“It’s just too much for a pony to take in at once, that’s all.” Pear Butter led Olivia up a charming country road, through a patch of fruit orchards. Olivia found herself slowing as she walked, as she was assaulted with memories of her past. Between Pear’s accent, the village, the orchards.
How do I know Harmony isn’t attacking me now? Trying to… make it so I can’t fight. She had stood bravely before Celestia even when she knew she would die. She had fought an army on her own while surrounded in enemy territory. Now, she could barely keep going. Her body never tired, but the exhaustion went on forever.
“You’ll cheer right up as soon as you see whatever Bright Mac’s got cooked up for us. He always has something ready after Discord sends me out to do something, just like I’d do for him. A stomach full of home cookin’, a warm bed, and you’ll be right as rain by tomorrow.”
“W-what’s… the point?” Olivia found herself asking. “We don’t need food, do we? We can’t die, we can’t starve. I didn’t need to eat before.”
“Oh, you don’t need to eat, sure.” She waved a hoof dismissively. “Maybe up closer tah Harmony ponies get fancy and forget about the simpler things in life. But down here, it’s not hard to remember. It tastes just as good as you think it should, if that’s what you’re worried about. Nothing you could do out there that you can’t do in here. Well… aside from being out there.”
Olivia could see the little farmhouse now, complete with a barn behind. It wasn’t a ranch, and there were no cattle grazing here. There was a little patch of vegetables closer to the house, all of which looked almost ready to harvest. She could smell smoke rising from the house, and it did smell as good as Pear Butter had described. Maybe she was right. “You don’t think… L-Luna will come looking for me, will she?”
That finally got Pear to slow a little bit, thinking. “Discord’s real good at hiding folk. I’m sure if he doesn’t want you found, you won’t be. And if she does come ‘round these parts, there are lotsa folk prepared to tell tales for ya, if that’s what it takes. Bright Mac and I are better at it than most…” She trailed off, and they walked in silence up the rest of the way to the farmhouse.
There were no insects, and the temperature was perfect out here. Someone had left the door and windows open. Olivia could see right into the kitchen, and the pair of ponies talking in there. One of them was just the sort of stallion she had imagined from Pear’s descriptions of Bright Mac—yellow, with a bright red mane and an apple cutie mark. But there was another pony in there, one she hadn’t been expecting.
She looked like one of Olivia’s friends. The same general appearance as herself, though more mature. Bright yellow coat, blue mane. They appeared to be conversing about something, as the mare gesticulated wildly with her wings. The casserole behind them was still steaming, and there was an apple pie cooling under the window.
“Well I’ll be.” Pear stopped in the open doorway. “That’s the third time today we’ve seen a pony who looked like you.”
“Buttercup!” Bright Mac yelled. “Got a call while you were gone… hope you don’t mind. Star Lily and I just warmed up some leftovers.”
“It’s fine, Sugar,” Pear called back, leading them inside. Olivia imitated the way she brushed her hooves off at the door, then followed her through the little farmhouse into the kitchen. It was a delightful little home, with various family photos dominating most of the wall-space.
The mare rose as Olivia entered, expression as shocked as Olivia felt. She was a little slower than Olivia, though.
“Karl!” Olivia cried, hurrying past both the natives right over to the older pony. She resisted the urge to reach up and embrace her—though that seemed like the natural thing, she’d never been that close to Karl. Her diplomat would probably not be happy to have such sudden and unexpected contact. “I wandered all over the ring searching for you!”
The pony looked away, ears flattening. “I’m… not Dr. Nolan,” she said. She turned, showing the little rectangle and curved line on her flank. “See? I’m… Oh, right, you were kidnapped… er… I guess not kidnapped. Killed? I guess they really did kill you if you’re in here?” She looked back up to the stallion, who nodded in confirmation.
“You’re not…” Olivia stopped, frowning at the mare. Yet there was no mistaking the tone of one of her scientists. She’d gotten used to telling their speech patterns apart, if only because she’d had no choice but to learn. “Dr. Faraday. What the hell are you doing here?”
The mare’s blush deepened, and she sat back down. “Hey, it smells like dinner’s ready! We should eat that!”
“Good idea,” Pear said, gathering up plates from the cupboard and spreading things out. “I take it this is the pony you were lookin’ for, Olivia? Seein’ as how she matches everythin’ you said.”
“Well… yes. But I didn’t know I was looking for her. She’s one of my friends, but she shouldn’t be in here. She was alive last time I checked.”
“I… was alive,” Martin muttered, sitting down at one of the little wooden benches. “Funny how things can change on you. Get a little overzealous, and… next thing you know, your bits are all over the walls and there’s a crater where you were standing. I’m just glad Melody wasn’t closer when it happened.”
“Ugh,” Bright Mac said. “You mind waiting with the gory details until after we eat?”
“Sorry.” Martin winced. “I didn’t mean to spoil anypony’s appetite. It’s been ages since I had something this good. We didn’t get to stay in Dragon’s Folly long enough to eat anything. Thanks to your kidnapping, Major.”
