//------------------------------// // 10. Immutable Observations // Story: Inevitabilities // by Sharp Quill //------------------------------// Meg stared at the email on her phone, shocked into paralysis. A thought worked its way to awareness: Call Matt? But her brother wouldn’t know anything unless the police had already contacted him, and it was too soon for Susie’s disappearance to have been noticed. She paced back and forth with increasing agitation. Let him know his daughter’s been kidnapped? Why it happened? Perhaps it hadn’t happened. Just because they claimed to have done it didn’t mean they actually had. They were still insisting, after all, that she had been their captive, absurd as that was. She couldn’t take that risk. Assume it happened. Accept it. So now what? Meg went motionless. Even if she knew how to break the news to him, all her brother could do was to contact the police. This was much bigger than the police. She had better options. She made a phone call. “Jessica, it’s Meg. Something terrible has happened and I need your help.” “Where are you right now?” “At work, outside my office, if that matters.” “I’ll be there in a minute.” Jessica’s already here? Had she taken a red-eye flight? The call had already ended. Nothing to do but re-read that message over and over, praying she had overlooked something. It wasn’t long before the agent reached her. Meg shoved her phone in her face. “That’s… oh boy. The Section.” Agent Fowler put hand to forehead. “Serrell will want to know about this.” Her eyes met Meg’s. “Can you forward that to me?” “Sure.” Meg proceeded to do just that. “We can only hope they’re not as good at covering their tracks as they seem to believe.” “I have little doubt the President will authorize whatever it takes to uncover those tracks. I’ll let you know as soon as there are any developments.” Meg put her phone away. “I’m supposed to go to conference room Gamma. Do you happen to know what that’s about?” Jessica waved it away. “You can skip that. You already know what happened, and you know better than to talk to the press. Everyone’s also getting the week off.” Her face went grim. “Not that you’ll be enjoying it.” Meg stood there, still trying to process it. “What do I do?” “Right now? Go home, relax—somehow. You can tell Twilight, but unless there’s a spell to trace emails…” A lightbulb turned on, illuminating hope for the first time. “Maybe… maybe there is a magical solution, a way of uncovering a different sort of tracks. Don’t tell me about any developments, not until I say otherwise. The less I know, the better.” “What, ignorance is magic now too?” “Just… just go with it. For now.” Twilight read the email with growing fury. “They would actually sink that low.” “It hasn’t made the local news yet,” Meg said while pacing back and forth on two legs, “but I can’t imagine they’d lie about something like this. What would be the point?” The alicorn shot her a questioning look. “You don’t know if they actually took her?” “No, the less I know, the better.” She stopped pacing and sat down on the living room sofa. “Steve says you’ve made progress with your new time travel spell. I want to use it.” Twilight jumped up onto the sofa and sat down next to her. “You know you can’t prevent the kidnapping.” Meg grunted. “Are you so sure of that? What if we could trick them into thinking they have her, like, replace Susie with a changeling or something.” “Well, aside from the fact we don’t have a changeling at our disposal, nor do we know how they would fare in this realm, I can’t say that plan wouldn’t work.” “Well,” Meg said, throwing up her hands, “that’s the beauty of time travel. Whether we go back in time right now, or a month from now, it doesn’t really matter, does it? We have the time to see if that plan is feasible, to make it feasible.” “Yes, it does matter,” Twilight replied softly but firmly. “You’re going to hear what happened, unless you completely cut yourself off from this realm. I very much doubt we’ll have days, never mind a month.” Or even hours. An Amber Alert would be issued anytime now. Her phone would receive that alert, unless she put it in airplane mode. Then her brother would wonder why he couldn’t contact her—and he would try to contact her. That all assumed they couldn’t substitute something else for Susie. If a changeling wasn’t a viable option, what was? She could preemptively call Matt, explain the situation, and keep the police and media out of this. The proper authorities had already been informed, anyway. Explain the situation. Convince him ignorance is magic. Yeah, right. “Fine,” Meg said. “Plan B. We observe the kidnapping and follow them to where they’ll keep her. Once