPhone (really? An extraterrestrial with an iPhone?) I requested that he or she contact me over FaceTime, leaving my personal email. To my surprise, I received a call several minutes later.
To my credit, the creature on the other end of the video was fundamentally humanoid, possessing a distinct head containing a mouth and multiple eyes—although its facial structure was more canine than primate. From the limited scope of its phone's camera, I could not see how many limbs it had, although I did occasionally see two hands free while the phone remained stabilized and pointing at the creature. Its body was covered in a reflective fur equally suited for a terrestrial or aquatic creature, and its voice—of which I regret not obtaining a sample—I can only compare to an empty bottle being dragged over sand.
The creature declined to give me a name, requesting to merely be called "Preponderance". My exchanges with it were short, often consisting of a few short questions about where it could find certain chemicals or if our planet had a specific type of medical device before giving a polite—if hurried—assertion that we would speak again later.
While the creature never spoke at length about itself, I was able to deduce some things. It was presently on Earth, though it had been keeping an intentionally low profile and had declined any information that would reveal its location (citing "bad prior experiences" as its reason). It had a knowledge of microbiology that rivaled my own, as well as a comparably robust understanding of molecular physics. Perhaps most intriguingly, Preponderance communicated in perfectly comprehensible English with the slightest Indonesian accent, a notion which struck it as completely unremarkable when I pointed it out.
At times, however, a certain spark of curiosity did shine through in Preponderance's words. In particular, it seemed enthralled by the idea of sexual dimorphism and gender identity, posing numerous questions about what it meant, what I was, and even holding a few magazines up to the camera and asking the gender of various celebrities, politicians, and animals. At one point, wearing the gleeful face of a student using a piece of freshly-learned knowledge in front of the class, Preponderance proudly asserted that the word "it" best described its own identity. Before I could catch my tongue, I responded that "it" was often regarded as being very dehumanizing. Seeing my expression immediately after I said it, Preponderance produced a melodic chirping sound I can only assume was laughter.
Over the two enlightening days Preponderance and I spoke, I picked up an increasing franticness in its intonation. At first I was hesitant to assume voice cues and conversational etiquette to be universal across species (or even cultures, for that matter), but Preponderance's hurried apology after one particularly quick exit solidified my assumption: this creature was most definitely afraid of something. Though the backdrops behind Preponderance changed between our conversations, I noted there was always a concrete or stone wall close to its back. The creature made no reference to its behavior until our final conversation: it asked where it could obtain a weapon. Taken aback, I refused to answer. Preponderance said it understood, thanked me for my time, and never contacted me again.
I don't know what became of my extraterrestrial friend. Scouring the news in a search for closure, I found reports of a spree of suspected burglaries in central Virginia—everywhere from hardware stores to hospitals—that seemingly ended with a gun store. No evidence for any of them existed, apart from the security cameras being melted to slag.
In the days since, I have kept my phone at my side without fail, hoping that Preponderance would reestablish contact and sate the curiosity it left behind. And for five years, I heard nothing.
At the moment of writing this, I am stranded in an airport. I had been on my way back from giving a seminar in France on my newest discoveries (which, I can now freely state, generated from my exchanges with Preponderance) when an unexpected snowstorm grounded all departing aircraft.
I am writing this because, one hour ago, Preponderance called me back.
It was no touching or enlightening reunion. In fact, I must admit I am not sure the individual on the other end of the line was Preponderance at all. The call lasted less than a minute, during which I could only make out muffled voices and an occasional flicker of movement across the camera. My attempts to call back receive no response. But before the connection closed, I could make out one frustrated shout: "Sweetiebell, I don't think we're even on the same planet".
I guess of foremost importance is the anchor: that thought or feeling that I will forever be able to look at, reeling this moment up from memory should I ever wish to elaborate on the events that occurred. That feeling right now: excitement! With, perhaps, a pang of guilt. Here I am, an old woman who has never stayed awake through an entire Star Wars episode, living the sci-fi geek's dream and being part of not one, but two first-contact scenarios.
After the earlier contact from Preponderance's phone, I purchased provisions—an extension cable for my phone charger, some pillows, and this blank journal. I built a pillow nest between some bench rows with scenic view of the snowfall outside and nestled in, ready to pen my thoughts as I waited for the mysterious locator of Preponderance's phone to call me back. Less than an hour after I put the finishing touches on the previous pages, my wishes were answered: my phone rang again.
The creature on the other end of the dark video line was most definitely not of the same race, or likely even species, as Preponderance. While I would still classify its facial structure as fundamentally canine, it lacked Preponderance's second pair of eyes and sported a single horn protruding from the upper center of its head. Its voice was high, but close to that of a human. I yearned for this to be another alien scientist who could finally quell the numerous questions Preponderance had left me with, though its first question to me was unexpected: "What are you?"
The question took me off-guard. To a human—or even Preponderance, who had specifically sought me out—I would have responded that I was a professor of biology. To a new species that, for all I knew, may have never met a human before, I was not sure if the answer would be what they were looking for. Frozen with indecision, I ultimately blurted out the worst answer possible. "First I would like to know what you are."
The creature's head withdrew off the bottom of the view and I heard frantic whispering. I inferred, from the movement, that this creature had Preponderance's iPhone lying on the floor, pointed upward toward a dark ceiling. The whispers continued, too quiet to make out on the weak microphone, until a new face finally pushed its way into the camera's view—this one colored differently and lacking the former's horn (perhaps a younger individual, or different sex?). "I'm Applebloom," it said. "My friends over yonder are Sweetiebell and Scootaloo. We're mighty far from home, and are looking to get back as soon as possible. The book said you could help, and that we oughta use this thing to talk to you."
I didn't know where to start. So many questions! I started with the easiest. "What book?" I asked, wondering if this creature had sought me out via an academic index like Preponderance. My curiosity only grew as I realized this wouldn't explain why they had called me from Preponderance's phone.
The aforementioned third member of their party entered the camera's view, carrying a thick spiral notebook in its mouth. It displayed the unlabeled notebook sideways as if I should recognize it. When I expressed that I did not, the creature that identified itself as Applebloom continued. "I reckon we probably should've read more of it before summoning you, but the sun was going down so we skipped ahead. This one page says you know stuff about traveling between worlds."
I was about to tell the creature that I was a biologist and the book was mistaken, but I hesitated. Was it truly mistaken? When Preponderance contacted me, I was able to answer its cryptic questions with ease. From the book's claims, it seemed likely both it and the phone had been left by Preponderance itself, though this raised as many questions as it answered. "Where did you get this book?" I asked. Realizing I had done nothing but demand information while providing none, I quickly added: "I am Dr. Natalie Sydney, by the way. I am a biologist from the planet Earth."
Applebloom's ears, which I had previously not seen were folded behind its head, perked immediately. "Earth! So we ain't on a different world after all!"
I sat confused, before realizing the creature's misunderstanding. While I was no linguist, I knew the word "earth" referred to the ground below us long before the concept of space travel was even imagined. It was likely that both of us, speaking the same language, would call our homeworld "Earth". I told the creature as much: that we may simply come from separate planets, both with the same name.
A new voice entered the conversation, I assumed coming from the creature that had been holding the notebook. "Why would people name two different planets 'Earth'? That's stupid and confusing".
As I opened my mouth to explain the linguistic development that would lead to this occurring, a thought struck me: these creatures didn't even know where they were, and had likely never traveled even to another planet before. I imagined myself in their position: lost, confused, and reduced to contacting alien strangers for information. "You're right, it is stupid. But I need you to tell me where you received that book."
Applebloom, who I had come to assume was the leader of their group, obliged. "A while after we got here, we started looking for a river. When we got to one, we found this black saddlebag floating in it. The bag itself was a wet mess, but there were these smaller bags inside keeping some stuff dry. That's where we found the book, this crystal, and..." it trailed off, mumbling the final item inaudibly. I inwardly chuckled at the idea of calling the iPhone a "crystal", but my curiosity kept me from derailing. I inquired about the last item again.
"A really ugly severed claw!" the third voice cut in, butting into the camera's view and holding a plastic ZipLock in its teeth. Though the bag clearly bulged and hung off-center as though it contained a heavy and irregularly-shaped object, I couldn't make its contents out in the darkness. I turned up my screen's brightness, but all I could make out were the creature's lower jaw and throat behind the bag.
"I don't see anything inside," I said.
The creature cocked one eyebrow at me in what I presumed was an expression of confusion shared between our species. "You don't see the big, creepy-as-butts silver claw?" it asked.
I shook my head, quickly adding "no" when I realized the gesture might not be as universal as English apparently was. As much as I wanted to delve straight in and ask them every question in my mind, I realized I needed to know more about this book before I could provide any help—not to mention I had no idea how much battery or service was remaining in the phone Preponderance had somehow left them. "Listen," I said, "you made the right choice in contacting me, and I will do everything I can to help you, but I need more information. Please find a way to read the book and tell me what it says, and exactly what information you need from me." It felt like a dismissal—as though I was pushing away an opportunity to meet members of an unencountered sapient species—but this was useless flailing until I knew what Preponderance had written. I explained this as best I could, adding directions on how to check the phone's battery and minutes. Preponderance, we discovered, had both overloaded the phone with time and provided an external battery for it, which the trio had figured out how to use on their own. With the basics covered, my mind wandered back to Preponderance's fearful demeanor. I had one last question to ask.
"Are you safe?"
"Safe from what?" I heard the first voice—the horned one—ask from off-camera. There was a note of malaise in its voice. I wasn't sure what to answer. "Safe in general. This planet is large and varied. Are you in a place where you're not likely to get hurt?"
"We have food and water," the one called Applebloom answered for its friend. "It's cold outside, which is a mite weird given it's summer back home, but we have shelter. Sometimes a big monster with glowing eyes runs past on the road up the hill from here, but I don't think they can see us."
Transportation, I realized, must differ between our worlds. The revelation that they were near a road and, assumedly, civilization, was somewhat comforting. "That's not a monster, it's a vehicle. You should be safe from them as long as you aren't standing in their way. Please contact me again when you can tell me what the book says."
Applebloom nodded—another gesture I could mark as being shared between our species. "We'll do that. Thanks again, Doctor Sydney." The creature peered at the screen for a moment before tapping the call closed. I was returned to the silence of the airport.
With the above transcription complete to the best of my memory, I am back to waiting. A first contact scenario, for both of us! Without Preponderance's paranoid tendencies, this could be an opportunity to finally meet another sapient species in-person. I wish I could be there myself, but the snow outside shows no signs of letting up. Assuming they are near what I traced to be the likely location of Preponderance, I have a nearby colleague who will no doubt be thrilled to meet them.
