//------------------------------//
// Chapter V 
// Story: Blank Slate 
// by Integral Archer 
//------------------------------//

	Littlepip awoke covered in sweat, her heart convulsing, her body shivering. In her mind, for a split second, lingered a terrible notion. It disappeared as soon as she tried to grab a hold of it, but it left her in this state of terror.

What was it? Something horrible, was all that could be said. Was it real? No, of course not. Here I am, she thought, in my bed, in Stable 2, where I’ve always been. But how could something not real have put me into such a state?

She didn’t want to think about it.

She glanced at her Pip-Buck. It was 8:59—one more minute before it would vibrate, telling her it was time to get up.

The resulting day could be nothing but bad. A day begun by a nightmare slowly starts to resemble it.

Even with her sweat washed off, her clothes put on, her screwdriver at the ready, at her working space, by her usual closet, the illegible orthographic projections in front of her, she couldn’t concentrate. Her mind kept coming back to the events of the night before. It couldn’t have been real. It had been so out of the ordinary. What was the ordinary? Wake up, eat breakfast if she could stomach it (it goes without saying that, on that particular morning, breakfast was skipped), go to work, eat lunch, go to work, eat dinner, go to work, go home, read a book if time permitted, go to sleep, repeat. Each day blurred together, but at least she knew that any event that fell within one of those time-slots was real. Her vague impressions of the night before had not. Were they real? Her first reaction was to say no; they could not be recalled, so they must not be real. But what could be recalled—and this frightened her the most—was that though she could not recount the events of the day before, she remembered that there had been a time when she did know that they were happening. Though she didn’t remember what she saw, she remembered how it made her feel, and this was unbearable.

Littlepip turned the radio on her Pip-Buck to Cucro’s Frequency; it was silent; she thought nothing more of that. She kept looking at the clock on her Pip-Buck. The minutes seemed to ooze by in no hurry.

She desperately needed to hear a voice, to break up her mess of thoughts. But it was only nine-thirty a.m. She usually didn’t eat lunch until one p.m. It was too early to go. She hadn’t done any work yet.

She began to fiddle with a screw on the generation II model, looking at the clock every thirty seconds. If the Pip-Buck ever dropped from sight, she would find herself staring at the ground; and the gray being all she would be able to see, her sight would cease to provide a distraction and her thoughts would return to the events of last night. Then she would snap out of it, look back at her clock, start to turn the screw, catch sight of the ground again, and repeat the process.

Whatever problem this is, she thought, as she lowered herself onto her abdomen, it has now been promoted to a prone problem. It has to do with the additional trauma of the machinery due to . . . no, that wasn’t right. It was the exact same Pip-Buck from earlier. Nothing had changed. But she knew it was a prone problem. Something had complicated the entire fixing process. What that was was another question. And she knew it was a question that wouldn’t allow itself to be temporarily shelved. Perhaps I can work while thinking, she thought. It’s simple: just put this screwdriver into here, think back to the night before, keep turning until the screw falls out, try to remember the feeling of despondency, the chill, the terror, try not to envelope yourself in your own thoughts lest you—ugh, where was I! When’s lunchtime?

This continued until ten a.m. At ten a.m., Littlepip could bear it no longer. She had to take an early lunch. She looked at what she had done in the span of an hour: she had removed one screw. With a dejected sigh, she lit her horn, rolled up the projections, levitated the Pip-Buck, and brought both with her in the direction of the cafeteria. The hope was that the sounds of the ones she would encounter would provide a good distraction, and she would be able to get some work done.

The cafeteria, as has been said, was two floors above her. The stairs were metallic, full of dozens of regularly spaced, small, identical holes of perfect circles. The stairs were thin and gave a creaking sound as she trudged up them. There were no posters of Velvet Remedy on this particular route, but on the landing of the first floor was a copy of its antithesis, another gray-green poster with an encouraging message. This one said:


Solidarity, Fraternity, Kinship, and Sacrifice
Our great four ensuring our survival!


There were four instances of the Stable Colt on this one: the first was wearing worker’s coveralls; the second was wearing the leather jacket of an unnamed university; the third was wearing a cassock; and the fourth was wearing nothing but a few rags, which dangled loosely from his body. They were all holding hooves.

Littlepip glanced at the poster; nodded to it in the same manner with which one nods to another whom one knows not well enough to speak to properly, but is acquainted enough with one to make a complete disregard uncomfortable to both; and continued to the second floor.

A large, elliptical glass window next to the door allowed a view into the cafeteria. Littlepip could see three bodies around one of the circular tables at the far end of the room, opposite the door in front of which she was standing. Their postures displayed animation, and it was a welcoming sight. With a sigh of relief, she pushed the door open and entered. “Hey, Littlepip!” she heard upon entry.

The three at the table turned to look at her, two females, one male. The male was a faintly yellow unicorn with a brown mane; his name was Silver Dollar, and the toque blanche which he wore with no shame immediately told all that he was the cook on a break. The skin of the earth pony to the left of him could barely be distinguished, for its blue was almost the same color as the blue of her stable uniform; the only evidence of her presence was a mane rendered a nearly invisible white by the fluorescent lighting—her name was Terra Firma. The one sitting across from her, who, unlike her friend, seemed to struggle against the monochrome of the colors of her uniform, was a pink earth pony with a pink of an even darker hue for a mane; she spoke with an enthusiasm that had seemed to wane ever so slightly through the years, and her name was Clover. It was she who had projected this heard salutation, and she was waving eagerly with a forehoof at Littlepip.

These three creatures were ugly. One looked upon them, and one’s initial instinct was instantly to avert one’s eyes. But if one were to spend enough time around them, if one were to see them every day, in the context of the corridors of the stable, its cafeteria, its auditorium, its sleeping quarters, if one were to see them with their heads bowed as they were now, conversing in low voices as if their conversation were something of which to be ashamed, one would realize that which one realizes when one gazes upon a leech, a giant squid, a cockroach, or a parasite of any order: that such wretchedness is not out of malice, not out of contempt, anything but a rebellion against the beautiful work of nature with the intent to offend, but rather that the wretchedness is a reflection of the world around it; for every creature adapts, in one way or another, for survival, changes its form, emulates its surroundings, effects the appearance that would make it the most inconsequential creature in the ecosystem. Natural elegance and radiancy can only be effected by the sun, indispensable for beauty as it is indispensable for photosynthesis. When the sun dies, the flowers close, the birds cease their chirping, and the moths and worms come out, for they are the only creatures suited to such absences of light. It is not their fault that they are repulsive; they are grotesqueness created for a world of grotesqueness. Beautiful creatures can’t be seen in such a dimness; in the stable, their light fades away.

“Hey, guys,” Littlepip said to these three night crawlers, and turned toward the serving counter. Thus ended the extent of that conversation.

The cafeteria had a seating capacity of fifty. The room was small, and no more than thirty could fit there comfortably. A chest high divider, along which ran three booths, separated some of the seats from the serving counter. Stools were arranged in front of this aforementioned counter in the style of a bar. Here and there were those raised circular tables; circular swivel chairs rose up to meet them. On the south wall of the room were a row of square windows, a table suited for four in front of each one. On the north wall, there was the counter, behind which was a spherical robot with a myriad of spindly arms making a small humming noise and awaiting an instruction.

Littlepip approached this robot. “Hello, Randall,” she said.

“Identifying resident—identified resident two . . . four . . . six . . . oh . . . one. Good morning—Littlepip,” the robot growled.

“Is there still breakfast?” she asked.

“Searching—breakfast found. Store: two eggs, three potatoes. Should they be prepared?”

It was a surprise. There was never any breakfast. But as soon as this revelation was put forth, Littlepip realized she was not hungry. Why had she asked? Perhaps she had just wanted to test her luck.

“No thanks.”

“Orders?”

Littlepip sighed. “Just water.”

In a flash, the robot presented a glass and jettisoned from a spout on its body a stream of water so rapid and so thin that one could have sworn that the glass had already been filled before this performance.

After taking the water, she juggled it along with the broken Pip-Buck and the orthographic projections, walked around the side of the divider, and took a seat not at the empty one around the circular table at which the three ponies were sitting but at the booth athwart the divider—on the side that positioned her back to the group. She laid the drawings on the table, the Pip-Buck on top, took a sip of her water, and began to pretend to work. In reality, she was hoping that the three behind her would talk about something.



“Well, not nothing,” responded Silver Dollar. “Went about my room. Didn’t really feel like hanging out. You know, just boring stuff.”

“Nothing?” said Terra Firma.

“Well, not nothing. I entertain myself.”

“Yes,” scoffed Clover, “we all know how you entertain yourself, Silver.”

“You’re hilarious, Clover,” responded Silver Dollar, with a voice flat and sarcastic.

“Well, then, what did you do?” pressed Terra Firma.

“Why are you so interested?”

“You just seemed to have left rather abruptly.”

“It was over. What else was there to do? It was a weeknight after all.”

“You seemed pretty enthusiastic to get home for a weeknight,” said Clover.

There was a pause. Then, Silver Dollar said: “Alright, I was—no, you’ll think it’s stupid.”

“What?”

“No, never mind. I just read and went to bed.”

“What were you reading?”

“Well . . .” Silver Dollar stammered, “well, I found, in my little brother’s toy chest, a book of ghost stories, alright? I stayed up reading that.”

“Well?”

“‘Well’ what?”

“Did you read any good ones?”

Silver Dollar shook his head. “No. I mean, once or twice I did feel the onset of a good shiver . . . but nothing really delivered.”

“Why not? Was it badly written?” said Terra Firma.

“No, it wasn’t that; it’s just that—they were implausible!”

Clover rolled her eyes. “A horror story implausible? What a surprise.”