they send that email, we can rescue her—or, if for some reason we can’t, return to the present, pass the location on to the authorities, and assist however we can.” Twilight nodded. “Shall we do it now?” Meg checked her phone. No alert, and nothing in the news. Shouldn’t there have been an alert by now? Dare I hope? “Let me get my saddlebags.” Meg paced around the circle of thrones, her frustration growing with every step. She went past a throne that hadn’t been there a moment ago. “Wouldn’t you agree I’m long past due for getting a throne of my own?” Meg stopped and turned around. Slouching in the new throne was Discord. “I have no say in that matter,” she informed him. “This isn’t a good time to be bothering me.” She resumed her pacing, ignoring the draconequus. Discord and throne vanished and reappeared in front of Meg. He leaned forward. “What better time than right now, while you wait for Twilight to find Rainbow Dash?” “How…” She shook her head. “No, not playing that game.” Her eyes locked on to his mismatched eyes. “Can you help my niece?” Discord leaned back and crossed his arms. “I’m not omnipotent, you know, not in this realm, and certainly not in yours.” Meg did not back down. “Can you at least tell me where she’s being held?” Discord brought out a second pair of mismatched arms and crossed them as well. “I’m not omniscient, either.” Meg broke eye contact and resumed her pacing, going around him. “Omniscient enough to know what I’m talking about,” she muttered. “Keeping on top of current events does not make one omniscient.” “Whatever.” Her pacing continued. “Is there an actual point to this visit?” He was now floating by her side. “As a matter of fact, there is. I feel like I’m being left out of the loop.” Meg continued looking straight ahead. “Care to be more specific?” “About the upcoming brony convention. What plans are being put in place for auctioning off a day with me?” Meg sighed. Go figure, it was a reasonable question. Would wonders never cease? “With everything that’s been going on, it’s fallen through the cracks.” A grim realization dawned on her. “And with everything that’s been going on, maybe it won’t be allowed—any of it.” Silence. Against her better judgement, Meg stopped and turned toward the draconequus. “You’re serious,” he said. “There was an attempt to kidnap an Equestrian princess, you know.” “Well, technically there was an attempt, yes, but—” “But nothing.” Meg resumed pacing. “It’s spiraling out of control. They got my niece, and who knows where it’ll go next. So unless you can pull a rabbit out of a hat—” She rolled her eyes. “I’ll assume you just did that. You know damn well what I meant.” Sounds of angry chittering got muffled then silenced. “The prisoners are in Tartarus, right?” he hurriedly asked. “Maybe I should pay them a visit.” Meg spun around. “No!” Discord lowered his talons, stopped in the act of snapping. “No?” “No. First off, they won’t know where she’s being held, because the ones who have her aren’t idiots. They’d expect some sort of magical inquisition, or assume I knew where I was allegedly being held captive. And second…” After a few seconds of silence, he materialized in front of her, forcing her pacing to stop. “Don’t keep me in suspense.” She made no effort to go around him. “I don’t expect you to appreciate this, but if word got back that you used ‘enhanced interrogation’ techniques on them, it would be considered proof that their cause is justified. So just… don’t.” “I would suggest taking the advice of our Royal Advisor on Human Affairs.” Twilight hovered in the doorway to the throne room, with Rainbow Dash hovering above her. The two flew over to Meg and Discord. Twilight set down on the floor; Rainbow Dash remained airborne. “We can leave whenever you’re ready,” Twilight said. Meg looked expectantly at Discord. “I was only trying to help,” he said, pouting. “It’s what friends do, right?” “Yes, Discord, that is what friends do,” Twilight said. “And we appreciate the gesture. But this is one case, I’m truly sorry to say, that you can’t be of assistance.” “Oh, very well.” He floated up into the air, away from them. “It just goes to show that I’m truly not omnipotent.” Discord vanished. “So what was that all about?