When I spoke to Preponderance, I was the less experienced individual when it came to interplanetary travel. Speaking to Applebloom, I found, reversed these roles. After our first exchange I felt I had done adequately well at providing the visitors help and assuring their safety. When I received my next call from Applebloom, I realized with her first words that I had overlooked absolutely every important question I should have asked.
"The grass here is poisoned."
I asked her what she meant. Apparently, the three of them had been digging around in the snow to find live grass to eat. After Scootaloo located a sufficiently-sized clump and consumed it, she was rewarded with only horrible flavor and, shortly thereafter, vomiting. My first instinct was to wonder why anyone would try to eat grass, but I quickly dismissed that notion as I realized that my world's grass was not their world's grass.
Questioning them further, I discovered even more facts that painted the situation as a bleaker than I had first realized. For one, their "shelter" was a cardboard box they had found lying by the road near the woods. Even huddling against one another for warmth, the winter night had been growing colder than they anticipated and the damp cardboard was not providing much protection. For two, the food source they had been counting on was apparently inedible, and the water they had already drank was very likely unsafe for them (Applebloom at one point embarrassedly admitted that all of them had "used the woods" a lot since then). For three, they had no understanding of how to get home, and very little understanding of the circumstances that brought them here. Apparently, they had crashed through the neighborhood scientist's window of all things, finding themselves in their new surroundings without ever learning of the experiment they interrupted.
I was not looking forward to breaking the truth of the situation to what I now knew were three cold, lost children. "I need you all to listen to me," I said, addressing them in the same sympathetic-but-firm voice I used for a group of failing students. "This is not your home world, and food and even water that are normal here may be dangerous to you. Not only that, but the people of this world know very little about traveling between planets." I took a deep breath. "The notebook you found may have information that can help you get home, but beyond that there will be very little our world's technology can to do help you."
The three children were silent. Up to this point, they had been optimistic, quick to answer questions, and speaking as though I could guide them to some magic train to their home world. I watched, apprehensively, as their composure slowly broke. Applebloom gulped. Sweetiebell had tears in her eyes, and Scootaloo was speechless, mouth agape.
Applebloom was the first to respond. "I... I rightly thank you for your honesty, Dr. Sydney. If it helps you any, any at all, I tried to use this phone thing's glow to read some of the book, though I didn't get far. Do you know what a 'veils pawn' is?"
"I do not. What did the book say?"
She shook her head. "Like I said, I didn't get that far into it. The light is dim and the hoofwriting ain't that good. And cursive, to make things worse." I couldn't help but roll my eyes at this last part; I had never thought a first-contact scenario would make me feel like an elementary school teacher.
"Later I'll show you how to take pictures of it and you can show me the pages. For now, we need to get you somewhere safe. You said you were near a road?"
Applebloom gave a quick nod, peering out the side of their cardboard box. "It's up the hill. I don't wanna get ran over by one of them big carriages, though."
"Keep just off the edge—or on the very edge if you have to—and follow it until you find a sign saying the road's name. One of you carry the phone so you can see where you're going, and I'll try to help you find shelter.
My view rustled as the phone was dragged around and lifted up. The camera adjusted to the new angle and focused on Applebloom and Sweetiebell, leading me to conclude Scootaloo had taken up the mantle of phone-holder. With the phone off the ground, this marked the first real look I had at the alien creatures' bodies. They were short quadrupeds, lacking any apparent digits on their hands or feet (which I suppose explained why they used their mouths for tactile manipulation). The bend of their back and neck was distinctly equine, though the similarities did not reach far beyond that. I had heard them use the word "pony" several times in reference to their own species, which I supposed was as accurate as anything else. Applebloom had a black backpack tied sideways around her midsection, presumably the bag they had recovered from Preponderance.
Outside their box, the three of them (or, perhaps, four of us) walked along the road for several minutes in silence. Though I couldn't see any signs or lights, the snow along the shoulder was thankfully shallow enough to not inhibit movement. Looking up from my screen, I gazed at the perpetual blizzard just outside the airport's tall glass windows, feeling a tinge of jealousy for the tamer American weather. I was lost in the thought when Applebloom's voice pulled me out of my reverie. "Are there other ponies on this world?"
I wasn't entirely sure how to answer, so I went for detail. "We have creatures we call ponies, but they're not like you. They are animals people keep as pets. They have shorter lifespans, and they can't speak."
"So is everyone here like you? A... what's it called, human?"
I was thankful she had specified that she was talking about species, since it simplified my answer. "Yes. There are other creatures, but humans are the only ones who are capable of intelligent thought and speech like you are exhibiting."
"Exib... oh, you mean like showing. You should've just said that, rather than talking fancy." These were children, I reminded myself; even if I apparently shared a language with their species, I had to keep the vocabulary at their level.
Sweetiebell was the next to speak up. "So are there different kinds of humans?" This, I didn’t quite understand, so I asked her to clarify. "Like, I'm a unicorn, so I can use magic. Applebloom is an earth pony, which means she's really strong. Scootaloo is a pegasus, so she'll be able to fly someday". I heard words mumbled directly into the microphone that sounded vaguely like "I can fly now".
Her statements about magic and flight raised questions, but I held off for now. "Not as different as that. Humans come in different sexes, colors, and sizes, but that's about it."
About a solid minute of silence passed before Sweetiebell spoke again. "Are there bad humans we should worry about?"
"Yes," I answered simply.
Before the conversation could continue down that dark path, I spotted the vague shape of a road sign in the distance. After pointing it out to the three ponies, their speed doubled as they made a break for the marker of civilization. In a few short minutes, they stood below a looming sign that marked this as the crossroads of Hayes St. and Annual Way. After their last call, I had spent some time poring over a map of the USA I procured at one of the terminal stores. The children waited as I checked it again; and while Hayes St. was relatively easy to find, Annual Way proved too small to be necessary on a national map. Applebloom had mentioned a river, though, and there was only one place Hayes St. got close to a river. Based on this, they were headed north and about four miles from the nearest town, labeled as Cherry Pike.
"You're going the right way," I announced. "If you go about four more miles you should get to a town." I felt a pang of sympathy for the alien who had been silently holding the phone in her mouth the whole time just so I could have eyes among them. "You can put the phone away and call me back when you're almost to the town. I'll help you get situated there. I mean, find some place to stay and something to eat."
"Alright," Applebloom said. "I reckon it'll just be an hour or so if we hurry. Scoots, you up for a race?" The last thing I saw before the call clicked off was Scootaloo spitting the phone out, giving me an upward shot of her grin as she closed the call.
If I was there in person, it would be a simple matter to get the extraterrestrial visitors the help and resources they needed. However, blizzard-locked in an airport a thousand miles away, it poses a puzzle. I could call the local police, though my claims would likely be laughed away as a prank—or, should I simply call them "lost children" and neglect to mention they are quadrupedal extraterrestrials, risk getting them shot as wild animals. My best option, as it stands, is a puzzle of its own: to guide a second-contact scenario with someone in town who can get them to safety. Once that is under control, I plan to get a colleague there as quickly as I can. Dr. Arbeck is the obvious candidate, both for her zoology knowledge and her proximity, living just north in DC. Someone needs to look at this book and, more excitingly, "claw" left by Preponderance, and I can think of no one more qualified.
For now, though, I plan to pass the time by checking what's in the area.
I was more prepared this time when the call came. When Applebloom told me there were buildings in the distance, I already knew what each of them was. Despite being small, the town was home to a medium-sized Holiday Inn, apparently built back when the town was an intersection of several busy roads. After recent highway construction, the roads (and by proxy, town) had died down considerably, but the local businesses apparently still drew sufficient traffic to maintain themselves. In other words, it was a reasonably ideal situation into which to drag three unescorted extraterrestrial minors.
Sweetiebell, I kenned, had been assigned phone-holding duty. From the looks of it, Applebloom and Scootaloo had given up on their race long ago and resigned to being cold, wet, and miserable. At the same time, their eyes seemed bright at the prospect of imminent civilization. Scootaloo flapped what I only now noticed were wings, shaking clinging snowflakes from them before turning to me. "It's gonna be warm there, right? You guys aren't some kind of ice monsters?"
I chortled at the thought, though the laughter segued to a sense of respect as I realized the children were beginning to keep an open mind about the dangers of exploring another world. "No, we're not ice monsters. We're sensitive to cold like you are—maybe moreso. I'm surprised you can even stay in the snow like that without any kind of clothing."
"We had clothing. Our capes, at least. But I guess it didn't come with us," Apple Bloom said, a bit of shiver noticeable in her voice. I thought about that for a moment. Preponderance, I realized, had been seemingly naked as well during our exchanges. Preoccupied by the fact I was speaking to an alien, I had never thought anything of it—if anything assuming it was a cultural difference. Now, I found myself considering the idea that clothing, tools, or other non-biological objects might not be able to make interplanetary jumps like this. In some ways it seemed nonsensical: the notion that a teleportation process could distinguish a body's nails and hair from clothing. But, then again, the greatest discoveries stemmed from observations of the seemingly nonsensical. I filed Applebloom's note about clothing away for later consideration.
At my insistence, Sweetie Belle and I took the lead as I guided the trio along the sidewalk and across some side-streets, moving toward the hotel. From the quiet smalltalk we made along the way, I picked up that their own world primarily relied on manually-pulled vehicles—looking like horse-drawn carriages but being the cultural equivalent to rickshaws. The notion of high-speed vehicles on busy streets was largely foreign, lessening the patronizing feeling as I emphasized the importance of "stop, look both ways, go".
Another unforeseen challenge was getting them through the hotel's revolving door. I had never given much thought to revolving doors—to me, they were merely an architectural element. However, looking at them through the eyes of extraterrestrial quadrupeds, I could understand their apprehensions. Firstly, their bodies were longer than that of an upright human. I had never stuck my hand in a revolving door as it closed, but my charges no doubt imagined it having enough force to cleanly bisect one of them should their hindquarters or tail not be pulled fully inside. Secondly, it was effectively a glass cage that only one of them could fit into at a time, splitting them up until they all got inside. And finally, its speed was dependent on how quickly the others were pushing it—one of their group moving too fast, in their eyes, would likely get one of the others crushed. It was only after explaining the concepts to them as best I could that the group slowly worked its way through the revolving door, tails carefully tucked between their legs. Also, after insisting that the phone-carrier go through first, my camera had once again found its way back to Scootaloo.