“No,” said Silver Dollar firmly, pointing his hoof at Clover matter-of-factly, “what I was reading was a ghost story.”

“‘Ghost’? ‘Horror’? What’s the difference?”

Silver Dollar groaned with exasperation. “A ghost story presents impossible creatures in an impossible premise. A horror story—well, more accurately, a terror story—is not only plausible, but true.”

“Example?”

Silver Dollar licked his lips. “Well, there was once—promise you won’t tell anypony, right?”

Clover looked at Terra Firma and smirked. Turning back to Silver Dollar, she said: “Alright, Mr. True-Story. What happened?”

“Well, when I was really little . . . you know how we were idiots as kids, right?”

Terra Firma gasped, holding back laughter. “Clover, remember that one time when you stole Professor Rein’s hockey stick?”

“Ha! He canceled classes for a month!”

“What is up with that guy and his hockey stick? Is a laser pointer not good enough for him?”

“Hey, hey,” said Silver Dollar, “weren’t we talking about me?”

“Oh, yes, sorry, continue,” said Terra Firma.

Silver Dollar paused and stared at her intently, as if waiting to see if she would deviate from the topic of conversation again. “Do you remember when you dared me to spend a night in the overmare’s office?” he said, at length.

“Yes,” said Clover, “and I remember that you lied about it.”

“No,” said Silver Dollar, stressing his voice, “I did. You just didn’t want to believe me.”

“Wait . . .” interjected Terra Firma, “did you actually do that?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to know how I know you’re lying?” said Clover.

“How?” said Silver Dollar, not with the raised intonation of a question but with the flat voice of somepony waiting for a response to a rhetorical question.

“Because had you actually gone into the overmare’s office, you would’ve persisted in your assertion regardless of how much we tried to deny it.”

Silver Dollar stared at her, slack-jawed. Finally, he threw his forehooves in the air, exclaiming: “I can’t win with you! If I drop it, it’s because I didn’t actually do it! If I assert myself, it’s because I’m getting defensive, trying to convince myself that I did it!”

“All right, all right, calm down!” said Clover, holding out her hooves. “Continue, then.”

“Thank you,” said Silver Dollar, with a sarcastic bow of the head. “So, like I was saying, in my night in the office, as soon as I saw the light go off, that was when the hard part started. I couldn’t sleep in the closet; they would find me and that would be the end of me! I had to wait. But wait for ten hours? I’d go mad! So, I did the only thing a little colt would do: I started snooping. In the closet: assorted uniforms, blouses, shirts, socks, underwear, nothing special.”

“I shiver to think what the overmare’s underwear is like,” said Clover, with a laugh.

Silver Dollar affected a shudder. “Terrible, terrible things . . .” He pretended to be on the verge of crying. After recovering himself, he added: “Anyway, in the desk: pencils, erasers, pens, a notepad with some illegible writing, a receipt for something—also nothing special. There was nothing else to be seen but the footlocker. And, surprise, surprise, it was locked. Fortunately, I had in my pocket some bobby pins.

“So,” Silver Dollar continued, “I worked on the footlocker. It took me an hour and a half, but I got it. I got into the the overmare’s footlocker: on the surface, there were clothes with some valuable gems, some wallets with some prewar money, but nothing really intriguing to a young colt. I dug, and I dug, taking care not to throw anything on the floor, and I came across a small notebook. It was brown, bound with leather. I opened to the first page, and I saw some writing. Naturally, I went to the window and held it up against the light that came in; for I was too scared to use my Pip-Buck’s lamplight, lest I be discovered. And, on the first line, I read: ‘My first day. Ready to start. Everypony seems pleased.’ ‘What could it mean?’ I asked myself. I flipped through the first few pages. ‘Got new manecut. Looks professional,’ was the next line. I flipped through, and the notes became more and more trivial and pointless. It took me two hours, while turning it over in my hooves, to figure out who had written it and what it meant. But, when I did, I dropped the book to the ground, and I turned paler than the light.”

“Why?” said Terra Firma. “What was it?”

Silver Dollar laughed. “Don’t you see? It was the overmare’s diary from the day she was inaugurated! And, you know, she really was just like us!”

“Why do I find that hard to believe?” said Clover.

“No, really!” said Silver Dollar. “She was young, eager, but nervous, and she was assigned the ultimate job in the stable. Her notes were very indicative of how I would feel if I were the newly-made overmare. The first few pages were trivialities, her worrying about everything, making sure the stable was running okay. Boring stuff. I skimmed most of it.

“It wasn’t until about the last eighth of the book that the penmanship changed. It looked less rushed, more deliberate, but still as anxious as ever. There was one line in this new writing on this page and one only. It said: ‘First dead. Had to say it was a heart attack. This is what they told me.’”

For a while, all were silent. Littlepip perked up her ears.

“What?” said Terra Firma. “Who . . . who died of a heart attack?”

“Who hasn’t died of a heart attack?” said Clover, a marked amount of apprehension in her voice. “What did the rest say, Silver?”

Silver Dollar shook his head. “I don’t remember exactly all the words. The rest were mad scribblings. I remember reading something about ‘getting closer,’ and ‘everywhere.’ I don’t know; it’s all a haze. But I remember the last page as clear as ever. It changed how I look at the stable. If I close my eyes and think, I can still see it.”

“What did it say?” said Terra Firma.

Silver Dollar put a hoof to his mouth. The sound of his swallowing was audible. “It said . . . it said: ‘I’ve shut the Door. It’s behind it. It can’t be let in. Nothing can be let in. Nothing can get out. It chases you through the hallways. It nips at your heels. You run, but it surrounds you. We must hold it back.’”

Clover and Terra Firma started at a rustling sound. They turned and they saw Littlepip. She had dropped the projections, the Pip-Buck, and she had her forehooves resting on the backrest of the booth. She was staring at them, wide-eyed, her teeth chattering. “What . . . what did you say?”

Silver Dollar repeated, without hesitation: “I’ve shut the Door. It’s behind it. It can’t be let in. Nothing can be let in. Nothing can get out. It chases you through the hallways. It nips at your heels. You run, but it surrounds you. We must hold it back.”

Littlepip opened and shut her mouth a few times, trying to form the words, an impossible number of thoughts passing through her head. She finally manage to squeak: “What . . . what is . . . ‘the Door’?”

“Good question,” said Silver Dollar. “At the time, I didn’t know. It seemed really vague. But I noticed something singular: the word ‘Door’ had its d capitalized. What else could it be? The door to Stable 2.”

“No, wait,” said Clover. “More importantly, what does that mean: ‘I’ve shut the door’? Doesn’t that imply that the door had been open originally?”

Silver Dollar simply shrugged.

“Impossible! The door has always been closed,” said Terra Firma.

“Who knows?” said Silver Dollar. “Maybe it was open before we were born. Maybe things got in. Maybe they needed to keep those things out.”

Another silence followed. Littlepip was frozen. The sound of the plastic on the cushion shifting as Terra Firma adjusted herself could vaguely be heard.

“What . . . what did you do?” said Littlepip.

Silver Dollar slouched. His eyes darted around, as if to make sure no others were watching, and he said: “I’m sorry, Clover; I lied. I didn’t spend the night in the overmare’s office. After I read those lines, I couldn’t. I snuck out and . . . what else would a little colt do? I went to the door.

“It was inordinately dark, but it was nothing my Pip-Buck’s lamp couldn’t handle. I looked at the door.”

“What did it look like?” said Terra Firma, with a gasp.

“It looked like a door,” said Silver Dollar, glaring at her. “It looked exactly like a door.”

“You know what I mean!”

“Not much to say, honestly. It was round—it looks just like it does in the pictures. Go see it for yourself.”

Terra Firma shuddered. “No, I wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not supposed to go there!”

Clover looked at Terra Firma. “Honestly, Terra, what would they do to you? It’s not like it’s blocked off or anything. Perhaps there’s just broken glass.”

“True,” said Silver Dollar. “I understood this even when I was little. And I scratched my head in confusion. It was just a door. Nothing special, no mystery, just a door. Could that be it? Was something behind it? I didn’t know, but I got the feeling I wasn’t going to be visiting it again for a long time, and I wanted to make the most of it. I put my ear against the door, and I listened.”

“What do you hear?” cried Littlepip, loudly, unrestrainedly, her voice shaky.

“I heard . . .” murmured Silver Dollar, “I heard . . .”

“Was it running water?” gasped Littlepip.

“I heard . . .” he continued. Then, his eyes went wide, and he stared at Littlepip. “Yes, yes! It was running water! How did you know that?”

“What did you hear next? Was it a scratching noise?” Littlepip was now standing with her hind legs on the cushion.

“Not a scratching noise, but more like something on dirt, as if something were moving around,” said Silver Dollar. “I waited. For half an hour, I stood like that. And then, after another half hour . . . do you know what I heard?”

“What!” exclaimed Littlepip, almost a cry, her heart racing.

Silver Dollar closed his mouth, as if the thought were complete. He leaned closer to Terra Firma and Clover. They leaned back. And he whispered: “Terror.”

They stared at him, wide-eyed and silent, for thirty seconds. An involuntary whimper came from Terra Firma’s throat.

Then, Silver Dollar burst out laughing.

Clover exhaled deeply. Terra Firma put a forehoof over her own chest.

Littlepip jumped out of the booth and ran over to Silver Dollar. “What! What do you mean?” she shrieked.

Silver Dollar could barely speak, laughing too hard as he was. “I mean . . .” he gasped, wiping away tears, “that that’s terror. That’s proper terror. Not one of your stupid foalhood ghost stories.”

Littlepip took a step back, her mouth open in disbelief. “Wait a minute,” she said. “So, did you just make that up?”

