//------------------------------// // Chapter 8: Boxes, Balls and Rings // Story: The good of the many // by Dafaddah //------------------------------// Chapter 8: Boxes, Balls and Rings Princesses Celestia and Luna nodded to the guardpony as he bowed to his sovereigns. "Please report." invited the elder alicorn. "Your Royal Highnesses, and Minister Hoofing, the Chief Scientist Glowball is presently taking a tour of the Hall of Science accompanied by Assistant Chief Scientist Rock Candy. So far they have visited the departments of Chemistry, Physics, Medicine, Geology and Astronomy, where they were when I left. In each department Glowball asked many questions on the nature of the activities in the department as well as enquiring about any strange or unexpected occurrences during the last few days. "Other than that, she seemed to be somewhat distracted, thinking a long time before venturing any opinions and responding slowly to questions. One more odd aspect to her behavior: she seemed not to recognize those ponies who are her close friends and associates, treating them almost like strangers. I am beginning to suspect that this mare is not actually Chief Glowball but somepony pretending to be her. "One last thing. Despite our best efforts, Assistant Chief Rock Candy noticed our surveillance and confronted me in private about it. I admitted that his boss was under observation but that I was not at liberty to disclose why. However he did promise not to convey this fact to the Chief, so we are cautiously including him in our surveillance team. Much of the intelligence regarding the Chief's behavior was actually his assessment as her close associate." The three mares looked at each other. As nopony had any questions, Celestia addressed the guard. "You have done very well, Guardpony! We thank you very much for your efforts and ask that you continue as instructed by Princess Luna. Please advise one of the three of us immediately if there are any changes in Glowball's activities." The guard bowed again and then left to resume his duties. She turned to her sister and Sunset Hoofing. "So far so good. We may actually be able to recruit assistance in the human universe. Sunset, you have seen my most recent assessments of the state of human science and technology. In your opinion is their technology such that they could be of assistance to our cause?" Hoofing pondered for a moment. "Technically they could assist from an equipment basis, and they are capable of producing sufficient concentrations of energy, but they have no conception of magic and so we would need to instruct them on what to do. Also, they would have to trust that what we are asking them to does not represent a danger to them, even if they do not understand it. But why do we need their assistance? Can't you and Luna produce the required energy by yourselves?" Luna spoke for the sisters. "Unfortunately, the recent struggles of my sister with Nightmare Moon have left me significantly reduced in power, and us both and the elements of harmony somewhat drained. Also, a direct intervention in the human universe would drain our energies even further, so even that option is not as readily accessible as it might otherwise be. "We are not at all sure to be able to marshall enough power ourselves, even if we bring the elements into the picture. That is why my sister decided to call in Twilight Sparkle, as soon as she detected that she was one of the Equestrians experiencing 'perceptual exchange'. That one of your staff is as well, is both quite fortunate and quite distressing. Even thought it indicates that the convergence is approaching fast, it gives us cause to believe that the focus is nearby and may give us more resources to help locate it. "In this regard, I propose that Sunset and I meet with Glowball in order to determine if we can count on the active support of the human with whom she is in 'perceptual exchange'." The old unicorn mare was pleased at intimate way Luna addressed her. "I concur with Luna, and I propose we do so as soon as Glowball has finished her tour of our facilities, which should not long now. Perhaps we should make our way back to the Hall of Science?" Celestia nodded her agreement. "I will begin storing magical energy in certain objects created for that purpose and will also investigate some possible existing stockpiles that we may bring to bear when needed. Good luck to you both." Sunset bowed to Princess Celestia, who then received a hug from Luna. She and the younger Princess then departed Celestia's apartments together. *** A voice in Laura's head kept saying 'THESE PONIES SEEM TO THINK THERE REALLY IS SUCH A THING AS MAGIC! I WONDER WHAT THE REAL MECHANISM BEHIND THIS IS?' and variations thereof as she received her tour of the Department of Magic. It was taking all her willpower to keep a straight face (muzzle?) and to be honest she did not think she was entirely successful at it. Fortunately, the ponies that were presenting all these impossibilities to her seemed to take her pinched expression as evidence of concern for how things were going wrong with their magical experiments, instead of with the idea of magic itself worked, a real mind bender as far as she was concerned. She put on the least fake smile she could manage to the assembled group of unicorns present. It seemed liked magic, unlike the other 'sciences' was an almost exclusively unicorn activity. "Thank you so much, every....pony." She had noticed the peculiar way these ponies spoke. "Now, has any...pony done an analysis to see if theses spells are deviating from expected results an a systematic way?" "That's an excellent question, Glowball." replied Rock Candy. He addressed himself to a young looking dark blue unicorn with a light blue streaked mane and wearing thick glasses. "Slide Rule has been working on this aspect of the disturbances, what are your findings so far?" "Well," he hesitated, but then visibly gathered his courage to speak, "I just thought it might be worth ranking each incident on the Starswirl magical effort scale and then plotting them on a chart. We have a lot of data as unicorns have been reporting spell failures all over the Hall of Science, not just in the Department of Magic." "And what did this show?" asked Rock Candy. "Unfortunately not much. There seemed to be a slight