The "ponies", I gathered, came from a culture that was overall smaller in scale than ours. As quadrupeds, their posture meant doors and rooms need not be as tall, not to mention they had a comparatively smaller body than us for a similarly-sized head and brain. I could see my own view shifting up and around as Scootaloo's head pivoted, marveling at the modestly lavish interior of the hotel's lobby. I could see a young attendant leaning back in his chair lazily at the reception desk, a rolled-up hunting jacket tucked behind his head as a pillow while he read something on his phone. The desk itself towered at least twice the height of my charges, but Preponderance's phone had luckily ended up with the group's winged member. With a quick lurch of flight, she landed softly on the top of the desk.
I realized, with some amusement, that this was possibly one of the most important moments that had ever occurred with regards to interplanetary relations: the first introduction of aliens to general members of the populace. At the click of her feet on the desk, the attendant looked up from his phone. His expression was closer to shocked confusion than fear—in retrospect, I think it was the phone in Scootaloo's mouth that made the difference. To the attendant, this wasn't a potentially dangerous animal poised for attack. It was a pet offering a present. Facing him directly via camera, I cleared my throat and spoke up with a speech I had rehearsed in my head many times over the last hour.
"Hello. I'm Dr. Sydney of the University of Michigan Biology Department. I was contacted by three extraterrestrial travelers looking for refuge. I'm currently stuck in an Icelandic airport and cannot meet them in person, but I'll be sending a colleague to pick them up as soon as possible. For the time being, I want to get them out of the cold and away from potential hazards. Do you have rooms available for the night?" I felt the last bit was important, since it emphasized what I hoped would be an element of normality in the situation.
For a moment, the attendant just stared at me, then Scootaloo, without moving. I could feel the tension in the air, and see my camera move as Scootaloo fidgeted. Gradually, he reached a hand out and ran it through Scootaloo's hair, petting her as though to confirm she was real. At first this struck me as condescending, though I now see his rationale. From the fact that she didn't bite him, he could confirm she was not hostile. From the dirty look she was no doubt giving him, he could confirm she was sapient. With only a slight hitch in his voice, he fell into normal routine. "Will you need one room or three?"
My view upended and I heard a clack as the phone hit the countertop. Scootaloo answered for me. "Are the rooms as huge as the rest of this building?"
Camera facing upward, I couldn't see desk attendant's reaction. I suspect, from his reply, he was looking at the three small creatures appraisingly. "The rooms are... anything should be big enough for you. Would you prefer two beds and a rollout, or two rooms?"
I tried to hurry the situation along, not wanting to get hung up on small hitches. "They're new to the planet and they'll only be here for about a day. They'll take a large suite with two queens and a rollout. Can you accept my credit card information over the phone?" The attendant thought about it for a moment before concluding that, in this situation, it would probably be acceptable, though his computer couldn't do it and he'd have to take it to his boss tomorrow. I gave him my phone number should his boss have any problems with the idea of extraterrestrials in her hotel. In turn, he agreed to keep their presence relatively quiet, at least beyond radioing word to the hotel staff, until my colleague could get there tomorrow. As we spoke, he seemed to warm up to the idea, even asking me if this was first contact. At my request, he even gave the trio a bit of cash for the vending machines, saying he'd charge it to my card later as minibar expenses.
Getting the extraterrestrials to their room proved more challenging than I had anticipated. The desk attendant, maintaining protocol even in the most extraordinary situation, said he couldn't leave his desk until break. Every elevator button and door handle, I quickly discovered, was made for creatures at least three times the height of my charges, not to mention with actual fingers. The greatest challenge of all was getting the keycard into the slot on the door, a mid-air feat which took Scootaloo several tries, though she insisted she had now "found the trick". Once finally inside, however, the girls were safe, warm, and ready to tackle the next set of problems.
Food and water. The fact that these visitors were even breathing our atmosphere without an air supply of their own was worrying enough—I didn't want our first encounter with this species to end with nothing but three dead children. While Scootaloo's nausea at consuming our plant life seemed to have passed quickly, I was still seeing the occasional ramifications of their choice to drink river water—no sooner had we entered the room than Applebloom had seen the bathroom and rushed to it. They were hungry and at risk of dehydration, but the safest solution I could think of for now was bottled water and mechanically processed foodstuffs.
I explained the process of purchasing snacks from a vending machine to Scootaloo as she walked through the hallways, alone—Sweetiebell and Applebloom had opted to stay back in the room to use the bathtub to “wash away the cold”. We discussed options that might be available, finally settling on corn chips and bottled water. After Scootaloo confirmed their species could digest lactose after infancy, I agreed with her assertion that it would be worth the risk to add in chocolate bars as well.
For her part, she performed reasonably well at purchasing snacks. However, something about her movements and silence struck me as off. After entering the appropriate code, she would merely stand there and watch with a blank expression as a bag toppled down and she would add it to her pile. Alone with me, I realized, she was not wearing the same face she had put on around her friends, and a heavy tension hung in the air between us. Finally, after a good five minutes of silence as she assembled her ration pile, she spoke.
"Are we ever going to be able to go home?" She didn't look at me when she asked it, her attention solely on the ninth bag of chips as its spiral slowly pushed it forward.
The sudden question was unexpected, but I answered it as best as I could without lying. "My colleagues and I are going to look at the book you found and do everything we can to get you home. I promise you that."
"I know, I know. I've heard you going all 'my colleagues' this, and 'my colleagues' that." She finally turned toward me, and I noticed a squint to her eyes I hadn't been able to make out before. "But you know. You said this planet doesn't even have the stuff to go to other worlds. You're some big-shot science doctor, and even you don't know how to do it!" She swallowed, almost choking on the last word. "I want to know the truth. I'm tough, I can take it. Sweetiebell, Applebloom, they'll break if you tell them the truth, but I can know. I want to know. Are we ever going home?" She took a deep breath and puffed out her chest as if ready to take a punch, and waited.
I was a professor, not a mother. I hadn't had a child in my home for fifteen years, and my meager parenting skills had faded with time and given way to teaching and research. But this, I realized, was perhaps all I needed. If I couldn't ease her fears, then maybe I could share with her the spark of discovery that made me excited to merely be a part of this situation, and the hope that I would find something amazing.
"Have I told you about Preponderance?" I asked.
Scootaloo sniffled, falling back on her rump. She was crying freely now, knowing full well what my dodge meant. She kept her voice steady and answered nonetheless. "I... heard you say a little to the hotel guy. He was this weird alien, the first one to talk to anybody from your planet, right?"
I proceeded to tell her everything I could about the creature that called itself Preponderance. At every opportunity, I tried to share with her my elation—the wonder and awe at meeting something so different from myself, and the thrill of adventure I felt as I tried to discover the strange knowledge it had almost tauntingly kept from me. I told her about the things I learned, the scientific discoveries its small comments facilitated, and its strange fascination with what I perceived as pedestrian elements of human life. I even told her about Preponderance's apparent fear that grew with our every conversation, just because she told me she was brave enough to hear it all. My excitement about the topic was contagious, and as I spoke I could see her energy slowly returning. Finally, I explained that this was why that notebook was so important: Preponderance had left something behind, and from the small bit I had heard it sounded like it was meant to help aliens who ended up stranded on this world.
We had been talking for at least an hour. While I worried that her friends may have grown concerned about our absence, I knew this exchange was important to Scootaloo, and she'd rather they not see her like this. Her tears had dried and her demeanor had brightened considerably since we began. She smiled as she spoke. "Do you think that's what this Preponderance guy does? Like, travels around between worlds, leaving stuff to help people get back home?"
"I don't know," I said truthfully, "but I hope to find out."
The answer was sufficient for her. The alien scooped up her new pile of loot onto her back and spread her wings to stabilize it. She briefly eyed the coffee vending machine, asking if any drinks besides water were safe, though I told her I didn't know. Picking up the phone and key in her mouth once again, she walked down the winding hallways back to her room, catching only a brief stare from a nearby maid. When we got inside, Applebloom and Sweetiebell were lying on the bed in wait, wrapped in towels and with still-damp hair. From a tear-stained-yet-accepting look on Sweetiebell's face, I had suspicions that they had a similar conversation in our absence.
Scootaloo wasn't about to show weakness in front of her friends. "Dinner is served!" she said, hopping onto the bed and lowering one wing, bags and bottles rolling off to her side. Realizing I had not eaten in a good many hours myself, I made my own trip to a vending machine and joined them.
"Thanks again for all your help, Dr. Sydney," Applebloom said. Opening the bag of chips without fingers had been difficult for her, but afterwards she had no trouble reaching her snout in to eat. "Without your help, I reckon at least one of us would've gotten mighty sick by now—if not worse."
Sweetiebell swallowed a gulp of water and gazed up uncomfortably. "Please don't say that. Let's talk about something happy."
"Sydney told me all about this thing she met back when she was less old called 'Preponderance'." Scootaloo sat back on her haunches, gesturing with her front limbs excitedly. "It was some kind of alien traveler who knew way more about science stuff than her, and she thinks it wrote that book we found. It's probably going to have some kind of secret spell or directions to build a machine we can use to get home." Sweetiebell seemed pleased with this revelation, but I saw a pensive look on Applebloom's face.
She spoke up. "I still think it's right weird we're apparently the first ponies to end up here. Dr. Sydney, you said the 'ponies' on this world are just animals, right? Do you still have unicorns and pegasuses and the like?"
I took a sip of my lukewarm vending machine coffee—decaf, since I hoped to catch some sleep while the aliens did. "Nothing of the like." I thought about my answer for a moment. "Except in old myth. Hundreds or maybe thousands of years ago—I'm not certain—there are stories that reference unicorns and pegasi."
"What happened to them?" It was Sweetiebell who asked the question, and it was an interesting one. Up until then I had assumed the creatures to be entirely mythical, but I was currently speaking to two extraterrestrials that fit the description to a 'T'. Was it possible that their species had in fact visited earth centuries ago? Interplanetary travel was clearly not an established part of their current culture, but a lot could happen over centuries of time.
"I don't know," I admitted. "All we have are stories that they might have been here at one time. Perhaps they were just visiting, and went home."
"Maybe they drank the water and pooped so much they died," Scootaloo said. Applebloom snickered at the joke, but I inwardly noted that such an explanation—or at least, its underlying implications of survivability on a foreign planet—would be rather reasonable.
Sweetiebell interrupted my thoughts with a gaping yawn. I could tell the weight of the day was beginning to reach the three of them; Applebloom, having hungrily devoured three entire bags of chips and a chocolate bar, was moving sluggishly and with drooping eyelids.