Silver Dollar had calmed down. He took a sip of his cola. Raising both his forehooves and shrugging in a gesture of perplexity, he said: “Maybe I did; maybe I didn’t. Maybe it’s entirely real; maybe it’s entirely fabricated. Maybe it’s just my faulty memory, since it took place so long ago. Maybe I just wanted to tease you. Maybe it’s a bit of both. Who knows how much I made up? Who knows what’s real?”

Littlepip clenched her teeth together in anger. “You made that up!”

Silver Dollar said nothing. He only smiled.

In a huff, Littlepip turned back to her booth and sat down with a loud thud, turning her eyes back to the projections, mad, distressed—but, above all, overly perplexed. There was no chance of her concentrating now. The phantoms in her head danced round and round with more vigor than ever.

“Well, Silver,” Clover said, “while you were writing ghost stories—oh, pardon me, terror—you wouldn’t believe what happened at the after-party. Mire drank so much that she—”

“Wait,” interrupted Littlepip, dropping all pretenses of work, “what after-party?”

Clover raised her brow. “The after-party after Velvet Remedy’s performance.”

Littlepip scratched her head. If there had been a performance, she would’ve known about it. “What performance?”

“The one last night?” said Clover, sharply raising her tone on the last word.

Littlepip’s eyes went wide. “Oh!” she exclaimed. She then collapsed, resting her chin on the divider, her ears drooping with dejection. “I missed it!” Then, raising her head, reanimating her posture, she yelled: “Tell me about it! What happened? What did she sing? Did she make any jokes?”

“It was pretty awesome,” said Clover. “She was two minutes late, and she spent five apologizing profusely. It was incredibly endearing; and, well, the rest of it was pretty loud, and I just remember it being awesome . . .”

“You’re forgetting the most important part,” said Silver Dollar.

“What part?” said Clover.

“Don’t you remember?” he continued. “Before her encore, she stood up and said: ‘This is dedicated to my biggest, best fan, Littlepip. Wherever you are, I hope you like this!’ And then she sang a completely new song.”

Littlepip’s tongue fell out of her mouth. “She . . . she said that?”

“Yup,” said Clover, pursing her lips. Silver Dollar leaned back in his chair and nodded thoughtfully.

Terra Firma bowed her eyes, avoiding Littlepip’s stare. Slowly, her mouth began to curl into a smile; she tried her best, but she could not prevent a dainty chuckle from escaping. After it was heard, the rest slouched and giggled as well. “Nah,” said Terra Firma, “they’re just messin’ with you.”

“Oh,” breathed Littlepip, slouching her head back down.

“But it was pretty awesome,” said Silver Dollar.

“Why didn’t you go?” said Clover.

And Littlepip’s thoughts were drawn back to that confused amalgam in her brain. What was she doing yesterday that she had missed it? She remembered pacing in her room, thinking of something, but she could not definitively say what it was. But, evidently, it had been strong enough to have kept her from missing the show. “I . . .” she stammered.

She was interrupted by the sound of the door opening. All four of them turned around to see the newcomer. An earth pony with large bags under his eyes had just entered, yawning. His fur was that color of white that light blue cloth becomes after going through the washing machine one too many times. The bones in his cheeks could be seen when the skin on his face stretched in the yawn. If it weren’t for his mane, which was a vivid golden bronze, he would have dissolved out of sight with the gray of the walls of the stable. After yawning, he rubbed one of his eyes with a forehoof. He, like the three others, was also ugly, but his ugliness was worse than that which has been mentioned: In his eyes, one could see the traces of something that beamed, only to be stifled by a retinal glossiness that stamped it. The hairs of his mane seemed to be cut from the same variety of hair that rose with a will of its own, like that of the ponies seen in the prewar pictures, but still it fell, sunken, downcast, depressed even, across his face, as if in a gesture of surrender. His ribs could be seen through the folds of his metal blue Stable 2 uniform, as if his body rejected all the food that the stable put into it, as if it preferred to emaciate rather than to accept that which it considered poison. An unprepossessing countenance, to be sure; but on this figure, with that slouched neck which carried that mane of a color that seemed too bright to be relegated on the ground with him, with that slouched spine which seemed to groan bearing the body of a tired engineer or inventor, with the sunken skin of his face which bore wrinkles like scars of a fight long waged, such an appearance was more horrible than if it had been abject, more wretched than if it had been a complete and pure repugnance like the appearance of the three who stared at him upon entry. His ugliness was that which had no reason for existence. His wretchedness was that which is created by destroying valor and intrepidity. Perhaps in another epoch, he would have been handsome; perhaps he would have taken care of his appearance, eaten better, gotten more sleep, and braided his mane instead of allowing it to fall pell-mell across his face. Perhaps under different circumstances, he would have recognized these aforementioned unbecoming features as nothing more than that thin film of dust and dirt that settles onto monuments to the august and the right shortly after their facades have been desecrated by aggression, brutality, and injustice; and in those different circumstances, he would have torn that film away, deservedly seized what was underneath it, restored the monument’s image, and lived his life fully to the connotations such an appearance necessarily implied. But here, now, he looked like a phantom doomed to forever drift through the barren hallways of Stable 2 in search of something that could never exist where he was looking for it. His name was Copper Chromite.

“Hey, Copper,” said Clover, waving her hoof at the horribly weathered and vandalized marble statue.

Silver Dollar eyed him. “Did you just get up?”

“Don’t judge me,” grumbled Copper Chromite. He stumbled his way over to the counter. “Randall,” he said, addressing the robot, “give me a beer.”

“Identifying resident—identified resident nine . . . four . . . three . . . oh. Good morning . . . Copper Chromite.”

“Give me a beer,” Copper Chromite repeated.

“Attempting to dispense—beer. Warning. Records show that this is resident—Copper Chromite’s—first meal of the day. Are you sure you want to dispense—beer?”

A laugh was heard all around, except from Littlepip, who was pretending to look at her drawings.

Copper Chromite stood up straight and looked at the robot with an air of disgust. “Hey, go to hell, Randall. You know, I still haven’t forgiven you for burning my toast last month.”

The robot beeped. “Searching records . . . status of resident—Copper Chromite’s—toast, one month previously . . . burned. Apologies. Attempting to refund credits . . . error. Credits have already been refunded.”

“Oh, you smarmy bastard,” hissed Copper Chromite, while the laughs redoubled. Even Littlepip could not help forcing a smile.

“Wow,” said Clover, looking at him, irony in her voice, “you can’t even hold your own against Randall.”

The beer served, frothy, in a tall stein glass, Copper Chromite bent his head down to the table and made a horrible slurping noise, trying to get it all before it dripped to the counter. When the foam had subsided, he turned his mouth and licked the side of the stein down which stray rivulets had almost escaped. At the end, he gave a start and a little cough, as if he had inhaled some. “Please drink responsibly,” chirped the robot.

Copper Chromite looked up from his glass to shoot another glare at the robot. Taking the beer in his hoof, shaking his head, he turned to leave. Then he stopped abruptly. His eyes lit up like a stallion who has just gotten a good idea. He turned to the robot and said: “Randall: man my vagina.”

The robot beeped, then said: “Error. No manual entry for—my vagina.”

Copper Chromite gave a breathy, non-vocal laugh through his nose, one that did not express a recognition of absurdity, but more like the laugh one makes when one has bested another. The others at the table stared at him. It took them ten seconds to start laughing. Twenty seconds later, they were still laughing. Copper Chromite couldn’t help but smile.

“Copper,” said Silver Dollar, trying to hold back his chuckles, “we’re not laughing at the joke. We’re laughing at how stupid you are.”

“You need to get laid,” said Clover.

“Don’t we all,” said Copper Chromite. He took a long draft on his beer, summated with a breathy exhale of contentment.

“Hey, Copper,” said Terra Firma. “What did you think of Velvet Remedy last night?”

Copper Chromite took the beer in his other hoof. He looked at Terra Firma and shrugged. “Didn’t go,” he responded.

“What?” exclaimed Clover. “You, out of all ponies, not going?”

Copper Chromite said nothing. He raised the glass to his mouth, closed his eyes; and took another long, deep draft from the glass. When he was done, he then walked straight up to Clover and put his face two inches from hers. She leaned back and made an expression of disgust.

“What are you doing?” said Clover.

“You’re sitting where I was planning to sit,” said Copper Chromite, his voice grave.

Clover sat back up, put a forehoof on his face, and pushed him firmly. Copper Chromite stumbled back, and a stream of orange-brown liquid erupted from the glass he was cradling and landed on the floor. “Piss off, Copper,” she said.

Copper Chromite smiled. “I am, but ‘pissed off’ is better than ‘pissed on,’ the latter you’re going to be once I’m done my beer if you don’t give me my seat.”

This elicited another laugh from Clover, and she turned back to her table. He tried to sit down next to her, but Clover pushed him again. “No,” she said, “we’re saving that seat for Mire.”

“What?” said Copper Chromite. Setting his mug down on the divider, he put his hoof on his forehead, as if his brain were reeling with confusion. “Wait, wait: so, Mire, who could potentially be here, takes precedence over me—who is actually here?”

“Pretty much.”

Copper Chromite curled his forehoof around the mug again and took a sip. “Where the hell am I supposed to sit, then?” he murmured, having not swallowed yet.

“You could sit there, there, or there,” said Silver Dollar, gesturing to the dozens of empty tables.

“You guys suck,” said Copper Chromite. “I’m going to sit with ’Pip. She’ll appreciate me.”

Hearing her name, Littlepip’s ears perked up. She brought her eyes from the drawings to see Copper Chromite walking around her booth and stopping right in front of her. He stood looking at her, his eyes downcast, sunken, depressed, pleading. His cheeks trembled with an exhaustion brought on by cynicism, as he gestured to the bench across from her. “This seat is not taken, I presume?” he said, his voice angry and tired.