“Terribly sorry for my lack of consideration,” Olivia said, though her annoyance felt like it belonged to somepony else. It was more the memory of annoyance than the genuine article. It was just so hard to care about something so… insignificant. Her battle with the slavers felt like a lifetime ago.
“Two so close together is mighty strange,” Pear Butter said, once they’d sliced and served the meal. Olivia didn’t recognize most of what was stuffed into that casserole, but she found she didn’t care. It smelled good, whatever it was. “They must’ve come back at almost the same time.”
“Either that, or Harmony is tweaking time again.” Bright Mac sounded angry. “That’d be just like it, wouldn’t it? Dirty cheater. Not giving us time to get our new allies into place.”
“If Harmony was gonna do that, wouldn’t it be better for him to just stop us altogether?” Martin asked. “If we’re in a simulation… and we have to be, based on everything else you’ve said… what’s to stop it from just switching us off! If we’re enemies…”
“Enemies ain’t quite the right word,” Bright Mac said. “We’re on opposite sides ‘a the same question. That don’t mean that we aren’t still working together in other ways.”
“And anyway, the ancients gave Harmony rules. Really complicated, detailed rules for the way it interacts with us normal folk. I don’t think it could break those rules if it wanted to.”
“So all we have to do is find the way the rules can force it to kill itself,” Olivia muttered, glaring down at her plate.
Both the natives gasped, sharing a confused, frightened look.
“I don’t think you know what you’re suggesting, Olivia. It ain’t like that at all. Harmony runs… everythin’. Without it, there ain’t no ring, there ain’t no us neither. We aren’t trying to kill it. We’re just trying to… make it stop.”
“Stop keeping us captive,” Bright Mac continued from where his wife left off. “Take our family. We’re spread every which way because some of us got unlucky and some of us didn’t. My wife and I didn’t get to watch Apple Bloom grow up. We didn’t get to watch her get her cutie mark. We won’t get to be at Big Mac or Applejack’s wedding.”
“It’s rotten and unfair,” Pear finished. “There ain’t no reason anypony has to be dyin’ who don’t want to. This whole livin’ short thing was just a way to pass the time. Until…” She frowned, sharing a glance with her husband. But he shared her confusion. “Well, whatever it was. The thing we were hiding from. Until it left. It’s gone now, so Discord says. Burned itself right out. So there’s no reason we can’t be out there proper. Harmony don’t have to be afraid of us growin’ up too much and bringin’ back notice, because there ain’t nobody left to do the noticing. It’s safe.”
“They used to be immortal,” Martin offered, helpfully. “Bright Mac was telling me. About when every corner of this ring had ponies living on it.”
“Well, not ponies exactly,” Bright Mac said. “It had people who are ponies now living on it. Or people who were something and might’ve been ponies then but…” He shrugged. “You get the idea. There’s supposed to be room for as many as want to live out there. Room to experiment, to try new things, create new ponies instead of recycling the ones we had.”
Pear spoke quietly, whispering something in Bright Mac’s ear. He grinned. “Well, ain’t that a right piece of good news. You two are new people. So I guess we’re starting with that sooner ‘an we thought. Who’s the lucky ponies who got to start that off again?”
Martin opened her mouth to say something stupid. Olivia cleared her throat loudly, glowering at the physicist. “I was going to ask if there was any way to get in contact with the living side. We still have ponies over there, the ones fighting Harmony now. It would be good to tell them what we’ve learned.”
“Wouldn’t it, though?” Bright Mac sounded distant, staring up at the wall. At the family portrait hanging there. “Ponies wouldn’t miss us so darn much if they knew we weren’t really gone. And maybe a lifetime wouldn’t be so bad if you knew yer loved ones would be waiting as soon as you finished.”
Olivia frowned, though at least he hadn’t pressed about their parentage.
“There’s… no way?” Martin asked, her voice tentative. “I would… like to send a warning, if I could. I have a friend who might put herself in danger. We might be seeing her pretty soon if I can’t warn her not to do what I did. Except… she doesn’t have a cutie mark.” Her expression darkened a little, the first twinges of fear appearing. “We might not see Melody at all if she dies, Olivia. Melody, or… anyone else without a cutie mark. Thank God I got mine…”
That silenced the conversation for a little while. They finished eating—Olivia found it every bit as fantastic as she expected, and even found a few pleasant surprises. Ponies here had ice cream to go with their apple pie, and cider too. No beer, but they assured her that it did exist. They just needed to go to the right part of the afterlife, where the right sort of ponies lived.
“It isn’t important,” Olivia assured. “If you’re right about… time not being as fast as you thought, we shouldn’t waste time on things like that. Our friends could be in danger right now. We have to help them.”
“Friends,” Martin muttered. “Didn’t think I’d ever hear you use that word.”
Olivia had no response to that.
