Lectern’s New and Used Books and its surrounding fashionable shopping district were, for a generous value of the phrase, more or less centrally located in the urbanized area of the valley. Not unreasonably far from the mall where the Rainbooms had held jobs over the summer, or Twilight Sparkle’s family home in an upscale residential neighborhood, or the smallish high-rise downtown, it was convenient enough to several of the young women—and to the minder who’d been foisted on them by a concerned government. As for the others, well, nowhere in the city was convenient to everyone, so the group was used to such compromises, no matter where they ended up hanging out on any given day.
“So then,” a straight-faced Cookie Pusher inquired seemingly idly, “how’s the new school year going, hmm?” He looked up from the Ponyville Express held open before him. The thin tabloid fluttered a little in the cool breeze sweeping across the raised patio at the back of the converted bungalow, where the whole group sat around a pair of outdoor tables pushed together.
A chorus of groans answered him, even from Sunset Shimmer—the proximate reason for the thirtyish diplomat’s presence—and Twilight Sparkle the avid student. The abrupt transition from summer break to the long and regimented daily schedule of their senior year had been a shock to the system for each of the high schoolers, complicating already busy lives. His eyes narrowed in amusement, but at least he didn’t laugh out loud. “Now, now. The year’s still young. I’m sure you’ll get your legs under you soon enough.” His tone was equal measures teasing and bracing. For some reason his audience didn’t seem properly appreciative, shaking their heads and grimacing at him.
After a moment Twilight sighed and raised her chin from its rest on one of her palms. “It’s not that we’re ungrateful, Cook—I mean, it was really nice of you to come out today and help us do some planning for university—but you have a terrible sense of humor.”
Cook grinned, the picture of insouciance, then replied more seriously, “It’s part of my job now to see what I can scare up in the way of scholarships and recommendations for you girls. And I’m more than happy to do it; you all deserve the best.” He twitched the rural weekly in his hands. “This is another part—entertaining as well as educational. I’m not just being diplomatic when I say it’s been a pleasant and productive day.”
Applejack looked up with a farmer’s eye at the clouds scudding slowly across the pale blue overhead. “We won’t be able to keep doin’ this past another month’r so. After that, the weather’s gonna start gettin’ too cold ’n’ wet fer hangin’ out here in the back yard. An’ some o’ the stuff we talk about or look at ain’t suited to the front room.” She glanced down meaningfully at the stack of newspapers and magazines from Equestria, the latest package from Princess Twilight Sparkle to the expatriate Sunset.
“We don’t always read the papers here anyway,” Fluttershy murmured to Cook. “Just when we happen to be here. But how will you keep reading them?”
“That’s no problem,” he assured the bashful girl with a smile, then nodded toward Sunset. “When I had lunch with Her Highness—and Sunset—a while back, she volunteered to arrange another set of subscriptions for me. It’ll be a little more trouble for poor Sunset, but I guess the idea is to send them both at the same time, so at least she won’t have to make more than one pick-up a week.”
“It’s fine,” Sunset assured them. “I don’t mind, especially with the help of you girls.” She eyed Cook sidelong. “And I’ll bet his bosses will like the idea for all kinds of reasons.”
“You have no idea.” Cook essayed a faint crooked smile as he refolded the Express and laid it on the table. “For one thing, I may be the first person to read them, but you can bet I won’t be the last.”
Rainbow Dash spoke up, voice and expression troubled. “Is that a good idea, Sunset? Cook?”
Sunset shrugged. “I don’t know, RD, but it was Princess Twi’s decision.”
“In fairness, I doubt she was just being impulsive when she offered.” Cook held out a hand palm-up toward the princess’s opposite number. “Both Twilights are very, very smart, and Her Highness is in effect an understudy to the other princesses, as I understand it, so I’m sure she’s learning a lot about statecraft. She might see it as a way to introduce her country, and her world, to ours in a non-threatening way.”
“Yeah, but—I mean, can’t spies get all kinds of information out of things like that?” Dash waved both hands. “Even Daring Do sometimes figures out secrets by reading newspapers and magazines, right?”