"I know you wanted to see the book your friend wrote, Doctor Sydney, but I'm plum tuckered. Would you mind if it waited until morning?" As much as I craved to delve into that book, Applebloom was right. Sweetiebell looked ready to collapse, while Scootaloo was flicking through the remaining dollar bills, probably thinking ahead to breakfast. I couldn't say no.
To be safe, I asked them to call me immediately if any one of them began to suffer adverse reactions from the food they had eaten, or any other emergency came up. I let them know that I'd be leaving a message for Dr. Arbeck, who could hopefully get there sometime tomorrow, before resting myself. With everything settled and accounted for, the three of them tucked into one bed curled up by the pillow. Sweetiebell reached over to the phone and clicked it off, leaving me back at my airport.
It's been a long day. I'm far from the only traveler stranded in the airport for the night, and while writing this I've even had a few others move into my quiet wing for rest. I'll be leaving my message with Dr. Arbeck now, and with any luck be woken up by her response.
Everything has changed today. If there is one anchor that will forever draw me back to this moment, it's the fear I felt as the events of this morning transpired. It started with me being awakened a call, albeit not from Dr. Arbeck.
When I answered the video call, the first thing I saw was orange feathers. I was tucked under a wing, I realized, and its owner was moving fast. For a moment, I just heard heavy breathing, and assumed I had perhaps been dialed by accident. And then, a fearful voice. "Preponderance didn't write the book to get us home."
I wasn't sure where to begin, so I started with the obvious implication. "Are you saying that Preponderance had ill intentions?" The notion somehow made me uncomfortable, having spent so long looking up to the creature.
"No! No. I mean, Prep is cool. The book even says how to get home, sort of. But it's not why he wrote it. It's about Veilspawn." Scootaloo was speaking in a harsh whisper, as if trying to be quiet and loud at once. Blurred scenery continued to fly past.
There was that word again. Veilspawn. Applebloom had mentioned it yesterday, but only in the sense that she saw it used in Preponderance's book. I realized the implication here: in the few hours I had been sleeping, Scootaloo had been reading the book. I suddenly remembered her asking about the coffee machine, then then counting out money when we got back to the room, and the events that transpired in my absence became more clear. And now, she was running. "Scootaloo!" I spoke sternly into the phone, keeping my voice soft to match hers. "What's happening? Why are you running?"
"My Veilspawn found me. It was in the air vent. I need to get away from my friends, so they'll be safe. It'll follow me."
"I don't know what a Veilspawn is!" I said. My mind was racing, hoping this was some bizarre, alien joke. The hope was dashed as the galloping sound of Scootaloo's movement was matched with a scraping, skittering noise of claws against metal. From my narrow vantage point behind her wing I saw her slow and turn, creeping backwards in what I now recognized as a hotel hallway.
"Crap. Oh crap oh crap oh crap."
I was about to shout at her, to demand some answer. Before I could, however, the wall I was facing exploded, shards of dust and plaster flying toward the camera as... nothing came out of the wall. Nonetheless, Scootaloo screamed, charging the opposite direction down the hallway. With a jumping leap, I heard her punch open a door to a stairwell, followed by a shrieking noise I assumed to be hooves sliding down a metal bannister. As she plowed out the lower door, her speed did not reduce at all, though she began to speak between pants.
"Look. This isn't good. Full disclosure: I'm gonna get eaten. I'm hoping the hotel guy will find the phone and bring it back to the girls, and I need you to tell them what's going on." I heard a frantic shuffle of hooves as if she was both trying to cancel her momentum and change direction at once, and the movement I could see between her feathers shifted accordingly. "We found Preponderance's bag because there was a Veilspawn claw in it. They're drawn to things from other worlds—especially the thing they were made to hunt. And every time you bust this 'veil' between worlds, a Veilspawn gets made to hunt you." I heard her swallow as her body spun around, once again backing up slowly and defensively. "It keeps things myths."
I thought back to our conversation the previous night. This, I realized, was the answer to Sweetiebell's question: what happened to the previous visitors. I admit elements of the notion enthralled me, realizing that these things she called "Veilspawn" could easily be some universal equivalent to white blood cells fighting off a foreign invader. However, the thoughts fell to the back of my mind as I realized the much more important issue at hand: my charge was being hunted. All of them were, but somehow Scootaloo had come first. "How do you know this one is only hunting you?" I asked.
"Preponderance said they take on your traits," she answered simply, though I could feel the heavy fear still present in her voice. "Mine had wings. That's probably why it got here before the others, and how it got in the vents." A halfhearted laugh. "But it can plow through walls and I can't. That's just kinda unfair."
Her grim joke made me realize an even grimmer fact: like the Veilspawn claw in the bag, I could not see Veilspawn, while Scootaloo and her friends apparently could. I didn't know if it was because I was looking through a camera, or if they were invisible to anyone from our planet, human or machine—though the latter would explain how these creatures had evaded common knowledge for the complete duration of human history. Had Preponderance not left its package, the three extraterrestrials would have likely been picked off in the forest before anyone ever discovered that they—or the creature hunting them—existed.
"Scootaloo," I said seriously, "is there anyone around who can help you?"
"I was hoping the hotel guy would be down here, but..." her words trailed off as I noticed her movement starting to pick up again. Whatever she saw, it had gotten her moving again. "Need wings!" she squeaked before my camera's view spun, followed by a click as her teeth clamped down around the phone, pointing it forward. I saw the tall reception desk rushing toward us, then sailing below us, and the world spinning as she landed in a tumble and kept running. Phone held in her mouth, I looked over her shoulder along with her, seeing papers and lamps fly from the desk's surface right behind her, knocked astray by an invisible pursuer.
Though I could only see one half of the chase, Scootaloo's movements were enough to discern certain facts about her hunter. He was almost definitely larger and faster than her, but she was more agile. On straightaways he would gain on her, but on corners and turns she could lose him. I realized her tactics were admirably clever: she had been slowing down to catch her breath and speak at corners, where she could see her pursuer coming and get a head start in the time it would take him to regain speed after the sharp turn.
Her agility was put to the test as she barreled toward the lobby fireplace, leaping atop the grate and deftly kicking it over. With a spray of sparks I saw something large collide with the flames. She dove over the burning creature, performing what first struck me as a controlled hover before I realized her pursuer was much more massive than I anticipated, and she was sliding down its tail. Sparks and flames rendered it partially visible as it silently pursued her across the lobby. Without losing a beat, Scootaloo charged toward the revolving door. I was momentarily confused—heading outdoors seemed a poor decision, as the environment would only favor the preadator. However, after passing through the revolving door I heard a sickening crack as the Veilspawn was caught in the device, its midsection presumably crushed in the biped-favoring portal like a hand in gears. Scootaloo slid to a stop, turning around to admire her handiwork.
A sudden explosion of broken glass and metal flying through the cold morning air told her—and me—it was time for her to run again. Her gambit had failed, leaving her pursuer free and herself in a disadvantageous environment. As falling snow stuck to the creature, I began to get my first real look at its body and magnitude. It was as tall as a bear, though much thinner and leaner, letting it easily slither through small spaces or climb walls. Its wings, unlike Scootaloo's birdlike appendages, were long and draconic. I couldn't glean much more, as Scootaloo was in no position to trade speed for any more than the quickest look over her shoulder. She rushed into another sharp turn, trying to lose her pursuer in the twists and alleys behind the hotel. I shouted for her to change direction, knowing where this would likely lead, but it was too late. She slid to a halt, having run into a dead-end alcove used to store dumpsters.
For a moment, there was no movement. I could hear Scootaloo breathing heavily, and I followed her head as she looked left, right, and up, as if to judge whether she could fly to safety. I wanted to close the call, contact the police and try to get them there in time to help, but I couldn't look away. A skittering sound of claws told me it was too late anyway, and that all I could do was watch.
A moment passed, and my view lowered to the ground as Scootaloo gingerly set the phone up against the wall, taking a step away from it. She flared her wings and gave a wry smile. "When you get back to the girls, make sure you mention the part where I set it on fire and then slammed it in the revolving door. You gotta admit, that was really, really awesome." I could see faint snowflakes defining the Veilspawn's form as it leapt against the alley wall to cancel its momentum, hanging its head low and prowling toward its prey. Scootaloo gave one last smile back at me before her composure broke, she curled up on the ground, and closed her eyes tightly, awaiting the inevitable.
I expected the sounds of evisceration as my charge was torn to pieces in front of me. Instead, I heard a screech of braking tires. Through the insubstantial form of the Veilspawn, I saw a pickup truck sliding sideways through the loose snow. In one fluid motion, a figure I recognized as the attendant from the hotel's reception desk, clad in his camouflage hunting jacket, drew a shotgun and hopped from the still-sliding truck's door. Three loud cracks, one after another, resounded through the air as he planted shots in the creature's back. Without missing a beat, he reloaded, followed by three more loud cracks. Scootaloo curled up even more tightly, flinching with each shot as the man reloaded again, pumping his gun and firing another three shots point-blank into the now downed, but writhing, Veilspawn. It was only on the eighth and ninth blasts that the Veilspawn gave its final lurches and stopped moving, the attendant seemingly standing on thin air as he kept his shotgun aimed downward. Long seconds of silence passed before he stepped down, treading over the creature and heading toward the phone that marked my remote presence there.
At first I was concerned—after the sheer amount of property damage caused by the chase, I would have a hard time passing off the three alien visitors as "harmless". The attendant, however, disarmed my concerns with a lopsided grin. "Give it to me straight, Doc. Did I just take a side in an alien war?"
Compared to Scootaloo's encounter with the Veilspawn, the events afterwards are already something of a blur in my mind. The three of us headed back to the hotel, both to inspect the damage done and get Scootaloo back to her friends. The desk attendant, apparently, had heard Scootaloo's scream and immediately rushed to his truck to retrieve his firearm. It took a bit of pushing to convince him I was not a secret government agent hiding an alien conspiracy, but rather in the dark as much as he was. Scootaloo, perhaps the most informed of us at the moment, told him much the same things she had told me about Preponderance's notebook and the Veilspawn.
"We're going to have to tell the police why there were gunshots in town. And why there's a dead, invisible dragon out back," the man said, "you want me tell them about the aliens?"
I thought about this. "No, let me. I'll call right after this. Just take Scootaloo and her phone back up to her friends." This answer seemed sufficient for him and he nodded. Scootaloo's adrenaline rush and caffeine overload were blatantly wearing off and she was having notable difficulty even walking straight. He scooped her up under one arm and, after a bit of wiggling protest from her, she gave in and let herself be carried.
