"Response."
Belle gulped, trying to stifle her shivers from where she sat in a tiny chair across the office. "Uhm... Mino... Minotaurs..."
Professor Garnet calmly zapped the tablet floating above his desk with his horn. "Exhibit..." The monochromatic image morphed from that of a valve to an aqueduct. "Response?"
Bellesmith bit her lip. She looked up, and the painted blue eyes of Queen Ledo glared back at her in the gray light of the underground room. "Dr-dragons..."
"Exhibit." Garnet's tablet displayed a broad-rimmed hat. "Response?"
The mare stifled a whimper. "Apples..."
"Exhibit." A campfire. "Response?"
"Foxtaur..."
A gas mask.
"Enforcers."
A hoofball.
"Awesomeness."
A suit of armor.
"Searo."
A hoofprint enveloping a solar crest.
Belle froze. Her mouth hung open before finally stammering, "Austraeoh..."
Garnet raised an eyebrow beneath his blond mane. He turned to look at the glass panel. "Hmmm..." He turned back to smile at her. "It would seem as though we are making progress."
The mare gulped. "Pr-progress...?"
"Yes..." Garnet levitated the plate towards him as he scribbled with a mana-charged pen across the glossy surface. "None of the other lab technicians got nearly as much out of sequencing as you. I daresay, it would seem as though Dr. Felicity is quite envious, though her jealousy is hidden by her legitimate relief at your having survived that most recent ordeal."
"Professor, I... I don't understand..." Belle hissed in pain as she rubbed a hoof across her forehead. A fountain of brown mane hair cascaded over her twitching gaze. "I'm still reeling. It's like there are stars exploding right before my eyes..."
"You were under for quite a long, long time, Doctor. I promise you that you'll get your chance to rest. I just needed to get some feedback before you got too disconnected from the memories you've experienced."
"That's not it." Belle gulped, standing up from the chair. She wobbled dizzily, but nevertheless maintained her composure. "I... I experienced something that was real! It... it couldn't all have been the product of the test subject that I was sequencing with!"
"Oh, most certainly not." Garnet stopped writing long enough to stare at her. "From all of the data we've gathered previously, the subject's spheres tell a long and harrowing tale about a culture of winged pegasi that once ruled the landscape here, hundreds if not thousands of years ago, long before the Confederacy was ever founded under a matriarch." He pointed with his pen. "The moment you got caught in a repetitious energy loop, your consciousness was disconnected from the subject's spheres. You were tossed left and right across a nebulous dreamscape, and your mind did its damn best to make sense of the gaps of comprehension. Thankfully..." He chuckled as he said, "Your creative intellect and sheer intelligence allowed you to perservere, albeit colorfully. I truly cannot imagine the sheer volume of information you were undoubtedly dealing with each passing second."
"I..." Belle gritted her teeth, starting to pace in a limping fashion. "I couldn't have thought all of that up! It's just not possible!"
"Couldn't you?" Garnet leaned back and planted his hooves together. "Mr. Dalton informed me of some of the things you were rambling about as you were dragged out of the sequencing room. A machine world? A ring of interconnected planes? A Sun Goddess and a Moon Goddess having sent a rainbow colored avatar to ignite the spark of all reality?"
"Rainbow Dash is the subject!" Bellesmith exclaimed, her voice cracking. "She's the one I've been sequencing with!"
"Dr. Bellesmith, you've been sequencing with the remnants of a past long gone," the stallion said. "There has never been a record of the subject's name in any of the previous sphere-sequences." He raised an eyebrow again. "Are you telling me that you've discovered the identity of this pony? You were certainly under long enough to acquire such data."
"I'm not joking!" Belle growled. "Her name is Rainbow Dash! I met her! I saved her! I even ran the Running of the Leaves with Applejack... that is... I mean..." Belle shuddered, running a hoof over her face. "She ran the Running of the Leaves...in Equestria.... that is, I saw that... when I was her... before I met her..."