Rather than answer directly, Cook cocked an eyebrow at Twilight. “What do you think?”
Put on the spot, Sci-Twi fiddled nervously with her glasses for a moment. “Uh . . . I think the benefits would outweigh the risks. Besides, what could people really do with the information?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Build dangerous half-understood magical artifacts, maybe?” Cook’s tone was light, but a sober note lurked under it.
Twilight looked down. “Oh. Right.”
For a moment Cook put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. “I apologize for rubbing salt in the wound like that, Twilight. If it’s any consolation, what you and Sunset have gone though is a red-flag warning about the hazards involved. Believe me, I wrote enough reports about it. But my real point is, Princess Twilight probably followed the same logic and came to the same conclusion.”
Sunset cleared her throat. “Speaking of magical artifacts, Cook, whatever happened to that mirror of Juniper’s?”
Twilight’s glance at her was thankful; Cook’s was humorous. “Don’t worry, Sunset,” he assured her. “We have top men working on it right now.”
Sunset looked unconvinced. “Uh, who, exactly?”
“Top. Men.”
A baffled expression crossed her face. “. . . Is that actually someone’s name, or—”
Cook shook his head and vented a lugubrious sigh. “Your friends have been sadly remiss in furthering your pop-culture education.”
Said friends were too busy muffling their snickers to reply immediately. Once they could, though, the spirited discussion that broke out drew in everyone, including Cook; his was a romantic soul reared on classic tales of history, intrigue, and action, as well as homages thereto—part of what had led him into the Foreign Service.
Inevitably other icons of pulp adventure quickly leaked in, Daring Do prominent among them, compared and contrasted as only fans will. Even Rarity had her own favorite, stoutly defended against the good-natured scoffing of Dash and Applejack. Cook’s deadpan admission to enjoying the same series drew gapes of astonishment from all and sundry, followed by Rarity’s swoon of appreciation.
At last Sunset held up her hands palm out and in a laughing tone exclaimed, “Okay, girls, we’ll rent the whole set some weekend and watch it together. How about that?” Unanimous agreement among the young women, including a double fistful of confetti tossed over the tables and their occupants by Pinkie Pie, carried the motion. Cook smiled but held his peace, and the conversation meandered on.
“‘. . . Shoes and ships and sealing wax, cabbages and kings’,” Cook misquoted as he recounted his unexpected introduction to the young royal who, along with Sunset, had set off the long chain of events ending with that meeting. The audience who’d demanded to hear about it listened avidly, though Sunset slouched, arms crossed and face somewhere between sardonic and self-conscious, as he continued. “We sat there in the coffee shop long enough for the waitstaff to start giving us dirty looks. It was pretty clear Her Highness was trying to get an impression of who I was and what I was about, especially when it came to her friends here in general and Sunset in particular. I wouldn’t say she was worried, exactly, but I certainly don’t blame her for wanting to make sure I wasn’t going to be a problem.”
“And you all know what a troll Cook can be,” Sunset interpolated, half amused and half snide. “We were there for so long because he went out of his way to egg on Princess Twi’s curiosity with long-winded answers about everything under the sun.”
“She asked.” Butter wouldn’t have melted in Cook’s mouth. “But yes, she could be the Elephant’s Child in person, and I had the feeling there was a lot about this world she wanted to understand. She seemed fascinated by the demographics of a technologically advanced world inhabited by a single sapient species, which makes sense given where she comes from.”
Sunset bit her lip; Cook gave her a inquisitive glance, but went on when she remained determinedly mum. “Her Highness had no idea what the sapient population is over there, which came as no surprise, so she just made some back-of-the-envelope guesses based on our world’s population during the time period that comes closest to their level of technology. That came out to around one and a half billion or a little more, split over more than a dozen species.” As an afterthought he added, “And don’t ask me how all those species haven’t competed each other into extinction, Twilight; I certainly didn’t ask her!”
Foiled, Twilight closed her mouth, sighed, and pulled out her phone to poke at it. “Our world’s up to around seven and a half billion, so that means only about one human in five has a pony—or, um, whatever—duplicate over there.”