“Huh?” was all she could say.

“You don’t have any potential visitors who are so much more important than—oh, I don’t know—a pony who is actually here?”

“Oh.” And when her brain finally collected itself in a manner confused and dazed, but in a manner that still had some level of operative ability, she added: “No, no.” She gestured to the seat with a forehoof. “Go ahead.”

“Good. I need to be able to keep an eye on those bastards over there,” he said, gesturing toward the group of three. Copper Chromite did not sit, but rather fell onto the chair with a satisfying sigh, expertly keeping his beverage from spilling despite its sloshing. His position was such that, though Littlepip had her back turned to the group, Copper Chromite, sitting across from her, could look at both her and them. When he sat back up, he said: “So, you haven’t been talking about me have you?”

“Huh?” said Littlepip, once again, using her pretense of work to give her time to digest her compunctions. “Are you talking to me?”

“Yes,” said Copper Chromite. “What were you talking about before I got here?”

“Silver Dollar was just telling us a ghost story,” said Clover.

“Dammit, terror story!” retorted Silver Dollar.

Copper Chromite bared his teeth and said, in a voice that was so uncharacteristically angry and damning for him that it made those who heard it start with fright: “Silver, if there is such a thing as a scientific story—I mean, one that is outlined not by a writer but by a scientist trying to get the reaction he wants out of his lab mice for the purpose of an experiment—that would be the kind of stories you tell.”

Silver Dollar raised his brow with incredulity. “Excuse me?” he said.

“You weren’t listening to him, were you?” said Copper Chromite.

“What’s wrong with my story?”

“What’s wrong with your story?” exclaimed Copper Chromite, almost indignant that such a question would be asked. For the first time since he had entered the room, he stopped slouching. “If it’s like any of the other stories you tell, the better question is: what isn’t wrong with your story? I know your stories. They’re all the same. ‘What was it?’ ‘What happened?’ ‘Did they ever catch the killer?’ Who cares! Your horror stories are fabrications; fine, enough, I suppose, but you attempt to give them an air of plausibility by playing to the unknown. And the part of the brain that contemplates the unknown is not rational. If I were to give you a box and if I were to say: ‘Something unknown is in this box,’ in an instant, your speculations would go to the absurd. Tell me, Silver, have you ever given an unequivocal response to the ending of one of your stories? Have you ever actually said: ‘I made up this story’ or ‘This is what happened in the end’?” And, turning his attention to Littlepip, he said: “Let me guess: He told you some story about something mysterious, something inexplicable, something that may have something to do with the supernatural? Did he say: ‘Maybe it’s real; maybe it’s fake’?”

Littlepip looked up from the drawings. “Why, yes,” she said, surprised.

“Were you scared?”

This elicited no response. All she did was stare off into space.

“Well, were you?”

“Yes, a little bit.”

“You know why?” Copper Chromite went on. “It’s a very simple parlor trick. It’s like seeing a half-shape in the darkness. When the mind has an incomplete picture, it has to fill in the rest itself. All Silver Dollar has to do is to put you in a dark room and say: ‘Enter.’ When you’re in a dark room, you feel things that aren’t there, you speculate, you conjecture. You’re scaring yourself. There’s nothing there. Look at it rationally. Examine the darkness. Turn on the light. What’s there? Nothing. You may be afraid to look behind you, but that doesn’t mean something’s there.”

Littlepip looked straight into his eyes. The candor of the words Copper Chromite spoke and the conviction with which he said them seemed to ground her. She felt her thoughts returning to reality. She saw the problem of the projections in front of her clearly; she saw the water in her glass which stood with a perfect imperturbability; and, in front of her, she saw an off-white earth pony with a golden bronze mane and in whom, despite his sunken eyes, his emaciated face, his spectral countenance, she saw something that thought, that was grounded, something that a thousand fallacies and scare tactics would never be able to tear from its foundation. “There’s nothing there?” she said, like a frightened child. “Even if I’m sure something’s there?”

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You are the best when it comes to scaring you. Silver Dollar doesn’t know what scares you, but you do. He’s using your own subconscious for his own purposes: to elicit the reaction and the praise he wants. And, I suppose I can understand the appeal in such a method of scaring; but, quite frankly, it offends me. You, like all of us, know what’s outside the stable. What’s outside? Nothing. It’s all gone. Kaboom. Anything that may have jumped in the night is gone, vaporized. The ghost in that old rickety country cabin has been incinerated. But because you, Silver Dollar, because you’ve never seen the outside, because you know that nothing is on the outside, because you know that others know there’s nothing on the outside, you know just what to say. You know how to make them speculate.”

“And this offends you?” scoffed Silver Dollar.

“Absolutely. You want scary? Try seeing the pictures of the burned corpses when the first bombs fell. Try watching the old videos of Princess Celestia trying to reassure a nation on the verge of death. See how she tries to hide her fear, but notice how her jaw trembles as she stands behind the podium. You want terror? It’s in abject despondency. It’s in the feeling of being completely helpless. The ones outside were helpless. They tried to scream, but nothing stopped the fall of the bombs. Why am I offended? Because you manufacture ersatz helplessness when such helplessness can be seen by your auditors if you were to simply reference the world. And your ersatz helplessness makes light of the actual helplessness.”

“What is actual helplessness?” said Littlepip.

Copper Chromite rocked the base of his mug in a small circle on the table. “For a while, I never knew. But I always knew that the stories that this bastard told”—he gestured to Silver Dollar—“were cheap, that they were nothing more than confidence tricks, but I never knew what actual despondency was. My grandfather used to tell me all the time, and I would always ignore him or fall asleep before he finished the story. It wasn’t until he passed away, it wasn’t until I was only left alone with his words, my memories which are the only things that I have of him, that I thought about them. And it wasn’t until I was old enough to understand them that they terrified me; when I did finally understand them, for several nights, I lay in bed, my eyes wide open, my brain in contemplation of the horrible.” He looked into his glass. “Real horror, true horror, is exactly what the word means. One who says ‘I like horror stories’ doesn’t know what the word horror means. That statement is a contradiction by definition.”

The loud, ever-present humming of an inexplicable origin that seemed to be audible from anywhere in the stable ceased abruptly, and the five of them were only then made aware of loud it had been. A heavy silence followed. At last, cutting the thick tension with a knife, Silver Dollar, with a sad chuckle, with a hesitant voice that changed intensity intermittently in the sentence, trying as he was to find the new comfortable speaking volume now that the background noise was gone, said: “You know, I’ll always remember your grandfather as that old stallion who dressed up as a pink bunny on Nightmare Night, invited us all into his quarters, set a bowl of candy on a chair in the middle of the room, waited until we all swarmed over it before he excused himself, took off the bunny costume, turned off the lights, donned a hockey mask, and came at us with a chainsaw.”

The roar of laughter that ensued seemed to take a weight off all their shoulders. “The blade was foam!” said Copper Chromite, not able to hide his grin.

“Copper,” said Clover, “no matter how you put it, you can’t change the fact that it was a chainsaw and that your grandfather was insane.”

“Yes, yes,” said Copper Chromite with a bit of a mournful air, which seemed to dull the laughter in the air with its sorrow. “Grandpa . . . grandpa was quite the guy.”

The weight came crashing back down. Laughter is a like a white muscle, a reservoir of energy in the midst of even the most overwhelming despairs, fit for a quick, much-needed burst, but tiring easily and yielding quickly to the original fatigue. Littlepip realized this before the rest. “How long has it been since your grandfather died?” she said.

“It’s been about twelve years now.”

“Oh my . . .” gasped Terra Firma, “has it really been that long?”

“Yeah,” said Copper Chromite, with a pensive air. “You know, he could be a jerk at times; but he was still my grandfather, and I loved him. Plus, he had some bedtime stories that still haunt me to this day—in a good way—made me stronger as an individual, opened up my eyes to the world, and those stories are what I remember of him.”

“What kind of stories?” said Littlepip.

And, with a completely straight face, with absolutely no hints of irony, Copper Chromite said: “He would tell me about his time in the Royal Equestrian Navy, when he fought in the war.”

“What!” exclaimed Littlepip. “Your grandfather was an outsider! I thought we all came from the stable!”

“Yeah, ’Pip, don’t you know?” said Silver Dollar, trying his best to hold back a snicker. “Old stallion Chromite was a war vet.”

“Don’t you remember?” said Clover. “Around the time when he starting seeing Doctor Shrink on a near-daily basis, didn’t he hold  ‘Story-time with Ensign Chromite’ for all the little colts and fillies? Doctor Shrink said that it really helps the cognitive functions or whatever to spend time with children, so that’s how he helped himself.” And she added, under her breath, to Silver Dollar: “When he wasn’t too strung out on anti-whack pills to walk properly.”

“I remember Ensign Chromite and the Three Lovely Mares,” said Silver Dollar, to all. “That one was always my favorite.”

“Oh, I remember that one!” ejaculated Terra Firma. Then, a cry died as quickly as it had started from the bottom of her throat. “Oh my! I just realized now how inappropriate that story was for children.”

Silver Dollar nodded with an affected air. “No question he was a sailor in Her Majesty’s fleet.”

“What!” cried Littlepip again, her head precessing with the induction of these new, impossible thoughts. “Your grandfather was from the outside?”

“Yes,” said Copper Chromite, with the same grave tone. “Though the stories that he told you were exaggerated, embellished for the sake of entertainment.”

Clover laughed.

Silver Dollar let out an exaggerated shriek. “Those stories? Fake? No!” he said, his forehooves on both his cheeks, his mouth too widely open. “Impossible!”

