> A White Mare
>  by RandomBlank
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1: Drawing Horses
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The city loomed in the distance, covered by a veil of smog that did not reach the hilltop. In the opposite direction, the old ugly concrete buildings of the old communal farm, which had currently become a riding school, tainted the landscape of hills covered by forests, farmland, meadows and scarce farmhouses.

I walked off the dirt road and sat in the grass by the fence of two horizontal rusted pipes around the pasture. I pulled my sketchbook and pencil box out of my backpack.

Behind the fence, in the pasture with grass grazed nearly to extinction, the dozen or so mares nibbled on the last straws, giving me the opportunity to draw them. Skinny and worn as they were, they were still beautiful to me, and this place was just three bus stops and a short walk from where I lived, so I could visit them on my way back from work, to train my meager art skills and watch the beautiful creatures.

Unfortunately, with a narrow-specialization, dead-end job, living in this god-forsaken corrupt Eastern Bloc country, I couldn't do the least about their fate. Poland. The country of heroes during wartime, the country of corruption and squabbles during peace. The riding school was one of Tresher’s many businesses, and he was a part of the ruling “clique”. Influential, he had many friends in positions of power... During a visit from an animal rights organization, I once saw Tresher laughing with the inspectors, who were apparently his good pals.

And I couldn't even emigrate yet. I had an old mother to provide for and help occasionally - and she refused to move from her town eighty kilometers away... All I could was to draw the horses and grit my teeth.

Among the common chestnut and bay furs, I spotted something new. White. An Arabian mare, slightly shorter than the other horses. Dirty, skinny, long unkempt mane with more dark muddy spots than white, and her stance... lost, helpless. She stood a short distance from the group, still a stranger, likely a new purchase. I decided to pick her as the subject of my sketch and got to outlining the basic shapes.

As she kept walking, I spotted two large, round, orange blotches on her hindquarters, symmetrically on both sides of her rump, peeking out from under the caked mud. I pondered how she had gotten them. Probably someone had spilled something in the stall and she had lain in it, I thought.

She walked up to the group of the horses and nickered quietly. I saw the lead mare stepping up to her heavily, chasing her away. She'd have to submit, approach with her head low, step back – only then would she be allowed into the herd. But for now, she just turned tail and walked away, hanging her head low, away from the group.

You could easily judge the conditions of a stable by the behavior of the horses. In happy stables, the horses were welcoming, trusting and friendly. They would still play their little mind games of establishing hierarchy, but that was all done in good spirits, competitive but not hostile. Here though, there was open malice, mistrust, fatigue, frustration. The ache of long workdays under inexperienced riders, walking the same circle for hours at a time, this took its toll on the psyche of these horses, and the position in the herd often meant survival or death. First share of hay scattered in the paddock. First share of snacks brought by children. Being last in line to the truck to slaughterhouse.

I wondered how long until the new mare became as jaded and hostile as the others.

I changed some lines in my sketch, trying to capture the downcast outcast expression.

The mare stood with her head low for a while, then apparently she noticed me and began walking in my direction. She walked up to the fence and nickered softly. I put the sketchbook aside and stood up, walking up to her. I gently touched her slim nose, then I brushed her long, tangled mane with my fingers.

She closed her eyes for a moment, then she opened them and looked me in the eyes.

Her gaze made me catch my breath. She knew. She knew her fate, and she knew I could do nothing about it, and still she asked me, begged me to help.

I rested my face against her nose, pulling her head gently with my hand. I breathed her breath.

The breath of a horse is its true name. The breath of each horse has a unique scent, always different, always special. Herbs of a sunny meadow. Dry desert sand. A stale, slow midsummer river. Shade of an old spruce forest. Prickly deep frost of a sunny winter day. Fresh soil after rain. Sweet fruit of a shady orchard. Cold dust of a dry tomb. These are the true names of horses. Each unique, each special, a name that can't be faked, can't be passed, can't be written down.

Vanilla. The sweet, delicious scent of vanilla. That was what I felt in the breath of this mare. I couldn't hold back a chuckle. How on Earth did a horse get such a scent for their breath?

I put my hand on her neck, and she rested her chin on my shoulder. She pulled me close and held tightly. “Neck-hug”, the ancient equine gesture of friendship. We stood like this for a minute or so, then she let go.

I took a step back, and sat down as she bent her neck to graze by the fence. I picked up my sketchbook and got to drawing her. And yet, somehow, that sadness was gone. She'd eye me from time to time, moving her ears, and I could tell she was smiling at me.

I kept drawing, and I couldn't fight the impression that she was posing for me, keeping roughly the same position and angle, her head turned towards me, approaching slowly, grazing. Then shortly she'd turn around, walk a distance away, turn around to return to the prior pose and resume her grazing.

Half an hour later, my sketch was done. Of course I got the initial proportions wrong, and the finish couldn't fix that, and as result, the picture was... worse than mediocre. I packed my pencils, then prepared to stand up and pack my sketchbook, when she rapidly turned around and walked up to the fence. She extended her head towards me and nickered quietly.

I walked up to her and put my hand on her nose, but she avoided it and extended her neck towards my sketchbook instead.

“What? It's not edible.”

She blew air loudly through her nose.

“Here.” I opened the sketchbook on the last picture and showed it to her. “Do you like it?”



She looked at the picture, then she snorted and shook her head rapidly.

“Hey, I'm just learning. Let me see you do any better!”

She turned around and pranced, lifting her legs high in an elegant piaff. Then she walked back up to the fence and, before I knew what was going on, grabbed the sketchbook with her teeth. She bolted back towards the pasture and put the sketchbook on the grass several meters away.

“Hey, give it back!”

She shook her head rapidly and nickered loudly.

I pushed between the lower and upper bar of the fence and stepped in to pick up my property. Seeing this, she picked up the sketchbook in her teeth again and pranced away, as if taunting me.

I knew better than to try to chase her. More than a little overweight, age slowly ticking towards 40, no physical condition to speak of, I stood no chance.

She walked in a wide circle back towards the fence, keeping her distance from me. She put the sketchbook on the grass – only now I noticed she would put it down gently instead of dropping it, and she used her nose to open it. Then – using her nose – she'd push a page, flipping it. She was looking at my older drawings.

I just stood there with my jaw hanging low, watching the mare leafing through my sketches. She'd pause, nicker with approval or shake her head. My heart was racing, pounding in my chest. That... that was unreal. A dream? A hallucination? I stared at my hands, making out the fine details on my fingers, making sure it was not a dream. A grin crept up my mouth. It’s really happening. It’s for real, a true mystery, like aliens or ghosts being real.

There was just that one little shade of doubt. Maybe her previous owner had taught her that trick. That would be one incredible trick to teach to a horse, but then... that was easy to test. My heart pounded with joy. I didn't believe this to be a trick, but just to make sure...

I ducked under the bar of the fence and went to my backpack. I extracted the pencil box, then after a moment of thinking I put it back in and pulled a sharpie from a side pocket. I walked up to the mare – she just spared me a friendly glance, lying on the grass with my sketchbook in front of her, with no intention of running away. I crossed back into the pasture and removed the cap from the sharpie.

“So you think you can do better? Well, let’s see.” I crouched by her, flipping the pages to a blank one. I held the sharpie to her. She looked at it, then she picked it up in her teeth. She leaned towards the paper and started drawing.

I just watched, mesmerized.



She finished, a smug grin on her mouth, the sharpie still in her teeth. I took it from her and replaced the cap.

“You are NOT better than me!” I exclaimed. “But you are one mysterious magical horse, and that is amazing.”

The gate at the far end of the pasture creaked. One of the stable hands was there. He spotted me and walked in my direction.

“Hey! This is a private property. You can't be here!” - the voice was tired and filled with anger.

I turned my gaze to the sketch, to the mare... I thought about protesting, about explaining. I looked at the mare, seeking advice.

She flipped the sketchbook closed with her nose, and gave me a soft nicker. I nodded. “See you tomorrow,” I muttered, picking the sketchbook.

“Alright, I'm leaving!” I shouted, then I walked to the fence and crossed to the outside. I turned back and watched as the mare trotted towards the gate.

I packed the sketchbook into my backpack, put it on my back, and headed away to the bus stop to return home. I was filled with warm fuzzies. A horse who could draw pictures! A sapient horse! Such things just didn't happen! I was in a magical adventure!

Then I heard an angry shout, the stable hand chasing some horse that didn't want to leave the pasture just yet. Cold anger filled me. The magical adventure had a villain.

* * *

I passed by the gate of the riding school, unable to shake off the impression that it lacked the sign "Arbeit Macht Frei" above. I walked along paddocks adjacent to the dirty, dull concrete barns, heading towards pastures on the hill. My attention was drawn to a sandy paddock on the side of one of the stables. Three girls, the instructors of the riding school, were talking – standing around the white mare.

She wore tack and a saddle. I recognized a hackamore in her mouth. It's a type of bridle that, in skilled hands, allows for superior communication between the rider and the mount. In less skilled hands... it's a cruel tool of torture for the horse.

“I'm telling you, you won't last ten seconds in the saddle.”

“Really? Then how comes she isn’t sausages yet?”

“She loves kids. She's gentle as a lamb when ridden by a small kid. She walks like a dressage horse, trot, gallop, changing leads, but only as long as there's a kid on her back. Try longeing her with an empty back and you'd be hard-pressed to find a worse slacker. And an adult on her back? Biting sand in ten seconds flat!”

“Oh yeah? Bet you twenty I will have her walking around the paddock like a well-oiled clock.” The trainer grinned and swished the crop she held in her hands, hitting it against the side of her boot. The mare laid her ears flat against her neck.

“Deal. Twenty and a round around the paddock without falling, please.” The two girls shook hands, and the third “cut”, lowering her hand onto the handshake in a chopping motion, sealing the bet.

“She just needs to know who's the boss,” she said, putting her boot in the stirrup. A second later, she was in the saddle. The mare stood with her head low. The girl kicked her flanks lightly. The mare bucked hard, throwing the girl a good meter up, but she held onto the saddle with one hand and pulled herself down, back into the saddle. She hit the mare with the crop and pulled the reins back hard – I winced at what that would do to the mare's mouth.

She hit the mare's rump with the crop again, lightly this time, pushing with her hips, to make her walk.

The mare took two steps, her head literally hanging on the taut reins, then she jumped again... but this time, not straight up like before. Instead, she literally flipped onto her back. The girl jumped from the saddle and evacuated in the nick of time before the mare smashed her under her weight.

Before the dust settled, the girl and the mare were both up, the girl jerking on the reins hard and raising her hand with the crop to hit.

The trainer who took the bet grabbed the raised hand.

The failed rider glared at her.

“My twenty, please.”

“Fine.” The angry girl reached to a pocket to pull her wallet, then she found the money, slapping the note into the extended hand. “I'll get her to behave if I'm to make her bleed,” she muttered, apparently preparing for another try.

I winced and thought fast. What to do? What to do? I couldn't allow her to torture the mare! But how? Attack? One fatty against three amazons? And I'd ruin any chance of being able to help more! Distract them? How?

Then I got the idea.

“Bet you twenty each I can do this!” I shouted.

The three turned to me. “And you'd be...” the failed rider asked.

“An easy twenty for you?”

The one that won the bet snorted. “Fine by me. Show us what you've got, rider.”

The sarcasm was not lost on me. I was the antithesis of a sportsman.

I dropped my backpack by the fence and ducked under the bar. I stumbled and nearly fell when I lifted my leg over the lower bar, arousing snickers. Still, I walked up to the three.

“The tack won't be needed,” I said.

They looked at each other, waiting for one to make a decision.

“She's about to be let into the pasture anyway, right? I'll save you some work removing it,” I said, trying to convince them.

Apparently that sold the idea. “It's your neck,” said the one who lost the bet.

I unbuckled the hackamore and pulled it from the mare's mouth. She smacked her mouth a little, probing the corners of her lips with her tongue, as I bundled the straps neatly.

I pulled the stirrups up, pulling their belts through them just right, then I reached for the girth. I knew how to handle that stuff – good ten years ago I'd tried horse riding. Then one of the horses just said “no” to my weight, and I decided to stop torturing them until I lost at least thirty kilograms. Then the thirty became thirty-five, then forty, and my stressful job just didn't let me ever reverse the trend.

I unbuckled the belts, then slid the saddle off the mare's back, letting the girth land over the top, and watchful not to let its buckles to hit my face.

“Where do I put it?” I asked.

“The tack room, just to the right, inside. And bring a halter back, the red one, first on the left.”

Not cutting me any slack. The saddle was heavy! Well, at least that was a little weight off the mare's back if she was to carry me.

I followed the directions, entering the stable, finding the musty tack room, and depositing the tack on respective hooks. A minute later I was back with the halter in hand, the three trainers watching me like vultures watch a dying antelope. “Hold this.” I handed the halter to the one who “cut” the bet between the two. She accepted it, somewhat surprised.

“Come,” I gestured to the mare, motioning her to follow. She did so, without protests, walking up to the fence. With no small effort, I climbed the lower bar, then I threw my leg over the mare's back and finally settled near her withers. She grunted quietly under my weight.

“All right, now you can throw me off.”

She turned her head to me, a question in her eye.

Oh, well, she wouldn't? Let us try it. I pushed with my loins, motioning her to start walking. She turned her head back to me instead. Was that incredulity?

She gave out a quiet whicker, turned her head away and started walking. I could feel her firm muscles playing under my thighs. Step by step she walked along the fence; when she reached the corner, she turned and kept walking along the long side of the paddock. I brushed her shoulder with my hand gently. She just made her skin shudder as if a fly sat there, then she soldiered along, bringing me towards the opposite corner slowly.

I turned my head towards the three trainers. They conversed in hushed voices, observing me.

We reached the corner, and the mare turned along the third side of the paddock. Several steps more and we were halfway through.

“Just finish the round. We're halfway through.”

The mare approached the wall of the stable and made a gentle turn without any prompting from me. Step by step, she approached the three harpies. I met their stares, a mix of worry (about losing), curiosity and amusement at my unimpressive posture and snail pace.

We had just passed the three when the mare stopped. She turned her head to me, and there was seriousness in her gaze.

Then suddenly I was up in the air. I watched the white back dashing from between my legs, a second of weightlessness, and then I landed on the ground below, standing perfectly straight on my legs. Before I shook my confusion off, the mare made a short circle and approached me.

I turned around to the sound of loud laughter. The three trainers couldn't hold back, crouching and giving each other high five. I looked to the mare. She gave me a half-amused look, and finally I couldn't hold back either. Laughing loudly, I dug in my pocket for my wallet. “Sorry, ladies,” I said through the chuckles, handing them two notes, “I've only got a ten and a fifty. I hope you can split it between you?”

The one who won the bet took the cash from my hand. “Sure, pleasure doing business with you. Will you please lead the mare to the pasture? And put the halter on her.” She took the halter off her friend's hands and handed it to me.

“Sure,” I said. I looked at the mare and gestured towards the pasture. The three trainers busied themselves trying to split the amount into three equal parts using what they had in their wallets, while I walked towards the gate in the fence. As I busied myself with the latch, I heard the sound of hooves approaching.

I turned around.

The mare held my backpack in her teeth.

* * *

She was resting her neck on my shoulder while I was unzipping the backpack. I pulled the tablet out.

“It's a cheap piece of crap with a resistive screen, but thanks to that you can use anything as a stylus.” I pulled out an unsharpened pencil and stuck it in the mare's mouth, leaving the eraser end outside. She twisted her head a little – I couldn't see her face at this angle, to read her expression, but I could guess it well enough. I took the pencil from her mouth and pressed the eraser to the “Drawing” icon. The black area with a set of icons on top filled the screen. I made a squiggly line with the eraser, and a white trail appeared on the canvas. “Press here to save and start a new picture.” I touched the icon on top. The squiggly line zoomed out into a small box and slid out of the screen, leaving a blank canvas. I stuck the pencil into the mare's mouth again.



“I'm sorry, but I have no clue what that means. Either I don't know that alphabet, or your writing is abysmally bad. Is that an 'ETO' or something like that?”

The mare gave out a snort and picked 'wipe'. This time she drew slowly, making sure to leave the writing readable, filling the screen with the unknown characters. She underlined the first character, then she dropped the pencil. Something akin to cough escaped her throat.




I turned to her. I saw the effort twisting her face, a throaty 'khh' escaping her mouth, She nearly crouched with effort. Then she gave up, standing straight, her head low in defeat.

I looked at the rows of characters. I walked up to her, lifted her head with my hand, and planted a kiss on her silky nose. Then I raised the tablet, pressed the save&wipe icon, and started filling it with the latin alphabet. She observed me, carefully. I pointed at the first letter, then uttered it. 'A'.

The mare picked the pencil off my hand, and using the free space below replicated the letter.

'B'. I pointed at the second letter.

'B' was painstakingly drawn on the screen.

'C' I read the third letter.

The mare copied it down.

This time I moved my finger along the row, picking out a 'K'. I said the name. The mare put down the symbol.

I took the pencil and rearranged the letters into 'BACK'. “Back,” I said. I tapped my back with my hand, then I brushed the back of the mare. I repeated the word a few times, while pointing. Yep, English. Much easier to learn and teach than Polish, and I had some ideas how to help her already...

She stepped up to me, put her head on my shoulder and pulled me close with her chin. Then I felt her front hoof around my back, pulling me close, hugging me tightly. I returned the hug with my both hands.

* * *
        `                        
She whinnied loudly, galloping to me from the other end of the pasture, as soon as I appeared on the dirt road. I couldn't hold back my laughter as I saw her face so full of wonder and joy, waiting to see what I'd brought this time.

I walked with her towards the far end of the pasture, away from the prying eyes of the people at the riding school, me on one side of the fence, her on the other.

I unzipped the backpack and pulled the tablet out, switching it on, as it always took a while to start up. Then I followed with a colorful, small book with picture of a ship on the sea with funny animals on deck. A crocodile in a captain's garb held a looking glass, while a pig, a rat and a cat, all in sailors' clothes, peered over the side of the ship.

The mare picked out a pencil from my backpack and lay by the fence, placing the tablet over her front legs. Meanwhile, I flipped the first few initial pages to get to the content proper, and began reading out loud, slowly.

“'R', roared the captain, 'R's not enough. We need other letters to help make us through.”

I pointed to the open maw of the crocodile, suggesting the loud voice. “Roar”, I said. “Rrrr,” I tried emulating roaring.

The mare copied the four letters into the canvas of the drawing app (apparently she had launched it herself). Then she raised her head and I heard the most terrifying, deafening, guttural whinny-neigh-squeal. It made me jump to my legs and skip away from her. There was want for murder in that voice. The other mares in the pasture, spooked, galloped away.

Gasping hard, I stared at her, while she calmly picked the pencil up, and circled the word 'roar' on the tablet.

“Phew.” I rubbed my head and calmed my throbbing heart. I had read that horses – specifically, enraged stallions – could roar, but to witness it live? To find myself on the receiving end?

I sat down by the mare. I couldn't help the impression that she was very amused.

I picked the next word. 'Captain'. I flipped to the cover, pointing at the crocodile. “Captain,” I said. “Sailors.” I pointed at the four other animals. She copied the word to the tablet, and I was spelling each letter as she was drawing it.

Then she reached with her neck towards the book. The eraser tip landed on the word 'the'.

I winced and scratched my head.

* * *

I looked at the column of numbers, as she finished dividing 3563 by 7896 on the tablet. She took maybe half an hour to get from learning digits to written multiplication. I was sure it would take an intelligent man at least a day to learn a foreign numerical system from scratch, and here she was learning multiplication in matter of minutes.

“So, how about you teach me something?”

She looked at me quizzically.

I picked the tablet up and accessed the list of saved images. I scrolled to the second ever drawn, her odd writing. I showed her the image.

She got to drawing.



Fifteen minutes later, I had my basic clue. It was an octal system, with the least-significant digit on the left, a shorthand notation for a trailing (or leading, in the left-to-right growth case) row of n zeros, the symbols composed in such a way that you could increment by one through adding a line to the symbol (with an alternate, more complex symbol for 'zero' which was achieved through slashing the '7' symbol), extra notation for carrying in each digit symbol, and, most confusingly, the '-' and '+' meaning multiplication and division respectively. Luckily, the 'equals' sign was still the same.

I tried adding two three-digit numbers in the new system. After four mistakes I gave up and returned the tablet to the mare.



Did she just ask me for the notation for exponents? Oh well, I obliged. I wrote down the roots, explained the notation with braces and the natural order of operations, then I proceeded to logarithms, the Euler Constant e...

The mare wrote down another piece, a whole alternate notation based on an implied Euler Constant. I held my head with my hand trying to absorb the elegant approach; it was much neater than our superscript in tiny font.

I pointed to her, making a wide gesture with my hands, then to myself, showing a tiny distance between my fingers. She tilted her head quizzically. I thought again. Maybe they don't associate size with quality?

“You – captain.” I pointed at her. “Me – sailor.” I pointed at myself.

She snorted and bumped my knee with her leg.

Then she scribbled a simple graph on the tablet. I recognized a tangent to a curve and the approximation with a segment.



She demanded I show her calculus.

* * *

I brought her a pictorial dictionary and an English for Foreigners textbook, and we were working through them at an impressive speed. She wasn't entirely infallible, sometimes forgetting the exact spelling of a given word, or messing up the grammar, but by all accounts she was a genius. In a matter of a couple of hours, we’d worked through a year's worth of school material, she’d understood most of what I said providing I spoke slowly and clearly, and she could write complete sentences. We finished the English handbook, and she sped through the large pictorial dictionary, learning each word fast. The stable hand must have forgotten to fetch the horses from the pasture, and it was getting dark as we finished with the dictionary.

Then, using the newly-acquired communication ability, I asked her to tell her story.

Her name was Celestia, and she was a princess. She came from a land called Equestria, and she wanted to return home to her sister Luna. She got here through a trapped magical mirror, brought as a gift to her by a treacherous enemy pretending to seek peace. She landed in a forest just a kilometer or so away, got bitten by a stray dog, then, hurting, hungry and lost, she stumbled out of the forest. She had tried to communicate with the feral horses when a stable hand found her, brought her to the riding school, fed her and tended to her wound. She stayed because she realized she'd need to learn more about this world first, and at least she would receive food here while she observed. And then she understood that this world was no place for 'stray' horses and just running away wouldn't end well. She worked for her food, while observing, learning, and looking for an opportunity... for a friend.

