//------------------------------// // 7 - The Hail Windigo // Story: Evergreen Falls // by Meep the Changeling //------------------------------// Junebug - 3rd of Thanksgiving, 4 EoH Hackamore Valley Observatory - Evergreen Falls June sat in the sweltering heat of the Observatory’s dormitory’s common room. Sam had been absolutely right about the cooling situation. Even in the relatively cool autumn weather the entire observatory complex became miserable from sunrise to sunset. Today was not a cool autumn day. Today was a scorcher, the town’s weather pegasi had to relocate the planned cloud cover to protect some of the town’s crops from a natural weather front blowing in from the not-too-distant sea. And so the intense sunlight hit Evergreen Falls in full force. Stupid bucking atmospheric lensing compensator, June lamented, her mind’s eye picturing the radio telescope’s cooling array as a malicious entity out to make her sweat off half her body weight. Indeed, the massive array set into the ground routed most of its waste heat into the hillside itself, but that bled out into the grounds as a whole. This was something a modern telescope would have compensated for with a large heat sink of some variety. This scope was one of the first. Even the thaumic sensor array had to be manually adjusted before use to compensate for the heat expansion of the gems. I think I bit off more than I can chew… June lamented as she rolled over on the leather couch, ignoring the gross sweat squelch noise as she reached for the formerly ice cold now tepid Cranmelon Wine Cooler she’d brought home from the Brewer’s Hive. I’ve only been here a week and the bar’s become my savior… I hope to buck they approve upgrading the central heat to HVAC soon. June popped the cap off the bottle with a sharp smack from her hoof, as she always did, and tipped the bottle back to drink. The relatively cold berry-melon flavor carried her thoughts back to the first time she’d set eyes on the observatory.  ⁜ ⁜ ⁜  ⁜ ⁜ ⁜ Junebug - 18th of Lunar Dawn, 4 EoH Hackamore Valley Observatory - Evergreen Falls When someone hears the word observatory they tend to think of a small building with a round tower topped by a nice big telescope sheltered from the elements by a dome. While these certainly do exist and are invaluable for astronomy, they are somewhat obsolete. The Hackamore Valley Observatory was more accurately described as a complex of eight buildings: an optical telescope tower, a 420 meter wide steerable radio telescope dish set into the hillside, a large control and maintenance building for operating a particle-accelerator sized thaumaturgic receiver which used scrying magic to detect arcane signatures and auras in deep space, several independent laboratory buildings each with their own designated function and specialty equipment, and an onsite dormitory intended to provide permanent housing for enough on-site staff to man the three telescopes around the clock, horizon permitting. June’s jaw dropped as she took in the enormity of the observatory. She spun to look at Sam, gesturing across the square kilometer of red brick buildings separated from town by a chain link fence. “What the buck is this?!” June demanded. Sam frowned. “An observatory. Don’t— You went to college in Canterlot. They’ve got to have one of these.” “That!” June said, pointing with one shaking hoof to the optical telescope’s tower. “They have a that! Not a this. I don’t even know what that arcane loop is even for, other than making someone’s bank account weep.” “That’s the Deep Space Thaumic Detector Array,” Dew answered, fluttering up to June’s eye level with a smile. “I call her Desta, which is, admittedly, a slurred acronym. But—” June’s eyes widened. “Wait, it’s alive?” she asked, assuming in her shock that giving the device a name and pronoun ment it clearly had sapience. “Nah,” Sam said with an amused smile. “Just temperamental and cantankerous. This was one of Equestria’s biggest astrophysics centers until the last guys died.” June’s eyes narrowed slightly, mostly to mask her embarrassment at her own stupidity. At least I didn’t say that outloud… “Yeah… About that. Just kind of had it click. What were astronomers doing digging in ruins, or archeologists doing manning this… Whole flipping facility?” Sam sucked in a short breath through her teeth. “Let’s just say that CARE is a little cavalier with assigning its Field Agents side quests. You’re strictly a researcher, so you’re safe. But uh, the last guys were field agents who happened to have a background in astrophysics. So they were kinda just, here, doing stuff. You know, between missions.” “Ah,” June said, nodding as she accepted that sometimes CARE clearly threw personnel at the wall to see what stuck, then took two steps beyond the front gate. And jumped backwards instantly. “Why is it hot? Is something melting down?!” Dew sighed. “I wish. That’s all the waste heat off the radio telescope’s atmospheric system.” Sam pointed towards the massive dish. “Close your eyes and feel over there. Like, with your weather sense.” June closed her eyes and complied, extending her magical senses to feel the local weather. While she had never trained to be a weather pony, there were a few things all pegasi could do on instinct alone. Getting a handle on what was happening around them was one such thing. June winced as she felt the massive thermal updraft in front of the dish. “Oh wow… That’s just… Does that pillar of cold go to space?” “Yep,” Sam sighed. “I mean, basically. For all practical purposes. We’re feeling all the heat that would be there.” “And you picked here of all places to squat,” June said with a teasing smirk, just to try and center herself a little by being playful with her budding new friend. “The other option was Enox's shed,” Sam grunted. “You’ll get used to the heat. Come on, you can take that relaxing shower cold instead of hot like you’d planned. It will be way more comfortable.” “What’s wrong with Enox’s shed?” June asked in order to delay walking back into the wall of heat. “She doesn't have to sleep and likes to sing,” Sam said in the voice of a mare who was being very diplomatic and respectful. Dew, on the other hoof, cleared her throat and in what June believed to be an imitation of a genderless voice that had no right to be singing began to sing something cheerful, upbeat, and rapid fire in a language she’d never heard before which happened to be most kindly described as ear assault. “ˈbeɪbi jɔːr ɔːl ðæt aɪ wɒnt. // wɛn jɔː ˈlaɪɪŋ hɪər ɪn maɪ ɑːmz. // aɪm ˈfaɪndɪŋ ɪt hɑːd tuː bɪˈliːv, // wɪər ɪn ˈhɛvᵊn.