“They were,” said Copper Chromite, apparently not understanding Silver Dollar’s meaning. “When he told you guys stories, he wasn’t exactly . . . stable, to put it lightly. He didn’t tell you the actual stories. They would’ve stressed him too much, and Doctor Shrink had told him to avoid stress.”

“Was he ever stable?” whispered Silver Dollar to Clover.

“So what did he make up?” said Littlepip, the walls of the cafeteria dissolving away into irrelevancies, the jeers of the three behind her becoming mute, such that she saw only the bluish white of Copper Chromite’s skin and the golden bronze of his mane. Her ears were perked up. “What was true?”

“Well, for starters,” began Copper Chromite, “he wasn’t an ensign. He was a commander.”

“Commander Chromite!” blurted Clover, nearly falling off her chair.

“And he didn’t serve on a destroyer either.”

“What?” said Terra Firma, finally deciding to join in on the action, seeing how much fun her friends were having. “The HMS Killbastard was a fabrication! Who would’ve believed it?”

“So what was he commander of?” whispered Littlepip, almost inaudibly.

“The HMS Canterlot.”

“Did it prowl for mares on the seven seas?” asked Silver Dollar, trying as hard as he could to affect the tone one makes when one asks an honest question.

“What? No!” said Copper Chromite, slightly incensed with this inexplicable tone of voice that Silver Dollar, Terra Firma, and Clover seemed to be taking.

“I cannot imagine anything else that a vessel on which Ensign Chromite—pardon me, Commander Chromite—was an officer would’ve done,” said Clover.

Copper Chromite furrowed his brow. “And you would never be able to imagine it. Your mind would reject it. Like me when I had first heard it from him, you’d stick your hooves in your ears, your brain refusing to accept that such a thing could have happened. The Canterlot wasn’t one of those typical ships that you see in the pictures; it was a submarine boat.”

Silver Dollar snarled in remonstrance. The room was silent as he said, with a captious tone: “‘Submarine boat’? That’s a contradiction in terms!”

Something switched in Copper Chromite’s brain, like a switch diverting a current into a completely different loop; the result of this is that, when he began to speak, the humorous connotations that sprung to the mind of all those who beheld him vanished. His stare was so damning, his words so fast, so sure, delivered with such vehemence, that it immediately silenced the whispers from the three across the room when he said: “You don’t know what a submarine boat is? It’s not like the destroyers that he used to talk about. It’s this long, tubular thing, looks like a cigar, and it travels primarily underneath the water. You know why destroyers were invented? To counter these things. When they were first invented, submarine boats dominated the waters. The sailors who served on them thought themselves invulnerable. It wasn’t long until they found themselves being hunted by new weapons, found the water crashing in through the holes in the hull, if not crushing them with its immense pressure then drowning them. The sailors of the navy had once thought that submariners were lazy, not real sailors, who sat around under the water, doing nothing, firing torpedoes with computers as if it were a video game. But after enough of them sunk, sailors would lie awake at night thinking of submariners, wondering what it would feel like to hear the ocean all around you, what terror you’d feel when you heard a bulkhead crack, the helplessness that you’d feel when you would see the water level around your feet slowly rising.”

“How do you know this?” asked Silver Dollar.

“Weren’t you listening? My grandfather told me. He was first mate on the Canterlot.” Copper Chromite had just told a grave anecdote that had silenced all of them; with this new sentence, he seemed to have jumped from gravity to absurdity. He had said both, the gravity and the absurdity, with the same merciless tone; to most of his auditors, it appeared to be an impossible contradiction.

“What else did he tell you?” said Littlepip.

Copper Chromite glared at her. “You know what a depth charge is?” he said. “It’s this steel drum, dropped by destroyers, programmed to explode at a certain depth—cracks submarine boats right in two. He told me about the time when he had been detected by an enemy destroyer. They dove as deep as they could, turned off their engines, held their breaths, and spent two hours staring at the ceiling with their mouths open. It was the middle of the night. They stood there listening in terror to the explosions above their heads—the depth charges. Not one dared to breathe, lest they be heard by the sonar. It made this ping, ping, ping noise as it resounded off their hull, emitted by the destroyer overhead; when it had stopped, they could hear the soft plunk, plunk, plunk of the charges being dropped from the stern of the destroyer overhead. My grandfather spoke of this chief petty officer: ‘An innocent, young girl,’ he said, ‘had the sweetest, most innocent smile you could imagine. If you saw her, Copper, you wouldn’t have been able to stop yourself from giving her mane a tousle. She looked like a baby.’ He said that the petty officer had put her back to the wall, riveted with fear, trying to find something solid to brace for comfort—a fatal mistake. When a depth charge hit, closer than any of the others, the shock wave that had coursed down the hull snapped the little filly’s spine in two. She instantly curled up on the floor, limp and lifeless.”

“Copper,” said Terra Firma, putting her hooves to her ears, “I don’t want to hear anymore.”

“Why not?” shot Copper Chromite. “Prefer something a little less believable?”

“Shut up,” said Silver Dollar. “It’s hearsay; that’s all it is. It’s meaningless. Even if it were true, which it’s not, you’re telling a story your grandfather told you. You don’t think anything was lost in the relation from him to you and from you to us?”

“Hearsay it might be,” said Copper Chromite, “but it’s still more horrible than any of your horror stories. You know why? Because it’s believable. You can believe that this happened. The way my grandfather told it to me, the way I’m doing my best to emulate to you now—you can hear the bones of the petty officer turn to jelly, can’t you?”

“I said shut up, Copper!” yelled Silver Dollar.

Silver Dollar’s words seemed to be lost to the mist. Copper Chromite continued: “My grandfather had just gotten promoted to commander, and there were rumors of christening a new submarine boat, the most advanced piece of technology to set out on the seas. So he, rash and brazen soul as he was—”

“Your grandfather was a head case!” Silver Dollar screeched.

Copper Chromite recoiled. “What? What exactly are you insinuating?”

“Copper,” said Clover, her voice slow and calm with the intent to simultaneously inform and assure, “you know your grandfather wasn’t really in the navy, right?”

No words can describe the combination of shock, horror, and incredulity that simultaneously appeared on Copper Chromite’s face. “What!”

“Copper,” piped Terra Firma, “you know that the stable door closed forever when it was shut.”

“You’re born in the stable,” said Clover. “You die in the stable. You know that. That’s the policy.”

“Yes, I know what they tell us,” retorted Copper Chromite. “I know what the overmare tells us. What about before her?”

Clover sighed. “Did your grandfather have any medals to show you?”

“He didn’t get any. The military only awards medals after wars.”

“What about his uniform?” said Terra Firma.

“They didn’t let him bring it in. It was bathed in radiation from crawling in the muddy water.” And, in a flash, he stood up, planting both his forehooves on the table, his teeth bared, his brow furrowed, his limbs shaking. “You don’t believe me! You don’t believe him! How can you not after all that he said?”

Terra Firma gave a sad smile. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe. It just doesn’t add up.”

“It’s impossible,” said Clover.

“It’s ludicrous!” shouted Silver Dollar.

“I believe it.”

They all turned to the sound of this last voice, spoken with such ease in the face of dissent. It was Littlepip, and her eyes were fixed on Copper Chromite. The relentless attack of the three on the poor stallion had been too despairing to listen to, and when Littlepip had felt his helplessness, when she saw that the only thing that could have saved him was an affirming opinion, she added hers. Her belief was as founded as the reasons for their disbelief, but it sufficed. A flamethrower can be used to stop the spread of forest fires. But the lever of a flamethrower is too easy to depress; it is another thing to stop the flames from coming out once the decision’s been made and to assuage the damage which results. Why did she believe it? The answer was simple enough: Because it was reassuring, and she wanted to believe it. She wanted to believe that the tempest which had enveloped her mind since last night was not of her own sickness but caused by the poison of that which she surrounded herself with; and, more importantly, she wanted to think that that which she surrounded herself with could be escaped. It was one thing to think this; it was another thing to defend this opinion without subjecting herself to ridicule. She realized this last point too late, and she almost regretted opening her mouth.

Immediately, the responses came. “What?” spouted, unthinkingly, reflexively, with the effort to intimidate, Silver Dollar.

She shivered as she felt their eyes on her. She dropped her head, trying to suppress the heat one feels when one has found oneself cornered into an uncomfortable position from coming to her face. “What?” she parroted, vying for time.

“How can you think leaving the stable is possible?”

“How can I think leaving the stable is possible?” Littlepip repeated.

“You actually believed him?” said Silver Dollar.

“Do I actually believe him?” She turned around, partially not wanting to look at him any longer, but more wanting to see what her deliverer from the frightful abysses thought. She stared into Copper Chromite’s eyes; he looked at her with an expression of longing, a desperate plea that she would save him as he had saved her. “Yes,” she answered, again, reflexively. “I mean . . .” she stammered, “the stable being closed all the time doesn’t make sense.”

“And how does protecting us from the mercilessness fury of the radiation, keeping all that is bad out, all that is good and pure in, not make sense?” said Silver Dollar.

Littlepip ground her teeth. “Well . . .” she stammered again, looking at Copper Chromite. He leaned closer to her. His wide eyes, his quivering jaw seemed to breathe forth the word: please.

And, in that instant, inspiration struck her. A huge smile, so wide that it hurt her cheeks, exploded on her face, and it grew even wider when she saw that Copper Chromite saw it, recognized it, and returned it with a smile that said: thank you. She turned around, her head bobbing with pretension like a mare who is about to pontificate. “Well, you see,” she said, trying to bring as much condescension to her tone as possible, “if nopony were ever let in, how would you keep the DNA diverse?”

Silver Dollar blinked. “Excuse me?”

