”Why now?” the Tree said, amusement in her voice. “Because Discord said so; it’s that simple.”
Meg looked back at the draconequus, who was not taking that declaration well. “Am I missing something here?”
“Yeah, what she said,” Twilight added.
Discord grumbled. “What you’re missing, is that this tree here has made a career out of observing the future.”
The elder alicorn cocked her head. “You mean she has seen this all happen when it was still the future, so she knew the trigger event was you saying what you said after our arrival?” Regardless, both alicorns knew how much Discord loathed knowledge of future events—especially events concerning himself.
The Tree laughed. “Discord knows full well that is a gross simplification.”
The portal opened. It had the same endpoints as the last time, one end at Pandemonium Plaza and the other in that conference room—inside a D.C. hotel, Serrell had told her. And then she had told him what had happened to Meg. That had not made his day.
Applejack stood in front of the portal and addressed the observers on the other side. “Come through one at a time and confirm that you don’t have one of them phone thingies on you.”
“Or any other means of long distance communication,” Twilight added. They were told of this requirement yesterday, Serrell had informed her, so there shouldn’t be any problems.
Applejack stood aside. Rainbow Dash hovered above them, ready to deal with troublemakers. The first one through was the designated media observer, CNN’s Sophie Henshaw, who was already recording on her camcorder. “I don’t have a phone or any other means of long distance communication.” Applejack nodded, and Sophie took up position to record the others coming through.
And one by one they did, each saying some variation of “no, I don’t” as they passed the Element of Honesty. A few had a bag hung from a shoulder, almost certainly holding a camcorder. They had permission for that. Not much point in observing if they couldn’t document what they observed.
After seven of them had passed through without incident, Applejack stopped the eighth. “Hoof it over.” The observer stood there, undecided about how to handle this.
Agent Reubens came through the portal and stood in front of the problematic observer, holding out his hand. “You may turn it off first. I’ll hold on to it until you return.”
The observer looked around, found no support from the others, and relented. He fished his phone out of his jacket, turned it off, and put it in the waiting hand. Applejack stood aside and he moved on. Two others back in the other realm raised their hands, trying to get Reubens’ attention. Twilight noted that Routledge’s pick wasn’t one of them.
There were no further incidents. All observers had passed through the portal. “Please stand close to each other,” Twilight said. She went over to them, as did Rainbow Dash and Applejack, while Sophie recorded them. Pinkie Pie had decided not to participate, so that she could help Meg with Smooze. Rarity’s presence, they had all agreed, wasn’t needed either.
She got the first of the time travel helper gems out of her saddlebag. Better safe than sorry, given the number of people she was transporting. “I’m about to cast the time travel spell,” she told them. “The trip will last a fraction of a second, but you will notice everything going dark for that time. It’s completely normal.”
She didn’t give them a chance to comment, casting the spell right away. Other than morning changing to late afternoon, the portal not being there, and the colors changing on all the surrounding potted plants, everything looked the same. Twilight sighed internally. The spell worked; there was no paradox. “Please don’t move. We’re now crossing over to the warehouse.”
The three mares faced away from the humans. Three plaid pills discretely came out of her saddlebag and they went straight into her mouth and those of the other two mares right beside her. Twilight nodded and all three swallowed.
The parking lot of the warehouse appeared around them. Twilight had picked a spot in the middle. Few cars were present, and they were all near the entrance. The observers had taken the crossing rather well; but then, all had already experienced teleportation during their interviews. Those with bags were already getting out their camcorders.
“The event we’re here to observe should happen in about twenty minutes.”
“Should?” asked one of them.
“There’s a certain amount of quantum uncertainty in our arrival time,” Twilight answered.
She noted the security cameras covering the parking lot. Their presence was already known, but Meg had argued those cameras didn’t matter; they knew what would happen inside the building. Twilight wasn’t sure if the magic bubble could make the humans invisible, so she decided the ponies would remain visible too. No pony would wind up inside, other than her past self, and beyond that only a subset of the observers. The fact that no one was rushing outside to greet them suggested that no one was paying attention to those cameras.
“How are we supposed to know what’s going on inside?” Kimberly Hurst said. “I say we go in there and observe what’s actually happening.”
