“It’s working!”
“Really!?”
“… Or not.”
The earth pony shares a look with her partner.
“What makes you think it was working?” the lavender pony asks, taking one look at the definitely not working… thing in front of them. When they’d found it, she’d been tempted to call it Equestria’s largest tennis ball- at fifteen meters across- but her research companion had noticed some peculiarities about it and the debris that had been around it. She had scanned it with her magic- and, apparently, it’s like a giant brain. Thus, they’re standing in front of a weird magical interface thing she’d spent much of the last month rigging up; with this, they should be able to talk to it, ‘face to face’, as it were. Not that she has a clue what kind of visuals she’s expecting to come out of it, but it should be able to see them clearly, at least. She’d lost not a small amount of time with her friends- including, just yesterday, that whole ordeal with the Elements… the one that gave her wings.
“It lit up,” the answer comes back. “Didn’t seem to be doing much, though. Maybe it needs those… things?” She indicates the strange cubes they’d recovered from the scene, now ordered neatly on a table. Some of them looked like they’d once been attached directly to this… ball, with thick metal ropes of some sort.
Twilight shakes her head. “This is like a brain,” she states. “Lots of processing power, with the memory facilities hidden someplace deep inside. We should be able to ask it what those are.” She closes her eyes. “Okay. I’m going to try powering it again.” She lights up her horn again. Before she’d even started on the interface thing, they’d discovered that lightning seemed to flow through it without trouble; in fact, the little spark that had touched it had been absorbed, diverted, fragmented, and released with such efficiency- not to mention precision- she’s fairly certain by now this thing runs on lightning. Somehow.
Either way, her lightning spell starts once again, and she places the thread of energy at the tip of one of the smaller, solid metal ropes that had long been broken when they found it. Most of the lightning that had entered that one time had come out through these; besides, with only two conductive channels in this rope, she figures she’s far less likely to damage anything than if she tries on one of the more complicated ones… Those had hundreds of conductive channels, all closely packed- so many, in fact, she hadn’t been able to count them, only estimate.
Almost the moment the lightning touches the rope, it gets sucked into that conductive channel- just like last time. This time, she doesn’t get distracted and drop the spell as soon as something happens.
Her interface display turns blue.
They both stare at it for two seconds.
The draw on her lightning suddenly goes down, and the display goes black once again.
“Hello?” she asks the interface. No response whatsoever. She waves a hoof in front of it, in what should be its visual field. No response.
She finally lets out a sigh and releases her spell.
“Perhaps we should try connecting one of those things to it?” her partner asks, once again indicating the cubes where they rest, roughly half a meter on a side.
Twilight glares over at them. They had only recovered two unbroken ropes that look like they’ll fit the massively complex ports on the cubes- and she’s worried she’ll stick it in wrong, damaging one or the other. She turns back to her display, powering her spell once again… for exactly the same results. She powers it again and again, but nothing she does seems to change its behavior in the slightest.
Except this last time. The blue doesn’t bother appearing; rather, after a second of waiting, some white symbols appear, with a blinking horizontal line following them. She tries to talk to it, but it refuses to react, no matter what she does.
Several minutes pass, and her research partner trots back over to her. “Try it again?” she asks.
She raises an eyebrow and restarts her spell again. The screen goes black yet again- and promptly turns blue for two seconds, before cutting itself off again.
“So that did help,” her partner mutters, nodding to herself. “Mind if I try again?” She gestures towards the other side of the thing.
“Wait,” Twilight says. “You did something that got it to react?” Her eyebrows fly up, excitement driving her bounce. “Please, do it again! See if you can wake it up!” She focuses on the screen in front of her, powering it again- and repowering it every time the blue disappears.
Then, finally, she applies power yet again- and it doesn’t turn blue. Those white symbols also don’t appear- but, a second or so after she first applies the power, it starts drawing more. This surprises her- and it overloads her unprepared spell, causing a collapse, and whatever it was doing is cut short.
“Woah,” she mutters. “Whatever you just did, I think it worked.” She trots back to the rope end, to better focus her lightning into it- and adapt to changes in its strange thirstiness. “Could you watch the interface this time?”
“Sure,” the answer comes back, and the earth pony trots back around to the interface. “Ready?”
Twilight nods. “Ready.” She starts her spell.
She gets the same pattern. One second of the same draw it had started with every time, then it suddenly spiked upwards. This time, she’s ready for it- and intensifies her spell to accommodate. It takes her right up to her limit, and stays there. She grunts with the effort. “Anything?”
“Uh, maybe?” the answer returns. “There’s been…” She trails off, distracted.
Twilight manages to avoid dropping her spell, but that keeps her from seeing what her partner is looking at. “Been what?” she asks.
“Been… uh…” It’s not like the ex-agent to get so distracted; that’s normally Twilight’s thing, no matter how much she insists it isn’t.
“Been what?” she demands again- and suddenly, the draw on her spell goes down. Not as low as it had whenever the screen turned blue- but low enough for her to handle from afar. She walks forwards, maintaining her spell as she approaches the display.
It enters her field of view in time for her to spot the patterns flickering across it, growing ever smaller and more extensive as the time flows on. She stares as well- and finally, the last one disappears into a wall of white.
“I’ll admit that’s more interesting than what it did last time,” she mutters, “but is it supposed to do that?”
Before the candymaker can respond, the image changes again, quite suddenly- and the drain on her spell goes down again. The sudden change catches both ponies’ attentions, and they find themselves gazing upon an image of one of the other pieces they’d managed to recover… Though the one in the image doesn’t look as worn.
“What’s that?” Twilight asks it, for no response.
Bonbon gazes at the image for a second, glances towards the shelf they’d placed that particular device on, and looks back at it. “It wants it,” she finally states.