//------------------------------//
// 12 Opening Up 
// Story: The Celestia Code 
// by iisaw 
//------------------------------//

Chapter Twelve
Opening Up

I ducked around the corner and scrabbled backwards. It's a good thing the thick dust on the ground muffled the sound of my hooves, because I was not thinking about being stealthy right then. What was she doing?! Okay, okay, yes, I knew what Jigsaw was doing: That had been pretty darned obvious. But—but—she knew that—that insect wasn't me! How could she—

I bumped tail first into the low edge of a fountain and almost toppled into the dry bowl, making a ridiculous eep noise as I scrambled to keep my balance. Mind control? Was that it? It must be! I formed a teleport matrix, intending to wink in right next to the general and buck her ugly, pointed teeth down her throat before she could blink—and I felt the matrix break up because I hadn't properly formed the interstitial entry vortex. It was a foal's mistake. I just wasn't thinking properly.

Not thinking properly, right. Mind control didn't really make any sense, not with me still around. So, how could the general feed off of Jigsaw if Jigsaw knew she wasn't the pony that she—Oh, Celestia!—loved? Why would the general need to feed off of Jigsaw, anyway? How did she convince Jigsaw to—to—I felt bile rise in my throat. I stumbled and almost fell. 

Where was I? I had staggered blindly away from the fountain and I must have turned a corner somewhere. I dropped to the street, driving a huge puff of dust into the air. I knew I had to do something—but what? I tried deep breathing to calm myself and began choking on the dust. My dust. The literal fallout of my actions.

I'd turned Jigsaw down after letting things go on far too long. I'd explained the situation to her in my careful, oh-so-logical way, so everything should be fine, right? All better; no hard feelings, right? Of course not. Right. 

I spit out the dust in my mouth, got up, and shook myself. I had to face it. Jigsaw hadn't been tricked or mind-controlled. Whatever she thought she was doing, she was doing it willingly. I looked around until I got my bearings and then plodded toward the library. I had no right to spy on her, and I would certainly be in the wrong to interfere—even if I had the slightest idea what to do or say. 

I had another good shake before entering the building and then released the captain as I went by her. "Do you drink tea?" I asked her. "I'm thinking of brewing another pot." She didn't reply, so I glanced back to see her crouching on the floor, eyes huge and staring. Just brilliant, Sparkle. Another notch in the old friendship scoreboard, for sure!

Sleep? With my heart pounding in my chest like Pinkie Pie with a new drum set, it wasn't likely. Study, then. The ledger must have something more I could glean from it. But I couldn't seem to focus on the figures. They all wavered and ran together into a blobby mess.

Sometime later, I felt them approaching the library, so I put my head down and pretended to sleep. There were a few words exchanged between the captain and the general, too softly for me to make out. Otherwise, no one spoke. Jigsaw slipped through the shields and lay down on her bedroll. 

It was a very long time until my pretense became a reality.


= = =


Four new changeling drones arrived with the dawn. They crowded into the hall with the general and captain, waking me with the noise of their chitinous hooves clattering on the marble floor. 

"Lunch that delivers itself. That's handy," I muttered, rubbing too-little-sleep from my eyes.

"Sorry, Twilight, I didn't catch that."

I looked up to see a cup of tea hovering in front of me. I took it in my own magic and had a sip before I could trust myself to speak. "Thank you, Jigsaw."

"Do you want some oatmeal? I'm not hungry, but I'll make some for you if you want."

I looked up. She wasn't looking very happy. That was odd, considering.

"No, thank you. I'm not hungry, either."

"Oh," she said. "Alright."

We drank our tea in silence.

"What are the plans for today, princess?" the general called from the hallway.

I set my cup down, very carefully. I stood up and dropped the shields. "Let's speak outside, general." I made a short teleport out into the street and called back through the doorway, "Now, if you please."

The general emerged from the doorway with the captain close behind her. I popped the captain back inside and slapped a shield over the whole building.

