//------------------------------// // The Triple-Minded Trick // Story: Lure of the Flower // by Impossible Numbers //------------------------------// Doc and Roseluck panted as they hurried through the florist’s front entrance, across the wilting flowers, up the stairs, and at the door she dreaded to open. Doc rather thoughtlessly barged in, his saddlebags rattling as he went. Roseluck hesitated outside. She heard the slight puffs of breath. If only they’d been awake. If only they’d proven all this was unnecessary. Yet already she could hear the bags hit the ground and the devices clank together under Doc’s skilled hooves. Sucking in the sweet, sweet air for comfort, she stepped through. She forced herself to look. At the bed. At the floor. The room was exactly as they’d left it. Books untouched. Window running with water from the fresh rainfall. Daisy, strewn as though dropped from a great height. Beside her, the feeder lay empty, though drops of yellow stained the nasogastric tube like beads on a dying necklace. Lily, limbs now on the floorboards where they’d slid off her torso. On each head, the crude helmets tried but failed to give them jaunty, childlike looks, as though they were merely playing a virtual reality game instead of being tortured with devices. Underneath each helmet lay the slight gapes and smooth eyes of two ponies deep in a cold peace. Almost like they were… No! Her ears had to remind herself that the two were still breathing. Numbly, she observed the tiniest rise and fall on Daisy’s chest. Lily shifted up and down along with each of her own breaths. Harsh gusts came out of her own mouth and sliced through her own nostrils. Any moment now, she expected the rise and fall to stop. Then Doc hove into view and plugged a wire into each helmet. “All right,” he said grimly. “Time to clinch the evidence.” Roseluck didn’t trust herself to speak. By contrast, Doc prattled on while he flicked switches on each device before laying it upon the floor. “All right. All right, all right, all right. Scanning Daisy’s cutie mark… Scanning Lily’s cutie mark…” The laser flared along their flanks as Roseluck watched, tightening her lips. “DNA sample… Apologies…” Without a word, Roseluck stepped forwards. He wasn’t doing this bit. Gently, she guided the device out of his hooves and between her own. Not looking at Daisy, she gently prodded the thing into the tiny gape. When it squelched, she winced. She did the same for Lily, then placed each device on the ground and stepped back as though avoiding a disease lunging at her. “Very good.” Doc flicked more switches and she inspected the ceiling. “Lastly, obtaining brainwave patterns…” Plastic, metal, and glass scraped across the wooden floor, away from the two ponies lying down. Despite herself, Roseluck looked down at the displays. “And…” said Doc beside her. NUR! NUR! “They’ve turned red,” he muttered under his breath. “I thought they might. OK, now for item number three, please.” Curiosity rode on fear and overtook Roseluck’s desire to not exist in that place at that time. Her lips wetly parted. “Why,” she croaked, “are there three?” “Haven’t you worked it out yet?” Doc whispered. The third device had no glass tubing or helixes: just a display and two wires. It was, however, noticeably thicker than the other two. She shook her head. His hoof pointed at Daisy. “Lily is contaminating Daisy’s dream, so of course once the device identifies the latter, the former is treated as a contaminant by that device. And now observe…” He pointed at Lily “…that device identifies Lily and doesn’t care whose dream it is, so in her case Daisy is treated as a contaminant by that device.” “Why not just put them both on one, then?” she whispered back. “Too complicated for one device to handle on its own and analyse the identification cues simultaneously. But now here’s the clever bit; free from that obligation, the third device merely has to focus on cross-referencing and cancelling the two devices out. Specialization and delegation are the ultimate in keeping it simple.” “What?” “Higher levels of organization don’t need to know how the lower levels got their results. It’s enough that they know them. Then the higher levels are free to look for larger-scale patterns in the data.” “Again: what?” Doc clicked his tongue impatiently. “It means this: the third device takes the whole dream and subtracts Lily and Daisy from them. If the third device doesn’t beep, then there’s nothing else in there with them. If it does beep, however…” They stared at the glowing line, the last one, the only one not flashing red amid the brainwave patterns. Then… NUR! Redness. Flashing. Very, very quietly, Doc muttered, “Oh dear.” Unlike the first two devices, which boasted two undulating waves, the third was a flat line. Yet Roseluck swore it glowed brighter and brighter even as she watched. She glanced up at Lily’s brainwaves. Strong and regular, just as Doc had shown when she’d tested the thing. Then she glanced across at Daisy’s. The shock took off the underside of her world, opening her to an endless space, once fallen, never to be seen again. Whereas Lily’s brainwaves were a mountain range, Daisy’s were a lumpy plain. Against the red flashes, her line was getting dimmer, more like a star stretched thin than a slice of the sun. Her voice shuddered. “What does that mean, Doc?” “Interesting… as Daisy’s weakens, this one becomes brighter.” “This can’t be just a coincidence…” Roseluck’s mouth was dry. Her neck tingled with the thoughts creeping from her spine. The skin along her limbs numbed under the truth seeping through her blood. “Possibly,” said