increase in event concentration in the north east section of the Hall of Science, but it was not statistically significant. But then, I noticed that the lower floor incidents seemed to be the most severe, so I plotted them in a 3D map - which wasn't easy because my magic kept having problems! SO, I went up to the top of the south tower and found out there was hardly any spell interference there and so I built my 3D map and here it is." He pointed to a transparent box on a table with various sized balls seemingly floating in mid-air inside. "The bigger balls represent more severe deviations from expected results?" asked Laura, moving closer to the table with the box. "Yes, Chief." answered Slide Rule, "and the front of the box facing us points north. It is evident that the deeper and more northern segments seem to harbor greater effects, but there is nevertheless a series of large effects on most floors. Then I rotated the box in front of me in all directions, and voila! I saw that the effects appear most severe along an axis going from west-by-north-west to east-by-south-east, with the western end at an approximate the second floor above ground and the eastern end about four levels below ground." Rock Candy magically lifted the box rotating it as Slide Rule had indicated and indeed, by looking at it from the right direction it became evident the effects were following a very distinct line. Slide Rule was now looking a bit smug. Laura was picking up her newly equine jaw from off the floor! She thought to herself 'without computers or monitors these ponies can do very sophisticated stuff - they were building simulations out of physical reality! "Ahem, I also noticed one more thing." said Slide Rule, obviously now enjoying the attention. All ponies present wondered what more could be determined from this 3D map box. He pushed his thick glasses back up his muzzle dramatically. "Each ball is held in place by an individual spell. But as the balls have different masses, they are more or less responsive to distortions in the field of magical energy around them as well as electromagnetic forces. As I was coming back down the tower with the box I noticed that smaller balls tended to vibrate visibly, and that the closer I got to the axis physically, the worse the vibrations became. The vibrations ceased when I stopped moving the box. They also seemed more intense at the western end of the axis than at the eastern end. So the axis is in effect a vector. And the box will allow us to follow it to its source if we want to." "Slide Rule, that is amazing! I am truly impressed!" Laura knew how to give praise when it was warranted, and if she had had the chance to bring this particular unicorn back to CERN with her, she would have, hooves, horn and all! "She is not the only one impressed!" said an older female voice at the door behind them. "It's the minister!" whispered several ponies, "and who is that with her, OH MY GOSH it's Princess Luna!!!". All around her ponies were bowing towards the door. Laura knew how to take a cue and did the same. "Chief Glowball," continued the older unicorn mare, likely the minister. "Princess Luna and I would like to confer with you in private about these events. Could you spare us a moment?" Laura was in a panic! She did not for one second think she could fool theses VIPs into thinking she was really the pony whose appearance she was wearing. But she could not see a way out without causing a scene. Either way the jig would be up, so she decided her only course was to continue the charade until the end. "Yes, of course, Minister" replied Laura, and followed them out the door, noticing that the Princess had both horn and wings, a variation she had not yet encountered in her rounds of the 'Hall'. As they walked the older unicorn addressed her. "So Chief Glowball, how did you like your tour of the Hall of Science?" "Well... We have established that almost every department running experiments has been affected by anomalies that seem random and impossible to pin down in a purely deterministic fashion. However, the efforts of Slide Rule may have given us a way to both measure the distortions statistically and perhaps even trace them to the source." Laura felt this was safe to say, but was painfully aware that she had nothing to add if the ponies probed any deeper. "Those are excellent results, and beyond what I had expected." Said the minister, leading her and the Princess to what was a meeting room, judging from the fact it contained a large rectangular table, and several cushions instead of chairs arranged around it. "Please have a seat." She indicated the cushions with a hoof, and then closed the door. With a sweet old granny expression she added: "And do tell us, dear, just who you are." *** Glowball was wondering if she had died and gone to some heaven other than the 'Herd of Contentment' that most ponies expected after their demise. Her present circumstances were too detailed and self consistent to be a dream only. It just 'felt too real'. As soon as Peter had described the problems they had been encountering, Glowball immediate seized on the opportunity to ask to meet with as many as possible of the scientists who had reported problems. This gave her a plausible excuse to ask all sorts of questions about what they were doing, their experiments and to seek ideas on the causes of said problems. When she asked about the physical distribution of these problems, it quickly became evident that most scientist here were working with something they called the LHC and that this was nothing less than an inconceivably huge ring shaped particle accelerator. The energies produced must be be absolutely enormous! She burned with questions she could not ask, lest the monsters discover that she was not whom they thought she was. The ponies... uh individuals, were obviously scientists of the highest caliber. And the tech! Her heart almost skipped a beat just thinking about it, was just the techiest! It was also obviously years beyond the capabilities of Equestrian science, especially the tools they had for communication and computation. Here, every...body (she had noticed how the local bipeds expressed themselves during the tour) had their own personal computer, and access to an infinite source of knowledge called the World-Wide-Web. One truly