As for me, I ended the call. It was a strange act, to be in the midst of a dangerous encounter only to close the app and find myself perfectly safe a thousand miles away. I blinked, my eyes adjusting to distance as I gazed out at the dwindling snowstorm.
The moment didn't last long; I looked up the number for the Cherry Pike police and called their office. I introduced myself and explained the situation, emphasizing once again that the aliens were harmless and I had a colleague who would be stopping by shortly. The policeman was understandably skeptical of my claims, but eventually agreed to humor me and go look at the Veilspawn corpse. The gunshot reports in town, he admitted, were something that had to be investigated regardless. However, if my claims were accurate then officers would need to at least speak to the extraterrestrials I had found. After some pressuring, and stressing that they needed time to rest, he agreed to put it off the questioning until the afternoon. After he hung up, I was once again back in my airport.
I am there now. As I write this, I find myself wondering what more I can do, or what I could have done better. Should I have sent the three of them directly to the police for protection? Should I have left them in their room alone? The more I write, the more I realize these extraterrestrials aren't just a biological curiosity to me the way Preponderance was; they are living individuals whose safety and wellbeing is in my hands. They are, as I've come to refer to them, my charges.
Preponderance was an "it". Both to itself and to me, there was no human element, and I revered it the same way one would revere an informative book or a strange geological formation. But here, with the three of them, I can't just be a scientist anymore.
I was awakened from my nap, finally, by a call from Dr. Arbeck. Her greeting was short and genuinely concerned. "Natalie! You said it was important and to call you back as soon as possible. What is it?"
Dr. Arbeck was one of the few scientists with whom I had shared my encounter with Preponderance. I had taken numerous screengrabs during the conversation and, understandably, wanted the opinions of a zoologist. While she remained skeptical of my claims to have spoken to an alien, she always addressed my questions seriously and even proposed her own suggestions as to the evolutionary path taken by Preponderance's species. Knowing the interests of her field, I hit her with the offer she couldn't refuse. "I have three living extraterrestrials in a hotel room in Cherry Pike, Virginia. I have discovered a new class of previously undiscovered creature native to Earth, of which I have one full body and one partial remain, all tangible yet naturally invisible. I have a book on previously undiscovered science written by a fourth extraterrestrial, also at the hotel in Cherry Pike. I need you at Cherry Pike, right now."
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Finally, I heard Dr. Arbeck's voice. "That's a three hour drive. Also, you have to be joking."
"It's no joke. Call the hotel if you want, I have multiple witnesses. By now, you can probably even call the police station: they're getting involved too. This is going to get big; I'm in Iceland right now and I need a scientist there to make sure everyone is kept safe." The other end was silent, so I elaborated. "These aren't curiosities like Preponderance was, Dr. Arbeck, they're children. They don't know how they got here and they're just trying to get home. I don't know enough about their diet or biology to guarantee their safety. And, we have two invisible, Earth-native predators hunting them."
"I'm in my car," Dr. Arbeck answered. I didn't know how much of my previous words she had heard, but it didn't seem to matter. "I'll be there in two hours. You're reimbursing any speeding tickets. I'll call you when I'm close."
The call clicked closed, but my phone didn't leave my hand. I dialed the ponies, hoping I wasn't waking them if they were still asleep—and, at the same time, hoping nothing disastrous had befallen them in my absence.
Quite the opposite, it turned out. Applebloom appeared on the other end of the line, grinning. She was wearing what I recognized as an armor vest meant for a police K-9 unit. "Howdy there, Dr. Sydney!" she greeted. Their meeting with the police, it turned out, had gone fairly well. The three of them had explained the situation to the best of their ability (mostly led by Scootaloo, being the one who was most familiar with the dead Veilspawn outside). The officers, after getting over the initial novelty of an alien encounter, took the issue professionally and even left an armed guard at the hotel room—sporting a hunting rifle in addition to her normal pistol, I noted. "They brought the vests up later," Applebloom explained, "they're supposed to stop all sorts of bad things and keep us safe. Scootaloo won't wear hers because it covers her wings, but they said that was okay and she didn't have to."
Seeing Scootaloo's agility in action, I supported the decision. At the moment, however, I had larger things on my mind. I had been thinking about the Veilspawn's tactics. While little was known about them, I realized that in itself was an important piece of information: they preferred stealth. The one hunting Scootaloo had traveled through air ducts and ambushed her while she was alone—an easy victory had she not known it was coming. "Applebloom," I said, "may I please speak to the policewoman?" She nodded, picking the phone up in her mouth and turning to the officer behind her.
We exchanged introductions swiftly, their guard introducing herself as Officer Stiles, and I wasted no time getting to the crux of my thoughts. "The Veilspawn—the creatures hunting these girls—have presumably
I guess I have some catching up to do from the last entry. I was only midway through writing it when, as per my suggestion, the girls reached their new destination: a Fridays across the street. Officer Stiles initially had apprehensions about moving a target to a populated area, but I reassured her that the Veilspawn were likely no risk to humans—after all, in our single encounter thus far, the creature had made no effort to retaliate against the individual pumping its spine full of buckshot. Reluctantly, the officer agreed with my logic, briefly radioing in that "ET-Gold, ET-Orange, and ET-White were relocating to an area with less avenues of surprise attack".
There was nothing I could do to contribute to their safety while they traveled, as the girls were the the only ones capable of seeing their attackers, so I tried in vain to knock out another entry in the book before my phone rang again—Apple Bloom, announcing that they had safely arrived. The restaurant was packed for lunch, which meant decent protection—though it also meant a lot of stares and questions. Officer Stiles, for her part, handled it well, explaining straightforwardly that she was watching three extraterrestrials until a scientist arrived to pick them up, and would need three Kids Menus along with her own.
Presenting the girls with actual food options, of course, made it that much harder to pressure them into safe choices. After some back and forth, we settled on pasta with marinara sauce, French fries, and lemonade. My logic was that everything on the list either had an acidity high enough to discourage bacterial growth or had been cooked in boiling liquid. Having seen the interior of ice machines, though, I specifically requested their lemonades go without, and that the food be prepared on clean surfaces appropriate to how they would typically handle an allergy.
"This friend of yours, y'all said she was a... zoologist?" Apple Bloom said, idly fiddling with her half-empty lemonade as she waited for her meal. "Like, someone who studies animals, right?"
I realized her concern. "Animals, yes. But that just means she studies all sorts of creatures, not just humans. In particular, she studies how to keep creatures alive and healthy in different environments, which is why I want her to stay with you and do what she can to keep you safe."
Sweetie Belle shifted uneasily in her seat. "You're always talking about 'staying alive', like... like we're going to die at any second." She swallowed, choking on her words a bit as she continued. "If we never get home, is it always going to be like this?" Her voice had dropped to a near-whisper, possibly as she noticed the restaurant patrons on all sides watching and trying to listen in to her conversation. She smiled and waved at one of them, though I couldn't see whom.
"It should be better after Dr. Arbeck and her friends have time to study you and determine what is and isn't safe. You haven't had any adverse reactions to airborne germs yet, nor any human food you've eaten, which is a good sign. But, we still don't know if you react adversely to any chemicals unique to this planet, or if your bodies can fight off our diseases."
"Jesus Christ," I heard Stiles' voice say from behind the phone, "you didn't show them War of the Worlds, did you?" I laughed, though the girls mostly seemed confused. I told them it was an old fiction story about bad aliens who got sick when they tried to invade.
Scootaloo, I realized, had been fairly quiet since we arrived. Even as the food arrived and the girls hungrily dug their snouts into their bowls, I saw her eyes nervously flicking around the room at every opportunity, never staying in place for more than a moment. "Scootaloo," I addressed her, gaining her attention for only a moment before it went back to the room around her, "is everything alright?"
The alien swallowed a mouthful of pasta and opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated. Her brow furrowed, as if considering whether or not to continue, before answering me in a small whisper. "I'm scared."
It was an understandable feeling, after the events earlier in the day. She had put on a brave face and reveled in the brief feelings of victory as her own Veilspawn was slain, but it was nonetheless a harrowing experience she had only narrowly survived. And, like a child awaiting a shot, she knew it was going to come again. Sweetie Belle showed distress at the direction the conversation was taking, but I pushed on regardless. "That's perfectly okay. Scary things are happening, but we're going to try to take care of it."
"But Prep's book said they take on the traits of the thing they're hunting. Like, mine was fast and could fly, like me. But Apple Bloom, she's really smart and really strong," Apple Bloom blushed at this and looked away, but Scootaloo ignored her and continued, "and Sweetie Belle, she can use magic."
There was that word again. I had kept meaning to ask about it, but I could tell that this wasn't the time. I had to do something to ease my young charge's fears. "We can start thinking about what the other two Veilspawn might be like, and then we might be able to expect them," I suggested. It was a shaky plan, but it gave us something to do. I took out my journal and began making a small chart, mostly for show, before facing it to the girls.
"My name isn't spelled like that," Sweetie Belle said. I turned the book around to see what I had written. "It's Sweetie-Belle, two words, and there's an E on the end of 'Belle'." Realizing I had been writing their names all this time without questioning the spelling, I began to wonder how I did on the others. Perhaps foreseeing my question, she continued. "Apple Bloom is two words, too. Scootaloo is just one, though."
It was at that moment I began to hear a soft music. At first I thought nothing of it, assuming that the restaurant had simply turned on its speaker system as lunch segued into dinner. However, a sudden look of panic appeared on Sweetie Belle's face. "Napkins in ears! Now!" she shouted.
With a quick sound of ripping and no questions asked, all three of the girls tore their napkins in half and bundled them into their ears, peering around the room in fear. Officer Stiles was not so lucky; the phone clattered to the table as she stood up, reaching for her gun as she spun around. From my upward angle I could just barely make out her eyelids drooping before she collapsed to the ground with a heavy thud. Similar sounds of heads hitting tables and trays of glassware being dropped filled the room. I felt nothing myself, listening to the song through a speaker presumably negating its effect. A white hoof partially covered the camera as Sweetie Belle pulled the phone toward her and tucked it into her vest. "It's a sleep song! Dr. Sydney, call the police, and tell them to cover their ears!" She ended the call, forcibly booting me back to the airport.