Doc. “This suggests a transfer of presence, or perhaps of existence itself. How metaphysical can one get when dealing with dreams?” “In Equestrian?” said Roseluck, and every time her heart beat, her body pulsed along, bracing itself for a fleeing run. She shouldn’t be here. This shouldn’t be happening. “Erm… it could be a transfer of energy?” He coughed into his hoof, and she caught him adjusting his collar and tie out of the corner of her eye. “To put it another way: the one is eating the other.” “Eating her?” Doc spoke fast. “Or the third intruder is simply more powerful than she is relatively, not absolutely. Daisy is sick, after all. This so-called transfer could be just a coincidence. Let’s not jump to conclusions –” “But something is in there!” On the display, the blazing flat line swelled as though flaring, but she blinked, and this turned out to be merely a trick of her overheated mind. “Something is in there, and it’s not even a mind! Look at that line! No normal pony has a brainwave reading like that!” “Pony, maybe. Normal, no. Roseluck, please don’t get carried away –” “Worse, it’s getting stronger! And Daisy’s getting weaker!” She glared round at him. “How can you stand there and say that’s interesting!?” “Well…” Doc wriggled on the hook of her penetrating stare. Then she turned away from him and ran a hoof through her mane. “No, no, no. Look, this has to be a mistake. Your machine’s off, or something.” “Preposterous!” Actual fire cut through his voice. “Quickfix and I are among the best in the business. We’ve been cobbling together exotic doohickeys since our halcyon days at school.” “Then you’re due a dud. This just cannot be true.” Perhaps if she said it often enough… “That’s wishful thinking and you know it. Would you dare question my methods if we’d found the opposite? I’m telling you, I double-checked all three devices before we left, and this is the clinching proof you wanted.” Roseluck ignored him, but rushed over to the bed and peered under it, moaning. She stepped around Lily and lifted up a floorboard in the corner, the strain reminding her that her limbs were still alive, still responding, not giving up hope yet. “What on earth are you doing?” Doc hurried over to her, thumping on the floorboards in his haste. “Daisy must have hidden something. She did this to herself. I’m sure of it.” “A moment ago, you were equally sure something else did this to her. Roseluck, you’re going through denial. Trust me when I say it won’t help. It won’t help you and it won’t help Daisy and Lily.” Nevertheless, she stepped around him and opened drawers in the desk. She scraped the lot back and checked behind it. She pulled up the opposite floorboard. She ran a hoof along the wardrobe and under the windows, just in case there were any secret hollow areas she wasn’t sure of. “Looking for something?” said Doc behind her. “I know it’s childish,” she said, refusing to make eye contact or to stop running her hoof along the wood at all. “But it fits. It really does fit.” “What does?” “The Dream Lotus! Daisy went on about one years ago. She said it had the power to take you to the dream world forever, only no one’s ever caught one. What if she’d tried? What if she’d succeeded? She only needed one opportunity to –” “Roseluck!” snapped Doc so loudly that she jumped and banged her head on the wardrobe’s underside. “That’s a child’s story!” Massaging her scalp, she drew back. “Doc, it makes sense! Poor Daisy wanted to escape into herself, she told me, and she had a motive to go looking for –” “For something she must’ve known was a fantasy,” said Doc in a voice like a tightening straitjacket. “For something that’s impossible to find even if it was real, using a gap in her life that’s never existed to conduct her search, and somehow keeping secret a plant that’s so hard to manage, anyone watching the local reservoir would notice the level going down and the trails left behind by daily buckets. Roseluck, what you’re suggesting is nonsense.” “But what if it’s here?” she said desperately. “It isn’t. It’s impossible.” “Hazardous Fallacy said –” Suddenly, he gripped her by the shoulders as though about to shake her, shocking her into silence. “Roseluck! I know what Hazardous Prophecy said! And that saying boils down to ‘anything is possible, especially if an expert says it isn’t’! No one seriously believes that. It’s a cute saying worth talking about at a party, but you could use it to justify any old rubbish. Be serious, Roseluck! Daisy and Lily do not need any more time wasted! Do you understand!?” In the silence, they heard the mocking of the devices. NUR! NUR! NUR! Roseluck’s insides collapsed. At heart, she wasn’t a scientist. She knew this. But if that meant looking at those displays, as though looking a three-eyed monster right in the face… “Then maybe it’s something else,” she said weakly, wishing he’d let her go. “Maybe it’s… Maybe it’s Princess Luna.” Doc stared at her. “I’m not being hysterical,” she blurted out. “I know you’re not.” “I’m braver than the other two combined.” “I know.” “Then why are you still holding me?” He let go at once. “Anyone would panic under the news. Don’t get too deeply involved. Forget for the moment that these are our friends on the line, and think. I know it sounds cold, but it’s what will help them.” Astonished, her gaze met his. “You said ‘our’. ‘Our friends’.” “Yes. Now… Focus, Roseluck. These are the facts. What do you make of them?” A few heaves of the lungs later, she ventured forth. “It doesn’t have to be the Tantabus. Anyway, you said it can’t be. How would it get into Dais – How would it get into