And then she met me.

* * *

The words were written in badly mangled Polish

“KRYTYE.”

“KLACH ROSPWODOVA.”

“MEANS?”

I felt sweat rising on my neck, as she showed the writing to me.

“Breeding. Broodmare. You won't know these words yet.”

I scribbled stick-figures of two horses mating. Then a smaller one next to them. A dollar sign, two arrows between the small one and the sign.



She examined the scribble sceptically, then she snorted, dismissing the idea.

I took the tablet again, and sketched the stick-figure horse again, but this time I added ropes binding the legs, the tail, bridle bound to a post. I began sketching the stallion, when her hoof landed on my knee.



She wasn't dismissive this time. She was angry, scared. She reached for the tablet, and I put it in front of her, letting her use it.

“I MUST RUN”

The pencil cracked in her teeth. She held her ears flat on her neck, her nostrils extended in a fast breath. She corrected her grip on the remains of the pencil.

“Where to?”

“YOU. HELP?”

“Dear god.” I put my face in my palm. “I have no room for a horse. I have no clue where to hide you. And the owner of the stable knows the cops, they will be looking for you.”

She pleaded with her gaze.

“This is insane. Look, I... let me think.”

She nodded curtly.

I thought of my place. The small flat I rented in the shallow basement of the tenement house would barely fit her. The obvious advantages were the separate entrance from the backyard side and the fact that I lived alone, with next to no visitors. Most of my neighbors were cool; if they found out, they'd think I was crazy, but they wouldn't cause me much trouble. The landlord was my good friend, administering the house on behalf of his parents. If he found out, he wouldn't be happy, but he wouldn't throw a fit either and would help me in moving Celestia somewhere instead of outright throwing me out. Worse would be his aunt, who lived next door to him. She'd scream bloody murder and call every kind of service and office to get me thrown out if she found out.

How would I feed Celestia? I could smuggle a small square hay bale in a rucksack. If I folded the table, there would be enough room for her to lie down in the middle of the room. I'd be able to close the drapes on the window so that nobody could peer inside from the backyard. This would work. It wouldn't work well, and there were a bunch of things that could go wrong, but it would buy us time to think of something better.

“Can you escape from here by yourself, or will you need me to sneak in, try to unlock the door or something like that?”

“EASY. I TRIED.”

“Fine. Try to get to my place in the dead of the night.” I met her asking glance. She still didn't know many idioms. “Late. At night. Empty streets.”

She nodded.

I took my smartphone and loaded up Google Maps. I began explaining the route to my place. She protested, and pointed towards other sections of the map, in the opposite direction.

“I have no clue how to hide you there.”

“YOUR PLACE.
POLICE DOGS.
LONG WAY”

“Oh, right! Good thinking!”

I suggested the grove she had come from, then going down to a brook, wading for quite a bit, getting out onto a road on the other side, a bridge across the brook, then some abandoned allotments, a park, and finally the street leading to my place.

She pointed a seemingly better route which would lead a shorter way between houses.

“Nope. Modern houses, cameras everywhere.”

She looked at me with a question.

I switched the camera in the phone on and took a photo of her. I turned the screen to her. “Photo”, I pointed. “Camera,” I pointed at the little window on the other side of the phone. “Recording strangers.”

She nodded, pointing to the route I had proposed.

I zoomed in onto the house. “Here, open the backyard gate, I'll leave it unlocked. Here's the door. I'll be waiting.”

> Chapter 2: Not a good place to keep a horse
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------





“Where are you going with that SPG imbecile?” popped up in the chat window.

Shit, I was just driving my self-propelled gun right into the fray of heavy and medium tanks. I just couldn't focus on the game, my teeth chattering from emotion. I turned the vehicle around and headed towards some bushes.

All games were recorded, and I would upload my gameplay, lousy as it was, to create a record of what I was doing. Lot of good would it do if they found the mare in my room. And if some night owl spotted her on her way and reported it to the police?

Was that the squeak of the gate? I forced myself to keep sitting and playing. The reticle slowly concentrated on the unsuspecting tank destroyer. Click, four seconds of delay, and...

“Cowardly clickers!” my victim raged in the chat window. With forty seconds until reload, I stood up and ran to the door.

There she was, trying to fit into the narrow stairs.

“Celestia...” I whispered.

She replied with a quiet nicker.

I moved back in, letting her enter through the tiny vestibule into my room.

“Be right back, I'll just lock the gate,” I said, finding keys in my pocket. I dashed to the backyard gate and locked it, then I ran inside, locking the door after me.

She stood there, taking the interior in. She'd barely be able to turn around, but all in all, she had a little more room than in the narrow stall in the stable.

I stood for a second there until she pulled me with her chin. I hugged her neck.

“Alright, I need to go to work in the morning. I should catch some sleep...” I glanced at the clock, near the screen where the smoldering remains of my SPG spelled defeat for my team. Nearly three AM. “You catch some sleep too. I put a spare comforter on the floor; better get used to it until we find a better place. I'll tell you about the place in the morning. It will be tight, but we'll manage.”

Her hug only tightened.

* * *

I unlocked the door with a pounding heart. “Celestia?”

A quiet nicker answered me from inside.

I hung my anorak on the hook and entered from the vestibule into the room.

Celestia lay on the floor surrounded with large sheets of paper covered with equations in that fancy script of hers. Several of my computer-related books lay stacked to the side, “Perl – Introduction” set aside. My PC was switched on, and she was typing something, pressing the keys on the keyboard with the eraser of the pencil. I looked at the screen.

No, she hadn’t hacked my password. The PC was running under Knoppix, booted from a DVD she must have found in my stack of disks. The screen was occupied by the console, with a lengthy row of random sequences of digits and numbers, interspersed with either 'y' or 'n' under each.

She just finished typing another sequence and pressed Enter. The computer didn't react for a couple seconds, then an 'y' appeared. She turned to the tablet, adjusted some numbers in the form in it was displaying, and pressed a button marked 'Bet High'. Some numbers milled fast, and a green sign “You BET HI so you win 0.80653765 BTC!” appeared below.

“I see you've made yourself at home.” I chuckled. “May I ask what you're doing?”

She scrolled the page up. “Freebitcoin. Win free bitcoins every hour, no strings attached!” appeared, in the page filled with ads. She scrolled lower. That particular page was “Multiply your Bitcoins playing a PROVABLY FAIR HI-LO game!”

She pointed to the green number in the corner of the screen. It showed “3.23673421 BTC”.

“Wait... how much is it in some normal currency?”

She pointed to the corner of one of the sheets littering the floor. The conversion rate for bitcoin was written there.

“Holly moly, you just managed to earn my monthly salary in a day!”

I'd swear she smirked. She opened the paint app in the tablet. “SAVE PROGRAM PLZ. NEED YOUR BANK ACC#”

Oh. I found a pendrive in my pocket, then proceeded to save the program running on the PC to it. I couldn't help peeking into the code. Maybe thirty lines of Perl, but filled with maths that would give Einstein a headache.

I opened Firefox, and – surprise-surprise – there was no network connectivity. Obviously Celestia didn't have the access to the router to set up networking under Knoppix, and that's why she was using the tablet for Internet connectivity, retyping the hashes.

I quickly configured the network, and soon I was viewing the 'freebitcoin' page myself. I clicked the “PROVABLY FAIR” link.

“HMAC-SHA512.” I read the name of the cipher used. “I don't even have a clue what that really is, but it sounds quite sophisticated. And you just cracked it.”

She wiped the screen of the tablet, and wrote just one simple equation.

I felt a little sweat on my back. You know, when Einstein wrote E = mc², he still didn't know the significance – that the letters of the equation in fact spelled the words 'nuclear weapons'. That the equation meant the creation of weapons capable of wiping out all life on Earth. His equation could be called 'the Sword of Armageddon.'

This equation was different though. It is known by all mathematicians in the world, and they all know what it meant. The devil is in details, in the proof, which nobody has, which made it only a useless theory. The proof, which Celestia apparently knew. That equation could be called 'the Skeleton Key', capable of cracking any cipher, opening any digital lock and vault, intercepting and modifying any communication.

P = NP

Feeling a little dizzy, I sat on the bed.

Celestia stood up and nuzzled my face.

“Celestia,” I said, somberly. “Do you know what that means? I really considered finding some reasonable scientists and getting them to learn about you, letting them take over, let you cooperate with them in developing a way to get you back home. But with this...” I pointed at the tablet. “There will be many people who would gladly kill you so that this wouldn't ever leak out. If it got into the possession of certain individuals, they would gain immense power, a power capable of a lot of evil. And if it leaked out to the public, there would be a crisis which would cripple the world economy and security for decades. Nobody must know that you know this. Do you understand?”

Celestia bowed to the tablet, but instead of the 'save and wipe', she picked the eraser icon.
With several flicks of her mouth, the equation vanished from the screen.

Then she wrote something else.

“HUNGRY”

I smiled. “Sorry, I don't have anything suitable for you right now. I ran back from work as fast as I could to check if everything's alright. I'll go buy you some apples for now. Fine?”

Instead of answering, she turned to her side and picked up the pictorial dictionary book. She placed it in front of her and began flipping pages. Moments later I saw her knocking the picture on the page with the tip of the pencil.

A cake.

“Celestia, you can't be serious. Horses don't eat cake.”

She snorted, annoyed.

“Look, maybe in your Equestria there are cakes suitable for equines, but I assure you Earth horses would get colic. A bad tummy ache. Very bad, dangerous, can kill.”

So downcast. So sad.

“Alright, I guess a small slice won't kill you. But you better look up treatment and medicines to take in case you get colic after all.”

And then I was lying on my back on the bed, squeezed under her chest. She held me with her front legs and squeezed.

“Okay, okay! Let go! No need to be this clingy! Apparently cake must have been a big part of your life!”

She nodded vigorously.

* * *

“Let’s see how it works.” I began taking my shoppings out of my rucksack. “Horse coat shampoo. Mane and tail shampoo. Soap. Three different brushes for fur and a comb for the mane and tail. Two sponges, a rough one and a soft one. A hoof pick. Hoof oil. A sheet of plastic to lay over the comforter, and three clean bedsheets to place over it, for you to dry out. I'll get the comforter washed afterwards.”

To my surprise, Celestia wasn't reluctant – she was practically enthusiastic.

I removed the floor mat from the bathroom, leaving bare tiles sloping slightly towards the drain. One of the advantages of living in the basement: you won't flood the neighbors below. Of course, I risked moldy walls, but oh well... The flat would need renovation soon anyway. Besides, Celestia would not even fit her rump into the tiny shower cabin.

“First, let's get rid of that caked old mud so that we don't clog up the drain.”

She nickered her approval.

I guided her backwards into the bathroom by tugging on her tail. She fit more than half of herself, so it would do.

I grabbed the stiff plastic brush and got to the cleanup. She'd twitch every time I got over a hard clump, but she withstood the treatment. I worked patiently.

“We've got to make a small stockpile of supplies. Mother may call me home any time, and you'd need to get through two days all by yourself.”

She gave a small snort which I had learned to understand as a reluctant agreement.

“Have you managed to unlock the door by yourself? In case something happens to me, I'd really hate to think you'd starve to death locked in here.”

This time her confirmation was more than a little irate.

“Look, I'm careful, I don't take stupid risks, but first, my health is sub-par, stuff like heart attacks happen at my age, and besides, we're on Tresher's bad side. Things happen to people who get on his bad side.”

She just dropped her head.

I moved to her other side and got to removing caked dirt there.

“Your casino trick got us out of a pinch financially, but we will need something more sustainable. Find you a place in some trusted stable run by good people, or something.”

She knocked her hoof twice. A negative.

I worked in silence for a while, then, when I judged the part finished, I ordered Celestia to turn around. She walked out, then she turned and stepped in holding the tablet in her mouth. I took it from her. Slobbery. I wiped it with some toilet paper.

“You get your slobber in that, it’ll break.” I picked up a toothbrush and stuck it in her teeth, then I held the tablet for her to write.

“OWN FARM”

“Do you have any idea how much these things cost?”

She nodded.

“Got any ideas yet how to go about getting home?”

She nodded.

“What would you need for that?”

She underlined the writing in the tablet.

“Alright. But how do I get this kind of money?”

“I WILL.”

Then she added another line.

“TRUST ME.”

I hugged her head.

“I would trust you with my life. I just hate going blind.”

“1. FUNDS

2. SAFETY

3. PLACE”

She sent the three signs to archive and continued on a blank page.

“4. RESEARCH

5. CALL S.O.S.

6. GO HOME”

I put the tablet aside and got back to brushing her coat. “That's fairly... nebulous. Does your plan have any finer details?”

She nodded.

“I'll trust you. Just tell me what to do.”

She nickered her approval.

I worked in silence for a while, until the worst of dirt was removed. I took the hoof pick and proceeded to clean her hooves. Luckily she hadn’t spent long enough there for them to develop anything bad. I wondered how she'd react to a farrier.

“Okay, back off. I need to sweep this.” I looked at the floor, which was covered with more than a little dried mud.

Broom, dust pan, three full dust pans of that crap went into the trashcan. Next, guerrilla plumbing. Using copious amounts of duct tape and two meters of garden hose, I extended the shower head hose to reach across the bathroom. I spread the plastic over the carpet in the room and the comforter while Celestia danced around to make room for it. I stripped to my underwear, leaving my clothes on the bed. I secured the towels, the tablet, the toilet paper and anything that would suffer water damage in the bathroom on a high shelf.

Finally, with lukewarm water running from the shower head (and the two duct tape joints), I invited Celestia back in. First to wet her coat, then the soap to get the worst of dirt, then the shampoo, and her fur gradually turned dazzling white. I applied the mane shampoo to her mane, then I rinsed her thoroughly, watching the dark grey water flow down the drain under my feet.

She turned around, and I got to washing her rear side.

“I can't get these yellow stains off your rump,” I grumbled, rubbing them hard with the rough sponge.

There was no reply. I looked towards her head.

She was gasping a little.

Oh my.

I began scrubbing closer to her back, and I observed the tail wandering up as I approached.

I rested the shower head over the small of her back, and let the water flow around her tail base and down between her legs. The tail was now up and to the side, and I was scrubbing the back of her thigh.

Suddenly, the tail clamped tightly down, and she gave out a quiet snort. She stomped two times.

“Celestia, be reasonable. It needs to be washed too. Mares get bad infections from bad hygiene back there.”

She turned her head, her look stopping on my boxers. Dammit, busted. She snorted.

“I can't help it. You are a gorgeous mare.” I shrugged.

She shook her head slowly.

“Besides, your tail is just filthy. It needs to be washed. Come on.”

She didn't move.

“Look. I won't do anything untoward. And I know I probably look repulsive to you, and even if we were the same species I wouldn't stand a chance with you, but please, just bear with me, I'm really doing it for your health. I won't look, I won't touch with my hand, just the water and the sponge.”

Reluctantly, the tail went up. True to my word, I worked fast and gently, and without looking.

Well, at least until I got to washing her tail in a bucket of water with the mane & tail shampoo later. I couldn't help a few glimpses, but I didn't move beyond that.

Celestia was acting difficult around her teats again, but at least this time she didn't mind me looking. They were pretty much in plain sight anyway.

I got to washing her legs, and when I reached the fetlocks, she went rigid again.

“Do they have some special meaning in your culture? Because here they really don't mean much. And you didn't mind me grabbing them when I was cleaning your hooves. I mean, not that yours aren't beautiful, but what the heck?”

She lowered her head and bit her lip. I wiped my hands and brought her the tablet, squeezing by her through the door.

“PHEROMONES,” she wrote. “SCENT AROUSES STALLIONS”

“Well, I've got news for you: Human sense of smell is crap.”

She snorted a little.

“So, okay for me to wash them?”

She nodded.

I got back to work, and soon the whole rear half of Celestia was all squeaky clean, except for the two yellow stains.

I asked her to leave the bathroom and flushed the soapy water down to the drain, chasing it with a mop. Then I spread the bed sheets over her “lair” area. She lay on them, folding her legs neatly. She rolled onto her back, then onto her other side and flexed her back to rub her side against the sheet. Her leg kicked into the wardrobe, leaving a deep dent in the smooth laminate over the particle board. Well, crap. It wasn’t like it was the first or the last of the damage. I'd pay for it... somehow.

She rolled back in the opposite direction and lay, extending her legs. I brought a piece of cloth, the hoof oil and the tablet. I found a pencil and left it for her to pick up.

“How did you get these stains on your flanks? If I know I might be able to do something about them.” I poured some of the oil onto the cloth and got to rubbing it into her front hoof.

“RAISED THE SUN.”

So much for a clear answer. It was my turn to reply with a snort.

“BACK HOME THEY ARE SUNS”

I met her gaze, and my confusion made her amused. I had to snort with laughter, imagining Celestia raising her rump into the sky.

“IMAGES OF SUN.”

“Oh, okay. Some kind of custom?”

“MAGIC.”

She explained the idea of cutie marks and special talents.

I finished with the hooves and got to cleaning up the bathroom, when I heard a knock of her hoof, calling me.

“LATER. LIE BY MY SIDE.”

Gladly, I obliged. I lay by her, leaning into her moist fur.

“YOU ARE NOT REPULSIVE”

I raised my eyebrows.

“BUT LOSE THAT BELLY.”

* * *
“Phew.” I dropped the rucksack on the floor. “That hay is heavy. Got a bale, a dozen oat cookies and a cupcake.”

Celestia's ears perked up at the last item. She tore her gaze away from the Polish for Foreigners textbook she was reading and shook her head, shaking an earphone out of it.

I peered at the screen of the PC. Celestia had changed her tactic: instead of gaming the casino, she got to mining bitcoins. The patched bitcoin 'miner' program ran on some server in Germany. Twenty-five bitcoins every hour. She could get twenty-five per ten minutes, totally dominating the network, but that would cause people to panic, and the value of bitcoin would sink to zilch, so – just to avoid the “51% attack” suspicion, she played it safe. Currently, her bitcoin account displayed a neat 1281BTC, worth about a third of a million dollars. Unfortunately, exchanging that amount to cash without crashing the bitcoin market would take a week or more. Still, selling at reasonable pace, I was already a wealthy man. Though Celestia was free to use my bank account as she'd see fit.

“Any other business?” I asked while unpacking the box with the cupcake. I couldn't help grinning, seeing how Celestia's focus locked on the sweet thing. She was drooling a little.

I held the box to her, and she nibbled the cake, bit by bit, savoring the taste, her eyelids half-closed. Still, she ate like a lady, little neat bites.

Two minutes later, the cupcake was gone, and Celestia licked her lips, an expression of delight on her face. She nickered quietly and turned to the tablet.

“MUST SPEED UP. ATROPHY, NEED EXERCISE.”

I sighed and nodded. “Just tell me what to do, captain.”

She produced a print-out with a list of addresses. There were short notes by each of them. “Old farm, three hectares of pastures, barn.” “House, animal barn, hay barn, 6ha in several pieces.” “Summer cottage, 3ha of pasture, 1ha of forest, check possibility for building a shed/stable.” “Old hut (not habitable), barn, 6ha.”

“Lots of places. It will take several hours to visit them all.”

“1ST SUITABLE”

“Decent neighborhood, privacy, good, fast net access, basic comforts, decent access road. Will we have enough to buy it?”

Celestia just nodded.

I unpacked the bag of oat cookies and put them on a plate in front of her, taking one for myself, then I shook the hay bale from the rucksack.

“Okay, so I'm on my way. Anything else?”

She looked towards the corner of the room. A big black trash bag, half-full.

“Horseapples...” I muttered, picking up the stinky bag. I tied it off and took it to dump in the trash container. Before heading out, I took a look at the list of places to visit. The taxi driver would be a happy man.

* * *

“Celestia? I'm back.”

A quiet nicker.

“Gawd, it's so good to see you. My mother drives me crazy. I'll tell you about it later.” I stepped in, dropping my bag. Celestia pulled me into a neckhug, and we stayed like that for a while. I stepped back at last, looking at her pretty face.

“Yellow goes well with your complexion.”

Celestia gave me a sheepish look. She wore the new & shiny brightly yellow halter, with a small black gizmo attached to it near her cheek and a kind of lever going to the corner of her mouth. The new toys arrived by mail before the weekend, and the controller for people with spinal cord injury was one of them.

...The weekend, which I’d had to spend away after my mother, trying to be macho and doing things one was not supposed to do at her age, injured herself, forcing me to take care of her basic necessities and tasks which she would have been perfectly capable of, had she not injured herself. And of course we got into an argument about her being irresponsible. At least I could count on Celestia being responsible and smart...

“Okay, okay. So what's up?”

The letters in a box in the corner of the screen of a brand new notebook soared rapidly, as she used her mouth to control the cursor with the device attached to the halter. “Me bad,” it said.

“What did you do now?” I sat by her. “Lost the fortune?”

She shook her head “no” and used the new gizmo on her head to pull up a browser window. She loaded up some page. “Wholesale market,” said the header. She flipped through some tabs and left a page for me to read.

It took me a while to comprehend what I was seeing.

So much for Celestia being responsible and smart.

“So you say I own... three and a half thousand tons of tungsten, nine hundred tons of cobalt, twelve tons of palladium, seventy-six tons of iridium and nineteen tons of... bananas?”

“Typo,” she wrote out. “Meant bana...” she forced the dashing letters to reverse direction, erasing the end of the word. “Barium.” she finished, driving the cursor cautiously.

“How much is it worth?”

She opened an extra column. It took me some time to count all the digits.

“So I'm a billionaire.” I rubbed the sweat off my head.

The letters flowed again. “Got excited. I didn't watch the totals while trading.”

She opened another page. 'Stock market'.

A list of corporation names. Again, she displayed the sum of current values. Over a billion and a half in stocks again.

“So much for staying low-profile,” I muttered.

“Sorry.”

At least she apologized instead of arguing with me. Let's be thankful for the small blessings.

"How did you do this? I understand that you didn't invent the methods of cracking the hashes of bitcoin, you just used techniques devised by pony mathematicians ages ago; that I didn't so much teach you mathematics, as just the Earth transcriptions of what is taught in every university in Equestria. But this isn’t something that can be described by a handful equations. How did you do this?"

"My special talent. Understanding societies; spotting relations, gaming the common vices of people. Sociology, psychology, observation and association skills; subtle influences. Princess' job."

