//------------------------------// // 11. Tech talk with twilight // Story: Kill Me Now // by Golden Script //------------------------------// Good, I was still on the couch, but I was still worried about dinky, was that just a dream, or was it something more? I shook those thoughts from my head. “hey spike, do I smell pancakes?” I yelled into the kitchen. “Yeah, but they’re not done, you’ll have to wait just a few more minutes.” “Ok, thanks.” I sat on the couch and thought about questions I could ask twilight when the time came. Then she came down the stairs. ‘think of the devil’ “hey twi.” “Good morning.” “Should we eat before we start our Q&A up again?” “Yes, that’s a good idea.” Just then spike came through the kitchen door. “Breakfast is ready.” And with that he disappeared again. “That didn’t take long.” Said twilight, and I followed her into the kitchen. Laid out on the table was three plates stacked high with pancakes. “Spike, that’s a lot of pancakes.” He looked at me with a ‘no duh’ look on. “Yep, these three are for me, I don’t know what you guys are gonna eat.” “Ha-ha spike, gimme that.” And I pulled one of the plates over to my chair, and we ate in silence, just the sound of knives and forks clinking on glass plates. When we were done me and twilight went back to the library to start our Q&A again. “So, where were we?” “I had explained what a doctorate was.” “Right, the highest level of education.” “Right…” “Well, it’s your turn now.” “Uh… what’s the weather like here, I saw some Pegasi pushing clouds around.” She perked up a little, she must know a lot about the weather system “the pegasi manipulate the weather, yes, but there are places that don’t need pegasi to move clouds, for example the Everfree forest.” “Well our whole world acts like the Everfree then, you see, our world is one big spinning ball, this spinning causes wind currents and jet streams that push clouds around, so us humans don’t need to do anything. But sometimes our weather can get rough, like tornadoes or hurricanes, there are also tsunamis and earthquakes but that’s from plate shifting, not world rotation. Your turn.” “Uh, one sec.” she was busy writing away in her notebook. “There,” she put a period. “Uh, if you don’t manipulate the weather how do you know if it’ll rain?” “We have machines that can scan weather patterns and tell us if it should rain or not, then we broadcast a signal to these things called televisions in people’s homes to tell them if it should rain or snow or not. Though most of the time the weather people are wrong, which is a shame.” “What kind of machine tells the weather?” “I wouldn’t be able to tell you, but it’s very advanced.” “Advanced how?” “Um, the circuitry is complex and the programming is masterful.” “What is a circuitry and a programming?” “Circuitry is when people take microscopic pieces of metal and place them in a way that lets there be a current so that a computer can run. Programming is when someone takes said computer and gives it a set of instructions to tell it what to do.” “What’s-” “That’s enough questions from you, missy, it’s my turn.” “Fine.” she crossed her hooves and pouted. “How advanced is this world?” I'm just wondering what I have to work with here. “Our most advanced machines would have to be typewriters and printing presses, or the cloud making factory, if that counts that is.” “Hmmm… humans invented the typewriter back in the early 1800s. We replaced them with PCs in 1980 though, so you are in your 1800s, great.” I mumbled to myself “What is it?” “Oh, nothing, I'm just stuck in a world where its 1823 and the dominant species is Technicolor ponies. That’s all.” I put my face in my hands in thought. “But we have magic.” Then it hit me. “Twilight, how fine can you make an object?” I grabbed her shoulders, or the equivalent for a pony. “Um, fine?” “How small?” “Um, extremely as long as I can see it, why?” “This means I can shoot your species to the future!” I yelled excitedly and picked her up. “Eep!” I spun around in joy, clutching her to my chest in a bear hug. After a minute of this I set her back down. “This is great Twi; I can invent the computer, the automobile, the television, and everything in-between. I would be famous!” “Are you telling me that you know the schematics for stuff like this?” “I had to design a laptop before I could leave collage with my doctorate, I had created my first engine at the age of 13, and the TV uses the same tech as the laptop, if I could get my hands on a piece of paper, a pencil and a straight edge I would have one done within the week.” She floated a pencil to me and went looking for a piece of paper that she thought was big enough. When she came back she was holding a ruler and some parchment that was huge in her magical grip “is this big enough?” I yelled “yes!” I then ran up to her and without thinking took the parchment and kissed her on the cheek then ran back to the couch and started working. She was stunned by this and started blushing heavily. That was her first kiss outside of her family or a ‘boo-boo’ when she was a filly. Even if it was just on the cheek it was a first for her. After I was done with only the outline of the laptop, which admittedly took longer than I thought it would, when I turned to see her in the state I had left her in, shock. “Twi, are you ok?” and that’s when I realized what I had done. “Oh… Twi I'm so sorry, I wasn’t thinking, I-” She held up a hoof to stop me “don’t worry about it; it was in gratitude, nothing more,” she looked at me “right?” “Right, gratitude. Yeah.” We both averted our eyes. “Uh… I’ll be upstairs, reading.” “Yeah, I’ll be right here, working.” And with that she went upstairs and I went back to work. That was awkward.