For a moment, I simply sat there in pure shock. Recovering as swiftly as I could, I dialed the Cherry Pike police. I explained the situation with the details Sweetie Belle had given me and hung up, not even waiting for a reply. Instead, I reopened the call to Preponderance's phone. When the video opened, I was greeted with the sound of shattering glass—hopefully from the handgun Apple Bloom was holding in her mouth and not something leaping at her through a window. In my absence, she had apparently commandeered Stiles' weapon and was now standing on the table, tonguing the trigger to take poorly-aimed shots at an opponent I couldn't see. From the way she was turning, I inferred the creature was rapidly skirting the edges of the room, periodically clambering onto the ceiling. When her next shots only returned clicks, she discarded the weapon among the sleeping bodies and leapt from the table. "Scatter!" she shouted to her friends, and the three of them took off in different directions.
The music was no longer playing, and I noticed the girls no longer had twisted paper hanging from their ears. As my view galloped toward a doorway, I heard Sweetie Belle's voice from above the microphone. "It's after me, right?"
I nodded, then quickly realized she couldn't see me with the phone forward-facing in her armor. "Yes, if what Scootaloo said is true. Is there somewhere safe you can hide?"
"I need to draw it away from my friends first, like Scootaloo did." Her intentions were brave, but a crack in her voice betrayed her utter terror at the prospect. I heard a table being overturned behind her and realized, with horror, that she was being corralled toward the bathroom.
"It's trying to trap you! Go left, into the kitchen!"
Her hooves squeaked as she tried to change the direction of her headlong run. I expected, like with Scootaloo, her pursuer would lose her on the sharp turn and crash into the wall behind her. What I didn't expect was the blast of glowing red energy that shot into the wall in front of us, spraying bits of wood and plaster. I heard a high-pitched grunt of effort and saw a soft glow from above as a cloud of green enveloped one of the abandoned tables in front of us, dropping it sideways between us and the Veilspawn. More explosions sounded, and the green-shrouded table shuddered with each impact, rolling alongside Sweetie Belle protectively as she charged toward the kitchen. At its door, she withdrew her control from the battered table and galloped inside.
From the way she clumsily leapt onto the countertop, I could tell Sweetie Belle was not the athlete Scootaloo was. She was nearly tripping over herself as she tried to regain her footing, gazing around her for anything that could change the tide of the situation. The familiar green cloud enveloped several paring knives, floating them in front of her defensively as she walked backwards along the countertop, eyes never leaving the doorway. The kitchen was deathly quiet, and placed as I was against Sweetie Belle's chest, I could hear her rapid heartbeat. A quiet screech of claws against tile echoed through the room, and Sweetie Belle spun to the second entrance just in time to sidestep another blast of red energy. One by one, she launched the knives at her invisible pursuer, pots and pans flying from the countertops as it dodged, nonetheless charging toward her. Down to her last knife, she dashed forward, directly at her pursuer. She fired her last knife low, my view dipping down as the ground rushed past, followed by a loud noise from behind us. The Veilspawn had jumped over her shot, and she had slid underneath the jumping beast.
The fryers were in front of us, and I wasn't about to let the opportunity go unused. "Sweetie Belle! Can you move the hot oil with your magic?" My view twisted upward as she looked up to the tall fryers, and I heard another strain of effort come from her throat as a green glow began to emanate from their interiors. Slowly, a snake of boiling oil twisted out of the vats, coming down over the edges to hover protectively before her. I could hear her struggling to maintain control, and when the invisible Veilspawn fired another shot of energy at her, her concentration failed, oil splattering to the ground. She skittered backwards from the hot liquid lapping at her hooves, but the Veilspawn rushed at her, undeterred. I could see oil splash as it slid through it, losing control of its momentum. As it neared us, however, my view was pressed clean to the floor with a loud crack and I heard a cry of pain. A split-second later, we rolled over, the camera now facing the ceiling. I could see the dim edges of a glowing horn as I heard a gust of air, followed by a loud slam.
For a moment, there was no sound but the slowly normalizing heartbeat. Then, shakily, Sweetie Belle stood, staggering forward. Ahead of us, trails of smeared oil led into a walk-in freezer, its door still wrapped in the dissipating glow of Sweetie Belle's magic. She had trapped the Veilspawn inside, I realized. As we neared, however, I heard a faint sound like a camera flash, and Sweetie Belle's movement stopped abruptly. "It blinked."
"Blinked?" I asked. I wanted to believe it was a coy one-liner; that she was claiming she bested her opponent in the moment it closed its eyes, but her tone told me differently.
"A blink. It's when a unicorn disappears, then appears somewhere else. It's not in there anymore." I heard the sound of a door being kicked open, and shortly thereafter several police officers, armed to hunt big-game, rushed into the kitchen. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were with them, eyes full of fear for their friend. Upon seeing her alive, Scootaloo smiled with relief. Apple Bloom, however, rushed forward.
"Sweetie Belle! Your armor! What happened?" One of the police officers hurried alongside her, taking the phone from Sweetie Belle's armor and helping her out of it. Getting a brief look at it, I saw that one of the hard plates on back had been cracked in half by the sheer force of a piercing blow. While I couldn't see Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom's words told me what I needed to know. "That's a mighty bruise you got there. You alright?"
"I'm fine." A slight painful strain in her voice told me that she was not fine, but would be okay. The Veilspawn got away, though. I trapped it in the freezer, but it blinked away.
"You're telling me this unicorn-Veilspawn can do a sleep song, shoot lasers, and blink?" From the silence, I assumed Sweetie Belle was nodding. Apple Bloom reacted accordingly. "Well that's just a plum bucket of unfair!"
"Tell me about it!" I heard Scootaloo say from off-camera. "Mine was like twice my speed and could crash through walls and stuff. These things mean business."
As I write this, the girls are currently locked in a gun safe at the Cherry Pike police station. The trip there was tense, but uneventful, and I am told the incapacitated restaurant patrons awoke on their own with minimal injuries. Though we are still waiting for Dr. Arbeck's arrival, the police from neighboring counties are being called in to provide additional escort to a safer location. Stiles said there's a rumor her superiors even have orders to escort the extraterrestrials to Mount Weather, though she emphasized that it was hearsay.
What worries me most, however, is Scootaloo's statement about the Veilspawn mirroring their prey. Scootaloo was fast and winged, attributes that were both overplayed in her hunter. Sweetie Belle had magical abilities, though I gather that those of her pursuer were much greater. But Apple Bloom, according to Scootaloo, is strong and smart. Despite seeing their physical capabilities, we still know little about the Veilspawns’ mentality. After the encounter with Sweetie Belle's, we now know they can do a tactical retreat, but what does that mean for a predator whose intelligence is above average?
They're clearing the runways now. I can see it through the window in front of me, though it does little to distract my thoughts. Science and discovery, however, have always been my refuge, so that is what I will write about. In the process, of course, I hope to continue my efforts to provide an anchor of memory by which I can return to these events, but forgive me if my focus in this entry tends to drift toward the academic. The events which have just transpired, I am not yet sure I will wish to revisit.
Dr. Arbeck's arrival, most excitingly, meant a chance to dig into Preponderance's notebook. Before even guiding her to the police station to check on the girls, I gave her specific directions to head up to their room and retrieve Preponderance's belongings. Officer Stiles met her at the hotel lobby with one of the girls' keycards, and they retrieved the backpack—along with Scootaloo's K-9 armor, to replace Sweetie Belle's ruined set.
Even now, Dr. Arbeck's excitement and sense of discovery provide me with an emotional refuge I need. No sooner had she seen the bag containing the invisible claw than she had it open and out, sticking her finger up into its flesh. I was disgusted, but the fact that her finger itself vanished answered many questions I didn't even know I had. The Veilspawn were carnivores, I realized, and consuming the remains of their prey would leave behind no visible evidence.
I watched the experiments from a phone in Dr. Arbeck's chest pocket as Stiles escorted her to the police station. Arbeck had insisted on a detour to examine the police-tape-riddled corpse of Scootaloo's Veilspawn, stretching out its wings and feeling every inch of its invisible body. She wanted to cut it open, then and there, but the officer standing watch over it refused. The body was now government property, he explained, and the scientists who would examine it were already chosen and on their way to retrieve it. Arbeck settled for a quick dental examination, leaving her positively glowing with excitement as she announced that it defied all known taxonomical categorization.
The police station looked more like a convention, its lot filled to the brim with cars from neighboring counties. Someone, perhaps coyly playing to stereotypes, had set up a table of donuts. Arbeck took one to go, eager to get into the station to meet the three extraterrestrials who had sought me out. Once inside, the gun safe was unlocked and, with armed officers standing on all sides, the three girls climbed out. Arbeck's eyes filled with wonder at the sight, moving side to side to see their bodies from every angle, and politely asking Apple Bloom to hold still when her head tracking made the examination difficult.
The first question Dr. Arbeck asked was a simple one that, while I knew the answer, I did not blame her for asking. "Can you understand me, and are you capable of abstract thought?"
Apple Bloom nodded. "I can understand you loud and clear. I ain't sure about abstract thought, though. I tried to get a cutie mark as an abstract painter once, but I just ended up in the hospital."
"They're children," I reminded Arbeck, "keep the jargon simple."
"Right," she said, adjusting the phone in her pocket to make sure I could see. "Can you answer me if I ask you what six times twelve is?" Apple Bloom hesitated, her brow furrowing, but Sweetie Belle piped up. "Seventy-Two! My parents made me memorize it up to twelve, even though the homework just said we had to go to ten."
"You come from a culture with standardized education?" There was an excitement in Arbeck's voice. "And parents! Am I right in assuming you have two sexes?"
"I don't think we're supposed to talk about that with strangers," Sweetie Belle said.
My view shifted as Arbeck took the phone out of her pocket and turned the camera to face her. She was grinning broadly. "This is amazing! They're like nothing on Earth, but they're speaking English right down to the homonyms! You said Preponderance spoke English as well. Did he ever say anything about that?"
"He only implied it was unremarkable. It's possible it's somehow a shared development between different planets, or there may be some sort of translation process going on. The notebook he left might say more."
"Right! The book!" Arbeck's glee was palpable as she re-pocketed the phone. "I'll look at it while we drive, assuming we're going with the police. I want to go soon, but there are just so many questions!" She knelt down next to Apple Bloom, getting as close as she could to eye-level with the small alien. "You've been on our world for some time now. What's the biggest difference from your planet?"
Apple Bloom thought about this for some time, eyes trailing off to the side as she considered the question. Finally, she came up with an answer. "The air smells different. Also, everyone is really tall."