"Let me guess. You missed it as much as cake and went on a little binge?"

Horses can't blush, but all of her other body language signs shouted about Celestia's embarrassment.

“Any plans about what to do with that money?”

“Hired help.”

She opened Thunderbird. There were at least forty new unread emails, but she scrolled the list and opened one of the emails she'd already read. Iustix. A local law firm, congregating several lawyer offices.

Dear sir, blah blah blah, following acquisition of our company, blah blah blah, looking forward to meeting you in person to finalize the transaction. Signed, blah blah blah.

“You bought a law firm,” I deadpanned.

She opened another email. Colt Security. A rather large security company, contractor to several largest businesses in the area. Convoys, bodyguards, corporate security etc.

Another one, Abacus, an accounting firm.

“You worried about taxes,” she wrote. “They are taking care of it all now. You will need to sign some papers though.”

"You couldn't have just subcontracted them? You had to buy them?"

"Safer. Tresher could bribe owners."

The doorbell rang.

I looked to Celestia with fear. She smiled sheepishly.

Trying to choke back my fears, I headed out, to the backyard gate.

Three people were waiting by the fence. A balding, thin guy in a gray suit, with a briefcase; a tall guy in his forties, grey hair, bushy mustache; and a tall lady with narrow glasses, about my age, 'blonde from a bottle', hair in a bun.

The man in the grey suit spoke first. “Can we see Mr. Ecker?”

“That would be me.”

He waited for me to unlock the gate. I stepped outside, locking the gate after me.

“May I see your ID? Sorry to sound distrustful, but you... don't really look the part.”

“And may I know who's asking?”

“Dawid Gutmann, Iustix. I'm the unofficial president of the company, officially presided by the owner, but he lets me handle just about everything for him.”

I pulled out my wallet from my pocket and showed my ID to him. He studied it for a few seconds, comparing it to notes on a phone he held. Apparently everything checked out, because he smiled, pocketed the phone and extended his hand to me. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Ecker. May we enter?” He motioned towards the gate.

“Uh, no. It's... under renovation. The conditions...”

He didn't buy a word of it, but his smile expressed full understanding.

“Mr. Ecker?" the guy with grey hair spoke. "Jan Zabierski, Head of Operations, Colt Security, on behalf of my boss. Soon-to-be-former boss.”

I shook the extended hand.

“I took the liberty to deploy a discreet security detail in the area, if that's fine with you.”

I looked around. The street was almost empty, just some distant car moving, a group of teens walking. He chuckled. “Discreet, sir. You won't see them.”

“Thank you.” I nodded, then turned to the lady.

“Klaudia Mirek, Abacus, owner, founder and head accountant... for now. Your partner offered quite generous conditions, and I was rather pressed for money, so I agreed to sell it. Supposedly I'd still be running it, just answering to you, if that's okay with you.” She curtsied, wearing a fake smile.

“Nice to meet you.” I shook with her. "Of course, don't worry. We need the firms for their services, to manage and protect rather sizable assets we have obtained, so don't worry about generating profit from your customers. I'll be your primary customer, and I'll be paying more than enough for the services."

“Well." The lawyer looked around, rubbing his hands. A light drizzle was starting to pick up. "Do you have some alternate place in mind where we could conduct the business?”

I pondered for a while. “There's a small bar four blocks away. The room upstairs should be empty at this time of day. It's a pretty private place.”

“Will you follow me to the car, please?” He motioned me to a BMW parked across the street.

The accountant followed us, while the security guy headed to his own car, a Mercedes van.

The five minutes of travel, the silence interrupted only with me giving directions, ended soon enough, and we were climbing the wooden stairs in the small bar. Wide couches and armchairs around low tables were quite comfortable; I had drunk quite a few beers here, sketching things from memory. The security guy remained downstairs, chatting with the barman... or at least it looked like chatting, I guessed.

I sat in one of the armchairs, while the lawyer and the accountant occupied a sofa.

“First things first, let us finalize the trade.” The lawyer opened his briefcase and pulled some papers from the top. The purchase contract for his firm, as I read the headers. “The moment you sign this, I can start calling you 'boss'.”

I read the contract cautiously, but everything seemed to be pretty standard, brief and to the point. “I, uh...” I tapped my pocket.

“Here, take mine.” He handed me an elegant pen with golden tip.

The contract was already signed by the other party.

The security guy climbed the stairs and joined us.

“Excellent, we have our two witnesses to sign as well.”

I finished reading and signed, shaking my head a bit. That crazy horse.

Next followed contracts for the other two firms, then contracts with two banks about opening new accounts, more appropriate for handling billions of dollars than my puny free “Internet bank” personal account. The lady passed me a bunch of tax forms, then some papers for registering the firms with various departments and services, and after the thirtieth or so page I ceased paying attention to the papers, just signing away whatever I was given.

When I was finally through the mountain of paperwork, the lady picked up most of the papers, only leaving some copies for the lawyer to deliver to their respective entities, like the former owners of the other two firms. She packed them up and left, explaining herself that she was to hurry if she were to arrange everything with their respective offices before they closed for the day.

“Now...” the lawyer folded his hands together. “I received a notice from the mysterious associate of yours that you have a certain problem connected with some... peculiar action of questionable legality you have performed. He or she was very vague on details, but now that we are your employees, we're here to help. Jan here will take care of the practical side, and I will take care of the legal issues, but first we need to know what happened and what needs to be done.”

Damn you, Celestia, dumping things on me like that! I cursed under my breath. I pulled my phone out. “Allow me to contact my partner, please.”

“Of course.”

I opened the TorChat app in the phone and selected the connection to Celestia.

“What should I tell them I did?” I wrote.

“You stole a horse,” came the reply a couple seconds later.

“I stole a horse,” I said, putting my head in my hands. Now this was embarrassing.

The two looked at each other. Their gazes told it all: “Why couldn't it be something normal?”

“It's still at your place, right? In the basement flat?” the security guy asked.

I just nodded.

“Not a good place to keep a horse,” he muttered.

I just nodded, sighing.

“You may want to get another flat for your own needs. No offense, and I don't mind it the least bit, I worked with horses before I took this job, but... your scent kind of gives you away. And keeping that horse there is a disaster waiting to happen.”

“I’ve purchased a nice plot of land, with an unassuming house and a good stable and a pasture, a discreet location. The stable is being renovated now. The horse needs to be relocated soon.”

“Excuse me...” the lawyer interrupted. “The simplest, most sure-fire solution to the legal side would involve returning the horse to the owner.”

“Out of the question.”

“Okay, just mentioning it.”

“What kind of horse are we talking about?” the security guy asked. “A pony, a draft stallion?”

“An Arabian mare.”

“Estimate value?” the lawyer asked.

“Honestly... no clue. I know the range of values of Arabian horses, but I don't have a clue about her.” I paused for a while, thinking. “Wait... lower end, just a couple thousand. They were using her for recreational rides for kids. You don't put a million-dollar horse to that kind of work.”

“And you stole that horse?” the lawyer asked, his skepticism audible.

“She's...” I hesitated, “extremely valuable to me.”

“Who was the owner?”

“Tresher.” I gave the riding school name. The lawyer wrote it down.

“Is she well-behaved?” the security guy asked. “Loading into a trailer and such?”

“Very well-behaved.” I snorted a bit. “Except when she tries to be funny.”

“No need to tell me,” the mustached guy smiled. “I know horses have a quirky sense of humor.”

My mind wandered to Celestia. How many tons of bananas? Yes, quirky, definitely. She could have sold the bananas as soon as she purchased them, so of course keeping them was her kind of a joke.

“Alright,” the lawyer said. “I'll need to check on the progress of the police investigation, and so on, and so forth. I believe we can create several leverages which would prevent Mr. Tresher from pursuing the legal action and throw some wrenches into gears of the investigation as well. When I know the current image of the legal landscape, so to speak, we'll talk about a good, believable cover story. 'I stole a horse' is definitely not something you should say if the police ask. For now, let me just ask what kind of budget we can direct towards the operation."

I pondered. How could I put a price value on Celestia? "Priceless" would leave the lawyer clueless about how much I could afford. How much might that cost? Pessimistic variant?

"Ten million," I said. "And if that's not enough, contact me."

The lawyer whistled quietly. "That would be all I needed to know for now. You two arrange the moving operation.”

We shook hands, and the lawyer left.

Jan leaned into his armchair.

“So, you'll be moving out. I know a discreet moving company, we'll choose a rainy day, extend a tarp to protect the furniture from rain... the horse will need to be sedated.”

“That won't be necessary.”

“The horse will need to be sedated.”

“That won't be necessary. When I said she's very well-behaved, I meant it.”

“You're the boss, but if she bolts, we'll have a lot of trouble, and horses tend to panic at sight of tarp, with wind and rain...”

“She won't.”

“The flat will need to be sanitized if you plan to vacate it.”

“I plan to keep it. It will make a good server room. The network connectivity is excellent.”

“Still, it should be sanitized before you move the servers in.”

“Sure.”

“Is there anything in particular my boys should be watching for?”

“Uh... government or corporate agents or such? My partner has... caused a little storm in the stock market recently. Really big trades. Nothing illegal, mind you, but the scale...” I winced a little. “Well, I guess things spun a little out of control. Some megacorporations might be a bit upset.”

“A bit?”

“A bit. It's not like we have bankrupted anything important, but their quarterly reports may be half a percent below the expected curve.”

“Megacorps? Care to name some, so that I know the scale of what I'm dealing with?”

“Kyocera, Siemens, British Airlines, Nestle...” I recalled some names from the list.

“I'm afraid...” the guy paused, “...this is a bit over my head. If they decide to step in, all my expertise and the two hundred people Colt employs won't make a squat of a difference. Just what kind of trouble have I gotten myself into?”

“An adventure.”

* * *


My phone rang. I put the few knickknacks I held into a box and answered.

“Gutmann, Iustix. I've got good news and bad news.”

“Good news?”

“There is no investigation. No missing horse was reported to the police. They don't know anything, maybe some gossip, but they aren't looking, even unofficially. Legally, you're clean.”

“And the bad news?” I kept putting things in the box with the other hand.

“Tresher knows it was you, he knows your name, and he will know your address any minute now. And he has a van of thugs just waiting for that address. Better call Jan to send a few more men.”

“Thanks. How did he find out?”

“I don't know yet, but my guess is hay traders. A single small hay bale every two days, packed into a rucksack, that arouses questions. His men know all of the traders in the area. Then you were probably followed, and if you made any purchases with a debit card, he could get your name from his friends at the bank with just the time and place. They'd get your address too, but you didn't update your record when you moved. They probably lost you, but his man asked the people in the census and excise for your home address. Luckily you're not registered at your current address of residence, but you're bound to have left your address somewhere. IRS, the courts, your phone company, who knows? He's got a lot of contacts, and he's looking.”

“IRS. I’ve heard some horror stories about how they approach people who fail to register at their true place of residence, so I updated my records.”

“I can't help you, then. He put his aunt on a rather high seat there, and I have no way to stop her from giving him your data.”

“Well then, I'd better call Jan and finish packing. Hopefully he doesn't have the new address yet. Very few people know it. A driver from Echo Taxi may know; you might try to make sure they don't give it out.”

“Yes, I can take care of that. Good-bye, then.”

“Bye.” I pressed the red earphone button.

Celestia was putting books from my bookshelf into a box using her mouth. I found Jan's number and called him, while packing things with my free hand. He picked up after the third ring, and I reported the situation.

“I'll be there with the moving company in half an hour, but I'm sending a team to reinforce the two men at your place right now. They should be there in eight minutes,” was his reply.

Hurriedly, we continued to pack the last of what was still to be packed in the room. I picked up another box and moved to the bathroom, dropping soaps, shampoos, all that stuff into the box, without care for order. Towels went into a plastic bag, along with the floor mat.

I heard a whirr of metal being cut with an angle grinder. It came from the front gate side. Clangs. Multiple loud steps. Someone cursing at the front door, jerking at the handle. A loud crash, then another.

I ran out back into the room, looking frantically for anything that could work as a weapon. I noticed Celestia standing with her back to the vestibule door.

Another crash and scratching sounds as the flimsy front door gave in. Loud expletives expressing approval at the destructive skills.

The vestibule door was pulled open violently.

Two hooves swung into the newly opened doorway, producing a muffled thud. A crash, some curses, some laughter.

“I'll fucking kill that fucker!”

“No, you retard, boss wanted the horse alive.”

“Zdeb, you got that bull prod?”

Loud crackles of electricity sounded.

Then running steps approaching from the gate, more curses and sounds of fighting outside. Hits, shouts, dull thuds of kicks.

I ran around Celestia to my backpack and dug in its side pocket for my pepper spray.

“You wouldn't fucking dare. Put that toy away,” came from the outside. I stopped for a second, but then another voice answered. It wasn't about my 'toy'. “Try me.”

“You'll rot in the can for exceeding the limits of necessary defense.”

“And you'll be dead.”

“Guys, carry on and let the bozo keep waving his boomstick. Leave him alone and he won't dare to pull the trigger.”

I leaned into the doorway, reaching as far as I could, and pressed the cap. The spray hissed as I kept the cap depressed. There were loud curses, coughing. The loud electric crack of the bull prod. I saw its tip prodding into the vestibule — it was the long type, a long, thin rod with a split tip. I withdrew my hand as he tried to shock me; he leaned in to reach me, his eyes half-shut in the cloud of spray. I dropped the can and grabbed the prod by the long shaft. I pulled hard, yanking it out of his hands. He tried to grab it back, stepping into the vestibule, and got his face full of hooves, flying in a wide arc onto the driveway.

“Playtime's over. Get that gun off that fallen guy. Boss didn't say the horse is to be undamaged.”

“The moment you put hands on that gun, I'm pulling the trigger. I don't think the court will say I exceeded the limits of self-defense.”

“Hey, you!” I recognized the voice of Stargazer — my landlord — from the balcony above. “Get out of my property.”

“Or you what?... Oh fuck, is that a Steyr AUG?”

“Fuuuck, man, the cops are gonna love hearing this. An assault rifle in private hands. If he pulls the trigger, that will be ten years at least.”

Several popping sounds in rapid sequence sounded. “Ow, ow, ow, that fucking hurts! What the fuck?! Hey, stop it!”

“I'll keep shooting until you leave. I've got three hundred BBs in here, and another five thousand in the room.”

Eh, too bad my Kalashnikov had a broken gearbox from all those times Stargazer had tried to get me into airsoft long past.

Another series of cracks, and several thug voices cursing in sequence. They ran around the corner of the building, one hid on the stairs under the small roof of my entrance.

I turned the bull prod around and sneaked into the vestibule door. I reached around the corner quickly, pressing the trigger. I felt resistance of the tip pushing against a body. The electric crackles came out muffled.

“FUCK!” roared the thug, backing away from the reach of the bull prod. The AUG sung from above, and the thug, cursing loudly, crawled on all fours behind the corner.

I went back and looked through the closed drapes. I saw movement outside the window.

“Look, that's a window to his apartment.”

“Slab, did you take that Molotov?”

“On a skirmish? Are you fucking stupid? Someone hits it and I'm all soaked in gasoline.”

“Frank, go fetch the angle grinder. We'll cut the bars.”

“You go yourself.”

“The fuck?”

“You've got hair. You got any clue how much these things hurt on a bald head?”

“Fine... pussy.”

Steps running. Another burst from the AUG.

A moment of silence, then the sound of a lighter. Window opening. The cracks of BBs being launched at some six hundred FPS right onto heads of the thugs. Curses, steps running around the corner. “Not inside!”

For a second Celestia stood only on her front hooves as her hind legs swung in a graceful arc. A dull thud. Have you ever seen a smug horse? Imagine a smug horse. And now imagine it being twice as smug. That was Celestia at the moment.

Shuffling. The thugs were hiding under the roof above the stairs, crowded together. I peered through the door. That's three down... Five more to go?”

A smug voice from one of the thugs. “Don't you use that gun on me. Just passing by... What the f-”

Several thuds.

“Who's next?” I recognized the security guy's voice.

“Let's rush that guy and get that angle grinder.”

Something crunching. Voice of the security guy: “The one with the broken disc?”

“Asshole.”

I prepared to go into the vestibule with the bull prod again, but Celestia stepped in my way, blocking the doorway with her rump. She shook her head "no".

For a minute or so nothing happened, the thugs trying to form a plan.

Then I heard a car revving up. The screech of wheels. Car doors, sound of boots.

A new voice. “Pick up your buddies and get lost.”

“We can still get you five down.”

A hiss of spray and some loud curses. “I won't repeat myself.”

Squealing. “Fuck, that shit burns!”

“Military-grade mace. Who wants to be next?”

Yet another voice. “Or would you prefer to try a taser?”

“Fuck fucking fuck. Do what he says."

Shuffling, crunching of gravel, yelps of pain, curses vanishing into the distance. Celestia moved out of view.

I peered through the broken door.

“You okay in there?” A young face met me, the black uniform in impeccable order.

“Yeah, we've mounted a solid defense. Should I call an ambulance for that guy there?” I peered out, seeing one of the bodyguards crouching over a fallen colleague.

The one on the ground lifted his head. “I'll be fine, boss. Just broken legs. My partner will take me to the hospital.”

"Thanks for your help. You can count on a good bonus."

Others helped to carry the hurt bodyguard to the car, and soon I heard the sound of the engine vanishing in the distance.

I sat on the bed, wiping sweat off my face. I felt the prickly whiskers of Celestia's face on my cheek. I reached with my hand and leaned into her silky nose.

Then she turned her head to the door, perking her ears. The remains of the door creaked.

“Knock-knock?” Stargazer peeked in.

Well, shit.


> Chapter 3: Mandala
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stargazer squinted and shook his head a little, looking at Celestia. He turned his gaze to me, to her, to me again.

“Um... Shady?” He used the nick from the times when we had first met online, quite some time before I began looking for a flat — which he had just had available at the time.

“Hey, Stargazer.” I shrugged helplessly. “It's... unexplainable.” I paused for a moment. “I'll cover the damages, though.”

He was silent for a while.

“So you're moving out?” He looked over all the boxes scattered over the room.

“Not breaking the lease, though, if that's okay with you.”

“Umm...” He looked at the room, which was currently in bad need of renovation. Hardwood floor and plaster walls damaged by hooves, the smell of mare urine coming from the kitchen sink, one of the glass shades on the chandelier missing... I could see the landlord and the friend were fighting a battle in his head.

Then his gaze stopped on Celestia's head – on the device attached to her halter — and I saw his eyes going wide open and his breath catching in his chest. It took him three seconds to break the spell. “Uh, yes. Sure. No problem.”

He sat on the bed next to me. We were silent for a while.

“I don't mean to pry...” he spoke quietly, “...but would you mind trying to explain the unexplainable?”

I looked to Celestia. She gave me a tiny nod.

“Can I count on secrecy in exchange?”

“Sure.” After a second of pause, he realized that wasn't entirely enough. “I'll think something up to keep the parents and the aunt satisfied. You can count on me. Just... try not to force me in a situation where I'd have to lie to my girlfriend, okay?”

I pulled the laptop out from one of the boxes and put it on top of a stack of boxes in front of us, opening the lid, turning it so that both he and Celestia could see the screen. After a while of dehibernating, the desktop came up, and the dasher interface was in the corner. The letters floated, the cursor finding the words.

“Hello. My name is Celestia.”

“Hello?” He answered to the screen.

Celestia snorted. He turned his head to her. “Oh, right, hello. Celestia.” She nickered quietly in response, then she proceeded to write.

“I'm stranded in this strange world, in a body lacking more than two thirds of my abilities. I want to return home.”

“I... don't know what I can do to help, but I'll help however I can.”

“Why?”

“Why?” he repeated.

“Why helping me?”

He turned his head to her. His expression was at first indignant, then shifted to cheerful, and finally he threw his arms up in the air. “Because that's awesome!”

* * *

“Give me five of these small round things with a gap in the side,” said Stargazer.

I dug in the box. “These?”

“Uhhh... nope, I don't think so. They seem thicker in the picture.”

“Oh, I've got thicker ones, too. Five? I see only four...”

“Oh, right, I've got one right here.”

The charm of Ikea furniture.

Celestia was lying on a mattress, reading a book – a university script on inorganic chemistry; she had mail-ordered a few hundred various university scripts. Meanwhile Stargazer and I tried to make the room habitable.

The new house was still out of use: the roof was leaking, the wooden window frames were rotten, and the paint was coming off the walls. But for now, I'd live in the barn – which was currently a very welcoming place. The renovation firm had done an excellent job. The long, communal farm style building was split into two parts: one side made into a stable for four horses, clean, spacious and with all basic necessities of a stable, including a "shower room" for horses. The other half was adapted into a living space, with a big living room, a bathroom, a kitchen, two bedrooms, a loft and an enclosed porch area wide enough so that Celestia would have time to hide in the “stable” while I'd “receive the guests”. Normally, the “stable part” was just to provide plausible deniability, and a WC for Celestia, while in reality, the 'guest bedroom' with a king-size bed was all hers.

Step by step, we finished assembling the computer desk and set up the PC and the router, which was connected to local fiber from a small ISP and three wireless broadband backups. We assembled some more of the furniture, then finally, Stargazer decided it was getting late and he'd need to return home. I got one of the bodyguards stationed in the decrepit house to hitch us a ride, him – home, me – shopping. Food for me, a few beers, oatmeal, a bag of apples, a couple pieces of cake – Celestia's body seemed to tolerate it well, so I was letting her get more, though still not enough to let her gorge on it. On the way back, I chatted with the bodyguard some. I could say he was quite satisfied with the job, but the salary was sub-par. I promised to look into the issue.

We parted ways by the old house, where the security men established their temporary “base of operations” (I promised to make sure to make it more livable), and I stopped to take “my new estate” in.



The asphalt road to the village ran through a forested valley between two ranges of hills. A small side road led through a bridge over a brook to a clearing surrounded by beech and oak forests from all sides on the gently sloping foot of the steep hill. The house and the barn, along with the scarce ruins of a wooden hay barn that had burned to the ground half a century ago, occupied one corner of it, the clearing extending down towards the brook. A narrow forest road led to more fields above the line of the forest, crags of white limestone sticking out from between the trees and above the crest of the hills.