The general looked back at her subordinates, struggling to get out of the library, and then back at my expression. "Ah." She nodded. "I thought I heard something last night. I want you to know that Jigsaw and I—"

I whipped a loop of telekinetic force around her muzzle and cinched it tight. Her eyes slitted down and she struggled, her horn flaring to life. I hit her with a disruptive blast that staggered her and made her horn flicker out. Then I pulled tighter on the loop, forcing her head down so that she had to look up at me.

"Don't."

She stopped struggling, but her eyes blazed. 

"What passed between you two is no concern of mine, and I don't wish to hear any more about it." I let her go. 

"I offer my apologies," the general hissed. "In accordance with my orders."[1]
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[1] Best non-apology apology I'd heard to date.
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"I hope your orders allow for an early return to your hive. Or you can buzz around outside the city, if you like." I waved a dismissive hoof. "Just so long as you and your little swarm stay a long way away from here."

The general drew herself up haughtily. "We comprise a 'cluster', princess. Do I take this to mean that you are rejecting our queen's generous offer of diplomacy?"

I gritted my teeth. Why couldn't things ever be simple? "Quite the contrary, general. We will be conducting some tests today that have the unfortunate side-effect of causing changelings to explode. I'm just concerned for the safety of Her Majesty's subjects. You can return tomorrow, two hours after dawn."

"I see," she replied flatly. "Will Jigsaw be here when we return?"

That blindsided me. "What? Why wouldn't she be?"

The general shrugged. "You are her monarch and she has displeased you..."

I thought I couldn't get any angrier. I was wrong. "We ponies are not like that!" I hissed through my teeth. 

"Ah..." She blinked slowly. "I am glad to hear it."

I waved away the shield around the library. "Take your cluster and get out."

The general sketched a bow, never taking her eyes off of me. "As you wish, Your Serene Highness." She made it sound like a curse.

They buzzed off into the sky and disappeared in the direction of the hive. I could sense the tracking spell on the general for a while longer, and it didn't seem like she intended to circle back. That was good, because casting and maintaining a shield over the entire city would be exhausting.

"Twilight?" It was Jigsaw, standing in the street outside the library. She must have heard most, if not all of our talk from the doorway.

I collected myself before I turned to face her. "Jigsaw, I've bought us a day without changeling spies and we need to make the most of it. Grab your kit. We're going to the cornucopia." 

"I—"

I teleported us both back into the library and began loading up my saddlebags. "Get your stuff."

"Twilight, I—"

"Jigsaw!" I stomped my hoof. "We will talk about it as much as you like, but later. The cornucopia is there! It was right under our muzzles, but we missed it! We've only got a day to figure it all out and I've risked a breach with the changelings to get us that much time, so we shouldn't waste any of it. Okay?"

She nodded and put her things together. As she was settling her bags across her back, she said, "Please, Twilight. There's just one thing I need to know first."

Oh, sweet Celestia, did I not want to open that door, but she looked so serious—"Yes?"

"Do you despise me for... last night?"

"What? No! No, of course I don't! Jigsaw, I admire you... for many, many reasons!"

"But, you were so angry with the general—"

I almost used the mouth-zipper on her. "Later," I said. "You know that 'one thing.' Now we need to get busy!" I teleported us directly to the cornucopia building. "First thing is to see if it's still working." 

I visualized one of Applejack's best Red Delicious apples and said, "May I have an apple?" Nothing. I tried again, taking more time with my visualization, even imagining the smell of the apple. "May I have an apple?" Still nothing. Well, the mechanism was over a thousand years old, it wouldn't be surprising if it no longer operational.

I got out the storybook and flipped to the last pages. And laughed. Yeah, maybe I laughed a little bit too much. I had a lot of tension to burn off.

"Are you okay, Twilight?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, Jigsaw." I shook my head ruefully. "I just forgot the magic word!" I turned back to the pedestal and said, "May I have an apple, please?"

There was a brief flash and a soft pop, and a perfect Red Delicious apple appeared on the stone slab.

"Woo-hoo!" cried Jigsaw, "Let me try!"

"Wait, wait!" I held up a hoof to stop her.

"What is it?"

"That energy dissipation... it was an interstitial exit vortex!"

"Uh... in plain Equuish, please?"

