Of all of the places Twilight thought she might end up, an old circular room full of stripped electronics and empty sockets covered with dirty, rusting panels was not her first guess. It was a large room, and like so much of the area, it bore few signs of actual destruction beyond the simple ravages of time, though it looked to Twilight like some panels or buttons had been crudely ripped out in places.
It didn’t look much different than other human technology centers she’d seen, most notably reminding her of when the Princess had taken her to visit Cape Canaveral some months earlier. But the technology it once had was very dated by what she knew humans now possessed, and the most prominent of all the features there was an odd grid covered with square lights or buttons in a circular pattern.
There was a geometric symmetry to the colors and layout of the grid, leaving her no immediate idea what it was for, but the room—like the surrounding area—appeared to have been abandoned long ago.
Twilight was startled enough by their surroundings that she didn’t immediately take notice of the contamination level, but soon enough felt a renewed and intensified prickling on her horn. “The poison is more intense here,” she noted, a fresh edge to her voice. “Not by much, but… is it strong enough to hurt us?” She held her breath in trepidation as she awaited the answer.
“Not without prolonged exposure, but it would still be unwise to linger here for very long,” Celestia replied after probing the ether herself. “In fact, I note the level of contamination is actually somewhat higher since my last visit, perhaps because the new containment dome is confining it, and thus concentrating it. And as that is the case…” She cast a shield spell to encompass them both, causing the prickling sensation on Twilight’s horn to instantly cease.
Twilight sighed in relief at that—it wasn’t like she didn’t believe that the Princess could, in fact, protect her as she promised, but getting confirmation was still immensely reassuring. “Now stay close, my student. My protection spell is only effective within a few yards of me.”
“Yes, Princess,” Twilight instantly answered as she took a few steps closer towards Celestia’s side, probing her mentor’s aura construct with her own magic. She found it to be not a typical shield spell with a well-defined edge, but a much more gradual one that contained not a solid barrier, but a strong magical field that got denser the closer to Celestia it got.
It seemed to somehow block the contamination from reaching them, but a renewed if only slight prickling of her horn as she took but a step away from her mentor underlined the truth of Celestia’s words. “Now where are we…?” she wondered aloud, finding her anxiety abruptly reduced by the absence of the evil energy, allowing her scientific mind to engage fully.
To little surprise, Celestia did not answer, letting her student explore. As she watched, Twilight probed the remains of the wires and panels with her magic, sounded out some of the unfaded labels she saw, recognizing a few as giving energy readouts using human units.
She also found labels for flow rate and temperature, though there wasn’t enough left of them to say more. She likewise found no controls remaining below the large grid, though she did note there seemed to be a corresponding socket on the bottom panel for each button or light on the top one.
Finally, she completed a single circuit of the room, having examined everything in turn. “Very well. What do you think this facility is, my student?” Celestia asked.
Twilight considered the question carefully. “I’m not entirely certain. It’s some kind of control center; that’s obvious enough. But I’m still not sure what it was controlling,” she mused. “It looks like they were monitoring everything from water flow to temperature. There are indications of power output as well as some form of cooling systems. But what I find of most interest… is that.” She pointed again at the circular board festooned with hundreds of tiny buttons in a symmetrical circular pattern.
“I honestly don’t know what that is. My best guess is that each button or light must represent a sensor, or perhaps a probe of some sort. But what substance would require that literally every inch of its body be monitored or controlled?”
Celestia again remained silent, knowing from long experience that Twilight was only asking the question in an attempt to answer it herself based on the available evidence. “It would have to be something so volatile and dangerous that such extensive monitoring was necessary over its entire surface. Something that had to be kept in careful balance with its environment at all times, with the means to quickly correct any imbalance that occurred. But why would they even have such a substance? What purpose could it possibly serve?” she wondered aloud.
A hint of a smile broke Celestia’s face, visible beneath the light of her horn. “Perhaps the question to ask, my student… is what do humans require more than anything else to power their society?”
“Electricity,” Twilight answered instantly, having marvelled previously at the extensive—if not always secure—infrastructure humanity had invented to support their insatiable need for it, involving everything from flowing water to the rather dirty burning of various fossil fuels to generate sufficient steam to turn massive turbines. “Then this is a power plant! Or was…” she quickly corrected, recognizing again the ruins around her.
“Very good, Twilight,” Celestia praised while giving a gentle nod and smile to her pupil. “But questions still remain.”
“You’re right. Like, what fuel source was it using? I don’t see evidence of any of the usual ones...” Abruptly, her guts clenched again as something occurred to her. “Wait—is the fuel what caused this contamination?” she sensed, and this time the tingle on her horn told her she’d found the answer.
“That’s it, isn’t it? Whatever fuel they were harvesting to generate power here… it was dangerous and it required careful control, but there was some sort of accident. And thus, they lost control of it!” she guessed. “It broke free of whatever containment structure lay beneath that dome outside. And when it did, it contaminated the entire area!” she stated authoritatively, knowing she had it right.
“And at last, we reach the crux of our questions,” the Princess acknowledged. “Well done, my student. And with that, there is one last location to visit. And this time, we must walk,” she announced. “It is not safe to teleport there, both because my memory of the area may not be accurate given infrequent corridor collapses, and because the radiation is strong enough that it can actually disrupt the magic used.”
“Radiation?” Twilight blinked at the unfamiliar term.
“That is what humans call this energy, my student,” Celestia explained after a quickly suppressed grimace. “That was actually a slip on my part, as I did not wish to use that word just yet. But so be it. We are close enough to the answers now. So let us proceed.” She zapped a far wall to reveal a hidden doorway behind a panel, and then turned back to Twilight.
“Heed my words and heed them well, my student. From this point forward, you must follow me closely at all times. It is extremely dangerous down here, as the structural damage is severe and the energy emissions are intense. My field will keep you safe, but only if you stay deep enough within it.” At this, she met Twilight’s gaze directly, lowered her head slightly so she was closer to her height, and asked with perfect clarity: “Do you understand?”
“I do.” Twilight gulped.
“Then let us proceed,” Celestia invited with an approving nod. “For we are almost at our goal.”