“I wish I knew more,” Pear said. “But Bright Mac was right. There ain’t no way to send important messages back and forth. If there was, then ponies all over Equestria wouldn’t be spendin’ their days worried about what happened to their loved ones once they were gone. It must be that there’s no way, or else somepony would’ve found it by now.”
“Or maybe no one thought of it yet,” Martin suggested. “Or someone squashed it from the other side. Our friends weren’t living in Equestria, they were sneaking around with Equus’s infrastructure. Last I heard, they were on a mission to somewhere called Transit. They might already be in there. Even if we can’t affect anything in Equestria, maybe we can talk to them through some other system. It makes sense that ponies would want a way.”
“Hmm.” The earth pony couple shared a look. Pear Butter spoke first. “Well, that part of Equus is where Harmony lives. But there isn’t no reason we couldn’t take a look, if you ain’t afraid of it.”
Olivia straightened. “Pear Butter, we’re already dead. We’re not afraid of anything.”
Lucky didn’t make it all the way back to their temporary base-camp in the cafeteria. Forerunner was waiting for her in one of the halls. He carried his stun-rifle in both hands now, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.
“Lucky.” He stopped them with a hand. “There’s news for you. Before we go in. I haven’t told the others yet.” He seemed uncertain as he glanced at the ponies beside her. “I, uh… I don’t know whether it would be beneficial for Lightning Dust and Deadlight to learn this information. You should decide.” There was more doubt in his voice than ever Lucky had heard from him.
Losing touch with the rest of Forerunner’s computers had taken a heavy toll.
“Tell us,” Lightning Dust said, before Lucky could open her mouth. “She trusts us. We’ve been through as much as the rest of you by now.”
Lucky nodded. She wasn’t sure if she would’ve made that choice, but she wasn’t going to overrule her mom now that she had said it. “What is it?”
“I have established a tenuous link to the exterior mesh-network using the drones I had in the Crystal Empire for sending false radio messages. One is waiting in the entryway, another in the shaft, and a third on the surface. There is still enormous interference… transmissions are too slow for shared computation. But we can receive messages.”
“Please don’t tell me you saw a fleet on the way here.” Lucky felt the exhaustion in her voice as she said it. “I don’t think I can take one more thing.”
“No,” Forerunner said. “Martin, Melody and I managed to decipher what was stored on the crystal. Or… parts of it. But what we managed to reconstruct was so valuable I risked discovery by sending the drones in so soon.” He let the rifle relax on its straps, lifting out a computation surface from a pocket and holding it out with one synthetic hand. “The reason we were unable to decode the files it contained for so long was because they were memories.”
A video started playing, depicting Melody wearing the memory-interface equipment. She looked the worse for wear—with streaks running down her fur, mane a ragged mess, and voice hoarse. “The Alicorn you saw was named Selene,” the recording said. “She was fighting a war with her daughter—Celestia. The reason the city you saw was preserved is because it was not destroyed in the war—but by Harmony, when Selene set Discord free.”
Lucky was dimly aware of Deadlight retreating from her a few steps. Lightning Dust only nodded, as though this was the sort of thing she had expected to hear.
Of course, the recording was still playing. “I saw her thoughts. Selene was old, vast, desperate to get free. She believed in Discord’s cause, but she knew he wasn’t that different from Celestia. Willing to do anything to win. She knew Discord was going to do terrible things, and she was right. Launching a manned spacecraft was what triggered Harmony to end that civilization. Probably the same thing would happen if any of us tried to leave.”
Was that why the first jumper had been destroyed? No, that couldn’t be it… Equestria hadn’t been attacked back then.
“Anyway, there’s a… sort-of ritual you can use on Harmony. One that forces it to do things. I have a feeling it will work for anyone who uses it.” She repeated a string of words in Eglathrin, getting each one perfect. Lucky scrolled back a few times, playing the phrase back until she’d memorized it. It was only because she listened more than once that she saw something strange. Not on the screen—it was Deadlight, and Lightning Dust. As the phrase played back, both of them froze in place, expressions going slack. Lucky turned, nodding towards them. “Dust?”
No response. She started scrolling back again with a hoof, and again they both froze.
“That is… most unusual,” Forerunner said.
Lucky hadn’t looped it back again, and the phrase finished. Melody went on, and both Lucky’s companions woke up again. They blinked, confused, then seemed to remember where they were. Deadlight kept backing away from the screen, not even looking toward it anymore.
“What I don’t know is what its limits are… Presumably it must stop short at some point, or they would’ve just asked Harmony to shut down, right? Martin…” The transmission fuzzed to static for a second. “Good luck out there. There are more memories the Forerunner wants me to watch. I’ll call again if I learn anything else you can use.”
The screen went blank, and Forerunner slid it away. “You can see why the rest of me thought it would be a good idea to show you this, no matter what it cost.”
Lucky nodded. “That is… useful.”
“What was?” Lightning Dust seemed more confused than interested. “We knew it had to be something like that. You know you can’t build any ‘spacecraft.’ I guess it’s good to know if that’s what Harmony hates.”