Garnet slowly, slowly nodded. "I see. 'Equestria...' as in 'equine?' As in a place indicative of ponydom?"
"Yes. Far across the world. Where... Where..." Belle sighed as she slumped to her haunches. "Where two alicorn deities control the movement of the sun and moon."
"I do presume you are hearing yourself, Doctor."
Bellesmith looked up to frown at him. "I am in control of my faculties."
"For the moment, perhaps. But it is not impossible to experience residual aftereffects of sequencing, especially when it's been as prolonged as what you just went through."
"I-I know what I saw and f-felt," Bellesmith grumbled.
"And you saw and felt what the sequencing machine made you experience," Garnet said. "And when you got disconnected from the spheres, the effects of sequencing fed off your unbridled imagination, causing you to experience what amounted to a very visceral dream. The only problem: it wasn't entirely lucid, up until the last moment, that is."
Belle looked up at him with a grimacing expression. "What do you mean?"
Garnet blinked in surprise. "Why..." He gestured. "When you 'terminated' the program from the inside. Dr. Felicity explained it to me."
"'Terminated...'" Belle gulped, gazing into the gray haze of the room. "I was on board the zeppelin. Shell had captured me. I... I jumped off..." Belle exhaled shudderingly as she pulled at her mane. "Blessed spark, I jumped. I... k-killed myself. How c-could I ever have let things come to that...?"
"Your mind was confused. It was only natural to feel despair. However..." Garnet leaned forward again. "I do not think the explanation is quite that simple, nor as somber. Hence, my lucidity hypothesis."
Belle looked tiredly at him.
Garnet smiled. "Even if you were lost to the whim of your imagination, the mind of a scientist was still there. You knew deep down that the dream wouldn't finish itself, so you chose a way out purposefully. You broke the narrative, and Felicity was able to cast you a line back to dry shore, as t'were. And now you're here, Dr. Bellesmith." He gestured towards the lengths of the room. "Back to reality."
"Back... to reality..." Belle gulped, gazing around the concrete chamber. "Back to where it all began... twists and turns... are his master plan..."
Garnet raised an eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?"
She spun him a frowning look. "You're a spy! You're in league with an outside party! You're sharing top secret information about Blue Shelf so that others can build an identical facility in a place called Deep Ridge!"
Garnet tongued the edge of his mouth as he tapped his pen against the desktop. "Uh huh... uh yeah." He placed the pen down and leaned back with a soft smirk. "Mr. Dalton mentioned you saying some... less than favorable things about me."
Belle's brow furrowed. "You mean, after I-I was pulled out of sequencing? I don't remember—"
"No, I mean before, Doctor," Garnet said, his face taking on a deadpan expression. "Before you even attached yourself to the apparatus, you had confided in Dalton some misgivings about my position here at Blue Shelf."
Belle hung her head, her lips pursed in thought.
"Now, don't worry. I perfectly understand why. Also, I hope you don't get angry at Mr. Dalton for sharing. He only told me because he cares a lot about you, and he felt that I was being a bit too demanding. And you know what? He was right." Garnet picked his panel up and started writing across it again with the manapen while talking. "The Council of Ledo requests a lot from me, and as a result I require much from my associates. It's been very stressful working here as of late. Undoubtedly, when your mind was cast off from the subject's sphere, your beleaguered consciousness manifested some... mmm... unpleasant scenario in which I took part. I doubt I was the only one."
"Huh...?"
"I took psychiatry in my day, Doctor." Garnet looked up with knowing eyes. "I'm certainly not oblivious to every jolt and cringe your body has displayed when I so much as mention the Council of Ledo or its military defense force. Tell me..." He leaned over his pad to say, "Who exactly is this 'Prime Enforcer Shell?'"
Belle immediately gritted her teeth, holding back a seething breath.
Garnet nodded. "See? That's exactly what I'm talking about." He slashed and dotted across the pad some more. "I did a thorough search for 'Enforcer Shell' before we conducted this examination. I'm sorry to say that I haven't come up with a single matching reference."
