//------------------------------//
// 271 - Meanwhile 
// Story: Putting on a Silver Robe and Wizard Hat 
// by David Silver 
//------------------------------//

Her ears pricked. The connection was terrible, and the results full of static and noise, but she could see numbers that were not normal. Something was wrong, possibly very wrong.

"Mmm..."

"What's up, Mom?" Moonbeam, her adopted son, poked his head in, tufted ears perked at her. "You look upset."

"Does this look normal to you?" She gestured at her screen, a maze of numbers, static, and charts. "It's not right. NefNef may have become infected with something."

"Yeah?" He stepped in on quiet hooves. "So? Unless it's killing her, she'll get over it. We all get sick sometimes."

"True... but I'm also seeing this..." She waved at the screen as her horn glowed, bringing up a little... nothing, barely a splotch.

"Yeah? What... am I... looking at?"

"NefNef Jr. or whatever they call them. They're too far away to try to determine the sex, but illness in the early stages of pregnancy can cause a termination... She... wouldn't even know she ever had a child. It's so small..." Samantha heaved a little sigh. "It's not fair, Moonie! Imagine that, being killed before you even had a concept of existing. Unfair!"

Moonbeam swung one of his ears off to the side a moment. "It can't really suck."

"How can that not suck! Moonie! Don't be mean!" cried Samantha, hiding her face behind her hooves.

"If you don't know it can suck, or not suck, it can't suck," argued Moonbeam with a shrug. "But it sucks for us, because we know. So, uh, mom, can you help?"

"Yes! Help, good idea." She rebounded instantly, sitting up in her cushy chair. "Now, NefNef might get... a little angry... but what if I took it?"

"Took... what?"

"The almost-baby!" She thrust a hoof at the splotch on the screen. "I take it away for a little while, just a little, put it back when everything's calm again."

Moonbeam smiled a little. "You'd have to never tell her, ever. If you tell her, even if everything's great, she'll be so mad at you, Mom, and you know it."

"Yeah... but that didn't sound like a no!" She leaned forward, her hooves wriggling as her horn glowed, starting to put things into motion. "This is going to be super tricky. She's so far away! If she was right here, it would just be slightly really hard. But with her a whole ocean away, it's graduated to S-Grade Mega Super Hard!"

Moonbeam nodded softly as he grabbed her half-filled mug and trotted off with it. He didn't say goodbye, there was no need. She didn't notice his presence or lack of it until she reached with her magic for her refilled mug and took a big slurp of coffee. "This is warm. Oh, thank you!" She took a second sip before setting it down. "Now..."

He left her to her work, heading off to do things more suitable to a teenaged lunar pegasus such as himself.

To copy what was there, and make it here, invariably messed up what was there, but that was alright, since it would be here. Samantha smiled to herself as she worked as quickly as she could, horn glowing softly as she manipulated so many things at the same time to get it just right. She pulled over a jar of fluid. "You'll rest in here."

A loud piercing beep startled her. The signs from Nefertari was degrading, rapidly. All the static in the world didn't hide that whatever was happening, it was bad.

For just a moment she wanted to try to pull all of Neferartari, but that was... she couldn't do that. Even trying for the little splotch was beyond the grasp of any ordinary pony. "Good thing I'm not that," she half-sung to herself, renewing her efforts. Surely someone on the other side would help Nefertari. She couldn't lend a hoof there. She could just maybe save that almost-child before it was gone before it even arrived.

She had to work fast, so fast. The reading were wild. It could hurt the child. It could kill the child, insomuch as something so tiny could ever have been said to been properly living in the first place.

She glanced to another smaller window, showing Silver's numbers. They were elevated, but not in any way that spiked into the red. He must be there. Maybe he was worried? Of course he was. He'd save Nefertari. Of course he would, that was just a thing Silver did. She had to have faith. She had to save the child and assume NefNef was fine. She'd be fine.

Focus. So many numbers, so many strands. It was so far away... She drank from her cup to notice it was drained again. Was she that thirsty? No time to consider that. Her horn flared with blindingly bright magic that she wasn't focused on. The machines began to grind and groan, being pushed past all reasonable safe limits.

She almost had it. The numbers were looking so terrible. Silver, save NefNef! She bit at her lower lip as she slowly swiveled a hoof, marking off the area around the splotch that she would excise. "And..."

A new alarm rang. It was only getting worse. It was reaching the child, and everywhere in Nefertari. "What is going on?!" Samantha cried as she pulled her hoof back, starting to draw the little precious splot through the hair-thin connection. "C'mon, c'mon... c'mon... Work work work work!" Her eyes darted to the vial that trembled and shook with the power it was being rocked with, trying to transport something such a tremendous distance. "Work!"

Her head wanted to split in two, brain throbbing with a pain that would have sent most unicorns to the ground in a whimpering mass. There was no time for that. She had to work faster. "Work!" She smashed a button and her vision swam a dangerously dark red, obscured with blood in much the same way that Nefertari's insides were. "Work! C'mon C'mon!"

Something popped, like a balloon inflated too hard.

The room went dark, all she had was the screaming pain between her ears.

Worked or not, she fell to all fours and almost collapsed on the spot. "Gotta..." She grabbed the jar with numb hooves, staggering out of the room. "Gotta..." She half-fell, slapping the jar into a machine that was in a better lit room where the power hadn't been blown. "Yes..."

If the child had arrived, it would live, she hoped. "Yes..."

Silver would save Nefertari. He had to. That was how that sort of thing worked.

She slid to the floor, groaning in pain. Consciousness fled her fatigued form.