//------------------------------// // Chapter 44: Locked in a Cage // Story: Through the Aurora // by Starscribe //------------------------------// For the first few hours, none of them could do anything productive. It wasn’t just being in such an unfamiliar space, with gigantic furniture that might’ve been picked for size, but still was far too big to feel like they really belonged here. Aside from a few wonderful reminders of the delights of home, the food was strange to the ponies. Being so far north meant few of the fresh veggies and grains that were their staple diets. Instead, everything was processed, everything was canned—so more of the same in terms of travel rations, only from another planet. At least nothing made them sick. But a few hours turned into a day, and still they hadn’t heard back from Barton or Foster. They took turns with the necklace, asking questions about the everyday objects all around them. But after the stress of the day—after nearly being blown to pieces, and Kate trying to kill her more than once, Summer found herself not terribly interested in being productive. “I don’t understand,” she squeaked, curled up beside Sharp in one of the beds. There were four of them in the bedroom, but even one was big enough for all three of them. Summer certainly didn’t want to be alone right now. “I was supposed to be human again. Through the Doorway, back the way I was. What went wrong?” Sharp watched her sympathetically, patting her on the head with a hoof. “Summer, where did you actually hear that? What made you think it would do that?” She opened her mouth to give the obvious answer, then realized that she didn’t have one. “Uh… I dunno. It feels like the right thing to happen, doesn’t it? If going through in one direction changed me into a hippogriff, then going back the way we came should fix it.” Sharp pawed awkwardly at the thick sheets. But at least he wasn’t shy about confronting her with her mistakes. “Not everything can be reversed so easily. Like making iron into steel. Easy to go one way, but too much carbon in the iron and the steel is brittle. If you want to start over, you can’t just take back your work. You have to smelt it all down and start again. Maybe what happened to you was… accidental. Maybe it was never meant for humans to use.” Summer wouldn’t have known any more about it than that. Except for what they’d seen in Athemis. “There were dead humans in Athemis,” she said. “Not dead birds who fought with the real hippogriffs, but dead humans. But that portal was broken.”  She slumped, closing her eyes and speaking mostly into the mattress. She didn’t want to admit it, but after all she’d learned she couldn’t possibly ignore it.  “The Pearl almost… spoke to me, when I got my piece. It showed me things that might be history. I wonder if… the doorway was always meant to do this. Make… hippogriffs, out of humans. The Pearl called the ancient hippogriffs from my world, created them. So of course it wouldn’t be reversible. The Pearl of Transformation’s alive. It’s… like a person. It wouldn’t want to give up what it took.” Sharp didn’t answer for a long time. A part of her wondered if he was just waiting to see if she’d say anything else. But she didn’t, and eventually he said, “If that’s true, then contact between our worlds won’t be easy. Your… your kind built their own bridge. We saw it. No Doorway, yours was from scratch. But they won’t be able to visit.” Unless they want to get changed forever. “Contact that only goes one way is still world-changing,” Summer said, rolling onto her back. She didn’t move too much, not wanting to disturb the already-sleeping Emerald. Well, the “pretending to be sleeping” Emerald, anyway. The little filly might not be wearing the necklace right now, but she still seemed like she was listening. “I can just imagine some of the ways ponies might be able to use their powers. Earth ponies could be great farmers. Pegasus ponies could help us fight disasters, and unicorn magic… I don’t even know what it can do, but I’m sure it’s just as impressive in its own way.” “I suppose that’s true,” Sharp said. “There are certainly ponies hungry for adventure. At least two of us, by last count.” He glanced over at Emerald, then laid back down. “What do you think the humans will want to do? Will your tribe want to make friends with Equestria, or… sever our worlds, like Kate?” Twenty years ago, the answer would’ve been obvious. But Earth was a different place, and now she wasn’t so sure. So much could change in just a few years. “I hope they want to be friends,” she said. “This feels like it was meant to happen, you know? Me getting ripped right out of the sky, and all the different little coincidences that kept us safe all the way here. Kate should’ve murdered us, or we could’ve got shipwrecked, or never left Mt. Aris. All that could’ve happened, but it didn’t. We made it.” “I’m not ecstatic about my first impression,” he admitted. “But Barton and Foster seemed polite enough. So long as they don’t ask for more vials of blood and… other things.” He shivered. “For as advanced as your society is in other ways, did they really have to resort to bleeding? Or do you still do medicine by balancing the humors?” She groaned, ears flattening. “That is not what those were about. All those samples are going to teach them about how these bodies work. There are even more advanced machines they could put us through… they probably will, eventually, that can see inside you without cutting.” “An X-ray, I’m guessing,” Sharp said. “We’ve had those for a decade now. Not all your magic is strange.” “I was thinking of an MRI…” But she