—” “Dew, stop please.” Sam begged, her head already starting to ache. “It sounds bad enough when the singer’s fluent in… Whatever that is.” “Young mares today have no sense of what’s truly avant-garde,” Dew huffed, crossing her legs over her barrel. The reality of June’s situation suddenly sank in. I’m in charge of a huge science facility, in a town full of the kind of loonatics I’ve always fantasized about living near because “Well it would make life interesting!”, and have to live in a sauna with no AC… “Girls… You go ahead. I’m going to town. Finding a bar. And getting a drink.” June said adamantly. “The Brewer’s Hive is the best place in town for that. Tell everybuggy I said hi,” Sam said helpfully.  ⁜ ⁜ ⁜ Quite appropriately for a place called a Hive in a town atop a changeling hive, the interior of the Brewer’s Hive was styled after a changeling hive. Molded fiberglass furnishings melded with the walls and floors, making the bar appear to have been carved out of a single piece of stone. Shards of magical crystal were set into the walls as the only source of light, giving everything an oddly comfortable and warm bluish glow. A hidden jukebox played some mellow rock song with Changelish lyrics, providing an odd but pleasant energy to the mostly empty bar. The serving staff were naturally changelings, and went about their duties in their natural forms. Presently they were chatting up the few customers who’d come by for brunch, consuming a little of the pony’s delight for the home cooked meal as their own morning meal. June had to admit it felt like walking through a portal to another planet entirely. Fortunately, that was something she found quite pleasant. She walked to the bar, sat down, and in no time at all found herself face to face with a yellowish eyed changeling wearing a simple cotton apron with ‘No seriously, please kiss the cook.’ printed on it, and a nametag on it reading ‘da boss’. “Haven’t seen you before, are you our new hire?” The changeling asked with a friendly smile. June nodded, then frowned slightly. “How… How can your chitin bend like that when you smile? It’s just like how skin—” “Just some changeling magic, don't worry about it,” the bartender said, still providing the usual customer service smile. “Let me guess, need a stiff drink?” June nodded. Before she could ask for anything, the bartender bobbed up and down behind the counter, producing a frosty brown bottle with a green cap and no label. He set it down on the bar with a soft clink of glass on wood. “House special. Cranmelon Wine Cooler, it’s your two drink minimum in a one pint bottle. On the house for every noobie!” June’s ears perked at the odd turn of phrase. “Why’s it on the house?” The bartender’s smile shifted from retail to genuine. “It’s my own invention. A little metaphor for what you can expect here. You’re the bottle, no one knows what's inside you. You don't have a label and no one has opened you yet. The drink’s our little community. It’s sweet and bubbly on the surface. The flavor’s great but unusual, and if you take too much of it in too quickly you’ll have a bad time because this here is ten percent ethanol.” June laughed, a smile taking over her face. “You can say that again.” The bartender shapeshifted his left hoof to add a bottle opener to the flat, popped June’s drink open, and poured the slightly less pink than June beverage into a tall glass. “Sip slowly, take it in, enjoy, and maybe order a pretzel or something to help take the edge off… Or to continue the metaphor, find a hobby so you’re not always stuck neck deep in our crazy until you’re one of us.” “That’s a pretty good metaphor,” June commented before taking a sip of the drink, her eyes lighting up. “Oh wow that’s dangerously nice!” “Told you… By the way, you’re up at the observatory, right?” June nodded. “See me before you go home. I’ve got a case of beer for Sam. Little thank you from the hive for sealing up the Culvert Spiders the other day.” “Will do,” June said as she relaxed against the counter to enjoy her drink in earnest. “Wait, Culvert Spiders?” “Yeah. They break out every once in a while and some maintenance mare handles it,” the barkeeper mentioned off hoof. “Sam handled it last time, apparently.”  ⁜ ⁜ ⁜ Ultra Violet - 3rd of Thanksgiving, 4 EoH Hackamore Valley Observatory - Evergreen Falls Violet opened the creaky wood door leading into the dorm’s commons, her ears twitching irritably at the rasp of metal on metal. Maybe if I explain to them that this sounds to me like how a bone snapping sounds to them they’ll oil this, she thought for a moment before realizing she could just oil it herself. Okay, let's take care of that before the day’s over. “Hey,” June said miserably from the couch. “Find the stuff you needed?” Violet nodded and took off June’s saddlebags, emptying the right one of several meters of radiator hoses, a couple old auto wagon heat exchangers, a desk fan, assorted bits of hardware, and a bottle of antifreeze. “Sure did! The junk yard is great. You should have come. There's all this broken stuff but it’s been categorized for reuse. Everything deserves that kind of end of life treatment,” Violet said as she brought June’s bags to her. “And thanks for letting me borrow these. I’ll buy my own after my first paycheck.” June nodded and grunted with the energy of a half-boiled mare laying on a sweaty leather couch. “We’re getting a cloth couch…” June grumbled under her breath. “I wouldn’t want to lay on corpse bits either,” Violet agreed, returning to her pile of parts to start working. “Cloth is plant corpses, metal is rock corpses, get over it. Besides, this is veg leather. It’s even worse for getting sticky and gross,” June lamented. Violet stopped working, looked over at June and asked. “Then why not lay on the floor? The carpet is made of carpet.” “Polymer is processed ancient sea gunk corpse and concrete is dead mollusks,” June said, continuing her bad teasing. It’s too hot to