CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"WHAT?!"
Twilight jumped up from her chair, wings spread, taking on a battle stance. "What did you do to my friends?! My... my universe?!" she demanded.
Amari, realizing a little bit of drama was probably a bad idea in hindsight, worked to allay Twilight's anger, his paw gestures placating. "Calm down, Twilight, please. It's not what you think. I have done nothing to your universe."
Twilight folded her wings, and sat back on her haunches, but pointed a hoof at Amari. "No more games," she said, "tell me what's going on. Where am I? Where is this place? Are you really a caretaker? What is it you do?"
Amari nodded quickly, "certainly, Twilight, I truly meant no offense, it's just I so rarely get visitors here." He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly before continuing. "Your universe is dead, but," he said, holding up a paw to forestall her response, "that's because where we are, all universes are dead. We are beyond time, Twilight, beyond space. We are where all things that ever were have been, and will become."
He returned to his chair. Twilight stayed where she was, focused on his every move.
"When I told you I was a caretaker, that was true, and if you'll forgive my flair for the dramatic, I did mean your universe was dead, because it is, but that is because by your being here, you've arrived at the end of all things."
Twilight looked around her at the interior of the study. "As pleased as I am to see books surviving the end of all things, I'm a bit underwhelmed, if I'm being honest."
Amari's heart, or what constituted one in the perceptions of linear beings, fluttered just a bit in his chest. Twilight's humor was starting to come back, which meant she was becoming more relaxed. He made a note to never joke with Twilight the way he joked with Luna again. Clearly, not all Alicorns reacted the same way.
"Well yes and no," he continued. A spark of inspiration hit him. "Think of this place as a library," he said, a smile on his face as he turned to further regard his interlocuter. "Instead of books, it is the repository of all existence. It is indexed, sorted, and collected. It can be viewed at any time should reference need to be made."
Twilight's eyes grew large. "Are you telling me that we're in the universal equivalent of a library?"
Amari nodded. "That is exactly what I am telling you," he said, though his smile became a bit strained when he saw the hungry look that began to form in her expression.
He cleared his throat. "Before you take this far, far beyond what imagination will tell you, let me tell you that no living, linear creature can process the amount of information in this repository. I told you when we first met that I was glad to finally meet you, and it is true. I have read much about you, Twilight, you and your friends, and when I felt your presence, I had already begun to research into why you were here."
"If you will follow me up the stairs, to the second level, I will show you why I think you're here," he said.
Twilight stood, and followed her diminutive host up the spiral steps. As she reached the second floor, she noticed it was much cooler here, and somewhat darker. As she reached the last step, she stopped to take in her surroundings. Much like the downstairs area, this seemed like a study, but rather than couches or conventional chairs, there were only what appeared to be pods.
"What is this place, Amari?" Twilight asked as she moved to follow the mouse to a central console against the far wall.
"This," he said, pointing to the white desk shaped object, "is the Astrix. Think of it as a universal card catalog. With it, I can bring up any event in your history, or any history, from any universe that has existed in the time stream."
Twilight was in awe at the notion of so much information at her hoof tips. "Can I see?" She asked as she gazed at all of the buttons, knobs, and switches that littered the face of the machine.
Amari chuckled. "I'm sorry, Twilight, don't take this the wrong way, but your mind couldn't handle it. If I let you see what I could see, you would likely die from shock after only a few moments. That said," he continued as he flipped the switch on the console, "I can bring up information so that you can see a rough interpretation of what I see, something more in tune with your own senses."
With that, a flat image appeared in thin air above the console, and Twilight could see a blob shaped object, glittering with what must have been thousands of points of light.
"This," he remarked, "is your galaxy. Our designation for it is EQC57-D. It is a spiral galaxy measuring some 100 light years across. Rather small, actually, and that is because your universe is approximately 1000 light years across."
Twilight frowned. "I'm not sure if that's good or bad, Amari, since I have no reference to any other universes."