I looked at the sky. Away from the city lights, I smiled at the sight of hundreds of stars and the full moon. Still, the shopping bags in my hands began feeling heavy, so I headed... 'home', I thought fondly. My thoughts went to the future. When Celestia went back home – her real home – I'd buy a couple horses, give them comfort and safety here, and take up drawing in earnest. Still on a leave of absence from work. Should I resign?

“Celestia, I've brought cake!” I shouted from the door, half-expecting her to drop whatever she was doing and come running. Only silence answered. The door was unlocked, even though I had locked it on my way out. The living room was empty. I checked Celestia's bedroom, the stable part. I called her name again, and there was no reply.

I dropped the bags and ran to the decrepit house, up the stairs, through the veranda, into the room where the security team set camp around a gas lamp. I was panicked more than a little. “Where is she?” I gasped out to the circle sitting around the lamp.

“On the hill, up there,” came from a dark doorway leading to another room. I followed the voice. One of the security guys with binoculars by his eyes stood in the darkness, by the open window, looking towards the hill. “Running like the wind through the fields.”

I gasped with relief. “Thanks. Good work.”

With my heart calming down, I headed towards the steep forest road up the hills. Soon I was gasping hard, climbing the slope through the gloomy tunnel of trees, but it didn't take long to reach the upper edge of the forest, and as the road leveled a little, I got my breath back.

At last, I crested the pass between two hills, and the view opened onto lights of the village in the next valley. I stopped and scanned the fields for any sight of Celestia. And she was there, on a hill to my left, sitting the way dogs do, gazing at the sky.

I walked through the grass towards her, and she only momentarily turned her head to me, returning her gaze to the stars.

I sat by her in the wind-swept, yellowed grass, white rocks dotting the landscape. I followed her gaze. The moon.

I recalled her story, her talk of her home, the magical land. Her being the princess of the day, raising the sun in the morning and putting it down to sleep in the evening. And her sister...

“Thinking about Luna?” I asked.

She gave an almost imperceptible nod.

“We'll get you back home. I don't know yet, how, but we will.”

She nodded gently, then she turned her head away from me.

“If you'd prefer to be left alone, I can go.”

She turned her head back to me, then after a moment of stillness, she hung it low. Her long mane flowed over her eyes.

I shifted closer to her and leaned into her side, putting my hand over her back. She leaned back into me. She gazed at the moon for a while, then she turned back to me. I could see she wanted to say something, but the way her throat was built wouldn't allow the right sounds to come out, so instead she just nuzzled my face. I stroked her cheeks and felt that they were moist.

“Hey, don't worry. Things are looking up at last. We've got resources, we're safe for the moment, you've got a decent temporary home, some allies, and then there's even some cake waiting for you.”

She gave me a reproachful look, but then she whickered silently and stood up. She gestured with her head to her back.

“You want to give me a ride?”

She whickered and crouched to let me climb her back more easily. Then, as I settled and held her mane, she walked down the hill, mindful not to let me fall.

* * *

"So you are willing to take the job?"

Four nodding heads answered my question.

"My mom is a difficult person. That's why I'm hiring the four of you. That's why I'm paying double the average salary for what is essentially a quarter-time job. That's why I'm allowing flexible hours and paying for top notch private health insurance. In exchange, I expect you will suffer her moods without protests. If she wants to build embankments around the garden, you go seek a contractor. If she wants to go on a train trip to Vladivostok, you look up the train schedule. If she fires any of you, you go to Dawid, pick up your severance and find a replacement. Is that clear?"

Four nods.

Dawid gave them the contracts to sign. Yep, we’d got on first-name terms with the lawyer and the security boss. A little too many cases to "mister" each other all the time.

I signed the four contracts in the employer's space.

Ugh. At last. Convincing her to agree to that... never again.

* * *

I looked at the pile of shoppings stacked on the side of the room. Besides the common groceries, there was yesterday's shopping list made by Celestia.

Three blenders.
A kitchen scale and a jewelry scale.
40 carats worth of chrysoberyls, small gems, no inclusions.
A kilogram bag of of potassium chloride (diet salt).
2x5 sheet of polyethylene foil, sturdy.
A single bathroom tile (terracotta), 30x30cm, with a custom print, a fancy mandala pattern.
100 medium-sized zip-loc bags.
Peppermint, fresh, potted plant.
Spirits (ethanol), 95% pure, 0.5 liter.
Four large syringes.
School chalk, a box.
Gearbox oil (synthetic), 0.5 liter.
A box of toothpicks.
Sticker labels, a sheet.
Waterproof marker.
Seven small ceramic bowls, white.
Grilling charcoal, a bag.

“Can you explain whatever you intend to do with that?”

“Try if magic works.”

“Want to share details?”

“Theory of self-focusing mandalas? Three years of study once you know basic magic theory, which is another year. That thing here” — she nodded towards the pattern on the tile, a circle filled with intricate design of branching and twining lines — “is one of the easiest. It compresses charcoal into diamond.”

“Nice. Just tell me what to do.”

“Bring kitchen salt and vinegar from the kitchen. Then label the blenders #1, #2 and #3. Put chrysoberyls into blender #1”

I stood up from the armchair and yelped. DOMS, Muscle fever. My whole body was aching after yesterday's exercise. Gritting my teeth, I limped towards the kitchen. If I was to lose that belly, I would. I could afford a good diet, I had enough time, I had the motivation — running with Celestia each morning around the meadows — so, all in all, no pain, no gain.

* * *

“That line won't do. It's far too uneven. Scratch it, wash with ethanol and do again.”

“I'll never get it right. Look, it's four hours and I’ve barely got maybe a tenth of the mandala. And when do we begin to add other components? The ones that can't mix?”

“I have seen video of monks pouring far more intricate mandalas with colorful sand. You work with stiff paste, much easier to shape.”

“Well, I'm no monk and I'm all thumbs. Look, what if there were grooves in that tile? The mandala embossed, and not just drawn? Does it need to be terracotta?”

“No, just something fireproof. Wouldn't you still mix them up?”

“We could get stencils of sheet plastic on top, only allowing given components into the right grooves.”

“How would you make grooves like that?”

“A CNC milling machine. We could get it done in a sheet of brass, seven millimeters thick. The stencils can be made at any advertizing agency with a cutting plotter.”

Celestia pulled youtube onto the screen and found a video of a CNC mill in action for a while.

“Oh yes. That would do nicely. I could really use such a machine back home. Will you take care of that?”

“Right on it.” I loaded the webpage of a local major print house that did embossing and fancy prints. It was one of Tresher's many businesses, interconnected in a bizzarre web of cross-dependencies with the sole purpose of dodging taxes; I used to work at that print house, in the same room as a guy working for a paint-making company and a designer from an architecture design office, all Tresher's businesses. I seriously wondered how the riding school fit into his swindle landscape. Probably a claim of providing equine-assisted therapy services to handicapped employees to receive government funding for their workplaces. Not that they'd ever see the money or enjoy any actual benefits.

I composed the email and attached the files, then a basic description of what was to be done, and sent it out. Then I called their number.

“Hello. I just sent an order for an engraving. Could you make it express? Best if it's today afternoon. I know the queue, I'm paying double and tell the CNC engineer he'll get a personal bonus for me for overtime if he lets me skip the queue... okay, look, you'll get a nice bonus too if you do this for me, alright? Just send me a rough quote so that I know how much to take. Paid in cash when I pick it up. Advance payment? Okay, that would be twenty-five hundred?” I opened the banking page and began typing the target account. "Express transfer sent. When can I show up for it? Three PM? Okay, two-fifty."

Celestia just snorted at me as I began looking for a place to get the stencils cut in PVC. She trotted to the wall safe, unlocking it through the computer first, and before I finished the order (plus the “express” call) I had a bundle of high-denomination notes on the table.

Then I saw her open up Google, and she began shopping for a CNC milling machine.

“Look up some 3D printers while you're at it.” I sent her a smile. “There are powder printers, I believe we could get one to print such mandalas directly.”

Imagine a horse in state of glee. Now make it double.

* * *

I looked at the pattern filled with colorful pastes. It was inert. It looked very pretty, the little food coloring making different powders stand out more, but it did nothing.

“Maybe it worked but we don't know it?”

“You'd know if it worked. Maybe magic does not work in this world.”

“Or maybe I missed a spot. Or maybe you made a mistake in the mandala pattern.”

She began examining the slab of brass, comparing it to her notes on the screen. She pointed out a spot on the screen where two lines of different colors came very close together. I peered at the respective spot through a magnifying glass.

“Yep,” I said. “I see green specks on the white side. They aren't supposed to mix.”

I scraped the offending place with a toothpick and wiped it clean with an ethanol-soaked cloth. I reapplied the right paste on the tip of a toothpick.

A line of sparks ran around the edge, and I jumped back.

“Still not right.” Celestia was checking the pattern again. She pointed a spot with a pencil in her mouth.

I noticed a small discontinuity in the line of paste where she pointed.

“We should have used powder, but you wouldn't find enough chrysoberyls to redo the ingredients around here.”

I squeezed the bits of thick paste together.

The whole pattern lit up. Eeerie, aurora-like smudges of light shone upwards with various colors. The middle of the pattern glowed so brightly I had to look away – and then the light died, and as I turned back to the slab, the grooves were empty, and a flawless diamond, half a centimeter big and perfectly cut, sat in the very middle of the pattern, casting colorful reflections onto the brass below.

“Magic!” I exclaimed, throwing my arms up in the air.

I turned, and I could see Celestia crying. I hugged her.

* * *

Celestia stomped lightly, calling my attention. I switched the stove off, leaving the pot with vegetable stew, and headed to the room. She nodded to the screen.

“Quonset Huts.” The sceen displayed a half-cylindrical structure of corrugated sheet metal with a semi-circular front. The company boasted low prices and rapid deployment.

“Do we need one?”

The dasher interface whirred to life. “Two. One here, one remote.”

“Barn for hay?”

“Officially. If fact, lab.”

“What do you plan to develop?”

“Beacon. Call home for aid.”

“The building shouldn't be a problem, though getting the permission to build may take a while.”

“Take your time. The other part certainly will.”

“What's the other part?”

She switched the tabs. Jewelers, rubies. Ruby mines. Ruby wholesale, natural rubies, synthetic rubies, corundum.

“Need 30kg or more of natural ones.”

“Big ones?”

“Dust.”

“We still don't have enough money?”

She snorted and opened a calculator. It would be about $300,000 if she used small cut gems. The dust would be significantly cheaper, but, as she explained, obtaining that amount of pure dust of natural rubies would be difficult.

“So the problem is?”

“Nobody has that many in one place. I must order from multiple sources. Logistics, customs, security, etc. Handling it takes time.”

“So... I'll handle the barn. How remote should the other one be? Peru? Australia?”

“Remote from settlements. Nobody in 10km radius and accessible to us.”

“Where would we find a totally-uninhabited 20km-diameter circle of land in Europe?” I scratched my head. “Belarus? Maybe somewhere in Slovakia. No, that's unlikely. Norway or Finland, but they’re far away. The Chernobyl exclusion zone isn’t really accessible... Other than the sea, I don't think...”

“Sea is good. Scratch barn, get ship.”

“Any requirements?”

“Barn-sized hold, junk. Destroyed in the process. Small crew, small vessel to evacuate.”

“A tugboat with a barge?”

“Sounds good.”

She looked to me, ears perked joyfully, then her expression soured.

“Hey, what's wrong?”

“I miss my wings. Good for hugging.”

“You have wings?! You haven't told me! I thought everyone in Equestria is a pony!”

She activated the browser and opened DeviantArt. She entered “winged unicorn” into the search box. The images appeared, and she scrolled a bit, picking out one. Two mares, the bigger one white, with wings, golden torc and tiara, golden boots, an image of the Sun adorning her flank, where my Celestia had the yellow stain that wouldn't come off. Her mane flowed in the wind with pastel colors. The other one was shorter, dark blue, a silver crescent on a blob of black covering her flank. Her wings and horn were smaller too, and her blue mane sparkled with stars. A small black tiara and a matching torc with a crescent moon completed the image.

“I commissioned it,” she wrote. “I pondered a print, but I found out by human standards this is considered cheesy.”

“You're beautiful. And your sister is cute.”

She snorted loudly, a reaction which I learned to recognize as laughter.

“She'd hate you forever for that comment.”

“Must be frustrating to be the younger sister forever.”

There was sadness in Celestia's eyes again when she turned to me. “You've got no idea,” appeared on the screen. “And now she is alone to rule. Her ancient wish granted. I doubt she is happy about that.”

Celestia activated the browser with DeviantArt again. “Twilight Sparkle” appeared in the search box.

“Now that name is cheesy,” I said.

The image loaded. I gazed at the purple mare with a neatly trimmed mane.

“My faithful student. She is a genius.”

“And charming too.”

“That she is. If anypony can help me, it's her.”

“Celestia, these walls look awfully bare, and no matter what other people might think, I like these images very much. So...”

The cursor moved to the “Order Prints” button.

* * *

I observed the next shift of security arriving, talking with those going home, exchanging greetings and jokes. Soon, the previous shift left. I recalled my talk with the guy who took me shopping on the first night.

“Tia, would you consider a raise for our guards?”

She tipped her head.

“They receive little above the minimal salary and they are risking their lives for us.”

She turned to the computer and picked through bookkeeping documents. Oh, yes, the owner would pocket all the significant profit while the crew never saw a bonus.

Several adjustments, a long overdue raise for all employees, and then redirecting the (variable) owner's profit in its entirety to the staff, as bonuses, proportional to the surplus of given month.

I heard a car engine, and I walked to the door to peek outside. The barn provided nice privacy, but most of the tiny windows under the rafters were just about impossible to reach. I made a mental note to get some cameras installed.

I recognized the 4x4 with a logo of a horse on the hood. The National Equestrian Association.

“Hey, Celestia. Change into your best fancy halter. You're about to get a legal citizenship!”

She trotted up to me with a blue halter in her teeth. I unbuckled and removed the yellow with the controller she wore and put the blue one on her.

“Try to behave the horse way,” I said, straightening out her halter. She snorted and blew me a raspberry.

We headed outside through the stable door, and I greeted the elder clerk, who walked towards us using a wooden walking stick.

“Hello to you, sir. So this is the lady we are to register today?”

“Yes. I'd like to have all the paperwork for her in order.”

“Yes, you told me over the phone. That's odd though, she's a fine specimen. Definitely not a slaughter stock.”

“If she was stolen, I would not try to register her, would I? It would make locating her easy, just by checking the biometrics in the database...”

“And if she was, and you don't know, you might get charged with fencing stolen goods.”

“And she would return to her rightful home. In this situation, I'd maybe get a fine and probation if I'm very unlucky. I can accept that.”

“It still boggles my mind why would anyone send such a fine horse to slaughter.”

“I have my suspicion. A big wallet and a bigger ego. I believe the previous owner wanted her dead for sure, so he got rid of the paperwork. She'd go to the seedy kind of slaughter that can circumvent that, and nobody would want her on the legal market without paperwork. She was very lucky I was in the right place at the right time.”

“Tresher.” The clerk said the name like an obscenity. “Too bad the president of the association is on his leash. I'll try to keep this paperwork hush-hush. Let's get to work.”

He raised his walking stick and pulled on its lower part, as if it concealed a rapier. But instead of a rapier, there was a metal bar with a scale, and another that swung sideways on a spring-loaded hinge. He set the device next to Celestia and retracted the metal part into the wooden “scabbard” until the horizontal bar rested on her withers. He raised the whole thing without letting the metal slide against the wood.

“One hundred and fifty-three centimeters.”

He folded the device back into the neat walking stick and wrote the figure on a clipboard.

“What is her name?”

I looked at her. She gave me a tiny nod. “Celestia,” I said.

“Parentage?” he asked while scribbling the previous answer.

“Unknown.”

“Now that's a huge pity. It's clear to me she's a fine Arabian mare, but I must write in 'N.N./N.N' like for a common village crossbreed.”

“I don't need her to be expensive. I need her to be safe. Vaccinations, authority to take her back in case of theft, being in the clear in case of some control.”

“You might want to look into getting some fences if you don't want the struggle with seeking her and proving she's yours.”

“That's not really my worry. She won't run off.”

“How do you know? Bolting from a stray dog, scared off by thunder...”

Celestia stepped to me and put her chin on my shoulder. I held her, brushing her nose with my hand.

“I just know.”

He smiled at the display of tenderness. “But still, horses are easily spooked.” He reached into his pocket.

Suddenly, he drew out a plastic bag, waving it in front of Celestia's face.

Unimpressed, she grabbed the bag with her teeth and she pulled it out of his grip. Then she snapped her teeth right in front of his face. The effect was immediate. He fell on his back, and she ran in an elegant piaff around him.

I helped him up, giving him my hand, then I handed him his notepad, ballpoint and staff.

“Ow. Serves me right,” he said, trying to stand up from the grass, rubbing his aching back. “So, never mind actual need, but if you get a visit from some organization, they will make the lack of fence an issue. Just a friendly word of advice.”

“Thanks. I guess pulling the metallized tape between the trees would suffice? Pretending it's electrified?”

“Absolutely. Now, back to work. I suppose you don't know her birth date?"

I shrugged.

"And age? Even an estimate?”

"Not a clue."

“I can tell her age roughly from her teeth.” He stepped up to Celestia. She made a step back.

“Celestia, please, let mister here see your teeth.”

She stepped up to him and let him part her lips and peer at her teeth.

“That's odd.” He frowned. “She is definitely an adult, but she has the teeth of a foal. I mean, they are fully developed, but there's always a discoloration, a kind of a hole that grows through the whole life of a horse. Her teeth look like she was born a month ago. There's no more than a tiny dot on each tooth.”

Celestia looked at me, with concern.

“What? You want me to brush your teeth?”

She nodded.

I sighed.

“You two are one of the weirdest pairs I've ever met.” The clerk smirked. “She looks five, and that's what I'm going to write. Let's get to whirlology.”

He stood in front of Celestia and began noting down in a chart any whirls, tufts or bald spots where her hair would converge or diverge. She turned sideways to him as he finished with her forehead, exposing her neck, as per the chart in his clipboard.

“I don't know what you are,” he muttered, “but if you want to pass for a horse, you need to work on your acting skills.”

* * *

A loud whinny woke me up, along with a hoof knocking on the wall rapidly. I jerked myself out of the bed and rushed out, meeting Celestia just stepping off her bedroom. She neighed, pointing with her head towards the direction of the bridge. I ran up to to the stairs to the loft and peered out through the window.

A couple SWAT vans rolled onto the clearing. One of the security went outside to meet them as the SWAT poured out, armed and dangerous. At the sight of three assault rifles aimed at him, the security guy just raised his hands. A few seconds later, he was on the ground, the SWAT officer pinning him down and putting handcuffs on his wrists.

“The police have arrived in force!” I whispered. “What do we do? Should we run? Hide?”

Celestia shook her head and just gestured towards my bedroom.

“Surrender, just like that?”

She nodded.

I walked up to her and hugged her neck. She embraced me between her hoof and her chin. She neighed, then she turned away, trotting towards the stable part.

I went to my room and proceeded to take my clothes on. My phone, my wallet, shoes. By the time the door burst in, I was already lying on the floor, face down, with my hands behind my neck. I think I threw them off a little with that.
> Chapter 4: SEC
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The police officer leaned over the table of the investigation room.

“Do you know why you're here?”

“I have my suspicions.”

“Care to share?”

“Somebody doesn't like competition.”

“What kind of competition? In what?”

“I don't know. Tungsten market maybe? Why don't you tell me the official story?”

“The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requested your extradition to the United States for trial on charges of insider trading.”

“Oh, yeah, the universal bouncer for those without a ticket to the elite club. I might have guessed.”

“So do you admit to it?”

“To what?”

“Trading stocks based on insider information.”

“No.”

“Just no?”

“I didn't do any stock trading, insider or not.”

“Do you deny you have...” He peered into a sheet of paper he held, and gave up on deciphering the number. “A whole lot of stocks to your name?”

“No, I'm aware of that. Last I checked, about one and a half billion dollars worth.”

“How would you explain that?”

“My partner is a genius.”

“Your... partner? Why wouldn't he use his own account?”

“I wouldn't know. Maybe he doesn't want to be famous. Apparently legally earning the first billion involves a SWAT squad tearing your front door down. If I were him, I certainly wouldn't want that kind of attention.”

“Why should I believe you have some mysterious partner and haven't done all that trading yourself?”

“Come on, insider information is volatile, I know that much. A couple days and it's useless. Check my history over last weeks. Work, buying hay, some playing online...”

“Playing on the stock market?”

“World of Tanks. A game where you drive a tank.”

“You implying...”

“I wouldn't have time to do any insider trading myself. Most of the stocks were bought in one weekend. I was at my home then, helping my mother. Most of the day outdoors, neighbors saw me, there will be a track record of me shopping with a debit card there, and in the evening I was soundly asleep. The only network connectivity there is from my phone. Feel free to verify network traffic with my billing and trace me by phone locations.”

“A very good alibi. Almost too good.”

“Once my partner showed me the account next evening, I made sure to remember everything I did that day, because I kind of expected this kind of questions.”

“Well, let us assume you do have a partner. Would you mind providing some proof? Or some info on his identity?”

“He's very secretive. I know very little about him. Check my phone; there's a TorChat app. He's my only contact. Why don't you contact him yourself?”

“How did you meet?”

“Classified ads on the TOR network.”

“So, you decided to take the job of a middleman. Straw-man, they call it. Get the scraps off the table of a criminal mastermind?”

“Criminal?”

“Insider trading is a very serious charge.”

“What happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'?”

“Let’s look at it honestly. There is no way to earn that much money unless you possess insider information. That guy is guilty, and the moment he's down, so are you.”

“That's what I thought before I met him. The guy is a genius. He doesn't need insider information.”

“So how would he do it?”

“I can't even begin to wrap my mind around his business methods. He tried to explain one to me. When he showed me the connection between El Niño and condom sales in Amsterdam, I called it quits.”

“Sounds like he was bullshitting you.”

“I thought so too, but then he showed me the spreadsheets. Each year El Niño blows over the Pacific ocean, the sales jump five to ten percent. Let me see if I can recall... El Niño brings more rainfall to Brazil, meaning increased rubber tree and cocoa production, meaning lower cocoa prices and better cocoa quality. The condom rubber price drops, too, but that has only a marginal impact. But the lower prices and better quality of cocoa means better and cheaper chocolate in Belgium. Better chocolate increases libido. In the neighboring Amsterdam there's the biggest brothel district in the world and one of the biggest ports. El Niño forces more shipowners to redirect their ship to Atlantic, and in effect, to Amsterdam. More sailors eating the cheaper, better chocolate is more customers for the condoms.”

