//------------------------------// // Four of Two // Story: Myou've Gotta be Kidding Me // by DataPacRat //------------------------------// While trying to figure out the various political attacks the Dairy would be suffering, and how to fend them off... the actual work of the Dairy continued apace. I was keeping most of the research on crystal-powered magic spells to myself, for security purposes; Judge Wicked's ideas on conspiracy were nudging me back toward operational paranoia. That particular day, I was taking some basic measurements on how rapidly any given type of gemstone would discharge its magic through the standard light spell. That is, after giving each one an equal charge of magic power, seeing how long it kept glowing. I had a few theories which might demonstrate a relationship between strength of release, duration of release, and type of crystal, but I needed to gather hard evidence to narrow in on which theories made the right predictions. That particular day, I'd also added a new item to the set of test crystals: a small, merely fist-sized piece of Ursa Major skeleton. I was quite curious to see how it would respond to being used in this sort of magic. I stuck the shard in one side of the charging apparatus, my horns in the other, and hit the switch. Two seconds later, the connection was broken, and a few seconds after that, I came back to myself enough to continue the procedure. I moved the crystal to the experimental workbench, arranged my timers and light-meters, placed my hoof on the see-through, sparkly bone, visualized illumination, and commanded, "Fiat Lux." I immediately had to shut my eyes against the glare, then screw them shut, then turn away, then curl up on the floor and cover my eyes with my forehoof. I started smelling smoke. I got the impression that I was seeing my own leg-bone through my own flesh... I heard the fire-alarm start, and the sprinklers start raining down, but the light kept brightening... ... whereupon I got a feeling of odd lethargy, of slowness and stillness, my whole body going numb... ... I suddenly gasped, filling my lungs with a deep breath. There was no more smell of smoke, no blinding light shining through my eyelids. Cautiously, I opened my eyes. I was lying down at the back of Cheerilee's sitting room. The sun was shining down through the windows at an angle indicating late afternoon. A few moments ago, by my perspective, it had been early morning. There was at least one other oddity. In the middle of the floor, facing me, was a sandwich board, like the ones used by restaurants to advertise daily specials. Written on it in Cheerilee's neat penmanship, was "WELCOME BACK! Today's Date", followed by a date just over four weeks later than the last moment I remembered. Beneath that, several bullet points informed me, "Lab accident," "Lab was burned," "You were petrified," "Unknown duration," "Everypony else is fine," and "Hope to see you soon!" There was a swooping arrow leading to a notebook, attached by a string to the board. As I stood, I felt something shift underneath me; in the window, alight turned on, and I heard a bell ring upstairs. Some wires led from under the carpet I'd been lying on off through a doorway; it looked like somepony wanted to know as soon as I was mobile again. While I waited to see what reaction the alarm might bring, I flipped inside the book on a string, where I discovered newspaper clippings from the past month, and various diary-like notes, from Red and Page having moved in together, to Safe and Just having started dating, to Micro having lost an eyebrow in a flash-fire while trying to figure out what had happened to me. As I was reading a rather fascinating report about an evening out - and then in - which Cheerilee had had with Lily, a weight suddenly landed on my back. Fortunately, one of the few benefits of the bovine form is an extremely stable framework, so I was able to simply turn my head around - and spy Amethyst crouched on my haunches, baring a toothy grin at me. I politely inquired, "How are the pups doing?" "Good," she answered, in her usual succinct fashion. "Anything I need to know?" She tilted her head, then nodded. I waited. She waited. I sighed. "What do I need to know?" "Ponies. Mad. At. Dogs." "Have they started fighting?" A head-shake of negation. "Then hopefully there's still time to calm things do-" Amethyst casually leapt off of me, knocking me slightly off balance - which was enough so that when someone else ran straight into my side, I rolled all the way onto my back. A two-shaded pink mane covered my eyes, through which I caught glimpses of a darker purple coat. No words were exchanged. I heard Amethyst start chuckling, and then head out the door. Some time later, I finally said, "Hi." "Hi," she smiled back. "I missed you." I gave her a hug as I said, "I still feel like I just took the train to Canterlot a few hours ago, and confused about what happened... but I'm glad to see you." "Don't ever do anything like that again." "... I'm not even sure what I did in the first place." "That's not what I meant." "Ah. Well, I'll try not to, then." Safe grinned at me. "Still in one piece, then? I was worried somepony was going to drop you before you came back to us." "And here I was expecting jokes about rocks in my head." "I was saving those for the