do this well… “Also I have discovered that it’s paradoxically hotter on the floor than the couch,” June added with a quiet whimper. “I should call dad and cancel his visit. There’s no way we can enjoy the game with this heat.” Violet shrugged and started to connect the hoses to the heat exchangers. “Do what you gotta do, sis.” “You’re building an aircon, right?” June more begged than said. “Yes,” Violet commented idly. “I’m glad you like to make stuff,” June said into the couch’s arm rest. “It’s cool.” Violet giggled at her sister’s pun and tightened the second hose clamp. “Shame that special paint you made only dropped the temp in here by three degrees.” ⁜ ⁜ ⁜ Ultra Violet - 20th of Lunar Dawn, 4 EoH Hackamore Valley Observatory - Evergreen Falls It was dark. Everypony had gone to sleep hours ago, with the exception of Violet. The android didn’t need to sleep, and had not been programmed to do so. She’d merely been programmed to lay next to her partner as they slept, holding them and presumably hating all of the time she was wasting when she could be doing anything else at all. Besides, she'd tried laying next to June for a few minutes, and it had gotten boring very quickly. Seriously, even by his logic I could have been cleaning his house, or getting a fancy breakfast ready, and other mom shit, Violet grumbled as she walked through the Stellar Tracking and Astrophysics Research lab’s dusty halls. Night was the only time Violet could easily explore her new home. As good as her cooling system was, her cognitive systems were losing eight percent of their neural depth to keep functioning with the heat generated by the radio telescope. They’d get pissed if I modded the telescope, but I’ll bet I could make a coating that reflects heat away from the building, Violet mused. It can’t be that hard to work out some kind of special paint or plating like that. It’s just surface finishes and their interactions with radiation. I should have the physics behind that on file. Violet couldn’t help but check her database for materials which would fit the bill. There were many. Her creator’s species, being a starfairing civilization, had countless ways of dealing with heat. Too bad most of those need exotic materials… Violet quietly lamented just as she passed a door marked ‘Maintenance Supplies’. “Humm,” she mused out loud before putting a hoof on the door to open it. Oh hey! If I made a sample and showed them it would work, maybe they’d do it and I could think at the right speed during the day. The door refused to move. Violet frowned and cocked her head, looking at the electronic lock with some apprehension. “Uh, sorry. Did I offend you or something?” the android asked the lock. The lock, being an inanimate object, did not reply. Violet furrowed her brow in thought. I guess it’s dead? She mused, then focused her magic and ripped the knob and lock from the door with a flick of her wrist and a few blue sparks. I’ll weld that back later. Violet noted to herself as she trotted into the cinderblock walled room lined with shelf after shelf of everything but exotic matter and materials sourced from asteroids around rare types of stars. “Dang it,” Violet muttered to herself after inventorying the store room. “Oh well. No nanopolymer thermal isolation spray for ponies today.” Violet’s database pushed an alert. She almost ignored it, given just how confidently wrong her database’s subroutine’s ideas had proven to be, but something compelled her to check anyways. She opened the notification and quickly scanned the data. “Oh… Yes. That could help,” Violet said out loud with a happy flick of her tail. “Like, a little.” She grabbed a large package of ceramic sandblasting grit from one shelf and a ten liter bucket of white paint meant for touchups from another shelf and began to carry them towards the kitchen. I bet nopony will be mad if I use the big spoon to mix up a heat reflecting paint… Unfortunately for her, Sam was quite mad that the good wooden spoon had been contaminated.  ⁜ ⁜ ⁜ Ultra Violet - 3rd of Thanksgiving, 4 EoH Hackamore Valley Observatory - Evergreen Falls Violet nodded once, mostly focused on building her gadget rather than conversing. Come on, she silently pleaded with the assembled parts, get together you hunks of junk! I can literally feel my cpu slowing… “It’s a huge difference though,” Violet remarked. “Raising the temperature of a liter of water by one of your degrees took just over 4000 joules when I tried to map your system to my own. You guys need smaller units.” “Normally, we use the decimals for that. It’s just cool that the paint made a difference. Three isn’t nothing,” June said slightly more coherently thanks to her drink having dropped her core temperature enough for her body to relax a little. The door to Dew’s studio apartment opened with a loud bang as the tiny filly shoved the hollow interior door aside with a swift kick from a hind leg. Violet and June looked up instantly, watching as Dew pulled a large bucket of plastic building bricks out of her room with her mouth. “You should paint over the windows,” Dew mmphed around the bucket handle. “Mine looks right at the array. Boiling in there!’ Violet thought for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll take care of it later. I’m working on a thing.” “So am I,” Dew said, dragging her bucket to sit next to the android and resume building a little plastic brick diorama of a hillside which had been resting atop the loose bricks in the bucket while Dew moved her project. Dew began to click her building bricks onto her project, slowly making a little fortress that disappeared into the mountainside. June went back to laying on the couch, debating if she should cancel her day’s plans. Violet returned her focus to obtaining her salvation. She connected the heat exchanges with the hoses, zip tied the fan to one of them, then the two exchangers together, filled the improvised cooling loop with the antifreeze, then capped the hoses with the quick disconnects she’d lucked into finding earlier. That will do it, she thought in satisfaction before looking over to the other two ponies in the room with her. Since Dew was already next to her, Violet decided to rely on the filly rather than make June get up and move in this heat. After