a pony mind other than Luna’s? Could a piece have survived?” NUR! NUR! NUR! “We’re thinking about this wrong,” said Doc, and he strode over to the devices while the rain strummed the window. “Anything could be inside Daisy’s head. Technically, we can’t rule out the prospect that the equipment is flawed. What we mustn’t do is fall for confirmation bias and merely look for evidence that confirms what we want to believe. That is like following a leader with your eyes shut.” In spite of her own resolution, Roseluck growled. Relentless, the blood rushed on through her body, stirring up her rage no matter how much she willed it to stay calm. Why bother, anyway? Seconds bled away every time they spoke. “Forget it!” She went for the door. “I haven’t searched downstairs for that Lotus.” “Wait, Roseluck!” Doc blocked her side-on, and blocked her again each time she made to step around him. “Your emotions are trying to do your thinking for you. Don’t trust them. They’re not trained and they’re not experienced enough.” “Then help me work this out! I’m sick of listening to cautions all the time! Tell me something real!” They both stopped, and the scent of sweat blunted her noses of all feeling. NUR! NUR! NUR! “You think this could be the Tantabus still,” said Doc, “don’t you?” “Or a Baku,” Roseluck admitted. “Well, here’s the problem –” “Oh, not again.” “No, listen to me. This is important. When Princess Luna fought that Tantabus, all the dreams of everyone in Ponyville joined together. Yet for all that, you’re supposing only two of them got a piece of a creature that left no trace behind. Have we heard of any other cases other than Mister Greenhooves? Other than Daisy? Where’s our sample size?” “Doc, please…” She was horribly aware of the weight of her two friends pressing on her consciousness once more. “She used a spell…” “Ah, I thought we might get to that. Whatever Golden Bough says, whatever principles you had in mind, Roseluck, magic is not always contagious. Teleportation spells aren’t contagious. You can’t catch transfiguration spells from a bird turned into a piece of fruit. Even mind control spells or emotion-eating magic – psychological stuff, you’ll notice – aren’t contagious. What you want is a spell designed to get in via the senses, from a source which spreads it among targets. Cockatrice stares, Want-It-Need-It Spells…” “You know an awful lot about magic,” said Roseluck suspiciously, “for someone who doesn’t like it very much.” “I don’t like it,” he said testily. “That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t know about it. But if you think Daisy or Mister Greenhooves caught some magical spell or creature or what-have-you, then tell me this: what’s the common source?” NUR! NUR! NUR! Slight breaths. The patter of rain on the window. She sighed. “I don’t know.” “Hence we need a larger sample size.” “What sample size?” “Anyone else who might show similar symptoms. Any reported cases of depression, for instance, which might make a pony vulnerable to the spell. No, don’t look at me that way. A responsible scientist always checks for any confounding factors –” Growling, Roseluck reached up and tugged at her mane. “You’re a confounding factor! Please, Doc! We’ve wasted enough time on this as it is! Stop trying to teach me science all the time and help me!” Coolly, shockingly, infuriatingly, he met her with a steady gaze. “I am helping. Haven’t you heard of Gravy Gloom’s words of wisdom?” Helpless, Roseluck fidgeted where she stood, caught between the rock of her own rages and the hard place of truth. Doc was right. Doc had to be right. His words spread into her ear like a sleep-inducing bouquet through the nose. Yet her heart fought against it on every beat. “No,” she said, wondering if he’d mentioned them before. “I’m referring to the induction problem, or as he called it, the ‘You Never Really See It Coming’ Conundrum.” Doc’s smile twitched apologetically. “Not a great one for names, was our Gravy.” “Which means?” said Roseluck with a sigh. “Which means I must invoke the principle of falsification here, our only defence against a false reading. We’re not done with the ID of the intruder in the dream. Once you eliminate all other contenders, in this case the likely culprits lurking in Daisy's mind, then by said process of elimination, you can narrow it down to a Tantabus or a Baku or what-have-you. Sound fair enough?” “For pity’s sake,” said Roseluck, “why can’t we just ask Twilight to sort it out?” Doc bristled. “Twilight’s busy,” he snapped. “Then who?” Frowning, Doc went past her. She didn’t dare turn to look, in case she caught Daisy on the bed. At least her mind hadn’t touched either of them in the last few minutes, but now she had a chance to dwell on the way their breaths seemed to get quieter and quieter… NUR! NUR! NU– Something clicked. Doc raised his hoof away from the trio of devices. “We’d best gather our sample from the socialites. Wide catchment area. I believe Pinkie may provide here. And Roseluck… forgive me for saying so, but you need to be as brave as you say you are. I don’t blame you – given the way the shop’s managed recently, anyone would find this too much –” Sheer outraged silence cut his voice off. He’d caught Roseluck’s eye. If she could have lasered the back of his head as he passed, she would have done it through sheer concentration. The nerve of him! Only when his hoofsteps hit the squeaky bottom step did she look back for a moment. Give her friends one last look. “Please let me be wrong,” she whispered. Then she shut the door and hurried down after him. She kept several yards from Doc the whole time.