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Not now,” Meg said, shaking her head. “Let’s just get going.” Twilight moved to the back of the throne room. “Both of you stand by me.” Meg trotted over and Rainbow Dash landed beside them. “Is your phone’s transmitter off?” “Just a sec.” Meg put her phone into airplane mode. That same phone was already on Earth and on the cellular network at the time of the kidnapping, but its older self could still be useful as a camera. Twilight closed her eyes and lit up her horn. A few seconds later, they teleported—except their location hadn’t changed. “Looks like it worked.” Rainbow Dash leaped into the air. “So, like, I could go outside and fly to my house and knock on my front door and see myself opening it?” “Do you remember opening the door and seeing your future self?” Twilight asked in annoyance. “Duh, obviously not, because I haven’t done it yet.” “Then no, you cannot.” Twilight got three plaid pills out of a saddlebag. “What’s stopping me from doing it?” Twilight sighed. “I’d love to find out, but this isn’t the time for temporal experiments.” She levitated a plaid pill to each pony. “You’re navigating, Meg.” “Right.” She took the pill into her mouth, concentrated on her brother’s house, and swallowed. The three ponies stood on the front lawn. Apart from the occasional car passing by, everything was quiet. “So now what?” asked Rainbow Dash. “We wait, obviously.” Meg started a timer on her phone, counting down the two hours to the reception of that email. After putting her hoof back down, she said, “It shouldn’t be long before Susie leaves for school.” She turned to Twilight. “You sure we’re invisible?” The alicorn nodded. “I double checked.” Several minutes passed. Out of boredom, Rainbow Dash went flying around the neighborhood. Well, it wasn’t as if they had known the precise time Susie left the house. Better to be early than late. And if she’d already been kidnapped… well, they’ll just go back further in time. Other children were starting to trickle down the road. “It can’t be much longer,” Twilight said. It wasn’t. The front door opened and Susie walked out, making her way to the sidewalk and completely oblivious to the ponies just a few feet away. It was so tempting to intervene. Screw the paradox. She’d mail that message to herself, somehow. Maybe there was never a kidnapping in the first place. “Don’t do it, Meg.” Meg tore her eyes off her niece. “We don’t know what really happens. What if this is just like It’s About Time—you know, when you went back in time to warn yourself, and caused the very thing you were trying to prevent?” Twilight had a ready answer. “Which is precisely why we shall only observe,” she said. “Come on, let’s follow her.” She launched into the air. Did it really matter? Meg thought as she took to the air and flew after Twilight. Time is immutable. Either Susie will be kidnapped, or she won’t. I just have to hope she won’t; then I’ll send that email to myself. Rainbow Dash was already in position, trailing Susie from above. Twilight and Meg soon joined her. They followed her for the few minutes it took her to reach the school. On the school grounds, it became harder to separate her from the mass of other children, but not impossible; they watched her go inside a classroom. “I guess that’s that,” Dash said. “She does appear to be safe,” Twilight observed. Meg checked the timer on her phone. “One hour, forty one minutes to go. We should stick around that much longer, just to be sure.” Twilight pointed down at the roof, right above the door Susie had entered. “We can set down there and watch.” Rainbow Dash was having none of that. “You two can do that. I’m gonna fly around and look for threats.” “Fine,” Twilight conceded. “But if you find one, don’t engage. Come back and tell us.” “Yeah, yeah, we’re here only to observe.” Dash flew off. Meg had already reached the roof and was carefully setting down, doing her best to minimize the impact of her hooves against the roof. There were limits to the sound suppressing abilities of Discord’s plaid pills. Twilight was shortly by her side. The two positioned themselves at the edge of the roof and began their watch. Twilight was soon distracted by the sun. “It’s so low in the sky,” she said. “I know it’s early in the morning, because of the time travel, but it still feels odd.” Meg kept her eyes on the ground. “It’s always early in the morning somewhere on this planet. We call what you’re experiencing ‘jet lag,’ because we experience that whenever we fly thousands of miles.” Two women entered the classroom. “One of them, I assume, is Susie’s teacher,” Meg said. “The other, I don’t know.” “Seems innocuous enough,” Twilight replied. “Getting back to this ‘jet lag,’ I wonder why the time-of-day is the same here, where you live, and in Equestria. There’s only a four point one six six percent chance of that happening, if I understand your timezones correctly.” “Why are our days the same length, down to the second?” Meg countered. “That’s an odd coincidence too, given that this planet’s rotation is slowing down. Sure, the lengthening of the day is gradual, but days were