"That apple wasn't created, it was teleported from... somewhere else."

"Wait... you mean..." Jigsaw was one bright mare. It only took her a few seconds to extrapolate the consequences. "They stole all their food? That would be hundreds of tons of produce a year!"

"Not just their food." I passed her the storybook.

I waited while she flipped through the pages. When she'd finished she threw the book down on the floor. "What an adorable little thief!" She sneered. "That choker probably cost some poor artisan a big bag of bits for the metal and gems, and months to make! I'm glad these screwheads died out!" 

"Jigsaw!" I gasped.

"Hey, I'm a unicorn, I can use the S-word if I want! Besides, I've never known a group so deserving!"

I didn't feel much like arguing with her. "I was prepared to be very impressed with their ability to create food, and now..."

"But you can do it, so why would you be impressed?"

"No," I shook my head. "There are theoretical methods, but nopony's ever been able to actually accomplish it."

"But, I've seen you do it! Watercress sandwiches... Wait, are you trying to tell me you were stealing food?"

"No, I wasn't stealing it!" I assured her. "I localized the entry vortex to the rough area of Ponyville... can't really get it more precise than that... so the only place that exact sort of sandwich can come from, with a target-specific teleport, is the kitchen of my castle there. I don't like to do it very often because Chef Soupçon gets irritated when things disappear on her. She's sort of fussy that way." 

Jigsaw smiled at that. "So... how wide of an entry vortex could you make? If that's the right terminology. To get enough food to sustain them, these ponies must have covered a big area."

"It can be non-specific. Then the spell will just pull the desired item from the nearest source. Saves energy."

Jigsaw thought a bit more. I had my own ideas, but it was a pleasure to watch her rip through the possibilities, and it was entirely possible that she'd come up with something I hadn't thought of.

"So..." she said, slowly. "If you can teleport things over that sort of distance, why did we walk all this way?"

"Ah, well, it's a bit technical, but if I were to vastly over-simplify—"

"Please, do."

"Quantum uncertainty makes point-to-point transference less and less precise over really long distances. Trying to jump us to my castle would deliver us somewhere within a two-league diameter sphere. Not very useful, and, considering that half that sphere is underground, pretty darned dangerous. But with object-specific teleportation... uhmn... this is easier to explain with math. How's your calculus?"

"Not up to the task, I expect. Can you give me the Athletic Scholarship Version?"

"Well... within a specified but indeterminate area, the spell acquires all potential targets of the desired type. When the twin transfer vortices are activated, the entrance waveform collapses to the location of an actual object, usually the one in the lowest energy state, and it's linked to the exit vortex at a specific point. Easy to do on the receiving end, because that's where the spellcaster is located."

"Uh... right."

"Sorry." I grinned sheepishly. "Maybe if I explain about the relationship between physical objects and their Plodonic Ideal, which sets a limit on the..."

"No, no!" Jigsaw waved her hooves at me vigorously, "That's okay! I think I get how it works if not exactly why. Long-range teleports to someplace not well known are difficult and dangerous, but it's possible to do from someplace if you don't want a specific object... just one of a general type. Is that right?"

"Well... it's not wrong," I admitted.

Jigsaw nodded. "Close enough for me. So how much power does this take?"

"Rather a lot. Exponentially more by the distance, even without factoring in the uncertainty of the target. Another reason I don't do it very often."

Jigsaw nodded. "So what powers this thing? It must have used a ridiculous amount of energy when it was feeding and furnishing the whole city!"

"That... that is a really good question!" 

She beamed at me. "Thank you! And there's only one way we're going to find out, isn't there?" She clopped her forehooves together and rubbed them up and down. "Let's open this baby up!"

"Uh... Jigsaw?" I didn't quite like the gleam in her eyes. "We should take some precautions..."

"Of course, we should," she said as she pressed the bejeweled pear on the pedestal. There was a faint click.

"Wait!" I cried.

"Duck and cover, princess!" she said, with what I'm going to classify as 'insane glee', as she firmly pressed the mosaic lemon.

There was a second, much louder click, and then the rumble of ancient machinery coming to life.


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