Summers of Change

by Silver Letter

Pixel, the Inventor

Pixel began to feel the return of summer, the signs familiar and welcoming, one of the only constants she knew. The other was her creative mind, the thing that was always with her, something she would never fail to indulge. Like a furnace fed on wood, her mind craved what she could conceive and build in her basement. Unlike how most children saw it, Pixel believed that leaving school was only another chance to learn more things. But even though it was still spring, she was already focused solely on experimenting with electronics as if it was summer. The salty air, warm winds and thoughts of ice cream and snow cones were nothing more than background noise in her years of change.

And each change was something that made her life a little harder. She didn’t face such trials like most children did; hers never seemed to rest. Pixel only had herself to thank and occasionally blame for how things became so different year after year and mostly in summer. She just didn’t care much for special someponies, the newest fashion or gossip. She became skilled with technology and it soon outpaced what little ability her father had. He was a hooves on kind of pony, the kind that loved the smell of fresh oil on wood and lubricants. When she left most of that old fashioned technology behind, he just couldn’t keep up. Her eye looked for everything small: conductors, wires, transistors. It was so much that she acquired more things to work with it like her magnifying glass attached to a rod to help her see really small things. She was using it on one spring day in her basement. The entire table was clear except for the things she needed. Working on delicate tech required a near meditative patience and absolute stability. With her skill allowing her to deal with smaller things, she needed much more space until soon enough, her dad just ceded the entire basement to her last summer. He called it a very early birthday present.

Pixel could feel the minutes ticking by. Her eye twitched from the strain as she finished the last part of her day’s work. It was coming together so nicely that she was even ahead of schedule, a rarity she loved to have happen. She lifted her head and wiped her face with a towel. She smiled confidently as she took one last look at the complex innards of what would be her newest prototype. It was sharp, gleaming and beautiful. A technological achievement for a 17 year old.

She felt like getting washed then helping her mother with dinner that day. She would probably ask for some kind of pasta. She knew her dad loved the rich green basil sauce the most. Every time she did something for him, it was like a little thank you for everything he had accepted and frankly tolerated just so she could grow into the pony she had become. And it wasn’t merely the loss of his basement so she could work in peace. A father worries about his daughter and she was no exception. As things grew harder for her, he must have been concerned every time there was an accident in the basement or some bully teased her in class for what she loved to do. He wasn’t alone of course; her mother was often beside him and must have worried about her too and yet, Pixel didn’t connect with mom equally as with dad. Only another pony that appreciated the future could understand who she was. He’s quick to show how much he cared when they’re together. He would point out the electronic cash register she made for the ice cream store; Mr. Swirl’s device was the first in the entire town and it helped with his brittle hooves. And there was the electronic crosswalk and the computer system to replace old fashioned indexes at the public library. Every time the town was convinced to add something new, it was an uphill battle and dad was proudest when by her side.

And not every change was something her dad could prepare for or even understand. As she got older, magazines piled up, and she wasn’t very good at keeping organized. He would cover for her when she forgot to clean the dishes or pick up her magazines. Within reason of course; she still had lots of chores to do, project or no project.

While he liked many of the magazines she got about innovative technology or science, a few were more in line with a growing daughter. Pixel was a young mare and had spent more time looking in the mirror in the mornings. Her femininity could fill a room and she could see that unlike her many objects, her body was anything but rough and unpolished. It was complex, refined, and becoming more beautiful as she grew.

She noticed that a new face on her familiar magazine started appearing on a regular basis. He was Ferris Spark, and the heir to the rising Spark Industries, the biggest face of new technology in all of Equestria. He just wasn’t any pretty colt heir but he was still a colt that could make Pixel stop and take a second look. His body was likely just as glossy as the magazine cover made him out to be, his rich brown hair contrasted with his fine features and classy glasses and suit. Even his lovely cobalt eyes stared warmly into the camera. But beyond looks, Ferris was the star of the show. He was the one to talk with reporters about Equestria’s first hydroelectric dam. He was also an inventor in his own right and a graduate of Canterlot’s university at only 22. Pixel couldn’t help but be enthralled by everything a colt like him had to offer but his brains most of all made her think about him at night.