And so it starts.
“Are you daft? You know what will happen once that anomaly is created!”
Hurst locked eyes with the British observer. “So we run out just before that happens.”
“Suit yourself. I’m staying put.”
There were some mumblings of agreement, but only from a few. “We could at least try to stop them,” one declared. There was more agreement with that sentiment.
Twilight knew it was a lost cause, but she felt compelled to make the token effort. “You all must remain here. You cannot stop it. The past cannot be changed. You are only putting your lives at risk for nothing.”
Hurst smiled. “Or maybe you don’t want the past changed.” She marched towards the entrance. “Follow me!”
Twilight made no move to stop her, and neither did Applejack or Rainbow Dash—as instructed. That did not go unnoticed, and half of the others joined her. To her utter lack of surprise, they were precisely the ones her past self had seen inside the building. Was that Hurst’s plan all along, or Routledge’s? To prevent the anomaly from happening? That they all thought she was lying about the past being immutable?
Sophie looked at Twilight questioningly, while keeping her camcorder aimed at the receding observers. “I feel like I ought to join them?”
Twilight wondered how to answer that. Did it really matter, when she knew she had not? “You won’t,” she decided to say. “Why should be clear soon enough.” Well, it ought to be clear. When those observers return, they’ll almost certainly mention the presence of herself in that building.
“Okay?”
Sophie stayed put.
Hurst reached the door. It was apparently unlocked. Which seemed hard to believe. Maybe they were watching the security cameras and recognized her? It didn’t really matter, not for now.
“Why didn’t you stop them?”
Twilight turned around and faced the British observer. It was quite evident that the others had the same question. Two camcorders—not including Sophie’s—were pointed at her. “Because the past truly is immutable. In a few minutes, all but three of them will run back to us, just in time to escape the anomaly.”
“And how could you know this?”
Only Sophie’s camcorder still pointed at her, but she knew all the others would pick up the audio. Serrell might not be happy with her for justifying herself, but it was the right thing to do. Besides, it wasn’t as if it would stay secret forever; the whole prisoners in Tartarus thing proved that. “Because in a minute or so my past self will be in that building. I witnessed what will happen. Don’t worry, there will be no deaths. Kimberly Hurst, Egor Yusupov, and Austin Brenner are—will be, time travel you know—I will return them to Equestria, as well as the ones responsible for the anomaly.”
“The ones responsible for the anomaly,” Sophie asked. “You know who they are?”
“I’m not saying anything more at this time, other than I have my own video of what happened inside. The world will find that video… quite interesting.”
“So you told us to stay put, knowing full well half of us would go inside anyway.”
“Yep. Had to make the token effort, for my own sake, knowing they would do it anyway.”
“And that’s how you knew I wouldn’t join them.”
Twilight gave a tired smile. “That’s how I knew.”
Sophie persisted. “Why were you there in the first place?”
“I’ll offer an explanation for that later.” When the video Meg shot was released, most likely.
The Greek observer took a step forward. “You are an alicorn. You seriously expect us to believe you couldn’t restrain them?”
“Yes, because even an alicorn cannot change her own past. Quantum mechanics forbids temporal paradoxes. I’ve confirmed that experimentally.”
Twilight ended the conversation by turning around to face the building. It shouldn’t be long now. I hope I didn’t lie. She didn’t know most of them escaped the building and got far enough away to survive the anomaly’s creation. They should have had enough time, but… I’ll find out soon enough.
Long minutes went by. But, as predicted, the door flung open and the observers came pouring through. They ran towards the ones who had stayed put, many obviously not fit enough to do so but doing it anyway. Several collapsed to the ground along the way. Fortunately, they had ran far enough.
The windows imploded. The walls leaned inward. The roof collapsed. A breeze formed, growing stronger by the second.
Twilight galloped to the one closest to the former building. She picked her up in her magic and backtracked, picking up each fallen observer in turn. None seemed injured, just exhausted. Once back with the group, she set them down.
She then addressed them all. “We can stay a little longer, but we must return before others take notice. It’d be a paradox if we were spotted, as there’s no record of us being here.”
“You were inside,” one who escaped began, “but you’re here too?!”