"And have you seen these things called 'revolving doors'?" Scootaloo said. "They're like a deathtrap at the front of buildings. You guys must lose claws in those all the time." She cocked her head, now taking her turn to look at Arbeck's body. "Or tails. Are you guys born with tails, and the revolving doors just got them all?"
Arbeck smiled, though rather than answering she turned to a nearby officer. "I want to take them to Georgetown University, unless you have orders to bring them elsewhere?"
"Sorry. We called this in, and the Feds want them at Mount Weather ASAP. All three ET's are going under maximum security lockdown until VS-White and VS-Gold are captured or eliminated."
"I understand. It's for the best, I guess." She turned back to the three ponies. "You girls ready for a road trip?"
Stiles, Arbeck, and the extraterrestrials, it was planned, would share a single car while the others flanked them for protection. Stiles helped the girls strap their seatbelts on while Arbeck, mounting her phone in the holder on Stiles' passenger-side dashboard, finally delved into Preponderance's writing. From my vantage point at the front of the car looking backward, I could just make out Scootaloo excitedly fluttering her wings against the back of the seat, eager to finally be inside one of the unbelievably fast vehicles she had been seeing since her arrival. By the time Stiles took her position in the driver's seat, Arbeck was already enthralled by the book and had come to several novel conclusions.
"Your recent research, Natalie, was on bacteria, am I right? Something about their decaying process made them disappear, leaving no measurable remains?"
"That's correct," I said. "And not just them, any bacteria around them, too."
Her grin widened. "They're not disappearing. They're teleporting. That's why Preponderance needed them. It's a biological teleportation device." She continued flipping pages, so quickly I could hardly fathom how she was taking it all in. "The creatures, the ones he calls 'Veilspawn', are a byproduct of the travel method, but also a key to get back home. The fluids from their body react with the bacteria and tell them where to send the organisms around them. The details are here, though it's more your level than mine." She flipped another page, squinting at it before adding, "he mentions you, here. If the person reading this lacks the knowledge to culture the bacteria for the return device on their own, he says how to contact you."
I felt myself swell with pride, but I didn't want to interrupt her reading to dwell on it. Though, one question needed to be asked. "Scootaloo said the book was about Veilspawn, not travel. Was she right?"
Arbeck was briefly silent, still flipping pages every several seconds. "She is right," she finally said. "The first bits are heavy on chemistry and biology, telling how to build the return device. But now, it's getting into Veilspawn." She began to flip pages faster, clearly skimming at this point to give me an overview. "There are anatomical diagrams, psychological observations, other stuff I'll need copies of later. But then, directions on building makeshift weapons, using human firearms..." She froze, a smile spreading across her face. "Your friend here has a page on hotwiring cars. You might as well title this thing 'So You're Being Hunted on Earth'."
I marveled, briefly, at the fact that Preponderance had written this without ever having been on Earth before. In the few days it was here, it had studied our culture and technology enough to pen a survival guide. And then, I realized, Preponderance had likely left to repeat the process. As I gawked inwardly at the magnitude of this task—to arrive on a planet with nothing but your own body, write a survival guide, and escape—I noticed a pensive look on Arbeck's face. "What is it?"
"This last page..." She looked up from the book, meeting my gaze. "It's written to you."
Before I could ask for details, Officer Stiles cut me off. "We have trouble."
Arbeck unhitched the phone, letting me look forward. Ahead of us, large boulders had been upended from the snowy ground and constructed into a long barricade across the road. It stood easily five feet tall and stretched to the horizon in both directions, save for a single opening a bit to the side of the road where the walls curved inward, as if funneling us in.
"It's a trap," Arbeck said simply.
"Of course it's a goddamn trap," Stiles replied, "but what are we supposed to do about it?" The cars ahead of us slowed to a stop, and Stiles picked up her radio. "This is definitely VS-Gold at work," she said into it. "Do we have a gameplan?"
The radio was silent for a long second. When it cracked to life, the answer was a firm order "VS-White! Protection on!"
No sooner had the order come than I heard the soft melody from the restaurant playing again. Stiles swiftly snapped a pair of shooting earmuffs over her head and passed one to Arbeck. After Arbeck had it on, she put her phone back in its holder. In the backseat, I could see the three ponies pressing their ears down against their skulls, looking fearfully out the window. Scootaloo's eyes widened with fear and she whipped her friends' knees with her tail, mouthing the word "Duck!"
A shot of red energy shattered both back windows of Stiles' now-stopped car, soaring through the space where the aliens' heads had just been. Meanwhile, the melody continued unhindered. I realized the creature's tactic: it knew that only the extraterrestrials could see it, and it was forcing their allies to use ear protection. It was cutting off the line of communication between the two. I grabbed my notebook and scrawled the words "LET ALIENS SPOT" as large as I could, holding it up to the camera for Arbeck to see.
She got the idea. Pulling the glove compartment open, she grabbed a flashlight, turned it on, and passed it back to Scootaloo, turning the phone to Stiles to share my idea. Stiles grabbed her hunting rifle and got out of the car, looking to the alien for direction. I could see several other police officers, some with automatic weapons, getting out of their cars to do the same.
Scootaloo quickly turned, her light shining to the right. A barrage of bullets tracked the slowly moving beam as it approached the earthen wall and then stopped, presumably signifying that the Veilspawn had leapt over and hidden. A moment later, Apple Bloom ducked just in time to dodge another blast of red energy that shattered the car's back window. Scootaloo spun, shining her light now in the opposite direction. Sweetie Belle's Veilspawn had blinked behind the squadron of police vehicles, singlehandedly keeping us surrounded. Over the wave of fire I could faintly hear a sound like a camera flash. Scootaloo cut off the flashlight beam by pointing it down, looking around frantically with her hooves still over her ears. I could hear the continuing sleep song, complemented now by the clatter of guns reloading.
The Veilspawn showed no desire to harm the officers firing at it, but it was clearly willing to dig through them if it had to. Scootaloo spun and shone her light directly forward just in time for Stiles to dive to the ground as a flurry of red energy blasts shattered her windshield, aimed at the ponies in back. As Scootaloo dove under the seat for dear life, her flashlight rattled to the ground. The officers continued firing forward, judging the creature's location by the occasional energy blast it fired at Stiles' car. In my backward-facing position, however, I was more concerned with what I saw coming up from behind.
Through the shattered back window, I could make out an oil truck rushing down the road toward us. The Veilspawn, I realized, were working together: Sweetie Belle's was the distraction, keeping us locked under magical sniper fire, while Apple Bloom's came in for the kill. This, I realized, was the intelligence I feared: it had stolen a truck.
Arbeck saw the look in my eyes and turned, her own eyes widening. She pulled at Stiles' belt, getting her attention, and gestured toward the oncoming truck. I also noticed, at this point, the panicked look on the girls' faces as they reached down to the car floor with their hind legs and shook Scootaloo. While diving under the seat to evade fire, Scootaloo had succumbed to the Veilspawn's sleep song and was officially out of commission. Stiles heavily dropped her body back into the driver's seat, connecting her seatbelt, slamming the gas pedal down, and heading into the snow and toward the wall's opening. Arbeck, a sudden look of fear donning on her, grabbed Stiles' hunting rifle and aimed a shot out the broken windshield, pulling the trigger. While I couldn't see out the front of the car, the sound of a large explosion told me that Apple Bloom's Veilspawn had planted some sort of homemade mine at the opening in the wall. Arbeck's shot, thankfully, had triggered it before the car had. Stone clicked against the car and dust poured into its interior as we bolted through the cloud of debris, swerving back onto the road and continuing northward, our entourage turning and following in our wake.
As the smoke cleared, I could see flashes of red behind us. The shots were not aimed at us, but rather the stone wall across the road, clearing a path for the oncoming truck. The sleep song was no longer audible, if playing at all, so I made a gesture of removing earmuffs. Arbeck saw it and obliged, motioning for Stiles and the girls to do the same.
"He's in that really big car," Apple Bloom said, peering out the shattered back window. Sweetie Belle's Veilspawn just jumped on, and they're both following us now."
Stiles pulled her radio to her mouth. "VS-Gold is in the truck, VS-White has just joined it. Keep ahead of them, but watch out for fire from VS-White." She hung up the radio, turning to Arbeck. "You were a good shot with the mine. Can you snipe the truck's driver?"
"I'm a zoologist. My experience is with a tranquilizer, but I can try." Arbeck reloaded the hunting rifle and unfastened her seatbelt, propping herself up and forcing her upper body through the sunroof. Though I could only see her knees, I knew she was lining up a shot. "I'm lined up with the driver's seat. Apple Bloom, I can't see what he looks like, and I want this to be a killing shot. How high up is his head?"
"He's... not in there."
"What?"
The sound of a camera flash, and the car lurched. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle shrieked in unison. I heard a clatter, and saw the hunting rifle bounce down the road behind us. Arbeck dropped back into her seat, hastily pulling her seatbelt into place. "They're on the car! Shake them!"
Stiles swerved the car left and right, holding up her radio to her mouth as she shouted "VS-White, VS-Gold, on our vehicle! Fire high, get them off!" Several shots rang out, but the cars moving alongside us swerved off-course as blasts of red energy shattered the asphalt in front of them. The roof above Apple Bloom tore open, the young pony's shrieks cracking her voice as she held her head low, curling up for protection. Eyes narrowing, Stiles cut the wheel all the way to the right.
The car turned sharp and rolled. The world around us tumbled, sickening me to my stomach even though I myself remained upright the entire time. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle held onto one another, tears running down their faces. The car bounced, and bounced again, each time crashing to the ground as my friends flailed in their seats. Finally, with a horrid screeching of smoke and metal, its misshapen remains slid to a stop.
For long seconds, I could see nothing. As the smoke cleared, the sight shook me to my core. Scootaloo, the only one of them without a seatbelt, had been caught in a piece of bent metal and was now bleeding freely, a widening pool on the car ceiling above her—which I could only assume meant we were upside down. The others were unconscious, partially hidden behind deflating airbags, but at least seemed to be breathing. And in the distance, I could hear the scraping of claws.
I stared, at a loss. Here I was, far away, watching helplessly as one of the aliens I had come to care for—care about—bled out in front of me, while the others lay unconscious, awaiting their doom. My heart was in my throat. Unsure what else to do, I looked into my phone and whispered "wake up".
Nothing happened. My grip on the phone tightened, and I spoke louder. "Wake up! Any of you, please, wake up!"
There was no movement. With a groan of metal, the back of the car began to open, pried apart by invisible claws. I took a deep breath. As loud as my old lungs would allow, and no doubt drawing the attention of the entire airport, I shouted into my phone. "WAKE UP!"