all, organics had to be suffering more in these temperatures, given their cooling systems were evaporative. Right? “Hey, Dew, can you help me real quick?” Violet asked, flicking her head to move her mane off the base of her neck. “Sure, what’s up?” Dew asked, refusing to look up from carefully sticking one of those stupid tiny single dot detail bricks onto the ramparts of her fortress. Violet disengaged her utility panel cover with a soft click, making a small square of her back pop up on its spring loaded hinge. “See that panel I just opened? Open it all the way then click these two quick connects into my auxiliary cooling loop. They’re size specific, you can’t get them backwards.” Dew’s face scrunched with envy. “... I want to be able to connect to watercooling…” June blinked and looked across the room. “I thought you were building us an AC?” “I will be,” Violet promised. “As soon as I can run my brain hot enough to figure out how to make one out of what we have. So I made a bigger radiator for myself.” “How is designing that at the junkyard harder than getting some old ACs when you were at the junkyard and putting them in the windows?” June asked through a sharp frown. Dew took hold of the hoses and moved to connect them to Violet, only to drop them and yelp as she saw the light pink strands of myomer fibers running along Violet’s spine moving as she shifted her weight slightly. “Ahh! What the buck?! Why do you have muscle? I thought you were a robot!” The filly shouted. June’s ears stood up in alarm. “Wait, what?!” Violet rolled her eyes. “It’s myomer fiber. Electronically actuated polymer that shrinks and lengthens with different voltages. Haven't you wondered why I don’t hum or whine or click as I move? Or why I’m soft?” June’s ears relaxed. “Oh… Uh, no? Been too busy melting or going into town to even read my job packet.” Dew coughed into her hoof. “I uh… I’m used to metal robots. I wind up in an Equestria where everypony is a robot like, one in seven times. They’re all servos and wires.” “Well, I’m silicone and polymer,” Violet said, shrugging. “So… Yes, I guess my insides look a little like yours. But it’s not. I’m in no pain, and that’s not flesh, but I am super hot and my mind hurts from being throttled down, so if you don’t mind—” Dew quickly connected the hoses to their appropriate sockets then tilted her head. “... Why do you have USB ports?” “For peripherals, duh,” Violet answered, rolling her eyes. “But you’re an alien robot,” Dew objected, her wings fluttering as she tried to process this information. “The acronym stands for universal serial bus,” Violet replied with equal confusion. “Clearly everyone uses it.” “Oh, good point!” Dew said, nodding in total agreement thanks to kid logic. “Uh, that’s not how that works…” June commented. Violet plugged the desk fan attached to her new radiator into the wall and switched it on while flooding the exchanger between her auxiliary cooling loop to her primary loop. Okay, I’ll need a full outer system coolant flush and replacement since I have whatever chemicals they put in their coolant in me now, but this will work for a few days before that starts to cause problems. “Sis, my mom had USB compatibili—” Violet started to say only to stop speaking with a relieved sigh as her improved cooling system dropped her back to an acceptable level. “Ah… Cray be praised! Cool at last.” June’s ears flicked back, making a bead of sweat roll down her face into her left eye. “Okay. I’m also jealous. Buck me, how long will it take to get a gods damn AC install request approved?!” Violet grinned and stood up, knocking over her new radiator by pulling on its hoses. She eeped and picked it up. “Oh… Uh, obvious but unforeseen problem. I blame downclocking for thermal reasons. I’m kinda tethered here… But I can plan us up a temp AC unit now!” “Please do,” Dew said as she lay back down to play with her bricks. Violet began to task a subroutine with working out a viable design, and checked through other options. June’s suggestion of getting window ACs is… I can't believe I didn’t think of that. I’ll have to do that as soon as the junkyard opens again. She thought for a few microseconds to recall the hours sign, then nodded to herself. “June, you made a good point with just getting some window units. I was at the junkyard until closing. I’ll pick some up at five when they open tomorrow and see if I can improvise anything in the meantime via subroutine, okay?” June looked up from the couch. “Any chance they’d let you swing by real quick after hours?” “I don’t think so. I don’t remember seeing any kind of home there… I can try calling though?” “Please do,” Dew asked, wiping sweat from her forehead.  ⁜ ⁜ ⁜ Violet returned from the observatory office, having spent a good half hour on the phone trying to get ahold of anypony. She trotted back to the corner she’d placed her radiator in and sat down, reconnecting it with Dew’s help. “No luck?” June asked. Violet shook her head. “No… I found their home number and got yelled at for calling them at home… So, I’ll get something in the morning.” “Okay,” June said with a sad sigh. “I have to get the energy to call dad then.” “Sorry,” Violet replied, wincing. “I know you were looking forward to that game.” Dew clicked another brick into place. “Just tape it though?” “Good idea,” June agreed, rolling over to be face first into the least sweaty patch of armrest. Violet diverted her attention to Dew’s building. “What are those?” She asked, pointing to the bricks. “Legos,” Dew answered. “I sneak them back any time I go to a universe with them, because our building bricks suck butt.” “I mean… Are those small plastic bricks ment for creating things to play with?” Dew nodded slowly, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Yes.” “I’ve got the AC planning on a subroutine…” Violet said slowly, tapping her hoof tips together shyly. “Can I make a dragon to attack your fort with? Dew’s eyes lit up like it was Hearthswarming. “Only if it has a bunch of skeleton ponies riding it as paratroopers!” Violet’s eyes glimmered excitedly. “And a combat flight attendant with a little trolley full of milk to strengthen their bones?” “Duh!” Dew agreed with a goofy grin as she moved the bucket so Violet could reach it too. June couldn't help but smile at the two and shake her head slowly, wishing she still enjoyed simple pleasures like playtime.  ⁜ ⁜ ⁜ Samhain - 3rd of Thanksgiving, 4 EoH Evergreen Falls - Equestria Sam trudged out of the mayor’s office, waving back and forth slightly as she made sure to secure June’s ID in her saddle bags. Her jumpsuit was stained pink, and she knew a lot of her fur would have gotten grimed up as well. I am not looking forward to scrubbing this junk out, Sam lamented. At least I still had the energy to get June’s ID for her. Same made it three more steps before a thought struck her. Hey… They didn’t verify my ID when I picked up June’s. Great. Now I have to add another form onto today’s paperwork. Buck me, I hate writing people up. Sam moved one foreleg to wipe sweat out of her eyes, forgetting she was covered in the pink gunk from hell. Ah! Luna, help! It’s in my eye! Sam blinked and thrashed for a moment, fortunately getting the oozing, staining lubricant to move out of her eye via Herculean effort. Effort she hadn’t really had the energy available for. Figures the week I try to quit using pep pills we have a containment breach, she thought as she yawned and started walking home. I took four right? Feels like I went with three again… Okay not that bad, but still bad. Sam shivered, she could still remember being jolted out of bed by her radio blaring the Breach Alarm. “Sam, come in Sam! Code Red, repeat, Code Red. 38 was mishandled in testing, over!” Sam shivered, her tail shaking more than her body. 38 was easily the worst object in containment. At least, in her opinion. The object was a seemingly ordinary half quart mason jar filled with a mixture of molybdenum disulfide and pink dye. If opened between the hours of 7pm and 6am, it would inexplicably allow an infinite amount of the pink hyper-lubricant to be removed from the jar. Ordinarily conjured matter would disappear within half an hour at best, but 38’s extremely slick, almost perfectly suited as a universal stain, chemical smelling mixture didn’t go away. At least, not for eight years and counting. The object had been recovered from a mechanic shop after the owner had died, taking the secret behind his long lasting and/or permanent conjuration with him.  While attempting to determine how the conjuration spell worked last night, the two junior researchers assigned to it had discovered that it could be stimulated into what they dubbed a ‘volcano mode’ for, well, frankly, no discernible reason. Unless that reason had been to force Sam and six janitors to spend eight hours after midnight shoveling and pumping thirty six tons of dry-lubricant into a portable generator operated Thaumic Collapser to prevent a building from collapsing. At least we dug those idiots out of that crap before they drowned in it, Sam thought, trying to find a silver lining. Wait… Silver. I think I have enough cash on me for a breakfast sandwich. Sam took the next left and began to walk to her favorite corner store, her mind wandering as she made her way down the mostly empty cobble street.  ⁜ ⁜ ⁜ Samhain - 19th of Lunar Dawn, 4 EoH Hackamore Valley Observatory - Evergreen Falls “There! Filing cabinets moved,” Violet proclaimed with a proud smile and puffed chest. Sam took a look around the basement. June’s idea had been admittedly a good one. Simply shifting some of the old filing cabinets allowed them all to remain accessible while making a bedroom sized space around where Sam had put her mattress. A mattress which was now sitting atop a few wooden shipping pallets which Violet had sanded then screwed together to make a basic bed platform. Likewise, her radio had been placed atop a small end table June had found at the local secondhoof shop, along with a hooflocker for storage. Better yet, the filing cabinets had been relocated such that it was easier to get to her improvised bedroom, but also formed room dividers to offer her some privacy in the event anypony had to come down to look at the files. Sam nodded, a smile parting her lips. “Thanks. This is better… But a little pointless. I’ll be sleeping upstairs as soon as they get the AC installed.” June snorted from behind Sam, where she was leaning against one of the cabinets. “Pointless my plot! I’m debating hanging out down here to read my job briefing. It’s too hot for clothes up there when the telescopes are on.” Sam shrugged her wings. “Yeah, well… That’s just how those work. By the way, you keep complaining about not being able to dress. Do you normally?” “Yeah, I like to wear a skirt and top in summer, and a skirt and a hoodie the rest of the year,” June answered as she trotted a short distance into Sam’s sleeping area to see if she could think of anything else to do to improve it in short order. “You?” Violet asked, frowning a little more than an organic pony could (thereby making Sam wince). “Ms. opens a beer with a hoof smack, has her room decorated with posters of rocket engines, and the first thing she watched after getting satellite TV installed was Fantasy Wrestling’s Mountain Mania Madness Marathon… And you like skirts?” June laughed, shaking her head slowly. “I like denim jackets and fatigued skater skirts, Vi.” “That adds up,” Sam said with a sage nod. “How?” Violet asked, her ears twitching as her processor attempted to do the math. “You’d have to see me in the outfit,” June answered. “It’s not super girly looking, and I just prefer to keep my fur clean. Kinda like how Sam likes those jumpsuits.” Sam snorted and waved her hoof. “I don’t like jumpsuits. I’d be naked all day if I could be. Never liked dressing up much. It’s just bucking necessary for my job, which I can get called into at any Luna damned time, as you’ve seen.” “Necessary?” Violet asked, sitting down on the edge of Sam’s bed. “How so? I like to dress up since I find my colors bland, and as far as I can tell ponies see clothing as entirely optional… But necessary implies utility driven needs.” Sam and June shared a quick look. Violet’s interactions were improving slowly, but she still tended to over explain everything. They’d have to coach her on that. Sam cleared her throat, “Ever try to shampoo a tomato out of the fur on the small of your back?” Violet shook her head. “Well, there’s one room where they’ve got