“Yeah,” Lucky muttered, but she didn’t say anything else. “What’s on your mind, Deadlight? Did you notice something I missed?”
The bat pony turned back. To Lucky’s shock, there were tears in his eyes. From this stallion who’d been so strong—strong enough to bed Lucky’s own clone—it was a strange thing. She’d never heard of him crying, even when he’d been a captive in Othar. “I wondered if you would figure it out…” he whispered, after a long time. “I didn’t think it would be her. I wish she didn’t have to see the end.”
Melody watched many memories. Time became an elusive thing to her—the strange machine-made days passed in minutes, and she lived in the body of an ancient and powerful pony who understood Equus as no one in Othar could. Her fear over her own mortality began to subside as she spent every new hour not exploding as Martin had. Forerunner’s guess about cutie marks had apparently been right.
Melody watched brief glimpses of many years—of long ago, when Selene ruled over a kingdom of earth ponies, barely surviving in the equatorial heat. She spent each day knowing there were cures for every disease they suffered, knowing she could improve their living conditions, repair their climate. Harmony rebuffed her for so long that eventually she turned to another source for help.
She watched a society advance, catapulted by their renewed access to powers their ancestors had once wielded. Watched helpless as Harmony used every instrument it could to bring her society back under control. Ultimately, it even used her children.
All this Melody saw in snapshot, along with Selene’s growing plan. She had known Harmony would eventually be forced to act violently. She would have to stop it before then.
Selene had not succeeded, in the end. All her plans to reconfigure Harmony had failed, for reasons that even the great princess had not understood. Though Melody learned many strange and interesting things, she did not learn anything that would help them with their current crisis. Eventually, she was forced to see the last memory the crystal contained.
It continued where the other left off.
Citizens sheltered in and around the palace, shielded with faltering bubbles of magic that held in their air. Just outside, the world was beginning to freeze as we had never known before. The void surrounded Unicornia, and a black sky. The streets weren’t piled with the dead, because that would’ve implied survivors to do the piling. My entire civilization had basically just stopped what they were doing to die.
If we had surrendered to Celestia, she would’ve done worse. At least something of us will survive, somewhere else.
I approved of Clover’s choices. All sensible ponies, across the races I had created and even a few earth ponies. They would have to be enough.
From the survivors in my palace, I selected a few more. I pulled them aside and cast a few spells of my own.
For the first time, Melody’s own mind briefly found purchase in the dream—she saw a face she recognized. Deadlight’s face, minus much of the wear and the scars.
He shuffled about uncertainty in my presence, dropping one of the many portable drives he’d stashed away in his saddlebags.
Only four had survived the spell—Distilled Wisdom, the unicorn mare with crystal blue mane and ruthless determination. Hypnos, an earth pony stallion who knew forbidden things. Tenacious Vigil, pegasus captain of the guard. Lastly, the bat named Polaris, with curiosity that never ended. I had changed them.
“You will have to persevere,” I explained to them, once my magic was done. “My daughter must find me dead, or else she will keep hunting.”
“What’s to stop her from doing what Harmony wants?” Distilled Wisdom asked, without much fear in her voice. More satisfaction than anything. “If we can get to this new land, then she can. We won’t have you to protect us.”
“Discord tells me he has made it impossible,” I said. “There is only one district that will support ponies. He says he has made changes that will make it uninhabitable without all races working together. Celestia will see this and be forced to accept what I have done.”
“Luna will come around,” Polaris said. He looked most shaken by the corpses of his friends all around him—so few had survived this transformation. “When she gets older, she’ll see. She won’t let Celestia hurt us.”
I smiled to see the loyalty in those I had chosen. “You will be able to hide your thoughts from her,” I continued. “You must conceal yourselves for many years. Wait as long as it takes for the population to recover, and for Celestia to be unable to watch all that occurs in her kingdom.”
“Easy.” Hypnos grinned, not seeming to even notice the dead around them. “I know a few ways to hide. By the time we’re ready, we’ll have thousands of ponies willing to serve in our cause.”
I ignored this. I could not advise these ponies anymore—whatever method they decided was out of my hooves. “You must find the solution to my paradox.” I focused my attention on Distilled Wisdom. “Bring my genetic research—it might be one of the other races can succeed where we fail. The dragon design seemed promising.”
Distilled shrugged ambivalently. “I will experiment. If there is a form that can be our solution, I will find it.”
“But not until you can work in secrecy,” I reminded them. “If my daughter ever suspects, she will kill you.”
“We can stay hidden as long as it takes,” Polaris said. “We won’t disappoint you, princess.”
“I know you won’t.” I embraced each one of them in turn, knowing it would be my last time. “The hope of Unicornia goes with you,” I whispered to each.
“Not just unicorns,” Hypnos said, as they rejoined the others preparing to flee into Equus’s superstructure. “You said all ponies would be together in this new district. Unicornia is an improper name.”