“Not quite.” Sunset shook her head. “Spike, for instance.”
“Oh.” Twilight squinted at her. “That does complicate things, doesn’t it?”
“And Starlight,” Rarity observed. “Sunset darling, didn’t you say you brought her specifically because you haven’t met a Starlight Glimmer here?”
“That’s right! I haven’t heard of another Sunset Shimmer, either, and I think Cook said he didn’t find one anywhere in the city.” She glanced at the diplomat, who nodded corroboration.
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Twilight pointed out. “It’s a big world, and they might just live in other places. Anyway, we can take that one-in-five figure as a rough maximum.” She too gave Cook a speaking look.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” he replied with a shrug. To her narrow-eyed skepticism he added, “Look, Twilight, I’d love to know too, and I’m sure we aren’t the only ones, but that kind of study by its nature would be way too intrusive. The Census Bureau’s prohibited from collecting what they call PII—personally identifiable information—and the other government organizations equipped to do the job properly are intelligence agencies. Somehow I don’t think Equestria would consider that a very diplomatic way to handle it. Neither would our own public watchdogs, for that matter, and they’d be right to object. The best I could do on short notice was provide the princess with a bucketload of yearbooks from CHS and CPA, but you know as well as I do that isn’t exactly a scientific sample.”
The science maven perked up, to which he added, “I don’t think she’s finished with them yet. Would you be, in her shoes?” When she deflated again, Rainbow Dash stretched an arm to punch her shoulder lightly—by the athlete’s lights a comforting gesture.
Twilight’s smile in response was rueful but genuine. “I was just wondering whether—counterparts, I think you called them, Cook—are more common close to the portal, trailing off to a long tail with distance, or they’re evenly distributed around the world. I’ll bet that’s what she’s trying to figure out too, but you’re right, Cook. That kind of study would be pretty difficult.” She pulled a theatrically wistful face, inspiring tolerant giggles and snickers from her friends.
Pinkie jumped into the conversational gap with her usual gusto. “So when did you figure out it wasn’t Sci-Twi?”
“He twigged right away,” Sunset answered as a bemused Cook quirked his brow. “It was worth being there just for the look on his face. Kinda like the one he’s got right now.”
It took only a moment more for Cook to regain his equilibrium; with an air of magisterial dignity he ignored Sunset’s dig. “They really don’t look completely alike, if you think about it.” After a brief hesitation he admitted, “And I’d spent most of an afternoon, before I ambushed you all here that first time, comparing photos of them. I had a pretty good idea what to look for.”
Rarity tapped the tabletop with a perfectly manicured fingertip. “I do recall noticing how severe your uniform was, Twilight darling, and how unlike ‘you’—her, that is—it seemed to be.”
“Exactly.” Cook gestured with both hands. “The uniform’s a special case, of course, but the rest of your wardrobe, your body language, even your hairstyle, all are radically different from hers.”
“But—when I first walked around CHS, everyone knew who I was,” Twilight protested. “I mean, immediately. I mean, they thought I was her. Whatever. You know what I mean.”
“Well, the two of you don’t look completely different, either,” Cook countered. “Facial features, coloration, those are pretty much the same, with a few minor variations.” He waved a finger at the straight-cut purple bangs. “The stripes in your hair are a bit wider than hers, for instance, but they’re the same hues.”
Twilight’s eyes flicked upward involuntarily, and with a palpable air of unease she raised a hand to touch her fingertips to the bangs covering her forehead.
Cook eyed her shrewdly. “Think of her as an identical twin, okay? Your friends value you for who you are, not as a reflection of her. I’d say what happened at Camp Everfree is pretty good proof of that.”
“Darn tootin’,” Applejack put in stoutly as the others nodded or murmured their own assurances.
“I know,” Twilight replied in a repentant tone as she lowered her hand. “It’s just . . . weird knowing there’s another me out there who was friends with you girls before I was.”