“That was my past self.”
Confusion. “You’re not joking?”
“Deadly serious.”
“And that other pegasus? Meg Coleman, wasn’t it?”
Who was no longer a pegasus. “Yes. And don’t worry, I got them all out in time.” All but one, but no need to unnecessarily complicate explanations.
Sirens could now be heard, and getting louder.
“Time for us to depart.”
Sugarcube Corner came into view. Flying from Canterlot had never felt this… well, not exactly effortless, but having become an alicorn definitely made it easier. Applejack had a point about her becoming part earth pony. Could she actually keep up with Rainbow Dash now? Meg put on a burst of speed. Nope, not even close, not even sure she could go that much faster. Oh well. Guess she still needed training by the fastest pegasus in Equestria. As said pegasus liked to remind her.
Dash would just have to get in line now with Twilight Sparkle and Applejack.
Meg touched down in front of the establishment. Ponies were out and about doing their morning business. Some gave her a second look, but that was all. This was Ponyville, not Canterlot. They would bow to Celestia or Luna, but that was it. Not even for Twilight.
She went inside. The place was fairly busy, serving coffee and pastries. Mrs. Cake noticed her. “Pinkie’s in the party room,” she told her.
“Okay, thanks.” Meg decided to peruse the display first.
“No need, dearie, Pinkie has that covered.”
She looked over in surprise. “Uh… okay, then.” Probably had lunch covered too, should this session last that long.
Meg made her way to the back, where the party room was. Naturally it’d be available now, as parties were rarely booked in the morning. Upon entering the room, she spotted Pinkie at her party cannon, and attached to the other end of that cannon was… Smooze? Was he trying to consume the cannon?
“Hi, Meg!” Pinkie fired the cannon.
There was a muffled boom and Smooze suddenly expanded—but did not rupture. Over several seconds he shrank back to his usual size.
Meg grabbed the door with her magic and closed it, forgetting to look at it first. “Conducting experiments of your own, I see.”
“Yepperonies!” Pinkie started bouncing. “And you’re getting good at telekinesis.”
“I what?” Meg looked back to see the closed door. “Huh. Guess so. Now if only my typing didn’t suck.” She squeezed her pendant. “Right now I value productivity higher,” she said, and retrieved the new gem Discord had given her and placed it on a table. “Let’s see what this does.”
The voice synthesizer was being worn by Smooze like a backpack. Meg removed it and placed it next to the new gem. She opened it up, revealing the mix of technology and magic. Out went the old gem that covered the webcam and in went the new. She opened the lid of the laptop that did the computational work.
“Okay, Smooze. Let’s see what that does. Count from one to ten please.”
Silence.
Whatever that new gem did, it was incompatible with the machine learning that had already been done. “Great. Assuming this gem is what I think it is, then we may have to start over from scratch.”
Pinkie gasped. “A starting over from scratch party?”
Meg removed the new gem. “First let’s check my assumption.” She held the gem close to her eyes. It ought to produce a visual pattern for the webcam to pick up. “Count from one to ten again, please.”
That visual pattern looked pretty much like random noise to the naked eye, hardly surprising from something running on chaos magic, yet there was just enough order to it for machine learning to extract meaning. What she saw now was anything but. In tiny print she saw the actual words one, two, three, etc, appearing one after the other. “You have got to be bucking kidding me,” she snarled.
“What’s wrong?”
Meg thrust the gem close to Pinkie’s eyes. “Ask Smooze a question.”
“Uh, how long have you known Discord?” Pinkie then read the answer off the gem. “Many… thousands… of… years.” Her eyes went wide. “When’s your birthday? I… don’t… know. Calendars… weren’t… invented… yet. This… is… working… flawlessly? It… is! Meg… you… were… the… alicorn.”
“What?” Meg lowered her gem-holding hand. “Tell me something I don’t know.” That last sentence seemed to have a verb tense error; maybe the new gem wasn’t quite as good as it seemed. She then remembered to put the gem up to her own eyes.
“You… are… the… alicorn… I… saw… thousands… of… years… ago. I… now… know… that.”
Even worse: that gem was as good as it seemed. “Another damn time loop. Let me guess: I was the one who had you erase all evidence of human settlements.”