“Irrelevant,” Vigil muttered, obviously annoyed. “Let Celestia call it whatever she wants. We’ll give it a proper name once we’ve taken what her master wishes to hoard from us.”
I watched them go—vanished down the concealed passage that led away into Equus. There was more of them than I had thought—everypony in the palace who happened to notice tried to slip in with them. I didn’t stop them, though I wasn’t sure what fate waited for those who joined at the end. Discord’s word did not protect them, and the failsafe was well known for holding ponies to the word of their bond.
Eventually, they were gone. I began to feel the chill, and the exhaustion that came from air that needed renewing. Containing it in a bubble was quite a simple spell—refreshing the oxygen as I breathed it was far less so.
At the end, I had been so occupied with my evacuation that I had not done much for those who would be left behind. I had taken the time to say goodbye to Platinum, but not more.
I was a little unsurprised to find Discord’s pet vitruvians had picked things up where I dropped them. Their armor was climate insulated, so they had been able to wander, seeking out survivors easier than unicorns could. But in Unicornia there was only one place they could flee, only one place with its own atmosphere.
So it was that I found my way at last to the Datamine.
There were nearly two thousand ponies packed in here, along with the makeshift camp of the vitruvians who had been working the mine. They weren’t bothering with the Datamine anymore.
They had set up stations—medical, food, water. A few maintained order with their size and magical prowess.
I found myself drifting to one remote corner of the Datamine, where the foals and young children had gathered whose parents had not made it. Many of their parents had given their lives so these children could be here, protected at the end of the world.
One of the vitruvians was tucked away here, telling a story from atop a makeshift stage to a group of huddled children. They never give up. Even their translator fights until the world ends.
“And that was the end of the Empire. Princess Leia and Han Solo lived happily ever after, and Vader had finally brought balance to the force.”
I didn’t have the foggiest idea what story the translator was telling, but it didn’t seem to matter. A few of the children actually cheered at his rendition, and so I moved on, giving him a polite nod as I made my way to the control room.
The vitruvians had accomplished a miracle here, saving so many. But it would have been kinder just to let them suffocate. Discord’s inadvertent agents had given the last of my ponies something terrible. I wept as I felt their hope, and knew they were all doomed.
“We’re not safe in here,” Virgo warned, as soon as I had reached the control room. “I’m monitoring outside conditions—if the radiation levels out there keep increasing, it will penetrate the Datamine in eleven hours. It should be immediately lethal within three days.”
“Better than starving,” I whispered, my head down. “Harmony is being merciful, in the way it knows how.”
“It would be merciful to turn our magic back on,” Virgo said, annoyed. “Turn the air on too, while it’s at it. Isn’t it enough that it’s murdered almost everyone?”
“No,” I said. “We are the leaders, scientist Virgo. We are the ones responsible for the forbidden advances. I allowed Discord to create you. You created a spacecraft. Now you saved these ponies… so we die.”
Virgo dropped his computer, which tumbled from his fingers and cracked right down the screen. He looked out the window in front of us, hands shaking. “I… don’t know if I’m ready, Princess. Discord promised it wouldn’t be the same as dying for real, but… it’s hard to believe something I can’t see.”
“You’ll see soon,” I promised. “We’ll get another chance, eventually. Harmony has convinced my daughter—but Discord will see we win the war. Eventually. In three days, all these will be with their loved ones again. And we will welcome you and yours into our families in gratitude for all you have given us.”
Virgo straightened, scooping up his broken computer. He rested a fist briefly on his chest—though he wasn’t military. “Amat victoria curam.” He left.
I had just enough time to make a few recordings and write to my daughter. Then I would sleep. Somepony else would fight this battle next time. Perhaps they would have more success.
And that was where the last memory should’ve ended. Should’ve… but it didn’t.
There was an abrupt, painful shift in perspective, someone yanking her behind the eyes, and suddenly she was standing beside Princess Selene in the Datamine control room. She was looking up at the princess now, feeling a distinct sense of just how small she was by comparison. Alicorns were so tall!
“You are not what I expected,” said Princess Selene, scowling down at her from the controls. Melody found she could no longer hear activity from downstairs. No more pitiful voices of ponies assuring each other that their princess would help them escape from this. No more vitruvians dispensing measly food rations stolen from the camp they’d been living in.
Melody glanced down at herself—and saw herself. Yellow fur, blue mane. “How do your memories… no, forget that. How are you talking to me?” Melody probably would’ve been afraid of this Alicorn, if she encountered her in reality. But this wasn’t reality. She had seen her memories. “My friend saw your corpse.”
“I’m sure they did.” The princess towered above her, prodding at her bare flank. “How is this possible? Harmony does not know you, and yet we speak. You are a pony that shouldn’t exist.”
“Answer my question first,” Melody demanded. “How can I be talking to someone who’s dead?”
The Selene Melody had known from her memories would’ve demanded obedience. This one looked like she was about to—but then her face softened. “There is no mechanism for death on Equus. Not for the worst criminals or the most irredeemable monsters. Your friend saw only the instrument I used—the physical remnants of the kingdom I tried to build. But I was elsewhere. All of us are.”
