Quantum Vault

by WishyWish

1.3 - Night Games

September 28-29, 2008

Sweet Apple Acres

Sunday Evening - Monday Morning

Dinner was a solemn affair. Strange looks and lack of conversation from the Apple family cost Quantum most of her appetite, despite the discovery of a number of bits that had been thrown into the wagon by grateful blue-collar ponies. After the meal, the minty mare was whisked away to Applejack’s bedroom to the tune of smiles, get-well wishes, and an atmosphere that felt like a wake. When she was quite sure the last light had been put out, she crept out of bed, slithered out into the cold autumn night, and rolled the barn door open. A momentary flash of white light mingled with the rays of the full moon that lit her path.

“What are you doing?” A familiar voice from behind asked, “Just because you’re not really sick doesn’t mean you don’t need rest.”

Quantum kept stubbornly to her task of poking through the danker, dustier corners of the sturdy building. “What do you mean ‘what am I doing’? You said I need to come up with a solution, so I’m coming up with one.”

Hal sighed, beep-booping away on his control panel. “I said to play along. Do you know what you just did today? Now Tissy says there’s a seventy-nine point five percent chance that Applejack won’t get better for another week because of what you put her body through. And your drawl is so bad it sounds like you’re doing it on purpose.”

“I am doing it on purpose,” Quantum huffed.

“You sound like you’re doing it badly on purpose!” Hal retorted, tugging on his broad collar, “Even I can throw out enough ‘y’alls’ and ‘reckons’ to fake it for at least a little while!”

Quantum squinted hard against the moonlight, bumping into or tripping over another unknown object with every step. Hal frowned and leaned up against the barn door.

“Are you going to tell me what you’re doing? Because if this is charades, I’d have to come up with the answer ‘potentially killing the elemental keeper of honesty before she even obtains her element.’ And by the way, if you’re still thinking about going out to work the fields yourself, Tissy was able to confirm that whatever you do to yourself physically will, in fact, affect the pony you’re standing in for.”

The minty mare ignored the sour quip and continued about her investigation, finally brightening when she came across a sledgehammer and some scrap wood. “If I can’t buck apples, I’ll build something that can.”

“You can’t be serious.”

Quantum flicked her ear in annoyance and glanced back at Hal, balancing the hammer against her flank. “Why not? If I can’t pull this off their way, then why shouldn’t I do it my way?

“I dunno,” Hal commented drolly, “maybe because you’re supposed to be a very sick country earth pony right now, and not a scrawny unicorn tinker-geek who would rather find more complicated ways to do things then just listen?” He pinched the bridge of his stout muzzle between two hooves and stretched his wings. “Do you plan to explain to the Apple family how you suddenly came across whatever miracle apple-harvesting machine you think you’re about to build? And even if you somehow pull this off in one night, have you considered what effect you’re having on the life of the pony you’re inhabiting?” The beep-booping noise started up again, “There, you see? Now there’s a zero point six eight percent chance that in three weeks, the mayor of Ponyville is going to ask Applejack to engineer a dam for a nearby river, and when it explodes from lack of proper design a month later, all of Ponyville will be flooded straight out of existence! And in the time it took me to tell you that, it just became a zero point seven one percent chance!”

Quantum blinked. “Wow, Tissy’s fast.”

“Yes she is.” Hal looked up from his device and raised his eyelids apologetically. “Cutie…I know you’re trying and I know this is frustrating, but you have to come up with something else. You’ve got to play the game the way it’s laid out, or even success is just going to lead to a band-aid that some other event in the future will tear off. And by the way—can you tell me why I’m now reading an alteration in this timeline that shows Rarity finishing her client’s requests for the month?”

Quantum explained the events of the afternoon in detail with a smug smile. Hal only shook his head sadly.