this whole shelf of tomatoes that chuck themselves at anypony who makes a bad joke, with more force the worse the joke was,” Sam explained. “I am usually too tired to make good jokes, so there's one building where if I go in it, I’m one tongue slip from needing to spend a good thirty minutes getting fruit splatter out of my fur. Or I can wear a jumpsuit. And that’s just the anomalous junk. I also have to crawl into dusty or muddy or slimy places like the Spider Culvert all the time.” “Point made,” Violet said with a shiver, thinking back to the time slime mold got up in her— June hummed and slid the end table’s drawer open. “Hey, Sam? Want me to get a bottle opener and a lighter for you to keep in here? I know you like to drin—” Sam shook her head quickly. “I got them in my saddle bags, no need for that.” She said before frowning slowly. “Although…” Sam reached into her bags, rummaged for a bit, then removed her pep pill tin. “I’m trying to quit these… But I might need some for an emergency. Do you have a little baggie or something? That way I can have one dose down here just in case but you could put this tin someplace so somepony besides me can track how much I’m using.” June blinked, one ear drooping. “Wait, you want me to hide your drugs from you?” Violet shook her head. “No, she wants you to hold them like a quartermaster.” Sam pointed to Violet. “What she said. I’m not addicted, but I certainly have a habit at this point. I’m at a point where I can choose to not take them, still. It’s just… Work forces me to do it a lot. If somepony who isn’t usually an exhausted wreck is keeping an eye on how I use them, I can feel a little… Safer?” “Why not just stop and switch to some extra strong coffee?” June proposed, her wings fluttering. Sam bit her lip. “If I hadn’t already been using these regularly for about a year, that would work…” June winced, thinking back to some of her college roommates who would abuse ADHD medication to stay up late and study. She didn’t recall many of them doing well. “Oh… Okay, I can do that for you.” “Why not just use the power source embedded in your chest to directly replenish your ATP with thaumochromic induction at the subcellular interface?” Violet asked, pointing to Sam’s embedded crystal with one hoof. “Uh… Because I don’t know how? Or even if I can do that, or what some of that even means?” Sam said, scratching the back of her head. “Why do you think that’s a thing I can do?” “Well, its energy signature is a lot like my power core’s. It’s pulling ambient mana into itself and kinda just, storing it,” the android replied, standing up and quickly enveloping herself with a loose aura of cyan light as she let her magic simply bleed from her for a moment. “See? Plenty of power on tap! Just recharge yourself?” Sam and June blinked several times to clear their eyes from the bright flash. “She’s not a machine, Vi,” June began. “Yeah, I don’t have instructions on how to d—” Sam stopped mid sentence, then fished the book Dusk had gotten her out of her bags. “Actually, I do have those… I just can’t read them. Dusk said Dew could though. Thanks for helping with my room girls, I’ve gotta go give her this so maybe I can rephrase my AD&D through the automata’s cellulons, or whatever the hell you said.” “Later!” Violet said with a smile. “I think I’ll see if I can’t optimize the other filing cabinets. I think I can save about seven percent more space down here.” June held out her hoof towards Sam as the older mare turned to leave. “Pills?” “Oh!” Sam’s ears drooped with embarrassment. She tossed the tin to June and nodded. “Just keep one dose of exactly four down here, and I’ll tell you every time I need more, okay? One standard dose is four pills for somepony my size and weight.” June nodded, taking the task quite seriously. “No problem. Happy to help a nice mare out!” Sam raised an eyebrow. “Was that flirting?” June blushed lightly. “Uh, a little bit of the playful kind? Maybe? I kind of like more mature mares… Older girls have their shit together and that’s hot.” Sam smiled and gently set a hoof on June’s shoulder. “You’re too young for me, but I appreciate the sentiment. Thanks. It takes a lot of work to make this mess look together.” June twitched her wings. “Eh, worth a shot. Friends?” “Friends,” Sam agreed. “Besides, Trixie wants to ask you out anyways,” June continued as she tucked Sam’s pill tin into her own saddle bags. Sam raised an eyebrow. “What? Why? We tried, she had a panic attack over the idea of hooking up again. That made it pretty clear she wanted nothing to do with me. At least, not that way. Really hurt my feelings...” June tilted her head. “That’s not what she told me. She seemed upset you don't respond to her flirting.” Sam’s raised eyebrow slowly morphed into a confused frown, then a grimace as she facehooved. “Oh. My. Luna…” Sam moaned into her hoof. “Trixie performs year round, but she’s also also here… More than one changeling uses that shape! I asked the wrong one to buck…” “That doesn't add up,” June said, shaking her head. “A changeling would have just gone home with you. Asking one to buck is the same as inviting a pony over for dinner. Almost none of them will say no.” “Or you asked the real stagepony she’s copying,” Violet called from somewhere in the cabinet maze. “They do need an original to copy, right?” Sam inhaled through her nose and let it out slowly. “Okay… I’ll call her and sort that out later. Right now, I have this book to get to Dew. Later, girls.”  ⁜ ⁜ ⁜ Samhain - 3rd of Thanksgiving, 4 EoH Evergreen Falls - Equestria Sam wiped a bead of sweat from her brow. I forgot to call Trixie, damn it. I hope I can remember to do that when I wake up. Also wow it’s hot today… The observatory is going to be straight out of Tartarus. Maybe I should just take a nap at the Brewer’s Hive? Sam stopped in the middle of the street as an idea occurred to her. She had June’s ID on her. She was authorized to transport oddities classed for CARE personnel’s use. June had put in a request for AC, which would be on record. Isn’t there something that makes the area around it cold? Sam thought, doing her best to work through the exhausted fog clinging to her every thought. Yeah! The Windigo Statue. If June knew about it she’d have definitely requested it as a stop gap. I can just go pick it up on her behalf. Nopony will mind. I want to not boil. Sam opened her wings and quickly flew across town to a large white cinderblock building labeled ‘Warehouse 4’ and landed on the front doorstep. She pushed the steel door open with a creak, wincing as she realized she’d be asked to oil it soon, and stepped inside just as the warehouse quartermaster looked up from his desk. “Hey, Sam,” the short unicorn stallion said, glancing at Sam through the chainlink separator as well as over the top of his newspaper. Sam took a second to squint at a copy of the Midnight Star he was reading. Top psychics all agree that the telephone company will have a brand new service that lets you talk to the dead… I hate how this job makes it hard to tell if that’s a tabloid or not. “Hey, Slight,” Sam replied. “I’m here to pick up the Windigo Statue for the Observatory. Just till they get an AC installed.” “Sure, got the new researcher’s ID and the request form?” “Just the ID.” Slight’s ears flopped back grumpily. He set down the paper on the counter, reached under his desk, and slid Sam a clipboard, form, and pen through the slot in the divider. Sam slid June’s ID through the same slot and quickly filled out the request form. Slight took a moment to punch June’s information into his terminal, nodded as the screen reported her as a priority employee. He clicked a few keys, bringing up her requests page, nodding as the request for an AC equivalent checked out, then passed June’s ID back to Sam. “Okay, everything checks out here. Paperwork done?” “Almost…” Sam quickly signed the form, initialed it, then filled out the date. “There. She doesn't need to sign this, does she?” “Nah, you’re cleared to check out, pick up, and transport. All I need to know is where this thing will be till it's back in its box, that she’s received it, and that she’s cleared to handle it. Which she is,” Slight commented as he started to retype the form into his terminal. “Hey, you know how to move that thing safely, right?” Sam thought for a moment, then shrugged her wings. Slight frowned. “Okay. Hold on.” He swiveled his chair around to a row of filing cabinets, opened one, and removed a three page list of instructions, which he passed to Sam. “You look tired, so just follow the step by step as you take it out of the locker, and make sure June gets this copy of the handling protocol, okay?” “No problem,” Sam said as she took the paper. Slight hit the door release button under his desk, making the warehouse’s inner steel door buzz loudly. “Its in locker 19. You can’t miss it, it’s the one covered in frost that I’ve got a six pack resting on. Here’s the key and an ice pick in case the hinges stick,” he said as he passed a small brass key and a steel pick across his desk. Sam took them with a nod and pulled the warehouse’s inner door open. The main warehouse’s room was filled with all manner of secure containers, practically everything from shipping containers to fireproof safes, but most of the space was dominated by row after row of simple lockers. The kind you’d find in any school in Equestria. Sam looked around the entrance area, sure that locker 19 had to be close to the door. Her hunch paid off, and she spotted one locker covered in a light layer of frost with a six pack of Flower Foolish Ale on top of it only a few steps from the door. Sam walked up to the locker and started to unlock it, only to stop mid key turn. “Wait… No. Bad Sam. Read the paper.” She muttered to herself, taking a look at the page. Buck’s sake. June put four in the bag, right? Sam asked herself, closing her eyes to concentrate and remember. Yes. She did. I had four. I shouldn’t be this fogged up right now. Just focus and get the stupid statue out. She opened her eyes and read the paper out loud for the sake of her tired brain. “Open locker normally, but do not remove statue from the locker immediately. Wait until frost clears from container. Place both hooves on either side of the statue’s base without touching the statue. Speak the incantation…” Sam titled her head and squinted at the transcribed letters on the page before her. Even if she were entirely sober and freshly rested it would have been hard to read them, let alone pronounce them. It looked like what would happen if a modern Equish Doctor wrote a script for an ancient Gryphonese pirate in their runic language. Oh thank buck, somepony hoof wrote a pronunciation down! Sam sighed in relief. “... the incantation, Ba Weep Grannah Weep Ninn—… annnd this part is smudged. Great!” She squinted at the pencil smudges, searching for the word they formed. Well, at least I only have to translate one word of the runes. Sam said to herself, doing her best to make out what the last word was. Pretty sure that’s pronounced Nuku… What happens if I’m wrong? Sam checked the bottom of the page for the statue’s warning section. “Mishandling can cause inclement weather in a town-sized area. Weather phenomenons the statue can induce are typically associated with winter and are typically no more difficult to manipulate than natural or pegasi-created weather systems. Okay, so if I buck this up, it snows a bit and the weather guys get a little grump…” Sam thought for a moment then decided to triple check her work then risk it. She poured over the documentation, eyes narrow, all of her tried focus in play for several long minutes until she smiled and swished her tail. “Ah ha! It’s Ninny-Bong!” she shouted in triumph. “Yep!” Slight called from the front desk. “Did someone smudge my note? I gotta get a pen for those.” “You super do!” Sam agreed, and opened the locker. The Windigo Statue was exactly what its name implied. A block of unmelting blue glacial ice carved into a forearm length miniature statue of a windigo. The statue was posed in a way which suggested the windigo was dancing. The pose itself reached out to Sam’s mind, imbewing her with the knowledge that this statue depicted an ancient rain dance. Sam raised an eyebrow and glanced at the documentation again, nodding as she found a line mentioning the memetic effect she just experienced. Okay, that’s normal. Good. Wait, can I just… Put this in a bag? Sam looked back at the slowly defrosting container, certain that the forward