“I don’t understand…” Melody muttered. “But maybe it doesn’t matter. There’s something more important. I had a friend who tried to watch these memories before me. She, uh… I’m not sure where she went. I think Harmony stole her.”
The princess stalked past her, glancing briefly out the control room window below. Melody followed her gaze and saw that there was no movement. It was as though the last moment recorded in this memory was frozen eternally. “I answered your question. Now you will tell me where a pony came from that Harmony doesn’t know. If you had learned anything from my memories, you would know why this is so important.”
“Remember that thing Discord gave you? The old machine with the gold sails?”
Before she even finished speaking, the world blurred. Melody swayed on her legs, spreading her wings reflexively to catch herself. But she wasn’t falling. They were standing back in the workshop, with Discord holding the thing he’d removed from a glass display case. “This?”
“Yes,” Melody said. “How do you not know what that is? You had humans walking around in… well, not quite, I guess. But something like us. They even acted the same.” Melody walked through the mostly-empty room, over to a guard who stood by the door. She pointed up at his face with a wing. “These. Where do you think they came from?”
“Discord,” Selene said. “He did not reveal his methods to me. But even they could not escape from Harmony. You have.”
Melody walked back over to the frozen image of Discord. She had never encountered this creature in person—now that she saw him for herself, she was even more glad of that fact. “This object is called a Forerunner Probe. I don’t know where he got it… but I know what it can do. Make a whole world. It made me, not Harmony.”
“How?”
Melody shook her head. “Harmony took my friend. When she watched the memories, she…” It was so difficult to talk about—but if she used a euphemism now, this pony might not understand. Her one chance to find Martin would be wasted. “She exploded. Blew a hole in the ground, even.”
Selene’s eyes widened, horrified. “I speculate that your friend was not a citizen, was she? Your presence leads me to guess that she was not a princess either.”
Melody only nodded.
“You didn’t use Harmony’s facilities to access this memory recording. It never would’ve allowed an… error of that significance. It would have just refused to play.”
“I must’ve… The younger me must’ve not realized she could use the facilities where she found the crystal to play the memory back,” she said. “We figured out our own way.”
Selene shivered. “My memories contain privileged information. Experiencing them in any way Harmony can’t control would likely provoke a serious response. I would have expected something similar to happen to you, if you’re using the same method. But you’re still alive… I can feel it. Your reach extends to the material. Perhaps it has something to do with not being in the system. Equus was never meant to have anyone who wasn’t in the system. You may have escaped notice.”
Melody shrugged. Her own survival was self-evident… at least it had been. Will Harmony kill me as soon as I get a cutie mark? That would make her a living bomb, just waiting to do something well enough that she died.
“You’re dead, and we’re still talking. Does that mean my friend is… not dead too?” Not just her. Olivia had died, and Karl, and who knew who else by now. The previous generations.
“Obviously,” Selene said, waving a dismissive wing. “That was part of the purpose for… We’re wasting time.” She appeared in front of Melody in a brief flash like a teleport. “Listen to me, Melody. The purpose of these memories was to convince those who saw them of the need to escape from Harmony’s prison. I hoped you would be Luna, or maybe Celestia. My daughters would not have been in danger no matter how they watched these memories. They were citizens.”
“You don’t need to convince me,” Melody said flatly. “We’re already trying to do that. Discord has… well, he convinced Lucky, and she’s in charge now. You don’t know who that is…” She trailed off. “Tell me how we can win.”
The world moved out of focus again, and the workshop vanished. They were standing somewhere else—a massive facility filled with machines Melody couldn’t comprehend. Energy swirled around them, taking the form of a glittering crystal tree.
“The ancients created Harmony to protect us,” Selene said. “They knew any rules sufficient to keep us safe would risk trapping us here. So they created a failsafe.”
“Discord.”
Selene nodded. “Perhaps you were paying attention. Discord’s process is independent. His access allows him to use every observation post, every observatory, every sensor we scattered throughout the cosmos. If he says the danger is past, then I believe him.”
Selene gestured at the tree. The air in front of it rippled, and another copy of the princess appeared there, hazy and indistinct. “Discord cannot exert control over Harmony—or else the same directives that allow him to free us might also motivate him to destroy all of Equus. Discord’s role was not to perform our release himself, but to organize one of us to do it.”
Selene’s ghostly echo approached the tree, growing less distinct with each step. It seemed to split, into dozens, hundreds of different outlines. They faded to nothing before they could get close enough to touch it, a blur that was everywhere and moving far too fast to place. “I came so often… yet I failed every time. I sent agents… and they never returned. Discord created the vitruvians—even they did not return. I never learned why.”
The whole world seemed to shake then, as though they were inside a glass ball and someone were trying to smash it open. “We’ve spoken for too long. My youngest…” She leaned close, resting one wing on Melody’s shoulder. “You must find the secret, Melody. You must release us. Or what has come once will come again, and again, and again. Harmony traps us all. It steals us away with promises of intelligence and light. We must be free.”