Pixel walked into the kitchen to rummage in the refrigerator and saw her mom leaning against the counter with her latest magazine in her hooves. She hated it when ponies touched her stuff.

“Mom, what are you doing? That’s mine.”

She reached as if to try and take it back but her mom pressed it against her chest. “What did I tell you about taking things like that?” She clicked her tongue but didn’t raise her voice. She was the kind of pony that always spoke softly to the point where she sounded perpetually sedated.

“It’s mine, mom. You didn’t ask.”

“I did ask you to clean up after yourself, didn’t I?”

“That has nothing to do with it.” Annoyed, Pixel rolled her eyes and went to the refrigerator. “What are you doing with it anyway? You said you couldn’t really get past the technical terminology.”

“Yes but I sure don’t need it here.” She pointed to the cover. “It’s that really rich colt that you like to listen to on the radio. He had a new interview that I was reading. I like how he talks.” She had an amused smile.

Pixel took some milk out and poured herself a glass before looking for some snacks. She hates talking to her mother about anything relating to the opposite sex. “I hadn’t gotten to that part yet. I’ve been too busy to finish the issue.”

“Really? You always finish them.”

“I just got it yesterday.”

“Oh, well if you hadn’t read it then I assume you don’t know about that contest he’s doing or whatever it was called?” Pixel shook her head. “Yeah…the interview was mostly about his unveiling of something about advertisements in Fillydelphia but at the end, he talks about a contest for ponies your age to win a scholarship worth a whole lot of money. You should take a look.”

That definitely piqued Pixel’s interest more than anything in a long time. She’s heard of scholarships worth a few hundred bits here and there but few really appealed. One held by one of the most interesting and smartest ponies out there would be worth looking into. She already had a giddy feeling inside even though she hadn’t read it yet; for all she knew, it was only for Earth ponies or those in tech schools or just anything that wasn’t her small town so she tried not to look too excited. Sometimes Unicorns would be overlooked for such things.

“Sure. That sounds great.” Pixel reached into the cupboard and got a bag of chips.

“Sweetie, dinner should be done in an hour.”

“I know. I’m having my friends over later so the snacks are for them.”

Her mother nodded. “Oh, right. I forgot. How are they?”

“Very well for themselves. They’re doing pretty good in school.”

“I spoke to that colt’s father…Sapphire’s I mean. He said that he was taking his son over to Canterlot in a few months to see the Summer Sun Celebration. I was wondering if going sounds like something you would want to do.”

Pixel didn’t want to talk about that. Whenever anything was brought up about spending on things they didn’t need, she felt depressed. Her father wasn’t getting raises at work as often as he used to and with things getting tighter at home, going to the 977th anniversary of the Summer Sun Celebration just didn’t seem possible.

“Mom…you should talk with dad about it. I’ll trust that you both do the right thing.” They were mostly silent after that as they prepared dinner. There were a lot of words Pixel never heard and for good reason. Some would call it the right thing. She wasn’t sure but if doing something for one’s family counted then she would never mind the cost. Even if it meant missing out on a lot of things.

---

Neither Pixel nor her mother mentioned the magazine at dinner. Her father had come home and was as irritable as ever. At the table, he rambled on about how tough things were getting at the carpentry. He sat on a chair that he built with his own two hooves while spreading butter over a dinner roll. He became quieter after a while as his favorite food settled in his stomach but it still wasn’t prudent to bring up things related to college. He often said that Pixel would be a pretty good carpenter if she came to the shop every now and then. Pixel knew that they were only the most subtle of hints that her family wouldn’t be able to afford to send her to some college. Pixel saw so much promise in the scholarship but there was no telling how her father would react towards her accepting money from Spark Industries. He wasn’t a fan of them, having had blamed them for years for trying to replace carpenters with automated machines as computers became more of a thing in the manufacturing sector. He must have hated the feeling of having his industry stepped on and his livelihood potentially threatened.