next time I was bored." "I can live with that - boredom is good. Nopony's tried blowing up Equestria while I was..." "Stoned?" "Let's make that the absolute last time anypony ever uses that joke." "Spoilsport. But no - no major catastrophes. We've been picking up hints about more of these transformed hyu-mins popping up here and there. Some of the possibles have independently mentioned this 'Chess Game' theory about their arrival, so we're using that as a primary filter to separate..." We talked shop for a few minutes. "... resulting in R&D doing more D than R." "Nothing wrong with that. Say, did Micro figure out anything about what happened to me?" "You'd have to ask her for the details. From what I've gathered, she couldn't make heads or tails about anything about it, until she tried working with the assumption there were two magical events, not one. One flash-fried the lab you were in; the other sto- er, turned you to stone. You probably only survived the first because of the second. So - you've still got a few tricks up your sleeve you haven't shared even with me, huh?" My forehead wrinkled. "Not on purpose. The only time I've dealt with petrification directly was... hm. I'm going to have to ask a few questions of somepony, and then I might have an answer for you. In the meantime - if you haven't already, you should put all those Ursa Major skeletal fragments into secure storage, and I only want them let out with my authorization." He looked away from me. "Um... well, there's a thing about that. A matter. I probably should have brought it up first, but we got to talking, and..." He shrugged. I raised an eyebrow. He coughed. "While you were - gone, and Micro and I were running things, we worked on improving the Dairy's security and counter-intelligence procedures, including regularizing them and removing exceptions, and, well..." He coughed again. "Youdidn'tpassthebackgroundcheck." "Pardon?" "You didn't pass the background check, and, well, without a sufficient security clearance for codeword-level projects, you're not going to be able to effectively run the place anymore, so, um... if you still want to stay with us, I'm kinda your boss now. And Micro is. Or, if that's weird, we can go our separate ways, no hard feelings - though Micro says she can't seem to find the paperwork where you actually swore to maintain secrecy. She thinks its in one of your personal document safes, the ones you designed to incinerate the contents of if they were fiddled with. We've actually found some rather important papers missing, like some one-time pads for some important communiques, and how that card-deck encryption scheme actually works, and your most recent research notes, and so on, and we'd appreciate if you could hand them over so we can run the whole thing at full efficiency..." I ran my gaze up and down him, speculatively. Finally, I said, "I can answer part of that immediately. The reason you can't find the paperwork where I agreed to keep classified information secret is because I never wrote any. I founded the classification system, and at the start, assumed that I would be the single trustable node - and never bothered altering that assumption. I never did get around to writing down some of what you're mentioning - too many things to do, not enough time to do them all in. Page always had a better knack for getting things written down than I did." "She's been kicking my tail about getting procedures written down for future reference, too. So - shall we go hit the vaults?" "Not quite yet - now that I know you've been able to keep everything running without major issues, I've got a few other errands to run that take priority. Hrm... I think I'm going to need to borrow the Alicorn if I want to get it all done... today..." I sighed at the look Safe was giving. "Alright, out with it." "Blueblood's annoyed the Princesses a bit much. Something about demanding Ponyville be burned to the ground for harboring some fugitives who humiliated him. So, among other things, they've taken the Alicorn away from him. I haven't actually seen it in a couple of weeks - I'm not sure where it might be." "Well, isn't that inconvenient. In that case, since I've got to rely on my own hooves, I'd better gallop. I'll get back to you about those papers, okay?" I turned away from him and started at a brisk trot. I was pretty sure that my petrifaction was an accident... but I also found it interestingly convenient that while I was out of touch, I had been shuffled out of authority of my main base of power - which, from my perspective, came quite soon after that unexplained incident with the subpoena. It was entirely possible that there was nothing connecting them with each other - and, as I thought about it, with my preferred mode of transportation - but it was also possible that there was something. That there was somepony, or some other being, whom I couldn't put a name or face to, but who was pulling at hidden strings even better than I did. If such a puppeteer didn't exist, and I acted as if it did... then, at worst, I'd act somewhat too paranoid, and waste some time and effort in trying to deal with an opponent who didn't exist. But if they did exist, and I acted as if they didn't - then my life, the Game, and Equestria itself could easily be forfeit. So the payoff matrix gave