good piece of luck she had was when Peter led her to his office to show a plot of the occurrences on a map of the LHC by going to 'website' with information on the device and on CERN, the institution that managed it. At one point in the exercise a device called a 'phone' on his desk rang, and he excused himself as he had 'a fire to put out', then running from the room. She assumed he meant this metaphorically and had just been advised of another of the day's 'occurrences'. Either way he left his computer device active when he ran out, which she fully intended to exploit for as long as possible! She had seen how Peter searched for information by typing in key words or a request into a box located at the top of the screen. It would then produce a list of possible responses to his query. The biggest challenge she had was first understanding the pointing device (called a mouse for some strange reason) and the concept of click-and-drag and then how to type in letters and words using the digits of her paws. She found out she could manage a bearable speed with one digit from each, nothing like Peter's magically fluid flow of letters. She had checked out 'LHC', 'CERN', 'World-Wide-Web', 'particle accelerator', 'anatomy' and even the name on the tag pinned to her own lab coat 'Dr. Laura Connor". She was amazed how much information was available, which she greedily read at high speed in a data feeding frenzy! As she read, she became truly impressed with this Dr. Connor. She also noticed that this mare, uh, 'person' held a job very similar to hers in being the department head of a scientific establishment, and that this department was also experiencing a major disruption that morning. Like all good scientists, Glowball distrusted coincidence. She began to formulate a plan to see if she could discover any connection between what was happening in Equestria's Hall of Science with what was happening here at the LHC. Just then, Peter returned, somewhat flushed from running back. "Laura, you'll never guess!" he began, seemingly exited at some new development. "Since you said I'll never guess then there's no point in me trying, is there? What's up?" replied Glowball. "One of the techs started plotting the anomalies based on the energies needed to produce them, and was able to produce a 3D plot. Let me show you." He sat next to her and repositioned the keyboard and mouse directly in front of him with his fingers and hands (that's what they were called in the anatomy diagram), immediately typing an incomprehensible long string of characters in one of the other boxes at the top of the screen. The image on the screen (a recent paper by Dr. Laura Connor) was replaced by a view of a large number of circles, some large some small. "What is really interesting is if you rotate the view to lie along the track of the LHC." he played with the mouse periodically clicking on on-screen menus. The view rotated in several dimensions until all of a sudden, Glowball saw it! "The incidences diminish in amplitude with distance from the track!" exclaimed Glowball. "Exactly! And also, this phenomenon seems to affect only a portion of the ring, next to this set of detectors." Just then she heard a ringing noise and felt something buzzing in the lab coat's top left pocket. Peter looked up at her. "Aren't you going to get that? It's your phone." She plunged a hand in her pocket pulling out a small device with its own screen, on which there was a little box with an arrow pointing sideways - obviously she was supposed to move the box, but there was no mouse! In desperation she placed a trembling finger (what a weird name for a digit) on the box and noticed it moved with the trembling of her finger. She slid the box all the way to the right in its 'slot', and was rewarded by a picture of another female with the name "Abigail Murphy". "Hey, it's Gail." remarked Peter, looking at her expectantly. She heard a tiny voice issuing from the device, and raised it to her ear to better hear the sound. "Laura? Hellooooo.... can you hear me?" said a female voice. "Oh, yes I can." replied Glowball, nonplussed. A talking machine! "Well, my sweet, please remember that I am picking you up at the Prévessin main entrance tonight at six. You won't get all wrapped up in work and forget now?" "No, I won't" blurted Glowball, unsure what else to say. "Could you pass the phone to Peter, dear?" "Yes, of course." She lift the device and offered it to Peter, who took it and placed it next to his own ear. "I'll make sure she's there!" he said into the device with a smile. After a pause he added: "I know all her hiding places - she can't get away from me, so don't worry! Kay, bye now! And have a good time!" He pushed a button with his thumb (the stubby digit opposite the fingers of each hand) and the phone's screen went black except for the date and time glowing in the middle. He then handed it back to her (Strange! 'Hand over' is an expression used in Equestria - but ponies have hooves, not hands!) She placed the device back into its original pocket. Peter was still smiling at her. "You know I'm really quite envious. You have to make a reservation at least two months in advance to get into 'Chez Chiquette' these days. You guys are really going all out for this anniversary!" Glowball suddenly froze. What if she doesn't revert back to herself before it's time for dinner with TC?!!! All of a sudden her adventure was seeming less of a fun lark. And that also brought up another sobering thought. 'How can I compare what I learn here with data from Equestria if I don't go back? And, what if I can't go back!!!' *** Twilight Sparkle finished giving her instructions to Spike. "Oh, and the cap I enchanted to make me fall asleep is very harmless, but works immediately. So as soon as I'm asleep remove the sleeping cap keep and keep an eye on me. If I wake up, it might be the human I am resonating with who looks out at you. Equestria is depending on you Spike! So stick to the plan I gave you, and watch out where you put that cap. Don't accidentally put yourself or anyone else to sleep with it as they might get hurt when they pass out. Clear?" "Crystal Clear, Sir!" said Spike saluting like a soldier. Twilight reclined onto her bed, and with both front hooves slowly placed the sleeping cap on head. The world faded to black.