While Pixel sympathized with her father, she also thought he was overreacting to something good. She saw the things she made as something that helped ponies. In the magazine, the article listed accomplishment after accomplishment by Ferris Spark. She could only imagine how many she could help by making a similar revolution as he had done with manufacturing.

And the scholarship did sound impressive, run directly by Ferris Spark himself. She thought that it would be lovely to meet him, even if only for a moment as he judged her newest invention. She didn’t want to kid herself that she would stand a chance against those at San Palomino Tech or over in Cloudsdale. But perhaps he would complement her intelligence or even invite her over to his private lab.
By the time her silly fantasy was interrupted by the sound of the basement door opening, she was staring deeply into those pretty cobalt eyes of the young genius while nibbling on a one of the crackers she set out on a plate.

Her two friends came walking downstairs. It was so easy to tell that they were siblings. Both were quite tall with velvety blue feathers on their wings. Pixel enjoyed seeing them in motion, especially Sapphire. The colt’s lithe frame helped him a lot when he played for their school’s athletic teams. Of course, Diamond was also a lightweight which allowed her to add dancing to her singing, acting and modeling. They had so many mementos in their house like trophies, pictures, and certificates. They’ve always been show offs but Pixel made sure to always give them equal attention. Leave the competition at home, she would say.

“Hey, you two. I’m glad you’re back. I wanted to show you something,” she said.

They pulled up chairs and sat across from her.

Sapphire let his head rest on his hooves with them pressed in his soft cheeks. His long bangs fell over his face. “Is your project finally done?”

“It’s getting there. But there’s good news. I’ve found a way for me to go to a really good university after I graduate. Maybe finally get away from this boring town.” Pixel raised the magazine to show them the cover.

“A billionaire, huh? He’s a bit young for that, don’t you think?” Sapphire teased. He received a smack on the head from his sister for that.

Pixel grinned awkwardly as if she wasn’t thinking the same thing earlier. “Well…he is cute and all. I guess. But….I was talking about his company’s scholarship he’s doing in western Equestria. It’s 100,000 bits, the most I’ve ever seen.”

Mentioning such a large amount of money captured their attention at once. “That’s amazing. You can really go anywhere with that,” Diamond said. She started to giggle as if picturing a huge pile of golden bits.

“I know. I’ve been thinking about entering the electric typography transmitter. Well, once I finish the outer shell.”

“The electric…what now?” Pixel knew her terminology was a mouthful but she didn’t expect it to provoke near discomfort from Sapphire. “Is that like a telephone?”

“Sort of.” She had to think about it. The telephone was invented in her grandmother’s time but it didn’t have a lot of fans due to ponies still preferring the letter in nearly all cases of formal contact. She never understood why that was the way things were. “I was definitely taking a page from the telephone and a few others too; the actual device should stand on its own merit.”

Pixel removed a white sheet placed there to protect it and revealed the tight system of computer chips, wires and delicate glass coated plate that was about the size of her hoof. It was still exposed with no plastic covering of its own.

“Before you tell us about it, I really think you should work on the name. It will turn off ponies if they don’t even get what it is at first glance,” Sapphire suggested seriously.

Pixel thought it was a bit silly since it just sounded natural to her to have her things given the most accurate names possible. But instead of arguing, she pondered for a moment.

“Well…how about the ‘electronic letter’?” There was no way those two would reject that. It was as simple and to the point as she could think of without sounding patronizing. To her relief, they both perked up.

“Now that, we can both get,” Diamond said. “And it sounds really cool…like something that’ll interest ponies.”

Pixel felt a knot loosen in her chest and she smiled. “Thanks. I’m glad you two like it.”

Sapphire laughed. “We like the name at least.”

“Oh, yes. I’ll show you what this thing can do!”