“We all live together. Generations proceed only from those who live here. And our population is small. Even if the first inhabitants were completely unrelated to each other, if no outsiders were ever let in, the gene pool would get so mingled that, eventually, inbreeding would result.”

Silver Dollar coughed. “What?”

Littlepip shrugged. “Unless you want incest, you’d have to let somepony in, preferably a male, every so often. Copper Chromite’s grandfather was a male, a fit one, a military stallion, a loyal and patriotic one. Everything fits.”

Clover gestured toward Littlepip. “Actually,” she said, “that’s a good point. If our population were closed, wouldn’t we reach a point where everypony is related in someway to everypony else? Pretty soon, we’d all be blood relatives.” After seeing Silver Dollar’s bemused stare, Clover shrugged. “I mean, you don’t want it to happen; but with such a small population, it’s going to happen sooner rather than later.”

“But,” put Terra Firma, “aren’t we really all related? I read about this in one of the old books in Professor Rein’s collection: The population before the war was huge. But if you started with a single pony and went back far enough into her family history, you’d come to a period in time where the number of her direct ancestors who were simultaneously alive exceeds the population of the earth. It’s a paradox. The book went on to say that there was only one possible way that the paradox was resolved: inbreeding. And not just a little bit of inbreeding—lots and lots of inbreeding. So, really, everypony is inbred. It’s just a question as to what extent.”

Upon hearing the door opening, upon seeing three ponies enter, the five of them suddenly became aware of how full the cafeteria had become. The indistinct buzzing of voices filled the silence left by Terra Firma’s comment. A general motion, a bustling, made its way around the cafeteria, the birth of which had come from a few who had slipped in unnoticed in the midst of the conversation. Their inaudible whispers had grown in the time gone by; for, as the morning progressed, they had had to compete with the almost imperceptible influx of more voices and more ideas, the voices growing louder and louder, as if they were climbing on top of each other, the words trampling on themselves, all trying to scramble to the top, not one syllable aware of another’s presence. This slow amassment had continued unnoticed by the five who had been there in the morning, all alone, and they were all shocked when they saw the line, so long it stretched into the hallway, in front of the counter, all who made up its length hungry, all of them angry. Silver Dollar turned bright red. “Silver Dollar,” said the first in line, a tall male with a scraggly black beard, “I presume you haven’t been distracted again, and I presume that we have hot lunch, yes? Or is your conversation so stimulating that you’ve completely forgotten?”

Silver Dollar slammed his forehead down on the table, his horn knocking over an empty glass. “No,” he said, “our conversation has reached a new level of stupid.” He glanced at his Pip-Buck. “And with that goes all my breaks for the month.” And he dismounted from the stool, hurried to the counter, opened the door to the kitchen, and let it slam behind him as loud as he could. Silver Dollar was one of those types who always had to get in the last word if not in speech then through a noisy and dramatic exit.

Copper Chromite, upon Silver Dollar’s exit, brought the stein to his mouth and drank deeply, heavily, slowly, his eyes closed, a strained sound coming from his throat with each gulp. The manner with which he put it back down and wiped the foam off his mouth suggested that he had stopped only to breathe, rather than because his thirst had been quenched. He raised his head to, presumably, finish the rest when he stopped at an unexpected sight—through his glass, he saw a wide, warped, ovular protuberance; when he moved the glass away, he saw Littlepip, leaning across the table toward him, her eyes wide open, her brow furrowed in the most disconcerted manner. Her mouth was open as if to draw breath, but no whistle of air could be heard.

Copper Chromite was taken aback. “Yes?” he said.

“Well?” Littlepip asked.

“‘Well’ what?”

“What happened to your grandfather?”

His face lit up at this question. He looked like a dam about to burst. “Really?” he blurted, ecstatic. “You really want to hear?”

Littlepip nodded.

Copper Chromite wiped his mouth with a fetlock. Through his eyes, Littlepip could almost see the gears of his mind turning forward and back not only engaged with organizing the chaos of thoughts in order for an efficient deployment but also deciding on the manner in which to present them. His jaw moved slightly for a few seconds, as if a stream of words were building up in his throat but had not the sufficient energy to make their escape. The tip of his tongue fell out at intervals. When he came to, his brow was furrowed, his stare deep, and the tone that he assumed when he began to speak contained no traces of jest. “Well, you see, my grandfather was—” Suddenly, he halted.

Littlepip wrinkled her brow in confusion. He had appeared so excited, like nothing in the world could have stopped what he had been about to say, even if it were going to take him the rest of his life to say it. It was not until she raised her eyes and looked in the direction of the door that she realized why. A tall mare had just entered the room. How Copper Chromite had known she was there without turning his head, Littlepip didn’t know, but her presence had been powerful enough to stop his passion.

“Good afternoon, my little ponies!” said the overmare. Copper Chromite closed his eyes, as if in pain.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Overmare,” said the entire cafeteria simultaneously, with mirth—only one exception: Copper Chromite hadn’t said anything.

When the general commotion had finally died down, Copper Chromite leaned closer to Littlepip. “She’s not coming this way, is she?”

Littlepip looked up. “She is.”

Copper Chromite groaned and stared into his stein.

The overmare stopped right in front of their booth.

She was a tall unicorn, upright, firm. The consensus among the residents of Stable 2 was that she was the tallest pony in the stable. She possessed the typical figure and countenance as seen in those prewar stock photos whose captions were often “Nobility, Honor, Integrity.” She had a long neck, without it being remarkable or overbearing; and a slender body, without it being emaciated. Through the folds in her clothes, one could see the outline of a figure, definitive and present, but neither luscious nor fulsome. For a moment, she turned her head toward another table and smiled exuberantly at a pony who was vying for her attention; and then, and only then, one could see a few wrinkles on her forehead and cheeks, enough to give her the appearance of wisdom but still retaining the respectability of middle age. Her mane was almost completely gray—save for the tips, which were a very faded blonde—but few thought of it as gray; and if they did notice it, they assumed that it was something that was simply naturally acquired by being in such an emotionally taxing position as hers. But above all—and this was what most inhabitants of Stable 2 would have said if they were asked to describe her—she was overwhelmingly modest, not even aware of the dignities of her own composure, playing up that which was clearly wretched, downplaying that which seemed to rise even for an instant. In short, the overmare seemed to be the perfect compromise, not too old but not too young, not eager but not laid-back either—and neither lugubrious, nor passionate.

Littlepip smiled earnestly at the overmare, but the smile was wiped away when she saw Copper Chromite: As the seconds went by, his neck, stretched out over the table as it was, seemed to droop lower and lower, as if it were faltering under a heavy weight. Eventually, his mane met the table, and the strands of golden bronze, as if outwardly displaying their owner’s dejection, spread out in a fan on the table as if from a mop. Littlepip understood why. Though the overmare had said nothing, she was still standing directly in front of them. Even when Littlepip looked away, she could still feel the overmare looking down on her, her eyes on the back of her neck; she could feel a silent judgment on each one of her movements. The overmare had a hard presence, one that did not allow itself to be ignored. And Littlepip could see that the longer Copper Chromite tried to fight it, the heavier and harder it weighed down upon him.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Littlepip! Good afternoon, Mr. Chromite!” said the overmare, in a singsong voice.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Overmare,” said Littlepip. Copper Chromite still said nothing. It was only now that he looked up. Littlepip had to fight the urge to gasp with shock; it was as if a transformation had taken place underneath his mane, like an actor changing costumes behind the curtain. A weak, pathetic, affected smile was plastered across his face like poorly applied makeup. His cheeks were raised higher than it seemed possible, showing the bones. Only one thing betrayed the disingenuousness of these aforementioned features: his eyes were red, full of mist.

“Ms. Littlepip!” said the overmare, “good for you!”

Littlepip looked at Copper Chromite. The latter only shrugged and took another draft from his stein. “What do you mean?” said Littlepip.

“Even when you’re taking lunch, you still work diligently. You refuse to let your personal interests get in the way of performing your duties for the stable. Good for you! If only we all could be more like you!”

Littlepip looked at the orthographic projections, her screwdriver, the broken Pip-Buck—all of these things were spread out on the table. “Oh,” she said.

“Mr. Chromite,” said the overmare, “you could learn a lot from Ms. Littlepip. She understands the value of sacrifice.”

Copper Chromite’s eyes went wide, as if he’d just been slapped. “Ms. Overmare,” he said, “in case it wasn’t already apparent, I’m on my break. A break, by definition, cannot have work in it. If work is performed during a break, then it is no longer a break. What is it then? I don’t know. Perhaps this new working-during-a-break fad is the way of the future; but, personally—call me old-fashioned—I will keep my breaks with all their lasciviousness and lethargy intact.” He sipped as loudly as possible from his stein.

The overmare shrugged. “I mean,” she said, “normally, I would say nothing. If an individual decides to poison himself, all’s well—one less to deal with. We would be better off without him anyway. But when his suicide starts to affect others, then it becomes selfishness and nothing more.” And, in the very same breath, she added: “Suit yourself, Mr. Chromite; I don’t mind. Just don’t let it affect your work.” She turned to leave.

“Wait!” yelled Copper Chromite. “Ms. Overmare, I need something from you.”

The overmare turned. Littlepip noted how much similarity there was between the overmare’s smile and that of the Stable Colt. “Yes?” said the overmare.

The words Copper Chromite said next were so loud that Littlepip put her hooves to her ears reflexively. They were spoken so loudly that they silenced all the conversations around them. All heads were turned to Copper Chromite as he yelled: “Ms. Overmare, will you please tell my idiots-for-friends”—he gestured with his hoof in Clover and Terra Firma’s general direction—“that my grandfather really was an outsider? That he really was the mate aboard the HMS Canterlot?”

