//------------------------------// // One // Story: Lightning Bug // by QQwrites //------------------------------// The Canterlot train station was like a grand cathedral. Every surface, from the platform to the high vaulted ceilings, was made of exquisite marble stone. You could tell the tourists from the locals by the level of indifference they paid to their opulent surroundings, the former stretching a rubber neck to the breaking point. It was my first visit to the city and I found its appearance as enchanting as a fairytale might spin it. Every surface seemed to shimmer with just enough shine to get the message across: this was a city of wealth and royalty. Someone bumped into me: “Hey pal, get outta the way.” I was blocking the train car's door. Apparently, I was playing the tourist. I hoisted my saddlebags and stepped off train. Coming through the turnstile, I found myself in the station's grand rotunda. I looked up and saw a stained-glass skylight. Light shone through it playfully, basking the train goers in a variety of colors, which seemed redundant. An Earth Pony in a black suit and black hat stood near the station entrance. He was wearing a smile he bought cheap from a dime store and was holding a card with my name on it. I walked up to him and tipped my hat upwards in greeting. He jacked the smile up and took my saddlebags without asking. “Mister Quick Quill,” he said. His voice was higher than I expected, as if his lady had just threatened him with a good gelding. “I’ve been instructed to take you to the institute right away.” We walked outside and I was disappointed to see the streets weren’t paved with gold. We arrived at the Canterlot Institute for Meteorology, a research and educational facility administrated by the Equestrian Weather Service. I’d seen pictures of the place before: it was an unimpressive, singularly geometric building, whose architect, upon hearing there were shapes more complex than a cube, said “that will do, thank you” and promptly abandoned his studies. The carriage came to a stop. My driver unhooked himself expertly and opened the door. I handed him a few bits for his trouble and walked towards the building. A crowd of townies had formed, straining to see around the emergency carriages which blocked the street. A police officer stopped me as I approached a barricade. “The Institute is closed, go on your way.” “I’m Quick Quill, EWS. I was sent to see the damage.” I showed him my credentials. He made a grunting sound and slid the barricade open enough for me to squeeze through. I rounded a corner and saw the building for the first time. The pictures didn’t do it justice: it was even uglier in person, only improved by the smoking hole in the North wall. Fire crews and a handful of weather ponies were milling about. Caution tape was laid out like spider webs, warning anyone coming from land or air that CIM was off limits. Among the emergency crews was a mare, middle aged, in a blue pantsuit. She had thin shoulders and a long mane with eyelashes to match. She wore a pearl broach and accompanying necklace. When she spoke, it was like a whisper carried on a breeze: you strained to hear it but welcomed it all the same. I introduced myself with a heavy tongue. “Charmed, Mister Quill. I am the Institute's administrator, Velvet Melody.” I caught a hint of music in her name, like a promise or a threat. “Director Maelstrom sent me to assess the damage and report what happened. Can you tell me how this,” I gestured to the rubble, “started?” “A dreadful affair, Mister Quill.” I liked it when she said my name. “I was working late last night. I recall it was perhaps an hour past midnight. I was just about to step into a taxi on Juniper Street when I heard the explosion.” I pulled out a pad and paper and took notes as she spoke. “Did you see anything unusual?” I asked. “I recall seeing the janitor’s pail in the North wing on my way out. Everything else looked normal.” I thanked her and she gave me her card: it was a stiff, eloquently penned, and had a lustrous gold trim around the edges. A stack of them would look like a gold bar. Maybe that was the idea: hand out little gold bars to suckers like me who’d never seen one before. I walked over to the fire chief. He was scruffy and fat and incredibly jolly for a stallion missing his eyebrows. His crew was searching the rubble, which was scattered all over the lawn. There were scorch marks on the ground in jagged, branching patterns. “Lightning strike,” said the chief confidently when I asked his opinion. “That’s what my report will say, anyways: the patterns on the ground are what you’d expect from a busted lightning jar. They dropped a crate of ‘em from the Cloudsdale Weather Factory some ten years ago: burned a whole village to the ground. Scorch marks look the same here. At least nopony was injured in this one.” I nodded appreciatively. “The Forest Grove Incident,” I said recalling the news at the time. “So, you say a lightning jar went bust? Where’d it come from and why’d it blow up here?” “The debris suggests the jar busted inside; see how it spreads away from the building?” I followed his hoof as he drew a path from the wall across the lawn. “My guess is it fell off a shelf inside the Institute and took the wall with it.” “That’s a lot of power for a single jar. Can I go in and take a look?” He shrugged. “The building is sound, despite the looks. Just watch your step.” I thanked him and he excused himself, lumbering like a bear to his crew who were still digging around. I entered the building from the main entrance on the East side and made my way to the North Wing. I paused at a wall directory and found Velvet's name and office: East Wing, second floor. While the outside of CIM was an ugly square, the interior was a tasteful combination of marble floors and wooden walls. At least inside you couldn’t see the outside. The North Wing was dedicated to academic research. That something would explode here was unexpected: the EWS and CIM had always asserted the West Wing (were practical testing occurred) would be the first to go (and the insurance coverage was reflective of that eventuality). I took a right and pushed through the double doors leading into the North Wing. The corridor was empty, save for a yellow mop bucket: the classrooms on either side of the hall were locked tight. The wood doors had frosted glass windows that let you see shapes but no detail. I found a door with sunlight on the other side, near the bucket. It was locked. I introduced the door to my shoulder and it gave way—the door, not my shoulder, though the latter would need an ice pack the next morning. A few of the fire crew looked my way but didn’t seem to care what I was up to. The classroom was a disaster: nearly every surface was either blasted to pieces or burnt to a crisp. The blackboard was partly intact, but the writings were lost on me: joules and watts and numbers in scientific notation. I noted everything in my pad and asked the fire crew to take a picture, with copies going to my hotel and the EWS home office in Baltimare. On my way out, I told the fire chief where I was staying and asked him to let me know if he found anything. From his response, I got the impression there would be no follow-up on this incident: the chief had a whole city to worry about. CIM was my problem.