fairly easy results - a bit of excess paranoia was a small price to pay. Thus, I had to act under the assumption that some sort of coordinated attack was being made in order to neutralize me - or, at least, my ability to do anything useful. Thinking paranoiacally, Safe and Micro had gained a good deal by taking me out of the way: control of most of the Dairy, save for those parts which I had sealed personally. Perhaps they had been subverted by mere promises of wealth and power, though I had given them the trust I had specifically because they didn't seem susceptible to such blandishments. Perhaps they had loved ones who had been threatened, or they were under some sort of mind-control magic (such as the love-potion which Blanche had been dunked in), or perhaps they were entirely unwitting pawns. Whatever their motivation - I couldn't trust them with access to anything they didn't already possess. My first instinct was to go straight to the Princesses. However - given my past behavior, that would obviously be my initial move. And thus, if a puppeteer was acting against me, they would likely have made preparations for that. Perhaps whispering in the ears of some top advisers that I was dangerously unstable, who would pass that advice to the Princesses, who might then take me up on my promise to go to an asylum should they ever say I should. What I needed to do was something that would be implausible, given anyone's previous knowledge of my actions, behavior, and preferences. Only one of the ex-stallions who'd once tried to rape me remained in Canterlot. Star Charmer had chosen to become a mare rather than a gelding, and looked extremely surprised when I knocked on her apartment door. She stood there, looking at me through the barely-opened door for a long few moments, before finally sighing. "You might as well come in, then," she said, and let me in. It was decorated in University Student Poor - tables made of milk-crates, bookshelves made of milk-crates, a couch that had seen better days, a chair with a permanent pony-butt print in it... rather a far way for a unicorn who'd used to be the son of a baron to fall. She gestured me at the couch, and settled into the divot in the chair. "Are you here to ask for my apology, or to get closure, or something of the sort?" "Actually," I said, as I carefully settled my bulk to avoid the jutting springs, "I'm here to offer you a second chance - if you want to take it." "... I'm listening." "For various reasons it would take too long to explain, I am extending an offer for you to enter my employ. If you do, you will have the opportunity to demonstrate the various virtues the Princesses are fond of. If you accept this offer, and you demonstrate your character, then I will report exactly that to one of the Princesses, along with my recommendation that Princess Luna's sentence upon you be ameliorated. However, I should also inform you that should you accept, and then demonstrate vices rather than virtues, then that would be what I report, and I expect that you would permanently lose any hope of ever improving your station again." There was a... gleam in her eye. "I didn't have any hope of doing any better than this," she waved a hoof at her place. "What sort of 'job' are you talking about?" "To start with - delivering messages to a certain two ponies..." "Hello, Brick. Hello, Blanche - I wasn't sure you'd stay in contact with Brick, but I had hoped you would. Hello, Marble - I hope that your chair isn't too uncomfortable." "Milady." "Goddess!" "I'll live. I'd lost track of you for a while - what have you been up to?" "You know how the royal dairy is experimenting with petrification as a form of food preservation?" She nodded. "There was a lab accident, and I've been out of commission for a few weeks." I knew that I was giving her a deliberately distorted impression, by asking that question so closely to that statement; but if my paranoia was wrong, then there would be plenty of time to offer a correction - but if it was right, then I would need to dole out the truth more carefully than gold, to avoid disaster of a grand scale. I continued, looking from the two love-soaked ponies, to the seapony, to the ex-stallion mare, to Amethyst (who had brought the cubs to Canterlot when I went, but who had stayed in the dairy when I went to the Dairy). "I find," I told the rather unusual group, "that due to certain circumstances that arose while I was unavailable, I now have a need to go outside of the usual official channels to accomplish certain tasks. I require a certain amount of assistance in completing those tasks in a reasonable timeframe. Everypony in this room has at least the potential of being interested in helping me - even if," I glanced at Marble and then at Star, "we have had certain differences in the past. Looking back at Marble, I said, "Each of you has at least some reason for being willing to help me. However, if you feel that you would rather not get involved, despite what I can offer, then I would prefer that you leave now, before I go into much further detail." Marble looked at me, then looked away, looking thoughtful... and, finally, reached with the tip of her tail to set her wheelchair's brake. Since she was the pony I was least sure would accept, I nodded. "Alright. Now here's what I have in mind..."