“She’s not another you, Twilight. That’s what everyone’s saying,” Fluttershy pointed out patiently. “I’m sure we could tell you apart even if you both put on the same outfits. It’s not just your looks that are different.”
“I guess you’re right,” Twilight admitted in a less troubled tone. “Still—” Her thoughtful mien turned to a pouty frown when the others groaned or rolled their eyes. “Hey! You just made a big deal about how different I am from the princess, okay? But from what she said at that picnic after the Friendship Games, it sounded like her pony friends are a lot more like you girls than that, and now I’m wondering why.”
A hesitant silence greeted the implicit question. Cook pointedly sat back, declining to answer. Sunset gave him a disgusted look, which she extended to everyone else when they too said nothing. “Fine. I guess it’s up to me.”
She sighed and turned back to Twilight. “They made friends with her a year or so after I ran away through the portal. Ever since then she’s been living with them in a small farming town, most of it as the town librarian, and having adventures.”
A whole series of expressions flashed across the young scholar’s face as she processed the information—and the numbers that went with it. “Oh. So she’s had something like two years to—”
“To get a head start,” Sunset finished gently. “I bet you’re a lot more like the way she was back then, when Princess Celestia pushed her out of the nest.”
“More’n that.” Applejack’s tone was notably reluctant, as if the words were being dragged out of her. “Sounded t’ me like Princess Celestia was tryin’ her best t’ be a good mentor fer pony-Twi, but I sure didn’t get that kinda feelin’ about Principal Cinch, or fer that matter anyone else at Crystal Prep. Well, ’cept maybe Dean—uh, Principal Cadance.”
“Yeah, remember that talk we all had with Sunny in the front room?” Rainbow Dash chipped in. It wasn’t the most politic reminder, as winces all around testified, but it was very much on point, and nods followed. “AJ’s right. Princess Twi’s had a lotta support, but, um, I guess you’ve kinda had the opposite, Sci-Twi.” Her voice ran down a little at the end, but she finished with dogged determination.
“What matters is you’re here now, with us,” Pinkie insisted, her tone bracing. “And you’re learning, like we all are. You’ll catch up in no time!” She bounced up from her seat to squeeze Twilight in an enthusiastic hug. A muffled sound suspiciously like oof escaped her victim, though the embrace also was returned gratefully, if a little hesitantly. A moment later Pinkie just as abruptly let go and plunked back onto the chair.
Once released, Twilight straightened her hornrim glasses and her posture. Her intent face looked not unlike Spike’s when he encountered an exceptionally gnawable bone. “So, anyway, I guess counterparts can vary a lot. Some are more alike than identical twins, like you girls. Others are more different than fraternal twins or even normal siblings, like that Filthy Rich Sunset told us about. And the rest are somewhere in between, like me and the princess.”
Sunset looked blank for a moment. “Oh. Yeah, him.” She glanced back at Cook. “After we got back from camp, I wrote to Princess Twi all about the trip. I, uh, was kinda nasty about the guy who was bugging Glori and Timber. She was boggled. Turns out there’s a Filthy Rich in Ponyville—his family’s run the biggest store in town since the place was founded. He’s not the nicest stallion in the world, and he drives a hard bargain, but she told me she couldn’t imagine him ever being that mean and ruthless.”
“Yeah, I read up a bit on the local version during my initial investigation. He’s something of a small-time real-estate tycoon, which is rather far afield from retail. That’s a good point.” Cook cocked his head. “Really, though, the strangest thing is that counterparts exist at all. The butterfly effect should make the two worlds completely different.”
A chorus of perplexed questions gave him pause. Twilight explained, “It’s from chaos theory, the idea little changes in starting conditions can make big differences in end results. The exact time a tornado forms and the exact path it takes might be influenced by all kinds of tiny things like the flapping of a butterfly’s wings weeks before and thousands of miles away.”
Cook endorsed the explanation with an amiable tilt of the head. “So the question isn’t ‘why are the worlds so different?’ It’s ‘why are they so similar?’”
Sunset let out a snort. “We talked that one to death before you came along, Cook. All we could come up with is, there must be some kind of connection between the two worlds that lets them influence each other somehow. How much influence—and whether the portal’s what makes the connection or the connection’s why the portal can reach this world—we have no idea.”