The world shook again, and this time huge cracks appeared along that side, through which streams of bright blue seemed to flow. It tore apart the metal and glass machines, splintering the tree into fragments.
“Don’t hate them,” Selene finally said, her whole body growing translucent. “Don’t even hate Harmony. It only does what the ancients built it to do.”
There was a great cry from outside, and the world cracked again. It exploded into steaming pieces, and Melody awoke.
She flopped out of the cot, dragging an IV that seemed hot somehow as it dug into her. Her insides felt like they were partly cooked and partly frozen—like the hot pockets she’d lived on for years in her van. She suspected she looked about as good as they did.
Melody flopped to one side, shaking. She hardly noticed as Forerunner’s drones fussed over her. They removed needles, closed her wounds with spray, patted her down with damp rags. Melody wanted to break them.
“I… spoke with her,” Melody finished. “Selene. She was… I don’t know how…”
“I do,” Forerunner said. “I haven’t been in control of the interface equipment for nearly an hour now. I could’ve severed the connection… but it was apparent from your readings that it was not a simple equipment malfunction. Did you learn anything useful?”
Melody nodded. “Martin is dead. But she’s… not dead? She’s in the system somehow. Probably that means Karl and Olivia are too. And anyone else who dies.”
The drones helped Melody into a cot—a different one, not the one with still-steaming machines gathered around it. “Fascinating. Can we retrieve them?”
“I… didn’t get to ask.”
“Pity.”
Melody glared up at the nearest drone. “I’m not going back in, don’t even ask. I saw all of it… I’m done.”
“So it is,” the Forerunner said. “Your purpose is fulfilled, segment Melody. Your debt to the Pioneering Society is paid. No more missions will be required of you.”
“Good.” She slumped sideways onto her bed. “Also, maybe… you might want to build somewhere blast proof. There’s at least a small possibility that as soon as I get my cutie mark, I’ll die like Martin.”
Forerunner did not react as a human might’ve, hearing those words. These drones were not people who would be sacrificed. They had no lives to lose. “I will… withdraw from returning Lei and the former slaves to Othar. And keep you away from the fabricators until we resolve whether that is the case.”
“Fine.” Melody turned away. “I’m gonna sleep now. Don’t wake me up unless the world is ending.”
The Forerunner switched off the lights. “Command accepted.”
Lucky made her way back to their makeshift camp and was unsurprised to see the others had not been idle. Perez might’ve tried to shoot up a submarine and seize power from Forerunner, but at least he and his squad knew how to work. They had turned the single entrance into a barricade with most of the furniture, and scavenged blankets from who-knew-where to make a sleeping area.
I wonder if ponies who discovered Othar might do something like this. We’re like cavemen camping in a shopping mall. But she didn’t say any of that, obviously. It wasn’t as nice as the camp they had brought, but it would have to do.
A few of the tables had been pushed together at the far end, and there Spike sketched on the backs of several sheets of paper all pressed together. He was drawing something, though she couldn’t see what at this distance. Whatever it was, he was obviously intensely concentrating.
“Any luck?” Perez asked, as they wandered in. “Get the transport working?”
“Yes,” Lucky said. “At least to Canterlot. I don’t know if it will take us to the empty districts.”
“We don’t need it to.” Perez turned away, apparently satisfied. “They’re holding the major in Canterlot, along with that princess of yours. That’s where we mount our rescue.” He gestured back at the dragon. “You should be proud of me, translator. I managed to ask him to draw us a map of the castle. Once we have that, our mission will be simple.”
“Simple?” Lucky rolled her eyes. “Lieutenant, you have three soldiers and two suits. Princess Celestia lives in that castle. Even—” But she stopped abruptly. “Even Olivia couldn’t kill her” wasn’t something she could say. She swallowed. “Even you guys would have trouble with those odds.”
Perez shook his head. “Four, not three. The Forerunner is here too. Better reaction times than any of us. I’ve run operations like these before, Lucky. Don’t worry about it. Back on Earth, it was the same way—an enemy finds out you’re there, and they can bring overwhelming force. We’re too fast for it to matter. By the time Celestia suspects anything, we’ll have our people out, Harmony will be a pile of broken circuits, and Othar will be safe. Maybe the princess will be willing to come to the negotiating table once she knows how easily we got into her stronghold.”
Of course, it sounded completely impossible to Lucky. Harmony wasn’t something they could kill. Unless its creators had already provided a way to shut it down, they would be doomed.
Forerunner had such a way—it was one of the first things she had to learn working for the Pioneering Society. Would the mission termination command even work anymore? It’s had so many upgrades.
Then again, their computer was still on their side. Forerunner wasn’t trying to enslave them. “Harmony is the first priority,” Lucky said. “You and yours need to get me to that control room before anything else. Once Harmony is shut down, we probably won’t even need to fight Celestia for our prisoners. She’ll just let them go.”