"He's... he's a veteran soldier," Belle stammered. "He's fought along the Southeast Xonan front! He's—"
"I'm sorry. Did you say 'Southeast Xonan' front?"
Belle blinked at him. "Yes. Of course. Why?" She narrowed her eyes. "Has the front moved since I went under sequencing?"
Garnet smiled awkwardly. "I can't say that it's gone anywhere, Doctor Bellesmith, seeing as the Confederacy has been on non-agressive terms with them since the peace treaty thirty years ago."
Belle gawked. She cringed, cringed harder, and stomped her hooves. "This makes no sense!"
"No, it simply doesn't make sense... yet."
"Unacceptable!" Belle shouted, her voice reverberating across the room's concrete foundation. "The war never ended! It's been consuming hundreds upon thousands of lives, and it's made the Council of Ledo so desperate and so heartless that they've resorted to gross experimentation and genocide!"
"Since when was this some terrible military state, Doctor?" Garnet gestured all around. "Do you see any guards around here?"
"No, but—!" Belle froze, panting. She gulped then slowly turned around, gazing at the emptiness between her and the door, dwelling upon the emptiness in the halls outside. "No, but, that doesn't mean... doesn't mean..."
"You've been stressed, frustrated, and exhausted, Doctor," Garnet said. "The undeniable proof of a good albeit overworked researcher. I think it's rather obvious that you carried your feelings of ennui and aggravation over with you into the dreamscape. If you had remained anchored to the subject's spheres, then we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. All things considered, we should be counting our blessings. You're pretty lucky."
"Lucky?!" Belle snarled again. "The only reason you ever chose me to be sequenced to that damned machine is because of my shattered horn!"
Garnet sighed long and hard. "And thus we fall back to my statement earlier about residual after-effects." That said, he flung the glass tablet at her viciously
Belle stifled a shriek, flinching. After a few seconds, she squinted her eyes back open. She marveled at the sight of the tablet... floating in front of her. The aura sparkled with golden beams of light, as familiar as the sound of her own breaths.
"How can I expect you to be rational about anything when you can't even remember what you trotted in through my very door with?"
Belle nervously reached a hoof up, this time bringing it past her mane. She felt the sharp, shimmering tip of her own horn. With remarkable ease, she thought, and the tablet rotated and levitated at her command. "By the spark. It's as if... as if it never came off..."
"That's because it never did." Garnet glanced at her crookedly. "And, if I may ask, how would it being broken somehow affect your ability to sequence?"
"Because... it..." Belle exhaled slowly, gripping the tablet in two natural hooves. "I can't explain it anymore..."
"That's because you don't have the need to, Doctor," Garnet said. "You only ever did once, and that was in a phantom past, something you delusionally conjured up within sequencing." He smiled. "Please, don't be ashamed of yourself. It's not everyday that somepony lives the thoughts of several lifetimes in the span of twelve hours."
"Several... lifetimes...?" Belle glanced up.
"Why, just like any dream, Doctor, you only remember that which lingered beneath the surface of consciousness as you were brought to the realm of waking." He shook his head. "No, I daresay you experienced a great deal more. Thankfully, your mind has only chosen to remember bits and pieces, creating a most fantastical mosaic. If it tried to encompass the entire scenario you underwent, I fear there'd not be enough room in your mind, no matter how much of a genius you are."
Belle trotted forward and placed the tablet down on Garnet's desk. She took several heavy breaths, then looked at him. "You're right. I am a scientist." Her nostrils flared. "And as a scientist, I require facts."
"How can I help you analyze them fully, Doctor?"
"Show me Rainbow Dash."
"I beg your pardon?"
She growled, her anger returning. "Show me the subject I was sequenced to!"
Garnet blinked at her. After a simple shrug, he stood up. "Very well." A smile. "Department Blue it is." He reached a hoof out to her, like a gentlecolt. "This way, Doctor..."