thought better of explaining all that, and settled on something simpler. “They weren’t trying to make us better. But with those little pieces of us, they can know how our bodies work. They can know if we’re carrying lots of different diseases. It sounded like Kate has been feeding them lies for months now, trying to get them to close the experiment early. But instead of scaring them off, she only made them send in the whole damn army.” But Kate clearly doesn’t understand humans very well, based on the way she acted in Equestria. Of course making Equestria seem dangerous was going to get their attention. They went on a little longer like that, into what probably would’ve been the night if they had one. But there were still no visitors from the other side of the glass, or any sign of other creatures. At least they could sleep in peace. Nothing woke them either, though Summer did occasionally hear muffled voices from outside. The changing of the guard she guessed, based on the roughly four-hour intervals that it repeated. Occasionally she heard a helicopter come down overhead, or a Humvee drive by far away. But that was it. The next morning did bring her a luxury she hadn’t experienced since arriving in Equestria: a gigantic shower with unlimited searing-hot water. She made pancakes using the boxes and mix in the kitchen after that, since she knew from experience that ponies could eat pancakes no problem. But when that was done, even Emerald seemed to be getting restless. “Why are they taking so long?” she asked, once Sharp gave her the necklace. “Isn’t this a big important day for them? Or do they not care about us…?” Summer frowned, pushing away her empty plate. She glanced across the room at the dark plexiglass. “I think they’re waiting to finish their tests. Some of those are fast, but some can take a long time. I could probably ask them what’s going on…” But she didn’t, not for a good long while. Summer didn’t want to rush things ahead before even getting the chance to write her letter home. It might be the only chance she ever got to communicate. Or maybe they’d throw it in a shredder when she was done. Either way, it was something she had to do. She sat down in front of the glass wall—the only desk in the little apartment, and started to write. There was no easy way to tell her parents everything. There was no way to write it at all without the entire thing sounding completely stupid and impossible. She could only hope that outside sources would vouch for it. She started off simple, in the part she thought would be most likely to be approved. She said that she’d been in an accident while serving at the observatory, and that was why she hadn’t called in months. She said it had left her disfigured, and she wasn’t sure if she would get to see them again.  It was a chance to say how much she loved them, and how grateful she was for their time together. To say that she hoped she got to see them again one day, but that she wasn’t sure they’d recognize her. Or even believe what she’d been through. And of course, she wrote the whole thing in German. Hopefully her handwriting hadn’t changed much for having claws. Once the weight was off her chest, she moved on to telling her story in more detail. “You won’t believe any of this,” she began. “Maybe this will be all over the news. If it’s not, you probably won’t read it anyway. But this is what happened.” And so she wrote. About getting sucked into the sky, transformed into a bird-creature, saved by Sharp, and her journey across Equestria. She left out her theories about the hippogriffs, or any details about Kate, ending with a difficult return trip and eventually making it back through the portal. “I hoped to return to you when this was over,” she lied, or mostly lied. “That I would come back through as myself. But I am not. I don’t know if I ever will be again. Until big things change, I probably won’t be allowed to see you. I will ask the Americans if they can connect us for a video call. But if they don’t let me, at least say goodbye to my little sister for me.” She finished things up, then licked the envelope closed. She addressed it properly, a habit she’d long-since mastered sending international post home from the observatory. Their hosts hadn’t left any stamps. It was a futile gesture—obviously the Americans would open the whole thing, and they certainly wouldn’t mail it. But it was the right way to send a letter. She could only depend on the mercy of others to see that it got where it was going. “How’s your novel coming?” Sharp asked, making his way over almost the instant she’d finished. “You’ve been at it for hours.” She nodded, then pushed the envelope towards the end of the table and stood up. “I had to do it right. Now hopefully I can tell my family everything. Even if I don’t get to see them again… it kinda felt like getting to tell them.” He nudged her shoulder affectionately. “I can see that. You look like you just won the Running of the Leaves or something.” “I have no idea what that is,” she declared, before turning to see Emerald by herself in the corner. She’d removed every one of the board games from a shelf (stolen from the rec room, because of course they would be), playing with the pieces on the kitchen table.  