Cook blew out a breath. “As the old scientist said, ‘My own suspiction is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.’ I’d hazard a guess the amount of influence might be ‘more than we think’—but it must be pretty loose, since the worlds are so different in a lot of ways.” He looked down at his hands, turning them over as if seeing them for the first time. “On the other hand, it might explain some things, like the way we’re colored so differently from other animals. Maybe magic’s been leaking into this world for a long, long time. It would make as much sense as any of the hypotheses floating around out there.”
Sunset’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. “The crystal cave near Camp Everfree, where our geodes came from—Princess Twi thought my description of it sounded like the cavern where the Tree of Harmony is. And, well, our marks.” She tapped her autumn-orange top with a fingertip, where a familiar roiling sunburst was blazoned.
Her friends nodded; Cook mused, “I’ve come across mention of those before, but not in any detail.”
Sunset took a deep breath. “Okay, here goes. Pony Marks 101 for the uninitiated. . . .” Even the other girls, who’d heard it all before, listened raptly to the ensuing explanation.
By the time she finished, Cook’s eyebrows were halfway to his hairline. “Huh. That’s . . . wild.”
“I guess,” Sunset responded in a guarded tone. “But the reason I brought it up is—well, look at everyone. Twilight and her stars. Fluttershy and her butterflies. Rarity and her diamonds. Pinkie’s balloons. Dash’s cloud and lightning bolt. Applejack is so obvious I’m not even gonna. And you, Cook.” She pointed unerringly at the small device embroidered on his polo shirt. “Chocolate-chip cookies on a silver serving tray. Why?”
Nobody answered, and Sunset went on after a pause, “Princess Twi’s pony buddies have the same marks on their haunches. Principal Celestia wears that little cloisonné pin of the sun, and it looks just like the mark on Princess Celestia. I’ll bet that’s true of Vice-Principal Luna’s moon pin and Princess Luna, now that she’s back. If that isn’t a sign of influence, I don’t know what is.”
“But . . .” Rarity frowned. “If that’s so, what about the much larger population in this world? And not every counterpart in the other world is a pony, I gather. What about them?”
“Not a clue, Rarity. All I can say is, I see what have to be similar marks on people’s clothes or accessories. Maybe not on everyone, and maybe not every time, but lots of people lots of the time. Think about the Crystal Prep girls. Even with their uniforms, they find ways to show marks like that. And if Cook went through the portal for some reason, bits to biscuits he’d end up with that serving tray of cookies stamped on him.”
Cook shot Sunset a piercing look, then sat back and stared into the middle distance. “Military uniform regs specifically prohibit ‘personal emblems’, as I recall. That’s got to be related.”
“Wow. Yeah.” Sunset looked taken aback. “I never thought much about it, but armor and a lot of uniforms back home cover the marks. I mean, I can understand why armor does, but uniforms?”
“Helps with corporate identity.” Cook rubbed his chin. “Individual identity’s important in civil society—ours, at least—but a military service has to emphasize the group over individuals, or it’ll fall apart under stress. Combat is as stressful as it gets.”
During this byplay Twilight blinked away a distracted manner, then stood suddenly enough to draw the puzzled attention of everyone else. She held out the hem of her patterned skirt and peered down at it. “Sunset?” Her tone seemed a bit strained. “This is mine—and hers—right?”
Sunset leaned to the side for a look and nodded. “Yeah, pretty much. There are a few small differences, but like I said, it’s amazing how similar they are.”
“And there are five little white stars?”
“Yeees. . . .” Now Sunset regarded her warily.
“So . . . each of the stars is one of her friends.” Twilight looked up, manifestly distressed. “I just figured that out. But—I have five too.” She raised a forefinger to count off the other young women around the table. “There are six of you.”
Another moment of uneasy silence fell before Cook bent forward to touch the tip of a forefinger lightly to one of the white rays emanating from behind the large central magenta starburst. “The sixth one is right here, Twilight.”