once many hours shorter than they are now.” “Slowing down? What about conservation of angular—” “Later,” Meg interrupted. Down below, that other woman had left the classroom—and right behind her was Susie. “Maybe we should have waited inside,” Twilight said. Susie was cooperating. It sure would have been helpful to know what had gone down inside. “We still can. Time travel, remember?” Meg said before taking off. Twilight followed. “Let’s not get carried away.” They quickly caught up to Susie and the mysterious woman. By the time they had reached the parking lot, Rainbow Dash had joined them. The woman—professionally attired in a pantsuit, Meg now noticed—reached her vehicle, the sort of nondescript, domestic sedan favored by government institutions. “Shouldn’t you be recording this?” Twilight asked. “Yeah,” Meg replied. She rotated her phone in its holder, uncovering its lens, and began recording. The woman opened the driver’s side rear door and Susie went inside, apparently of her own free will. Meg dropped down behind the car to get its license plate. “Great,” she muttered. It was a federal plate. She had no idea how to decipher which agency owned that car, but that wasn’t her problem. Nonetheless she could take a good guess. The engine started. Meg hurried back into the air and rejoined the others. “You discovered something,” Twilight stated, as Meg stopped recording. “Yeah. That woman must be a government agent. That’s how she got Susie out of there with so little fuss. Flashed a badge and spouted a pack of lies.” The car was making its way to the exit. “Now we find out where they’re taking her,” Twilight declared. The car was easy enough to follow at first, as the morning commute was very much in progress. Meg wasn’t too sure she could keep up with a car on an empty freeway, not for any length of time—which was why Rainbow Dash had come along. Her fears were soon confirmed. The kidnapper eventually took the onramp to Hwy 85, southbound. The northbound lanes were packed with cars inching their way forwards. The southbound lanes were wide open. Rainbow Dash effortlessly matched its acceleration. Twilight lagged behind her only a bit, no doubt benefiting from her alicorn constitution. Meg was gasping for air by the time she caught up to them. Fortunately, maintaining speed was a whole lot easier than acquiring it. Dash looked at her with bemusement. “The offer still stands, you know.” The seventy mile-per-hour wind in her face did little to drown out Dash’s words, such being the power of pegasus flight magic. “Yes, Dash.” Gasp. “I think I’ll make…” Gasp. “Time for that.” “If you think you can’t keep up,” Twilight said, “remember to give me your phone before you return.” She added, “In hindsight I should’ve brought mine.” “And don’t forget to come to a full stop before you go back,” Dash said. Twilight looked curiously at the pegasus. “That’s good advice, but why would you know that?” Dash kept her eyes on the car. “Oh, just a lucky guess. I absolutely did not learn that the hard way.” “Uh huh.” “I’m fine, for now,” Meg insisted. Keeping up this speed was like walking really fast. “It depends how far they go before getting off the freeway.” “How far could they go?” Twilight asked. “With a full tank of gas? Hundreds of miles. But if they were going to take her that far, they’d head to the airport, and that’s not where they’re going.” “So where are they going?” Dash asked. Her sigh was not drowned out by the wind, either. “I haven’t a clue.” They continued following the car down the freeway. It stayed in the left lane, giving no hint of an impending exit. Finally, minutes later, it made its way to the right lane. Up ahead was the interchange with 880 and 17. The car took the off-ramp to Hwy 17. “They’re going over the mountains to the coast,” Meg said. “Unless they got a hideout in the mountains somewhere.” The car once more got into the left lane and stayed there, and it began its climb towards the summit. The reduced speed was welcome; even with the gain in altitude, it still felt no worse to Meg than a fast walk. In due course, the Pacific came into view. “No mountain hideout,” Twilight said. “I still have no clue where they’re taking her,” Meg said. “I hope our magic holds out.” Magic generators weren’t an option, since that would break their invisibility. 