She might be an alien traveler in another universe, but she was still a kid. Emerald Aurora was bored. “I wish they’d given us movies,” Summer muttered. “We’re the first visitors anyone knows of from another world… well, you two are. But they didn’t even give you a TV.” Even as she said it, she felt the objection fall apart in her mind. Obviously they wouldn’t want their aliens to watch human entertainment. Every movie carried cultural context, and possibly they wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference between reality and fiction. Sharp and Emerald had real problems with that at first. Summer marched right over to the phone, lifting it off the wall with her claw. Using a corded phone felt almost as strange as being a bird. “Hello?” There was a pause, some static and distant muttering, then, “This is officer on duty. How may we help you?” Not even a name. Just his position. Not the friendliest bunch, were they?  “I was just hoping you could tell us how long those tests are going to take,” she asked. “Agent Barton said that we would get a visitor soon to formally meet with us. But we haven’t heard anything yet.” There was a long, awkward silence. Summer thought she could hear muffled voices, though she couldn’t quite make out the words. There was no using the advantages of her better hearing when only the microphone really mattered.  “Soon,” the voice said. “That’s all I can tell you. They’ll be done soon. Your visitor will be there soon. It’s all moving as fast as possible.” “Your first aliens are getting bored locked in a room,” Summer said. “If you’re not going to send the welcoming committee, could you at least send us some movies? Like, Disney stuff would be great. I already showed them the movies I had on my tablet while I was over there. I promise it won’t be anything they don’t know.” Another long pause, this time with more back and forth than she’d heard during the first question. Finally the speaker came back. “I’ll put something together. But we’re getting it on record that you already showed films while over there. This wasn’t ours.” “Yes,” she said, exasperated. “Fine, put whatever you want on the record. Just get us something to keep a kid entertained, because ours is losing her mind in this jail you made.” “It’s not a jail,” he snapped, without hesitation this time. “It’s biohazard isolation. Until we know you’re not a threat to the planet, it’s our responsibility to keep you contained.” “I know,” she growled. “Just get us the movies please. And tell Barton that I finished my letter. I’d like it sent to my parents if he can.” “They’ll collect it when they deliver the entertainment.” The line clicked. “I can’t tell if that went well or not,” Sharp said, watching from a few feet away. “What’s a Disney? The magic feels like it’s working, but I don’t have a clue what it means.” She shook her head, glaring down at the phone. “I’m sorry about this, Sharp. Your visit here was supposed to be… something awesome. They’d roll out the red carpet, shower you guys with gifts, the leaders of the scientific community would be here to learn all about Equestria…” “Oh?” Sharp tilted his head slightly to the side. “Because that’s what happened to you in Equestria? I seem to recall your second day ended with a village trying to murder you. Then our ship got sabotaged, and a lightning cannon tried to shoot us down. There was that whole lake thing, that was fun.” Summer laughed. She couldn’t help it. “I guess by that standard, being locked in a boring room for a while isn’t the worst thing. They even saved us from Kate.” “See? Positive attitude!” He leaned over to hug her, though it was brief. She hadn’t told him that they were probably being watched—but Emerald was there, and he always got shy around the apprentice. “I can’t blame them for wanting to keep your entire planet from getting sick. If they thought it was a real threat, maybe it’s not one they can solve in a day. Though I do worry…” He turned away, towards the door. “I hope Kate’s ponies don’t destroy the portal while she’s gone.  They wouldn’t want to strand their master, right? And how… how will we deal with them on the return trip? If they touch the Horizon while we’re gone, we’re going to have words.” Their captors weren’t completely heartless. It wasn’t anything like the hospitality they’d enjoyed in Mt. Aris. But a few hours later, more soldiers in biohazard gear arrived with a hard-plastic box in hand. They sealed Summer’s letter in a sleeve, then retreated without another word.  Emerald crept up to Summer as soon as they were gone, following her as she dragged the box over to the couch. “Why did they come back?” she asked, wearing the necklace again. “The scary ones. They should’ve sent the ones with real faces.” “They all have real faces,” Summer chided, tapping her with a wing. “It’s just to stop them from getting sick, that’s all.” She stuck out her tongue. “What did they leave us?” “Something to stop you from getting bored.” She undid the latch, lifting on both sides. Inside was a ruggedized military laptop, thick as her hoof and obviously long in service from the scratches and dents along the case. Tucked in beside it was what appeared to be a mismatched collection of every kid’s movie in the town of Utqiaġvik.  Emerald picked up one of the cases, her eyes widening at the little rainbow the disk made. “Pretty. Is this like that checkers game?” “No.” Summer settled the laptop on the table in front of them, then picked an unlabeled disk at random and slid it into the slot. “This is more movies. Movies you’ve never seen before. And if you wear that, you should be able to understand without me translating.” Emerald squealed with excitement. Sharp made his way over as well, though of course he wouldn’t understand her right now. He smiled anyway, watching her work intently. The movie started playing on its own. Brave this time. A little dull, but Emerald probably wouldn’t care. Maybe watching movies about friendlier-looking humans would make her less afraid of them.