“Yes.”
Meg put the gem back in the synthesizer, ending the conversation for now. “Assumption checked,” she said with forced nonchalantness. “I will have to start over from scratch, but the new solution is trivial in comparison. Just need to feed the image through an optical character recognizer.”
Pinkie was bouncing like crazy. “IsenseaDiscordhassomesplainingtodopartycoming!!”
Meg snorted. “Damn right.”
As soon as the observers had returned through the portal, Twilight waved over Agent Reubens. “I’m sure you noticed we’re three short,” she said.
He nodded. “I trust there’s a good explanation for that.”
The president had obviously decided his agents didn’t have a need to know. Well, now they did. Twilight gave a quick summary of what happened inside the warehouse. “So I need to go back in time again to bring them all forward to the present. Once I return with them, Austin and Egor can just go through the portal. The others will still be asleep. We need to decide what to do with them.”
Reubens sighed. “That’s above my pay grade. I’ll try to have an answer by the time you get back.”
“It’ll be at least an hour, just so you know. I have to fly to Canterlot as that’s where they all are, or close enough, in the past. I can cross over to that conference room direct from there.” Fortunately she had been in that room before.
“Not a problem. We have this room booked for the entire day.”
“Any reason not to close this portal now?”
“None that I can see.”
After Reubens returned to his realm, Twilight called Sunset to close the portal. Once that was done, she teleported herself and the other mares to the Zephyr and started back to Canterlot.
Upon arriving, she left instructions with the captain to take Applejack and Rainbow Dash back to Ponyville. But after taking care of that, she did not head immediately to the mine entrance. First things first: she would create that note she had found magically pinned to the tunnel wall. There was also the detail that the sleeping humans were left in that side tunnel, along with the retrieved evidence. That side tunnel hadn’t been entered since, so the evidence had traveled to the present the old-fashioned way. Not an option for the sleeping humans; they wouldn’t sleep that long.
She could either move them to the mine entrance, or make two trips back to the past. Two trips seemed easier; that way she didn’t have to deal with the sleepers until they knew what to do with them. Twilight allowed herself a smirk. Time travel did provide flexibility, it could not be denied.
No sooner than she was on her way out of the palace, the note to her past self rolled up in her saddlebag, that a Royal Guard intercepted her. “Yes? You may rise.”
“Your Highness, six humans were captured in the cavern.” He looked uneasy. “We… don’t know how they got through the portal unknown to us.”
Twilight cursed herself. Time travel was also probabilistic. There could be no second trip, not any more—nor was there ever, strictly speaking. So they eventually woke up and started crawling around the unlit tunnels until they came across some light. “I do know how, and it’s not your fault.”
He seemed to question that, but did not say anything.
“Where are they now?”
“In the dungeons. They became hostile.”
Hardly surprising. “Keep them there for now. And see that they’re treated well.”
“Yes, Your Highness.” The guard departed.
So much for not having to deal with them until they knew what to do with them. All they needed was another ponies-take-humans-captive story.
It would have to wait. Second things second: recover Egor and Austin.
A few minutes later, she was at the mine entrance, hovering just outside. One time travel spell later and she saw the two humans sitting against the side of the tunnel, far enough inside to avoid direct sunlight. Perfect.
Twilight came into a landing. “I’m back,” she declared.
The two men got to their feet. “Where’s the transportation?” Austin asked.
The alicorn went to the spot where she had seen the note. “Slight change of plans. I’m not the Twilight you saw leaving; I’m the Twilight who brought you to the warehouse, the one who remained outside.” The note came out of her saddlebag and unrolled itself. “Figured it was better to return you directly to the present than make you wait here for a few days.” The note was attached to the tunnel wall, just the way she remembered it. “Then I can take you directly to the hotel to rejoin the other observers.”
“And the other six?” Austin asked. “The ones still asleep?”
Twilight trotted over to them. “Yeah, slight complication there. They will take a different route to the present.”
She got questioning looks from both of them. Austin was Serrell’s man; he wasn’t the problem. But because Egor was there… “Time travel can be complicated and leave it at that.” She prepared the spell. “And speaking of which, I’m returning us to the present now.”