The overmare must have noticed the stares in her direction, for her head twitched to the right, then to the left; it was an instinctual movement, stanched only by a remarkable willpower. She smiled again and gave a light, airy chuckle while shaking her head slightly. It was a gesture that overtly said nothing, but its manner was composed entirely of condescension. “Mr. Chromite,” she said, her voice taking the tone of a mother who is telling an allegory to her child, “your grandfather was many things. A big talker was one of those things. Oh, how I remember the tales he used to tell. So full of adventure and imagination! He liked to talk on and on and on.” And she added: “I now see where you get your genes from. You remind me a lot of him.” When she heard Copper Chromite hiccup, when he put a hoof to his mouth in order to quiet the oncoming spasms, she added: “And I remember he was quite the avid drinker.”

Copper Chromite leaned back in the booth in a very satisfied manner. All at once, he began to thud his hoof slowly, rhythmically on the table. Every time it came down, a rattle of silverware shook the cafeteria. “Bravo, Ms. Overmare,” he said. His voice, his posture, and his gestures contained a disgusted irony. “Bravo.”

Something changed in the overmare’s manner. She was no longer standing straight. Her eyes darted around the room. She pretended to look at this thing and that. She pretended to wipe dust off of her blue uniform. She gave a quick glance at her Pip-Buck. She laughed again, but this time with a marked amount of fluster. “Oh, did I do something?” she asked.

“That was,” said Copper Chromite, pulling himself up straight, “that was the most profoundly evasive explanation that I’ve ever heard in my entire life. My friends like to avoid my questions, and they always find better and better ways to do so, but that which you just said—that takes the cake. Bravo, Ms. Overmare. You’ve turned evasion into an art.”

There was a short delay, no greater than half a second, before the overmare burst out laughing. But despite this, Littlepip had noticed the delay, and it immediately struck her how uncharacteristic that was of the overmare. Littlepip knew that the overmare always knew what to say and when; that she, the overmare, was never off her guard; that she knew how to turn the conversation in the precise direction she wanted it to go; and the more she effused, the more eloquent she became and the more her interlocutor relented to her will. Thus, such a pause was uncharacteristic of her, and it was enough for Littlepip to realize that this lapse in speech signaled one of two things: either it had taken the overmare half a second to understand what Copper Chromite had said; or she had understood it immediately, had seen its implications, had felt the judgmental eyes on her, and had decided that the best way of dismissing it was with laughter. And when Littlepip looked at Copper Chromite, she saw that he was thinking the same thing—and that he, like her, had instantly dismissed the first possibility.

“Oh, Mr. Chromite,” said the overmare, “you’re such a joker. You always make me laugh!”

Apparently satisfied with this explanation, the cafeteria turned back toward its own business, and the buzzing of the general conversations resumed. Littlepip was surprised to feel her tension gone. She felt as if the conversation had never taken place, that there had never been an altercation, that there had been no dispute; and that even if there had been a dispute, the overmare had won it, had shown what was right and what was wrong, that all had agreed. Littlepip felt as if the overmare had liberated harmony, leaving it free to reign supreme. And it felt good, the absence of the conflict. Conflict was bad, and there was no conflict now, and that felt good. And she thanked the overmare in her mind. She owed nothing but thanks to the overmare for resolving . . . for resolving . . . what exactly had the overmare resolved? There had been a problem, to be sure, but what had that problem been?

She looked around and saw the full cafeteria, each and every pony engrossed in his or her own conversations. She took a breath; evidently, what had been did not matter. She didn’t feel the anxiety she had felt before, and she saw that none there felt it either—and then she looked back at Copper Chromite.

His face was turning red, not with embarrassment—Copper Chromite was incapable of that emotion—but with the agitation that causes one to bite one’s teeth with such a vigor that one can hear a ringing in one’s ears.

The overmare looked out of the corner of her eye and saw the livid countenance of Copper Chromite. She turned her body slightly away from him, in the manner that suggested that she thought that what remained behind her were none of her business any longer, and that it was only by her own choice that she deigned to commit even the slightest amount of attention to what was in her wake. “Yes, Mr. Chromite,” she said, staring in a direction athwart him. Littlepip felt a chill go up her spine; the overmare looking at them with her peripheral vision felt more harsh than when she had looked at them directly. “You, like your grandfather, are a very good talker. And, most of the time, it can be a good thing. But there are times when that can be a bad thing. Your grandfather didn’t know how to exercise discretion, and he got in quite the number of altercations for it, if memory serves. I urge you to be careful. Some might not take too kindly to such exorbitant words.”

Copper Chromite put his stein back on the table. Either he had ignored the overmare’s words, or he had been slurping too loudly that he hadn’t heard her—an unnecessary distinction, for the latter case is simply an extension of the former. In any case, after he swallowed, he said: “Ms. Overmare, do you want to know what I think—no, do you want to know what I know? I know that my grandfather was not born in the stable; I know that he had served in the navy; I know that he was commander—mate of the HMS Canterlot; I know that the Canterlot foundered after a depth charge attack and that he was the only survivor; that he came upon the stable and started a new life here. And all this was while you were just a child. And I think that your maxim is really just a policy; that, before him, ponies just came and went. That’s what I think.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be right now?” said the overmare.

“No.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Ms. Overmare—” Copper Chromite took a breath “—if you need me to say it a second time, I will: No, I have nowhere to be right now. I am the most organized pony in the stable. Every minute of my day is lined out to the second. I know exactly where I have to be and when. And I know that now, this minute, I’m supposed to be on break. I’m right where I need to be, Ms. Overmare.”

The overmare shrugged. “Well, I suppose you know what you’re doing,” she said. And, with that, she made toward the door. She opened it with a marked vigor and fury and let it fall behind her. It was still in the process of swinging open as she made through it. When the door stopped, it swung back to its position with a frightful speed, such that it appeared that it would shake the whole cafeteria with a deafening rattle when it came to; but the second before it settled into place, it decelerated almost as quickly as it had been wrenched open by the pony whose tail had just now disappeared out of sight down the corridor, and the sound of the door settling into place was barely audible. The overmare had not gotten anything to eat.

Like before, Copper Chromite seemed to be able to detect her presence in the room without sight. He had not looked up from the bottom of his stein during the duration of her departure. The second she left the room and was out of earshot, he groaned. “Can you believe her,” he said.

Littlepip had heard no question mark at the end of that sentence. It had sounded as if he were not expressing an opinion but stating a self-evident fact of nature. From his tone and body language, she could not tell whether he was talking to her, himself, nopony, or everypony. “What?” she asked. “Did you say something?”

“I said, can you believe her. So damn obnoxious.”

“What?” said Littlepip. “How so?”

“Everything,” said Copper Chromite. “Coming in here, none of her business, questions, questions, pontifications, pontifications, demands, demands, evasions, evasions.”

“What are you talking about?”

“With her whole ‘oh, good for you; you know best; you’re so good; I love you.’ Intrusive, conniving, meandering, officious . . .” His voice trailed off as he scoured his vocabulary for the most powerful substantive he could find.

Littlepip sighed. “You know, sometimes, you shouldn’t be so quick to assume intent. Personally, I thought that she were trying to be friendly.”

“Friendly? Friendly—” Copper Chromite stopped himself in mid-word, and his head twitched. When he seemed to have gathered himself again, he said: “She did the exact same thing to me a few years back. I had been working on something incredibly important for Celestia-knows-how-many-hours. I had three breadboards spread in front of me and an innumerable amount of wires going into a thousand different places on them. But there came a moment where I knew that I had to eat if I didn’t want to pass out in a few hours, and—”

“Pass out?”

“Yeah, it happened to me a few weeks prior. I had forgotten to eat for a while, and I passed out on my desk.” He licked his lips and continued: “So, I knew that I had to eat; but I also knew that if I took my eyes off the breadboards for a second, I would lose my place. So I dragged all three here, with my tools and all, and sat down at that booth over there. Then, later, the overmare came by, and—you know what she said? She said the exact same thing to me. She said: ‘Oh, good for you, Mr. Chromite. Working hard even on your break! It’s good to see you exemplifying our virtue of sacrifice,’ or something like that. I don’t remember. Point is, that totally killed it.”

“Killed what?”

“‘It.’ You know, ‘it.’ ‘It’—come on! You know that feeling you have where you’re totally into something? Like it’s the most important thing in the world and that you wouldn’t stop for anything? That feeling where your body aches, but your brain overrides your body’s complaints for food, water, and sleep? I was working on something, and I remember it being really important, that it was going to change the world somehow; but when she said that, it totally killed it for me. She did manage to take my eyes away from my work, and when I looked back, I still knew where everything went; but the wires seemed an incongruous mess; the breadboards seemed to be mere juvenile toys; and I just didn’t care anymore. I couldn’t even remember what I was doing. Do you want to know why I don’t talk about my work when I’m on break? Do you want to know why I don’t let anypony ask me about my work when I’m on my break? It’s because of things like this. Damn you, Littlepip! You just made me talk about work!” He groaned. “No, it’s not your fault; it’s the overmare’s. It’s her fault. I swear, just her presence specifically annoys me. And the tone of her voice! The way she says things!”

“So,” said Littlepip, “if anypony else besides the overmare said that to you, you wouldn’t have minded?”

“Yes! I mean—” He paused, as if collecting the thoughts that had scattered in every direction. “I mean, I mean no, if somepony else had said . . . if somepony else had said . . . then I would feel . . .” He paused. “I’m sorry; I don’t know where I was going with that.” Copper Chromite sighed. Using his hoof, he described a small circle on the table with the stein. “Anyway . . .”