“Cutie…Rarity was supposed to fail to meet that deadline, at least as far as Tissy can tell.” Hal booped his device again, examining it, “There was a ninety-four point five percent chance that she’d lose the business, but in her rush to get the items to her clients, she’d be noticed on the street by a high-class visitor from Manehatten who pays her quadruple for the unsold items and offers her a contract for more. Now that number still exists, but it’s pointing to a misunderstanding as to what her clients wanted, which still costs her the business and saddles her with a blacklisting that lasts three months, until she can get ponies to trust in her work again.”

Quantum slumped her shoulders and averted her eyes to the dirt, her smug smile burning away in an instant. “I…I didn’t know. Maybe I can fix it,” she reasoned, but Hal barred her way to the door.

“Don’t bother. The events are already in motion and there’s nothing you can do to change them in the time available.” the gaze of his steely amber eyes bore into his classmate. “The consequences of failure for Sweet Apple Acres are worse for society than what you did to Rarity, so you’re going to have to accept that and keep your mind on the greater good. And you need to stop trying to innovate your way out of this problem. I don’t know how to solve it right now either, but Tissy and I are both working on the problem around the clock. There has to be some temporal outcome tied to something Applejack is capable of doing that you can do, too. If anypony can find that outcome, you know it’s Tissy.”

“So you want me to do nothing?”

“For now,” Hal replied, “that’s exactly what I want you to do. Go back inside and get some sleep. I’ll be back first thing in the morning and we’ll have all day to hole up in Applejack’s bedroom to consider every alternative. ‘kay?”

Quantum gazed up at the starry sky. The constellations her mother taught her to recognize weren’t in the right places. Thirty-one years in the future, when the stars would align again, Trixie Lulamoon would attack and destroy most of the royal city of Canterlot. During the struggle, she would come to her daughter for help. Quantum wouldn’t let her down.

Family comes first.

Applebloom had uttered that phrase, just before Quantum wasted half the Apple family’s critical harvest day fixing appliances and toys. The minty mare narrowed her eyes.

“No.”

“No?” Hal repeated. “No what?”

Quantum shook her normally scruffy sea-green locks from side to side defiantly. “No, I can’t just sit idly by and do nothing,” she elaborated, taking hold of the sledgehammer again. “These ponies are running out of time. Last time, when I chose to act, ponies got hurt. This time I’m going to hurt ponies if I don’t do anything. I’m sorry if you don’t agree Hal, but you can’t stop me. You and Tissy keep working on a solution – if you come up with something, I promise I’ll listen. In the meantime, I need to work this out on my own.” She nodded at the nearby apple wagon, “I stowed away some parts from the things I fixed today under the hay.”

Hal looked from side to side nervously. He pulled on his loud collar, adjusted his pocket protector, flexed his burnt-orange wings, and whipped the frosted tips of his otherwise ebony tail from side to side. When he finally decided to speak, he found his friend’s eyes still fixed squarely on him.

“You could just be making things worse.”

“I have to try.” The minty mare insisted

Hal finally grinned. “Spoken like C.A.S.’s finest, and most stubborn. Fine. I know better than to try to talk you out of something you have your mind set on. We’ll work on our end; you work on yours. But Cutie, do something for me.”

“What?”

Now it was Hal’s turn to stare. “Be careful. Anything and everything you do will have some effect on the timeline and how this reality unfolds, to one degree or another. This could be our own future you’re creating…or destroying. If it were within reason I’d tell you not to even squish a cockroach, but since it isn’t, all I can say is be cognizant of not only your own future, but the future of everypony around you.” He smiled meekly, “Can you do that for me?”

Quantum returned the smile, and nodded softly. “I will. Try not to worry.”

“Too late for that,” Hal smirked. He beeped a few more buttons and examined the small LCD screen, which cast a sheen of white light over his amber eyes. “Oh by the way, I’ve got something for you.”

Before Quantum could raise the question, a spark of blue fire erupted next to her, and died away just as fast. In its wake, lying in the dirt, were the familiar large, reddish-brown frames that contained her glasses. Gratefully she scooped them up – they were quite solid – and popped them on her face. Sweet clarity ensued.