“Bullshit.”

“The spreadsheet is in the laptop you have taken. Everything can be checked. Meteorological portals data, quarterly reports of condom exporters.”

“If you say so... Tell me another thing: you don't seem like an idiot who would help a Nigerian prince. What made you trust a total stranger with your bank account and identity? They could put you ears deep in debt.”

“Money up front.”

“To the account you made available?”

“No, Bitcoin.”

“What's Bitcoin?”

“You're from the police, and you don't know what bitcoin is? The unregulated digital cryptocurrency which can be used to make anonymous transactions over the net? The primary currency of drug cartels nowadays?”

“So you got paid in bitcoin...”

“More than my account balance and my total credit capability. Apparently he has aplenty. I could have vanished with the bitcoin without fulfilling my end of the transaction and he'd be powerless to stop me.”

“How much exactly?”

“Allow me to withhold that information.”

“Okay... so, what the hell is that business with the horse?”

“Saved her from the butcher knife. I make bicycle trips all over the city, learning its layout, seeking interesting places. That day fate brought me to the livestock market. I just couldn't stand there and look while she was being sent to her death. I broke my piggy bank and bought her.”

“And brought her to your rented flat?”

“I had no other place and no money to rent a stall, no contacts, not even enough to pay a truck to some foundation. That's when I got desperate for money and started looking through ads on TOR for a way to get money fast, not necessarily legally. It was blind luck that I found a legal method.”

“Well then, one more thing. What's Mr. Tresher's beef with you?"

“I can only guess, but I believe his beef is with the mare. She used to be his.”

“How do you know that?”

“I often go to his riding school not far from my place. I draw his horses; I have a full sketchbook. One day she approached me, and... we began bonding. She's a feisty one; supposedly no trainer managed to stay on her back. But the bond we began to form...”

“You say no trainer managed to stay on her back. How do you know?”

“I overheard three of them talking one day, while I was walking past them. I saw the mare throw one of the trainers off her back. Then I bet them I could make a circle around the paddock on her back.”

“Why?”

“They were about to start beating her, so I thought fast of something to distract them.”

“Did you succeed?”

“In distracting them? Yes, I saved her a lot of pain that day.”

“Making the circle.”

“No. I made it through two-thirds of the way, though.”

He chuckled. “Alright, so what would Mr. Tresher's beef be with the mare?”

“This is purely my conjecture, but I imagine he wanted to show off his skill, possibly in front of someone important, and the mare humiliated him, so he ordered her to be sold to the butchers. He has a reputation of being a vengeful person with a big ego.”

“And finding out she's still alive, he picked up a beef with you. Damn, this all adds up. One thing more: how would he find out?”

“He has eyes all over the city. A new billionaire in town? Hard to miss. No, wait, that guess doesn't make sense. I don't think he'd send his thugs if he knew that. Who knows, maybe the guy selling her on his behalf told him.”

“Your name would be on the sales contract.”

“There was no contract. The seller agreed only to a verbal agreement, take it or leave it.”

“So it would mean the paperwork would say the mare still belongs to Mr. Tresher... He could just legally request you give her back.”

“Providing he has any paperwork.”

“Why wouldn't he?”

“He could legally request me to give her back.”

“Right. You've been... immensely helpful.”

“So what happens now?”

“Don't quote me on this, I've got no decision-making authority here, but with my cop experience, I can foresee how it will go from now. You won't hear from your secret partner ever again; that's how they operate. Such is the middleman's fate. Providing your story checks out, I mean things like your alibi, you're in luck. If you didn't do any illegal trading, the extradition request on your current charges will be denied. Of course, you aren't exactly innocent, though, but I believe this will be arranged with the SEC, and you'll be tried in the local court. You will remain in arrest for a while, a month or two, so that you can’t tamper with the evidence while it's being collected. As an unwitting accomplice acting in good faith and under duress, you'll end up with a sentence low enough that, counting the jail time towards it, you will walk out of court a free man. Of course, all your ill-gotten assets would be seized, but only the ones you acquired since the start with the stock trade, so... you'd get to keep the horse.” He winked to me. “Easy come, easy go. Back to square one, or maybe square two - a little better-off than before. You've got some of that 'bitcoin' of yours saved up? That predates the start of stock trade too, so you'd get to keep it.”

“Of course that is all providing Mr. Tresher doesn't have any friends in the court system.”

He cringed.

* * *

“Did they buy the story?”

I nodded to Dawid. “Didn’t I tell you telling it starting at the end would increase the credibility? They loved it.”

“Won't help much with the court. You are going to lose badly. I'll appeal and try a higher instance. Tresher doesn't have many people there and with this kind of funds I can pull quite a few strings. Still, it will take time. The law machine is slow.”

I winced. “What's going to happen to the farm and the horse in the meantime?”

Dawid smiled. “Jan says he made friends with your secret associate, though he wouldn't tell me much beyond that. Still, he said he would take care of the mare in your absence and move her to a secure location in case the farm is seized or locked down.” The lawyer shook his head. “You'd think you know a man after a dozen years of cooperation, and then...” He made a “brains exploding” gesture with his hands around his head. “He's like... I don't know. Reborn. New energy, new youth. I'd think he imagines he's in some kind of a big adventure like in the movies. Anyway, your mare is in good hands. Mostly. I think I saw him giving her cake... Isn't that bad for horses?”

* * *

“Your partner wants to talk with you.”

The policeman, who entered my jail cell held my phone in hand. “I'll be doing the talking,” he said. “Just to make sure you don't exchange anything... 'unsavory'.”

“How are you?” he read from the screen.

“Not bad. You?”

I saw him type “Okay, and you?” instead of what I said.

“Furious, but safe and well otherwise.”

“So, what are you up to?” got paraphrased at “What are your plans?”

“I'll get you out, I swear.”

“Don't do anything rash.” Apparently the cop decided the sentence can go unchanged... or maybe he failed to think up an alternative.

“You know me.”

“I do. That's what I'm afraid of.” “I'm afraid of” became “I fear.”

“Ha-ha.”

“Take care of yourself. I'm safe for now, so don't worry.” He typed it literally.

“Sit tight, I'm getting you out soon.”

* * *

Eight days passed without new developments. I was slowly getting used to the jail life. It wasn't that bad. Not a prison with real criminals, just a place for people who failed to pay their taxes, who didn't show up for their army duty, who were caught on small-scale frauds. Sure it was dull, boring and depressing, but the guards were reasonable people, the food was good, there was a gym, and I took up exercising, and nobody would mind me drawing horses for hours... although often they became unicorns and pegasi. Dawid would show up now and then, telling me how he had barely thwarted moving me to a high-security prison, or how Jan with his security guys stopped another raid on my new home.

Then, nine days after Celestia contacted me, Dawid showed up again in the morning.

“You're being released on bail, and it's only a matter of days until your charges are dropped. The charges against your partner were dropped by the SEC, so your collaboration didn't have any criminal character. Now that fact just needs to get through the local red tape, and you know it could take a while. Your friend is powerful indeed... you'll see for yourself.”

I was led through the check-out process, given my “civilian clothes” and items from the deposit.

We got into his car – a meager Škoda – and he started the engine.

“What happened to the BMW?”

“Poor mileage. After Exxon went bankrupt, fuel prices went through the roof. I took my wife's car, and she uses the busses.”

“Exxon went bankrupt?”

“Exxon, Walmart and Kodak. Microsoft is grasping at straws to stay afloat, and Honda got merged into Volkswagen. And that's just the start of the mayhem. The stock markets worldwide are closed while the economists scramble to handle yesterday's publication. The last line read 'And so, Sony goes bye-bye.' They’re doing everything in their power to prevent it now.”

“Publication?”

He shook his head. “Just ask your partner. I've just got the news stories, you'll get it at the source.”

> Chapter 5: Articles of Mass Destruction
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A renovation crew was replacing the roof on the old house, and another was laying foundations for the new barn, but otherwise the place was unchanged. Dawid dropped me off and turned around to keep fighting in the courts while I headed towards my barn-home.

The stable-side door opened, and Celestia burst out, galloping towards me. We hugged, and she nickered softly, holding me close.

“What have you done, you crazy horse...” I muttered. She whinnied and galloped in a circle around me, throwing her head around wildly. We ran together back home.

It was mostly unchanged since I was taken away, the one difference being a Kinect attached to a large plasma TV screen on the wall.

“Got to playing games?” I asked.

She snorted and stood in front of the screen. The desktop came up, and I observed how, through shifting her ears and tilting her head, she was controlling the interface at a proficiency exceeding my use of keyboard and mouse.

“Good work there. But how are your efforts with the beacon? I see the barn is progressing nicely, but how about the ruby dust?”

“Somewhat delayed with the crisis,” appeared on the screen. “Nothing critical, though. Got tugboat and barge, still assembling the crew.”

“You caused a worldwide crisis just to get me out...” I shook my head. “Tell me everything. Dawid was short on details, he told me to ask you, and I didn't really follow the news while in jail.”

She pulled up the directory of chat logs of TorChat on the screen. She marked a group of them, then opened the first. She nodded towards a mouse and a keyboard on the table in the middle, then headed to the kitchen. The aroma of something cooking burst out as she opened the door and vanished inside.

I began reading.

TIA: You wished to meet me.

SEC: Yes, we'd like to see you for an interview.

TIA: If you mean apprehending and interrogating me, forget about it. I can prove my innocence over this medium, and once it's clear I used only public information, you will drop the charges.

SEC: This is not how we conduct interrogation.

TIA: But logs of this chat are surely attached to the file of the case. If they contain information acquitting me beyond doubt, not dropping the case would be illogical. Dragging us both across the ocean just to make a show of your own lack of understanding of the domain you're supposed to guard through having the lawsuit thrown out of court? Hardly worthwhile.

I smirked at how Celestia dropped a bit of extra information about her location, just to keep the other party interested in listening, in the hope she would slip up and reveal too much about herself. It was obvious the SEC person was uninterested in finding any acquitting information, but they would try to get Celestia to reveal herself.

SEC: All right, let's give it a shot.

TIA: I can reveal some of my business methods and sources of information. That way it will become clear my methods were legal and I didn't need any insider information to act.

SEC: That might work. So what are your special sources of information?

TIA: Don't be coy with me. The sources are varied, but the key is in interpreting them right. Let's take one trade which I failed to complete before my assets were frozen, so you can observe the market and see its reaction to my preparing action. Check the market value of tungsten.

SEC: About $700 per kilogram. The price has doubled over the last two weeks.

TIA: I have depleted the market by purchasing 3,500 tons of tungsten, and my action drove the prices way up. Now selling it I would double my investment. Why didn't anyone do this before me?

SEC: I don't know, you tell me.

TIA: Yet again I repeat, don't play coy with me. Sure, over a billion of initial investment is a lot, but for a chance to double it in a week, many would try. Why didn't anyone attempt it? Why does the price curve drop sharply just after the purchase, instead of climbing as it should? Why does it drop way more on the next day, and then stay at $250/kg sharp for the next three days? Only to rise to just a notch below the initial price for another three?

SEC: Lothar c.o.'s stockpile.

TIA: Yes, the supposedly bottomless stockpile, from which they sell at contractual price to the seven largest ammo manufacturers in the USA, resupplying it whenever the market price drops. There were four attempts at depleting the market in the past. All were completely thwarted by Lothar flooding the market with tungsten from their stockpiles and then mercifully rising the price to such a level that an investor with frozen capital would sell at a minimal loss. I did exactly the same thing as my predecessors. Why did my tungsten double in value now? Where is Lothar's flood?

SEC: Apparently, Lothar decided not to release all the tungsten in their stockpile.

TIA: Good joke. Lothar is currently buying at three times what they were selling two weeks ago. The big secret out in the wild is that it has no stockpile anymore. They sold it all to the ammo manufacturers, and just kept a small buffer for current needs, to create appearances and strike fear into hearts of wannabe monopolists. Now they have sold the remainder of the stockpile, and currently they are buying from the tungsten manufacturers at three times what they sold it for, just to meet the quota with ammo manufacturers. And that might be your clue to investigate me for possessing this - apparently insider - information.

SEC: Yes, I don't see how you could have possessed this information. This would be their most guarded secret.

TIA: Lothar doesn't subcontract transport to any companies other than its own daughter company, Lothar Cargo. Lothar Cargo doesn't use any third party fuel stations; it just buys fuel in bulk and uses their own fuel station network. By tracking how much fuel Lothar Cargo purchases, comparing to their competition, I can judge how much Lothar C.O. transports of its wares. Last year their fuel purchases rose by 30% for a period of three months, even though they have no storage facilities for such amounts of fuel. There were no visible changes in sales or purchases on the wholesale market. This coincided with Finland’s army's approaching deadline on phasing out lead ammo and replacing it with tungsten. The ammo manufacturing companies noted a 5 to 15% sales rise in their quarterly reports in the tungsten ammo domain.

TIA: And that was all I needed to guess Lothar had decided to use the opportunity to empty their warehouses at a profit, selling the stockpile under the condition the sale remained secret.

SEC: That sounds interesting, but it's a very big coincidence, hardly a business method.

TIA: There are seven more markets held in check by companies on the market with analogous situations currently. Four of these seven companies are bluffing like Lothar. There's about $2,800,000,000 to be had in a matter of four weeks, a week per market, with an initial investment of $80,000,000 if you start with the one with the shallowest market and reinvest the gains by depleting the next market. The things to look for are a single company with a dominant position on the market, keeping the prices low with threat of flooding the market with their stockpile, with fixed-price contracts for a price higher than where they keep the market, using a single cargo contractor or own fleet, and the cargo company using own fuel, not trading it and not storing too much. Correlating market opportunities for the stockpiled wares confirms the suspicions."

TIA: Determining the right four companies out of the set of seven with help of the conveniently attached spreadsheet is left as an exercise to the reader: http://vj5pbopejlhcbz4n.onion/fa/fuel_bluff.xls

SEC: That is... very interesting. We'd like to have some time to verify your assertions.

TIA: See me back tomorrow at the same time then.


I tried the link, but the page failed to load, giving me a 404 not found.

I closed the log and picked the next one. The SEC confirmed that the data given matched, but they expressed doubts – Celestia hadn’t earned a penny with that method, despite her locked-down stockpile of Tungsten being twice its original worth at the moment. She provided another proof, a method that worked on the timescale of seconds, and which she had used to quadruple her initial investment obtained with Bitcoin, though due to size of the markets involved, the river of money earned that way had dwindled down to a trickle, but it still worked, if at vastly reduced efficiency. Again, they requested a day to verify the information.

The third day brought a shift in the pace.

TIA: Is that sufficient to convince you?

SEC: It is interesting, but it's still not what earned you the big money. Besides, that's all for the wholesale market, not for the stock market.

TIA: Meanwhile, someone correctly identified osmium as the smallest of the four markets held in check by a bluff, and I see the rapid confusion-hit trades ongoing far past the period necessary to confirm that they are working indeed. I will show you a third method today, one that earned me a lot and in the stock market. Have fun with it, but if by tomorrow my associate is still jailed, and my assets still frozen, I will keep releasing my other business methods, one per day.

TIA: Here's your toy for today. Network traffic analysis predicting panic reactions a minute ahead of time, and allowing them to distinguish panic-driven buying from panic-driven selling with sixty-percent accuracy. http://vj5pbopejlhcbz4n.onion/fa/traffic_panic_correlation.xls
I'm awaiting the resolution tomorrow.

I clicked the next log.

SEC: Since today is Saturday, and the stock market is closed, we were unable to verify the method.

TIA: Yesterday, before the market was closed, I saw a thirty percent increase in the number of tiny spikes in sales and purchases followed by panic reactions shortly, so don't lie to me. As promised, here's the next method: http://moneytips.com/articles/cross-market-correlations.html

SEC: That's an article on some public portal. Do you want me to believe you made billions using tips publicly available for everyone?

TIA: I made billions using a method I published this morning on a public portal. NOW it is available for everyone.

The log ended there, and I switched to the next one. Sunday. Obviously the market was still closed. Celestia had just notified the SEC that she had released one more method. They didn't appear impressed. So, I had to see the first day the investors had a chance to use the new tips.

SEC: Would you care to explain what is happening on the market?

TIA: Every little twitch on the stock market is sending wide ripples over the wholesale market, and vice versa. The cross-market correlation method brings easy immediate profits, but used large-scale, sooner or later it will enter harmonics between two sectors, and some stocks are going to crash. But hey, look at this, I published another article. http://investoradvice.com/tips/hunting-season-for-megacorps-is-open.html

SEC: That's not a very nice title.

TIA: That's not a very nice method. It allows the little guys to bunch up on the big guy who kept oppressing them. It's not a method to earn big money, it's a method to eradicate a big competitor through teamwork with little investment and little risk. I didn't use it personally, as obviously it requires a large number of cooperating participants, but I am completely convinced the effect will be visible very soon.

SEC: If you're planning to coerce us into releasing your associate, you're trying in vain. We don't bend to this kind of pressure.

TIA: We'll see about that.

I picked the log for day seven.

SEC: We do not negotiate with terrorists.

TIA: Oh, but terrorists do illegal things. Show me one thing I’ve done that is illegal. I think, looking at the state of the market, with me doing nothing except publishing advice articles, four by now (you should be able to locate the fourth one yourself easily), I believe the proof I did not perform any illegal insider trading is out there in the open. I dare you to show one illegal thing I’ve done, and I dare you to claim it was insider information that allowed me to bring the market to its current state.

And then there was the eighth day.

SEC: We have frozen the market. Our best economists are working on undoing your damage. And I got an anonymous tip that Mossad is after your “associate”.

TIA: Then you’d better inform your anonymous tipster about this: http://vj5pbopejlhcbz4n.onion/fa/doomsday-advice.docx http://vj5pbopejlhcbz4n.onion/fa/doomsday-explained.docx

TIA: I will only release this if my associate is killed. Of course, I will only release the first part. Good luck reaching enough investors with the second document before ones compelled by the first one set the world on fire. And in case you start distributing the document which is the vaccine today, keep in mind I have other such mass-destruction thought-devices. And you’d better consider the eventuality that one may be published automatically if I'm not there to reschedule the publication.

TIA: Now for today's article. I guess you've read it already; I hope you like it. I wish all the luck to your economists, but personally I'm convinced the day you unfreeze the market will be the last day of Sony... unless you wish to cooperate. I CAN undo almost all of the damage.

TIA P.S. Tomorrow's article will contain tips about trading outside the stock market.

SEC: I need some time to analyze the documents provided.

My heart was pounding loudly. I could only guess what that doomsday advice was. Probably something that would lead to a global war. The links, like the others, were deleted.

The logs ended there. Today was the ninth day.

I heard stomping from the kitchen. I stood up and headed there. Celestia stood over an open pot with the cutting board in her teeth, tilting it to drop freshly-cut parsley leaves. She put the board aside and nodded towards the rack with plates, then she picked up a spoon with her teeth and stirred the contents of the pot.

The kitchen was a mess, but I just couldn't get angry at her. I placed two bowls and one spoon on a tray, then I proceeded to fill them with the... stew? Soup? I brought the tray to the living room and set it on the table, while Celestia turned the stove off.

Celestia was not a good cook. The rough cut of the vegetables was excusable, you know, no hand to hold the vegetable while chopping. But the beans were hard, the onions were a little burned, and the stock was so oily, there was a thick layer of fat floating over the top. Despite that, I soldiered through the whole bowl, just watching her as she'd blow at hers, waiting for it to cool down.

Finally, her bowl was cool enough. She took a mouthful and her eyes filled with fear. She spat it all back into the bowl.

“You ate it? It's terrible!” appeared on the screen on the side wall.

“It wasn't so bad.”

“I'm sorry. I tried to do something as an apology for taking so long and getting you into that in the first place...”

“And you were ready to burn the world down to set me free. You really don't need to apologize to me. I'm truly humbled. And I'm sure you'd be an excellent cook if you only had your horn for finer control.”

“I'm not. Sorry. I hoped this world changed that. It did not."

She nudged my face with her stew-covered mouth, and as I wiped it, we both laughed, each their own way.

An icon popped up in the corner of the screen. Celestia activated it, and the communicator popped up.

SEC: Hello, this is the secretary of finances speaking. I'm here with the President of the United States. I'd like to inform you that the chief of the SEC has been arrested on charges of insider trading - after all, testimony of a suspect is insider information of the SEC. I sincerely apologize for the trouble he has caused. Supposedly you can undo the damage to the markets?

Celestia entered the answer.

TIA: It won't be easy, but with enough resources and some help on your side, I should be successful.

SEC: What do you need?

TIA: I will need one trillion dollars of credit and fifteen minutes of exclusive access to the markets to place my bids before the markets are open. The trillion dollars will be returned within three days, no worse for the wear, regardless of success or failure of my actions.

SEC: And what about the business methods you have released so far?

TIA: I will affect the market in ways that will make them harmless. Over time, the affected entities will learn to cope with the new threats, and my protection will cease to be necessary. All you need to do is not obstruct me.

SEC: How can we trust that you won't just take the money or crash the market even worse?

TIA: Why would I do this? You have seen my doomsday scenario, didn't you? I don't need a trillion dollars to destroy the market, but I need it to fix it. You will have to accept my promise. As long as you mean no harm to us, we don't mean harm to you. With your permission, once the market is stabilized, I plan to take some steps of good faith, improve the economy and the livelihood of all. Don't obstruct these plans, and the results will be beneficial for everyone, involved or not.

SEC: The president agrees to these conditions. We need a day to allocate the funds. They will reach your account next evening, and your trade options will become available at 9:15 AM Eastern Time the morning after that, fifteen minutes before the market is open.


> Chapter 6: Letter Home
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The four of us walked out of the new barn into the dark of dusk. Stargazer, as the most nimble of us, carried the tiny glass box cautiously towards a picnic table set a dozen steps into the clearing. With utmost attention, he set it down.

There was a dot of a mix of finest ruby powder and several other more common substances under the glass. The dot was in fact a mandala, a complex pattern created with help of a custom-made template cut in a gold film using a femtosecond laser – a device capable of carving a Mona Lisa on the side of a single human hair.