Pixel held the device upright and turned it on with a press of her hoof on the side. A blue dot of light flashed a few times while the CPU booted up. It whirred a little and the glass plate turned white which surprised her friends. She pressed a few buttons on the little keyboard until she got to the message to find a receiver.

“We’re nearly there but I need one of you to help me demonstrate what it can do. One of you, whichever agrees, can go up into my yard and wait a minute or so until the device I give you asks you to open a message. You can read it on the screen and when it happens, come back here.”

Sapphire volunteered to take the second device and went to the yard to wait. Pixel turned on the wireless signal and in mere seconds, it told her that it found the other device. She then opened the main program and typed a message and sent it. Right away, Sapphire was back.

“Hey, your thing here beeped and buzzed and stuff.”

Pixel beamed and took it from his hooves. “Excellent. Let’s just see what kind of message you got today.” She looked at them as an electrical feeling passed down her spine. “This is really cool, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, definitely. That’s exactly what I would say,” Diamond agreed. Pixel knew she had seen nothing yet. The best was about to come.

She found the messages cache and located the message to be opened and read.

“It says, ‘You’ve received your first text message’….isn’t it awesome?” Pixel declared.

Her friends smiled and congratulated her. Pixel could tell that they liked it but were also probably underwhelmed and their excitement was mostly forced despite them both staring at it intently. She sort of expected it since they hardly understood the technology and most likely saw it as little more than an interesting trick. But she didn’t want anything forced. Only their genuine opinions would do.

“I would really like to know what you really think of it,” Pixel said. “Try to ask questions like I might get at the scholarship pre-judging.”

A few minutes passed while they thought of something. Sapphire then clapped his hooves together. “I got one!” he said. “Pixel, we learn about magic a lot. Does this thing run on magic? I mean, I don’t smell fuel or see any way that something is running it.”

“That’s a great question,” Pixel replied. She explained how the device ran on an internal battery charged by clean electricity from solar panels. A lot of the raw materials came from scrapyards from town and a few things imported, bought by some of her weekly allowance. The screens were a couple that some rich ponies discarded in Las Pegasus and was found by one of her father’s friends that ended up in Pixel’s hooves. They were put to good use because of how rare they were. She also mentioned that the difference between magic and electricity was the source of the power. Also, she loved to use electricity despite its difficulty because it could be used by all ponies.

“I get it. You’ve worked with electricity for forever and I bet plenty of ponies have too. But it’s just a messaging thing and we have letters already. I don’t know any pony that has something like this. It’s small and hard to look at,” Diamond said. She was now against a true challenge: Diamond’s skepticism. It represented more than one pony’s thoughts. Inventions succeeded or sank depending on whether they were liked or not. It was good that Pixel knew how to counter it.

“Yes, it’s a messaging system and we have telephones and letters already, right? Well, I definitely don’t want my invention to clash with them. Each one fills its own niche, its own purpose in our world. So can mine. Telephones are good for hearing other ponies in real time talk. Letters are for the intimate and the friendly and so much more. It’s the way we’ve done things for a long time. Mine sort of puts them together. To communicate quickly with text will be the next great thing.”

“How do you know that ponies will even want this?”

Pixel looked at her invention. It already held the combined three previous years of her life in everything that made it up. And in all likelihood, none might show any interest in it after all. It might end up nothing more than a reminder of the past, a dusty forgotten thing that used to have potential. Sometimes at night, Pixel got a bad feeling that being rejected could have been her fate. Ponies certainly took extra time staring at her when she was in kindergarten and she was just lucky that most ponies were able to look beyond her interests and could see the filly behind it all. They may have been gracious in the past but she really couldn’t tell if ponies would want that device of hers. She could make predictions on spreadsheets and graphs and it wouldn’t matter one bit if everypony else lacks her vision. At least her best friends did, especially Sapphire. Even when he had no idea what she was talking about, he would always be enthusiastic for her strange ideas. They supported each other like few others did.