The sun outside shifted position. Twilight retrieved the plaid pill from her saddlebag and popped it into her mouth. Picturing that hotel conference room, she swallowed, and they were there.
Reubens was waiting for them, as expected, seated at a table. He stood up and addressed the two observers. “Excellent, much less paperwork to file. You are free to depart.”
The Russian observer did so; Austin did not. Twilight waited until Egor had left, then closed the door with her magic. “There’s a situation the president needs to be informed of,” she said.
Reubens crossed his arms. “We are short one observer.”
“For very good reason,” Austin said. “Though I do not know where Hurst is at the moment.”
“In the palace dungeons,” Twilight said, sighing, “along with five others who were in the warehouse. That… wasn’t the plan, but sometimes time travel doesn’t give you a choice.”
“And the material you brought back with us?”
“Should still be in the tunnel.” Or was it? Not that those six could have escaped with it, as they were caught, but could they have destroyed it? But how? And there was no light. If they went that way, they’d only know something was there blocking the tunnel. I should’ve moved them someplace secure, even if they were still asleep. If only hindsight was magic.
“And, uh…” Austin licked dry lips. “What happened to Ms. Coleman?”
Twilight gave a reassuring smile. “She became an alicorn, believe it or not, and is back in Equestria.”
“Oh, really,” Reubens said. “And I thought I’ve heard everything.”
Austin grunted. “Wish I could be there when Serrell hears this.”
“Already told him.” Twilight decided not to share his reaction, which was (in not so many words): I need this like I need a hole in my head.
“And the video she took?”
“Her phone survived her ascension. I’ll arrange for you to receive the video, which shows Kimberley Hurst ordering the warehouse occupants to destroy everything and those orders being carried out.”
Austin grinned. “Can’t wait to see Routledge spin that.”
Or spin his minions winding up in an Equestrian dungeon. It almost made Twilight pine for the days when she only had to deal with monsters from the Everfree. Almost.
Twilight followed the pair of Royal Guards into the dungeons, Austin by her side. “I was expecting something… more medieval, quite honestly,” he said.
She only had a vague idea what “medieval” meant, but assumed it had something to do with humans possessing only primitive technology in the past. “We’ve always had magic at our disposal.” The lighting in the corridor came from magic-powered fixtures, for example.
They continued in silence behind the guards, who knew the way.
The guards slowed down as they approached their destination, and stopped in the middle of six cells, three on either side. Their occupants were not happy to see Twilight, but seemed unsure what to make of Austin.
“Release them,” Twilight commanded.
The guards split up, each unlocking and opening the cells on one side. Hesitantly the prisoners stepped into the corridor. “Just like that?” Hurst pointedly said.
“Yes, just like that,” Austin said. “You will be returned to the hotel where this little adventure started.”
“To be placed into the custody of the FBI?” she sneered, as if quite certain that would at worst be a minor inconvenience. “To prevent me from exposing this… this…” Her eyes speared hatred at Twilight. “I could’ve stopped it! You let it happen!”
Twilight sadly shook her head. “Believe me, I wish you could have. But that’s impossible. The past cannot be changed.”
“You prevented it from changing!”
“And if it wasn’t me, it would have been something else. I know. I’ve tried to change the past, to create a temporal paradox. The laws of physics do not permit it. Not even Discord can do that.”
“So you say.”
Austin sighed. “This isn’t productive. Whether you believe it or not, you are free to go. However…” He pulled a tablet out of his coat. “This video has been released to the media.” He started it playing and offered it to Hurst, who took it. Her face fell as she watched it.
“Now you could claim this proves your claim that Twilight stopped you,” Austin explained, “but Twilight’s counter claim has also been provided, along with the mathematical arguments that quantum mechanics forbids paradoxes. That goes over the heads of the public, obviously, so maybe you have a chance there. It certainly goes over my head. Regardless…”
Hurst looked up from the tablet and Austin continued. “The media has noticed that you, the observer picked by Senator Routledge, issued a command to the warehouse occupants—these fellows over here—and they obeyed you.” He let that sink in for a moment. “By the way, did I mention the media will be present at that hotel?”