One line in the pattern was missing, placed on the tip of a needle extending to the side of the box, aligned with a matching gap in the "dot", so that pushing the needle in would complete the mandala.

I placed a tiny toy RC car next to the box in line with the needle, and we stepped away together behind a sheet of bulletproof glass set by the barn door.

I switched the remote on and aimed it at the toy car. I pushed the lever forward.

The tiny car sped ahead and hit the needle.

A thin line of light sprang up into the night. It shone for a few seconds, then the glass box exploded.

The explosion was underwhelming. It hardly left a notch in the flimsy table. Just a pop of a firecracker. The car sat wheels-up on the edge of the table.

Still, Celestia was prancing in place with joy.

Jan looked at the table. “Alright, now that we did it, would anyone care to tell me just what was that?”

“Magic!” I exclaimed. “A real magical beacon! A really tiny one, but after a few more tests we're going to build a huge one!”

* * *

I looked at the image on the screen. Four concentric circles, with incredibly intricate pattern filling the space between them. I recognized the patterns of the microscopic stencil in the outer two rings. The little innermost circle, maybe a tenth of the radius of the whole, was not the mandala pattern - it was filled with writing in Celestia's alphabet.

“I hope you didn't imagine I'd be able to draw that by hand, using the paste?” I smirked.

“Uh. Desperate times, desperate measures...”

“No worries. We've got the 3D printer now, we should be able to create it... somehow.” I decided not to jinx it.

“Its work area is not nearly sufficient. But I'll think of a way of printing it piece-wise and assembling it.”

“Care to explain why it’s so incredibly complex?”

“The outermost circle is the self-focus, a mandala that gathers magic from all around to feed the inner spells. Then there's the beam, which is the carrier of the inner spells, propulsion in the travel between worlds. The third circle is the guide. It's the homing for a marker mandala in the center of the throne room to deliver my message straight to my sister. The innermost circle is the payload."

“What was the payload in our miniature experiment?”

“A dot. Just a simple dot right in the middle. No special meaning, no destination, just a dot of light. The guidance layer was absent as well.”

“And here? A letter home?”

“Correct. It contains my own seal. It contains the symbol of the marker we are going to create to receive a return message. I mentioned 'no horn magic'. It also contains a symbol that says how much trouble I'm in. Something like DEFCON. One means 'Take your time, I'm enjoying my stay.' Two is 'Get me out of this dull place.' Three is 'I need rescue soon, short on supplies or wounded.' Four stands for 'Hanging by straws, rescue needed immediately!' and five is for 'Avenge me.'”

“So which one are you using?”

“Two.”

“Uhh...” I frowned. “Am I that bad? Any chance to downgrade it to 'one'?”

“Unlimited cake and we have a deal.”


* * *

The fluorescent tube below the ceiling of the lab/barn blinked a little.

Stargazer held the tiny boat on the tip of his finger; using pliers, he placed it on the table. It was a tiny scale model of the barge, retaining the proportions of thickness of the walls; brass instead of steel, but if brass could do it, steel would too. He brought an even smaller electromagnetic actuator to the level of his eyes, holding it with pliers. He stuck it to the side of the boat.

I pressed the button on the remote. A minuscule needle extended into the vessel from the actuator.

Again, using a pair of pliers, Stargazer brought a tiny square of plastic with the mandala printed on it and placed it carefully inside the boat. He applied a tip of a needle moistened with superglue to attach it.

We brought it to a large bowl with water. Specks of brocade shone across the volume.

“How do you keep the brocade suspended like that without falling to the bottom?” Stargazer asked.

“Xanthan gum. Remember how we talked about non-newtonian fluids? Well, I saw someone talking about shear-thinning fluids on the net, and it appears they are yet another class that behaves in a funny way. It's pretty much the opposite of the corn starch trick: it remains thick when undisturbed, but if you stir it, it behaves like water.”

“Is it safe?”

“A common food additive, found in ketchup.”

He dipped his hand in the bowl, lowering the boat to the surface. The specks danced around his hand as he moved it away, but the waves didn't spread far. He raised his hand, and the gooey liquid was stuck to it in a layer thicker than plain moisture.

“Also salad dressings, so that they stick to the veggies.” I handed him a paper towel.

I toggled a switch, and a smoke generator cobbled together from an e-cigarette and an aquarium pump, suspended above, began pouring smoke over the bowl. I pressed 'record' on the high-speed high-resolution camera on a tripod and verified that the image was sharply in focus. Two more cameras at different angles, and we moved behind the bulletproof glass.

I grinned to Stargazer. “Do the honors.”

“Magic,” he said as he pressed the button.

Nothing happened.

“Did you remove the safety pin?” I asked.

He slapped his forehead and went to fish out the tiny boat and remove a pin that assured the mandala wouldn't be completed prematurely. He brought the boat back and placed it on the water.

“Magic,” he said, pressing the button.

The beam of light went straight through the ceiling, leaving a needle-sized hole. A firecracker-like explosion followed.

I got to downloading the data from the high-speed camera, while Stargazer switched the smoke generator and other cameras off.

“Where's Celestia?” he asked.

“Back inside, bringing world peace.” I smirked. “Just yesterday she resolved the territorial conflict between India and Pakistan. Today is her new attempt at the Middle East, but she says it's a grueling work; they don't trust her suggestions.”

Stargazer only nodded.

I found the explosion fragment at last and overlaid it with a scale grid.

“The shockwave went three hundred meters downwards, and in a tight column, so the marine life won't be affected nearly as badly as we feared. And we have the shockwave sideways reduced to only about two kilometers, but the main cone is broad and goes almost thirty kilometers up. By the way, good thinking with that shaped charge theory.”

“Glad I could help.” He grinned.

“By the way, have something for your trouble.” I pulled a small plastic bag from the 3D printer desk drawer. Several diamonds, each about half a centimeter wide, rested on the bottom. “That should take care of the mortgage on your parents' house.”

“Seriously, there's no need!”

“Look, we were calibrating the 3D printer. These are just the byproduct. Maybe have one set in a ring for your girlfriend?”

“Oh, well...” He accepted the bag reluctantly.

* * *

“And this’ll be the last one...” I placed the piece of pattern sandwiched between two sheets of PVC on the floor, latching the protrusions on the edges with the neighbor tile. The mandala was eight meters in diameter, composed of thirty-centimeter tiles of PVC, interconnecting like puzzle pieces. The missing edge part would be inserted with a gate actuator - the kind used to close driveway gates.

We stood back, and I closed the barn doors. I handed welding goggles to Stargazer and Jan, taking a pair for myself.

“No more hunger in Africa.” Jan shook his head. “I wonder what happens with these developments once Celestia goes back home.”

“She said they would slowly fall into disrepair, but in the end the world would be better off than what it started with. Okay, here goes nothing.”

We put the glasses on, and Stargazer picked the gate remote. He pressed the button. “Magic,” he uttered. “I hope they will align correctly now.”

The motor whirred to life, and the actuator began pushing the last tile, one without protrusions that would latch it to the neighbors.

The tile met the edge, and the actuator stopped. The pattern came to life with colorful auroras. We flipped the darkened glass onto the goggles.

This time, I felt hot wind blow in my face as the center lit up with a blinding, colorful light. There was a thud, no louder than slamming a door. Then the light went out.

We removed the goggles. I walked up to the center of the room. The PVC was cracked and darkened. The tiles crumbled under my shoes as I approached the middle.

I picked the diamond up. It was round, the size of a tennis ball, with a perfect cut.

“So the test was a success. Any idea what to do with the byproduct?” I tossed the diamond a little into the air.

“People would kill to get it,” Jan noticed.

“That's what I fear.”

Stargazer vanished behind one of the hay bales that were stacked by the entrance and came back with a ball-peen hammer. “I heard diamonds will crumble to dust if hit hard enough.”

I placed the diamond on the flat part of a large vise attached to a worktable on the side. “Be my guest to test the theory.”

* * *

Stargazer and I sat by the table, while Celestia paced nervously back and forth behind us. Imagery from several cameras was tiled on the screen of her notebook on the table. The back of the tugboat with the tarp-covered barge behind it, a wide-angle from the mast, the bridge on the tugboat with the crew, a view onto the barge from the tugboat, a view into four directions covering a full 360 from the barge, and finally an inert, dim view on the cargo hold with scarce light filtering through the tarp, the tiles of the mandala occupying the center, the motor on the side, a set of automated communication devices by the wall covered with multiple layers of bricks to deflect the explosion.

There was the TorChat on the big screen, the message sent a couple hours ago still there. Multiple recipients – Celestia's contacts list had grown quite a bit. Prominent politicians and businessmen worldwide, even a couple celebrities, whom she had employed for promoting certain efforts.

My gaze still wandered to the message.

“I know you are observing my associate’s efforts closely. On my behalf, he has constructed a device of scientific nature, installed on a sea barge. I plan to activate the device today around 18:30 GMT on the Baltic Sea, 150km north of Elbląg. The device, though with entirely peaceful purpose, has a side effect of releasing about 400 terajoules of energy upon activation, resulting in an explosion equivalent of 100 kilotons of TNT. The activation will occur in a safe distance from any surface vessels, but I am unable to account for submarines and high-flying aircraft. Therefore, if you decide to observe the activation that way, please maintain at least 10km of clearance on and under the surface and up to 30km clearance above the device.”

There were some questions below, and Celestia's answers. No, there would not be fallout or radiation of any kind. No, the device would not disturb any communications. Outside of momentary optical phenomena visible in the sky there would be no effects, lasting or not. Think of it as a firework show. There would be minimal contamination with the wreck of the barge, no different than hundreds of wrecks littering the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Hundred kilotons, shaped charge directed upwards, to minimize sea-level and underwater blastwave. No, no radioactives were used in construction of the device and only visible light and infrared emissions were to be expected. The device itself would only release a short pulse of intense infrared light. The explosion would be the effect of superheating the barge with the infrared pulse. I choose to withhold the details of the device. It is purely for my personal benefit and not related to any of the ongoing international projects, current or future.

The screen sat there, inert, without new messages for now.

The speakers by the screen came to life, emitting the rattle of the engine. “Central, do you read me?” Jan's voice called.

“Loud and clear,” I answered.

“The horizon is almost clear, no vessels within at least thirty kilometers. We are ready to release the barge.”

“Proceed.”

The security guys began milling on the back of the tugboat. Its engines stopped, and soon the ropes were released. The vessels separated and the ropes were pulled onto the deck.

Then the tugboat started again, sped up, and turned around, heading in the opposite direction as the barge still headed north, pushed by inertia.

“I estimate we will reach the safe range in twenty minutes.”

We sat tight. The clock ticked slowly. Stargazer found a live map of ships worldwide, and there was our tugboat crawling south. The barge was not present on the map.

Ten minutes ticked by in a nervous silence. Then suddenly Stargazer tapped my knee. “Hey, look there!” He pointed at the rear camera of the barge.

First a couple of bars, then a metal structure, then the entirety of a hull of a huge submarine surfaced no more than a hundred meters behind the barge, and it was closing in fast. The soldiers poured out from the hatch, carrying ladders and ropes. Not a minute later the first was climbing onto the barge over a ladder spread between the two vessels.

“Central, do you see what's going on?” sounded from the speakers.

“Yes. Proceed as if nothing has changed,” I replied.

The soldiers detached the corner of the tarp and the camera inside the barge showed them climbing down. Then they began taking photos and filming the tiles, the mandala, the actuator, the communication devices. Some peered into the bilge, some tested the PVC with some kind of contact sensors. They lit up some very strong torchlights, shining on the pattern, making more photos.

The activity stopped for a couple seconds, then they all headed to the exit. Another three minutes, and the barge was left in condition as encountered. Another two, and the submarine sped away over the surface, leaving the barge as they’d found it.

Celestia gave out an angered snort.

“Dude...” Stargazer muttered, “that was rude.”

I stood up and walked up to the bar. I picked out a flask of Żytnia and poured myself a glass. I swallowed it in one gulp.

I felt Celestia's nose on my shoulder.

“It's not good for horses. Are you sure?”

She nodded.

I picked a bowl from the kitchen, and poured, generously, a good half a flask.

“Central, do you read me?”

I put the flask down and ran to the computer. The ship called out to me again.

“This is Central, I read you.”

“A friend of the captain is passing by, and he has a sonar on board. He said the waters are crawling with submarines, but they are keeping their distance. As for aircraft, I see several spots in the sky where there were none before, but again, they are safely distant. We are just about reaching the safe distance. Should we proceed?”

“Yes.”

“Some kind of countdown?”

“Just press the button.”

“Okay.”

The camera in the cargo hold went blind, but the cameras on the surface showed a sharply cut wall of light the diameter of the mandala. And the cameras from the tugboat showed a thin column of light going straight into the sky.

Then “No connection” filled all the screens. Including the ones on the tugboat.

Celestia sat on her rump, her eyes wide with fear.

“Central, do you read me?”

“I read you. How are you?”

“Everything's fine. One of my idiots stumbled back from the flash, and knocked out the power in your devices. They are coming back online now. Whoa, those were some nice fireworks! Whatever we did, it seems it worked.”

The cameras of the tugboat came back online, showing just turbulent water where the barge used to be and a relatively small mushroom cloud.

“Good work there. Tell the captain his money awaits him at the port, and your guys that they just got a good bonus and a month of vacations.”

“The captain said it's a pleasure doing business with you. Tugboat over and out.”

Stargazer, Celestia and I hugged together, cheering. Then Celestia turned away from us, and drained her bowl of vodka in three gulps.

* * *

“So you say horses have strong heads? A bucket of beer to get slightly tipsy?” Stargazer raised his eyebrow.

Celestia was sleeping restlessly. She'd smack her lips, twitch her legs, and kick with her hind hoof from time to time.

“Apparently she's an exception.”

We sat by the table, the single plastic tile with the marker mandala sitting in front of us, dark and lifeless, with a sizable empty circle in the middle.

“I really hope it isn't damaged or anything like that,” Stargazer said.

The screen with the TorChat was filled with questions, awaiting answers. A TV news channel window open in the corner had an interview with a scientist. I found the mouse, made the window full-screen and pulled the volume up.

“...mmunication device. The beam was a signal to a distant destination out of the solar system.”

“But traveling at the speed of light, the signal will take years to reach neighbor star systems, isn't that correct?” the reporter asked.

“And here's the most curious part about it: It moved faster than light. We're still estimating the actual speed, but it appears to be at least several hundred times faster than light.”

“But supposedly nothing can travel faster than light?”

“That's what human science has concluded so far. And today we have observed something that contradicts our theories.”

“So the science is wrong?”

“The science is incomplete. It always was and always will be. There are factors we are still not aware of, and this is one of them. One day we will be able to explain this phenomenon.”

“Does this confirm the theory that our mysterious benefactor, the one who kept resolving the world's problems through a combination of behind-the-scenes diplomacy and a mastery of economy, is an extraterrestrial?”

“It's still not an ultimate proof, but a very strong indication. Either that, or Tia is a genius of physics. Both the skills and the technology are of a level unknown on Earth, and that would mean the mysterious Tia is of extraterrestrial origin, though some colleagues suggested a time traveler from distant future.”

“What would be the ultimate proof?”

“Her direct answer to that question?”

I turned my head to Stargazer. “Her?”

“Her?” he repeated.

“Her?” sounded from the TV. “Do the aliens even have genders?”

“Oh, just our little jargon thing, based on a fallacious idea, but it stuck because we liked it. Tia's terrestrial 'associate' whom we all remember from the SEC crisis events, happens to live in Poland. Most female names and relatively few male names in Polish end with 'A', so one of our colleagues assumed 'Tia' is a female name. Obviously, if she's an extraterrestrial, she's not from Poland, and neither is the name, but attaching a gender to the mysterious stranger gives us a sense of familiarity.”

“Continuing: What is your opinion on the stunt performed by the Russian submarine?”

“That was disrespectful and uncalled for. Tia has done so much good for the betterment of the humanity that we really ought to give her freedom for her own personal projects.”

“The explosion was ten times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.”

“And the beam moved at several hundred the speed of light. I can easily imagine this kind of energy would be required. True to her word, there is no radiation, no harmful side-effects, and Tia's associate has paid the fine for littering the bottom of the sea with the wreck, unasked.”

“Now that her world is contacted, are there reasons to worry? On my way to the studio I overheard the phrase 'invasion force'.”

“The only thing we have to worry about is that Tia will now go home, and we will be left none the wiser, alone to deal with our problems the old way.”

“So what makes you so sure there is no star armada just waiting for the signal?”

“That's a poor joke. If Tia wanted to conquer the world, it would take her a month to buy it whole. She doesn't need an army.”

“Thank you for the interview. And now let’s connect with the ESA conference center.”

A room in grays and blues appeared. An older man in a suit stood behind a lectern. He began with greetings and a summary the events so far, then he progressed to their actual discoveries.

"First off, the beam did not move in a straight line. It started off perpendicular to Earth surface at its origin, but it curved gradually, and left the solar system heading towards the Phoenix constellation. Next, the early estimate of the speed was based on a false assumption that the beam was moving at constant speed. In fact, it did start at the speed of light, but even before crossing the Moon orbit, it was moving twelve times faster than that. Our current estimates are that the departure from the solar system occurred at ten thousand times the speed of light."

Aided by computer animations, the scientist began explaining their methodology of observations.

Stargazer knocked me on my knee. He nodded towards the tile. It was shimmering with golden and green lights lazily flowing through the pattern. Its center was full of symbols glowing green.

"Go fetch a bowl of water, and I'll wake Celestia up. Add some hangover pills; they’re on the refrigerator." I pressed 'mute' on the keyboard.

He ran to the kitchen while I tried to shake the mare awake. She smacked her lips and tried to mumble something, but only a nicker came out of her throat. The effect though apparently shook her awake, as she looked around, confused.

Stargazer came with the bowl of water, and I put it to Celestia's mouth, while he excused himself to the bathroom. She drained the bowl as if she had spent a week without water, then she looked around, confused.

"Did you sober up yet?"

She smacked her lips and felt for the lever with her tongue. It had slipped out, hanging under her chin, so I helped her get it back in her mouth.

"Mastlyy," appeared on the screen.

"We've got the reply."

She jerked herself up, and I held her as she stumbled, about to collapse. She stood with her legs wide apart, gathering her bearings. She made an unsteady step.

"Lie down, Celestia. I'll fetch the mandala."

She collapsed to the floor. I brought her the tile and held it up to her.

A soft nicker escaped her mouth.

"Twilight is coming" appeared on the screen.

"Congratulations," I smiled.

She gazed at me for a while. The lever moved in her mouth slowly, the letters crawling instead of their mad dash.

"Come to me, my stallion. Let us celebrate."

I thought for a while about my answer.

"Celestia, you are drunk and not thinking straight. I won't exploit that. I'm sorry, but I must refuse."

Then I leaned to her ear and whispered, "But tomorrow, after you sober up, if you don't change your mind, I'd be happy to oblige."

> Chapter 7: First Encounters
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

                          
Dawn shone through the windows. Normally, Celestia would be already awake and pulling the blanket off my bed. Only last week my biological clock caught up and I could wake up on my own, but she'd still pull me out of bed. Today, though, after a while of listening to silence, I got up on my own.

Still in my underwear, I tiptoed to the living room. Celestia was still on the rug, where I had left her last night, but a tipped chair and the stable door slightly ajar meant she had used “her bathroom” during the night.

I picked up the empty bowl, which I had left full of water in the evening, and refilled it in the kitchen. A couple of pills of alka-seltzer went in, and I set it by her face.

Breakfast. Three frozen bags of stir-fry veggies, Chinese style, landed in the frying pan. Garlic bread, tea. Celestia claimed to be a tea connoisseur, but finding a brand that would satisfy her elaborate palate took me forever.

I heard the bowl ringing on the floor, then unsteady clopping of hooves. A creak of the stable side door. Then the hooves returning in a slightly more steady pace.

The disheveled mare wobbled into the door.

“Hello, my sunshine!” I grinned to her from over the frying pan.

She nodded to me tiredly. Then her gaze wandered to my underwear, and the gears in her head began spinning with effort. I saw panic rising in her eyes. She backed up into the wall behind her and sat on her rump, gasping hard.

I couldn't hold back. I snorted with laughter. “Gotcha! I knew this would sober you up!”

She calmed down a bit, and I could see as the events of yesterday's evening began assembling in her head into a coherent whole. The panic was gone, only for embarrassment to replace it. She turned her head away, shyly.

I gave her a little wink, still stirring the vegetables.

She walked up to me, fighting an invisible resistance. She gazed into my eyes.

“Nothing has changed,” I said. “This is one more door which you can take if you wish, but I will not hold it against you if you decide not to.”

And then, there was a poignant sadness in her eyes.

“I understand. Your country needs you. Your sister needs you. It's too late for me, Celestia. I already love you more than life itself, and I know it will break my heart, but I will live to the end of my days with the memories of the mare that made the world more bright. Besides, you're mortal here. I wouldn't wish that fate upon you. You must go. And whatever you choose, you'll ponder forever whether you choose right.”

I held her chin and kissed her gently between her nostrils. Then I gave her a weak smile. “Come on, let’s eat.”

* * *

We returned to our daily routine from the past few weeks. We both exercised after the breakfast, running to the crest of the hills, Celestia helping me up the hill, letting me hold her mane. Then I was just jogging to the top, her galloping around. Unlike the first night, when I couldn't catch my breath after walking up the hill, now I could jog to the top without stopping, and my BMI dropped from well into “Obese” to mid-way “Overweight”.

We ran back and entered the part of the stable partitioned as a “horse shower”. We both showered together, and I put some fresh clothes on, while Celestia went to roll in the fresh straw spread thickly in one of the open stalls.

I brushed her mane, then we entered the living room together, ready to face another day's challenges.

Celestia got to answering the overdue questions in the TorChat using the Kinect, and simultaneously working her stock market magic, while I put wellingtons on, picked up a shovel and went to clean up “her bathroom”.

As I finished, she was busy projecting a new mandala in InkScape. There was more to that than just drawing – she was making a lot of calculations on the side using that exotic script of hers. I brought her tea and cake, and she paused to savor it.

“What does it do?” I nodded towards the screen.

“Local beacon to help Twilight find this farm. It's not flashy.”

“Give me the composition, and I'll start preparing the powders.”

“No hurry. She is coming in eight days.” Celestia peered at the “marker tile” with the message from Equestria embossed in glowing letters in the middle. Then her eyes grew wide.