17 came to an end. The car got on to Hwy 1, going south. After traveling just over a mile, it finally got off the highway, heading towards the coast. They weren’t that high up, but the coast wasn’t that far away. In that general direction a lot of boats could be seen. “They wouldn’t…” was all Meg could say. Twilight was quick to catch on. “The boats?” Rainbow Dash wasn’t impressed. “So? We can follow a boat too.” “For how long?” Meg said. “A few hours, if we’re lucky, before our magic runs out,” Twilight answered. “But we can come back to the spot we left almost immediately, and a boat can’t go that fast. Where could they be taking her by sea?” “I don’t know!” Meg shouted, throwing up her hooves. “Somewhere up or down the coast… Hawaii… maybe they got a secret lair on some tiny, isolated island somewhere.” “A secret lair? Really?” “You’re not helping, Dash.” Twilight focused on the approaching marina. That was almost certainly their destination. “Logically, they can’t be taking her too far. They need to return her quickly if we comply with their demands, right?” “I guess so,” Meg said. “They can’t do that if she’s in the middle of the ocean.” “And based on that email, I’d say the point of this is to make rescue impossible, and the best way to do that is to make it impossible to find to her, because they have no idea how you ‘escaped’ from them before.” Meg attempted to clench non-existent hands. “How about because they never had me! I’ll never go back in time so they can kidnap me. Why won’t any of this make sense!” They followed the car until it reached the marina. “So, like, we can rescue her here if you got that letter, right?” Rainbow Dash asked. Meg woke her phone up. She ought to start recording anyway, but she first checked the timer. “About forty three minutes to go.” “I think it’s safe to say they taking her out to sea,” Twilight said. The car had entered the parking lot. Meg was ready to record. She went lower and closer, getting into position. As the car eased into a parking spot, she began recording. The engine shut off. Moments later, the driver’s door opened and a middle-aged woman got out. It was the first time she had gotten a good look at her face; she wasn’t coming across as a minion of an evil organization, just someone who was doing a job. Did she even know what was really going on? Regardless, she had been captured on video, a video that would soon be in the hands of the President. The woman opened the rear door. Susie hopped out. “Which boat is Meg on?” she asked. “She’s not on any of these boats,” the woman replied in a friendly enough fashion. “It will become clear soon enough.” She closed the door, locked the car, and the two set off for the docks. After first panning up and around to establish the location, Meg stopped recording. What was the point? It wasn’t as if that woman was going to monologue their evil plans to a child in a public place. “I say we rescue Susie right now, then force that woman to send that letter at the right time.” Rainbow Dash was beside her. “You’re assuming she’s the one who sends it,” Twilight said from her other side. Time travel was proving to be a poor substitute for omniscience. Sure, watch long enough, and they’ll have all the answers. And yet… what if it turned out this woman was the one who sent that email? It wasn’t as if they could go back in time again and execute Dash’s plan. They can’t change what they had already observed. “She’s right, Dash,” Meg spat out. “We just don’t know. We can’t interfere before that email has been sent.” “Which, if they’re smart, won’t be until after they reach a secure location.” “And they have plenty of time to reach one.” The pace was being set by Susie’s short legs, her every step bringing her closer to imprisonment. Only the fact that, once they had returned to the present, they could mount a rescue with the full force of magic and federal agents on their side made it bearable. Then she’d get to explain to her brother what the hell had just happened. One crisis at a time. They turned onto a pier. Meg began recording again. They stopped at a motorboat, at most twenty feet in length, its engine already idling. “These men will take you to the safe place where we’ll also be taking Meg,” the woman said. “Okay,” Susie dutifully replied, looking at the boat with uncertainty. “Ever been on a boat before?” the captain asked, a middle-aged man who also looked the opposite of an evil minion. Smile! You’re on camera. She had to remind herself that, no, they weren’t going to do anything to her. Susie makes it to that “safe location.” Mistreating a hostage was quite unprofessional, and this operation was anything but. Susie got on board with the help of some strong arms. Wasting no time, the other man on the boat, not quite middle-aged, untied the last two restraining ropes. The boat slowly backed out. The ponies followed the boat as it made its way out of the marina, past the breakwater, and full throttle into the open ocean. It turned neither north nor south, heading straight towards the middle of nowhere.