Amari nodded. "Ah, yes, good point. Well, let's put it this way: if we compared it to, say, this galaxy..." and with that he pulled up another much larger galaxy, this one shaped like a pinwheel.
"This," he said as he motioned to it with his paw, "is a spiral galaxy in universe HHG42-DA. It measures 100,000 light years across. The universe in which it exists is approximately 16 BILLION light years across, and is still expanding."
Twilight pursed her lips. "Okay," she began, "but I'm not certain the length of measurement. What is a light year?"
Amari considered her question for a moment. "Ah, I see the issue. What is the circumference of Equestria, Twilight?"
She rattled if off without having to give it a moment's thought: "31,000,000 hoof lengths, or approximately 4,000 kilometers."
Amari nodded. "Very well. Then let's just say in a single second, light could travel from one side of Equestria to the other approximately 75 times."
Twilight's eyes bugged. "In a single second?"
Amari grinned. "In a single second. Now, keeping that velocity in mind, how fast could light travel in a year?"
Twilight mentally calculated her answer in half a second. "roughly nine trillion, four hundred and sixty billion, eight hundred million kilometers in a year."
Amari put his paw on her shoulder. "Multiply that by 16 billion."
Twilight's eyes grew large, and she dropped to her haunches. "That's... that's impossibly huge."
Amari patted her shoulder gently. "Yes, it is very large, but not impossible, and there are universes much, much larger."
He returned his focus to the console. "That said, we're going to look at your little universe, with it's little galaxy, and specifically your world."
He tapped out a sequence on a small keypad. Twilight watched as her own world zoomed in, and her heart twinged. Learning about new places was always fascinating, but she wanted to go home, to find her crew, and her friends.
"Now if you'll look here," said Amari, tapping out a final sequence, and bringing up a number of lines crisscrossing her world, "you will see that during the time frame in which you and your ship arrived in Manehattan to study the anomaly, there are a number of intersecting leylines in that same area."
Twilight could indeed see them, with the point of intersection right over what would be the Manehattan library.
"What are these lines, Amari?" she asked.
Amari pressed another button, and a new image appeared. "These," he said, "are quantum streams. They're what cause your universe to maintain its physical laws and, as I'm sure you're already figuring out, they do not belong in this configuration. What I think," he continued, "is that a spell has somehow managed to reverse a number of these quantum streams, and has created a cosmic whirlpool."
"I'm guessing that's not good," Twilight observed.
Amari nodded. "An understatement. A cosmic whirlpool is terribly unstable, and if left to its own devices, will not only wholly disrupt your world's magic, but also breakdown the physics of your universe."
A spike of panic shot through Twilight's chest. "Please tell me there is a solution."
Amari patted Twilight's shoulder, something he found he liked doing not only to comfort the mare, but to maintain his own emotional control. "Yes, believe me I wouldn't tell you all of this if I didn't believe there was a solution, and fortunately it will only require you and a few other ponies to make it happen."
Twilight nodded. "How do we get started?"
Amari clapped his paws together. "That's the easy part!" He headed towards the staircase and motioned Twilight to follow, talking as he went. "Usually, we wouldn't get involved in something like this, because we believe that every universe plays out as it should, however," he said as they walked out of the hut and towards a small wooden building on the opposite side of the tree, "this is a situation that requires some intervention."
They stepped into the wooden hut, and to Twilight's lack of surprise, it too was much bigger on the inside, and appeared to be some kind of laboratory with various instruments on tables, colorful liquids along shelves against the wall.
Amari lead them to what appeared to be a wall safe, and input a sequence into a wall panel she didn't even notice until he was already finished.
A small door appeared, and opened for Amari, who reached in and pulled out what looked like a glowing, color changing cube.
"What is it?" Twilight asked. She couldn't tear her eyes away from it.
"This," he said, smiling as he held the cube in his paws, "is a tesseract, Twilight, and with it you're going to create a logjam in the quantum stream."
Twilight smiled. "Just show me where to cram it."
/)*(\