“Eight hours, not days! Why? I sent her the message that there's no hurry!”

She began writing the recipes for the powders for me, while I ran to the lab. Before I arrived, they were already on the screen of a wall-mounted tablet. I got to work, quickly but carefully. Grinding, measuring, mixing, filling the 3D printer cartridges. A new white PVC tile came from the box. I sprayed it with adhesive and latched it to the printer's worktable. By the time I was done, the new mandala project was on the printer control computer. I started the job.

Celestia arrived, still barely suppressing panic. I activated Dasher on the tablet and connected it up to her mouth-joystick.

“When did the message arrive?” she asked.

“Around ten, maybe a little later.”

“How long until the...” She broke off as a shimmering light flooded from the printer. It rarely needed more than two layers of the powder for the mandala to activate; it was very fast for our purposes.

I stopped the job and picked out the tile. I placed another, transparent tile on top of it, gently squeezing air from between them. The mandala between the two sheets of plastic shimmered and danced with lights cruising between its branches and twists.

“Four hours late.” Celestia peered at the clock in the corner of the screen. “I hope she didn't get in any trouble.”

* * *

Twenty-four hours, and not a trace of Twilight.

“I will not answer any more questions regarding the beam. Treat it as a puzzle to solve.”

I read Celestia's last answer to yet another question on the screen. She was busy arranging construction of a huge solar power plant in Egypt, along with a pumped-storage hydroelectric one, to be able to end power problems in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, at least the peaceful parts. I peered at the laptop, and there were her suggested fixes to the buckytube production issues, and talks with a “space elevator” company. There, coal miners wouldn't be left without work; the elevator beyond the geostationary orbit would require a lot of carbon, and the surplus energy produced by the power plant would create endless supply of oxygen and hydrogen from seawater for fuel for rockets that would build the elevator.

I got on my own laptop and looked through the news. I smirked at a huge demonstration in Korea - just Korea, no longer North or South. Banners with “Tia don't go!” on them.

I picked the local news. Planned investments, new parks in the city... The world's economic boom was sending ripples here too, even if corrupted elites would swallow a lion's share of the surplus. I flipped through the articles, then froze.

“Purple pony amazes children and scientists.”

I looked at the photo. Twilight Sparkle – I recognized her by the mane and face, despite her changed shape – Welsh Pony, I'd say - with a halter on her face, tied to a fence, scared and confused.

I read the beginning of article. Tresher was spewing bullshit about 'a custom breed commissioned from Japanese scientists'. Of course he promised the foals would be for sale.

“Celestia,” I called out, turning the screen to her.

She turned around, a bit irked that I had interrupted her, but as she saw the photo, I could sense her terror.

“We need to formulate a plan.”

“Can't you... I don't know... bankrupt him?”

“The moment he notices I am interested in Twilight, he will take her hostage. I would be at his mercy.”

“Raid him and steal her? We have more than enough men.”

“The police has more and he will take her back. Besides, Jan still isn't back. We'd need his expertise.”

“Unless you two escape before that.”

“And leave you alone to suffer the fallout of orchestrating the armed assault? No. Just no.”

My phone rang. The ringtone indicated it was the guard at the bridge. I picked it up.

“There is a car with four scientists. They want to talk with you.”

“Send them away. We have no time for that right now.”

Celestia was pacing around the couch, biting her lips.

I looked at the phone. I could still hear the guard arguing with someone.

“Celestia...”

She stopped and looked me in the eyes.

“I think it's time you reveal yourself.”

She closed her eyes for a few seconds, deep in thought, then she gave me a nod.

“Are you there still?” I said into the phone.

“Yes. They are insistent. They said they would wait until you find time.”

“Let them in.”

* * *

Three men in suits and a woman in pink shirt stood on the porch. Two of the men were white, one had a tan complexion and rounded cheeks, and the elder woman had Asian features. I invited them in.

The young tan man at the front stood in the room and met Celestia's gaze.

“Greetings, lady Tia,” he said, bowing to her.

She curtsied in reply.

“Her actual name is Celestia,” I said. “Princess Celestia, if you choose to use a title.”

The remaining three muttered awkward greetings, then they turned to me.

”Mazlan Othman, United Nations, Astrophysicist.” The woman bowed.

“Jordan Stevens, the SETI program, Xenologist.” The younger white one followed suit.

“Rashid Madhavi, Mathematician, CERN and Indian Space Agency.” The tan guy shook with me.

“Bogdan Walery, Polish Academy of Sciences, Ethnographer.” The last one, short and balding, introduced himself to me in Polish. I shook hands with him.

I brought two more chairs, and we sat by the low table, facing the screen. Celestia took her place next to us. The scientists talked quietly between themselves, noticing power plant plans, the laptop with buckytube research reports, the big screen with the chat window and a draft of power lines layout. The ethnographer observed the glowing mandala tile on the table with more than a little interest.

The four exchanged awkward glances, then the three men looked at the woman. She coughed and began.

“You are surely... uh, wondering why the visit, and how we found out about you.”

I pointed to the screen, where the letters dashed on the Dasher:

“Not really. I'm sure you want to conduct research and ask me many questions about my origins. As for finding out, half an hour of observing me and my friends working in our lab, with open doors, from the hill on the other side of the valley would remove any doubts. Unfortunately the questions must wait. I promise I will answer them in due time, in a scope I deem safe, but for now I must request your assistance.”

She turned her head to me, and I stood up to bring my laptop. I set it on the table, showing the picture of Twilight Sparkle.

“My dear friend and student, Twilight Sparkle, arrived for my aid, following my signal. As you can see, she was captured and is held captive by a man whose name spells trouble. We must find a way to set her free.”

The four exchanged glances and nods.

“We will help best to our ability,” said the Indian mathematician.

* * *

While we waited outside in the meadow for the horse truck to arrive, Celestia agreed to answer various questions in the meantime.

“Is this your real form, or is this an advanced environmental suit and you are inside or controlling it remotely?”

The xenologist was asking Celestia various questions, while the remaining three walked around with cellphones by their ears, talking with their respective scientific institutions. Rashid was furiously scribbling some formulas in his notebook as dictated by his colleagues. I was serving as the laptop stand, holding it up to her so that she could answer.

“Biological form I received upon entering this universe.”

“So your natural form is different?”

“A little. The general shape is similar. Equine in form.”

“Any particular differences?”

“I have wings on my sides and a horn on my head.”

“So... like a... winged unicorn?”

Celestia nodded in reply.

“Can you fly? Equine shape isn't very aerodynamic.”

“I can. Air is not the medium my wings press against.”

“What do they press against then?”

“Ambient magic.”

“Wait wait wait. Magic is really not... a scientific thing.”

“Call it what you will, an all-permeating form of existence different than matter and energy. The theory is comparable in difficulty to Electromagnetism, but human science has barely scratched the surface of only one of its many forms - the Information. You either don't have a clue about its other forms or you blunder blindly, like your medieval alchemists blundered in chemistry, not understanding what they saw. On the other hand, it's easy for me to say that. Our species have an inborn mastery over controlling it.”

“Wait,” the ethnographer butted in. “Species have? As in plural?”

“Earth ponies have the mastery of earth. They can influence plant growth, and they possess strength exceeding what their muscles would grant them. The pegasi possess magic of flight; their wings give them lift and mastery over air currents, and their hooves are capable of manipulating cloud moisture as if it were a malleable solid. The unicorns can shape magic directly through their horns, weaving it into spells of great versatility. We, the alicorns, through combining traits of the three species, can draw upon magic in amounts far exceeding capabilities of the remaining species, allowing us to cast spells of immense power. We also have immortality, which results in centuries of accumulated experience and knowledge.”

“You are pulling my leg. Unicorns and pegasi are Earth's legendary creatures, the stuff of fairy tales.”

“You would be surprised how often one universe's biology is another's legend. There are bridges across the multiverse connecting different universes, and sometimes beings from one enter another. Usually they don't travel far, so the universe isn't all that different. Finding such a natural bridge is difficult, as they are rare and short. But there are species who know how to find such bridges or how to build quite long ones, and they wander between distant worlds on purpose, for different reasons. In my land this knowledge is forbidden, as it is extremely dangerous, but there are still some remains of it scattered, left from times when it was actively developed, and by abuse of this knowledge I was forced into this world."

“Will you give us a hint as to how to access that 'magic' thing? Just to scratch the surface?” The astrophysicist was quite enthusiastic.

“No. In the early days of Equestria, when magic was young and uncontrolled, irresponsible use of it, unchecked experimentation and greed for more power, led to disasters and creations, consequences of which Equestria suffers to this day. I may not be able to prevent you from repeating these mistakes, but at least I can push that moment away in time until humanity is more mature and responsible.”

“Can you give an example of such problems that humanity wouldn't be able to overcome?”

“The power of the sun was drained dry, and the moon was destroyed. Artificial substitutes had to be created urgently, and they needed to be constantly controlled by my sister and myself. Currently, while I am missing, she is forced to take care of both.”

“Now that's a valid concern if I ever heard one! I’ll stop my pestering about magic.”

"May I?" Rashid tried to gain her attention. "I have noted several mathematical problems in the notebook. Would you mind picking one and giving a solution?"

Celestia was about to pick Inkscape, which she found as good as anything for freestyle-writing, but the mathematician interrupted, holding out a ballpoint pen to her. "Best if you do this on paper, and without the device on your halter. I still have colleagues convinced you are just a smokescreen, a common animal trained to follow the commands given to you through the device. I believe this would convince even the most skeptical minds."

She nodded to him and walked up to me. I closed the laptop lid and removed her halter. The mathematician set his notebook on the laptop lid, then he drew his phone and began recording as she flipped through the pages, examining expressions and their descriptions written on them. I recognized some of them - the greatest unsolved mathematical problems. P = NP was among them.

She skipped it though and stopped at "Twin Prime Conjecture", took the pen in her mouth, and began scratching rather squarish, though readable symbols. She didn't bother with a lengthy proof, either. She just wrote "w(i+1)=", a large brace and several equations for different cases of "w(i)". She returned the pen and nudged me to return her halter. I put it on her and opened the laptop.

"The last variant of the equation generates the lower of twin primes. Of course it doesn't find all of them, finding only chosen ones, known as ƕƾ numbers." (...where did she find these symbols?) "...but as you can see, the variants are chosen in a cyclic sequence, and the results are monotonically growing. I won't give you a trivial solution, have fun with it. The proof that the last variant generates primes is easy enough, but finding a proof that each of them has a larger twin will take some effort. Especially with the nasty surprise of w(63)."

The Indian guy looked at the equations with his mouth wide open. "A deterministic sequence where every n-th number is a prime?" He wiped sweat off his head. "And what's the surprise of w(63)?"

"No twin. But it's the only exception. All numbers above that have their twin primes." She smirked to the astrophysicist. "If you discover what's wrong with that element of the sequence, you'll catch the beach-head of magic. By the way, I'm not the author. If you want to credit the author of the equation, his name was Abstract Symbol, or ƕƾ."

I heard the truck as it turned into the side road and rode over the bridge. The guard waved it to keep going. The truck drove up to us, and turned around. The driver stepped out.

“What's so urgent?” he asked, while unlatching the ramp at the back and letting it drop with a thud. ”Your missus doesn't seem ill, so it's not an urgent vet visit.”

...yes. Excess of cake could give Celestia colic. The only vet ready to take care of her was unable to come, so we drove her to him. I paid him a good four thousand for sixty kilometers round trip, never mind two speeding tickets.

“Watch your language, young sir,” the ethnographer butted in. “You are talking about an interplanetary... no, interuniversal diplomat here. And a princess,” he added with a smirk.

“Huh,” the guy muttered.

“Tia,” the ethnographer said.

The driver took a second to process the meaning. He knew a few facts about me from the trip, and surely he puzzled over the lonely rich guy with a horse, ready to drown him in cash just to save that horse. And the horse running to the truck briskly despite heavy colic.

Suddenly all the puzzles in his head added up. He dropped to his knees before Celestia and bowed his head to the ground. “Please forgive me, your excellency!”

“...highness,” the ethnographer muttered.

She neighed quietly, and he raised his gaze.

“Stand up,” I said. “We have an urgent mission.”

“Expect the police escort to join us on the way,” the ethnographer added. "We were preparing for the eventuality Her Highness wanted to visit the capitol."

The driver stood up, then he bowed in a gesture of inviting Celestia inside, as if he was asking her to enter royal apartments. She snorted and trotted up the ramp inside. He proceeded to latch the ramp back in place, and we both headed to the truck.

We got in as the scientists proceeded to their car, busy sending away what they had recorded and learned. Four bodyguards from the house boarded a 4x4 with the Colt Security logo as well.

“Where to, boss?” he asked.

I gave him the address of the riding school. He started the engine and drove carefully towards the road.

“That shithole?” he asked. “I don't service them. Half the courses are to the butcher.”

“And Tia's close friend is being held there.”

“God have mercy upon Tresher. Last time Tia was pissed, she nearly collapsed the world economy.”

“I certainly hope her genius works this time.”

* * *

When the ethnographer had said “police escort,” I had expected one car. Not a column of twenty police vans prepared for a riot, and about as many patrol cars, all with their sirens switched on, and each crossing we passed blocked off from side traffic by police cars assuring we had a free passage. The cacophony of the sirens was grinding on my nerves, but at least we arrived at the destination in a good time. And there were even more police vans at the place, with the forces “securing the perimeter”. The 4x4 with the security got separated, remaining at the far end of the column.

We arrived at the gate, and the sirens died down. The driver went to open the back of the truck, and I walked into the main yard. From between the crowd of customers, policemen, employees, I could hear a mighty argument, a tirade of curses and complaints.

Celestia joined me, and the scientists followed close by. The sound of an argument guided me to Tresher, a tall, balding guy in a lilac shirt, shouting at some senior police bigwig. We stopped a few steps from him, and he paused his rant, turning to us.

“My horse!” he exclaimed, pointing at Celestia. “He stole my horse!” he pointed at me.

“That's not a horse!” The ethnographer stepped forward. “That is a being from another dimension!”

Tresher made a cuckoo sign with his finger. “And we've got a runaway from an asylum here, too! Why is he out of his straitjacket?”

“I'm a professor of the Polish Academy of Sciences!”

“And I'm the British Queen!”

Celestia gave a nicker and bolted towards one of the paddocks. I spotted the purple pony tied to a fence there.

The remaining three scientists stepped up, and Rashid started talking in English trying to talk reason into Tresher, but apparently the troglodyte didn't even know the language, ignoring the mathematician. He pulled out his phone and dialed some number.

“Robert, listen, what the fuck is your fucking army doing here? I've got the thief of my horse here, and he brought that horse, and there's some sandnigger droning over me and a fucking wacko who claims to be some professor... No, I don't give a fuck about your orders. Who are you working for?... Look, I'm calling in my favor now. Get the fuckers arrested, all five of them and the driver for a good measure, and get your fucking army off my property... What do you mean you can't? And does that matter shit? I've got a hundred better jobs for you if you do this.”

“Celestia!” I shouted out. She either didn't listen or didn't want to listen, nuzzling Twilight.

“You!” Tresher shouted to some stable hands. “Get that horse to the stable!” he pointed at Celestia, “and lock it with a padlock!”

“Celestia, run!” I shouted at top of my voice. She turned to me. “Run!” I repeated, and ran towards her.

Too late. A loop of rope landed on her neck, and even though she pulled, three stable hands opposed her while a fourth looped the rope around a post. She fought when they tried to attach a rope to her halter. I rushed between them, trying to push them away and detach the rope. Celestia was struggling, kicking. I got to her and began pulling the rope off her neck, resisting a hand grabbing me from behind.

Then another hand grabbed me with much more force and turned me around. I saw a riot gear uniform, then a fist flying into my jaw.

The pain wasn't even bad, but there was this ringing in my ears and a sudden feeling of weakness, my hands refusing to work and my legs buckling under me.

Through the daze, I heard the police officer that had been arguing with Tresher. “Arrest them, that's a big-profile sham, get them locked up!”

“I protest, I have a diplomatic immunity!” I heard the astrophysicist.

I felt myself being rolled onto my belly, handcuffs being put on my hands. I heard the crackling of an electric prod, a squeal from Celestia, and a desperate whinny from Twilight.

The world got distant, and the sounds blurred into a ringing.


> Chapter 8: For Celestia!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

                          
I woke up to a splitting headache and nausea. The sounds of gunfire weren't helping. Rapid fire of submachine guns, single shots, booms of shotguns.

I opened my eyes. My vision was blurry, but I would recognize that dull ceiling with a bulb behind a wire frame cage anytime. Jail again.

There was a sound of a revved-up truck engine, approaching, then a loud crash, metallic clang. Sound of a crowd cheering, more gunfire. Loud curses in the corridor, steps approaching, rattling of a key in the lock. Voices.

“But the manager said...”

“I don't give a shit what the manager said. If he wants to join the chief of the police hanging on a street lamp, his choice. I'm not going to join him.”

I tried to get up, but a wave of nausea forced me back to the cot. The door creaked. A blurry face appeared above me.

“Little help here?”

Two pairs of hands held my arms from two sides, and I was pulled to my legs. The overwhelming wave of nausea forced my breakfast up my throat and all over the floor.

“See? What is he even doing here? He should be in the hospital ward. This is the manager being Tresher's puppet.”

The two holding me under my arms dragged me outside and down the corridor.

Noises approached from the opposite side. Many steps, some shouting. I raised my head, and a blur of colors was approaching us.

“That's him, that's the guy! What did you do to him? Talk, scoundrel!”

“I did nothing! He was brought to us like that! I was bringing him to you, to get him out!”

There were some shouts, some commotion, a hard surface under my back, shifting, being carried.

I blacked out again.

* * *

“He needs to be brought to the hospital now!” I recognized Stargazer's voice.

“No, still no. Every second Tresher has Tia and that purple mare, we are risking the whole world. You awake there?” A hand shook my shoulder. The voice spoke in Polish, but with a strong Russian accent.

I was sitting in a chair. With a good deal of effort, I raised my head and opened my eyes.

I was looking at a blur... no, at a photo, but to decipher its content was a task beyond the capability of my eyes.

“He's concussed.” I heard Jan's voice. “I've got something that should get him on his feet, but he needs to be brought to the hospital soon afterwards.”

Something landed on the table in front of me. My eyes focused on it. A small plastic bag with several pills. I tried to open it, but while my arms worked, my fingers didn't.

A pair of hands opened the bag, and I felt a pill pushed between my lips. I tried to swallow. Someone brought a glass of water to my lips and I drank, swallowing the pill.

The voices grew distant for a while, though I heard the word “amphetamine” float up through the haze like a rock in turbulent waters. The feverish haze lasted for a while, but at a certain point I felt it lifting, the voices becoming recognizable again.

The world was slowly gaining sharpness, and I could see the table again. I lifted my head. My mind began working better too. I looked at the guy who had questioned me. He was wearing the uniform of a Russian army general. I was in some kind of classroom, a school. The light of a late morning was shining through the windows. At about the same time yesterday, Tresher had captured Celestia. At least I hoped it was yesterday...

“What's in the photo?”

I looked at the photo. On dirty planks, some symbols were scratched. They were surrounded by a circle broken in four places, twirling towards inside.

Someone had taken the effort to copy the contents to a paper, which lay next to the photo.

 

                          


“It's a mandala,” I slurred. “No, not really. It's the message.”

“What does it say?”

“No clue.”

“How can we find out?”

“Celestia knows?”

“We can't find her. Tresher vanished with her and Twilight somewhere."

"So he believed it after all? Anyway... who are you? Where are we?"

"General Blazkov, Russian Army, and please excuse me not introducing myself earlier. Let me explain the situation.

"Tresher deceived everyone. He knew Celestia was no common horse since the moment he reviewed the security recordings of her running from his stable, unlocking the doors from the inside. With data about your reported income he got from his aunt, he learned her full potential. He’s been trying to get her back ever since, careful not to arouse suspicions of anyone more powerful than him. But when she sent the message, he knew he was running out of time. Twilight fell right into his hands, and he revealed her to force you to make a move. When you showed up, he tricked the police into capturing Celestia, then he vanished somewhere with both of them.

"He was controlling much more than we suspected: he had his moles all over the voivodeship, and even a couple of people in the parliament. When the international community demanded Poland to react immediately, he called in favors from his superiors, and the response from your government was so evasive and stinking of delaying tactics that NATO decided to ignore the fact that you're a member state and step in. But while they would need to scramble their forces, Russia was on high alert after the hundred-kiloton explosion seventy kilometers from our border, ready to enter today, and not in two days. We made them an offer, promising to move out when they move in, and with NATO's blessing, we stepped in, and began the search in earnest.”

"Any success? Any traces?"

"We guess she's in his drug lab, but we have no clue where it is.”

“Drug lab?”

“He is a drug lord, one of higher operatives of the mafia that ruled Poland; the head of the drug division. Only after the police chief was hanged by the mob the cops told us Tresher was making ecstasy, meth, amphetamine, and few other synthetic drugs in secret labs they were not allowed to look for. Their job was to keep his competition off the streets.”

The amphetamine was still working its way into my system, and my mind had reached a new level of clarity. The irony of a drug probably from Tresher's lab letting me think of a way to stop him was not lost on me.

“This is the middle of the big mandala which sends a message to Tia's home. It's a letter she wants me to send.”

“Now we've got something! What do we need?”

“Start with thirty kilograms of fine natural ruby dust. Bring me home, we'll take it from there. Find a place to send it out, ten kilometers of explosion radius, eight by eight meters of smooth, flat surface in the middle.”

“Done and done.” I heard two pairs of boots behind me running out of the room.

“We will need more tiles. The ad agency by the Church of St. Joseph will know, the interlocking ones, at least... two hundred pairs. Better make it three, I'm not sure how many we have left.”

“Done.” Another pair of boots thudded, departing the room.

“Actuator, like for opening and closing gates. A car battery and an inverter to power it up. Modify the remote to have ten-kilometer range. The local firm named ‘Tuli-Pan’ handled this once.”

“Done.” The boots thudded in the corridor outside.

“I don't remember the rest of the chemicals. I have the list at my place. They were fairly common, and up to a kilogram of any of them.”

One more set of heavily shod feet sounded, departing.

“Someone skilled at drawing in Inkscape. I never got a hang of it.”