A silence ensued, a silence in which there was no room for filler noise. Copper Chromite, alone with his thoughts, sat across from Littlepip, who could not, for the life of her, make sense of that which was going through his head. When he had first come in, his thoughts had been coherent, understandable, but now it seemed to her that he had descended into nonsense—and, worst of all, with his last words, it appeared to her that he had admitted that there had been nothing in his thoughts that had been worth saying.

He laid his left foreleg, the one to which the Pip-Buck was attached, flat on the table. With his right forehoof, he twisted a few knobs; then, he laid his head down on the Pip-Buck, his ear flush on the speaker, as if he were taking a nap. But his eyes remained wide open, held that way as if he had just guzzled an entire liter of espresso.

“What’s wrong?” said Littlepip.

Copper Chromite sat up. He extended his Pip-Buck across the table to her. “You hear that?”

She leaned closer and perked her ears up. A crackling sound, a noise she could only describe as static, was being emitted from the speaker. “Yeah, I do,” she said. Something wrong with it?”

“No,” he said, taking his foreleg back. He twisted a few more knobs, placed his foreleg down on the table like he had done the first time, and put his head on it in the same way. This time, he closed his eyes. His expression was serene. Littlepip could see the hint of a smile on his face.

At length, he got up and rubbed his eyes. Again, he extended his foreleg to her. “Do you hear that?” he said.

She listened again. It was a crackling sound. It sounded the same as before. “It’s the static sound again?” she asked.

Copper Chromite sat up and shook his head. “You don’t hear the difference?” he asked.

She shrugged. “No. It’s just white noise, isn’t it? I hear that when I accidentally turn the radio knob a little too far away from the stable’s frequency. That sound always feels like a knife through my heart when I hear it loudly. It’s so eerie.”

“Well, yes . . .” he said. “But didn’t you think that the second time I played it, it sounded not eerie but peaceful? Like something you could fall asleep with?”

“It sounded the same.”

He groaned. “Never mind.”

Copper Chromite yawned and stretched his forehooves in the air. As he brought them back down, his eye caught the screen of his Pip-Buck, and his hoof stopped its progress downward. With a start, his eyelids went wide, as if alarmed, then squinted, as if incredulous, then wide again. This alternation continued for about ten seconds until a scoff made its way out of his throat.

“What?” said Littlepip. “Something wrong?”

“No, it’s just that . . .” said Copper Chromite, with a chuckle, “it’s just that . . . that can’t be right.”

“What can’t be right?”

“What time you got?” he said, looking at her.

Littlepip looked at her own Pip-Buck. “12:18—12:19 now,” she said.

He looked back to his screen. At once, his muscles tensed, and the hairs of his mane stood up on their ends, quite in the manner of a frightened blowfish. He stood up, eased—tore—himself out of the booth, and made toward the door; but, at once, he stopped. He made an abrupt turn back toward the table, grabbed the stein, finished off what was left in it, and turned again to leave. His second departure halted even sooner than the first one had, but in an indescribably calm manner, as if, unlike the first termination of his exit, which had been purely out of compulsion, this second halt were completely controlled, as if he had carefully weighed what he was leaving behind with what was in front of him, felt what was pulling him away and what was keeping him there, and realized that the force in the cafeteria was slightly greater. He turned toward Littlepip, with a look that was at once bemused and intrigued.

“It . . .” he said, at length, “it was nice talking to you.”

Littlepip nodded. “It was nice talking to you, too.”

Copper Chromite opened his mouth as if to speak, but his voice caught in his throat; only a small noise, the beginning of a sound, made its way out, the termination of a larger thought. He put his hoof over his mouth, as if trying to cough the words back up, before breaking eye contact with Littlepip. Still, he stood in place, nodding his head, shaking it, grinding his teeth, craning his neck to the ceiling, rubbing his mane with his hoof. Odd as these motions appeared to Littlepip, they did not seem to her to be nervous tics. They appeared more like a pruning process, a fastidious editing of his consciousness, weeding out the superfluous and fostering the succinct candid, all the while taking in account his environment, whom he was with, what their relation was to him, and carefully picking each word thus, in order to maximize the comprehensibility of the words and minimize any possible chance of them implicating him. Copper Chromite had the air of a stallion who thought before he spoke.

When he looked back at Littlepip, when he saw her lips poised open slightly, he gave a start, much like the error noise of a computer when a process is interrupted in the middle of a crucial algorithm. He began to speak—but with the fluctuations and stammers of a second-guesser, like the choking and freezing of a computer program that receives a stop command at a critical moment. “This is . . .” he said, “this is going to sound like an odd . . . like an odd . . . question, but what . . . what do you know about . . . about . . . wave theory?”

“Wave theory?” repeated Littlepip.

“Yeah, you know”—Copper Chromite made a gesture with his forehoof that appeared as if he were stroking the air—“waves.”

“Like . . . in water?”

“Just waves in general.”

Littlepip shrugged. “Not much.”

Copper Chromite threw his head back and sighed not with exasperation but with pleasure. When he spoke again, he spoke so quickly that the individual words couldn’t be distinguished. “Nothing? By Celestia, you don’t know what you’re missing! It’s only the most interesting science that has ever existed! They’re just the transfer of energy, and they can take so many forms, and they’re so beautiful, so perfect that you can map them with a sine function or a cosine function or a combination of the two, and then from those, you can derive the velocity and the acceleration functions with a simple time derivative—’course, nine times out of ten it turns into a messy inseparable differential, but you can still manipulate them with computer programs, stretch ’em, shear ’em, anything you want. There’s this program I use, and my mind is blown when I think about it, ’cause I have problems using it. I’ve spent months trying to learn to use it, and I’ve only gotten to the point where I can barely function—hah, get it, ‘function’?—in it, but my mind is blown when I think about the programmers who built it. How do you build something like that? Well, I look at this book; oh, it’s this amazing book. A paperback textbook, who would’ve thought it? It’s mostly about waves, but there’s also other stuff in there too, but I like the waves, but the other stuff is worth—”

“Comin’ up on 12:21 now,” said Littlepip, looking back at her Pip-Buck.

“Yes, right, bye,” said Copper Chromite.

A tray, loaded with various bowls, plates, and utensils, was hanging slightly over the table next to which he was standing. When he turned, his tail whipped past and knocked it over. The tray fell to the ground with a crash, which elicited a yelp of surprise from its owner. “Sorry! Sorry!” he said, in a voice that was not apologetic but imperative, a tone that insisted what he said was to be accepted rather than pleaded for it to be so. He was out of the kitchen and down the hallway at a sprint before any recompense could be taken.

Clover raised her neck to look in his direction, then lowered it, scoffing. “What an idiot,” she said.

Littlepip turned to her drawings, mechanically contented. Suddenly, her ears perked up. Something had changed in the atmosphere. It wasn’t something quantifiable; it wasn’t temperature, pressure, noise intensity. She felt as if the cafeteria had been lifted from its usual foundation and had been soaring higher than all of the other rooms in the stable; and all of its sensations had been elevated with it, the thoughts, the feelings, the humor. Now, it felt as if it had just been cast back down upon its usual resting place. It was only after experiencing the change that Littlepip could make the observation that, a moment ago, it had not been where it was supposed to be; it had been higher, more elated, more supportive, and more promising. As she looked around her, when she saw the empty seat across from her, she knew that she was where she was supposed to be, but she felt less, hollow somehow. The existence here, on the ground, felt hollow. It felt as if the cafeteria had just heaved a great sigh. But what made her shudder was that this feeling of being at a lower state, the state of being downcast, was the normal one. Something around her, perhaps the colors of the cafeteria, perhaps the faces of those in it, perhaps the tone of voice the overmare had taken, which she could still hear in her mind, told her that this was where her duty kept her, that she was forbidden from sailing as she had done a moment ago. She thought of the posters outside of the closet marked “Spare Parts”; she thought of the one of lightning and the one of gallium. And she thought that wherever the room had been, wherever it had been lifted, it had been in the same domain as the lightning poster, a delightful, desirable, ecstatic existence. With it gone, she felt the gallium coming back, sticking to her hooves, holding her to her proper place.

And, in an instant, she knew: Copper Chromite had taken something with him.

She was about to jump up, to run after him, to order him to pilot the room back to wherever he had taken it with whatever power he had—when a loud sound was heard. It sounded like an explosion, like something in the wall had burst into pieces. She froze with fright. A few ponies around her made surprised screams.

A few quieter sounds followed, much like the sound of popcorn. A few ponies laughed. Littlepip smiled. The radio had just turned on.

A frantic shuffling was heard, as if various things were being tossed rapidly away from the microphone. A heavy, deep, periodic sway of static was heard in the background, and the cafeteria listened with more intent. But as the sound grew louder, as the clinking of electronics faded away, they knew it wasn’t static: it was the sound of heavy breathing.

A deep voice, fractured and strained, spoken with a thick working-class accent, barely managed to come through. The way the speaker paused to breathe between every word, how heavy and painful each breath sounded, carried forth such a vivid impression that two or three of the ponies listening clutched their chests and breathed heavily, for the exhaustion heard in his words was almost contagious and palpable:

“Sorry . . .” he began, “sorry . . . I’m . . . late, but . . . I’m . . . here. I didn’t . . . forget.” When the words stopped, the panting came back. They could hear the sound of shoulders moving up and down as he respired.

A light, airy, female voice came on next, coquettish, full, and with just the hint of haughty contempt in its tones: “You kept me waiting, Cucro.”

“I . . . apologize . . . Ms. Remedy, but—” the speaker swallowed “—you must . . . understand that . . . Cucro is a free soul and that . . . his world doesn’t revolve around you.”

“You and I both know that’s not true.”

Copper Chromite was CuCrO. He fancied himself quite clever.