Quantum was about to thank Hal, when an electric spark leapt from his control device, startling both the nightowl ponies. Hal booped a few more buttons, but Quantum’s ears picked up a distinctly empty clicking noise from at least one or two lights that were now burned out.

“Well that’s it then,” Hal sighed. “Tissy thought as much would happen.”

Quantum waited for an explanation. Noticing her expression, Hal offered it.

“Those are your real glasses. As you can already tell they’re obviously not a hologram. We found them lying on the floor in the lab just in front of the Accelerator door. Tissy passed them through an interphase generator before we laid them on the pad and sent them out with the same coordinates that the Accelerator was set for when you went through. Apparently the same malfunction occurred, and here they are. Because they’re in a state of phasic flux, anypony who can’t see me shouldn’t be able to see them either, as long as they stay in contact with the accelerated molecules of your body. So, be careful. When you’re not touching them they’ll be visible, touchable, and destroyable by anypony you encounter. It’s very unlikely you’ll be able to carry anything you find along with you from this vault to the next, and as you can see,” Hal balanced the controller on his upturned hoof, showing off the two burnt out lights, “sending another item through the accelerator under the same malfunctioned conditions burned out the matrix. It wasn’t safe to bring you back anyway and pointless to send anypony else through, so this was the least we could do. So, if you lose those, get ready to lead a blurry existence.”

Now that Quantum could see as well as anypony in the ample moonlight, she noticed another item lying in the dirt by her hoof. Putting some concentration into her horn, she levitated it up to eye level and examined it. It was a small brown pouch with a leg strap, emblazoned with the C.A.S. class of 2039 emblem. “And this?” She asked.

“Tissy’s own design,” Hal grinned. “It’s supposed to be a way to keep the glasses near your body if you ever have to take them off. Airtight, waterproof, heat resistant even to dragon fire – don’t ask me how Tissy tested that – and woven from some experimental fiber she’s been working on that has a tensile strength that’s off the charts, so ripping isn’t likely except under the worst of conditions. It’s in phasic flux as well, of course. Convenient, eh?”

Quantum levitated the little pouch to her left foreleg and strapped it in place; eyeing the crest with a renewed vigor. “What happens if I put something in it from this reality and then vault?”

Hal shrugged, “How should I know? We’re breaking new ground here with every moment that passes. But don’t worry about that right now.” He pointed to his eyes, then hers, then his again. “Keep them on the prize, remember?”

Quantum nodded. Hal booped a control and the doorway of light slid open. The minty mare was about to turn away, but Hal spoke, two of his legs already through the portal.

“Cutie, I know what you said, but…I don’t believe you did what you claim you did. Neither do Tissy or Princess Twilight. Your heart’s too big.”

The door slid shut, the light vanished, and Quantum Trots was alone again in the barnyard of Sweet Apple Acres, with nothing but the light of the moon and the sound of cricket song to keep her company. Steeling herself and pushing the cowfilly hat down on her head, she worked long into the night. Her mind wafted back and forth between her work, and the image of a destroyed residential district in a future Canterlot.

Comments

[Frission]

ohmai

[Xaxu-Slyph]

QT gained +2 Tenacity and learned 'Backtalk'!

[Veo Skride]

Now I am just confused by how old Quantum is meant to be... and where in the timeline she is...

Time is confusing.

[DerpTape]

Oi, I want a glasses pouch that awesome!

[Phazon]

Now Tissy says there’s a seventy-nine point five percent chance that Applejack won’t get better for another week because of what you put her body through.

Now there’s a zero point six eight percent chance that in three weeks, the mayor of Ponyville is going to ask Applejack to engineer a dam for a nearby river,

“There was a ninety-four point five percent chance that she’d lose the business,

So that's where Fi went after Skyward Sword.