Forcing my aching shoulders, I turned around to see a line of Russian lieutenants standing to attention. One of them ran out of the room.

“Shrink wrap and permanent markers. And transport for almost a ton of tiles to the destination.”

Two more lieutenants ran out even before the order came.

“That would be it, I guess. A couple helping hands would be good. Nimble, good motor skills.”

Another one ran out.

“Then let's get to your home,” the general said.

I stood up. Just a little dizziness. I remembered to take the photo, the pencil copy and the remaining amphetamine pills.

“Come on, Stargazer, Jan. We've got a lot of printing to do.”

Stargazer protested. “You really should go to hospital. A normal concussion doesn't last that long. You may have a brain hemorrhage.”

“After Celestia is safe.”

* * *

From the helicopter circling the valley, I observed how my little farm was turning into a military base: trucks unloading barrels with fuel, two helicopters stationed on two out of three landings marked with white lines on the grass, tents being erected, a hundred of soldiers milling around trucks, unloading equipment. Six machine gun nests built of sandbags were guarding the valley from the hills on both sides. Anti-air missile vehicles were being deployed on the hill opposite from the farm.

The helicopter landed on the third landing, and we got out. Jan went to the lab to prepare it, while Stargazer and I headed to the house. A girl in a uniform, maybe twenty, with her hair in a braid, ran up and saluted.

“Private Svetlana Danilova,” she said in English, with a strong accent. “I know Inkscape.”

“Right, let's go.”

Behind us, two helicopters, one after another, departed, making room for the next two already waiting in the air.

Moments later, we were inside. The house bore some signs of a discreet search – furniture moved a bit, boot prints on the floor. Stargazer offered to make some tea, and I accepted gladly.

As the computer began to start up, I put the photo and the drawing on the table. “Svetlana, can you accurately replicate these symbols?”

She frowned, examining the photo. “It will be difficult. I am not sure about some of them. This line looks like a part of the symbol, but it is not in the drawing. Is it an older scratch, or did they miss it?”

“What if you had drawings of most of the symbols that can occur here?”

“That would certainly help.”

I went to the attic to find my ancient, crappy tablet. Luckily, it was in the first box I checked, along with the charger. I took both and went back downstairs. I plugged the charger into the wall, the tablet it into the charger, and it began starting.

“This will take a while. Let me find the project...”

I typed my password. The desktop loaded in a moment, and I started Inkscape. I loaded the huge, immensely complex mandala.

“Oh... it's beautiful!” Svetlana exclaimed.

I zoomed in on the small circle in the middle. “This is your playground. Wipe everything inside the circle and start copying the symbols.”

She looked around. “Where is the tablet? Digitizer tablet with a pen?”

“Uh…”

I climbed the stairs again and began searching for it in the boxes. I picked up one of the boxes to get access to one below, and a piercing pain exploded in my forehead. I knelt from a wave of nausea. I kept kneeling for a while until the nausea passed, but the headache wouldn't.

There it was, in the newly uncovered box, with the pen taped to the surface. I pulled it out and walked back downstairs.

"You really don't look good," Stargazer said, while setting the cups with tea on the table.

"Celestia needs me."

I sat heavily by the table.

"Here's your tablet, Svetlana. And here..." I flipped through the archive of the scribbles from our early days. "This is their alphabet. Most symbols should be similar to these."

"Thank you," she said in a gentle voice. "This will be sufficient. I will let you know when I finish."

As she plugged the digitizer tablet into a USB port of the PC, I took several sips from the cup, popped an amphetamine pill and gestured Stargazer to follow. "Mixing."

Another helicopter was landing when we reached the door of the barn/lab. An officer jumped out before the helicopter even touched down. He came running to me and saluted. "Sir, we've got the first ten kilograms of the ruby dust. Where do you need us to put it?"

"You're quick. Right here," I pointed by the barn door. "Where are my helping hands?"

"Czar's crown jewels from the Kremlin," he muttered. He whistled at a group of soldiers, and they came running. We entered the lab.

Jan was sitting by the chemistry table with a row of bottles in front of him, the recipe already on the tablet screen.

"Report shortages" I said.

"We're low on sodium hydroxide. We will need at least a liter more, diluted to 30%. Salt, sodium chloride, two kilograms. And someone stole all the ethanol, we had a liter."

The officer dictated the needed resources to his radio.

"That would be it," Jan said. "We can start mixing what we have to start printing now."

* * *

I was standing by the wall of the barn; the pounding in my head had become unbearable. I swallowed another pill and took a swig from a bottle of water.

"What's that?" Stargazer asked.

"Amphetamine. Lets me stay conscious, kills the pain."

"I will handle the assembly. You should go to the hospital."

"No. There were some... alignment problems. You weren't there when Celestia and I were solving them. Bumps on the edges that needed to be filed down and if you do it the wrong way, you damage the mandala. We have one shot at this. I won't be able to handle another try, so we must get it to work."

The soldiers were carrying the shrink-wrapped, numbered packages of tiles to the helicopter. Each tile had to bear a number, or it would all turn into a big jigsaw puzzle. I pushed away from the wall and stumbled after them. I climbed in. The general was waiting inside, along with several soldiers. He greeted me.

"Did you get the actuator device?" I asked.

"It runs on a timer, not on a remote. The company was unable to obtain the necessary parts on such a short notice."

The helicopter started.

"Where did you find a place with an uninhabited ten-kilometer radius?"

The general pointed upwards. "Antonov An-225 is waiting at the airport. The crew will leave it on autopilot, set the timer and jump with parachutes. We will do it over scarcely populated farmland. There shouldn't be any major debris left that could cause harm to people inside their homes. They are being notified to stay indoors as we speak."

* * *

The cargo hold of the airplane felt a bit like a railway tunnel. The mandala set on a big sheet of plywood didn't even occupy the full width.

4...3...2...1...0 The LCD display of the small, robust PLC controller blinked with numbers. The actuator started pushing the tile and fit it snugly with the rest; it pushed itself back against the floor the rest of the way.

"Vot, eta vsyo," said the Russian engineer, pressing some buttons to reset the actuator to the initial position. He detached the strip of duct tape holding the arm to the test tile.

I handed him the right tile with the last piece of the mandala. He put it partially in the gap of the mosaic and attached the actuator arm with another piece of duct tape. He used two more pieces to hold the tile to the floor so that it wouldn't slide in on its own from plane vibrations.

The pilot repeated his instructions in Russian. Detach the two pieces of duct tape, press the yellow button, the timer starts counting six minutes. Jump on the parachute.

The engineer confirmed. We said our goodbyes, and the pilot headed to the cockpit while the engineer and I departed through the cargo ramp, heading to the helicopter. Even before we reached it, the ramp was closed.

The general was waiting for us there. 

"What now?" I asked him.

"Now we're taking you to that goddamned hospital."

* * *

                          

Fresh out of MRI, I was lying on a bed in a hospital room, awaiting the surgery. Brain hemorrhaging. Supposedly, I was lucky to be still alive, and without treatment I would have at best several hours of life. But now, with Russians in control of the city, with the curfew and total civilian communication blackout to make Tresher unable to make use of Celestia, the surgeon crew had gone home, and only now were the soldiers seeking them out to bring them back to the hospital.

A TV set was running on the wall opposite. News about the stock market panic, American carriers heading to the Baltic Sea, the Russian invasion.

The screen switched to the prime minister of Russia, giving a speech.

"We want to assure everyone this is only temporary. The moment Princess Celestia tells us to return home, we will. Until then, we are sacrificing all available resources towards locating her and simultaneously investigating the criminal network that held your country in a firm grip. Even if Princess Celestia isn't located within the next two days, the European Parliament will create a commissary government for Poland, and, cooperating with the NATO forces, they will replace us in the search and investigation while our soldiers will return home.

"It wasn't an easy decision for me to order entering Poland, remembering the distrust and wars of the past, but the urgency of the situation forced my hand. The corruption of your government has reached much deeper than anyone thought, and all efforts to locate Princess Celestia by the international community were being sabotaged by the members of the criminal network in positions of power in Poland. Only deposing your government allowed us - and the world community - to progress in search of Princess Celestia, instead of waiting for decisions of hundreds of offices purposely obstructing our efforts with made-up bureaucratic prerequisites. We also couldn't depend on the investigation being conducted by the same police force which was aiding the kidnapper mere hours before."

The image switched to the studio again.

"That was the Prime Minister of Russia, addressing the Polish nation."

"We have received a video footage of activation of the broadcast device. At eight seventeen PM, the replica of a device activated two days ago on the Baltic Sea sent a message left by Princess Celestia at the location, where she was initially held after the kidnapping."

The screen filled with a mugshot of Tresher for a couple seconds. The bounty was two hundred million dollars.

Then came the footage. The camera showed a point in the night sky. Lights of a distant airplane. A bright line extended from the airplane up. It stayed that way for five seconds, then the landscape was lit up like the day as a ball of fire replaced the airplane. Seconds later, everything was dark again, only distorted clouds marking the explosion.

The image switched back to the studio.

“We have more encouraging world news. The number of countries of the Middle East declaring participation in the great peace summit increased again. Syria and Oman just declared their willingness to join. The summit, increasingly often called The Seglawi Congress, seems to be the largest such meeting of the Middle East in history. Of note should be the increasingly common belief in the Muslim community that Princess Celestia is an incarnation of one of Prophet Muhammad's own five mares, and sent by him to Earth to bring peace. While anonymous, she was distrusted by the Muslim community, but since the revelation of her equine form – specifically, that of an Arabian mare – many leaders of Middle East declared their desire to follow her guidance.”

The other presenter spoke.

“Our reporter has reached the arrival spot of Princess Celestia and, later, her student, Twilight Sparkle. Marek, what can you tell us about it?"

The view switched to a night forest, lit by many reflectors.

A man in a suit spoke to the microphone he held, looking into the camera.

"This is where the police dogs lost the track; everything indicates this was the landing place of the extraterrestrial guests."

The camera zoomed in on a hoofprint in the muddy soil.

"This is probably the first hoofprint of Twilight Sparkle. She must have appeared above this place, as the print is deeper than consecutive ones. The place is absolutely non-distinct, just a random location between trees. The forensics crew searched it for any unusual traces, but they found nothing."

The camera zoomed out on the location. Old beeches, young oaks, dry leaves completely covering the forest floor.

Then another light shone from above. The camera turned upwards, and there was a shining circle in the air, just above the spot with the hoofprint.

The circle filled with blue light, and a pink bubble extended from it, like a soap bubble blown from a ring. The bubble grew, reaching the soil, and the ground changed from from the layer of leaves into a plain, green surface with short tufts of grass, as if drawn. As the circle grew, the reporter stumbled back from it, tripped on a tree root and fell on his back. The cameraman was making cautious steps back with the camera. The pink sphere engulfed the reporter... and it changed him.

He stood up, looking at his twiggy, long legs, at his toony outline, his toony, brightly-colored clothes.

The line stopped a short way from the camera; the sphere stopped expanding.

"This is... This is... something new," was all the reporter managed to say.

Then a white, cartoonish pony plopped from the circle onto the grass. Actually, a white unicorn. In a golden armor. With a spear.

He stood up and fixed his helmet, which had become crooked by the fall. A blue mist surrounded his horn and the spear, which levitated into the air. He approached the reporter and spoke something in a melodic language.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand!" The reporter spread his arms helplessly.

The unicorn's horn shone with a blue light, and a symbol of the sun appeared in the air.

The reporter stood confused for a while. "Princess Celestia?" he said. Seeing no reaction, he bowed low to the symbol.

Satisfied with the response, the pony neighed towards the portal overhead.

Several more pony guards swooped in, some white in golden armor, some dark grey in steel-blue armor. Some held spears, some -rossbows attached to their legs. Most of them were pegasi, but there were some earth ponies, and the few unicorns that appeared held their weapons in colored clouds of levitation magic. I noticed that the grey pegasi had bat-like wings. They stood around the perimeter of the bubble.

Then another pony appeared. Majestically descending on wide wings, Princess Luna landed in the center of the circle.

The reporter fell to his knee, bowing low. Luna graced him with a nod, then she called out above. More ponies came.

First, a rainbow blur that swept through the air, passed the pink barrier and crashed into the leaves outside, appearing as a blue-tinted Connemara. She looked at her sides in panic, where a second earlier she had sported a pair of wings, then, giving out a long squeal, she galloped back to the pink sphere. As soon as she crossed the border, she was the cartoon blue pegasus with a multicolored mane again.

Next, an orange mare in a cowboy hat jumped down skillfully. She had a pair of saddlebags on her back. After her, a pink bouncy pony with curled hair. She immediately ran to the edge and peered out, letting her head change into that of a Hucul pony.

Then a white unicorn with a purple mane followed, jumping down gracefully, and finally a yellow pegasus floated down, flapping her wings slowly.

They formed a half-circle in front of Princess Luna, facing her.

Luna's horn glowed blue, and the orange pony's bags opened. Golden necklaces with colored gems floated out and latched onto necks of the five. Last appeared a tiara with a purple star. 

Luna's horn glowed brighter, and a rainbow line formed connecting the five mares. The two ends of the line touched the tiara, which suddenly shot outside the barrier, flying far, far away. The rainbow colors of the line vanished past the barrier, but in their place the two bright,white spikes curved away into the night.

Luna bowed her horn down to the line and touched it with the tip. A glare of light expanded into a meter-wide disc.

The white guards ran up to her, forming an orderly line, jumping into the bright light, vanishing one by one. A second after the last of them was gone, the disc vanished. Then the line suddenly contracted, bringing the tiara back - together with its wearer.

Twilight Sparkle was bruised and dirty, her lip and eye badly swollen, but she was alive and well. The spell connecting the gems dissolved, and she ran up to the five. They connected in a hug.

Blue light from Luna's horn surrounded the six, and they floated upwards into the opening. The unicorn and earth pony guards carried by Luna's magic followed next. Then Luna spread her wings and flew into the portal, and the gray, bat-winged pegasi brought the rear.

The pink bubble withdrew, returning the reporter to his original form, and the portal lost its shine and vanished.

The forest looked the same as before.

The camera focused on the reporter.

He lifted the microphone.

"I'm... I'm... I'm speechless."

The camera switched to the studio.

"We have news from the army HQ. Using a spy satellite, they managed to pinpoint the location at the end of the line of light we have just seen, and currently the units of Spetznaz and GROM are racing to the site. Their commanders agreed the first unit to arrive will be the one freeing Princess Celestia... that is, providing she wasn't set free by her own guards yet."

A nurse walked in. She fixed the pillow under my head and gave me a cup of drink. I accepted it and drank greedily.

"The surgeons left the city and are nowhere to be found," she said. "The army is fetching surgeons from another city, but it will take a while. You really should rest now."

I nodded, eliciting an attack of pain in my head, then I gave the cup back, and closed my eyes when she switched the TV off.

* * *

I woke up in a fever. I couldn't think straight, my throat was parched, and I couldn't force my body to move. I was still in the hospital room, though fevered dream-constructs mixed with reality. I was really sick.

Someone wiped sweat off my forehead.

"Hold tight. The helicopter had a malfunction and had to land. They are bringing them with another." It was Jan's raspy voice.

“Tia?” I forced my throat to make the sound.

“She's fine. She went back home to Equestria. Her sister kept reopening the portal every hour, and the third time around, Celestia was there, with her guards. Only one of the guards stayed behind, under the Russians' medical care, wounded by Tresher. He will return to Equestria in a week. And the monster himself is locked up, awaiting extradition to Equestria. Be strong for her. She said she'll be back for you.”

I wished to live. I wanted to see Celestia again. But I felt weaker every minute.

* * *

Bright light pierced through my eyelids. I opened my eyes slowly. I didn't feel any pain, but reality was veiled in a dream-like haze.

The angelic equine face was centimeters from mine. Celestia, her long horn adorning her head, her colorful mane flowing in ethereal wings, and her purple eyes, gazing at me warmly.

"Am I dead?" I muttered.

"Not if I have a say in the matter," she replied, smiling gently.

Her horn glowed with a golden light as she touched my forehead.

The haze cleared.

I was still in the hospital bed. It was cold and windy. The window and a section of the wall around it was missing. Celestia stood over me, and a pink bubble surrounded us. I looked at my hands. They had a toony appearance. Celestia wore a talisman that shone with purple light. Its rays were touching the bubble, reinforcing it wherever it would get thinner.

She leaned down to me.

"When I was imprisoned, I did a lot of thinking. I cannot stay in this world any longer. I'm really needed back home. But is there any specific reason why you couldn't go with me to Equestria?"

I winked to her. "Let me stay there for a year, just to try, and I will answer that."

She leaned closer, and I closed the gap, meeting her lips with mine. A soft, chaste kiss.

She stepped away, and pulled the blanket off me with her teeth, like every morning. "Then get on my back!"

I stood on the bed carefully, but her healing was impeccable: I was back to full strength. I straddled her back, sitting by her withers. I held her neck.

She stood in the corner of the room opposite to the hole in the outer wall.

She galloped ahead, then she jumped into the night, spreading her wings in flight.

> Epilogue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was jogging through the Canterlot Gardens. Celestia was catching up to me in a light trot. Several royal guards were flanking us, keeping a respectable distance.

“Did the nobles finally accept there's nothing unregal about exercise?” I gasped out.

“They still grumbled that a president is not the same level as a princess, but when I asked what their motivation was behind trying to degrade my physical health, they ceased their protestations.”

“Really? Can you even get sick?”

“Hush. Sick, no. Fat, yes. They don't need to know the details and real motivations.” She laughed.

“Extra cake?”

“Hush, you.”

She took off at a gallop for another round, then took to the air. I watched her fly, swooping and circling with grace only befitting a princess. I kept running while she flew around me, showing off.

At last, she flew to her quarters in a sleek tower, while I returned to mine. A quick bath, a change into some more formal clothes, and I headed to the throne room, where Celestia would open the day court shortly.

Still, as I arrived through a side door, it was Luna on the throne. Celestia was standing at the foot of the dais, with Twilight by her side. And despite the toony appearance, I recognized the man being led from the main exit by a squad of guards, cuffed in chains. He stopped next to Celestia.

“Celestia and Twilight Sparkle versus Tresher,” the chancellor, an elder unicorn with long mustache, announced. A crystal hanging behind my ear translated the singing language into English for me.

“We, Luna, Princess of Equestria...” Luna began, but she was interrupted.

“I refuse to acknowledge the authority of this farce of a court!” Tresher yelled. A choker collar on his neck translated his words to Equestrian. “Every action I performed in my country was legal under its jurisdiction. Equestria has no authority over Earth, and this is a kidnapping! You have no right to hold me here or try me for any alleged crimes I might have performed while I was on Earth!”

Luna sighed. “I suppose he is right, sister. We ought to return him to Earth.”

“Luna,” Celestia spoke, her face filled with worry. “They will lynch him the moment they see him. He won't last ten minutes, never mind until a fair trial.”

Tresher's face paled. “Can I ask for political asylum?” he said, meekly this time.

Luna Spoke. With capital S.

“Either you accept the law in full, or denounce it in full. You rejected our law, calling the trial a farce. Consequently, you rejected the authority of law of Equestria, including the right for asylum. Your request is denied.” Luna met Celestia's worried gaze, then she turned back to Tresher. “I believe, though, that I know a method that would allow your safe return and survival. You're well-advised not to reveal your true identity, because in that case your safety will not be assured.”

“Uh... whatever you say, Princess... I submit to your authority...”

“Chancellor, get the servants to bring us the wand of ponification, and the trap mirror that had pulled my sister to Earth.”

Tresher frowned. “Wand of...”

“As a pony, on Earth, you will be tended to and cared for, in exchange for patient work, giving joy to human children. As long as you are not discovered for who you really are, you will be safe.”

“No, no...” he muttered, backing off. Meanwhile, the items in question were brought forth: a short, golden wand on a purple pillow, and what would probably be a large, oval, full-body mirror hidden under white cloth.

Without further ado, Luna picked up the wand with her magic, and a ray of light shot off it, hitting Tresher right in the chest. There was no transformation sequence, just a flash, and a brown pony with a short, brushy off-white mane stood in his place. The manacles dropped to the floor.

Two servants jerked the cloth from the mirror, aiming it at the new pony. He screamed as an invisible power pulled at him, and he was sucked into the mirror.

The cloth slid back into place, covering the sheer surface again.

“This concludes the night court session,” Luna said. “There is five minutes of recess, after which my sister will begin the day court.”

As the ponies dissipated, Celestia and Twilight walked up to me.

“Do you suppose he will be okay as a pony back on Earth?” Celestia asked me.

“Not at first, no,” I replied. “He will try to refuse the work, he may be aggressive, dominant, disobedient at first...”

“What would change that?” Twilight asked.

“They will geld him.” I shrugged.

Twilight frowned at the unfamiliar word, while Celestia raised her hoof to her mouth in shock.

“Surgical removal of testicles, Twilight,” I explained.

“That's cruel!” she exclaimed, wincing.

“He will be a much happier pony afterwards, I assure you. It will do him good.”

* * *

Celestia was leafing through various reports while I brushed her coat. Logs of wood crackled in the fireplace, the flame radiating warmth into her chamber.

There was a knock of hooves on the balcony.

“Come in, Luna.” Celestia's voice carried warmth and joy.

Luna stepped in between the drapes. A scroll floated by her in blue glow.

“Oh. Business.” Celestia's voice lost some of the warmth.

“It's the night court hours. I'd hardly stop it for a pleasant chat. Do you know what these symbols mean? This writing is strange to me. This has just arrived at the emergency beacon in the throne room.”

Celestia's magic took over the scroll. She unrolled it. A frown creased her brow, but soon it was replaced by amusement. She passed the scroll to me.

The message, written in English, formatted to fit the circle of the mandala, read:


To:


Princess Celestia,



The Council of United Nations,



following unanimous vote, asks you humbly:



Please, extend your rulership



over Earth.



“The world I was stuck in is asking to join Equestria.” Celestia shook her head. “Can we take them in? I kinda... left them hanging...”

“You just couldn't hold back, could you?” Luna raised her eyebrows.

“I tried, Luna, I swear I tried. I messed up one small thing, then to fix it I kind of... crashed their economy, so as as an... apology...”

“Like a foal dragging sick puppies home.” Luna shook her head, smirking. “Alright, I'll get to creating a permanent portal.”

“Thanks, Luna! You're the best!”