With a lazy blink, Sweetie Belle stirred. Her dazed eyes traveled up at me, and then to Scootaloo's bleeding body, trying to process what was happening. As comprehension dawned on her, her hoof shot for her seatbelt, dropping her on the car ceiling painfully. She stifled her cry and rolled over onto her stomach, lifting her chest off the ground as she looked up, and froze.
I realized, at this moment, she was staring into the maw of not one, but two massive, invisible creatures that I could only imagine. Her front legs nearly gave out as a shiver ran through her body. Her head looked like it wanted to pull away, but she forced it forward. From behind her, I couldn't see her face, but I could see her shoulders tense, and her horn softly start to glow.
A faint green cloud outlined two massive figures in front of her. Outlined by her magic, I could finally get a sense of their shape and scale. They stood larger and more muscular than the lean, fast creature that had hunted Scootaloo, and the smaller of the two featured a jagged horn, just barely visible as close as it was to my view. They lowered their heads toward Sweetie Belle in unison, mouths open, though their movements slowed as her horn glowed brighter.
The light of her horn flared, glowing even brighter. As the camera on Arbeck's phone adjusted, I could see the two Veilspawn beginning to lean backwards, having to actively press against Sweetie Belle's magic to get closer to her. She shakily pressed herself up onto all four legs and raised her head, horn glowing even brighter.
The Veilspawn began to slide backwards. Apple Bloom's Veilspawn dug its claws into the concrete road, while Sweetie Belle's turned its horn toward her, firing off a shot of red energy that only narrowly missed as her horn flared again, twisting the creature's head to the side and throwing off its aim. With a shout, her horn redoubled in brightness, all but blurring out my camera as, foot by foot, the creatures were pressed back and away from her and her friends.
Her legs began to buckle. I could tell this was likely more than she had ever exerted herself before. Her shout briefly broke into a choking sob before resuming, taking a half-step forward as she lowered her head and tried to press the monsters as far away as she could. Her horn flickered, and I could tell she was losing her hold, but she was going to endure for as long as she could if it meant keeping her friends safe for a second longer.
The last thing I heard before my feed cut out was a soar of jets, followed by the beginnings of an explosion. And then, nothing.
I've been calling, and they still haven't gotten back to me. I've been calling every few paragraphs, as I write this, and still nothing. And I don't know what more I can do.
I'm on a plane to Washington now. The remainder of this day passed in a blur. Many conversations happened, but none stuck. I should have been writing, giving myself those anchors I so desired, but I could never tell where it was going. There were no distinct arcs, no excitement of discovery. There was only fear and hope, dancing around one another like oil and water.
The two Veilspawn died. For all their semi-animalistic intelligence and clever planning, they were unprepared for a point-blank detonation. While the strength of Sweetie Belle's magic pushing the Veilspawn away was what saved her own life, it was its green aura that ended theirs. The pilot, sent from Mount Weather at the first word of trouble, made a judgment call that the magically-outlined creatures were far enough from the car for him to fire a rocket without harming the occupants. It was a good call, I feel. Anything less and they may have blinked away to hunt again another day.
Scootaloo was stabilized. For a while, her fate was uncertain, leaning toward grim. She had lost a lot of blood, and as an extraterrestrial there were only two potentially viable donors on the planet. After some quick laboratory analysis, it was determined that she and Sweetie Belle shared a blood type. The heavy amounts of blood taken from her left Sweetie Belle in much the same condition as Scootaloo, but between the two of them there was thankfully enough for both to survive.
Apple Bloom, meanwhile, had escaped the situation with only minor injuries. Arbeck stuck with her, looking out for her, while she answered questions from every government official, scientist, and reporter permitted to see her. At one point, I got a call from the President, who was speaking to the two of them. I answered the President's questions politely, though I forget what they were specifically. I assume they were diplomatic in nature, not scientific, but this assumption comes purely from context and not memory. I do remember that Apple Bloom was still wearing the armored K-9 vest in the meeting. I don't know if it was because she still feared for her life, or if it had simply seemed wrong to ask her to remove her single article of clothing. I like to think it was the latter.
The CIA called me. I became the first civilian to learn the truth about Roswell, which I was told would become public information very soon. Apparently, they had retrieved an injured and unconscious Grey from a flying saucer crash, only for the creature to go missing the next day with nothing but a few claw marks on the medical bed. At the time, they assumed it had escaped. Now knowing the truth, they admitted feeling a certain shame and responsibility. I asked if the saucer was made of organic material, and they said yes, fitting with my theory of Preponderance's chemical teleportation only affecting living organisms.
The last call I received before writing this was from Scootaloo. Though still drowsy, she had woken up briefly and insisted we speak immediately. I was glad to see she was okay, and she was glad to hear we would soon meet in person. I told her that she was going to go home, at least after she had some time to heal up. She had broken some bones in the car crash, and the doctors feared that screws and metal attachments may be lost in the teleportation. It was likely that she would need a second surgery on her own planet after going back, just to re-add the hardware that would be lost after the jump. If possible, the doctors wanted to talk to a doctor from her world, though they first wanted time to study the Veilspawn and prepare a better defense program. Earth, they insisted, would soon become a safe hub for intergalactic travel. Bold words, I thought, for a species that only learned about intergalactic travel yesterday. But, I admired and shared the intent.
There's an hour remaining in my flight, and I don't know how I'll spend it. After the excitement and constant action of the last day, I am left feeling empty and tired.
The one thing that remains on my mind is what Arbeck told me before the Veilspawn attack: Preponderance wrote me a message. We've spoken since the crash, and I know I could've asked her for it, but some sentimental part of me wants to hold the book in my hands and see it in person. This, I feel, will be the closure I need for the story of Preponderance.
The empty feelings of last night have passed, long since giving way to the returning flood of excitement as I realize the scope of discoveries that lay open before us.
Meeting Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle in person was a pleasure. I met them down in the medical wing of the Mount Weather facility, Apple Bloom being the only one of them currently well enough to leave. The first thing she said upon seeing me? "Cripes, I ain't used to you being all the way up there."
I asked them how they were doing. Sweetie Belle shrugged. "Tired. Scootaloo ran out of blood, so they had to give her a bunch of my blood. They said I'd feel sleepy for a while, but I'll be okay after that."
"I was hoping I'd get unicorn powers from it, but Doctor Shaw said it wasn't likely. She's the human who's been working with me, by the way." Scootaloo, despite most of her body being rigged up in slings, flexed her wings behind her. "I broke three legs in the crash, but he said my wings are perfectly fine. Which is good, since I figure they're all I really need."
"Doctor Arbeck still won't let us touch most of the food down here," Apple Bloom said, a clear note of frustration in her voice. "Apparently, she wants to wait until we're all in 'reliably stable condition' before we try anything new. I tell you, though, I'm mighty tired of chips and noodles." She seethed for a moment, but then her expression softened. She looked up at me. "And how're you doing, by the way?"
I answered truthfully. I told her the last day was exhausting, especially when there was so little I could do from all the way in Iceland, but I was excited to be here now. I explained that I could not stay and speak with them longer, though, as I was going to be leaving for a while. Apple Bloom cocked her head to the side. "Leaving? But you just got here!"
"I know. But I have a very important meeting with a friend." For a moment, Apple Bloom just nodded in understanding. Then, she unexpectedly rushed forward and threw a hug around my knees. Though she was far too low for me to comfortably return it, I gave her a pat on the head before she released and I continued on my way.
My destination was, of course, Dr. Arbeck. The facility's secondary medical wing was abuzz with activity as numerous scientists and lab technicians dashed about, monitoring petri dishes and centrifuges that were painstakingly organized across the numerous metal desks. An unassuming tub lay in the center of the room, filled with a yellowish slosh. It somehow lacked the grandeur I expected for what would become our planet's first outgoing portal, but as such carried a certain charm. Arbeck was consulting with one of the medical doctors over what seemed to be a drug dosage, but hurriedly ended the conversation and approached me when I entered.
"You're still a bit early. It's going to be at least another hour before it's up to Preponderance's specifications." What I recognized as scans of his journal, depicting diagrams and notes on the return device, shone brightly on monitors across the room. Arbeck, following my eyes, continued. "Are you sure you want to go through with this? They could probably send some kind of drone."
I shook my head. "You know as well as I do that it wouldn't go through. And regardless, I received an invitation. It would be impolite to refuse."
"You were committed to the idea before you even saw the letter. Just yesterday you were claiming that you wanted to make sure it was safe before anyone even thought about sending children through it."
I said nothing.
Arbeck's expression softened. "They're not your responsibility, mom. We both know you've always been a scientist first, parent second. And there's nothing wrong with that."
"I think I can be both at once." I smiled wryly. "After all, there were plenty of zoologists in DC I could have contacted. I thought you might like to meet an alien."
She returned my smile. "And I did. I've been doing everything I can to make sure they're safe, and the G-men don't take blood or skin samples without asking first. I just want to know that you're doing this for science, and not because you feel like you have some obligation to be these girls' guardian."
I opened my mouth to reply in the negative, but paused, considering my words. After a moment, I came up with a response that seemed adequate. "I do feel like I have an obligation. To the girls, yes, but also to science and myself. I’ve spent five years overwhelmed with questions, curbed by nothing but the fading memories of my encounter with Preponderance. Offered with a chance to get answers, I can’t fathom how anyone in my position would refuse.”
Our conversation shifted to the more mundane; standard questions about the device's preparation methods and the extraterrestrial's medical needs. Soon, I excused myself back to my temporary quarters for my final preparations before becoming Earth's first interplanetary explorer.
I don't know how long I will be gone. For all its details and explanation, Preponderance's notebook, like the creature itself, left countless questions unanswered. Will the transport be instantaneous, or will there be a stretch of time, imperceptible to me, during which I am being "sent"? Will time move the same on our worlds, or will every moment there count for less or more time here? This is, of course, assuming I return at all. While it is necessary to send a scientist who will know the right questions to ask, it is perhaps for the best we are not sending a younger one with a long life left to live. I do not say this with regret, but with excitement, that for so many reasons this opportunity should fall to me.
If you are reading this, I've no doubt been gone longer than expected and someone has been going through my belongings. I guess there’s a certain irony to it, that these notes made to help me remember should become the one, faded trace of my memories left behind for others, trying in vain to reconjure emotions they never felt to begin with. Knowing this might be my story's end, I apologize that I cannot think of a better conclusion. Perhaps the best closing I can think of is a scan of Preponderance's letter itself, should you have not yet seen it. I think it says all that needs to be said.