placement of the statue’s left hoof was the beginning of the dance’s movements, then abruptly glanced at the paper again, skipping over a section of instructions coming after the incantation due to exhaustion to the bottom of the transport instructions. Yes, for transport purposes I can just put it in a bag once it defrosts and I say the words. She waited for the frost to clear, then placed her hooves on either side of the statue and chanted, “Ba Weep Grannah Weep Ninny-Bong.” The statue shimmered as a line of white light rippled upwards from its base, sparkling as it reached the statue’s various points and tips. Sam nodded to herself, then gently picked the statue up and placed it in her saddlebags before closing the locker. Without first holding it above her head for ten seconds. Okay, let’s get home, put this in the dorm’s commons, shower, then… Then nothing. I’m going the buck to sleep. Sam thought to herself, yawning and arching her back before walking out of the warehouse’s main room. “Thanks, Slight.” “No problem,” Slight commented, having returned to his paper on how a Prench necromancer was shaking up the world of telecommunications.  ⁜ ⁜ ⁜ Samhain - 3rd of Thanksgiving, 4 EoH Hackamore Valley Observatory - Evergreen Falls Sam trotted into the dorms at the speed of a dead mare walking, stumbling slightly as she pushed the main doors open. Walking across the gravel parking lot through the day’s heat alone would have been bad enough, but the extra heat the telescope had smacked her with had drained away any hope of showering before embracing the clutching oblivion of bed. Everypony looked up as she entered. June waved from the couch. “Hey, Sam.” Violet and Dew put their Cyber Dragon vs Robo Fortress battle on pause to turn and wave as well. “Hi, mom!” Looks like my mattress will be pink and slippery forever now, Sam thought before nodding towards everypony. “Hi… Going to bed…” Sam took three steps towards the hallway leading to the basement before Violet stood up and walked over to her. “Hey, want some help with the stairs? You look kinda shaky, and so do those stairs.” Sam smiled faintly. “Actually, yes.” she admitted. Wait, there’s something I picked up for Junebug… Right! ID. Statue. “Hold on,” Sam said as she opened her saddle bag, first fetching June’s ID. “I picked up your ID, June.” “Oh! Thanks,” June said, having forgotten she’d asked Sam to pick it up if convenient. She stood up and trotted across the room, taking the plastic ID card then huffing in annoyance. “Why does everyone always look bad in these pictures?” “Curse?” Dew suggested, hoof to her chin in thought. “Probably,” Sam agreed, then removed the statue. “Also. Checked this out of storage! Put it in the middle of the room. It will cool things down for us till we get an AC installed.” June took the Statue carefully. “Cool! Uh… Is this something from Containment?” “Yeah,” Sam grunted. “It’s okay. Some stuff’s approved for use like this.” June nodded and looked the statue over. “Does it come with instructions?” “Mhm,” Sam said, rummaging for the paper and finding it in the bottom of her bag, then passing it to June. “Don’t worry. Said at the bottom once picked up it can be handed off. Just follow the instructions if you pick it back up off a solid surface.” Sam yawned loudly and resumed walking towards the basement. June unfolded the paper and quickly read the handling instructions outloud. “Open locker normally, but do not remove statue from the locker immediately. Wait until frost clears from container. Place both hooves on either side of the statue’s base without touching the statue. Speak the incantation— Oh cool! That’s Amilic! Ahem, the incantation ‘Ba Weep Grannah Weep Ninny-Bong’ before lifting the statue from its resting place. Hold the statue above your head with both hooves for ten seconds before further handling. Easy enough!” Sam blinked. “Wait, hold it up?” “Yeah,” June said, frowning slightly. Sam’s eyes widened. “Uh-oh…” The sky rumbled overhead, and the crackling thud of hailstones striking the observatory’s roof filled the air, followed shortly by the distant Breach Alarm’s wails, then the less distant alarm repeated by Sam’s radio set echoing up the basement stairs along with Apple’s voice. “General Alert. We have a Code Yellow, repeat, Code Yellow. An anomalous storm has formed due to mishandling of 932. Weather Teams stand down, repeat, stand down. The radio telescope is active and will cook you if you enter its beam. Exercise discretion with containment, over!” Sam slumped down to the floor. “Damn it.” She sighed, muzzle firmly pressed into the carpet. Violet gently scooped her up and set Sam on her back in a firemare’s carry. “Let me get you up off the mollusk and sea gunk corpses.” “What?” Sam asked half awake. “Messing with June,” Violet explained quickly. “Look, it’s okay. You’re exhausted and didn’t mean it. It’s their fault for having the transport instructions written on in pencil, really. This place needs more than one maintenance pony. Let’s get you to bed. We can deal with whoever’s going to yell at us for this after you get up.” “It’s okay, the weather pegasi are on it,” June commented. “Says here the storm won’t even hit the farms with them up there. Not a big deal for anyone but us. This thing seems pretty safe over all. I’ve been reading up on what I’ll be studying, and oh boy! Things could be way worse than out of season hail.” The observatory’s intercom crackled to life, allowing the facility’s computers to play a prerecorded message. “Warning: Inclimate weather detected. Telescope calibration disrupted. Recalibration required. Alert: Observation disrupted. Data loss prevention protocol engaged. Brace for recalibration pulse.” June facehooved. “Buck…” “Just for the record, you shouldn’t ever say that thing you said a few moments ago, June. It's totally a curse!” Dew called as she adjusted part of her lego fortress. June nodded and set the statue down on the coffee table. “Yeah… That one’s even in the employee handbook. I just forgot—” Sleep hit Sam like a brick, cutting off June and sending her to the land of dreams, where she was asleep in a nice big soft clean bed with a cozy blanket nest, instead of in a slippery puddle of pink ooze as the telescope waste heat spiked.