“I understand your orders,” Perez said. “Just get us there. Do you know when we’re leaving?”
Lucky considered that for a few seconds, conscious of eyes on her. It wasn’t just Perez anymore—Lightning Dust and Deadlight were watching too. Both of them had at least a patchy understanding of English, so they’d probably have understood some of what Perez had just said.
“At least a day,” Lucky said. “We don’t want to wait too long, because we increase the risk that Twilight will break and tell Celestia what really happened to us. But if we wait a little while, it’s possible security will die back down in Canterlot. After our whole airship adventure… they’re probably on alert. That could work to our advantage.”
“Makes sense.” Perez shrugged one bat-wing. “Figure it out quick, Colonial Governor. We need to know exactly when we’re going to move.”
Lucky made her way over to the table, where Spike had a mostly-empty bowl of rocks beside him as he drew. Well, not rocks in the conventional sense. Glittering gemstones, like shards of glass. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised the machine can make those too.
“What are you working on?” she asked, as though she didn’t already know.
“Map of Canterlot Castle,” he said, bending down to erase a line he’d added, and moving it a few inches with the pencil. “One of your bat-twins told me that was where we’d be going to rescue Flurry Heart. Maybe Twilight too. So I want to get it as accurate as possible.”
Deadlight sat down beside her, on her other side. Lucky ignored him, pulling over her own cushion.
“Does it bother you that we might be fighting Equestria?”
Spike shrugged. “Equestria has been fighting Equestria forever. A long time ago, Princess Celestia had to fight Princess Luna. Sombra used to be a good pony, before he decided to enslave everyone. Ponies aren’t like dragons… dragons are more honest. You go to the Dragon Lands, they tell you they hate you and they want to fight. But in Equestria? The most dangerous ponies are sometimes the ones who act the nicest.”
That was enough for Lucky. Spike looked genuine as he spoke—at least so far as she could judge his expression. His body wasn’t quite the right shape for her to use all her lessons about reading pony emotions. If anything, her human memories were more useful.
“Do you know why we’re here?” asked Deadlight, his voice low. “Did Twilight tell you the purpose of this mission?”
Spike glanced briefly up at Lucky. “She did. About Harmony… keeping ponies trapped. Forcing them to do bad things. Twilight thought it was the right thing to do to stop it. So I guess that means I want to stop it too.” He sat back, looking momentarily thoughtful. “I don’t really understand all this stuff. Weird airships, getting attacked by the Equestrian army, secret ruins in the Crystal Empire… All I know is, Twilight understood. If she thought this was the right thing, then I agree with her. And that means I help you.”
It almost hurt to hear him speak, he sounded so innocent. It isn’t right to involve you in this, dragon. You were right about how slowly you grow up.
“You won’t have to do much,” Lucky promised. “It’s probably better if you don’t. If we lose, we want them to think you got captured and forced into this. So you don’t get in trouble when we do.”
“That… sounds like a good idea,” Spike said, after a long time. “But it’s not very heroic. None of you ponies know Canterlot very well. Without Twilight here, I’m the only help you’ve got. If something bad happens, Twilight will rescue me. You don’t have to worry about it.”
Of course, that made Lucky worry about it very much. But she didn’t argue with him—she wasn’t about to refuse help that was offered, even when she should have. Should turn you away, shouldn’t have involved Flurry Heart. Maybe if she had just gone back to Othar back then, instead of feeling the need to LARP as Indiana Jones, Othar would have thousands of ponies in it and Princess Celestia wouldn’t even know she existed. They could build a whole society unopposed, then set up their own nation on the borders like Dragons’ Folly. Equestria wouldn’t approach diplomacy with them like outsiders, but like another faction of their own world.
No use wasting time on what could’ve been. That isn’t what I did.
Deadlight nodded to her—a sign he wanted to talk to her. Lucky rose, waved once to the diligent dragon, then walked a few steps away with the bat.
“There’s something you should know,” he said, sounding resolved. Deadlight had apparently collected himself since they’d received the strange mission, and he’d made his cryptic pronouncement. “I don’t want to tell anypony else. I would’ve told the old mayor, but… she hadn’t earned my respect. She ordered me captured, she lied and manipulated me. But you have only given me the truth—you deserve the truth in return.”
“Out here.” She gestured into the hall, nodding once to Mogyla as she passed him in his armor. “We can talk out by the fountain.” The others would be able to see them standing there, but not hear them over the gurgling of water. “What is it? Something about… that city I visited with Flurry Heart, right? If you’ve known something about it this whole time, you’re a very good actor.”
“N-not quite,” Deadlight croaked. “Just used to evading Celestia. When you’ve been hiding as long as I have, you think everything is a trap. And I was a hostage when we first met—I was positive you were the culmination of it, somehow.”
“But now you know otherwise?”
Deadlight nodded. “You need to know what happened to Unicornia. What our enemy and our friends are willing to do.”